Transcript
Bill Simmons (0:00)
This episode is brought to you by Firehouse Subs who just dropped a game changing sandwich. The French Dip Literally one of my favorite sandwiches slash subs. Roast beef, caramelized onions, melty cheese, little freshly toasted garlic butter roll and the warm savory au jus. I've been eating these forever since I was living on the east coast in la. I think to me this versus the cheesesteak, the French dip no contest. Way better and I think it's really because of the au jus. I don't know anybody who doesn't like au jus. An elite game day sub. Fun to order by the way if you want it delivered because they usually put the au jus in the special little container you can pour it on. Knock yourself out. The French Dip here for a limited time. I wish it was longer only at Firehouse Subs. Limited time at participating Firehouse Subs restaurants while supplies last. The Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel Sportsbook we're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network where I put up a new rewatchables. On Tuesday night we did what lies Beneath. It was me and Molly Rubin and Chris Ryan. Get it. Wherever you get your Rewatchables podcast, you can also watch it as a video on Spotify. This is my third BS podcast of the week. We had football ones on Sunday and on Monday. I have another football one coming on Thursday as I try to go 05 again with my playoff picks. Please go against me today. We're doing a basketball conk and nipples. Coming up later at the very top I am going to do a little mini mailbag and my NBA All Star picks. So that is next. The Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by fanduel. Fanduel's got it all. Same game parlays, quick bets for jumping in live. They have your way. Go check out your way. You can build the bet that fits your play your way. Plus don't miss out on the NFL playoffs. One of my favorite times of the year. All month long. Download the FanDuel app or head to FanDuel.com BS to get started. Get ready for the playoffs. Let's go. Must be 21 + President select states 18 + in D.C. kentucky and Wyoming game prom win 100 Gambler visit rg-help.com call 888-78-9777 or visit ccpg.org chat in connect. All right, this isn't an official mailbag. It's a mini mailbag. I really just wanted to do my all star starters and reserve picks and just bounce through what I was thinking. But I thought it was a chance to sneak in some timely mailbag questions. These were questions that were sent into bspodcast33mail.com first one came from Rob from Long island, then in parentheses it says via the Cape. So he went from the Cape to Long Island. To each his own, I guess. He said with the recent Jokic injury, was wondering if the NBA went too far with the 65 game minimum for awards, which has been a controversial topic. He suggested what if all players were eligible for awards, but if you don't play 65 games you become ineligible for contract incentives. He had another thing about a sliding scale for MVP points. I keep getting questions like this and it keeps being a topic and it's interesting that Jokic was the catalyst because I think people realized how absurd it would be to have a awards season where Jokic wasn't represented. And as I've said many times on this podcast, for whatever reason, I care about this about as much as anyone because it all goes back to when I was working on my book. The all NBA stuff was really important. Trying to figure out a snapshot of the year. This is why I've been so fanatical about they changed the rules. You could basically vote for 15 guards for the three all NBA teams. I'm not doing that. I like to obey at least some of the things that went through the first eight decades of the league where big men mattered in awards, wings, guards. We had all types of players. So I care about this stuff and here's why I landed on this because we could have had this conversation last year. There are other players that got hurt for some reason. Jokic became the catalyst because he's having the best year of his career. He is one of the best players of the century and is now in the running for top 10 best players ever and just have if he plays 59 games, 60 games, whatever, and he's not on an all NBA team, it's just going to seem stupid. I don't mind the 65 game thing and I don't want people to forget the premise of why that was created. Because the league was under the gun a little bit with guys just skipping games and people paying to go to a Clipper game, a Warriors game, a Celtic game, a Nets game, whoever, and they thought somebody was going to be in town and they go to the game and that person just doesn't play for rest, for to rest, a minor injury, whatever it is. And they're really trying to incentivize teams and players not to do that. So I get it. I think 65 games is fair and I think we should keep it. I do think there should be a wrinkle that if you have a specific injury that you're knocked out and we could say it's 12 straight games, it's 14 straight games. We can even say it's 15 straight games. But let's say 12 because 12 is basically three weeks. So if you miss three consecutive weeks with an injury, maybe that drops from 65 to 60. I don't think the problem with what's happened here is that Jokic, who's a durable guy who is available for just about every game and is reliably there, if you're paying to see the Denver Nuggets come to your town, pretty good bet Yokage is going to be there. We're penalizing him for something that he couldn't control, which was he had a serious injury that knocked him out for a month. So If Jokic plays 60 games but misses 17 in a row, I still think he should be eligible for all NBA. So that's what I would do. I would have a 12 plus straight game knocks you to a different tier where now you can get to 60 and you and you still play. And I think that, I think that solves this Jokic issue. So that's my first one. Next email is from Samir from Brooklyn via Boston. A lot of vias today in the mini mailbag he said he was switching between the Boston and Indiana broadcast for Celtics Pacers and he heard Brian Scalberti call Pritchard quote, unlike any player he's ever seen. And then Quinn Buckner, who's the Indiana guy, called Pascal Siakam an all star. So Samir asks, why haven't we had a booth that pits local color commentators against one another so they can bring each other back down to earth? Instead of having neutral boosts for national broadcasts, we could have color commentators from each team saying most unabashedly biased things possible while the other says things like, wait, you just called an average player in a last place team in All Stars. So home court gets the play by play guy who's desperately trying to keep the things moving. And then you have the color guys from the local markets fighting it out. I love this idea. They always talk about what is the future of alternate broadcasts and normally they're pretty terrible or you're just going to end up watching the normal broadcast like the Manning cast is fine. I always watch Buck and Aikman. I have no idea why anyone would watch the Manning cast when I could just get the game on a bigger thing. All casts should have some sort of bent. Like if I'm in the playoffs and all I have is the national team, I should be able to watch a broadcast with the Celtics announcers. If I have the Patriots game and I don't want to hear Romo, I don't even know who's doing the Patriot. I actually don't think it's Romo. It's Collinsworth. But let's say I hate Collinsworth and as you know I love Collinsworth. Let's say I didn't like Collinsworth and I want to hear the Patriots announcers. That should be an alt cast for that. I like the idea of an alt cast where it's basically a regular season free for all. Between the two color commentators for the two teams, I think that would be pretty funny. They would just be incredulous with each other for two and a half hours. I don't blame these guys for doing it though. They have to ride on the team plane. They're incentivized. Like if the team wins a championship ring or something, they get a championship ring. So they really do think it's like we that's why they get so bent out of shape with the calls. But it would be funny to just pit them against each other. Marcus at Temecula via Phoenix has a question about the Phoenix Suns. He said last year's Phoenix Suns most unwatchable NBA team of the decade. I think that actually might be right because we've had bad teams. But when a team hates playing with each other, that's way worse to watch. He said. Slow old, predictable, stagnant offense. No defense, no chemistry. Isoball overall disgraceful effort professional basketball team. I agree with all that. Then he says this year Sun's an absolute delight. Fast, young, unpredictable flowing offense, intense defense, amazing chemistry. Objectively it would appear that the Phoenix Suns have accomplished the George Costanza just do the opposite of your instincts with great success. Can you name another team in NBA sports history that succeeded with the Costanza theory? And is Dylan Brooks the actual human Costanza to Bradley Beal. Lot to work with here. So the Suns over under was 31 and a half. I went under Michael Pina on the ringer wrote some. He was doing an increasingly crazy predictions piece and one of the predictions was that the Suns would have the worst defense in the league. So just those two small events. Peena making a crazy prediction and everyone on our Podcast. I think going under has now turned the Suns fans into the you didn't believe in us. It's us against the world. It's like, well, your over under was 31 and a half wins. Like nobody believed in you. And this is a great story. You have an awesome coach, you play really hard. Guys like Gillespie showed up. Brooks treats every game like it's a game seven. I think all this is awesome. And the crazy thing about it is it was a complete 180 from how Ishba built the Team McBean with. Right? He did the new owner syndrome. I got to do something fast. I'm going to trade everything for Durant. Oh, let's get Bradley Beal. And just he's trying to put it together like it's a fantasy team and now he's attempting to put it together like a real basketball team. So I think to just call that a Costanza kind of belittles how cool it is that they pulled off all the stuff they pulled off. The biggest thing is they hired an awesome coach, Jordan Ott. And I was texting somebody in league about this today about it feels like we have more good coaches than we've ever had before. And a lot of them are younger. A lot of them are analytics based on Nets, Raptors, Celtics, Suns. You go on down the line. There are just these young guys that come in. You watch the teams, they have a specific identity. They have players that fit that identity. And it's really cool to watch. So if you're going to talk about like, is this an actual way to do something a Costanza where you just go against yourself? The obvious next team to try this would be the Sacramento Kings, a team that has been the most pathetic franchise of the century. I would say by NBA purposes. I wouldn't say that lightly, but I think it's true. Probably in the bleakest situation they've been in in a long time where they just have not a lot of assets and a lot of contracts on tradable. They're basically everything is gearing toward can they get a top four lottery pick now? And yet they're still playing all these veterans trying to win games. I don't understand what the Kings doing. There's a million things we could say about the Kings. Could the Kings go Castanza and what would that mean? I think that would basically mean they just ask Vivec what to do, he gives a recommendation, and then they just do the opposite. That would be the full Costanza and also a pretty good idea for a franchise. So it worked for the Suns, even though I think it belittles how much smart thought they put in everything. But I think that King should be the next Costanza team. And I like the theory. Next one. This is a text from every single Laker fan friend that I have in my life because I've gotten over the last two hours, and it's some combination. I just did an amalgam of all the texts I've gotten. You're an evil genius. You launched this Game over podcast with Rich, Paul and Max Cameron solely so you could destroy the Lakers, and it's working. First of all, I would never do that. As. As much as I despise the Lakers, I would never use a ringer podcast to try to bring them down. That. That just. That feels like bad karma, feels like something bad would happen with the. With the Celtics. So how dare you on that? This podcast has made a lot of news for the Lakers stuff, especially this week. And if you haven't listened to it, it's Rich and Max. They've known each other forever. It's a really good podcast. My one. I won't call it a fear, but my one question with it was, is Rich going to be candid? He's still an agent and a power broker. All these things tied to LeBron, obviously. Is he going to be candid? Is he going to be candid about the Lakers? He's been incredibly candid. And I was walking around LA on Monday, listening to it, and all of a sudden he's talking about how the Lakers need Jaren Jackson, and then it's like, well, they would have to give up something to get him, and maybe Austin Reaves if they don't want to pay him. And it sounded like my podcast, but Rich is the broad's agent. I love it. I think this is great. And by the way, this is what's happened with podcasts the last 10 years. We've had players like Draymond, and those type of guys have started. Paul, George, Jalen, Brunson, all of these guys have podcasts where they just talk about their life and they talk about the sport like they're fans. And now Rich is doing it, but he's the most powerful agent in the sport. It is fascinating. I couldn't be more delighted that the ringer is involved. And if it's caused trauma for Laker fans and disarray behind the scenes, I can't say that was the intention, but it's a pure delight to me as a Celtic fan to just watch this happen. So, yeah, unintended consequence. But I've been really enjoying the podcast. Go, Rich. Next question. Speaking of rich, it's a LeBron question. It's from Sam, and Sam says.