Zach Lowe (4:58)

Sam.

Bill Simmons (5:25)

All right, Zach Lowe's here. We're taping this on a Wednesday morning. Good to see you, Zach. This is. You're about to disappear. This is when you're, like a couple weeks away from. We just don't see you for like a month. And you. You. You decompose from the NBA season, and then you regenerate and you grow again when we get to mid September.

Zach Lowe (5:43)

I don't really have as many excuses to have to decompress this year, considering I was not employed for two thirds of it. But I'm going to decompress nonetheless. I will say I'm going to be podcast ready in Europe because you just. You don't. You don't know anymore. With the NBA, there's always been a. There's been more and more. Every year. There's a big story that hovers or that comes out of nowhere. So I'm. I'm ready just in case something comes out of nowhere.

Bill Simmons (6:07)

I like that I accidentally said decompose instead of decompress. I've already had. We were one minute in, and I'm already screwing up words. You were in Vegas, your summer league plan. I love you. Just. You go and you don't actually go to any summer league games. You just.

Zach Lowe (6:23)

You.

Bill Simmons (6:23)

You're just there to gossip and have coffees and cocktails and occasionally a meat dinner, and you're just gathering information. This is something. What was the first year we talked about this? The 2012 All Star Break or whatever, when we sent you? And I was like, don't go to anything. Just talk to as many people as you can. Now you've embraced that. It's become a life philosophy, and you're just gathering things and you don't know when they're going to pop up. Are they going to pop up in a podcast? They might not, but you're just gathering info. What was the number one thing people were talking about that you felt like was not being talked about in the mainstream?

Zach Lowe (6:58)

Oh, not talked about in the mainstream. Okay, so I had a. The number one topic is very mainstream.

Bill Simmons (7:04)

What's that?

Zach Lowe (7:05)

Well, it's LeBron. That was, like, the number one topic of conversation by far. But let's go not mainstream. Underground, underground.

Bill Simmons (7:13)

Let's go early 90s indie rock, I would say.

Zach Lowe (7:17)

I mean, this has been talked about, but I would say expansion, Europe. What's happening? Why do they seem to be slow playing it all of a sudden? Is this like, what is the timetable now? I guess that was like the nerdy NBA topic of discussion.

Bill Simmons (7:33)

Yeah. And it trickled out a little bit. It's. It's really funny how it's changed. Right where it just seemed like a lock. It was going to happen for the last few years. And I think, I think Silver wanted it to happen. I think there was a consortium of owners that wanted to happen. And this media deal was so big. I just think there's owners that don't want to give up money anymore. And it makes sense because however they rig it, you're still giving up. It goes from 1/30 to 132 or 132nd for the median thing. So you're giving up equity, you're giving up value. So then the question would be, well, what am I getting? And give up that value. And before when the franchise values were lower, it's like, well then each of you will get this extra thing. Buy out that equity up front. But now if you're paying six, seven, eight million dollars or billion dollars, whatever it is, for an expansion team, why would I then also want to sweeten the pot for every owner with to buy their media rights too, or not get media rights for myself? I think it's a real problem and I think there's a bunch. I talked about this two months ago. James Dolan was the biggest one against it. He's just against everything that Adam son.

Zach Lowe (8:39)

I was going to say, what would James Dolan be for? Like, how can we get. How can we get a yes vote but from the Knicks in a board of governors meeting?

Bill Simmons (8:46)

What, what. Do you have any intel on what happened that made him such an adversary to Adam Silver over the last five years? Like why? How did this develop?

Zach Lowe (8:56)

I think it started with displeasure over revenue sharing, being one of the big market teams that has to pay so much into it. And then it dovetailed into like he just got this be in his bonnet that the NBA league office is like way too big. It wastes money. Why are all these, who are all these people that are coming my games at Madison Square Garden with their VIP passes who are like, why, why does it. Why is it so bloated? He became one of those like, almost like a fiscal conservative about the league office. But to your point about expansion, like, that was the topic of like people were trying to figure out the sides, like who. Who is the anti crowd in the board of governors. And I still don't really have a lot of great answers to that other than Dolan is part of the anti crowd. But I, I, I don't know if it's an anti crowd as much as it is. People are trying to do their version of the same math problem in terms of like, what's the expansion fee that I get versus the national TV revenue that I lose versus the valuation of my team versus my timetable of potentially selling my team. Does it net out a big plus, a big minus? I think everyone, it's not like that complex of a math problem. I was talking to one owner about this while I was out there. He's like, it's not that complicated. You just have to do your projections your way and figure out what works for you. This was a pro expansion owner who's kind of like, can we just, can we get a move on with this? But, you know, it was, it was a strange, it was a strange board of governors press conference in that sense.

Bill Simmons (10:17)

Well, and there's, there's some situations where there's some franchises that maybe could move to a different city and be more successful. And that's the other piece of this, like specifically New Orleans. And I, I don't mean to start panic on New Orleans basketball. I'm also not sure there's enough of a fan base in place to even care that much. But that lease at the Smoothie King lease expires, I think in 2029. This is an experiment that has not worked for 50 plus years in New Orleans with professional basketball. And if, like, if, if you and I owned a team and they asked us what we thought and I was like, well, we definitely have enough players to go to 32 teams. That doesn't mean we should. We're making so much money from the meteorites. I'm not even sure what you could give me back that would make it worth it. There's a couple cities that could, potentially a team I think could thrive. I think Seattle. You know, we've been saying that since before you and I worked together. Vegas is definitely interesting and Mexico City is the other one they're all excited about. Right. So you have those three. You also have Nashville, which I think some of the other leagues jumped into and grabbed that market before the NBA did. But I look at a situation like New Orleans, I don't know what that team is worth in its current state. I don't know what it's worth with like playing in the Smoothie King, playing in a market that clearly has not responded to basketball in the same way these other markets. And it's like if somebody bought them and just Moved them to Seattle and paid everybody relocation fees. And then you didn't have to split your meteorites. That seems like where this is headed. And I think there's. I'm just going to say it. I think there's some buzz starting that way that this New Orleans thing maybe. Is the situation. Is there any other franchise that you would think could potentially be a relocation threat? Or is that the only one?

Zach Lowe (12:03)

I have not heard anything about any other relocation threat, but there's a couple of subtopics that, based on what you're saying, let's put a pin in the New Orleans thing. Cause I want to come back to that. I just felt. I was at the Board of Governors press conference, and I just felt it was notable to me how often. And it was like three or four times. Adam Silver went out of his way to say, so our whole NBA Europe thing is separate from expansion, but kind of also connected to expansion. He said some version of that, like three or four times. Like, it's not an either or, but they are connected in some way. And it just, like, it made me think, is this thing, like, even further along than we realize? Is it a little bit of it either? Or is it like we want it? We're now prioritizing this other thing abroad, like accumulating these teams in these cities and trying to make this thing profitable, make it real. Is that now on the front burner versus expansion? I just found that notable how often he sort of preempted, like, no one asked him about it. He just preemptively brought it up several times.

Bill Simmons (13:11)

Well, and that's important because he is one of the more purposeful press conference people that we have. And if he's. If he's putting little buttons out there, you just have to trust, all right? There's real intent behind this. I think Europe is a huge opportunity for them, and I think they know it. When you're talking about the player pool, which. Man. When you go back to the. We've talked about this before with the mid 2000s, how rough it was from a talent standpoint. Some of the people that made All Star Games, you go back, read some of my old Trade Value columns. Some of the people who were like, number 31, you're like, Whoa, that guy. And now the league is just so much deeper. And I wonder, like, part of the reason you don't do expansion here is because you're thinking, well, maybe if we have some sort of Europe thing, maybe we need a little more talent that way. Combined the Europe talent combined with some Americans, some people that in their early 30s, like, you see, like the Austin Rivers types of players just seem to lead the league like a year too early now, you know, because there's just teams who would just rather take a chance on a second rounder. I think Europe's a big opportunity for them, and I. The seasons are a little different. The, the, the time of the day is different. It's just more basketball. It's more things to offer. My question with that is, could they just. Could they just try to buy a league? I don't even know how this works. Like, could you just, could you just try to buy the Euroleague or, Or, you know, buy like, the, the connecting properties? I know the teams make up it, but I, I don't know how you get in without directly challenging the league that already exists.

Zach Lowe (14:51)

Oh, I think you're directly challenging the league that already exists.

Bill Simmons (14:54)

You're going after it.

Zach Lowe (14:55)

I don't know. I don't know the mechanics of acquiring a league. Like, we're getting a little out of my depth on this issue. But, but I do know that, like, take, take. They know the cities. Like, they've identified some cities. Like, if we're going to do this, we're going to be in that city, and that city already has a landmark basketball team. Right. How. What is the arrangement between the NBA and Real Madrid if Real Madrid becomes part of this whatever new league, semi existing league, whatever it is? Well, Real Madrid is part of a larger sports club that has basket, that has soccer and all this other stuff. So what does the partnership look like? What does the finances look like? I think that's, that's. But existing teams like that, I think, are part of the conversation, too. I, I don't know the economics of it.

Bill Simmons (15:42)

I.

Zach Lowe (15:42)

He just brought it up a lot of times, and I do think they just look at it as a very simple. Like, we don't think these teams as they're currently existing are making nearly enough money. We think we can come in, we're better at it, and we'll just make a lot of money.

Bill Simmons (15:56)

Well, so maybe it's a situation where they come in, they almost merge with the league, and they buy smaller stakes of each team, and the teams sell off, like, you know, one third. So I don't know. We don't, we don't have enough intel on that. But the important thing is both of us feel like something is amiss, that expansion seems to have cooled off and that the Europe thing seems like it's kind of raising importance. So what's your New Orleans piece to this.

Zach Lowe (16:27)

So a couple. This is topic one that I wanted to put a pin in. This is right up your alley because it just goes into. You've been having a field day with the return of the dumb teams. Right. And so you're much meaner about it than I am.

Bill Simmons (16:41)

But I love it and I'm really. It's been one of the highlights of my summer. I'm so glad the dumb teams are back. It's great.

Zach Lowe (16:48)

There's just the, the amount of buzz that's still like every dinner I had, every coffee I had, every cocktail I had, there was some version of like, you know, everyone goes over the off season moves what you like, what you didn't like every single one had a version of like, man, that Pelicans Hawks trade. Like what happened there? Like how, how crazy was that? And then it dovetailed into. It got like the NBA news cycle can be just. There's so much going on, particularly if, if the playoffs are also going on at the same time as some news events. You just sort of fast forward through stuff. There was a lot of like. So let's just hold up for a second. New Orleans and Sacramento just hired new GMs Joe Dunar, Joe Dumars and Scott Perry. Just like. No. Did a search happen? They just wanted those specific guys. How did they land on those specific guys? If I'm a fan, like there was no interview process, was there? Like what ha. Like they just got these jobs out of nowhere. There was a lot of that talk too.

Bill Simmons (17:46)

Yeah. And people that have been retrades. I think Dumars made it seem like he had multiple teams coming after him, which just goes. Dumar's a nice guy, but the way that the last couple of years of the Pistons thing ended. Yeah. You almost can't do worse. I mean, you know, issue cold my beer. You can actually do worse. You can do much worse. But the, the moves he made, he built that 2004 title team and had a really nice mid 2000s. And then there was like a seven year run where it's like, what are you doing? He also turned a lot over to Troy Weaver, who I just think was terrible in Detroit. Like I. You go back to the, the all the Detroit stuff and you're getting points for drafting Kate Cunningham first. It's like cool. Pretty sure, pretty sure my son could have done that. But for the most part, the Duran trade, I guess was okay. That was on his watch. But most of the young, most of.

Zach Lowe (18:38)

The young core belongs To Troy Weaver. Now Isaiah Stewart, I saw Thompson, I believe was a Troy Weaver pick.

Bill Simmons (18:46)

Was Monty Williams a Troy Weaver pick?

Zach Lowe (18:49)

That didn't go great either. It was all the other stuff around the young core that was, if you talk to people who had sort of trade talks with Detroit during that time, it was all the other stuff that was kind of a mess. Just like the amount of voices. Arn Tellem, Troy Weaver, the owner, Tom Gores, like, who's actually in charge here? And then the players they put around the young core, the lack of shooting did not put them in a position to succeed. But I think it is worth noting that like the young. You're right, you don't get points for getting a number one pick. Right? Like that's just kind of what you should do. And Cade Cunningham's awesome. But it is worth noting that he, that that is a Troy Weaver core for the most part. Trajan Langdon has done awesome to supplement it and to continue to grow it. But yeah, there was just a lot.

Bill Simmons (19:33)

Of talk of like this summer.

Zach Lowe (19:34)

Yeah, well, I, I, we're going to disagree on that, but I, I thought.

Bill Simmons (19:38)

The trey went backwards.

Zach Lowe (19:39)

I disagree with you completely. I, I don't understand. Well, like so, so on a, on a basic level, Schroeder out to, to the Kings on just a wild contract, Schroeder out, Beasley out and maybe like out for a while. If not like for longer than a while.

Bill Simmons (19:59)

Beasley literally out out.

Zach Lowe (20:01)

Hardaway out in Jaden Ivy who I think people forget is like coming back to take.

Bill Simmons (20:07)

But they had him anyway though.

Zach Lowe (20:08)

But he was a hurt all last year. So that's why you got Schroeder last year is that they had this void on the team because this other guy was hurt. He's back. Lavert in, Robinson in. I think they're just better and I think they're better because their young guys are going to continue to get better. And I specifically look at like a Sar Thompson. Give him a full season, something is going to is going to pop there. Like I think he's got a chance to level like two levels up in one season. Like I think their supported cast is better. I just think they're better.

Bill Simmons (20:37)

That's. But that's all stuff that could have happened anyway. I'm not a levert guy. I've never been a levert guy. I, I don't want to get aggregated like you did with Cam Thomas last week.

Zach Lowe (20:44)

I can't wait to talk about that.

Bill Simmons (20:46)

I'm just like Cleveland, Cleveland's like Trying to win a title. They're winning games with them and they're like we're good. I think he's a little ball stoppy. I don't like the fit with Detroit and I think, listen, it's not their fault what happened with Beasley, but Beasley was really important to what they did last year. I thought he was their second best player, worst case scenario, their third best player behind Duran. But I just thought he really mattered for them, especially at the end of games. And now you're replacing that with Caris Lavert and you're keeping your fingers crossed with Ivy.

Zach Lowe (21:20)

Duncan Robinson is, is good and you know, look in the playoffs is he.

Bill Simmons (21:24)

Though like, like Miami seemed. But here's the thing and you know I, I enjoy those shooter ball movement guys and I think there's certain teams who would have been really good for Miami seemed like they were in or out on him 13 different times over the course of the. I couldn't keep track.

Zach Lowe (21:39)

They paid him a lot of money. So like is is so Malik Beasley had a great year last year. High on our six man of the year ballots for both of us.

Bill Simmons (21:47)

I think.

Zach Lowe (21:47)

You voted. You voted for.

Bill Simmons (21:48)

Yeah, I did. I thought he deserved it.

Zach Lowe (21:51)

Fourteen points a game in the playoffs, 37% from the field, 34% on threes, never gets to the line. Complete defensive liability, like.

Bill Simmons (21:59)

But does he know that? The scandals coming is one of my questions with that. I don't think that thing just came out of nowhere right after that. Like I feel like that was brewing for a couple months.

Zach Lowe (22:10)

Yeah. At some point it, it's hanging over his head. I'm just saying like, is Duncan Robinson whose contract is like partially guaranteed right after the first year. Like I think he can do a different version of what Malik Beasley did for their team and I think if anything the playoffs showed in the regular season. I think they were over reliant on Malik Beasley and the playoffs. The game changes, the offense gets better, it gets more predatory against it. Now Duncan Robinson is going to get hunted just like Malik. I think I'm on like Detroit's better next year. How many games did they win? I don't know but they were in.

Bill Simmons (22:43)

The mid, mid-40s, I think 48.

Zach Lowe (22:45)

I think. I don't know what the win total will be. I think they're going to be a better team next year.

Bill Simmons (22:50)

I like the identity they had in the second half of the season, the playoffs with the, with those tough veterans. Right. Built around Cade and rebounding and a real attitude And I don't know, we're.

Zach Lowe (23:01)

We'll.

Bill Simmons (23:02)

We'll see. I guess.

Zach Lowe (23:02)

They lose any of that? What toughness and rebounding and defense did they lose?

Bill Simmons (23:06)

I thought Beasley was kind of a badass for them. I really did. I thought he had a real swagger and attitude and, and he was the guy they went to over and over again late. And I thought, Cade, Cade. It's obviously going to come from Kate over anyone else. The big thing for them last year is that they rejuvenated Cade as, you know, an A list asset, which I just was. Were you ever like wavering on him?

Zach Lowe (23:29)

I was never off Kid Cunningham. I just couldn't.

Bill Simmons (23:32)

I was, I was a little nervous.

Zach Lowe (23:34)

I could not believe, and I said this often, how quickly people went on the. Well, you know, he's doesn't get to the line, he doesn't get to the rim. He doesn't finish well at the rim. Like he's going to be. It reminded me of the dialogue, which turned out to be kind of right on. Like I remember Andrew Wiggins rookie year, I think it was 5:38. Ran a piece about like, statistically he's one of the worst number one picks of all time as a rookie and like this doesn't project well for him. And I was like, wow, it seems like kind of premature. And it turned out like he is not a great number one pick. It felt like decay dialogue was starting to trend that way and I was like, I just, I like, I watched this guy play and he's got something. He's got the sort of in between game and the vision and the strength that you need and like put some real guys around him. But we're getting off topic with Detroit and Troy Weaver.

Bill Simmons (24:23)

I never gave up on him. I got worried. But I always look at those situations where you think, and this happens in football too. It's the situation if the situation is awful. As I've gotten older, I've learned like you have to trust that that's the most important factor. If somebody's not looking good, you almost have to value the situation over the talent if the talent is there. Anyway, we got off topic New Orleans, New Orleans.

Zach Lowe (24:47)

And then just the amount of like collective league wide almost sorrow about what has happened to the Kings in two years. Like how they went from the feel good story of the NBA to like nobody even really wants to talk about them. They're bored. They're like mediocre and boring and directionless in a way that other teams even are like, man, that's just. It's kind of depressing over there, you know, it's just.

Bill Simmons (25:12)

I don't know, it's funny. They just became the Kings again. Yeah, they weren't the Kings anymore. And it felt like, oh, my God, the Kings aren't the Kings anymore. They're actually like a real basketball team. And then that died within 18 months.

Zach Lowe (25:23)

And just like the word Vivec was said over many dinners and drinks like it. That it just, it's still kind of a mess internally. And it just, that, you know, phrases like, he can't get out of his own way, he can't help himself, you know, that's. That kind of phraseology came up a lot like. Because what's been the constant between the Beam team and now and all the crappy teams before the Beam Team post? Maloof. It's. It's the ownership group.

Bill Simmons (25:50)

When that Halberton trade happened, I can't remember, were you apoplectic or you're like, I can kind of see it. Where did you land when it happened?

Zach Lowe (25:58)

I was surprised. I wouldn't have done it. I remember being on TV with JJ Redick, when he called was like, franchise mis, mismanagement or something even more stringent than that. And I was like, that feels a little harsh given that Sabonis has a real track record of, of helping teams win and is. Is a very good player. So I was surprised. And I remember, I remember even saying like a year later and it was, it was like, oh, what? This was a win, win trade for both teams. This is a win, win trade. I was like, it's not like Indiana won the trade. Like the Kings just didn't lose it as badly as some people thought they were going to lose it. And now it's like, what, what happened here? I like, how did we get here?

Bill Simmons (26:41)

I know. I hated it. I went. It was one of the few times I went all in. I'm like, I'm. I'm putting this in pen. I hate this. I would not trade Hal Burton. I always thought Fox was the one. If you're going to make a move, that would have been the one. I did the spurs thing. You know, we talked about it a little before the, before summer league, but, you know, they probably have a year here with Fox where you can bring Dylan Harper off the bench. I watched, I watched one of his summer league games. I mean, he can't shoot, but he's just such a crazy athlete and he's just clearly going to be a guy. I don't know if it's going to be year three, year four, like how long it's going to take, but there's going to be a point where it's his team and you could just see like he's one of those guys who's had the ball his whole life. He's not going to be, oh, like Halliburton had that rare ability to just be able to play off people and not have the ball at the time. I don't think Dylan Harper is going to be like that. So they probably have a year here with Fox where they can bring Harper off the bench and be like, we're going to ease you in. Maybe there'll be a game where Fox or Fox is hurt for a week. You become the guy for a week. But the weird part of it though is Fox doesn't have the massive extension yet, right?

Zach Lowe (27:50)

August 2nd, he becomes eligible to sign it, I believe. And I do expect something will be.

Bill Simmons (27:55)

Done because they did the wink wink, right? But when they did the trade, it was kind of understood that they would take care of him.

Zach Lowe (28:02)

Well, I mean, he, he went out of his way to say there was only one. There was no list. San Antonio was the list I wanted to be in San Antonio. That was the team on my trade demand list. And whether it was wink wink or not, I mean, you don't do trades like that without some understanding of what it's going to be when you, when you hit extension time.

Bill Simmons (28:18)

Well, your guy, Rich Paul talked about that recently. He talked about. He was bragging about the Brandon Ingram extension. And he was like, we felt like the free agent, free agency money wasn't going to be there. We had to get him traded so he could make the money. And by the way, he was right because completely had zero chance of making 40 million a year if he was a free agent. Brandon Ingram. So yeah, with the Fox piece, I'm sure they have the wink wink extension. I'm sure it's going to happen. But I also. Do you think he's going to be in that team in two years? Because I don't though. Two and a half years, like three years. I. There's going to be a moment where they just give the car case to, to Harper and that's going to be that. Because I think he has a chance to be that special.

Zach Lowe (28:57)

I'm not in a rush to make these kinds of decisions. Fox and Wemby played five games together last year.

Bill Simmons (29:03)

I think you want to see it.

Zach Lowe (29:04)

Well, not only that, like I'm, I'm like higher on the 20, 25, 26 spurs than most people are. I think there's a chance for a big, big leap from them. I know they have some shooting issues.

Bill Simmons (29:15)

Can I join you on that island?

Zach Lowe (29:17)

It's not an island like anyone's welcome, but like, I, I don't know what their odds are over, under, or any of that. I haven't looked at that stuff. Yeah, it's maybe an archipelago. Yeah, yeah, there you go. I think there's a chance for a much better. For the very simple reason of those guys barely played together, one of them has the potential to be the best player in the NBA at some point in his career. And I like some of the, I like a lot of the moves they made and, you know, we'll, we'll see how much the rookies can actually help. But I, I, something is cooking there and I'm not in a hurry to like, I understand the theory of we can win now with Fox and then when the young guys are ready, we can flip Fox for stuff that fits Wembanyama's timeline. More like it's not like Fox is old. Like, I'm not in a hurry to make any of these choices.

Bill Simmons (30:00)

Well, I think it was Eddie Johnson who said this on my podcast about how Sabonis and Fox with the lob stuff where they're both lefties was just weird. And he's like, watch what happens when Fox is with Wemby because he's going to go left and he's throwing to a guy who's right handed. It's going to be different on those, on those high screens. I was like, all right, that sounds mildly interesting. I'm with you on the Spurs. I've already looked at their over, under. Do you want to guess what it is? Because I looked at it after Wemby said, I'm clear, I'm fine, I'm healthy, I'll be ready for the season. What do you think their win total is?

Zach Lowe (30:37)

41 and a half.

Bill Simmons (30:39)

43 and a half.

Zach Lowe (30:40)

I'm, I'm over.

Bill Simmons (30:42)

I didn't even, I'm not even on the archipelago.

Zach Lowe (30:44)

I'm not even thinking about it. I'm going over 43 and a half. I know. It's the way I know they're wet, they're young. It's the West. Everybody's good except Utah, blah, blah. I'm going over 43 and a half.

Bill Simmons (30:53)

Me as well. And I think that that's probably this year's Orlando. If you're going to make a, or, or this year's Detroit, like the team that just kind of jumps into the high 40s because they have a bunch of young guys and they always can throw dudes out. They also, I kind of like Kelly Olenek if he's your 10th man. If you have this weird Kelly Olenek, Luke Cornett you're relying on, like, that's, I'd rather have that than Zach Collins.

Zach Lowe (31:20)

Oh, there's Cornett's good. I mean, just flat out good. Olenek has been one of these, like every team that gets him from Utah to Toronto to now San Antonio. I have the same reaction, which is like, I love having a shooting, passing big guy around young guards and young wings. I just feel like it helps everybody. And then he just never plays. And so it's just this sort of.

Bill Simmons (31:42)

Like theoretically, theoretically helpful ingredient with him and Wemby.

Zach Lowe (31:47)

I do too. I like the idea of Kelly Olynyk. That's it's just an idea until it becomes not a reality.

Bill Simmons (31:53)

One of the things I love about them, incredible trade machine team. They have all different types of tons of tradable contracts. You compare them together, they have a bunch of cool picks and you know, that's one of those. When we get to December, January, February, that's one of those teams, if they're good, they start out like 20 and 12 and Wemby looks like he's an MVP candidate. That's a team that could shift pretty quickly. Let's take a break and then we have some other stuff to hit. Lowe's knows that taking on more projects should be rewarding. That's why loyalty members get more every day with rewards for every home or business purchase. Plus shop weekly member deals to get access to free standard shipping. So what are you waiting for? Join my Lowe's Rewards for Free Today loyalty program subject to terms and conditions. Details@lowe's.com Terms subject to change. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn. During the season, every baseball team plays 162 games. It's a true test of endurance. It's not enough to have a hot month or two. You need sustained dominance throughout. Well, the same is true for your small business. It's not enough to have a great Q2, even a great year. You want year over year growth that starts with better hires that'll be there for the long haul. To find Those hires, use LinkedIn. LinkedIn has strong hiring data and insights that you won't find anywhere else. To help pair you with the best candidates, from unique skills and interests to the connections you have in common. Based on LinkedIn data, 72% of small businesses say that LinkedIn helps them find high quality talent. LinkedIn also lets you go beyond people who are actively applying in a given week, 171 million LinkedIn members aren't actively seeking jobs, but they are open to new opportunities. That's a big pool to miss out on. If you're not hiring with LinkedIn, find your next great hire on LinkedIn. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com Simmons that's LinkedIn.com Simmons to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. All right, so we have more tales from summer league stuff. The biggest thing that I think became a basketball argument was everything the Clippers did and let's go, let's do that, and then we can hit some summer league stuff later. I was less excited about it than others, while also admitting that everything they did was just cost effective, low risk. You have moves everywhere. You're just adding contracts that you could easily swap out or trade or package together if anything weird happens. Everybody's made jokes about how old this team is, how they put together the 2017 All Star Game. There's a million ways this could go. I'll start here. They post All Star, they were fourth in that rating. I think they should have beaten Denver in five or six and they didn't because of what happened in game one and what happened in game four especially. But I think they were, I don't know if they were better than Denver, but they easily could have taken that series and it didn't go their way. And a couple plays happened, but they were right there with the team that then went seven against okc. You could make a case they were one of the four best teams in the league last year.

Zach Lowe (34:59)

That's the most Clippery thing ever is to give them, is to give them a trophy for almost beating the team that almost beat Oklahoma City.

Bill Simmons (35:06)

Banner that's going up. We almost beat the team that almost beat okc. They're putting that up in the arena.

Zach Lowe (35:11)

Game one. Yeah, they blew it. Game four. Aaron Gordon, you were there like all cool Denver. Denver won another game and then they.

Bill Simmons (35:19)

Had, they were the champs.

Zach Lowe (35:21)

Then they had. But then they had a game to win the whole series in Denver and they shit the bed so badly that it's just like it's a black mark on the entire season. I'm sorry.

Bill Simmons (35:31)

And that's my, my bigger picture point. We could talk about, oh yeah, they're better, they're deeper. There's Still a team that's built around James Harden. And I don't know if you're a Clipper fan, if you work for the Clippers, if you coach the Clippers, if you're the GM of the Clippers, if you own the Clippers, I don't know how you fall asleep at night feeling great about that. After what happened in Game seven and what's happened over the course of his entire career, I actually went back and watched because I was like, I feel like that was so bad. I need to. Maybe I'm. Maybe enough time has passed that I'm misremembering something and maybe it wasn't that bad. It was that bad. He was so bad. He wasn't. He was doing the thing where he doesn't look at the rim at all. You knew him immediately.

Zach Lowe (36:18)

This segment could be recorded.

Bill Simmons (36:20)

I know. It could be every five different seasons. They'll just CGI it. He was so bad that I don't know how, like you're reading these stories about, oh, yeah, he was recruiting Bradley Beal for a half hour. It's like, what was the recruiting pitch? Don't. Hey, we had a really good thing last year. Could you do me a favor and not watch game seven? Can you watch, like, Game five? Hey, Brad and Bradley Beals, like, hey, what happened in Game seven? It's like, I don't know. Denver just caught. Like, this is a team built around James Harden. And fundamentally, you cannot win four playoff rounds with James Harden. How old is he now? 36. And he's shown us who he is year after year for his entire career. And I just, I can't get excited about it. I'm sorry.

Zach Lowe (37:06)

Well, it's also built around Kawhi Leonard, and four playoff rounds is a lot for a player who has battled injuries for his entire Clippers tenure. And he had a great last, last second half, whatever, 50 games of last season.

Bill Simmons (37:20)

When you say battled injuries, do you mean he played 266 games in six years and 37 last year? Is that. Is that b. Is that battling or is that drowning?

Zach Lowe (37:30)

He's, it's, it's a toe to toe battle between Kawhi and, And the injuries. It's, it's, it's. It's neck and neck. Look, I'll just. Let me just make a couple of cases for the Clippers. Okay. Number one, I don't think anyone with the Clippers has any, like, illusions about what they are right now. Like, I think they, I think they probably think we are a really, really Good team that slots in fourth in the west at best. And if you're, if you're talking about everyone's healthy, let's go. It's Oklahoma City, Denver, Houston, and then maybe the Clippers. Probably the Clippers, whatever word you want to use. And.

Bill Simmons (38:08)

But I think for a regular season, I think you can make a case they could slot in, in the top three because of the depth and the fact that even if these guys aren't going to play reliably, they still have so many guys they might have the depth to be good.

Zach Lowe (38:20)

And I'm talking to like you were the president of. The Clippers are the second best team in the West island for the last 40 games of last year. That was your, that was your call.

Bill Simmons (38:29)

Yeah. And you know what happened.

Zach Lowe (38:31)

I know what happened.

Bill Simmons (38:32)

Hurricane. Hurricane hard and hit the island, so. And I had no electricity for a month and a half out.

Zach Lowe (38:40)

Go. Here are the, Here are the rotation players that they even semi rotation players.

Bill Simmons (38:45)

That are gone from last year.

Zach Lowe (38:49)

Okay.

Bill Simmons (38:49)

No, go ahead. Can I just do it? I'm with you. Go do your thing. Ben Simmons not even signed yet.

Zach Lowe (38:56)

What was your favorite moment of Ben Simmons Clippers tenure? What? The one day where everybody talked themselves into thinking that maybe this is the. So, look, he, like went to the rim one time.

Bill Simmons (39:05)

My favorite was I was at the game with Mike Toland and we were joking about how when he crossed the, the big circle logo at mid court, it became like an electric fence for him where he had to get rid of the ball before he got to the three point line. And I was, I nicknamed him the New Logo because the logo, like triggered it didn't matter who it was or whether the person was open, he had to pass it. He wanted, he did not want to have the ball within 25ft of the basketball. And I think it might be one of the reasons he's not signed yet.

Zach Lowe (39:34)

Yeah. Out goes Ben Simmons, Norm Powell, Amir Coffey, Drew Eubanks, Jordan Miller. In comes Brook Lopez, Bradley Beal, John Collins, Chris Paul. They're undeniably, like, better than the team that was last year. They have 11 guys who can really play. They're going to need all 11 to get through the regular season. And I think the idea of the team is like, look, we know the issues with our top two guys. Harden's playing big games, Kawhi's availability, etc. We know how good those other three teams are. All we can do with the resources that we have and the money we've committed to these two older Veterans at the center of our team is put ourselves in the best position possible to pounce if the matchups break right. If a team takes an injury that's in the top three, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then maybe we're in the conference finals again and once they're there, that's all they can do. I don't think they're going into the season like, oh yeah, we hit it out of the park where a championship favorite. I think they know exactly what they are.

Bill Simmons (40:27)

Over under Fanduel is 49 and a half.

Zach Lowe (40:30)

That's right. That seems about right.

Bill Simmons (40:32)

Honestly, I'm not against any of the moves on paper except one which we'll get to in a second. The Collins one. I just think they had there. They weren't going to give Norm Powell an extension and I think he was going to get really sour. And I think they were worried about chemistry and happiness with that. Right. So you flip them into Collins, who hasn't been on a good team since 1995.

Zach Lowe (40:54)

Oh, stop.

Bill Simmons (40:55)

No, I'm just saying, like, he's like.

Zach Lowe (40:58)

It'S been a while.

Bill Simmons (40:59)

He's in a contract year and he's on his first good team since that one Hawks team that made a run. It's funny, he's become a weirdly polarizing player because there's some really good nerd arguments for him.

Zach Lowe (41:11)

You and I very much disagree on John Collins.

Bill Simmons (41:15)

Well, so the highlight is you're out, not out. I'm just. The highlight of his career was that Philly series. He was good in that Philly series. I thought he felt like he was becoming a real playoff guy. And then if my memory serves me correct, they then played Miami and he was abysmal. And you know, I just think with what they have with Zubots and Kawhi, who I. I think Kawhi is a four at this point in his career. You could play him at the 3, but I just think he's a 4. And you're putting Collins with Zubots and Kawhi. That doesn't make sense to me in the way basketball is played in 2025. But I do think for the versus Powell, who I think they had a lot of guards, they were worried about him being unhappy. The trade makes sense. It's an expiring. They can flip it. Like, I'm down with the trade. I'm not down with John Collins being a huge part of a team that wins four straight playoff rounds. Where I get off the buses with Beal, I still am waiting. I've been waiting all summer. I'm waiting for somebody to explain what actually happened with him in Phoenix, because even my friend Eddie Johnson, I tweeted something. We went back and forth on Twitter, and every time we do that, then somebody will aggregate it, like we're mad at each other. Eddie's my friend, but Eddie's like, no, no, he was good here. Everybody liked him here, and he was a good son. It just didn't work out. It's like, what does that mean? Because I saw the Suns in person, and the entire team looked miserable, including Bradley Beal. Nobody was happy with how he played the entire time he was there. Part of the issue seemed to be that he didn't like being a role player who didn't have the ball all the time. Now he's going to be a role player in the Clippers, and I just don't understand why people think this is going to be an awesome situation with him and the Clippers. I don't get it. So explain it to me. Why is he going to be happier in the Clippers than he was with Phoenix?

Zach Lowe (43:06)

Well, they. They got him for cheap, right? So it's the difference between $50 million and $5 million. That. That's kind of a big deal. And he did average like 17 a game and shot it well and can be a secondary ball handler. And I think if you're asking him to do that on a team where he's, whatever, in the hierarchy and not part of a big three and he. Maybe he comes off the bench. Although they're talking like he's going to start, I'm not convinced that that's.

Bill Simmons (43:31)

They're talking like they're going to rely on him and he's going to have the ball. A lot of.

Zach Lowe (43:35)

I would not rely on him to have the ball to. I mean, I would rely on him to have the ball in this sense. Harden, Zubots. Pick and roll, bend the defense, kick to Bradley Beal, attack a closeout, or take a second screen from Zubots. And when the, when the defense is already moving and that's. That's cool. Like, I don't. I don't know that there's any idea that we're like, all right, give the ball to Brad Beal and get out of the way. I don't think that's going to be part of the. Part of the offense for the Clippers unless people are injured or there's just a whole bench mob in the game. I was like, what, what's the, what's the opportunity cost? For them, they got him for essentially nothing. NBA terms. He's still a 17 point a game scorer, still shot 40% on threes, still can handle the ball. And look, I think you're right about Phoenix. There was just a malaise over the whole team. I think his effort level wasn't good enough. Not nearly good enough. And it's going to have to be better, obviously, on a team.

Bill Simmons (44:23)

Why wasn't it good enough? Nobody's been able to explain that part. They changed the coach every year. He knew he was going to play with Durant and Booker and he knew he wasn't. When, when he gets traded, he waves his no trade clause to go to Phoenix. A team that already had Kevin Durant and Devin Booker. What did he think was going to happen with the shots and the usage rate? Did he think it was going to be awesome for him? Those guys averaged like 60 points a game in the playoffs. What did he think was going to happen?

Zach Lowe (44:49)

I would hope that he understood he'd be the third option. But I will say this. You just got through saying about Cade, like you always got to remember that the circumstances really matter. Like they do change the coach every year in Phoenix. They've kind of become a punchline for their spending, which focused on Bradley Beal, the sort of ridicule that he took. And like, you're the body language doctor. How was Kevin Durant's body language from like, you know, game 10 on last season? Like the whole team, the whole team just seemed like checked out.

Bill Simmons (45:19)

Why did that happen? I, this, this is, this is my point though. I still don't understand what happened in Phoenix and why that team was so unhappy for two years. Right. And why, and why they fell as short as they did. And then, you know, it's like, no, no, it was good with Durant. It was great. We're sending him off. Wasn't his fault. Was, wasn't Devin Booker's fault. Here's 75 million a year, even though we won 35 games with you last year. And it wasn't Bradley Beal's fault either. He was a great son. Well, whose fault was it? Because that was the unhappiest team all of us watched last year. And I don't know if you're carving up the blame pie. Who has the biggest slice in the blame pie? I still can't figure it out.

Zach Lowe (45:59)

The rest of the roster feels like.

Bill Simmons (46:00)

There was more stuff going on behind the scenes than we're finding out about. And I'm still waiting for like the now they Tell us story. And nobody wrote it.

Zach Lowe (46:08)

No, I mean somebody. There's got to be something somebody wrote that was interesting. They all the clearly the, the bit. The closest thing was the whole very weird. Like Buddy telling Devin Booker, hey man, you gotta like talk less in huddles like that. That, that was. That was a weird one. But I'm not sure that can break a team like that. Maybe they just never recovered from just getting absolutely humiliated by Minnesota in the first round of the playoffs two seasons ago in a sweep in which that ended with Bradley Beal just like falling over and losing the ball three times in the. In the last six minutes.

Bill Simmons (46:42)

Bradley Beal was so bad in that end of that playoff series. And it's one of those things that we just. The time passes and you just kind of forget. We've never really seen Bradley Beal except for the. What was that? The 2017 Wizards. Which I thought even though he didn't. I think he had some up and down shooting stuff. I felt like he really competed. I don't see a guy that competes in the same way anymore. And to just expect him to turn that on because he's in a contract here. That's. That's the other piece of this. So Bradley Bale is somehow going to make more money out of this. And Dame Lillard, same thing for different reasons. And I feel bad for Dame, but Dame somehow tore his Achilles and somehow made more money out of it. The league is in this weird situation where they have the second apron that penalizes everybody and penalizes all these smart teams. And if you draft well and you sign well, but then it has this other mechanism where you can kind of either get hurt or tank your situation or just not play well and it can somehow work out we will make more money. Because part of the narrative was, well, Bradley Beal does well in the Clippers. He'll be the biggest free agent a year from now. It's like he was already making 53 million a year. That wasn't enough incentive for him. And that's somebody I'd want to bet on.

Zach Lowe (47:55)

I mean, am I being a dick?

Bill Simmons (47:58)

Like I feel like I'm in the minority on this.

Zach Lowe (48:00)

Who were the Clippers getting with a five and a half million dollar salary slot that's better than Bradley Beal?

Bill Simmons (48:06)

Nobody. He was 17 points a game, 39% threes. But I would be really worried about.

Zach Lowe (48:12)

So that's it. That's the.

Bill Simmons (48:13)

I have this chemistry thing where I already have the. Whatever the Harden just never knowing whether I can trust him. In a game I have Beal where I have no idea. He wasn't happy as a relegated role player in Phoenix, but now he's going to be happy with that. I don't know whether I can trust Kawhi. It's a team that now has a clear two year window. Right. And I can't wait to talk about that piece of it. You're bringing CP in basically ceremonial. He'll play 40 games during the regular season. He might have a playoff moment. But I would just have real concerns about what happened to Beal in Phoenix and whether what that meant because he wasn't happy that last year in Washington either. We haven't seen the guy be happy in the 2020s and meanwhile he's been making crazy money. I just, I don't get it. So I need it explained to me. And on top of it, like his agent and the son's president or whatever, they're father and son.

Zach Lowe (49:10)

I'm aware.

Bill Simmons (49:11)

And the best you could do is oh, Bradley cut the exact amount of money he's going to get from the Clippers and it's going to save Matt Ishby all this money. It's like, why didn't he have to give up more money to leave a situation he hated? And if you're Phoenix, why didn't you wait until February to do this? If you're going to buy them out, you're not going to get any relief out of it. And the luxury tax does all that shit doesn't kick into February. Why not wait and try to have a staring contest with them?

Zach Lowe (49:37)

Can I just unleash a mild take right now? Speaking of Phoenix, I'm so ready for it. This reminded me there are a lot of things we have to ban in NBA discourse. Like, nobody's talking about that guy. We need to ban that. That guy's a pro. Here's what we need to ban. I sat down yesterday and and for some goddamn reason I decided I'm going to watch the entire 11 and a half minute video that the Phoenix Suns just posted inside our draft room. Day one of the draft. No more. No, ban them. They should be 45. I kept waiting. Minute eight. Maybe there'll be something interesting that happens in the video. And it's just a bunch of dudes wearing the same ugly ass Sons polo high fiving about how the guy they wanted might fall to them. And then it's just phone calls where Brian Gregory is like, hey man, let's come here in Phoenix to work hard. You want to work hard And Malawatch being like, yep, I'm going to work hard. All right, let me give you over to Jordan. Not Jordan Knott's going to say something to you. Enjoy this night with your family. Enjoy this night with your family. Then come here to Phoenix and work hard. Yes, sir. I'm going to come here to Phoenix. Enough. And then there's the whiteboard that's blurred out. Just no more videos of everyone be like, yeah, all right. Look at our polos. No more.

Bill Simmons (50:49)

Anybody ever not been excited when they drafted somebody in the top 15? Where's the draft room footage of the people? Like, nothing.

Zach Lowe (50:57)

Yeah. Where's the draft room footage of the Kings calling in the Papa Giannis pick? You know, and they have to call. That's what I want to see. Because the Suns, I believe, had to make that pick for the Kings. I want to see Ryan McDonough on the phone being like, yeah, they want. They want Papayanis, man.

Bill Simmons (51:13)

I don't.

Zach Lowe (51:13)

I don't know what to tell you. That's who they're telling me to pick, Papayanis. They know the guy from Greece. That's the guy. We want 11 minutes of crap, man. I'm sorry. Just nothing interesting happened in the whole video. Don't watch it.

Bill Simmons (51:26)

Great rant. Couldn't agree more. So, Old Guy champions. If you think. If you think James harden at age 36 is going to miraculously change who he is in playoff games, Old guy champions. The two doppelgangers would be the 98 Bulls and the 2011 Mavericks. 2011 Mavericks. Dirk was 32, Marion 33. Kid 38, Terry 33, Chandler, 28. Paja forgot he played 18 minutes a game on that team. I don't remember any of the minutes. And then he was 33. And Berea was the youngest guy at 26. The difference is. Well, the difference is the league is much better now, and you're going against this OKC team where basically all the guys on the team are born after Michael Jordan's last Bulls game, except for, like, Caruso.

Zach Lowe (52:13)

I think that that team, though, is and remains a team that gets brought.

Bill Simmons (52:19)

Up the gold standards for.

Zach Lowe (52:20)

But for this reason of. Of like, they're the. Just stay. Just give yourself the puncher's chance as many times as you can as a good and maybe not great team. And maybe one year it all comes into place. And I think that's just. That's the game the Clippers are playing is like, that's the team.

Bill Simmons (52:37)

Well, here's the game the Clippers are actually playing. Because if you put, if you gave them truth serum.

Zach Lowe (52:42)

Oh, let's go.

Bill Simmons (52:43)

Yeah, let's go. Let's do it. If you gave them truth serum and you said, do you think you could actually win the title? Like, come on, you'd be like, all right, we have like a K maker punchers, chance. But OKC's been saying this whole podcast.

Zach Lowe (52:59)

I think that's what they think.

Bill Simmons (53:02)

But what they've really done here is cleared the books for the summer of 2027. And the norm Powell piece was a big part of this. He was going to be unhappy if they didn't give him an extension. They didn't want to give him an extension. Well, why? He was almost an all Star last year, didn't play well in the playoffs. That's not enough of a reason. Ballmer is a guy that has always spent and added and paid money and he's never been afraid of the future. And now this is a team that's clearly. We are on short term here. We're in two years. Well, why. It's because Giannis is a free agent in the summer of 2027. And I don't. This is like the, you know, there's some, maybe some TV networks that dabble and specialize in this, just throwing out names and teams. I think there's. This is a real thing. I think the Bucks are terrified of it. I think it's a big reason why the Miles Turner thing happened, because the Bucs knew they were on a two year window with, with Giannis and that is a player option and they're trying to do as much as they can to make it so that if anyone's winking at them that they'll at least have enough of a foundation and try to keep them. The one thing with Giannis is he's already won the title. Right? That's. It's. When you've already won, it's a different level of mentality because now you're weighing. I've already won. I could start and finish my career in Milwaukee, by all accounts, loves Milwaukee. But I think if you're the Clippers and short term, you can compete with a puncher's chance for a title, but long term, you have 20 million on your books in the summer of 27. You just have Zubots. That's it. You can basically build a new team and they're in the best position. Ballmer doesn't care about money. Have you been in the practice facility and that? Their thing is like a fucking palace. You go there and you're like, this is a team that spends every possible asset, dollar or whatever to impress the people that play for it. And I think, I think that's their end game, is that summer 2027. Short term, let's try to win long term. Giannis. And that's how they're thinking.

Zach Lowe (55:04)

So a couple of things. Lawrence Frank does not, does not wink subtly. He winks like Costanza's got the grapefruit pulp in his eye in Seinfeld. Remember the Kawhi recruitment when he was just like, at Toronto games just now. It might be different with Giannis as a player option, but, like, there ain't nothing subtle about how the Clippers operate. Number two. They're also in position, if, if need be, to get max cap space a year from now because Harden's contract is partially guaranteed. It's a, it's a weird thing where he got the player option and they got, I think it's only 13 million out of 40, whatever. Million guaranteed. And then they have team options on like a million guys. Bogdanovic, team option, Lopez, team option. Batum, team option. Like, they could clear out $50 million of space from their books without even trying. So they're flexible on a couple of different levels. But sure, I mean, everybody knows the timetable of Giannis's contract. Everybody sees how desperate the Bucks are. And I haven't closed the books. I don't think anybody has closed the books. I'm like, do we know that? Giannis is like, okay, I'm done thinking about anything else now. I don't, I don't know that.

Bill Simmons (56:15)

Yeah, but he, by all accounts, he's fine in Milwaukee and the team's going to be pretty good. I mean, they actually had a really good off season. When you consider, like, what, that the, the second best player in the team who made 50 plus million dollars was going to miss the entire season. And you would have said, this team has no chance to look competitive. The Cole Anthony thing was a big deal, but they got him to be able to get somebody like that for nothing. He's a rotation guy. They kept Trent for nothing. He's a rotation guy. You know, they, they've added together a team that in a weak conference with the best player in the conference at least, is now in the game, and I think with more of a puncher's chance than maybe the Clippers.

Zach Lowe (56:57)

Interesting. You're, you're. I, I actually, I don't disagree with you. I, I went through all the east rosters the other day, and I'm like, The Bucks are actually a little better than I think they are.

Bill Simmons (57:06)

Yeah, they, they have a little more depth and a little more day to day, and I do think they can patch together some, some lineups that I like. I don't mind a couple of their young guys shooting already.

Zach Lowe (57:17)

And I agree with you, like, he's shown us over and over again, he would prefer to stay in Milwaukee. It actually reminds me of, ironically, Dame in Portland who they would just like, walked up and walked back, walked up and walked back and like now that he's back is publicly saying like, I kind of, maybe I shouldn't have ever left. And Giannis kind of reminds me of that.

Bill Simmons (57:39)

Yeah, you did a good job with Mahoney. Talking about the, on the pod you did with Mahoney this week about the culture that Dame put in Portland and how he was all in and all in and all in. And I think what changed that was the Scoot Henderson pick and just getting, getting a top three pick and taking a future point guard. And I just think that changed how they thought about it, which is why I brought up San Antonio earlier. Sometimes you can get lucky in the draft and it can just completely change what you thought your plans were for a roster. And in that case, I think, you know, I, I would have been really interested if he hadn't gotten hurt to see how they would have handled Dame this summer and whether they would have. Would have tried to pedal him because he ended up the second half of the season before he got hurt. I thought he was pretty good. All right, so we're just, we planted our flag on keep an eye on this Giannis Clippers thing. I'm not saying we invented it, but I wanted to quickly mention. Oh, let's take one more break. And then I have another thing to throw at you here. This episode is brought to you by Honey Stinger. Get the energy you need for the day ahead with Honey Stinger. They just launched new energy waffles with peanut butter, peanut butter chocolate and peanut butter strawberry. Because who doesn't like peanut butter? Who doesn't love peanut butter? This is a great thing. As you know, I'm a big power walker. Great thing to pop in right before the power walk so you have a little extra energy. You also don't have a full stomach. It just works. It's great because they have organic and gluten free options, which I love. It's an ideal brand of ingredients that help you perform at your best. And let's be real, it's an energy product that actually Tastes good. And I'm not the only one who relies on honey stinger. Over 2000 college and pro sports teams use their products. That's hundreds of athletes from the NBA, NFL, NHL and more. Maybe even some of your favorite players. Head to honeystinger.com to try the new delicious peanut butter waffles for yourself. And save 20% with the promo code SIMMONS20. That is SIMMONS20. SIMMONS20. This episode is brought to you by MTV. Everything you know about the challenge is about to change. To win it all, iconic challenge vets will have to work with an elite set of new threats. Will they be able to forge a new challenge legacy as a team? Or will the new threats turn on the vets and take them down? America's longest running great sports franchise is back. The challenge vets and new threats. New season premieres Wednesday at 8, 7 Central on MTV. So one other thing happened since the last time you and I talked basketball and it's the Miami Heat, the zombie Heat. I'm not saying they're in the cornfield starting to eat human beings again, but there were a couple small things they did over the course of the summer where it's like, I just thought that team was done and maybe should think about trading Bam and just blowing it up and starting over. There's, there's just kind of a, a roster flexibility slash identity forming. And I didn't know if you were intrigued by it. So are you intrigued by it?

Zach Lowe (60:42)

You, you have this, I don't know if you have some telepathy abilities. Like I remember a couple months ago you said, you know, what teams do you have your eye on is like potentially frisky teams in the off season. I mentioned one. You were like, that's the one I want to talk about. So tomorrow I'm having, we're doing a pod, the Zach Lowe Show. We're going to put the Eastern Conference teams into tiers of teams, which is I like to do just for fun. And I'm looking at the FanDuel odds. 1, 2, 3, 4. Miami is 10th to win the. To win the East. Not saying Miami is going to win the East. That's not a conversation. I'm just saying the odds are what they are. Indiana's plus 2300. They're ninth. Then there's a jump all the way to plus 4100. That's Miami. And then plus 4600 is the Raptors. And I keep looking at the teams above Miami, Indiana, Milwaukee, Boston, Philadelphia, that group. And I'm like, I don't think Miami's worse than those teams. Like, I understand that Miami, that all of those teams, save Indiana with Halliburton hurt and maybe even Indiana with Siakam, have a player who's much better than anyone on Miami. I don't say Siakam is much better than bam. He's probably a little better all around. But Boston's still got Jalen Brown. Philly's got whoever is healthy. Milwaukee has an MVP candidate. I kind of think the Heat are in that group. And I was talking to a couple front office guys earlier this morning before we hopped on this podcast, almost trying to get them to talk me out of my Heat optimism. And one of them tried to. One of them kind of shared. I'm not saying this is like a great team, but if you told me the heat went 45 and 37 and snuck into the six seed or whatever, I wouldn't be surprised. I think it's a better team than then Vegas is giving them credit for. What's their I bet they're over under is like 38 and a half or something like that.

Bill Simmons (62:32)

Yeah, 38 and a half. It's too low. And I, I actually think. I, I know it's insane. I actually think like 48 wins could be in play with the. With how bad that. With how bad the east is going to be from a star power standpoint. You're going against stars night after night. You're going and said like, you might play Philly. There's no Embiid, you're going to play Boston. There's no Tatum. You go on down the line. The east games are just not going to be as hard as they were last year.

Zach Lowe (63:00)

So literally 20 minutes before we hopped on this podcast, I was talking to an executive on another Eastern Conference team saying, like, am I. Like, am I crazy to think Miami could win? Could be like 46 and 36 and be the fifth or sixth seed? Like, is that. Am I like a. Like, am I missing something about the composition of the East? Like, what am I missing? Because I seem to be wildly off on Miami. And he kind of was like, yeah, 46 seems a little much. But I, I literally just said this stuff to somebody 30 minutes ago. I said 46. You said 48. 48 seems a little high to me. 46, it's 10 games over. 500. Like, that's a good team. I don't know if that's a little over my skis, but I'm with you. I don't know what we see Powell.

Bill Simmons (63:41)

A contract Here we already know he's going to. He's a 19 point game point a game scorer. They have Wiggins for a full year. They have Heroes, they have Adebayo, they got Fontechio who I just like. I'm sorry, I'm. I'm always going to think on the right team that guy can succeed. There's just certain guys like on the wrong team, I get it. But on a team where guys know what they're doing, I'm just in on him. Jovic, everybody else likes. I don't like him as much like Rossillo likes him.

Zach Lowe (64:09)

I like Jovic.

Bill Simmons (64:10)

I, I haven't really seen it yet, but I know you're. Of course you like him. He's got the itch.

Zach Lowe (64:15)

I gotta, I gotta be welcome.

Bill Simmons (64:16)

You got an itch for the itches? Yeah.

Zach Lowe (64:18)

Believe me, all, all the, all the people in Croatia that we visit with when we're there, they know, they know my awards ballot and if I've shunned the wrong Balkan, I hear about it.

Bill Simmons (64:29)

Hawkes, if he ever learns how to shoot Yakoshonas, I still feel like is. Is going to. I'm still in. And then they have Highsmith, who I've always liked. I don't know, I just don't mind their team. There's a Rogier piece. There's two ways it could go but good and one way it can go awful. The two ways it could go good is he's in a contract year, maybe he comes back, he gets cleared and he's actually good again. This was a guy who was like a 24 point a game scorer two years ago. They gave up a first round pick for the second way it could go good for them. Wouldn't be good for Rozier. What if it turns out he gets suspended for the year? Like does he come off the cap? How does that work? We haven't had that happen before. Does he disappear from the cap? It feels like if anyone would ever luck out from something like this. I was talking to my friend Mike Scher who hates the heat the most and I was like, you realize if Roger gets suspended for a year, the league will somehow figure out a way that, that just magically comes off Miami's cap and he's like, you've ruined my day.

Zach Lowe (65:32)

I like that you guys are still, are still. The Miami scars are still.

Bill Simmons (65:36)

I just want them to die. Yeah, I just want that. I want he culture to just be dead and it never dies. But, but the third way I would go, I think the bad version of this is. That's just a giant 26.6 thing. 26.6 million he's not playing. But you also can't trade him because he gets suspended. And it's just like this cap albatross for a year is the one bad way this would play out.

Zach Lowe (66:06)

So who knows I'm penciling him in as out of the rotation when I'm, When I'm.

Bill Simmons (66:12)

I think that's fair.

Zach Lowe (66:13)

No, no, no. I just, just in terms of my projection of. Because I want to make sure my optimism. I want to make sure my optimism is not based on the whatever small percent chance that the Terry Rozier thing totally turns around. I'm not expecting that to happen. Like, it's been. It's unbelievable how much of a zero he's been for Miami. Like it's, it's one of the most under the radar shocking. Like from, from semi productive, slash productive to like, like can't even get on the floor in the playoffs for a team that's losing by 50.

Bill Simmons (66:44)

The off court stuff I think murdered his season last year. There's no way you can come back from that, especially if you think potentially really bad things are happening. But he was really good on Charlotte.

Zach Lowe (66:55)

Crunch time scorer.

Bill Simmons (66:57)

Yeah, he was becoming a guy that you had to start talking about as kind of like what happened with Norm Powell last year where he wasn't an all star, but you actually had to throw his name into the conversation for it. Anyway. One of the things I like about what they did and I like the Mitchell signing too. I've always never gave up on that dude. Feeling good about my condo on that island. But they have a flexible roster for trades, right? Like Powell's still an expiring. Fontecho is an expiring. Highsmith's an expiring. Wiggins has a player option for next year 30. It's not bad. It's. It's. It's a situation that looks a little LeBron. I'm just going to say it. If we were going to go, all right, somebody came from a time machine and said In January, February, LeBron James will be traded and you had to pick a team. I think Miami would be one of the teams I would think about.

Zach Lowe (67:58)

Okay, two, two things. And I already, I already. Okay, two things. Number one, they're only in the whole one first round pick. And I believe they could trade up to three if they do it right. They don't.

Bill Simmons (68:12)

27 pick goes to Charlotte for the aforementioned Terry Roger disaster trade.

Zach Lowe (68:18)

Number two, I know no one has time to listen to every episode of the Zach Low show, let alone. Let alone someone as busy as you. Last week in Vegas, I. I said, I did a segment on LeBron. Cause everyone's talking about LeBron. And I said, look, I've already done all the, all the, like, I've already gone through all the teams everybody's gone through the Clevelands, the Dallas, the warriors, the Knicks, and on and on. I said, the one team I forgot to bring up when I was doing it is like, there's actually kind of a Heat reunion trade that isn't crazy on paper for either team, if it ever came to that. What I neglected to mention on that podcast and should have blamed the Vegas haze that I was in is it ended very badly. Like, there were hard feelings in Miami when he left and the manner in which he left and Riley doesn't strike me as someone who gets over hard feelings particularly easily. Now, winning and a superstar papers over a lot. But I don't disagree with you. Like, I don't. LeBron's on the Lakers. I've heard there's. It's kind of gotten quiet now after it was the talk of summer league. There doesn't seem to be like a clean solution either way. Everyone's saying we should expect them to be on the Lakers. That's my expectation. But I agree with you. Like, on paper, there's a Heat trade that is not crazy for either team.

Bill Simmons (69:34)

Wiggins and Powell for unhappy LeBron in January and maybe some sort of pick swap. And maybe that's all it is. As crazy as that sounds, I think.

Zach Lowe (69:44)

For the Lakers, where has got to be in it, like, just because I've gone out of my way to say I've got to get a rim runner that can pair with Luka, blah, blah, blah, and I'm trading arguably the greatest player of all time, I gotta hit the trade well. And I think he'd be the piece that they'd have to get.

Bill Simmons (70:01)

Well, the only thing, if there would be real urgency to trade him, you know, he would have to start acting passive aggressively. And we've just never seen him do that over the course of his career.

Zach Lowe (70:15)

I'm just going to let that hang in the air there.

Bill Simmons (70:20)

There's just been no evidence over the course of his career that he could use the regular season as a tool to try to make a transaction happen that he would be in favor of.

Zach Lowe (70:28)

I think he wants to do that at the end of his career.

Bill Simmons (70:30)

Can't think of any examples.

Zach Lowe (70:31)

But do you think he'd want to taint the last X years of his career with his son on the team by doing that.

Bill Simmons (70:38)

Trying to think, yeah, I can't really come up with any seasons where that happened. Listen, they waived Clutch client Jordan Goodwin, who's good to sign Marcus Smart after he was recruited by Luka Doncic. And I was like, they're now antagonizing the LeBron side. This is flat out antagonizing. They can say what they want, but think about the hold that clutch and LeBron had over the Lakers for those first seven years, to the point that they drafted his son who had played 10 minutes a game in college. And now it's gone full circle where it's all Luka, Luka, Luka, Luka, Luka recruited. I mean, you and Mahoney did. I thought you did. The perfect breakdown of the Marcus Smart thing to expect him to guard anyone with speed who's a guard at this point of his career. Good luck. He also can't really shoot threes and is the kind of guy that's just a bad fit with a LeBron Luca team. I didn't like the move at all. I would have rather had Jordan Goodwin, like, for real. I don't think Marcus Smart with Luka and LeBron and Austin Reeves makes sense to me at all because I need somebody who can actually guard all of the awesome guards that are in the NBA. And guess what? I still don't have the person after I did this Marcus Smart move. I have the person who can guard bigger dudes who could be like, let's throw him against Giannis, which, by the way, which matters.

Zach Lowe (72:04)

It matters because LeBron doesn't want to do that kind of bang and Luka only wants to do it against the guy who's a non threat. They rui can do it, but they need someone else.

Bill Simmons (72:12)

And look, Marcus Smart is not Marcus Smart.

Zach Lowe (72:15)

He's not a great three point shooter, but he's an O. He's a good enough catch and shoot three point shooter on open looks, which I think is better. You're betting on the up. Like we know what Jordan Goodwin is. I like Jordan Goodwin. I said there's a universe where he's better than Marcus Smart. Next year, I think if you're the Lakers, you have to bet on. You just have to make a big bet that we're a long shot to win the West. To even make it plausible, we've got to hit home runs on some things that on the fringes, this is a chance at that you're never going to hit a Jordan Goodwin home run.

Bill Simmons (72:47)

He just his body seems like it broke down to me. I love Marcus Smart. He was a great Celtic. There's an interesting would they retire his number case that I think if the season, if you have a season three years from now that's going terribly. You could see it happen. He never won a title with them but was one of the most beloved role player Celtics ever in my lifetime. I don't that's why I think did you see that? He said I don't think his body can handle a nine month season anymore.

Zach Lowe (73:16)

Did you see that? He said he expects to get booed in Boston.

Bill Simmons (73:20)

No, never.

Zach Lowe (73:21)

I mean I I saw look. I saw it on. I saw it on Twitter. I suspect everything is fake. It didn't look fake to me. It didn't look like an AI generated quote. But my reaction was like dude, they're going to. It's going to be a standing ovation. Doesn't matter if you're on the Lakers. People are going to go crazy for him when he comes back.

Bill Simmons (73:38)

I have penciled in August 20th. I put in my Apple calendar using Apple calendar.

Zach Lowe (73:44)

I have a Google calendar.

Bill Simmons (73:45)

I use the Apple calendar. I penciled August 20th in for the day that I'm going to try to talk myself into deandre Ayton on the Lakers.

Zach Lowe (73:52)

I already did it. I'm done. I did it. I got through it in early July.

Bill Simmons (73:57)

Like you're officially like you've talked yourself into the scenarios.

Zach Lowe (74:00)

I would say my thesis statement for deandre Ayton working is is just this. I think it's going to go better than expected. That's as far I think it's going to work as well as the Lakers could reasonably hope it works. But I think he's going to have a decent offensive season and a decent defensive season. I think if you're expecting him to be amazing, it's not going to work. I think he's going to roll more. I think he's going to play with a little more force. He's an elite mid range dumb shooter and I think any big man worth his salt who's embarrassed by being bought out by the freaking Blazers and you could spin it like oh no, that's what I wanted. I wanted to play on a winning team. Whatever. The Blazers were super excited to clear the way for their young centers and I want to talk about that before we get off. I think he's good. Luca and LeBron are going to make him look good. He's going to be a productive offensive player the way he was in Phoenix and I think he's going to. If your expectations are mocking him as dominating and I'm a max contract guy and I've done my share of mocking and mocking him for getting to the foul line once every two weeks, that's one of my go to eight in lines. I think he's going to be better than that. I think he's going to be a serviceable starting center for the Los Angeles Lakers to help their team.

Bill Simmons (75:13)

Did you ever see the clip from the movie Scanners when the guy's head blew up?

Zach Lowe (75:17)

I don't even know what that movie is.

Bill Simmons (75:19)

It's a horror movie that came out in the early 80s and it was by David Cronenberg and it had this famous scene where this guy's head exploded and it's one of the best special effects scenes of the 70s, 80s, 90s, the guy and his head explodes. I think it's in play for JJ Redick this year with Ayton. With the combo of Ayton and passive aggressive LeBron and Marcus Smart trying to guard point guards, this feels like it could end. Luca trying to play defense like there, there are pieces of this where you could talk yourself into the Laker season going really good and there's a case for them to be a three seed. I also think there's cases they were.

Zach Lowe (75:57)

Just a three seed.

Bill Simmons (75:58)

I know. And it could totally happen again. I think there's also a case that JJ Redick's head could explode in the sideline because of Ayton when you've watched him play basketball.

Zach Lowe (76:09)

I have.

Bill Simmons (76:10)

I say it both ways. I do think though, this is the type of team that could honestly kill JJ.

Zach Lowe (76:15)

I'm going. I'll just put it. I'm going. Deandre Ayton, 16 and 8, solid bounce back season. That's the narrative.

Bill Simmons (76:21)

16 and 8. He does get rebounds. You know, it's like, it's like Barkley's whole thing about you can't get three rebounds a quarter when he gets mad that like Jaren Jackson has five rebounds a game. Aiden does get rebounds, he'll grab them. Lucas seems like he's in better shape, but who knows? We'll find out. And, and the LeBron situation is just going to be really, really weird. They have a lot of expirings and a lot of ways to make the roster better. It seems like Luke is going to sign next month, which I think, you know, nobody's going to be surprised by.

Zach Lowe (76:52)

But I believe that's August 2nd as well.

Bill Simmons (76:55)

All right, so February 15th, what team is LeBron on?

Zach Lowe (77:01)

Safe bet is still the Lakers, right? I mean, like, I haven't heard enough. I haven't heard enough actionable, realistic stuff to go anything but Lakers. If you're telling me Lakers versus Field, I think that's. I'd still probably go Lakers a little bit, but until I hear something, because why would they ever buy him out? I don't think he has it in him to act out the way Jimmy Butler did, to get out of his situations. Passive aggressive maybe, but I think you can live with that. And I don't know that he wants to do that at the end of his career with his son on the team. Even. Even that level, like 2018, Cavs, eye rolling, passive aggressive.

Bill Simmons (77:38)

We've never been in a situation with a player as great as him before where the focal point of the franchise he's on shifted to another guy. I'm really interested to see where, like, I'm talking, like, the best part is.

Zach Lowe (77:48)

So what's your answer to the question then? What team's he on? February 15th? Dallas.

Bill Simmons (77:54)

No, because I don't think there's any scenario where the Lakers buy him out. He would have to really, to your point, he would have to really push the envelope in a way that I just think it would be crazy for him to do. Like, he's a role model. People love LeBron. He's going to be a dick to try to get traded. He'll do the passive aggressive stuff, but he's not going to do the outward. He's not going to tank during games. He's never going to do any of that stuff. I honestly would say Miami. I don't know why I'm so glad. It's just like a weird gut feeling. It's just. And I don't think the Riley stuff, yeah, it ended awful with them in Miami. I don't think this stuff matters. He went back to Cleveland after the Comic Sans letter and all the shit that went on. If it's the right move for both sides and if Miami can look at it and go, holy shit, like, we could actually win the east if we turn Wiggins and whatever else in the LeBron.

Zach Lowe (78:47)

And I don't know, I. I encourage people. Go back. Listen to the Zach Low show from last week. I talked about it. I was like, hero, bam. LeBron. Something like, it wouldn't be. It wouldn't be like a terrible Eastern Conference.

Bill Simmons (79:00)

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Zach Lowe (80:15)

I gotta. I know you may have other things to get to, but there are a couple other summer league things I wanted that are in your wheel, in your wheelhouse much more than mine. A summer league topic that came up quite a bit given young Hansen's play is why is there like no buzz about who's going to buy the Portland Trailblazers? So I ask you, you have a lot of ownership sources. You're always good on this stuff. Like why is there, there's, there's like even people within the Blazers that I talked to are like, I don't like we haven't heard anything like what's going on. This team is like allegedly in the beginning processes of being for sale. It's an NBA team. What's happening?

Bill Simmons (80:56)

I heard there's a guy and I heard it's going to go over four or the only two things I've heard.

Zach Lowe (81:03)

Who'S not going over three and a half or four at this point.

Bill Simmons (81:06)

Well, but I think the consensus is it's going to be in the mid threes, but I think it goes over four. Let me ask you just because there's just not a lot of teams available. This is, it's Portland. It's maybe make a power play for New Orleans over, overpay for New Orleans and then move them to Seattle, Vegas and then other than that, unless, unless the Rhinesdorf shock everybody and just sell the team for 7 million. What other team is there?

Zach Lowe (81:33)

Let me ask you this. I know you're, you can't Say who the guy is. If you even know who the guy is. But is it, is it, is it someone who already knows? I'm not getting Vegas and I'm not getting Seattle. If and when those things happen, is it somebody in that pool potentially? Because that's, I don't think it is. Okay.

Bill Simmons (81:53)

That wasn't the name I heard that I'm not going to say.

Zach Lowe (81:55)

Okay.

Bill Simmons (81:56)

The Vegas one was really fun because there were so many groups for it. I was ready for the Game of Thrones between all the groups and each group had a famous person in it. I was just very excited to see how that was going to play out. But now if we're not going to have expansion, if somebody hired me as a conciliary for all this stuff, I would just be like, just go after New Orleans. That's the move.

Zach Lowe (82:19)

I know you've talked about it before, but now we've seen him play summer league. Some time has passed since the draft. What does Conspiracy Bill think of the young Han Sen pick and the conspiracy theories that it was all a ploy? Partly a ploy, let's say, to increase the valuation of the franchise.

Bill Simmons (82:35)

So that was a summer league combo, right? That the combo of Dame. Because the Dame thing was nuts like that. Like they pay 14 million this year not to play. And I know it's great to have him back, but it's just I thought the combo of those two things I thought was notable and the fact that you took Yang Hansen at 16 when you probably could have gotten him in the mid late 20s, but you were so desperate to get him you didn't want to fuck around. Conspiracy Bill was activated, there's no question. Yeah, well, I think there's a lot of Chinese money in play, you know, like that. We've just seen it with some of the players we've had in the league. So, yeah, I, I, I marked it.

Zach Lowe (83:16)

Okay.

Bill Simmons (83:19)

What was your other thing?

Zach Lowe (83:21)

No, that's it. I think, I think that between that and Strahinja Jokic just lighting up summer league all over, all over the place. The big scary Jokic brother appearing everywhere and scaring everybody, I think. Oh, the other one. The other one. There was a lot of like late in my summer league visit, a lot of like. Wait, what? When did Paul George get injured again? When did, when did the surgery happen with Paul George? I thought I just saw him walking around a casino somewhere. Why did they announce it now? What's happening with the Paul George injury? What's there? And just a lot of like sixers what are you going to do?

Bill Simmons (83:56)

Did the Embiid piece come out? That was on aspin.com when you're in Vegas.

Zach Lowe (84:00)

It came out the last day I was there. I left that afternoon.

Bill Simmons (84:08)

I have no comment on the Embiid piece.

Zach Lowe (84:11)

What does that mean?

Bill Simmons (84:12)

I just have no comment on it. You did no comment. Representative Persimmons was reached and said no comment. You had a rant before you did your little thing. I have my little stupid rant I'm going to give to you for 40 seconds. I don't understand. So Washington trades for Marcus Smart and they get, they trade expirings and they trade a 2025 second rounder for Marcus Smart who's making like 20 million and then 20 million the next year.

Zach Lowe (84:48)

They got a first round pick too, right.

Bill Simmons (84:49)

They get Memphis's 2025 first which at the time seemed like it was going to be in the 20s and then Memphis fell AP ended up being the 18th pick solid. Then they traded 18 for 21 and 2 seconds and they took Will Riley and then they bought out Marcus Smart for $6.8 million. So basically, and we've seen teams do this a bunch, I guess that's the market for a non lottery first round pick. You're paying whatever is left for the guy in the, in the previous year, but you had the expiring so that offsets. But then the next year you're paying. So he basically paid $7 million and their second rounder to get the 18th pick in the draft. Does that sound like the right price? Because this happens all the time. We're like oh yeah, but they got that pick. It's like is that the right price for a non lottery first rounder? And conversely, should they make a rule that teams can just pay whatever they want for somebody else's first rounder? Like just no cap at all. Like if the, if the Lakers wanted to pay $35 million for, for Memphis's 18th pick, they could just do it. Why do we have a cap on it? Would teams actually pay? What are the values of picks? I just, it got my brain percolating. I don't know if you had any thoughts.

Zach Lowe (86:10)

So people have studied trades over X amount of years and like what is, what is the average financial valuation of a first round pick? Like how much did the Nets just pay for the Nuggets 2032 first round pick? Right, right. More than $7 million and a second round pick for sure. And I think those studies would probably conclude again, you're hitting me with this off the top of my head, that that's actually kind of a cheap price to pay for the 18th pick. That that's probably a good deal cash wise for the Wizards because the guy's.

Bill Simmons (86:42)

Making like 3 1/2, 4 million a year and it's locked in, has the chance to have upside of to be a real guy. So it's like the four plus the seven that you paid. So it's almost like getting a mid level free agent.

Zach Lowe (86:57)

I think it just the, the like on average, what do teams pay for a first round pick? And salary dumps. Right. How much dead salary do does it take for me to get a lottery protected first round pick? I'm guessing that's a pretty cheap price overall for Washington to get that pick. Your second idea broke my brain a little bit. Obviously there is a cap on the amount of cash in trades that you could use in a calendar at NBA year. You're saying, should that cap just not apply to draft pick only trades? Should we just. And then you just come into a thing like, what is the price for your humiliation as a team? Like, how much do you have to pay me to, to be able to go to my fans with and take the heat of like, yeah, sorry, we just sold the. I know you guys were like super excited about all the mock drafts and who we were going to take at 17 and like we actually need a player. The Lakers just paid us $75 million. How can we say what's the price for your humiliation as a franchise owner? Because it's humiliating. It's humiliating to just, it would be humiliating to go to your fans, be like, yeah, you know, but look, I mean, I'm richer, we're richer. Like the practice facility might be nicer.

Bill Simmons (88:09)

Yeah. But in soccer, or as they call it in the, in the European areas, football, they have these transfer fees, right? You develop some awesome player. You have like Con Knippel and he's the rookie of the year in year one. It's like, wow, this guy's the next Klay Thompson. And then the Lakers just buy him a year later for a $150 million transfer fee. And people are used to that in soccer. I think the cba to me, the older I get, the more I stare at how they think about it is all about just checks and balances with the owners against themselves in two ways. One, to make sure that you don't end up becoming like Ishbia, like without the second apron, Ishbia. You're almost saving Ishbia from, from yourself. It would be like if I, if I fed my dogs at 4 o' clock today and I just put all the dog food on the floor, my idiot dog Murph would eat all the dog food, right? If I put 20 pounds of dog food on the floor, he would eat all 20 pounds and then he would have diarrhea for like a week and a half. That's kind of what the second apron is for. Matt Ishbia.

Zach Lowe (89:17)

What's the diarrhea in this metaphor? Is it the stretch? Is it the way of the stretch?

Bill Simmons (89:21)

The Bradley Beal trade? Yeah, it's The Bradley Beal 7 pick swaps 19 second round picks. So it's checks and balances on the one end and then the other end is that humiliation thing you mentioned where they don't want to give the smaller market owners either the chance to be humiliated because like okc, Jalen Williams, they build him up and then he just leaves because they can't afford what the Lakers or Miami paid. But then you also to put owners in the position where they would just sell off shit like they were selling off things in their attic or you know, their car.

Zach Lowe (89:58)

Honestly, I didn't hear anything you said. After diarrhea. I just, I just, I just lost, I just like lost checks about. Well, I mean this is the same thing.

Bill Simmons (90:08)

Like, oh wait, hold on, I have a newsflash. The Clippers have just traded for 20 pounds of Murph's diarrhea. It's going to be fine though. It's solidified. It's hard.

Zach Lowe (90:15)

Like I remember, I remember when they shortened contracts, right? And like that was the whole argument. It's like, well, we got to save these owners from themselves. Otherwise it'll be like another 7 year, 120 million dollar David Lee contract. Like it's like that. It's saving the owners from. The Stepian rule is about saving owners from themselves. It's always checks and balances. And it gets more and more complicated with they were like, good luck reading some of the fucking pick swaps on real gm. Like I don't know, can someone just tell me who gets what pick? I don't understand this pick. And the second and fourth favorite.

Bill Simmons (90:52)

Do you have a document? I have a document. I created a document that I rely on because it's so confusing. I actually had to write all of it down with all the Mac. I'm going to send it to you. This is my little summer gift. Are you upset that when we brought you to the ringer that we didn't do a Recruiting trip. We didn't have people calling you like Luka Doncic called Marcus Smart. Should I have done that?

Zach Lowe (91:13)

Yeah, I think you should have all come to my house and, you know.

Bill Simmons (91:16)

We should have done that.

Zach Lowe (91:17)

Like, seven of you should have appeared at my front door with food and wine.

Bill Simmons (91:23)

Like Ipsyping could have read. Apparently, Joe House called Zach Lowe today, and they were on the phone for a half hour talking about how great the ringer is.

Zach Lowe (91:33)

Drunk house or sober house?

Bill Simmons (91:35)

Drunk house.

Zach Lowe (91:35)

Or like drunk in an ambulance House. Like.

Bill Simmons (91:40)

Being carried out of a Chinese food restaurant. House. Here's my last thing and then we'll go the. The bleach report that. That top hundred, whatever. The point in Kobe was 11th and everyone went crazy.

Zach Lowe (91:53)

Yeah, I haven't looked at it. That's the only thing I know about the whole list, by the way, is what you just said. Kobe's 11th.

Bill Simmons (92:01)

It's basically for the ninth spot. 9th, 10, 11, and 12. I guess it's Curry, Kobe, Jerry west, and Jokic and people, I'm not going to make the case today. I'm not going to put you on the spot. You've done no research, but it's basically a Curry versus Kobe versus West argument. And I thought it's interesting because people are just so stupid when they talk about the history of the NBA. And it drives me crazy. I don't even know why it bothers me, but people are like, Kobe 11. That's nuts. It's like, okay, we'll make your list. But it's the Curry versus Kobe versus west is so fascinating to me because it's these three different generations of guards, and I think you could honestly make a case for any of them. I think Curry's case. I thought Curry was going to pass Kobe and actually had him proactively in my pyramid ahead of Kobe. But now I'm looking at the end of Curry's career. And I think. I just think that's going to be an awesome historical argument as we get further and further away from it. Because Curry's whole thing about how he's only made four first team all NBAs, that's like a. Like Kobe was first team all NBA. Like for freaking a decade and a half, it felt like. But Kobe only won one mvp. They Curry has the four titles, Kobe has five. Curry never got to play with anyone like Shaq, but he did get to play with Durant. So he had the two Durant years, but Kobe had the three Shaq years. And it's just a good battle. And I think It's a more interesting argument than social media gave it credit for because it's one of them. For that ninth spot, I feel like.

Zach Lowe (93:33)

I'd have to go down and do it. But having done it before, like 11th doesn't feel wrong on its face. And if you started to list the 10 guys above him, I bet it would be pretty like at the very least, I mean, there's like seven that are just. They have to.

Bill Simmons (93:51)

I'll give you the list just so people know, like MJ, LeBron, Russell, Kareem, Magic, Bird, Duncan and Wilt. So eight guys, it's not really hard. It's not really hard to make it. Those are. Those eight guys have to be the eight in some way.

Zach Lowe (94:06)

By the way, I am glad we've reached a point. Not like you talked about Curry, Kobe being a fun historical argument for a while. The go to one was Duncan, Kobe. And I would always be like, I love Kobe. It's not like Duncan. Duncan is a top. Whatever. Like Duncan's above Kobe and has to be.

Bill Simmons (94:26)

Yeah. And you know, the older we get, we're going to have to defend that one more and more. But we were both there and it's just he has to be. I mean, Duncan, you just won 50 plus games if he was on your team. There was no ifs, ands, or buts. He made everyone better. And I just. He's now become the most underrated. Him and Hakeem, I think, are the two most underrated historical guys ever. And there's some other guys.

Zach Lowe (94:48)

Where's Shaq on the list?

Bill Simmons (94:51)

I have. I think Shaq might have been higher than 11. I can't remember. But Shaq's one that as the years have passed, I think he's actually. His stuff has kind of gained steam.

Zach Lowe (95:02)

Yeah, right. I think Shaq has been largely underrated until the last few years. Historically, like, there was just nothing you could do with Shaq. It was just like you could. There was there. You had no defense for him other than Fallon.

Bill Simmons (95:14)

Well, there's. Now Jokic is in that conversation too. And there's just a really fun Jokic, Shaq, Hakeem, Moses. There's this whole tier of centers that would be fun to argue about it too. But we should. I was thinking we should do a special podcast at one point where we just go curry versus Kobe versus West and try to figure out what's up for all. Because west is the most out of all those guys from the first 25 years or first 30 years. I really think west is the One you could put in a time machine. You could have just put him into basketball now, and he would have been completely fine. Even somebody like Russell, who is the greatest winner in the history of the league, they're still like, all right, he was 6, 9, 210 pounds. Like, I @ least want to see. Couldn't really shoot. I at least would have wanted to see how dominant he could have been compared to how dominant he was when he played. West is like, just fucking plug and play for 80 years of the league. There's nobody like him, you know? So anyway, we should do that at some point.

Zach Lowe (96:09)

He's one of my favorite. He's one of my what? One of my favorite players of all time. I've been. I've read every book about Jerry West. I've gotten to talk to him on the phone and meet him, which is obviously an honor. I think he's just. Like I've said before, like, when they. When people do who's the greatest Laker of all time, it's like, well, Magic, Kobe, Kareem should get some love. I'm like, I don't know. Like, Jerry west gets no love in this argument. The guy's like a lifetime Laker.

Bill Simmons (96:38)

Yeah.

Zach Lowe (96:38)

All time great player. Great at every part of basketball. And made the finals a million times and got the nickname Mr. Clutch. Despite losing in the Finals every goddamn year to the Celtics. He was still so good. Imagine that. Imagine now you lose in the finals, everyone just makes fun of you. Oh, you got no rings. No rings. That dude was so good that he got the nickname Mr. Clutch. Losing in the NBA Finals every year.

Bill Simmons (97:02)

Right. He won the 69 Finals MVP. He had Havlicek inconsolable after he won the 69 title. Being like, I feel so bad for Jerry west because he, like, literally did everything. The one thing that he didn't have was he never won an mvp. But I did this. In my book, he should have won the 1970 MVP. It's, like, actually kind of crazy that he didn't. So I feel like that's an honorary.

Zach Lowe (97:26)

Can I ask you one? Just. It's an unfair follow up to this, but it's another summer league conversation I had with one guy. What's the ceiling on Jokic's all time ranking?

Bill Simmons (97:41)

How many more years can he be at the level he's been at for the last five, in your opinion?

Zach Lowe (97:47)

I mean, I don't see why it's not at least five more.

Bill Simmons (97:51)

So if he does five more, I think he has to be on that Magic Bird level for connection to the teammates. Success every year probably needs. You know, I, I, I, I.

Zach Lowe (98:06)

It's funny, the ring culture, it's, it's the most.

Bill Simmons (98:08)

But the ring culture thing has become stupid because it's like, guess what? You know what matters? Winning the title. So you were the best guy when you played in, in a season. It's the best way we can figure out who the best guy was. I'm sorry, that still matters.

Zach Lowe (98:22)

So I was, I was listening, long overdue listening to The Steve Nash LeBron mind the game podcast about when the rings culture thing came up. Because I wanted to hear, I wanted to hear exactly what they said, full context. They didn't want to hear the sound bite. I didn't want to see the aggregation headline. I want to hear what they said about ring culture, what LeBron said specifically. And I texted Steve afterwards and I was like, man, I wish, I wish I had been in the room because I had like a lot of takes that I could have pushed back onto this. But like the other thing I said was if Jokic wins one title and that's it, he's going to be the ultimate sort of barometer for this because the statistics are going to say he's a top whatever single digit player of all time. And how do we talk about him with only one ring? Is it going to be like a Jerry west situation where we just sort of like, well, he's just that great. But if he just gets stuck at one and he's, let's say he wins another mvp. He's a four time MVP with one championship and these statistics like don't even make any sense. How are we going to talk about him? It's too early for that. But you know, I, yeah, I, it's, it's just, he's going to be an interesting test case if, if, and I'm Denver's got a shot to win it all this year for sure. Probably the next year after that.

Bill Simmons (99:37)

I think the big thing to remember when you talk about this stuff is what era was the guy in and how good was the league, how competitive it was. Right. Because when you talk about like the Bird Magic. Magic, Magic was in the west that just, they didn't have a lot of competition because of what happened to the Mavericks, what happened to the Rockets. Any sort of big rival that was coming kind of got vanquished and they were just in the finals year after year. I sound like a Celtic fan. Talk about the Lakers, but the Celtics were in that conference against Philly and then Milwaukee and then Detroit, and we probably had five really good teams. And they kind of split all the rings up right. Between four teams. I think now when I look at the yokich thing, I just think it's. I think it would be harder to do that. I think winning a guy winning three rings now in the 2000s with the especially the second apron stuff. And I think it would be even in a weird way, more impressive because everybody's better at putting together a team and we also have more high end talent. Right. Giannis has only won one title, too. LeBron's won. He won in 16 and he won in 20. So he's won two in the last 10 years. Curry's won. He's won four. But that, I mean, that team was a historical fluke with what happened with the Durant ad. Right. Upgrading from Barnes to Durant will never. We'll never see anything like that in our lifetime. And I just wonder like, is it just. Everybody's going to win one or two now going forward? Unless OKC can figure out how to be dominant. Right. That maybe they're a historical fluke. I don't know. But don't you just feel like we have too many good players for somebody and the sport's too hard to play? These injury variables, like, that's another piece like just to stay healthy. Almost feels like you need more luck than ever. You agree? Yeah.

Zach Lowe (101:29)

I mean, you look at just who's won all the multiple rings in the last look at who's won all the multiple rings in like the last 15 years or whatever. It's like whatever team's LeBron on and the warriors with their, their four in a short span of time, two of which are with Durant and an all time, one time only cap swag. And then you have the spurs who won, you know, five over an enormous period of time, which is in its own. You know, there's only one guy that.

Bill Simmons (101:53)

Was on, and that's a perfect example. They won five and really could have won seven. But you go back and look at some of those teams and those teams just wouldn't have won titles. In the league that we have now, you couldn't have won a team. You couldn't win A title in 2003 with Duncan in his prime. But then Robinson in a back brace, super duper young Tony Parker in rumors that they're trying to get Jason Kate instead of him. Man, who's not even close to Manu yet. You go through, it's like, how did that team even win the title, it was just the league was way, way, way weaker. And it just was, you know, like people from that era probably pushed back on it, but it just was like, go look at some of the teams we've had this decade. The teams are, you know, I think way deeper. Even a team like Indiana, which was unconventional, they had real depth. Like, think about that 2012 Celtics team that was playing Michael Pietras and Brandon Bass.

Zach Lowe (102:49)

I was gonna say Brandon Bass mid range jumpers.

Bill Simmons (102:52)

Or the 2010 Celtics that was relying on Rasheed Wallace for 36 minutes in game seven in the finals. Like nobody had depth like we have now. So I think it's going to be way harder.

Zach Lowe (103:04)

Brandon bass was guarding LeBron in Game 7 of the 2012 conference finals, like on purpose.

Bill Simmons (103:10)

I kind of like Brandon Bass. I thought like, he's one of those guys that just where the league went, he was one of the casualties. That kind of six foot, six out out, 15 foot, kind of post up game. Didn't have three. Yeah, he's one of those. Anyway, I could talk about this all day. Sacklow, you got podcast tomorrow. You're breaking down the East. I didn't look. What is the Celtics over? Under, by the way, I'm nervous. Ooh, 43 and a half. Seems high.

Zach Lowe (103:41)

It's not. That's not out though. Yeah, we're going to break down the east and we're going to have another. JJ is coming on for Mets Corner. Mets Corner is taking off. Everyone's favorite baseball segment.

Bill Simmons (103:50)

You didn't go to David Wright Day, did you?

Zach Lowe (103:54)

No, I was. I was planning to and then we had to change our plans. I was going to be at the Sunday game, so it wasn't going to be. It was David Wright Weekend. It was going to be the end of David Wright Weekend, but I did not end up going. We have tickets. We're going to Old Timers Day on in mid September for sure. When they're bringing back. They're doing Team Shea versus Team Citi Field in mid September. So hopefully the team is still in contention at that point. I'm not sure.

Bill Simmons (104:17)

All right. Thanks to Zach Lowe. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. I'm going to be back on Sunday with another podcast and then we have a very fun rewatchables on Monday. There's rumors you might be on a rewatchables in August.

Zach Lowe (104:31)

Before you disappear, I sent you a list of candidates, that's for sure.

Bill Simmons (104:37)

All right, Good to see you, Zach Lowe.

Zach Lowe (104:39)

Have fun, guys.

Bill Simmons (104:55)

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