Dame Goes Down, Jokic-Curry Beauties, Ant’s L.A. Takedown, and Shedeur Theories With Ryen Russillo and Van Lathan Jr.

Summary

Podcast Title: The Bill Simmons Podcast
Host/Author: The Ringer
Episode: Dame Goes Down, Jokic-Curry Beauties, Ant’s L.A. Takedown, and Shedeur Theories With Ryen Russillo and Van Lathan Jr.
Release Date: April 28, 2025

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Overview

In this dynamic and engaging episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast, host Bill Simmons dives deep into the exhilarating and tumultuous weekend of NBA playoff action. Joined by co-hosts Ryen Russillo and Van Lathan Jr., along with mainstays like Cousin Sal, Joe House, and other familiar voices, the trio dissects pivotal games, player performances, and strategic maneuvers that shaped the latest playoff battles. From Dame Lillard's unfortunate injury to the stellar performances of Nikola Jokic and Steph Curry, the conversation covers a broad spectrum of topics, providing listeners with insightful analysis and memorable moments.

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Key Discussions

1. Dame Lillard's Injury and the Milwaukee Bucks-Pacers Series

The episode kicks off with a heavy focus on Damian Lillard's injury during the Indiana Pacers vs. Milwaukee Bucks series. Simmons and Russillo express their concerns about Lillard's torn Achilles, speculating on the implications for both his career and the Bucks' championship aspirations.

[00:00] Bill Simmons: "It's a bummer, because when Milwaukee still seemed like they had a puncher's chance to hang around, they're favored tonight."

Russillo delves into the broader impact of Lillard's absence, questioning the Bucks' defensive prowess and their ability to contend without their star guard.

[05:46] Ryan Russillo: "The Pacers team, I'm with you, this team, I'm not going to pick him against Cleveland. But they changed. It felt like they changed into something far more serious."

The hosts debate the Bucks' defensive struggles and the Pacers' offensive improvements, ultimately leaning towards Indiana as strong contenders despite Giannis Antetokounmpo's presence.

2. NBA Playoffs Analysis: Clippers vs. Nuggets and Lakers vs. Minnesota

A significant portion of the podcast is dedicated to analyzing the exhilarating matchup between the Los Angeles Clippers and the Denver Nuggets. Simmons recounts attending Game 4 of the series, describing it as the best basketball game he’s seen in person since the 2018 Finals.

[38:27] Ryan Russillo: "They have the younger team and the better legs and they have Ant. Who's going to be the least tired out of all of these guys."

Russillo praises Nikola Jokic's leadership and stamina, likening his performance to that of prominent basketball legends. Simmons echoes this sentiment, highlighting Jokic's all-around impact on the game.

[42:54] Ryan Russillo: "He’s almost excited, because he’s going to barrel into him and then LeBron will get a call. So Randall just feels really comfortable because Ant is being any of the possessions that matter."

The conversation shifts to the Los Angeles Lakers' performance against the Minnesota Timberwolves, with particular emphasis on Anthony Edwards' breakout game. The hosts commend Edwards for his scoring and leadership, suggesting he could be the next face of the league.

[28:23] Ryan Russillo: "This is my favorite thing, international basketball. Yet another person really helped by their experiences abroad."

3. Player Strategies and Team Management

The discussion delves into coaches' strategies, particularly focusing on the Clippers' handling of their rotations and defensive tactics. Simmons criticizes the lack of rotation and the heavy reliance on core players like Kawhi Leonard and Paul George.

[80:53] Bill Simmons: "But he has to get out their rotation would be my guess. I thought he's got about five guys."

Russillo addresses the Clippers' defensive challenges, noting how their attempt to disrupt Steph Curry and Jokic has been both innovative and flawed.

[55:22] Ryan Russillo: "They need offense. They can’t have done out there. Just brick and threes."

4. Draft Talk: Shador Sanders and NFL Draft Analysis

In an unexpected twist, the podcast transitions to a discussion about the NFL Draft, with a particular focus on quarterback prospect Shador Sanders. Russillo and Lathan explore the reasons behind Sanders slipping into the fifth round, analyzing both his on-field performance and off-field demeanor.

[120:11] Ryan Russillo: "I think Shador Sanders is a much better quarterback than a fifth-round quarterback."

Lathan adds depth by examining the cultural and interpersonal factors that may have influenced teams' hesitations.

[125:27] Ryan Russillo: "Is there ever a chance that with Shador it can be about Shador and not about race?"

The conversation touches on broader themes of race and culture in sports, highlighting how certain expectations and biases can impact a player's draft position and career trajectory.

5. Cultural and Racial Dynamics in Sports

The hosts engage in a candid discussion about the intersection of race and culture in sports, particularly in the context of drafting quarterbacks like Shador Sanders. They debate whether biases surrounding confident Black athletes contribute to their perceived marketability and draft stock.

[127:56] Bill Simmons: "But how much of that has to do with the position he plays and what people seem to expect from the quarterback position?"

Van Lathan elaborates on the subtle biases that may affect Black athletes, drawing parallels to historical figures and their treatment.

[134:23] Van Lathan: "It would be silly to look at the draft. After a quarter a black quarterback went number one and went..."

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Notable Quotes

• Bill Simmons on Indiana's Defense:
  "[06:33] Bill Simmons: 'If you're telling me could I have Indiana in round two or could I have New York in round two as an opponent, I'm taking the Knicks 100 times out of 100 in that, aren't you? Wouldn't you rather play the Knicks than Indiana?'"

• Ryan Russillo on Giannis and Milwaukee's Future:
  "[20:31] Ryan Russillo: 'At 35 and 36. So I think the feeling around the Giannis conversation has always been a little Garnettish...'"

• Bill Simmons on Jokic's Leadership:
  "[42:54] Bill Simmons: 'He’s got a taste of it. I have some ESPN notes... He was so good last night... He's a psychopath. He's screaming at everybody.'"

• Van Lathan on Shador Sanders:
  "[125:27] Ryan Russillo: 'Is there ever a chance that with Shador it can be about Shador and not about race?'"

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Concluding Thoughts

The episode wraps up with reflections on the intensity of the playoff games and anticipation for the upcoming matches. Simmons and Russillo express optimism for players like Anthony Edwards, while also voicing concerns over team strategies and player health. The hosts emphasize the evolving dynamics of the league, highlighting how emerging stars are beginning to challenge established legends.

[105:43] Van Lathan: "Hell, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no."
[106:00] Van Lathan: "I think we're probably all seeing that now. I will say this though..."

The podcast concludes with lighthearted banter about attending games and personal anecdotes, leaving listeners eagerly awaiting the next episode for more in-depth sports analysis and lively discussions.

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Final Remarks

This episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast masterfully blends game analysis, player evaluations, and broader cultural discussions, offering a comprehensive look at the current state of the NBA playoffs. Whether you're a die-hard fan or a casual observer, the insights and banter provided by Simmons, Russillo, and Lathan offer valuable perspectives on the evolving landscape of professional basketball.

Transcript

[Bill Simmons]

You're listening to the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. FanDuel has made it easier than ever to see how your bets are doing without even opening the app. Now you can get the latest updates. Follow along in real time directly from your phone's lock screen. Yeah, or Apple Watch. No login required, just head to your My Bets page to turn it on if you don't already have it. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app today to get in on the action. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of this episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus at President select states gambling problem. Call 1-800- Gamble or visit rg dash. Help. Com Coming up, a wild, raucous weekend of NBA action. It's all next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network where I have a new rewatch was going up on Monday night. It is a one for us. It's just me and Chris Ryan. We went old school. We just picked a movie we really liked that's on Tubi a lot. It's called Someone to Watch Over Me. It stars Tom Barringer, Mimi Rogers. It came out 35 years ago, maybe even longer than that, and directed by Ridley Scott. And we love it. So we just decided to dive in. I'm going to make it up to you the week after because we're doing a huge movie the week after. So there you go. Last episode of Celtic City is going to be on HBO, 9pm ET. That's it. Nine episodes and we're done. This was an episode that we worked on not knowing how last season was going to play out. And then of course last season played out with the title so we had to mix some stuff around. But I'm really proud of this series. You can watch all the other episodes on Max and then this will be the last one and then binge it if you haven't watched it yet. Maybe wait till the NBA playoffs, calm down a little bit and dive in. But we're really proud of it. If you're an NBA fan, I don't understand why you wouldn't enjoy watching this. So there you go. Coming up on this podcast. So this is a weird one because Ryan, Rossella and I went live right after the Indiana Milwaukee game, which featured unfortunately a pretty dramatic moment. Not great for Dame Lillard, but so we talked about the whole weekend and then me, Risola and Ben Lathan, we Taped right after the Lakers Minnesota game and talked about the NFL draft as well. So that's the second hour of the podcast that's already up on YouTube. So if you're watching this live, watch us live, and then you can go watch that video as well. So pretty action packed Sunday here on the BS Pod. First, our friends from Pearl Jab. All right, we are here. It's 9:00. Rosilla is here. We already taped an hour earlier this afternoon. You can go watch it on my YouTube channel. Me van Resola. We covered the Lakers, and that's coming up later in this podcast, too. Rossillo. I was all excited to talk about what a great basketball weekend this was. And then a damper in that Milwaukee Indiana game. It looked like Dame, I assume he tore his Achilles. We've seen enough of these now to think that that's probably what it looked like. It wasn't great. And it really feels like we are now at the finish line of this Milwaukee era. So we'll start with the Dame piece because it's just been star cross, really, since the moment he showed up in Milwaukee. He's in his mid-30s, he's a small guard, tough to come back. Anyway, feel bad for him, this never worked out. And then big picture, there's a lot of Yanna stuff to talk about. So you tell me, where do you want to start?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, look, I think if Dame were healthy going into next year, you could do what a lot of teams do and kind of talk yourself into, like, well, if this works and, you know, tweak here and this guy's more comfortable and we have a full training camp and all these different things. It's the first thing I thought of was, okay, now I think it'll change the conversation considering what we're talking about, how much he is owed and if. I mean, I know Bucks fans can't stand this stuff, but I think this ramps up the speculation and probably the most speculated topic in the NBA in the last two years. I would say there's more gossip about Giannis ever getting to that point if he would ever want to, because, look, even with Dame, this team isn't close like this series is. This series is alarming, I think, for Milwaukee because I think a lot of Bucs people are, hey, you know, it's not like we're going up against the one seed here. Like, let's see what happens. Have the best player in the entire series and this thing really isn't close, other than Gary Trent going crazy in game three.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I felt, I mean, this was my favorite bet of the entire first round was Indiana to win game one and Indiana win the series. I think Indiana's underrated. I thought Milwaukee was overrated. I think Milwaukee loses the series regardless of what happens with Dame, which is why it was such a bummer, because when it happens in the series, when Milwaukee still seemed like they had a puncher's chance to hang around, they're favored tonight. Right. They're down two on the series. They're favored minus four tonight. You never know, he could get hot. They have Giannis, who's the best guy in the series. But I just continue to think Indiana is really good. I can't think Cleveland is fired up to see them in round two. And if you're telling me could I have Indiana in round two or could I have New York in round two as an opponent, I'm taking the Knicks 100 times out of 100 in that, aren't you? Wouldn't you rather play the Knicks than Indiana?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, I still think the Brunson, especially with today, the reminder of like, I think that high level stuff, as far as the scoring, it's still better than anything the Pacers can offer. But, you know, last year the Pacers got to the Eastern Conference finals because of their offense and because of the teams were injured.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So that's part of it. And you know, despite them being competitive in these conference finals against Boston last year in some of those games, those are really good games. And I think all of this stuff, the truth is told, in those last two, three minutes of these type playoff games, like we see it time and time again, where you go, okay, well, this is really where, you know, we separate the men for the boys. But their defense was a mess. And so I think going into the series, one of the things that was undersold was, you know, after the All Star break, there's a Pacers team that went 20 and nine. They were eighth in the NBA on defense.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

You know, Milwaukee, who couldn't quite figure it out the entire time, had a nice record after the All Star break, but they were 16th on defense. And you know, I look at tonight's game and at one point, Milwaukee, shooting 43% from the floor, they're 13 of 30 on threes, 43%. They're plus two in free throw, makes rebounds about even. They were four less than the Pacers team. They only had seven turnovers and they were down 22 points.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So you run through that and you go, oh, they're probably in it or they're at least winning and they were down 22. So I think this Pacers team, I'm with you, this team, I'm not going to pick him against Cleveland. But they changed. It felt like they changed. They morphed into something far more serious and they play like 11 guys, which I'm really curious to see what Carlisle is going to do. Do you think he thought so little of the Bucks that he was like, I don't care If I play 10 guys in the first quarter of a playoff game because he's done that?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I think they're super confident in the series. I just like the Bucks just aren't good enough defensively. By the time we started taping this, the pacers had like 34 assists in this game. When you're in the high 20s and up in assists, that tells me two things. One is your team likes to move the ball. And two, you're probably playing a team that can't, you know, kind of recover and rotate in time. So it just, it confirmed everything I thought heading in the series. I just didn't think the Bucs were just good enough as a team. Defense. I think it's a weird team. Like they really need these weird Porter, these six minute stretches where Porter just gives up Minson offense. Cause other than that, what, what else do they have other than the honest piece and now Dame gone, that's it. So you know, I think big picture vom Indiana. This couldn't have turned out better. We might be able to get rid of these guys in five, right? Cleveland's going to get rid of Miami in four. They'll just that that series will start a little early, but not too early. Five days to really circle each other and look at each other and I think, I don't know, man. I would probably pick Cleveland at 7 at gunpoint. But I really want to look at this because I think Indiana has a real chance in the series. I really do. I think they can hang with them. I think it's a nice matchup. I think they their guards against Cleveland's guards. I think they can throw some punches and make them work on defense. I think they have three point shooting and they have a bench to throw at them that can match Cleveland's bench, which I think was a huge advantage for Cleveland this year. Now Cleveland brings in their bench, but Indiana is bringing in good guys too. I think Neesmith putting him on Mitchell and having him chase him around, that's not nothing. And I think they can at least make Cleveland Sweat. I think Cleveland's really good. We've been talking about them all year. But I also think Indiana is really good. I think they have an identity. I think they know who they are. So do I think Cleveland's going to win? Yeah, probably. But do I think they're psyched to see Indiana? I don't.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, this is the part where I probably push back a little bit. Go ahead. I think Cleveland's really good. So. Yeah, you know, unless the Pacers have turned into that, I'm not saying they can't get a couple games here, but there's a difference between, like, do you feel like Cleveland is going to be threatened in those closing moments of multiple games? And I guess you could make the argument and say, well, last year against Boston, I don't know, there's just certain games where I watch, and maybe it's the preconceived bias of going into a series, but there's games that I'll watch where I just go, I don't like at zero. I know the score is four points, but there's zero fear that this other team is going to win four, six points or whatever. So I'm sure the Pacers are going to have a night where they shoot it really well. But, you know, they had to. They didn't. It didn't matter. Giannis could have gotten 50 a game. I mean, the numbers we had seen from the individual matchups, whether it was seokaments, Giannis, they were pretty bad. Turner, they were even worse. And it really doesn't matter because to your point, I mean, Trent has to go crazy in Game 3. The Kevin Porter Jr. Minutes are like, he's talented, but I don't know that I would call him good. You know, before tonight's game where he went off, you know, he had a huge second quarter. He went off in garbage time, too. But 23 minutes a game, he was 29% from the floor, 17% from three. Kuzma's plus minus was terrible. I mean, the Bucks were so bad around Giannis, that Giannis net rating going into the night's game in these three games was plus 0.9. He wasn't a full point positive. That's how bad everybody else was around him. So, you know, you could say the same as Miami is zero threat. And you never really feel all that threatened. I just. I'm going to be surprised if it goes seven. I would be against Cleveland. And that's more of about what I think Cleveland is capable of building towards this moment.

[Bill Simmons]

If you look in last 25 regular season, Cleveland was seventh net rating and Indiana was ninth. The Indiana stats, basically, for the last two thirds of the season, they were a top eight team pretty consistently. And that, that was why I just couldn't believe the Indiana did Indianapolis, Milwaukee stuff. I thought they were clearly a better team. And even if you spotted, like you said, if you spotted Giannis 38 and 17 every game, I still think Indiana wins the series. Let's. Let's go big picture. Oh, go ahead.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I just think there's at least like, Jokic is the factor of game four. Like, that's, that's the part of the Milwaukee conversation leading into. It's like, what if that guy goes nuts? And.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I think that's what happened in Game 4 for Denver because there was a lot from the guys around him that I didn't like.

[Bill Simmons]

But I can't wait to talk about.

[Ryan Rosillo]

That game, which is spectacular again. But there's just, there's just not enough. And the fall off is so bad. I mean, even Bobby Portis, you're like, hey, he could have a game. Yeah, maybe went for 28 one game and he goes for four in the next. And that's Bobby Portis.

[Bill Simmons]

Right. So Milwaukee wins the 21 title. They lose to Boston in seven. The next year in round two, they lose to Miami in round one. One of your favorite round one series ever, the Jimmy Butler series. They lose to Indiana last year in round one, have some injuries. They lose to round in round one. This year they've had three coaches. They have that Dame trade that turns out part disaster to begin with, and then he gets hurt and makes it kind of a full disaster. If you look back at the last two years, the assets they gave up, they. They're in real trouble with draft picks, which I think they even could have started talking about on the broadcast. They don't have their pick this year.

[Ryan Rosillo]

You want like.

[Bill Simmons]

No, I mean, I. It's. It's so much bleaker than just, oh, man, our second best guy is probably out next season and we don't have a bunch of assets coming in. They have a swap with New Orleans in 26. That's New Orleans call. Right. So start there. They're 27 pick, right? Yeah, yeah. They're 27 pick goes to New Orleans. They're 28 and 30 picks are swaps with Portland. That's Portland's call. And I think one of them then becomes the 28 pick, then becomes a second swap with Washington. So then they get the third worst pick that year. And then their 29 first goes to Portland, so they don't have their pick the next five years. So when you think about like, oh, they could trade Giannis, blow it up and rebuild, they can't rebuild because then I'm their picks. This is an even worse situation than Brooklyn. So whatever they do, they almost have to like, stay competitive in whatever trade they get back. And I was looking at the teams that were the possibilities. I hate doing this, but why not? And it's Houston, I think has to be a consideration because Houston could make a 4 for 1 with picks, get Giannis, keep a couple guys and be really good. Brooklyn has been the rumored one, but I don't know if Brooklyn can give them enough picks back that they could still stay competitive. OKC has to be mentioned. There's a Knicks trade with Towns and pick in and Obi or Bridges for Giannis, like something like that that I don't think is realistic. And then Cerriti's Orlando Magic, I think those would be the five teams. Right? And they're not giving up Paolo for Giannis, I don't think. But could you do Franz and some other Black and a bunch of picks and, you know, maybe. I don't know. But if you hear all those teams that I just listed off, what was the one that jumped out to you.

[Ryan Rosillo]

If Houston gets bounced in the first round? You know, I pushed back on you when you started bringing up the Durant stuff after Game one, just because it's just you and I doing our back and forth, but I don't know that you were wrong. You know, there was another piece I read this morning that was basically hit on the exact same thing. Like, they had to get game three without Jimmy Butler. And the offense continues to be terrible even with Jalen Green's huge night in in Game two. The problem is, is he's your number one option offensively, and you don't quite know, like, your number one off option. Like, even if it's not super efficient, you're still supposed to get like 25 because you're. You're just going to get so many opportunities. Your usage rate is going to be so high. Even that felt like Van Fleet. So look, they've done a really good job.

[Bill Simmons]

You forgot Sengun was a little Tobias Heresy in that Game three. It was like, hey, it's Shengoon. Yeah, I didn't realize you were still here. I thought you left because I do.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Think he's done a good job and like, seeing how he's being played where he's reminding him he can stretch. Like, I wouldn't say stretch the floor, but stretch the paint, maybe, is the nice way of putting it, where it's like you have the touch to be able to kind of pull up if Draymond's going to play you in the restricted area. I think there have been times I've actually been impressed, looking at Chengun, kind of reading how they defend him anyway. None of that's really that important. But as good of a job as they've done, as much as we all like the roster, we talk about it all year long and how exciting it is, they have too many guys like Reed shepherd not playing at all for a team that needs offense. Speaks to like, do you really know what you have with Jabari? What's the contract situation there? The Jalen Green thing they had to get creative with. Shingoon is probably a guy just based on the size part of it. Tari, is he better than Jabari? Would you rather have him? Would you rather have a man than any of these guys? I mean, Cam Whitmore doesn't even play. Like, there's.

[Bill Simmons]

So who would you keep? Who? If you're trying to get Giannis and you're obviously keeping Thompson, I think that's the one guy we're like, we're never trading him. Sorry. Can we get Giannis? Can we get Thompson? Pretty much everybody else is a conversation. I think so.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Why don't you. Rank. Would you rather get rid of. I understand you're saying no to Amen. Even though I think the limitations in his offensive game, when we argued about this months ago. I'm not taking a victory lap. No, I'm not talking about.

[Bill Simmons]

No. I mean, if he's not. If. If it's like he has to be in the trade or we're not trading Giannis, that's a different conversation. But I'm trying to do this while keeping tops.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah. Thompson's one. I think I'd still rather hold out hope for Jabari because of his shooting.

[Bill Simmons]

I still like Jabari.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I feel like there's so much more there. The way he uses, the way he's being used on that team versus what I think might be lurking in there. They're basically like, go stand in the corner, right? Play some defense. Go stand in the corner. And that's all we were really looking for from you. I actually think in this Golden State series, I wouldn't mind if they ran some stuff through him. Anyway, so do you have Tari ahead of Jalen Green?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Oh, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I do too. I don't think that's a crazy opinion.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I would go further.

[Bill Simmons]

I think tari should play 40 minutes a game. I wouldn't take him out.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I'd like to see him unleashed for. Yeah, 30.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, just let him go.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So. And you know, who knows? Tari's like one of those classic players. A couple years from now, you're like, remember how much we liked him? Like, that was.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, maybe he's like a guy who looks awesome in 20 minutes, but if it's 40, maybe not as good.

[Ryan Rosillo]

How dumb do you want to get? Would you rather keep Reed shepherd or Jalen Green?

[Bill Simmons]

Man, has Reed done anything? Has there been one moment this year where you're like, there it is?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, the Phoenix. Was it the Phoenix game?

[Bill Simmons]

I, you know, I just feel like Jaylen has more, more value than maybe, maybe it's worth. If you're trying to win a title, I would say the seesaw. You could probably get more for him than you're going to get from him keeping him, but who knows?

[Ryan Rosillo]

OKC game, he went off 25. He was 10, 17.

[Bill Simmons]

Is there an Orlando, Is there a Franz Anthony Black and just a million picks scenario?

[Ryan Rosillo]

They're like, hey, we don't want to be able to shoot, but we want to do it differently.

[Bill Simmons]

We want a different way for you to pack it in.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Paolo. Because just as an official statement from me, I will not hear any palo negativity from anyone. Just. I know I don't have to say it to you, but like, if you want, you want to talk about this.

[Bill Simmons]

My favorite team's been going against him for four games. That dude has answered the call. He is a full fledged playoff guy and really gives a shit and has been playing his absolute ass off. And I'm terrified of him.

[Ryan Rosillo]

If Tatum were 31, would you trade him for Powell?

[Bill Simmons]

How old would Tatum have to be? 34.

[Ryan Rosillo]

That's pretty good.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it is a good one. Tatum, four years from now for pal, I definitely have to have a meeting.

[Ryan Rosillo]

He would be like, hey, we're not going to be off on this. I know I said you guys could go home on Friday.

[Bill Simmons]

Guys, I would need to stick around. We have a time machine trade to discuss.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Let's keep doing this. Cause I don't even know that if a guy just looking at the contract stuff here for Lillard, I do think that this is. Granted, they're down three, one, whatever. But I mean, well, this is.

[Bill Simmons]

We're going to find out tomorrow that he's probably out for the year. Barring a miracle, I think it would have to be a miracle for it not to be the injury we think it is.

[Ryan Rosillo]

He's owed about a hundred and thirteen million the next two years.

[Bill Simmons]

Next year, year after 54 and 58, something like that.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah. So at 35 and 36. So I think the feeling around the Giannis conversation has always been a little Garnettish, where you had heard for years, kg's like, maybe, maybe, maybe. And then I remember even talking to Chauncey Billups about it, which he shared the story. So I don't know if it was him off the air, on the air or whatever, just him saying, like, dudes were telling Garnett, like, you need to get out of there and go somewhere else, because, you know, Glenn Taylor, the whole deal, like, it's not going to work for you. You tried. You've been loyal the entire time, but, like, it's time to bounce.

[Bill Simmons]

And, you know, he already had. Unlike Garnett, he has the title. He won a title in Milwaukee, which is a different level of freedom.

[Ryan Rosillo]

But I, I still think it's. It's kind of nice, right? It's kind of nice that Garnett and maybe Giannis, if he shares those sensibilities, to think, yeah, I don't really want to be the guy that does any of these things. But I, I couldn't help but think it when Dame went down, because it's like, all right, so now you have 54 million in the guy that's supposed to be the answer to raising the ceiling. Who. If this injury is as significant as we think it might be, I wonder if that changes the summer. And if it does, then does it turn into a bidding war? Does Giannis get involved and say, hey, I'm only going here. So then the price of the.

[Bill Simmons]

What happens if San Antonio gets involved? What if they go fuck it and say, dude, let's what. What would it look like if Wemby and Giannis were in the same team?

[Ryan Rosillo]

But I wonder because of the pick stuff that you just ran through, which is serious. If they go, well, we'd rather run this with. With Jalen Green and Jabari and a.

[Bill Simmons]

Couple two, four for one and be decent. Yeah. Because we just saw Atlanta in that situation where they didn't have their pick, so they actually had to keep playing hard and ended up, you know, making the play in where I think if they had their pick, they probably. Once Jalen Johnson got out, they would have been done. Can I give you one more scenario? And I spent a solid 11 minutes deep diving this on Google.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Love it.

[Bill Simmons]

So Brooklyn has two versions of cap space. They have the cap space for a max guy, but they can also renounce some restricted free agents and really blow out their cap space. And if you look at what they have, they basically have $54 million worth of guys that are actually hardcore on the books, plus a bunch of restricted guys. And I was thinking, is there a scenario where Milwaukee says to Brooklyn, we'll trade you Giannis, but you have to also take Dame's contract in the deal and he'll be ready in a year, and that's part of the trade. You have to take them both, and we'll just figure this out with the machinations of it. And Milwaukee's basically. They just. They clean their cap because Milwaukee right now has Kuzma at 22 and 20. Congratulations, by the way, on that. Two more years of him. Portis for 13 next year, Connaughton for 10. Porter and AJ Green are five combined, and that's it. So if for some way they could put Giannis and Dame in the same trade to Brooklyn, that's the only team that would work and take some contracts back, but not a ton, and basically just have a full reboot. And I don't even know how realistic that is, but I had to mention it because I spent some time Googling it. It's a little unorthodox.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So the cap would be like 1:56 next year?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it's in the mid 1:50s.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Would they be able to do that?

[Bill Simmons]

It's kind of doable. They'd have to put like a couple contracts back, but it is, like, doable. They'd have to renounce everybody. They'd have to do what we've seen teams do in the past where they just. They cut their books, except for the guys on contract. So I. To me, Houston makes the most sense. Maybe he's deal breaker. To me, Houston makes the most sense because they have too many guys, as you mentioned, they also have a shitload of picks and including a couple really nice Phoenix picks. So would you say the Milwaukee situation is now bleaker than Phoenix?

[Ryan Rosillo]

No, because they still have the best player by, you know, despite how much I seem to like Booker more than everybody else. You're still talking about Giannis probably being the second best player in the world.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. If you were a gm, I'd be like, we should call Rosillo. He loves. He loves Booker. I bet he'd overpay for him. He's a huge booker guy. He's having drinks with Priscilla at the hotel bar. He just fucking loves Booker. I bet we can get one more swap in the deal. He'll just. He'll just. He won't be able to handle it. He's just going right in at him.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I don't understand the Giannis Brooklyn thing, even though I've heard it is. Why would he go there by himself?

[Bill Simmons]

It's basically so this. The analogy would be 50 years ago, literally 50 years ago, Kareem going to LA for a bunch of stuff and, like, play here a year, and then we'll figure out who's on your team, I think would be the idea. But then you lose another Giannis year, and he's had six, seven straight years of 30, 12 and six.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So Kareem was what, 27, 28 when he went to Lakers?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, well, he was. He was going to be a free agent in the. After the 76 season. They traded him a year early in 75. So he'd been in college four years. He'd been on the Bucs for like, six. So he's probably right around the same Giannis age.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So Giannis has got a couple years on him. He'll be 31 in December, though, so it's not. It's not like some massive gap. I don't know. It sucks. I mean, as if Milwaukee fans weren't bummed out enough, spend the first 20 minutes on this kind of deal.

[Bill Simmons]

Hey, listen, they won a title. Could be worse. Got a title out of Giannis. You had a great player who you drafted. Was he outside the lottery or right at the tail end of the lottery? I can't remember. Yeah, 15. You hit the jackpot with this amazing pick. You had a lot of good games. And now, unfortunately, this is how the NBA works. I. I was thinking, look, I'm.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I'm game for, like, talk. Talk me into why it's going to get better. I know. Yeah. As soon as Dame went down, it's the first thing I thought of was, okay, this may. May change the summer. I mean, I don't know, but you have to ask.

[Bill Simmons]

We're going to take a break for the podcast. Keep going on YouTube and talk about our two favorite guys. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Spring is here. My favorite time of the year. That means the NBA playoffs are here, too. What am I the most excited about? I'm excited to see if the Celtics can defend their title. I'm excited to see if Steph Curry and Jokic can keep going and going. And going round after round. I'm excited for the potential of an LA vs LA playoff series. It's never happened. Clippers, Lakers, Never in my lifetime. Is OKC for real? Is Cleveland for real? Is SGA going to prove that he is the best scoring guard in the postseason? Basically since Michael Jordan, Since Kobe Bryant? Is he on that level? We're all going to find out. There's plenty to look forward to on and off the court, like Michelobucha courtside. That's another thing. It's getting fans closer to the game with unique prizes. Plus they're giving you a chance to win tickets to the NBA Finals. You heard me. The NBA Finals, which I hope are in Boston. Just head to michelobaltra.com NBAFinals Michelob Ultra Courtside NBA Finals Sweepstakes. No purchase necessary. Open U.S. residents, excluding Maryland residents 21 and up. Begins 9:00am ET on February 16, 2025. Ends on May 5, 2025. See official [e-mail] Rules for Price and details. Message and data rate may apply. Void. We're prohibited. All right, Rossillo, you want to go Curry or you want to go Jokic? Where do you want to go? I'll let you choose your own adventure for this part of the podcast.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I was thinking about it the other day. Who are your five favorite athletes in your lifetime?

[Bill Simmons]

Non Boston.

[Ryan Rosillo]

No, just give me, give me. I don't know if I'll get to five, but like, give me the five in order, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Birds one Bird Esposito Yeah, I've had so many. I mean, we've had some good ones in Boston. Ortiz has to be in there. Bobby Orr has to be in there. Even though I barely remember his prime. Brady. I really love Gronk. Gronk was like everything I wanted from just somebody passing through my life for 10 years as a football player. He was great. But non Boston. Curry and Jokic are way up there for me with Jordan and Bernard King. I loved. I really loved Walter Payton for some reason as a kid.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I think that's normal as a kid.

[Bill Simmons]

Because I think, yeah, well, it sounded like he was on TV all the time, but I just loved him. I loved his football cards. I loved the clips. I was just always like wanted him to win. And of course he beat the Pats.

[Ryan Rosillo]

And he was awesome. Had a cool nickname. Yeah, mine's Barkley. It there never.

[Bill Simmons]

Barkley's one.

[Ryan Rosillo]

There'll never be anybody that touches Barkley. Chris Mullen's number two because of the St. John stuff. And again this is being young and being impressionable. I would say that 86 socks season. Especially being like a little league pitcher and seeing Clemens, especially that first half and being that into it, being a total Newt, just a nerd of a kid, like keeping score of games and stuff and just riding.

[Bill Simmons]

I've renounced Clemens. Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah. Well, that's fine. But Clemens. Clemens is probably the last childhood thing. Unless I wanted to go Walter Berry, but that's probably the last.

[Bill Simmons]

So mine was Fred Lynn. For a child. Fred Lynn was my favorite Red Sox player growing up.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Okay. He was, yeah. Cause for the Red Sox, like, I did love move on. But at that point, I was starting to like, phase out of it. Start talking to girls. Like, all right, maybe I'm not going to worship another dude this much, but what I'm saying is, I think Stephen is. It's top five for me. It really is. He's more so than any Celtic.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

You know, I don't know that there's anybody. I mean, maybe it's Brady, but again, I kind of cared more about Brady than I cared about the Patriots towards the end of. The point is, is let's start with Curry. Because I was thinking about this today. Going, do I. Like. Like just knowing that we can still have a Curry night. And for those that hate it, fine. I mean, it just sucks. Cause you're missing out on hating blowjobs.

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, how do you hate Steph Curry? It's ridiculous.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I just hate. I just can't believe it. Like, this age, we're still getting Curry that. We're still getting Curry nights, where for a half, it's like, he's going to. He's going to do. Because this. I was really worried about Saturday night's game being like, is this going to be this atrocious regular season, pre Jimmy Butler version of the warriors, where it's like they just don't have any kind of chance.

[Bill Simmons]

A lot of Kaminga isos. Yeah. So start Curry getting mauled off the ball.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Start with your talking points on the Warriors.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, Curry's 37. He's two years older than Michael Jordan was in the 1998 Last Dance season in the finals, Right. When Jordan was like, whoa, he's so old. He's still doing it. He's 35, you know, and LeBron's blown out the age barrier in a lot of ways. But LeBron is also this incredible physical specimen. And Curry's this guy that comes into the league and for the first four years, like, he, you know, he's Having ankle problems. He's in that Milwaukee trade. They give Milwaukee the choice between Monta, Ellis or Curry. That's where his stock was. And then he has this incredible 10 year run. And it started to feel like, you know, in October, November, it started to feel like we're at the tail end of it. It really did. Like his team wasn't good enough. The league around him was getting better and younger and, and just more athletic and faster. And it just seemed, it seemed like 22 is going to be his swan song. And then you watch him really, since this Butler trade. But games like last night, and I had just come back from that Jokic game, which I can't wait to talk about, and there was a weird similarity with the two performances where these guys are at such a high level now. The teams are throwing like the most complicated defenses at them. Weird wrinkles. Play to play double teams. They're banging them, they're doing everything possible to throw them off. And they just have such command of the offense down and what they want to do and when to pick their spots and when to the sense of like, ah, the game's kind of slipping, right? I got to take over the game right here for like three minutes, right. Jokic has the exact same thing. And even though those guys are completely different players, watching how they orchestrate the game and insert themselves in the right spots, I just think. I thought he was so good last night. That third quarter he had last night was unbelievable. And Jokic, his third quarter was even better. Jokic had 16 points and eight rebounds in the third quarter yesterday gets. Clippers just fucking annihilated them. But for Curry to do that against that Houston team with the length they have, with those wings, the guys they can throw at them, all the ways they were guarding him and the fact that they didn't have Jimmy. And then the other thing is Gary Payton won the game for them down the stretch. And you think like their 22 lineup now Wiggins is in there, Moody's in the Wiggins spot, I guess. But that was basically their 22 lineup. Peyton Wiggins, Draymond Curry, who am I forgetting?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Clay.

[Bill Simmons]

Clay. So who's. And buddy healed in the Clay spot. So you had the facsimile Clay. You had the facsimile Wiggins and then. But basically that they were super small down this. Did you think they were going to be able to get away going that small? That was like small.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Small. Yeah, I think I was always worried about it. But then you watch Houston's offense go through These stretches, and you're like, even if Golden State's getting stuck or Curry's missing some of these desperation shots, because I thought he had to get more desperate in some of the shots that he was making in game two, or, excuse me, Game one, when they won game one, then game three. So it felt like there was a couple more like, are you kidding me? Moments. But his control of this game and leading those Gary Payton cuts, where you just start to see. I mean, we even saw it somewhat in Game three of Detroit, where Cade started realizing, like, two are staying with me off of everything. Then Duran has to be ready to catch. And I think they hit Dern like three times in a row, and then eventually, you know, they're going to adjust and go, okay, we've got to pay more attention to the role guy here because he kind of figured it out with. With Houston and their defense to see a team that's this good defensively with this many options. And I know Brooks fouled out of it, but they were. It's kind of that mentality of, like, getting tired and making those mistakes, and it's like, oh, my God, I got to run to Curry. And Gary Payton's just eaten for free every time off of all of it. If Curry felt like he didn't have a good shot, I think the April 6 game, even though it felt like this warning to who Golden State was going to be facing defensively in the Men Thompson headlines and all that stuff, and I guess inside the building, a Houston staffer saying, belt to ass, belt the ass. Like the joy that you get in taking out Golden State in their building. It may have been a blessing in disguise for Golden State and Curry because I felt like his shot aggressiveness, not from where he would be taking it, because Dr. Talked about this, and I remember when he explained it was really great. He was like, look, I noticed that this is the way they were handling something off of any kind of ball screen. So I knew I had to be like, getting into my shot off of the catch because he couldn't close, because if I waited, I gave him time to recover. I felt like in this series, you can tell that that regular season game on April 6th maybe impacts Steph's decision making of, like, getting into his shots more instead of kind of waiting to read stuff. And then once they were just trying to defend him with everybody at the end, as long as you can catch the ball behind all that stuff, it's going to be really easy for you. And that's where Gary Payton was Was huge because, you know, Pajemski's up and down, Kaminga's all over the place. Draymond doesn't want to shoot. You don't really know what to expect out of any of the bigs. Like, I just don't know that that team's supposed to be a really good defensive team. The good part is Houston can't score.

[Bill Simmons]

They were super small, and. I don't know.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So Lakerski, I think, would throw into that. That 22 version. I think they like him better than. Than Buddy at this point.

[Bill Simmons]

Right. But they needed. Buddy was the Clay last night. I guess they were using him for the spacing, and he actually made some threes. Pajemski normally would be the guy in that spot. And they keep trying Kaminga now. Cause they don't have a choice. And it's just, you know, I think. I think the fruit's been out of the fridge for too long with him, unfortunately. I don't. I don't know if there's a lot there, but they had to win that game last night because I think Houston.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Had to win that game last night.

[Bill Simmons]

I. It was a weird. It was the rare game three must win. I agree. I. I felt like, you know. Cause now. Now I think Golden State probably has a series. It's so hard for Houston to score. I just hate their plays. I hate their offense. It's one of those teams when they're up 10, 12, they look really good, like they did in game two, but for normal games with. With real flow, and they need to. And I just don't trust anything they're doing offensively.

[Ryan Rosillo]

If Jimmy is limited, Houston still can win this series, right?

[Bill Simmons]

If he's fucked up for another two weeks.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, they have three days until game four. You know, we. I asked you when we did that, the part that's coming up with Van about who. Who Golden State would rather play between the Lakers and Minnesota, and you were pretty passionate about Minnesota. I think the one thing, if the. If Golden State win as small as they did last night against Minnesota, I think they'd have a little more trouble. Like, I think they'd have more trouble from a rebounding standpoint because Minnesota's a little more built to protect the boards, I think with smaller lineups than the Lakers. When Dodge, who had one rebound tonight. Incredible. Steph. Game. All right. You want to do Clippers?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Hey, can you double check the schedule stuff? Because my Internet now isn't working because. Are you sure? I thought. I thought Denver had the extra day.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, you're right. I fucked up. Oh, Golden State's tomorrow night.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, tomorrow, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Oof.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So that'll be interesting considering how hard they went in that one. But because I think pivoting into the Denver part of it, like, once you looked at the schedule, like, all right, well, Denver gets the extra day, even though they're both playing on Saturday. That's all.

[Bill Simmons]

So I went to game four Denver Clips. And I thought about this a lot because I'm trying not to be hyperbolic. And I've been to a lot of good basketball games over the last few years. It was the best basketball game I've seen in person since game one of the 2018 finals. Seven years. I did not, for the record, go to Game 4 of the 2022 Finals when Steph had his magical game in Boston. If I had been at that game, that probably would have been the best one I've seen. But game one in the 2018 finals, that was the crazy LeBron game. That was the J.R. smith time, the chair Smith, whatever happened at the end of the game and the overtime and LeBron had. That was the incredible LeBron game. These teams played so hard. Rosillo. It was refereed like a hockey game. Like one of those hockey games where it's overtime and the refs don't want to call a penalty on anybody and people are just fucking nailing each other. And Jokic was out of his mind. And Denver did the same thing JJ did today. He's basically like, my bench sucks. I'm going to see if I can try to win this game without bringing my bench in. Jokic played the whole first quarter, the whole third quarter, the whole fourth quarter, and I was sitting with Mike Ton, who I share my seats with, and the Clipper fans were bummed, and I was like, there was seven minutes left. They're down like 15. I'm like, I. I think they might be able to make a run. He never took any of these dudes out. And you could see Denver, you could see Gordon start to wear down, you could see Murray start to wear down. And even Jokic, who, you know, he always seems like he's worn down. Clippers make the big run. Crowd went crazy. And. And the ending was like nothing I've ever seen. So it was a spectacular basketball game. What stood out to you that this.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Clippers team, where I really like their matchups against what Denver has as far as options defensively, they had 65 points through three quarters. So, I mean, it's a 20 point game. And you knew he was going to keep everybody in because of the extra day. And they come all the way back to make it 99. 99. It was 97, 96. So that was their first two.

[Bill Simmons]

Two big shots in the last minute that I think probably win them the game. If he makes either of them and he missed them.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I'm probably a little too biased about it, just because I thought the Clippers are going to win this series. And now I don't know. Cause I'd expect Denver at home.

[Bill Simmons]

I still think they're winning.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I do, too. I felt better about them through the four games than I have Denver. And I think there are some similarities in the way Curry's like, okay, this is what they did to you last time, and this is how they try to w. And these are the things that I need to avoid. And if I have a little bit more of a window, have a quicker trigger here. I thought Jokic had a quicker trigger in this game. The quickest of any of the games, because, I mean, it just didn't take enough shots in Game three. We talked about it at the end of Game three going. Or maybe we talked about it at Game two, and then I talked about it in Game three. Whatever. It's the same stuff, but just that. To ask him, oh, yeah, it was because of the Westbrook pass, right? Like, do you think there was ever any hesitation and you were like, absolutely not. Because that's the way he sees the game. And he knows in that moment it's the right play. Even if you're like, am I sure I want to do this with Westbrook? I thought, you know, look, he had a million Turnovers in Game 2. He's had some really bad moments for him, for the standard that we have for him defensively in the first half. He also, just as an aside, as much as I love watching him play, the fact that he thinks he gets to talk to the ref every fucking time. Every time. And it's not. It's not as nasty as Luca, so Luca's always going to get more shit. But it is consistent. It is as consistent where he has to check in with those dudes every single time. Which I also think speaks to something that's really funny about this idea that he'll just retire in two years because he likes horses and has an accent. Anybody that's this competitive, no way. Like, I just don't know that he's in a hurry.

[Bill Simmons]

So funny you said that. I. I said that yesterday watching the game. First of all, he was a Maniac, he.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Right. So when I see that, I'm like, so this maniac, this guy's going to retire because he's just over.

[Bill Simmons]

No way. So with the thing, the stuff he was doing, first of all, he coaches the team now, remember, like Bill Russell was the player coach in the late 60s. Yoga, I think, coaches the Nuggets now on the court. He tells people where to go. There was this one moment at the end of a quarter when the Clippers were inbounding under the basket and Jokic just goes to the bench and calls for DeAndre Jordan, brings him off the bench and puts him under the basket where he wants him to be for the inbound pass. But he's telling everybody what to do at all times. He's basically making the meals, he's cutting the food for everybody and he's feeding them. And it was, I was saying last night, it's the highest level I've seen somebody to go to in person since that LeBron 2018 game and the LeBron 2012 game in Boston. Like, the stuff that he's doing, how great he is in all these different ways, it's unbelievable. And you always feel like he's going to make a play. Doesn't matter how you defend him. He, if, if you're doubling him, he finds the right guy. He's doing everything. Porter was making threes last night, but it was just awesome to watch. And then you think it's going to be a blowout and then Kawhi is like, you know what? Fuck it. And just takes over the game for like six minutes. And even did the thing where he takes the steal at mid court for Murray, where he does the thing where he's like, I'm going to take the ball. Is that the ball? I'm just going to take Jamal, I'm just going to take the ball from you now. He just took. Was just awesome. It was such a high level game. And I can't tell you how physical it was. I don't know how it translated on tv, but this was like fucking. This was like game seven hockey. Like bodies flying, people ramming into each other, people like, you know, pulling each other backwards and over. And it was so fucking good. It was like, these are two really, really, really high level teams. I think either of these teams could, could, could go a couple rounds. I. Okay. Versus okc. It gets tough for Denver. No bench. Clippers, I think have a better chance. But I will say the Clippers stumbled into one thing. Marcel. They went that small lineup which they'd been hesitant to do with all the shooters. Cause they always had done out there. Derek Jones or. But there was always one guy where Denver was like, go ahead, we're going to give you that one in the corner. Just take. We're just keep firing away. We're good. So finally, finally the Clipper said we're going to put all our shooters out. We're going to play this weird zone and we're trying to you up with it. And it worked. And they, they Denver up for three, four minutes. And then finally Yoke had shifted to try to attack Bogdanovich. He shifted his. You know, he. His computer brain just figured it out. He's like.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Exactly what happened. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And then he goes. He's like right here I will go to this right spot and this will be how I fuck up the zone. And so it. Eventually he figured it out. But I think they're gonna have to play that lineup is my point. Because they need offense. They can't have done out there. Just brick and threes. Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

When it was 96, 95. That's a 30 to 9 run by LA. And I'm with you. Like they're the zone. Felt like it was fucking him up on the catches a little bit. It's easier to kind of help him. I think LA has been really consistent that they don't want to send hard doubles. They want to send the second defender when he's going into his move. Unless Zubac has gotten to the point where he can keep them really far away on the catch. But at 97 a piece like the move that he makes when it looks like it's a little Dirkish in that Dirk was always three twirl the triple.

[Bill Simmons]

Twirl trip his triple axle.

[Ryan Rosillo]

And you're thinking is this actually going to be good?

[Bill Simmons]

Like he's going to.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Is this going to even going to be a good look? Forget if it goes in. Is this going to be a good look? And then he makes. I don't know what the hell is going on with his free throws right now. But yeah, look, I mean that's why he's the best player in the world. And he figured out a way to do it. They played six guys, sort of. Watson played 13 minutes. So they went all in on this one. And then they had to play like the full 48 because they blow this 20 point lead. So.

[Bill Simmons]

Right. He thought he could finish the game with like seven minutes left in the fourth quarter and sit those guys. There was one thing that happened. Pickett comes in in the first quarter, and, um, he got stripped in the backcourt and then he missed a shot and something else happened and they. And you could just see his confidence. It was like watching the 9th grader in the high school game who's like, oh, God, this guy's not ready. They pulled him out, they went to timeout, and the Nuggets were like, consoling him on the bench, like, yo, yo, keep your head up. It was like, that's how bad it was. Um, so I think they realized then, all right, we can't play this guy DJ played in the first half, and then the other one who played was Watson, but they were basically five guys and somehow avoided foul trouble. The other guy who was awesome was Gordon. He was possessed. He was like going after Kawhi. And the big picture thing I saw from them yesterday, because I really felt like. I don't know if you agree after game three that that team was ready to go either way. And you could have told me they were going to roll over in Game 4 and maybe get knocked out in 5 or 6, and that was it. And it was a fucked up season and they lost their coach in GM and the whole thing and they didn't have it. Or you could have told me, ah, they're actually going to fight because they won the championship two years ago and they have some real pride. They came out with, like, real pride. They were like, we're not going down this way. We're. We're throwing haymakers and we're ready to fight you guys to keep this, especially Jokic. And that was the difference. And I didn't know they had it in them, I got to be honest.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, I don't think. I thought that it would be. It would be. Well, look, I think anybody that watches Jokic and loves him as much as I would think anybody who's a ball knower and appreciate said ball, you know, it's kind of, you know, we'd already talked about with the Giannis. Stuff is like, can that guy. Can you. Can he do enough to keep you in a couple of these games? And then who knows what happens the last couple minutes? And I mean, it doesn't really feel like that game was that kind of game because they were up 20 in the whole thing. And I'm totally with you, Chonchar coming out there, and I'm like, what is going on? Picket.

[Bill Simmons]

I forgot about that.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, he had two minutes, like in every DeAndre Jordan minute. I'm like, I mean, it felt like they were playing three Guys going, who else in the playoffs would these guys be playing for? And I know, like, there's some hope that Pickett can be something, but he was just swallowed up. Swallowed up and lost it. Didn't know what. And now if you're on the Nuggets, you're like, where are we getting any carryover minutes end of the third or start of the fourth? And it's like, we don't have it. We don't have it. We have the extra day and everything will be fine. But, you know, this is, I think, why we yell so loud about Jokic being mvp, because I. I'm really surprised considering the options the Clippers have and the options the Denver Nuggets do not have, that this is a 2, 2 series with Denver going home.

[Bill Simmons]

And we gotta mention. I mean, there's some. I hate to do it. It's the cliche. But the Clippers in the playoffs, like, this is just. This is just them. This series is 2:2. They blow game one, which we did a pod after that game, we were like, they should have won that game. That was stupid. Then they lose this game at the buzzer. Basically, this ties into. They moved here in 1979. They've had nine first round exits, five second round exits, and one west finals. And that's it. They've never won a series in less than five games. They have a bunch of playoff terrible memories. And what was different yesterday? And Mike and I were sitting there, we were watching Ballmer at one point in the fourth quarter when they were coming back, and it was so loud. I mean, it's like it's a top four atmosphere like that into it. I'm telling you, it's top four atmosphere in the league right now. But the way how the fans are on topic, it's super loud. Like you can really. It affects the game.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Can you give us the other three just for Boston?

[Bill Simmons]

Definitely. Msg? Definitely. And I think OKC gets really, really loud. Like to the point that your head hurts. I would say those would be my three Golden State used to be. I haven't really felt the Chase Center. I don't think the Chase center probably has it in quite the same way, but we looked over a bomber and it honestly looked like he was having an orgasm. He was so. It was just like he spent all this money building this building, hoping the Clippers are going to be good. He goes in on Kawhi, that crazy extension you and I never would have allowed him to do if we were conciliaris, right? We would have thrown our bodies in front of that keeps Harden. We would have thrown our bodies in front of that and just had this amazing, amazing playoff game. There's celebrities everywhere. Bob Iger sitting next to Michael Eisner. How about that? Those two guys sharing the tickets, they, they. But everywhere. And it's just, it felt like a Laker game. There was real energy and it was great. And it was an awesome, awesome basketball game. And we're like, wow. Ballmer did it, man. This is it. This was like, would have been like the dream to have a playoff game that was as good as this. But Jokic is going to be the enduring memory for me for that game. He's just so incredible and we've talked about him all the time, but the level he went to in that game yesterday and how competitive he was. You're right. This guy's playing until he's 40. You can't turn that off. Like, he's a psychopath. He's screaming at everybody.

[Ryan Rosillo]

You seem horny tonight.

[Bill Simmons]

I, I love basketball this weekend. It was great. It was a great. Until the Dame thing was a bummer. But I thought Curry, Jokic, that Lakers, Minnesota game, which we talk about later in the podcast, and what, what Ant was able to do against those guys, this is like, what a, what an incredible run for the league right now, don't you think? Like, this is one of the best 24 hour stretches the league's had in a while.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah. Clay, Travis, how about tweeting about the ratings?

[Bill Simmons]

Get Bobby Burak on that one.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Look, I realize group economics wasn't a great Jersey idea either. You know, I just think that the ratings thing, no one's going to care because they're going to say we're in the tank for the NBA. But if you look at any neutral conversation about this, the beginning was really bad. It was also going up against the Dodgers and Yankees, World Series and another presidential election that had coverage. Yeah. And then the NFL and the ratings have been really good and they did some historical stuff the first couple weekends. And like, look, man, you want to tell me football's more popular? I concede that.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Point taken. Well, another thing's happened. They now we're. We're developing some history with some of these guys. Right. Like Tatum and Edwards, some of the younger guys. It's a little familiarity now. Cleveland maybe will get there. People know who SGA is. Casual fans, I think know who is.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So the Luca Lake a little better too. I mean, but I was the godsend. I'll admit, when I Saw the first weekend playoff numbers and where some of that stuff was. I was like, holy. Like, I was. I was surprised. And I think there's a lot of rating stuff that you can play some tricks with. But I. I just felt like the start of this season, it was turning into this massive victory lap for a bad. I mean, it wasn't even a quarter.

[Bill Simmons]

The less they can go against football, the better the league's going to be. And that's the thing. They need to figure out how they can shift the schedule a couple weeks here and there just so they can avoid it. And that's it.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, but football's going to do this Christmas thing because it's about family. So that's good. That is true for the people who have kids.

[Bill Simmons]

Big, big family league. So who do you think wins? Clippers, Denver? Who would you have?

[Ryan Rosillo]

I'm going to stay Clippers because I still like their options. I am a little worried about the Harden game that may be looming because we haven't really gotten it. He's been really steady.

[Bill Simmons]

I thought we were getting it yesterday. Mike and I were complaining because Mike is a Philly fan. So he's like, oh, here we go. Philly Harden. He was like fucking pissed off. And then Harden, I thought really was a big part of that comeback and was attacking Christian Brown. And you know, I. I like the decisions he made. I thought he was competitive.

[Ryan Rosillo]

You know what he's doing a really good job with too, is he's, you know, sometimes simple. Doesn't get any praise. Cause it just doesn't look all that great. But there's just some little stuff they were doing where they were trying to get Jamal on Kawhi. Cause like, Jamal just can't really defend anybody. And I think Jamal's stat lines look like he'd tell you he's in this. But I would say the eye test of the four games, you feel like there should. There needs to be more. There needs to be more out there, right?

[Bill Simmons]

They're throwing a lot of people at him though.

[Ryan Rosillo]

No doubt. I mean, Chris Dunn is that dude.

[Bill Simmons]

And Chris Dunn's a nightmare. That's it. They're playing him even though he can't shoot because of all the other stuff he's doing. Quarter to quarter.

[Ryan Rosillo]

And I know I talk about this front office, but I just think that they understand it. They all rave about Ballmer and everybody knows Ty Lewis really good. And Van Gunny gets all sorts of love as well. But you know, they recognize Chris Dunn as somebody. They said, you know what if we have enough scoring around it, like, we can live with this non offensive guy as a perimeter player. Which I think most times when you're trying to figure out who are your five, and in this case, who's your closing five, it's like, can we. Can we survive with somebody that is so defense first? And I think Zoo's improvement is a big part of that. Obviously Kwai being healthy and then Norm kind of finding himself again a little bit later in the series. But there was just some really simple stuff they were doing. And it was funny because at that point I was like, oh, Denver screwed. They get it to Kawhi. Murray's in trouble. Jokic does like a Luke Cornett double team where he's not doubling Kawhi. He's just like, hey, I'm going to be the next level of defender that you have to go past. And Gordon ends up watching the whole thing. He loses Derek Jones Jr. On the baseline. It's like, unacceptable. You can't lose him. They lose him on the dunk the whole time. And I'm like, okay, these guys are exhausted or they're just fried right now.

[Bill Simmons]

So Gordon was dead at the end of that game. Somehow he had the strength for the alley oop.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I thought it was funny too, when he and Harden got into it, that they came out of commercial and they were next to each other like minutes later just laughing about the whole thing. Yeah. Oh, geez.

[Bill Simmons]

I had a Chris Dunn point that you're like, 19, 20, 22, Marcus Smart, 20, 25. Chris Dunn parallels without the. Without the. I've got this. Yeah, he's like. Like Marcus Smart with the. I've got this pills that he's taken. I have another one for you that you're gonna love. You know what was.

[Ryan Rosillo]

What was the Marcus Smart thing three that you went to live against the Lakers? I think I remember you just tweeting me. Like, if you're wondering, I was not a huge fan of that Marcus Smart three point attempt.

[Bill Simmons]

There was so many. So many rough ones. I think I blocked them all out. You know how Jerry west is the logo.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Sure.

[Bill Simmons]

I think we should call Ben Simmons the half court logo. Because he sees that thing and he comes to a screeching stop. It's the electric fence. Like a dog. I thought of that yesterday. I was at the game, I was like, I had to tell Rosilla, we got to start calling Simmons the half court logo.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I got to tell you, I. There's a few things I enjoy. You know, I. As. I've aged. I'm like, what do you really. What makes you happy? You know, like, what's, what's a good day for you? When's the last time that you were Peak happiness Anticipating what Ben Simmons is going to do and how he's going to try to get rid of the ball in a way that looks like he's actually playing basketball. When he crosses half court, it's so much fun.

[Bill Simmons]

If they foul him, if they, if they intentionally foul him, wants to put him on the line, I think that that'll be it. He'll be on the bench with the Norma Tech on his leg. From that point on been like, I don't know if I can go. Calf's kicking up again.

[Ryan Rosillo]

He's flying around a little bit defensively. There's.

[Bill Simmons]

He was getting feisty with Jokic. Yeah, they, they were going at it. It was impressive. Let me ask you this. What do you think the line is on fanduel for the Clippers Nugget series right now? Games 5 and 7 are in Denver.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Well, when the line came out, I was surprised when we were going through it before the series started, right where Denver was minus 150, I think for the series and then it switched right. Didn't it switch to the Clippers for the favorite before the series even started. So if it was, it was minus.

[Bill Simmons]

118 for the Clippers starting the series and now it is 22 with 5 and 7 in Denver.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I'm going to say it's somewhat similar in the Clippers favor still.

[Bill Simmons]

The Clippers are minus 164 favorites.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So the Vegas seems to be aligned.

[Bill Simmons]

Vegas is like, how are these guys? How is this two? Two is Vegas's thing. The wares are minus 360. Minnesota is minus 500 as we covered before. And then in the east all those series are.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I gotta be honest with you, I think that's a heavy number on the Golden State one.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, because you could see Houston. The problem with Houston is they could just make some shots and all of a sudden it's 2:2. Right. Especially if Jimmy doesn't play. And Kerr is definitely looking at the bench going, ah, can I get 18 minutes out of Quinton Post? Can Kaminga give me like seven minutes right now? Like, I don't think he has a handle on the roster would be my guess. I thought he's got about five guys.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I could trust fighting his ass off out there in the second half too.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm surprised he hasn't played more and I'm actually surprised Jackson Davis hasn't gotten.

[Ryan Rosillo]

A sniff when they get him.

[Bill Simmons]

Isn't he on the team? Still remember two years ago? Remember he played him at all?

[Ryan Rosillo]

No, I know he's completely out of the rotation.

[Bill Simmons]

Couple more quick things for you. Orlando Celtics. Do you think Orlando could be like genuinely good next year?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, I thought they're going to be pretty good this year. So I would.

[Bill Simmons]

If they had sugs in this series, how many games would it go?

[Ryan Rosillo]

They have figured out Boston as much as they can. I mean, how much as you can figure out Boston while also still losing them and never feeling that they're actually a threat to win series. They won Game 3 because Boston shot 3 of 17. But the numbers are the numbers and it's very clear they do the best job of limiting them to the three point line. And you know, I, I think Stan made a really good point. Was it today? I think it was today, yeah. Cause out of a timeout they ran like a really good screen where Derek White came out of the top and caught it. He was like, you know what was nice about that? And I'm paraphrasing, but he was like, it was a play. They like ran a play because they are so determined to beat you by hunting matchups. And we've been over this. Like when it doesn't look good, you're like, man, you guys are kind of predictable and you do the same thing and then it's kind of dribble, dribble, dribble and it's all the shit we talked about last. And then you again, they've won an NBA championship. You look at their offensive numbers. They're all really, really good. So what can you do here by. By critiquing something that seems to work at a really high level, but to do it against Orlando where all the guys are huge. I wouldn't say Powell is necessarily a good defender. You're trying to hunt him. Franz is really good. Anthony Black is really good. You could probably attack whole Anthony a lot of different places, but there's. It's a good defensive team. So are they getting Boston to be like, sure, cool, switch, do whatever you want, like, but you're not going to beat us up the way other teams like just can't do anything with you because we have a lot of size and we have kind of a defensive first mentality and they've limited over the three point line. So if they had Suggs, I think they'd get two games against Boston.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I agree. Well, there, there's also. There's something they did in the last game that my dad was all fired up about. Orlando in the game, they won. They, they were crashing the boards, right? They ended up with, I'm looking it up, 15 offensive rebounds in Game 3. And they were sending three, four guys to the boards on every shot, sometimes four, because they weren't worried about the Celtics running off a rebound. Because the Celtics are so deliberate at this point. They were like, let's use that against them. We don't have to worry about, like, how the lakers, they'll send LeBron almost like a wide receiver down the, down the court, like for those long Luca passes. Orlando's like, we know you guys aren't going to do that. You guys want to walk the ball up, so we're just going to crash the boards. And I thought it was one of the reasons Boston lost the game. They never adjusted to it. Boston wasn't like playing with any pace. I also think, you know, if you don't think Drew Holiday is like, massively important to the Celtics, you had to watch these last two games because in these crunch times when he's not out there, you really feel it like he, I trust him. Other than Tatum, I trust him the most on anyone on the Celtics. And he's always in the right spots. He's always going to get one big rebound. He's going to make one defensive play. He'll hit a three in the corner. Like, you just know he's going to do stuff. And I, I, I just felt like they really missed him the last two games. But Orlando was a guy short. I think black, something's there with black. I like what I've seen from him. I think you have him, you have Suggs, you signed Ty Jerome, Palo another year. I think Wendell Carter has shown that in a playoff series, he can play with some physicality and some toughness that I think really matters, you know, in some of these seven gamers, so that the pieces are there. I could see us going over locks in October with House, right? Like Orlando, 49 and a half over. I think this is the year. Blah, blah, blah. It's a, it's a good. They're going to lose the series, but I think it's a good outcome for them.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I'd argue the drives from Franz and Paolo are better than the drives from Tatum and Jalen. I don't know what the points per shot is on this stuff, but it just feels. Or maybe I'm just more impressed them. I mean, Franz had a drive today where he, like, drives right into the paint from the side and then he like. Yeah, I think it was against Porzingis.

[Bill Simmons]

He's had a couple drives on Porzingis where he made it look like Porzingis was like 6:2. He's used Porzingis height against him.

[Ryan Rosillo]

It's been impressive, the field goal percentage for Paolo on the drives. Like he's fifth in the NBA right now in the playoffs on drives. But I don't think this is actually sort of the new stats here. Maybe I'm getting a little carried away with it. The no Drew part of it, you know, clearly that worked really well against Paolo in game one. You know, you missed Tatum in the other game that they win. So maybe it's, you know, the other.

[Bill Simmons]

Problem is when you go 8 for 32 in every playoff game, you're probably not going to win a playoff series. Like Orlando just can't shoot. No.

[Ryan Rosillo]

If KCP could shoot and they had Suggs. I don't always love the Wendell stuff. I know he had some moments there in game three, but I think he should be a backup for a team that's good in the playoffs and not your starting pot.

[Bill Simmons]

Knicks, Detroit, before we go, any takeaways? Boy, incredible Towns game. That's like one of the great Towns games in a while. And he even capped it off with a dumb foul at the end when he intention he got the fifth foul out of nowhere. And I was like, come on, Towns, you might go to ot, you're gonna have five fouls. But I thought he was awesome.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, he's really responded since the end of game two. Super aggressive coming out in game three. And you know, he had eight in the fourth quarter and Brunson had 15 in the fourth quarter. So if you're gonna get those guys scoring, it will that's going to be a better option than whatever the one two punches for Detroit. I've been more impressed with Detroit though, than I expect. Just being in these games and fighting through it and having moments where it looks like it's going to be over. Especially after game one, where game one felt like a real lesson. Like, hey, just so you understand, there's a level to this and fun little third quarter, but we're going to put a 21 nothing stretch on you and close that out and then for them to come back and respond and win game two at that place. So I feel like Detroit's growing up quite a bit in this. I usually think that's one of the most overrated things ever of like, hey, get in there, get some Playoff experience. A lot of times I'm like, what? And then cost yourself a lottery pick for what? For getting your ass kicked by a higher seed and all this stuff.

[Bill Simmons]

This is one of my stances you're stomping on right now.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I've heard you say it. You said it to me 20 years ago.

[Bill Simmons]

We've been arguing about it for two decades.

[Ryan Rosillo]

You called into the show in 2003 and I'm like, what are you.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm like, if the Celts can just get in there, get some experience.

[Ryan Rosillo]

No, I think this would be huge for Brandon Hunter.

[Bill Simmons]

I think.

[Ryan Rosillo]

It is one of your tenants. I normally tell you you're wrong. I think it absolutely applies to this case of Detroit. That's not what you want. You. You don't want a moral victory because you feel like you're really, really close here. The problem is, is that you have to have Dennis match whatever the number two guy is for the Knicks, and that's just not.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, it gets worse than that because you, You. You're basically living and dying with Hardaway and Malik Beasley, which is fine in the regular season when you're trying to go like 46 and 36, but you're actually trying to win a playoff game and match baskets, you know, it's, it's. You can feel the talent difference. But Towns made. Towns made like a couple 29 footers in this game that swung the game. I actually thought Detroit probably should have won this game. When you consider the timing of the Brunson injury, the fact that it felt like Detroit was pulling away, the crowd was crazy. I'm sure Detroit's gotta be kicking themselves. And by the way, Kate had a wide open 14 footer at the end. You know, everybody was talking about whether Hart fouled Hardaway or not in the corner. And by the way, when a game's that physical, you know that I'm. I'm not good with that. The side in the game, when you've let everything go the whole game. Cade had. They got the shot they wanted. Cade was really good all game and got a really nice open 14 footer. And he missed it.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

They didn't even run a switch or a screen to try to get into something else. They kind of went early, which I, I'm wondering if that's. I'm not criticizing it. I just was surprised and like, all right, they'll probably figure out some sort of thing, but maybe they were afraid of bringing the second guy in and now Cade's going up against two. That's Usually what will be happening is that we don't want to use a screen here, even though it's going up against og, because even when they've screened OG off of him, I think just OG's recovery is. Has been really, really good in some of the Cade attempts I've looked at. I really like when they use OG to attack Cade, but you don't know what you're going to get with with OG all the time offensively, but that's something I think I've liked the times they've done it, and I didn't see a lot of that.

[Bill Simmons]

Would you ever not have OG Garden Cade?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I have so many issues with Tibs in this series and especially the game today, and that's the one. I just can't. I would just have OG on Cade the entire game.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I'm pretty sure he is the primary assignment.

[Bill Simmons]

Bridges was on him a lot today in that game. There's some stuff Tibbs does. Like, I don't understand why Brunson brings the ball up every time. Every other team takes that pressure off the guy when a team's pressuring, like, just let Bridges bring the ball up. Save those miles and those minutes on Brunson, and they're just like, yo, just work your ass off. Bringing the ball up against Schroeder, who's an absolute pest. He's one of the three pests in the league. I don't understand why you're putting the miles on him. They played a lineup in the second half with no. With with no towns and no Brunson tips. It's like one of those guys has to be in the court at all times, period. Like, what are you doing?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Asara would probably love that idea of Brunson not bringing it up, because he's just going to be. The number of times Brunson has gotten sar with his stuff. And today wasn't even bad. I thought it was hilarious. That game two people were just, you know, again, it's kind of like how much people are really watching or how close they're watching. It's like, man, this Brunson flops a lot. He's out there hunting a lot of stuff. Like, dude, I'm telling you right now, that's not even close to the worst that we've seen from Brunson.

[Bill Simmons]

No, no, he's. He's been on a seven this series.

[Ryan Rosillo]

My favorite series ever was Sixers fans having the audacity to complain about Brunson in the playoffs last year.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, when they had a beat on their team.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Right. So this is the deal. Like, Sixers fans can't ever bitch about somebody else. Knicks fans can't because of Brunson. Atlanta's been covered. Dame, we're going to be nice right now.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, Rockets fans going forward, grandfathered in for 30 more years because I have.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Some Nemhardt video I may submit to the league and be like, are you going to let this guy run through someone's spine one day?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

And then give him the end one. Like, what the hell? Nem Heart's not hunting for fouls. He's, he's trying to cause permanent limb damage to anyone defending him.

[Bill Simmons]

Wait, can we do, can we do the most boring segment you could do in a pod and Praise somebody for 30 seconds?

[Ryan Rosillo]

I just have to just add this. Bickerstaff's challenge in the first quarter is the single worst challenge of any coach in the playoffs right now.

[Bill Simmons]

The challenges are getting worse. I know.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah. See, I think some coaches are a bit like state DAs, where they go, I can't win this case. You want to keep a clean record. Like, I think there's some coaches out there going, no, I want at the end of the year be like, he was 31 and 12 in challenges. What a fucking brilliant coach. It's like, But Bickerstaff gets so caught up in the emotion of the game. Like, I almost think he was like, you know, as much as I'm upset we're down in this series, at least I get to these officials for five minutes on the court and feel justified about that play in the corner. That in the moment, I'll admit, I know the two minute reports that there was contact. I didn't think it was like the worst thing I've ever seen. That's a non call, which isn't going to make Detroit fans happy. But anyway, I know you had a point. I wanted to get that Bicker staff thing in there because I, I, I couldn't. I was like, dude, you're going to use your challenge right now on an out of bounds in the first quarter?

[Bill Simmons]

I've been kind of blown away by Cade and I know he's, the turnovers are too high in these playoff games. The what? He's navigating against those Knicks perimeter guys. The burden that he has. But also, like, there's real leadership from him already and he's pretty young, you know, like there was that Ron Holland moment. Ron Holland had to get mad because, you know, it's, it's in the bargaining agreement. He got mad at Somebody and stood over somebody for a second and Cade came flying in and shoved him out. Like he just has a real wherewithal.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Of what's Rambus flashbacks.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, he's. I just think he's. He acts like he's 31 and how old is he? Like he was in the draft three years ago.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, I mean, maybe he's 23.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know, 22. Oh, I can't.

[Ryan Rosillo]

He was in last year's draft.

[Bill Simmons]

He's 23 years old. Yeah, he's 23. So.

[Ryan Rosillo]

No, no, no, no, no. Ron Holland.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, I'm saying Kate Cunningham.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Oh, oh, okay. I'm sorry.

[Bill Simmons]

No, RON Holland's like 15 years old.

[Ryan Rosillo]

A man's.

[Bill Simmons]

So Kate Cunningham is 23 years old. And I just think that's the win is you're putting him in this atmosphere with the crowd. He's got a taste of it. I have some ESPN notes. Maybe don't go to a commercial when Jalen Brown is Jay. When Jalen Brunson is leaning against the scorers table holding his ankle in complete agony. And do the. We'll be back after this and then you're gone for four minutes. That's one. Number two. I don't think you need to show Jalen Rose 15 times after you fucking laid him off two years ago. Three minutes before he was about to do a get up segment and gets a call and says, don't go and get up because you're about to be laid off. Maybe don't show him over and over again during the game. You motherfuckers aggregate that. I don't care.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Well, allow me to zag. Doesn't Jalen want to be on tv?

[Bill Simmons]

Good, Zach. Maybe there's truth in both sides. Hey, there's Jayla Rose. We completely blindsided him two years ago after he did 15 years of great work for our company. He seems happy. Just classic. Just kick it over that place.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I. We avoided two. Like when Jalen Brunson goes down, tries to stand up, falls back down. I was like, okay, there's one. Like, I just assumed there's two big ones coming. They're going to potentially alter the course of history. And then Ant goes down today when LeBron rolls up on him like a football play.

[Bill Simmons]

Solomon Hill Reverse.

[Ryan Rosillo]

It was a totally clean play by LeBron. There's nothing dirty about that whatsoever. It's a playoffs. The guy's diving on the ground. If he doesn't go for it, then it's Cam Newton in the super bowl and people are going to Hate on him there. I don't think there's anything. You have a look in your face that you think it maybe was a little on the. On the edge. I don't know.

[Bill Simmons]

It was. It was exactly the same play as the Solomon Hill play.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Right? All right. Do you think it was the same play as the Marcus Mark Curry play?

[Bill Simmons]

I never like when anyone dives at the ball when they're going into somebody's legs, but in that one, it. That seemed pretty fluky. Ant was putting his foot back to plant right as LeBron was diving. I didn't. I didn't feel like there's any ill intent at all.

[Ryan Rosillo]

None. I didn't think so either. But when Ant's down. And by the way, we thought he went down in game one and he left and the way he was grabbing his calf. So this is. It's just crazy that we've had two from Ant where you're like, oh, and then we had one from Brunson where he stood up and then fell back down. It's like, no, but he's actually going to get 15 on you in the fourth quarter.

[Bill Simmons]

Do we put a moratorium on the Willis Reed references for, like, a round one playoff game? And it's game four? Willis Reed, like, one of the greatest moments in the history of the league. And by the way, his hip muscle was completely torn off his body and he got shot up with a horse tranquilizer just to drag his leg around for, like, two jump shots. I just feel like that should be kind of put in the. In the safe as we're not allowed to compare things to that.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I would do horse tranquilizers once, but that's it.

[Bill Simmons]

But that's it. That's all I would.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I wouldn't want to get used to it.

[Bill Simmons]

All right. I think we hit everything because we have the rest of the pod with Van that you can hear. Right. Right after this break on the podcast for the YouTube audience, we are going to say goodbye. Rosillo. Enjoy all the hoops this week. I'll see you. Now that you're the new Lakers, Diane can. And I'll probably see you at the Laker game on. On Tuesday.

[Ryan Rosillo]

There's a chance I could be there. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. All right.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Ant in person.

[Bill Simmons]

Can't pass it up. Ant, Lebron and Luca, all in person.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Jackson.

[Bill Simmons]

Heard of all of those guys? Jackson, Hayes. Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Getting like. No one has a higher usage. Motherfucking refs. And that guy, he gets it in in those two and a half minute shifts, right?

[Bill Simmons]

He's got to get it all done. Good to see you, Priscilla. See you next week.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Thanks.

[Bill Simmons]

All right. We are recording a little after 3:30 on Sunday afternoon. We told Van Lathan to come join us and talk draft between the two sets of games. But the Lakers game was so awesome against Minnesota. Minnesota goes up three one that we're just going to do this now. Out of sequence. Rosilla, your guy. Anthony Edwards, 43 points, 9 rebounds, 6 assist. Assist. 44 minutes. A key cut in the last 15 seconds of the game during a broken play and they end up beating the Lakers three games to one. There was a lot of high end offensive chess going on there with Edwards. I was really impressed. They're doubling them. They're not doubling him, they're doubling him again. And he was just kind of figuring it out. I thought that was the best game I've seen him play.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I loved it. I think he's just turning into a star in a way. I think we thought we were seeing it last year, so maybe we're just doing the same thing all over again just a year later. Just love to see him get to the free throw line. After 26 field goal attempts in game three and zero free throw attempts, which is fucking impossible. But they found a way to do it. So look, I think it was all about the size part of it. Even though the Lakers five guys they play are big players, it's not like they're small where you're absolutely right. Like I love, I'm still like adrenaline rush after this game because of the chess part of it going, is JJ going to survive playing these five guys? His best five guys, Is he going to survive playing them the entire second half? And like Luca allows LeBron to coast a bit. LeBron was great tonight. Reeves had a great second half. Rui hit every shot that he had to hit because people were helping off of him. But in the beginning of the fourth quarter and you're watching going, it looks like they can drive on these dudes. I was upset Finch called the timeout to save it before the three minute mark. I'm like, why are you calling a timeout to even give these guys any kind of break? Because I think that's what J.J. was hoping. Will there be stoppages? Can I get some energy back in these dudes? And look, it comes down to a make or miss either way. And LeBron made some great defensive plays there.

[Bill Simmons]

But wait, all the points. We got a lot of points here.

[Ryan Rosillo]

No, I, no, no, I know. I just, I, I love.

[Bill Simmons]

Can we go back to the five guys, though, the JJ rolling the dice.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, whatever you want to do. I'm too excited, so take over.

[Bill Simmons]

No, J.J. did the same thing the. The Nuggets did yesterday. They're like, our bench sucks, and we're.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Playing again an X. We have the extra day off.

[Bill Simmons]

Extra day. Can we win this game in the first 42 minutes and maybe stagger the minutes so that the last six minutes don't matter? And they go for the kill the same way the Nuggets did. And yet the Timberwolves hung around, hung around, hung around, hung around. I thought LeBron looked exhausted, and yet he made, like, three of the better defensive plays of. Of the playoffs. Van, when you watch, I know you're a Laker fan, we should mention. Yeah. So you're watching this and they're just not. JJ's like, fuck it, no bench. LeBron just run in the corner during some offensive possessions. Maybe you can grab 20 seconds there. Maybe there'll be a challenge. Are you like, why aren't you playing the bench? Or are you like, this is the right move?

[Van Lathan]

It felt like this. Was that it. It was the right move. It just it. To be honest with you, you know, I never get mad at coaches when they tighten up rotations in the playoffs. Everything is so high. Leverage. You go with the guys that got you there.

[Ryan Rosillo]

You.

[Van Lathan]

You trust the guys that. That got you there.

[Ryan Rosillo]

That was a tight rotation.

[Van Lathan]

That's a super tight rotation.

[Bill Simmons]

A super tight rotation. Tighter than.

[Ryan Rosillo]

No, no rotation. It wasn't a rot.

[Van Lathan]

There's no rotation.

[Bill Simmons]

No rotation, rotating.

[Van Lathan]

No rotation at all. So I never. I never get on coaches when they do that. Particularly jj, who is really in an interesting situation as a coach. Right. He gets a team that has the bones of a decent team. Then he gets Luka. The expectations ratchet through the roof. Now he's in the playoffs against an opponent that everybody expects him to beat, and they are not beating them. And they are getting outplayed, out, hustled, and to be honest with you, kind of out coached as well. So the fact that he decided that he was going to kind of go with the guys that he could trust the most didn't really surprise me. I am really, really impressed with Anthony Edwards, though. Like, ridiculously impressed with his ability to figure the game out on the fly and really be, like a dominating figure for the Timberwolves to rally behind.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, you're watching this. You're going. They can just stay within, like five to seven with five minutes left. They have the younger team and the better legs and they have ant. Who's going to be the least tired out of all of these guys. I thought what LeBron did coming off Friday night. Rasila, I think you and I saw it the same way. That Friday night game was super physical, grueling, and it almost seemed unfair they had to play like 40 hours later. It just seemed like a bad schedule spot for them.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Not even I thought JJ was going to go the other way and be like, I. I got to play the bench guys more because my guys are going to be dead from Friday night. It was the opposite. And LeBron, especially the first three quarters, I don't really understand what I'm seeing anymore at age 40. For him on defense, this is like, he looks like 2013 Miami Heat. LeBron in some of these moments. But they had those two guys humming in the first half and they're still, what was it, like a three point game at halftime? I just don't think they have enough. And at the same time, I would not bet against them coming back from three one. Do you. Are you in the. I think this is too tall of a task for Lakers zone, or do you think there's a path for them?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Well, you know, like after the first game, you're. You're thinking, okay, that was really ugly, like seeing it happen, you go, oh, my God, like, they're too big for them. Like, this is actually like a real problem. And then you're like, yeah, but Naz reed and Jaden McDaniel scored 48 points and nobody missed any shots. It felt for like, for like a half an hour, real time. And then you have the Luca game in game two, we're like, all right. And now Jaden wasn't very good. So this, this makes a lot of sense. I mean, Jaden wasn't really much tonight. Nas didn't make any shots, so it's not like they got the full compliment game. Luca, it's. It's just so hard to doubt him. But, you know, look, he. He had the stuff where he kept getting stuck in the trap and I. And I don't know why he would keep doing it, other than there was a lot of times it worked. Like, it would work out of the trap and LeBron would end up with the ball, then he would make the perfect read and then switch, swing it, and just Rui was so huge in that third quarter. But I do think there's just more moves for Finch, where JJ basically admitted tonight, like, unless Luca is making insane shots or he and Lebron are taking turns. You know, I don't. I just don't know that they can, they can hang with this team. Because the same thing happened on Friday where when it mattered, it felt like Minnesota had a few more things they felt good about. Even though the number one score to number two is a big drop off. And you know, look, Randall's had a bit of a rebirth here, which is one of the biggest reasons why I think they were motivated to do that cat trade. As bad as it looked for so much of the season, it was just there's going to be so much pressure on Ant in the playoffs. The secondary option needs to be able to create some stuff on his own with the ball. And I think that was even though, you know, Randall's not exactly like everybody was going, oh my God, they got Randall. I think that was part of the basketball approach to having him there. And you're seeing it.

[Bill Simmons]

My favorite Randall stretch I've seen Van probably ever in his career. From a two way standpoint, I'd given up. This would be a good. It be a good website or like where you just track where you like where it's like, have you given up yet or you're still holding on. I would have just checked the I've given up box on Randall. I love the way he played it. He also seems physically like just not afraid of Luca or LeBron. And I think that's one of the problems for the Lakers in, in this series is Minnesota has kind of the same kind of size, like just bodies to bang with them, at least make it hard for them. But were you ever out on Randle? Where'd you stand?

[Van Lathan]

I felt like he had kind of outlived his NBA usage, his usefulness at like a high level playoff high. I didn't know that we. Yeah, I didn't know that we would ever see him being a difference or a difference maker in a playoff series. Again. It just seemed like it was petering out. And when you look at it, the trade looked like it looks now like a trade that worked out for each team. You know, you see Katt and the Knicks have a big win and he's playing really well. And Randle has really found a way to fit in with the Timberwolves in a way that I did not think that he would be able to. I thought that he was going to stop the ball. I thought he was going to clog things for Ant. I thought he was going to be someone that Ant would get frustrated with. And you did see that at times. This Year, but once they kind of figured it out and once the pace of the game slowed down a little bit in the playoffs, you kind of seen his usefulness. He really is. He's an athletic guy who can guard a lot of different guys. He's decent in an ISO. You can't leave him open. He'll make the shot every now and again, so. And he's tough. Like, to Rossillo's point, they are a tough team, and the Lakers are kind of soft. They're a little Hollywood getting pushed around by these guys. It's depressing to see. Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Wow. Good culture.

[Bill Simmons]

I never. If. I never thought. I never thought Randle would learn how to not be a ball stopper. I'm still not convinced. Are we sure, Priscilla? Are we sure that's a new chapter of Randall, or is this just a phase?

[Ryan Rosillo]

No, but I think what you're looking at here is. I don't know, did they. Do they promise Jackson Hayes that he gets to start? Is there some sort of bonus in his contract for playoff starts?

[Bill Simmons]

Like, literally, Coach's son gets the place short for dinner.

[Ryan Rosillo]

And I'm not arguing with it. Like. Like, if you're a Laker dude and you've got a pod or whatever, who's ever on TV or, you know, like, hey, they got to stick with Jackson Hayes longer. No, they don't. Okay. Like, I think JJ knows what he's doing on this one, but yet they keep rolling him out there to kind of start this whole thing. So really what it comes down to is, like, Randall's not afraid to take it to LeBron. That was one of the most glaring things in game one live.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

And I went, man, like, Randall doesn't give a shit. He's almost excited. He's almost too excited, because then he'll barrel into him and then LeBron will get a call. So Randall just feels really comfortable because Ann is being any of the possessions that matter. Ann is doubled. Okay. And sometimes Minnesota, like, there's all sorts of things that I love that the Lakers did that I don't like. Like, I thought DiVincenzo was a mess tonight. Rudy. They felt bad that he didn't take any shots, I guess, in game three. So they run the first fucking play for him. And guess what? He can't hang onto the basketball. I would challenge anyone. There's no one that plays regular minutes that is worse with the basketball in his hands. Like a jugs machine. If a jugs machine was hanging out with Rud, the draft gurus would give that Jugs machine, a fifth round grade and be like, it's not accurate enough. And you'd be like, that doesn't make sense. Usually jug machines are pretty accurate. Like they didn't complete a pass all day and so they still don't know what to do with the Rudy part of this. The elbow in the back of the head. LeBron was just like totally stupid in that moment. But damn, I think Randall just sees the space because you've got to still at least show to Nas. You have to show to. Nah, you have to show on Conley even though he doesn't really want to shoot. And then Jaden. And so I think when there's like two guys and one retreating off of ant, I think Randall is just salivating at some of this stuff. And that's why, yeah, I think he's still a ball stopper, but here I don't think there's as much of a penalty for it.

[Van Lathan]

But he's just been, over the course of his career, he's just been so bad in the playoffs. He's been so bad in the playoffs where teams have been able to force him to his weak side, completely neutralized his scoring. You just did not expect for him to contribute in any meaningful way when the stakes got to their highest. And of course he would do it now that he's skull fucking the Lakers.

[Bill Simmons]

And I have to watch him.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Well, look, I mean, you must have had flashbacks on that foul against Luka, because that was, that could have been the game. I mean, you held up, you played defense. There's four left on the shot clock and you foul them. And he was, dude, to his credit, he was upset with himself, not the call. But then I'm thinking of you van going, you must have turned to somebody and be like, this is why we got rid of that dude, you know, because the numbers have always been like, look at this. Go to Basketball Reference. You're like, how do you not like this guy? And you're just like, look, there's just a lot of in between stuff that you've never really liked.

[Bill Simmons]

So, you know, one other thing, like, like Reeves had a bad first half, right? But he has a bad first half. You don't, you don't notice there's guys that can be bad and you don't really notice for like an hour when Randall's bad. You just see it. You see it on his face. His body language is bad. You're just constantly aware. It's like this black cloud just goes over his head.

[Ryan Rosillo]

You wanna know why? That's such a good point though. It's cause he doesn't stop being bad when it's bad. He's like, I got this. You're like, dude, you don't. You don't.

[Van Lathan]

He'll fuck up three times in a row and then dribble the ball out beyond the three point line, call a defender out, and just like he's going to get in his bag. And I'm like, you watching? And you're like, randall, you're still in your bag, huh? Get out your bag for a second. But he'll do it anyway. But it's working. Look, you know what? You know what I was thinking as I was watching this game? I was thinking, in years past, this would have been exactly what the NBA wanted. They want ant in a series with LeBron where young dude beats old guy and becomes heir apparent to the face of the league or whatever it is. They want this. I'm wondering if they want it right now. I don't think that they do. Like, you know, this is probably with the Lakers and the Luca thing and everything. I think they probably want the deepest run for the Lakers that they could possibly get. But I mean, really, all NBA fans should want the coronation of Anthony Edwards and they should want it for him to take it from LeBron James and the way that the Timberwolves are taking it from the Lakers right now.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, the bummer is I like watching both of these teams and I feel the same about Nuggets, Clippers. I just enjoy all four of those teams. And we're going to lose too. And yet we're going to probably keep a couple teams I don't enjoy as much as we headed to round two. The thing with.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I can't believe these are first round. I mean, even if Golden State had Butler, like the fact that these are these six teams going at it in the first round, I don't. This is. We're spoiled.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, I was watching today wondering because Golden State, I don't want to jinx it, but I think winning that game, stealing that game last night without Butler was such a good sign for them. And I'm sure they're watching a game like today. They have a couple days off and that. All right, if we can somehow get by Houston, who would we rather play? And I, after that game, I don't even know what I would tell them because, yeah, the Lakers.

[Ryan Rosillo]

No, it's definitely the Lakes.

[Bill Simmons]

You think?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Because they know. They know there's no big version of.

[Bill Simmons]

It because they could just go small Ball against the whole time.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Maybe I'm too influenced by the last time I saw them play each other where the Lakers wanted to be small.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

And Golden State was like awesome. You know, like I, whatever, whatever happened in game three. I don't know that I feel like I've seen too many minutes where they're just getting beat on by bigger guys. They still may win the game, but I don't know if they're having a blast while they're doing it. So I would think they would be afraid of what Minnesota may be capable of.

[Bill Simmons]

Capable of the ceiling of Minnesota's higher. But you watch those two guys going at the same time today. Like, I don't. I think Minnesota has a better team. I wouldn't count the Lakers out in this series yet. Like, you figured they'll win game five. Van, I, I've, I looked already. I looked into the Future. It's a 65 to 10 free throw advantage in game five. That's that, that's the over under. But then game six, who knows? Let's say, you know, that those, they Lakers have had some guys who have been in some big games over the years. And then you have that fear of, like, if we don't take care of this now, we gotta go back to LA for a Game 7. Minnesota, I think, has a better team, though.

[Van Lathan]

I mean, I'm looking at it, I'm looking at the series and I keep waiting for the Lakers to show that they have an edge over the Timberwolves. And that moment has not come even in game two where the Lakers get the win. It's one of those wins where you go, oh, we didn't figure very much out in that situation. Like the tails.

[Bill Simmons]

It's a weird ant game.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, like, we didn't figure very much out. And it seems like when the Timberwolves need to make a play or when they need to batten down the hatches, that they have things that they can go to. They have easier ways to get stops and easier ways to get buckets than the Lakers do. And the Lakers seem like they're operating on a real high degree of difficulty with everything that they're trying to do. And it doesn't seem like over the long run they're going to be able to mount anything to tip the series, you know, on their side.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, they have to double ant. They have to hope whoever their smallest guy is and getting bullied by Rando or Naz Reed or whatever, there's a lot of things they're hoping don't Happen. The T Wolves basically just seem like we just have to make sure Luca doesn't get easy looks. Seems to be a lot of their strategy, though. Priscilla, this stat's interesting. Lakers shot 19 for 47 from three today. Usually if you're around 19, 20 made threes in the NBA the way it is now, that's a win, right? Like 19 out of 20 times. So if I'm the, if I'm JJ, I'm like, fuck. We played our five out thing. We dumped Jackson, Hayes finally. I tried to get away with no bench as much as possible. We made all our threes. I got a great game from Rui, I got a huge second half from Reeves and we still lost. Now what do I do? And I wouldn't know what to tell him.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I don't. No, I don't. I mean, Gabe Vincent flying around. Sure, if you want a little more.

[Bill Simmons]

Goodwin with more sprinkling of Goodwin.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Goodwin sprinkles. Yeah, exactly are Goodwin sprinkles. I think he's really competitive on defense, but he's not a very big player. And so I think he's. Look, he kind of got what he needed. He. He got the game from Reeves in the second half. He had Rui off of those traps. Felt like he was doing everything right. They even got a couple threes, I think from Finnie Smith. Yeah, they were spacing it out really well. LeBron living at the free throw line, but they were fouling him. I mean, DiVincenzo, some of these fouls that this guy will do. It's like, hey, you're not going to stop him. Like, LeBron was already a rid of the basketball and DiVincenzo follows through. Maybe I'm just annoyed because he argues it so much. And then you go back to the replay. Like, DiVincenzo is like a high school kid caught in the woods with a beer. You know, you're like, the chances of this guy telling the truth right now is zero. Like it doesn't matter what I ask him, he's just going to say, hey, dude, it wasn't me. So, you know, I. I think there's always like these interesting three four minute stretches where maybe somebody could hit some shots or you get some energy. I think the gamble that JJ had strictly was can my guys hold up enough physically if I do this to him? Because I don't feel like I'm necessarily bearing some other great options. And I think in a way they still kind of survived it. Even if I felt like off the dribble, you Know, like Ant, dude, he had a layup at 72, 63, or even for him, he went through four guys, and I thought, like, even, like, my expectations of him are so high that he's going to find a way to stop, turn the corner and get by. He's going to beat two. He's going to split double teams. He's going to get the angle, he's going to beat you to the spot. He went through four dudes, so I thought it was actually going to be worse with how tired the Lakers guys were. So maybe, you know, maybe being tired shows up on the inbound pass that LeBron loses in that spot. Round three, which is kind of lost in just the melee of all the events that happened to close out this game.

[Van Lathan]

Ant never plays. He always plays fearless, but he does sometimes play passive. And for whatever reason, he's not passive now. Like, you've seen him before. The soft double comes out there, and he kind of doesn't know what to do with it. You see games where he's too reliant on taking high degree of difficulty threes or high degree of difficulty long twos. You see that none of that now. And also he's playing mind games with LeBron James. He's getting into him physically. Like, these guys are rallying behind him. It's a big deal series for Ant right now, for sure.

[Bill Simmons]

That's my favorite thing, international basketball. Yet another person really helped by their experiences abroad.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Um, yeah, but he was doing this, like, when he was going at Durant, being like, I'm. Whatever. The fucking belt you think you had was like, this is mine. And what I appreciate is that he's qualified to do this because he's this special. And so him and LeBron going at it. And then, of course, he got called for the foul. But granted, he was on defense, but you could see that happening. It was really fun. And then they show the replay over and over again. I think we all enjoy that. Stuff like that, for me, is one of my favorite things about this. And it's not even being disrespectful. I don't think to LeBron, it's that ant, I think collectively the NBA fans would say, well, he can do it, right? You know, when Jalen Green is doing shit to guys that won four rings last night, I'm like, yeah, settled down.

[Bill Simmons]

Wait, you made that key point in the beginning, Marcel, about how he did this last year, too. But something feels different, and I think this is what it is. When he was doing, when he made his playoff run last year and had those 10, 11 games. We were like, shit, those look like Michael Jordan stats. What's going on here? The other teams weren't treating him yet like he's being treated this year. It was just happening in real time where you're going, man, this guy's kind of amazing. Like, what's. And then finally we get to the Dallas Sayers and they're like, all right, we're fucking, this is over. We're now treating him like he's a guy. This playoffs he's been treated in the, in the Lakers series like he is at that level. And I think that's to me is the difference is understanding I am now here, I'm going to be treated this way. And the way that he feels like he's on the same level as Luka and 40 year old LeBron, I feel like they're all peers. I. We wouldn't have said that last year. I didn't feel like he was like Jokic's peer last year. He was just having an awesome series, you know what I mean? This year I feel like he's peers with those guys.

[Van Lathan]

It ended kind of with a whimper, which kind of like, you know, makes you forget about it a little bit. But I mean, at this point, if you're a Lakers fan or if you're the Lakers organization, we're going to have to go to some desperate measures to get him out of here to get him off of his game. We're probably going to have to Shannon Sharp him, send somebody into the DMs, get him off of his game.

[Bill Simmons]

Never heard that verb before. That's scared.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Would history prove that that doesn't get off his game?

[Van Lathan]

Well, maybe, but it's our only shot now. Okay, we're going to. Because he's not going to stop. So we're probably going to have to send somebody to him, get somebody, distract him in some kind of way. It's Los Angeles. There's a lot of people that we can send waves and waves. People might not be deep, we might tighten the rotation on the court. But as far as the rotation in Los Angeles of ladies, we can send right to them DMs to get ant's mind off of the game. Sweet, deep.

[Ryan Rosillo]

We maybe, but I mean he is prepared for the double team. We saw that in the fourth quarter.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Double, triple team.

[Van Lathan]

Maybe a different type of double team. We'll throw at him this time. We'll see. It's the only thing we can do.

[Bill Simmons]

Can I read you the weirdest stat of this game. Luka Doncic, 38 points, 45 minutes, one rebound, two assists.

[Ryan Rosillo]

That's a low number.

[Bill Simmons]

It's a Cam Thomas game. What is happening? And LeBron puts up 12 rebounds, eight assists.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, my God.

[Bill Simmons]

Whatever this version of LeBron is, it's just. I talked about it a few days ago. It's this new version he's just created now, where he's like a hybrid of nine different versions of him for the past. The stuff he's doing on defense, he's just stripping dudes, he's protecting the rim, he's moving his feet on defense and blocking, passing. He hasn't played defense like this, I don't think, since 2020, personally. Am I wrong, Priscilla?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Well, there was a stretch at the beginning of the season. I was like, okay, this is, like, bad.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, we were saying he was a dh.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah. There was a Denver regular season game where they had him. He was the low man. And they just. We're like, we're going to run this thing and the off ball guy's going to dive down and LeBron's just not even going to bother coming over. And I'm thinking to myself, like, you can't possibly. Or the fake switch out in the closer. Like, after he was supposed to go to contest at the corner, he'd like do a thing where he'd go box out a guy that was next to him and then be pointing. It's like, dude, there's no possible way. You thought that I was going to go over there. Then he came back, and I remember there was a Memphis game. I was like, holy. Like, what? Like, LeBron is completely engaged. It's great. So, yeah, this is. I, I, I think a lot of the really great plays tonight were right at him. You know, the defenseo drive where they come out of timeout and you're like, divincenzo. One on one against LeBron, the problem is defenseo is trying that fucking shot. Like, that guy's never had anybody one on one thinking he's not going to make it.

[Bill Simmons]

The falling away from the basket, lefty floater, layup right at a guy.

[Ryan Rosillo]

It was a high degree of difficulty, I'll give him that. And then Divincenzo on the strip play that got overturned. And credit to LeBron and Lakers staff because LeBron and the assistant looked at each other and they were basically like, yeah, you foul them like this. Yeah. Overturned. Yeah, yeah, yeah. DiVincenzo gave Ant a grenade. Like, did you see what they did there? Like, Divincenzo ended up getting free. And at that point, that might have been the first time I've ever seen that guy without the confidence to go, it's double D time.

[Bill Simmons]

Right. Ant did a crazy. I just want to be involved in this play so badly. I'm going to do a delayed cut behind you. Like a trailer.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, right.

[Bill Simmons]

Just hoping. It was almost like a wide receiver. Hoping for a lateral.

[Ryan Rosillo]

It was like a lateral.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. And he flipped it back to him.

[Ryan Rosillo]

You're right about game five. No, I need to jump in here because I need to ask Conspiracy Bill a question.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Because the first thing I thought of and I was like, 3:1. I was like this.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, we're both going to be there. Yeah, I know you go to every Laker game now. You're the new Diane Cannon. I'm going to go on Tuesday because I love basketball. Rosso's there since they got Luca Rossillo's. He's there wearing a Slovenian baseball jacket. He's all in.

[Ryan Rosillo]

It's funny because I've made it to the cool halftime lounge. And then one night I didn't have. I wasn't invited with the high end people. I was just a commoner. And I hit up somebody who was like, hey, can I go? Can I just make sure I get that? Because somebody wanted to say hi. They were like, are you out of your fucking mind? You're just asking for a bracelet to the cool halftime thing. Like, you have to be invited, sir.

[Van Lathan]

Hey.

[Bill Simmons]

I was like, taylor Sheridan's in there. He wants to talk about 1944 Rossillo.

[Van Lathan]

But that 1944 Rossillo, that's a positive, though. Like, you know, so you know where you stand. And let me tell you what, I mean, I have a theory, right? Cause they have all these private members clubs in la.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

The question is, who's famous enough just to show up at the Soho House and not being a member and just get let up? Like, Will Smith is probably not a member of the Soho House, right? But if he shows up there and.

[Bill Simmons]

Goes, hey, I don't know. Is a bad example, I think. I think anyone can get in the Sohous.

[Van Lathan]

Whatever.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I think I agree.

[Van Lathan]

Seven day bungalows, whatever. Like, you go there, they're gonna let you right up.

[Bill Simmons]

Like Kevin Hart just walks in, they're like, hey, it's Kevin Hart. Come on in.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, gonna let you right up. Now, you know that you're not quite there yet. As far as all privileges. Ryan Rossillo, face card. It's me. Let me up. But that Just makes that's drive to get there.

[Bill Simmons]

That's close, though. Yeah, you're right there.

[Van Lathan]

You're right there.

[Bill Simmons]

You're like ant in the Lakers series right now. You're one win away.

[Van Lathan]

And if they see you in the lounge a couple of more times, you're hanging out with Taylor Sheridan and it's you, it's Jessica Alba, it's the, by.

[Bill Simmons]

The Way, Kings game, I think you're in. I think you go to any Kings Oilers game, they're just like, boom.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, my brother, he let me in once. He's a huge fan of the pod.

[Bill Simmons]

You'll know somebody from the bay. It was just the way it happens. Van, I have a question.

[Ryan Rosillo]

This is all really good. Thanks, guys.

[Bill Simmons]

You're welcome. Van. Is the league ready for Anthony Edwards to be the face of the league?

[Van Lathan]

Hell, no. No, no. Not at all.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Is there any reason?

[Van Lathan]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like, he. He's too real for tv. I love.

[Bill Simmons]

You think they've had meetings about this, been like, what happens if this happens?

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, they might have tried. He's. He's probably my favorite basketball player since Kobe. I'm telling you, I love him. I love the real.

[Bill Simmons]

I really do, too. I. I fucking love the fact, like.

[Van Lathan]

I love the fact that even the shit that happens off of the court, which some of it is really fucked up and stupid and, like, just really stupid, but even that, he just doesn't let it bother him. Even when he kind of looks like an asshole or something, he just doesn't let it bother him. He doesn't let it bother him. And there's something to be said for someone who is not hung up on every single opinion that people have about him on social media. He's a Hooper and a dude. I would say something else, but I'm a mixed company, but I think you could say it. Nah, nah, nah, nah. Just a Hooper and a dude. And so I dig that, you know, it hurts watching him do it to the Lakers, but I like him. But no, they are not ready for Anthony Edwards to be the guy that they're building their league around. They're not ready yet.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, I think he's ready. Cause you go through that, think about this gauntlet, Versillo, if he can finish off the Lakers, he's finishing off LeBron and Luka, who are now on the same team, then you would go next round. Steph Draymond, Warriors. And that's before you even get to.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Ben Thompson or Thompson. Van Vliet.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I'm just Saying if it's the warriors, you'd be going through two of the league's icons back to back before you even got to the 68 win. OKC team that just swept Memphis, that is now 72 and 14 on the season. So gone. Yeah, but I mean, look, there's somebody else waiting.

[Ryan Rosillo]

He went Durant, Jokic last year, right?

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, but these are.

[Bill Simmons]

That we're now in the icon territory though, especially. Sure.

[Ryan Rosillo]

But it's been not a year and I still can't believe they beat Denver in Denver game seven the way they did. I can't believe that. That to me is still one of like the most unlikely. I think all this stuff's accurate. I, I have no pushback or further commentary. But I still have to ask Conspiracy Bill this question. Yeah. Because during game two when you were like, the Lakers are going to be called for a million fouls, they're going to even the series. And I, I think I pushed back on some of that stuff with you. And then when as I was watching the games, like, Bill was right. Bill was right.

[Bill Simmons]

But the thing, everybody had four fouls in like the five minute mark of the third quarter.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Right. But more free throw attempts for Minnesota. So you'd have to think that people would love for the series to be two. Two. They had a chance to just not overturn that call. Is it too obvious with the Skyhawk cam from above, they just, they couldn't, they couldn't do it.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm surprised. How did they not cut the feet of the sky cam? Like. Yeah, it's not working. No. I will say this would be a very tough game for Minnesota on Wednesday because also the LA like the crowd's good and the crowd does affect the refs a little bit. And you have LeBron and Luca, who are the two of the better ref workers as the game goes on and you combine that with the fans.

[Van Lathan]

That's so funny that you think that. I think. Think Luka's terrible at it.

[Bill Simmons]

I think he's annoying though. Is he bad or good at it? He's just so annoying about it.

[Van Lathan]

And like he's. He's to have to watch like Luka to be a Lakers fan and have Luka come here. The one thing I hate is bitching more than anything. I hate bitching, which is crazy because I'm one of the world's leading bitchers. But. But I hate it when other people do it. Right.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Tremendous self awareness though, man.

[Van Lathan]

It is what it is. But I hate it when other people do it. So I Don't think that Luga works the rest very well. I do think the Lakers will win, and then I think they will be smacked in game six. I don't think game six will be very close.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Well, I'll tell you this. You want to give me a guess the line, Bill, you want to guess the line?

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, I haven't looked yet. I would say Lakers by two and a half for game five.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Minus two and a half.

[Bill Simmons]

Minus two and a half dot Lakers.

[Ryan Rosillo]

It'S minus five and a half. It's the same line as game two. Wow.

[Van Lathan]

Interesting.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So they're with you like it feels.

[Bill Simmons]

But that's three days from now, right? It's Wednesday night.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I know, but I saw, like, I just felt like with the matchup, if you could get five and a half of Minnesota, you had to do it. But then history has also told us that the game one home loser wins game two. I think leading up to last time I said it, the team that lost home game one was 19 and four in game twos and won 15 and 19 by double digits. I don't know what the game five down three one history is for a team.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you think the series line is? Do you look? Because I just.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I didn't. Tea.

[Bill Simmons]

Wolves are minus 500. Lakers are plus 3, 85.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Ooh, you. You sound like you have way more Lakers hope in you than I. Than I imagine.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I wouldn't say it's hope. I just think when you have two guys that can put up points like that, I think it's different. Like if Orlando, we're taping this as a Celtics game, is that like, if Orlando goes down three one, like, they can't score. They have real issues. Like, it'd be really hard to put together free wins. I think it's a little similar to what had to happen for them in 2016 when they had LeBron and Kyrie, they fell down 3 1. The league did the ridiculous technical on Draymond that ends up getting him suspended, which is still the worst thing, the worst league decision of this century. But then those guys just went off the next two games. Remember LeBron and Kyrie? And that would be my fear if I'm Minnesota, like, how do we make sure those guys don't combine for 80 points? And LeBron, I guess, is just not going to get tired at all during this playoffs.

[Ryan Rosillo]

It's.

[Bill Simmons]

It's. You can't count on like, oh, he's old. This would be an old legs game for him. He's just not. Not having them so let's, let's take a quick break and then we'll talk about the draft. The draft. Rosilla was just in his house yesterday with the McShay crew breaking it down for two hours. Sanders dropping all the way down to the Browns hijacked the draft in a lot of ways. It hijacks. It hijacked my text with Van Lathan. Yeah, for sure. Ended up in a really, really weird, goofy place where Cleveland passes on him it felt like 20 times and then finally took him and they cut to the war room and nobody in the war room seemed like remotely excited about it. So you almost made you wonder if it was an owner decision. But instead of talking about the oh, how could this blah, blah, blah, like there's a bigger picture question of when this happens, why does it happen? So you have some thoughts, fan?

[Van Lathan]

You mean the Shador Sanders situation? Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

When somebody drops like this and it's all for the, there's the sports talk reasons for it and then there's the actual reasons. So let's have the conversation.

[Van Lathan]

So I had a guy, a very high up football guy hit me and when he heard me on your pod the last time after day one and it was interesting the way he put it. I'm going to read this, he goes on Shador, he's never been graded that high by the scouts, which is something that I don't think a lot of people are paying that much attention to. When you hear about Shadour Sanders, you hear about media assessments. He goes, he was a creation of the media, but mostly a creation of the machine built in Boulder. Then you have to ask yourself with the organization, do you want to deal with his father criticizing your staff every week from his CU press conference? If you're backup and if he's the backup and your starter has a bad week, do you want to have to respond to what's being said a thousand miles away? It's a lot of baggage that's surrounding an average player. So I think people are trying to make it either or they're trying to make it a completely cultural thing or a completely football thing. When really what I'm hearing from people that are involved in the NFL that it's a combination of the two, that if Shador Sanders were more of a can't miss prospect, then you probably wouldn't be having a lot of the conversations around him that you're having. But if he's just average or just good, I mean not transcendent, just average or just good, then the things that Come along with it. And we can't act like that. There's not gonna be more scrutiny with drafting him. There just is fair enough. Hullabaloo, Hullabaloo. And a lot of people, it scared them off. And so look, I think there are a lot of people that are gonna take what happened with Shadour and they're gonna use it for their own interests, whatever agenda that they have. I think that Shador Sanders is a much better quarterback than a fifth round quarterback. But also I'm not an NFL scout, I'm a guy that watched him in college and I'm starting to realize that a lot of these guys don't care about that. They really don't care about your college tape. The assessment that they do of you starts it's partly because of what you did in college, but then it's really the measurables and the stuff that they get and all different types of things that they're watching beyond that. So I don't know we're going to have a lot of conversations about this, but I think there's a lot of stuff going on.

[Bill Simmons]

That's my guy, Will Campbell, who you told me dominated everybody for the entire time he was at OSU and then did the measurements and his arms were an inch short. So then it's like, I don't know, he might be a guard, but you told me nobody got by him ever at osu.

[Van Lathan]

He was the best pass blocker I've seen at LSU in years, maybe ever. In terms of just a guy that just, I mean, we didn't run the ball that well. I mean we had some problems in the interior line and all of that stuff. But Will went up against the most athletic, determined pass rushers in the country. When you talk about SEC pass rushers and they just simply couldn't get around him, couldn't get to his quarterback. But when they came out they looked at the measurables and they were like, oh my God, maybe have to move this guy around. So you know.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, like when Priscilla and I talk, we do, we love the NBA draft stuff. We did the redraftables and it's so fun to see like why how teams miss on guys, right? Like Brunson was somebody we all liked in college. And then he goes through the process and it's like, ah, he's too short. What is he? Is he a 2 guard? And then he falls to like 32. And it seems stupid with Sanders, he's clearly not a fifth round pick. But I do understand, like here's an example. Like Jacksonville, right? Jacksonville's not very good. They took Hunter already, who he played with. They have Lawrence, who. We're not positive Lawrence is ever going to make it as, like a real guy who's going to win playoff games. And we get to the fourth round with Jacksonville and it's like, this seems like a logical candidate to be like, you know what? Fuck it, we're going to take Shador Sanders. Let's see. And we'll have. But here's why can't you do that for Jacksonville? Because the moment you do that, everybody's like, oh, man, oh, could he take Lawrence's job? And then the moment Lawrence has three picks in week two, then it becomes, should Shador play? Should he get a shot? And Priscilla, I just don't think. I think there's like 20 teams that are just like, we don't want to deal with this. We don't want to deal with all the. Should he play? Should he not play? We'd rather just take this other guy.

[Ryan Rosillo]

And unless you're a first rounder who you feel like needs a little seasoning, for the most part, NFL coaching staff staffs want backup quarterbacks to be seen and not heard. And this has never been a sport that wants free thinkers. Like, the early Belich stuff was great because he just immediately had Brady brainwashed. And then everybody kind of followed the lead. And then Bruski was like, totally into it, and it was just like, you're not. You didn't come to Foxborough to be a free thinker. Ask why. It's like, this is what we're going to do and go ahead and execute it. So the Shador. The Shador tape. I'll tell you what, this is a lesson in just the group think when it comes to mock drafts. Like, I've gotten a speech years and years ago from an NBA GM just going, the drafts would be so different. And he was obviously an NBA GM because the draft would be so different if there were no mocks. He's like, but eventually you start, like, letting the mock break your own tie because you're like, well, if I do this every. And I get it wrong, everybody's gonna think I'm stupid. But if I take this guy, like, it is kind of crazy too. Like, you'll see somebody who's projected to go 13th in the first round of the NFL or NBA, and then if he goes eighth, it's like, holy, are those guys dumb?

[Bill Simmons]

You know?

[Ryan Rosillo]

And it's just. I mean, especially the NFL side of it, it's like, I don't know, like, it's that big of a reach because I took a guy six spots higher than all the stuff that you keep reading over and over again. Where the other thing that happens with all these mocks is everybody kind of ends up just looking at everybody else's and goes. I don't want to seem like a complete wild card with all this. However, having said that, I've never seen anything like this, right? Belichick.

[Bill Simmons]

Belichick was the only one who's like, I like Cole Strange. He didn't look at a single bar.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I just like, we're not, we're not going to talk about that. I. I think this is the most dramatic thing that I've ever seen from this. But after the combine, two teams that have high picks that you could argue could have been in on a quarterback met with Shador and they were like, absolutely not. We've heard the Giant story with Brian Dable and him getting into it. So look, if he was special, okay, if he truly was special, but the MOX had us believing he was special. The mox had probably him believing he was special. His father had him believing he was special, which is really nice. His dad was there to support him the entire time. But it feels like he went into this. He went into this thinking, like, I don't have to say shit to you guys. And these guys looked at the film saying, your film is like, average. And now you come in here with this entitlement, like, it's just not going to work. Like, this is not the way an NFL locker room would ever. They would never sign up for something for somebody that they think is fairly replaceable, may never even be. I mean, look, there's plenty of first rounders. They're going to completely whiff. So I feel bad in the sense that I don't. You know, again, I don't. He shouldn't have been a fifth rounder. So I could be really mean about this and say, hey, brought it all on himself. I think it also proves that Deion has zero relationships with decision makers in the NFL. No agent, hey, we're doing it our way. It's going to be non traditional. I don't know if the league decided to punish him for it. I think a lot of people just said, hey, I don't, I don't know that I want this. I don't know that I want this in my QB room if he's not really, really special. And I think everybody kind of agreed on that without it being collusion.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. I think Deion is beloved by the media and rightly so. He's been a major star for the last 30 plus years. As far as the football culture, decision maker, guys, I don't know if those relationships and sort of how he's revered, if that carries on there. I think that we're probably all seeing that now. I will say this though. I remember back when we was on a bus one time and this girl had tried to holler at this guy, we was in high school and he didn't like her. And then he went around to everybody in school being like, hey man, Tush tried to holler at me. Tush tried to holler at me. Tush tried to holler at me. And after a while we started asking him, like, why are you telling all of us that she tried to holler at you? Like, why is it getting around the whole school that you don't like her? The thing that I was struck by with Shadora Sanders is the amount of negative experiences and highlighting every single negative thing that was wrong with him got to a fever pitch in a way that I don't remember seeing. And I think the question is, like, why is that happening? Was that happening because Shadour Sanders was such a notable and forward facing athlete? Was that backlash from all of the rapping and the chains and all of that stuff? Was that a referendum on Deion? But it did turn negative in a way to where we're hearing. Well, I looked up all of the old interviews, the interview stories that we've heard of, and typically when we hear an interview story from the draft, we've heard about bad interviews. But when we hear about bad interviews, we normally hear about bad questions from franchises. We hear about somebody asking you if you're gay or somebody asking you about something with your mom or somebody asking you that. We don't hear really about how a prospect whiffed an interview as much as we've heard about this bad interview with the Giants. And I can't put my head around why that is. Either that's people saying that, okay, he's a fifth round talent or a second or third round talent and he did terrible in this interview. Let us quell the outrage and explain why he's not being drafted, or there was some kind of hate for the kid that in some way they didn't have for other prospects based upon something outside of his control other than, you know, how he acts and carries himself.

[Bill Simmons]

You also have probably 10, 11 teams total are going to be in the Pool to take them. And then individually, each team talked themselves out of him for whatever reason. The most surprising being in Pittsburgh. But I do wonder is a piece of this. You draft like you have the coach as one of the people in the decision making room. In every room. Right. You know, if you draft him, I. I think it was one of the reports, I think Schefter said this, that he. He reported like there's a coach that would be worried that the moment you bring this guy in, it's going to be just nonstop. Dion's gonna replace. He's gonna be the next coach. He's gonna coach his kid. And I do. We know that coaches can sabotage this subtle ways, but Priscilla, the only bad interview. We've heard some bad interview stories with the NBA stuff. The only one I remember hearing was the lamello one when. When. When team. The team thought he tanked the interview because he wanted to go somewhere else. That other than that, I don't. Do you remember many interview stuff with NBA teams?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, I do. Like, I don't know. I'll just pick a name out of a hat because I go to the combine. Like, I'd heard Jake Laravia wasn't the greatest. Hanging in a meeting. All right, Went in the first round. Guess what? Nobody gives a shit about Jake Laravia's sit down with a team because it's Jake Laravia. Right? It's Shador. And so I understand, Dan, your point. Like, we talked about this at such a level that it felt uncommon. But I do think if you're on it every year, like, I'll hear from McShay over the years, be like, hey, what happened to that guy? And be like, oh, he sucked. He sucked in his interview. He sucked on the whiteboard. Like, he was totally lost. I don't know that anybody ever cared enough for us to talk about it as much as we are with Shador. Because, you know, it's. It's. I don't know. Like, I want to ask you this question. I kind of want to ask you this question because I know that, like, we'll see what happens Monday on the TV shows and everything. But race became a topic with this thing. And I get. And I always feel like, all right, when I see the guys arguing that it isn't about race. A lot of times the guys have seen it, doing it. I'm like, oh, shit. I don't want to be, like, aligned with that guy. But if there's one field that I feel pretty comfortable talking about, it's sports, right? I think that NBA and NFL decision makers are probably the most forward thinking of like, hey, if you can play and you can help my team, like this is how I'm going to evaluate you. So I'd ask, is there, is there ever a chance that with Shador it can be about Shador and not about a race?

[Van Lathan]

So, okay, so a lot of people say race and they mean culture, right?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, I mean, correct me where I need to be correct.

[Van Lathan]

No, no, no, no. I'm not talking about you. So a lot of people say race and they mean culture.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Van Lathan]

It would be silly to look at the draft. After a quarter a black quarterback went number one and went. NFL owners are, they don't want to draft black players.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Van Lathan]

That's not the. But there is a thought that there is a specific type of black player or black man that is a specific affront to power structures. And that's someone who doesn't walk in and isn't artificially humble, or who doesn't walk in and doesn't mute himself, is big in a room and is lighting up a room and knows that he has it. That there's a specific feeling from some people that that guy has to be broken down and cut down a peg. Right. It's interesting, when I was listening, when I was watching Shadour Sanders, I was thinking about Adrian Broner and a lot of people aren't gonna be able to make this connection. Adrian Broner is a legitimate four weight world champion, like a legitimate boxing achiever. However, in order for him to carry the type of bravado that he did with him, he would have had to have been perfect. If you're going to be floored or if you're going to be Ali or if you're going to be Deion Sanders, you can almost never lose. You have to be perfect. Because if you are not perfect and you have that type of confidence and that type of bravado and that type of oomph with you, then they will cut you down. And so when people are saying race, they're talking about black man. They're saying black man, but they're not really talking about black men. They're talking about one specific type of black man. And it's the type that they seem to always want to go at when they're trying to make an example of someone. Now, I'm not necessarily saying that that's what's happening with, with Shador Sanders, but there's an uncomfortability and attention there because of what we've seen happen to Athletes like this in the past. Now, if you got the goods, it don't matter, right? Cause all of the guys I was just talking about, Deion, Ali, whomever you want to name, and if you got the goods, it don't matter. But it does kind of seem like sometimes they want you to. If you're black, they want you to be great, they want you to be amazing, but they don't want you to put it in their face. You know what I mean?

[Bill Simmons]

But once again, but how much of that has to do with the position he plays and what people seem to expect from the quarterback position? When you're talking about leadership, commit, charisma, calming force, guy who lifts up your teammates and they're looking at him and it's like if this guy's going to carry himself a certain way but doesn't have the talent to back it up, it's almost like counterproductive.

[Van Lathan]

The second part is. The second part is the entire part of it, right? Because, you know, I'm a huge LSU fan. Nobody had more swagger than my vanilla champion, Joe Burrow. Nobody had more swagger. We smoking cigars, we. This. We flipping the ball. We boom, boom, boom, boom. The whole thing.

[Ryan Rosillo]

By the way, saw him at the Lakers game in person. Beautiful, stunning.

[Van Lathan]

But we also threw 60 touchdowns, right? We threw 60 touchdowns, we won the Heisman, we got to the league, we. I know, I never met the dude. He took a team to the super.

[Bill Simmons]

I like, we. I'm pro. We.

[Van Lathan]

So. So that's the whole deal. So there's two parts of it. The first part of it, I think a lot of people, Two people. The conversation is this, is he good enough to comport himself in the way that he does? That's the first question. The second question is, does he have to be. Can't he just be confident about himself? Can't he just be happy to be Shador Sanders? Can he just be? He ain't never been in no trouble. He ain't never. Does he have to be as excellent as people would want him to be in order to be as big as he wants to be?

[Bill Simmons]

You know what it reminds me of a little bit? I'm going to do something really dangerous. I'm going to use a cross racial comparison.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, Jesus.

[Bill Simmons]

This. I'm a veteran.

[Van Lathan]

Here we go.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Marshall Henderson, Are you.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, oh, miss.

[Bill Simmons]

See, I wasn't gonna. That's what I'm talking about.

[Van Lathan]

Do you know this? Do you know. Do you know that guy personally? No, I'm talking about Bill. Do you know who he's talking about.

[Bill Simmons]

I know the name. I don't know that. I don't get the reference.

[Van Lathan]

That was my favorite white for many years. Did you right, bro. For Old Miss had a see, see, see for Ole Miss had like a checkered story. Had been to a juco or whatever, whatever. Or been to a different school. Just used to come to Ole miss, would shoot 39% but score like 35 and flip off everybody in the crowd. I loved that guy. I can't believe you just pulled that name.

[Bill Simmons]

I was, I was going to say Adam Morrison. And here's why.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Cause he had that really fun college season that everybody enjoyed. Then he flamed out in the, in the, in the tournament and he cried on the court and it became a thing and then it was. He became one of the most polarizing prospects in a while. And some people were like, that guy's not athletic enough to be a starting small forward in the NBA and be able to score. And other people are like, you gotta look at his history. Look at the college, look at all the stuff, the big game and all the carrying a team, all the same stuff. And then Charlotte ended up taking him third. Like they bought into it and he was a bust. But it's the same kind of thing where the fans are seeing one thing because they're like, no, no, no, no, he did this. And I watched this game in Gonzaga, we had 38, which is a little like watching Colorado on a Saturday night and be like, no, no, that game, the 53, 52 game. And he was awesome. And then all the die hard NFL people were like, he doesn't have it. It's barely a starter. Best case scenario, Teddy Bridgewater, maybe Andy Dalton. And it just didn't jibe with what I think the general public saw. Right. Am I crazy?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, I think the public, I think almost feels like it was the public. Was it the media? Was it also the Sanders family? Like did everybody fall into some trap of like, you know, look, I still don't think he should have been fifth rounder. I don't think he should have gone behind Melroe. I definitely don't think he should have gone behind Dylan Gabriel.

[Bill Simmons]

How about the 26 year old.

[Ryan Rosillo]

You.

[Bill Simmons]

Went behind that guy? Taylor Tyler show.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. So to the Saints.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah. I don't know. Some of the football guys really like shuck so much during the, the pre draft process. You know, I had Quincy Avon who works with all these guys at a really young age and man, Quincy like nailed this dude. Quincy came on the pod was like, hey, if his name was Shador Williams, he's a six rounder. And even I was like, whoa. You know, and I've known Quincy a long time and respect the hell out. But, like, I got done with that pod, and I was like, he hates. He fucking hates that dude. Like, that's what I was thinking. I don't know that anybody nailed it the way he. Maybe there was other people. I didn't.

[Van Lathan]

Delaney Walker had it pretty good, too.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah. Yeah, he did, too. He did, too. Yeah, right? Titans tight end there. So I guess, you know what I. I would say, and. And, like, sometimes I feel like it should be good news that it may have just been a football evaluation. Like, what if it was just about his football tape? And what if in his job interviews he just didn't do a very good job? Like, wouldn't that be better news if that's what it was? And then sometimes I. I just, like, I see some of the comps, like, oh, Eli Manning. It's like, yeah, I don't know. Arch called his shot and he got away with it. And Eli was this consensus number one.

[Bill Simmons]

Fucking everybody thought he was good.

[Ryan Rosillo]

There's no. No one can compare Eli the prospect to. Even if the Mock screwed up the Shador thing.

[Bill Simmons]

And Colin Coward, our friend Colin, who had the. What was the Pittsburgh trade? T.J. watt.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Whoa.

[Bill Simmons]

Somebody else.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Don't do it to our guy. He's got the Ben Simmons.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, that was a bad one.

[Van Lathan]

It's okay, LeBron.

[Bill Simmons]

It's okay.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Hey.

[Van Lathan]

I love him. I love him. So this is what I'll say. First of all, I'm one of those weird people that talking about this stuff just doesn't make me angry, right? Because even if it's not the thing, or if it is the thing, it doesn't hurt us or there's no skin off our neck from just talking about it, right? Like, investigating the culture, investigating the things that might be undergirding these topics. Whatever. Just don't be so precious about it. Talk about it. Whether it is or whether it's not. I think we're probably learning in a real way that the NFL minds just weren't as high on Shador Sanders as a football player as the rest of us were. And that's a real thing, right? That can't be denied.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I think that's the one part of this that cannot be debated. It doesn't mean it's the only part of it, but it feels like a pretty significant part of it.

[Bill Simmons]

Can I add one piece to that. It doesn't seem like anybody thought he was a definite starting quarterback, because we know this, because the Steelers, who literally don't have a quarterback, were like, yeah, even we don't think he's a quarterback. But it also seems like teams were a little worried that he'd be a good backup, which is the whole point. If you're taking a quarterback, you want somebody who can be the backup. He's in the room, maybe he can play, maybe he has the upside to be a starter, but he's just going to be able to fit in. And as Rousseau said earlier, you don't really want to hear from this guy that much. He's going to be on the bench with the headset. Tell him, let's play. And obviously, teams felt like even that seemed like a tall task for him. Cleveland ends up taking him. They have the weirdest quarterback room, I think, in the history of football. I don't know if you've seen the list. It's like. It's just bonkers.

[Van Lathan]

But really, the circus is only beginning because now, out of him and Dylan Gabriel, I mean, one of those guys isn't going to make the team. You know what I mean? Like. Like, it's. One of those guys might be. Go to the practice squad and if you.

[Bill Simmons]

I would say Kenny Pickett, maybe, I hope he's renting an apartment would be my guess.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Well, they can IR Deshaun. So they can carry the fourth one. Because I think.

[Bill Simmons]

Right?

[Van Lathan]

I guess so, yeah. Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

And look, I'm not trying to correct you. I'm playing out all the different. You could be. Right. You know, but there. I think there's some creative math there, because I think the desean part of it is to try to get the insurance money, you know, have an IR out for the year, and then that way the policy covers.

[Bill Simmons]

Can we talk about the most important story of the weekend, though? The Patriots nailing a draft and getting a on Bleacher Report. We got an A.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Is this the only time you've ever liked Bleacher Report?

[Bill Simmons]

This the only time I've. I've liked a Patriots draft. I think this century where I've just felt we didn't do one thing that made me go, wait, what happened? Why do we even. Van was like. Every time we took an OSU guy, Van was like, I love that guy.

[Van Lathan]

Well, we have. Well, first of all, I'm. By the way, people think I'm a homer. I'm very honest when it comes to the. L know.

[Bill Simmons]

That's why, when you were excited about each guy we took, made me more excited.

[Van Lathan]

The only guy you guys missed on, Mason Taylor, he ends up going to the Jets. I think he's going to be a. I think he's going to be a Jason Whitten type security blanket for a quarterback.

[Bill Simmons]

He was on the list. The OSU running back fell to 38. I think they didn't even interview him, they just took him.

[Van Lathan]

But I am shocked. And I hadn't been following it as much because once again, I'm a college ball lover. That's another thing about Shador. I'll just say this before I get like, I watched him get annihilated, not misheard because of injuries. Tough, make throws, stand in there, stare defensive defenses down and just make plays and make throws. And I'm like, that's what you want out of a QB. I've also watched them like 98 yard drive to tie the game. The two minute drill, just. That's what you want in a QB. And I guess, you know, I wasn't seeing the ball rotation right or whatever. Um, but Braden Swenson from lsu just round edge, rusher.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Eight and a half sacks, a legit hellraiser. You guys get him in the fifth round. I have no idea how Braden Swinson fell to the fifth round.

[Bill Simmons]

We got a long snapper and a kicker. I'm. My dad was like, I talked to him this morning and usually the first 50 minutes would be like, I don't know what happened in the second round. We took that guy there who's coming off the torn aco or whatever. He was delighted. What was, what was the biggest shock for you? Rosso, in the, in the draft in general, Was there any, anything that stupefied you?

[Ryan Rosillo]

No, I just want to stay on Swinson here for a second because he or Wit Weeks are the two best players on that defense all year long. Absolutely. I mean Swinson just consistent edge. Pressure of the edge guys, because Whit plays in the middle. Braden just, even as the season went on, it just got better and better and better. So I don't know if it's because he's older. I don't know. He didn't run a 40. We were trying to figure it out the other day when we were doing the live show. He may not like normally, hey, I don't want to run a four year. They couldn't figure out why he hadn't won. I know there's probably some other part of it that I'm missing, but again Fifth round just seemed crazy, but it's also probably the deepest position in the entire draft. I mean, loaded. There's guys going to the third round. Yeah, I love this draft. Kind of like from the beginning of the second round on just how many dudes in the second round where I'm like, I love that guy. That's another guy that I love.

[Bill Simmons]

Ton of running backs, like third, fourth round range in certain spots.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I know I still don't really care. Like, I know everybody's on this running back thing because Genti goes as high as he did and because of Saquon just did what he did for the Eagles. But I think he'd be making a huge mistake now deciding to prioritize all this stuff. So, yes, I agree with my friend Van here. Trevan Henderson, you probably thought was going to be a top 10 pick after freshman year. After freshman year.

[Van Lathan]

After you first.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah. Like, you were like, who is this dude? Because Herb street was putting a little extra on his name in the beginning because he knew the deal of how special he was when he showed up to Columbus. And I can always. I think I have. I speak pretty fluent Herb street because I've been listening to him for so long and you know, all the years traveling with those guys as well, and he just was like in awe of him. And then Judkins comes in this year and I actually felt like even though Judson had the flash, like Trevion was, was still the dude in a way, even if the momentum, you know, dumped off that a little bit. But I love Mason Taylor and I know it sounds like it's just two LSU fans going at it here. Yeah, Taylor, they went away from him at LSU because they had NFL wide receivers all over the place. And he is not only fast and huge, he's a fucking baller, okay? And when he needed to fight and compete and all that kind of stuff, like, I didn't have to question any of that. I think if he had been somewhere that didn't have as much wide receiver talent, he was like their desperate third down option. I don't know that there's ever a version of Mason Taylor lasting to the second round, but the tight end class was loaded. I just kind of wish he was. I wish he was Drake Mays target for you. Cause I don't.

[Bill Simmons]

I think he was the backup if Anderson wasn't there, to be honest. I think that was. They wanted to get a weapon. They weren't going to take a wide receiver.

[Van Lathan]

No.

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, he went like, what, four picks later Three picks later.

[Ryan Rosillo]

It was a mutual. It was a mutual.

[Van Lathan]

I give Henderson a lot of credit, though. I give Henderson a lot of credit because. I give Henderson a lot of credit because he. The. When they brought in Quintean Juckins to split carries with him, I was like, jesus Christ. What kind of Bell. Kyle Bellwether back, like, wants another guy. And Judkins had had some injury problems at Ole Miss, and it wasn't quite. But he. Everyone that had watched him in the SEC knew that he could flat out play. But Henderson handled it really, really well. Never complained.

[Bill Simmons]

He was probably psyched he didn't have the extra miles going on him before he went to the NFL.

[Van Lathan]

It might have cost him a draft. Capital, though, right? Because the guy had had such an amazing freshman season that if he sticks around a little bit longer and continues to put those numbers up, then, you know, maybe he's a high or mid first rounder. You know, we.

[Bill Simmons]

We have to wrap up because I want to watch the Celtics game. Cause right now it's 4:43. But I have to ask you guys this. Should I be worried about Belichick and this girlfriend?

[Van Lathan]

I'm not.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I'm new.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm opening my show.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I don't even care. It's the NBA playoffs draft recap. I'm starting my Tuesday show. I've got 15 minutes on this.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, okay.

[Ryan Rosillo]

This is unbelievable. No, no, but go ahead, give me your thoughts.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, I, I mean, for me, Belichick's like a family member. You know, it's like he's like my uncle. He's like, he's just part of the fam. And I interject. Woman is so crazy. Like, I, I, I, I just scared for him.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I want to talk about your timeline with Belichick because. And I'm sorry to interrupt, but after that apple Doc, you've never been closer with Belichick. You've gone on the offensive in defense of him. I've noticed it. I know there's a real tone out of you.

[Bill Simmons]

I really appreciate him. Did he frustrate me during the draft? Sure. Was he a barrel lobster in the press conferences? Not really. Did we get six Super Bowls? Were we awesome for 20 years? Yeah. I love Belichick. I'm worried about him.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Okay, give us your worries. Give us your concerns because I'm zagging.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, you're Zach. Let me hear the Zach before I give my concerns.

[Van Lathan]

Okay. The things that that young woman must be doing to Bill Belichick. You guys are worried about him.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm happy Curling toes.

[Van Lathan]

Like, I'm happy for him. Belichick got rid of. It's Bill fucking Belichick. It's Darth Vader in a hoodie. He got ready to answer a question. She said, no, we're not talking about that.

[Bill Simmons]

And she's using we with everything.

[Van Lathan]

Bill Belichick stood down, turned around, and looked like this. Like. Like a Stepford Belichick. A step for Belichick. But the stuff she must be doing to Belichick must have his just blowing his mind. He's got to be happy.

[Bill Simmons]

He's got to be happy. It reminds me of when Katie Holmes started dating Cruz and we all started getting worried for her. When she started become. When she got Stepford Wives by. By Cruz, all of a sudden it was like, oh, no, we gotta save Katie Holmes. I, I just. When that video of her in the high heels walking on the football field.

[Van Lathan]

But that's Belichick.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Is Katie Holmes here?

[Bill Simmons]

Belichick is Katie Holmes.

[Ryan Rosillo]

That's important.

[Bill Simmons]

That video of her going on the field and ordering people around. Like she was a party planner at a wedding. And it's like, it's spring scrimmage. Like, what are the people at the school think of this? And did you see that? She shut down. Somebody was printing Belichick T shirts, and she, like, shut the account down. Yeah, I, I just. It's not good. I. We've seen a lot of these over the years, and this one doesn't feel like it ends that well.

[Van Lathan]

How does it end?

[Bill Simmons]

Not well.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Break up.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, like a breakup.

[Ryan Rosillo]

They all end.

[Bill Simmons]

A tell all book. And I just. I just.

[Ryan Rosillo]

The ones that don't break up, they're just roommates.

[Bill Simmons]

Just want him. I just want him to win some games. At unc I was looking forward to. I. You know, I casually root for LSU because I like my friend Van. I was excited. Root for unc. I was actually excited for this college football season. Now I'm worried our guy Belichick is in trouble. Anyway, Van, I'm sure I was a UNC booster.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I would be worried after this interview. Okay, look, so just one comment on it. Here is Bill, who has never let anybody tell him how it's done.

[Bill Simmons]

No, ever.

[Van Lathan]

Not even Robert.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Right. Like, if there's one thing we know about this guy's like, I'm doing a team photo. Fuck you. Oh, video game now. You know, whatever the petty shit I can do. Oh, that's a new petty thing I can do. I'll do that too. Like, you would have signed O.J.

[Van Lathan]

Simpson in 98.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Absolutely. Right, absolutely. That's Patriots way thing. Because they got one lineman in the late 90s for a woman who's 24 to tell him, you know, and this wasn't panhandled.

[Bill Simmons]

She's 20 years older than my daughter.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Right. How did you meet Connor Willa? Online. You know, this is. She's off to the side. Like you went on fucking cbs. What'd you think this was going to be? Some guy from the Worcester Bugle? You know, you went on to promote your book and it's CBS. This isn't after another win to go 11 and two on the season and somebody from the fucking Boston Herald's like, hey, what were you thinking with that last time out? No, just trying to find a way to compete, win the game.

[Bill Simmons]

But you say he's. He's 72. I would be worried if this was Rosillo in his late 40s and it was like, did you hear about this girl Rosso's dating? Yeah, she doesn't let him lift anymore. I'm not.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I'm not being too critical of the relationship because there is. There is a scenario, right?

[Bill Simmons]

I'm talking about the uprooting the life part where it's with this Belichick, this mystical figure who never seemed like this would ever happen to him. And it's happened.

[Van Lathan]

He was wearing a distressed navy pullover.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Okay. But that might be in that he may have paid for those abrasions.

[Van Lathan]

He was wearing a distressed navy pullover. Like I'm telling you, man. This is just the beginning of it. Bill Belichick. TikTok is coming. The whole situation is coming because she is putting it on his motherfucking ass. That's what's happening right there. Be happy for him.

[Bill Simmons]

Six time super bowl champion Bill Belichick getting it put on his ass. He's gonna have a TikTok.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I hope in the title.

[Bill Simmons]

He's doing like dancing videos where he's dancing with his six rings. Like, what is happening? All right, thanks, guys.

[Van Lathan]

Peace. Bye.

[Bill Simmons]

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to good. How. Thanks to Van. Thanks to Rosillo. Don't forget you can watch all the clips from this on The Bill Simmons YouTube channel, including the second hour of this podcast, which is also just available by itself as a quip. New rewatchables coming Monday night. Someone Watch Over Me. Celtic City last episode, HBO 9pm Monday night. And I will see you on this podcast on Tuesday. Must be 21 plus in President select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 + in President D.C. gambling problem call 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com, call 1-887-897777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema. Org or call 800-32750 for 24. 7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE NY or text HOPE NY in New York.