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This episode is brought to you by HubSpot. You know why elite point guards make everyone better? It isn't just the no look dimes. It's because they know everything. Who's hot, who's tired, what the defense is doing, which teammate needs a basket. Most businesses don't have that. Sales run one play, marketing runs another. Nobody told service. The game plan has now changed. HubSpot gives you that point guard vision. One platform, full customer context. And that context is everything you need to win. Visit HubSpot.com to learn more. The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by fanduel. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I put up a new rewatchables on Monday. We did their Something about Mary. And then this Monday, because we're doing comedies all month for Netflix is a joke month. I did Tropic Thunder with Chris Ryan and Van Lathan and Joel Anderson. First time for him on the pod. So that's coming at some point Monday afternoon. Stay tuned for that one. For this podcast, I'm going to freelance a little bit at the Top because we had two basketball games tonight. I had a lot of scattered thoughts, but I really wanted to get to our guest because David Letterman, after I've had this podcast since 2007. So this is the 20th year I've had the podcast. And he was always bucket list someday, maybe really number one for a long, long time. Ever since I had Larry Bird in 2012 and then really after that, it was Letterman. My three guys growing up were Bird, Letterman, Eddie Murphy. So I guess now Eddie Murphy moves into the pole position of guy. I really need to get on my podcast. But having Letterman was incredible. He's coming up later. I'm going to do some basketball. First. I thought about doing a viewer mail at the Top just as an homage to our listener mail. In my case, just as an homage to the mailbags that he used to do. Because I took the concept in 1997. The moment I had my own column, I just, I was trying to figure out things I wanted to do. One of the things I want to do right away was have my own mailbag because I knew it worked because of Letterman. He had a huge impact on my life and it was an absolute pleasure to sit down for him. We talked like, I think it was like 75 minutes. So I want to get to that as fast as possible. We have a lot of basketball stuff to cover at the top. We do it in one second. We're going to take a break. Then Pearl Jam the Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. It's been a wild playoff run, not over yet. FanDuel wants to bring you closer to the court to make all of that action come to life for you. The basketball fan fanduel the best place to bet the teams players plays during NBA postseason. Build a same game parlay for a shot at a bigger payout or try live betting and jump into the action right after. Tip off whatever you want. That's the whole point of live betting. Download the FanDuel sportsbook app right now and play your game. 21 select states are 18 DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Game problem call 1-800-Gambler, call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chat Connecticut. All right, this top segment is brought to you by New Era. I am recording right after Thunder Lakers game two in Oklahoma City. And game two was the game for the Lakers. You gotta steal one of the first two against a team as good as OKC. They gave it everything they had. They shot 50, 40, 90 from the field. You do that, you feel like you're going to be in the game. Nope. They lost by 18. OKC ripped off a 23 to 5 run in the third quarter. Suddenly it was over. They're just too deep. They're too scary. Look at their box score. Did they have anybody that even played 30 minutes tonight? Let's see. Chet 32. Mitchell played 30, Wallace played 30. But you know, they played 10 guys. They really played more than that. But really they have this 10 man rotation. Jalen Williams played 14 minutes tonight. He was their second best guy during the title run last year and now he's I think their third best guy because I think Chet has officially put on the Robin costume. To Batman. To flopping Batman sga. I kid, I joke. This is why I couldn't really get there with the SJ mvp. Even though I don't begrudge anybody who voted for him. I just think this OKC team is incredible with the depth, the shooting, the defense, all the different lineups. They have guys that can step up night after night after night and I'm looking at what the Lakers did. I thought JJ did an awesome job in these two games. The whole team was locked in. They were running good plays. Their defensive strategy to kind of really hound sga, press them, force the ball to other guys. That's what you should have done. They were in these games in the second half where you look up and they, you know, it was like A six point game, four point game. And none of it matters because OKC can just do these runs. Basically the Lakers, because Luca has been out Since I think April 2, they're turning 35 Luka minutes into about 10 for Larabia, who's been a bust. 10 extra for Canard, 15 extra for Rui and Reeves. And then on top of that, you're relying on the Marcus smart. He was 4 for 13 today. I think he is for the, for the two games. Let's see, I have it down. 8 for 27 or 8 for 28. It's one of those two numbers, but. So you're relying on him. I actually really like how LeBron's playing. One of the things that I had flagged for this series was how old was LeBron gonna look now that he's going against like, you know, the Oklahoma City Pit Bulls? He's kind of holding his own. I mean, this is pretty incredible what's happening here at age 41. LeBron, it's certainly something, you know, the Houston was disjointed, it was a weird team. They were poorly coached, didn't have a point guard. LeBron, he stunk in Game 5, but for the most part had a really good series. And it was like, all right, well, let's see what happens. Gets okay. See, he's been, he's been really good and none of it matters. And they're going to get swept unless OKC just has a game where they shoot like 30%, which I don't see it happening. They just have too many answers. So noble effort by the Lakers. And they lasted longer than the Celtics. Although if they don't have a playoff win now, they still lasted longer than the Celtics. Fuck. Two notes. Was watching AJ Mitchell tonight, who is just incredible, really, really good when you think like he's a bench player who can also start when they need him, but he can also do like a pretty good SGA imperson. He's only a second year guy and he's on a cheap contract. And I wonder, like you assume OKC or San Antonio or Minnesota, one of those three teams will win the title. But OKC is the favorite. They won the title again. Is A.J. mitchell. Has he been good enough that you could trade AJ Mitchell with the number 12 pick? Because I assume they're going to land number 12 in the lottery and maybe other picks that they have because they have some future ones down the road. Maybe Lou Dort's in the trade. Could they get creative and do like 130 cents on the dollar type of trade and move up to the fourth pick and try to get Caleb Wilson, try to get another blue chipper. Because the foundation of this team, you know, during the Durant, Westbrook Harden era. Blue chippers. During this era, you have SGA and you have Jalen Williams, you have Chet Holmgren, you have blue chippers, and you gotta replenish the blue chippers. And you also want guys on rookie deals. And I wonder, like, is how much of an asset is A.J. miller, A.J. mitchell? Because Legler was on here. I remember, I'm gonna say it was either late November or December. And we were talking about how impressed we were with AJ Mitchell, and he was getting big minutes. Cause I think SGA was out for a couple games. And we were just like, could this guy run his own team? Could you. Could you look at this like a Jalen Brunson situation? When Jalen Brunson was on Dallas and Luka got hurt in that Utah series, and Jalen Brunson came in and he kind of ran the team in a way, you were like, huh? What's. This Is AJ Mitchell. If I'm a GM on another team and I'm thinking about, you know, could I make. Could I. How could I elevate fast? Like, let's say Atlanta gets the number four pick and Caleb Wilson is the guy left. Or Cam Boozer. I would personally take Caleb Wilson over Cam Boozer, but let's say Caleb Wilson has left and you're Atlanta, and you're like, well, we could take Caleb Wilson here, put him in with the nucleus we have. Give it a couple years, we'll see where it goes. Or we could get AJ Mitchell. We could get the 12th pick. We could get Lou Dork because they have cap space, too. Could they do some sort of Godfather move to try to be better right away and put the team in AJ Mitchell's hands? I think he might be good enough to maybe be like a discount Jamal Murray or a discount Shea on the right team. He's certainly shown it and the leaps that he's made. This is why this lottery on Sunday, which we're going to be covering right afterwards on Netflix. This lottery has so many variables to it, starting with the Indiana Clippers pick, but then also, who lands. Nobody's trading one. If you get one, you're taking Debanza. I think two, three, four. It's debatable. Teams moving back, teams maybe being overwhelmed. And then if you're okc, like you're stashing all this talent, do you start Thinking about it now, of course I'm making trades for them and they're trying to win the title this year and go back to back and this is the last thing they're thinking about. But I do think this is what Sam Presti thinks about. So just watch Mitchell. He's averaging, I think 17 a game in the playoffs. He's arguably been the best bench guy, even though he is not, you know, he started tonight, but you know what I mean. So where does that go? Where does this lead? Maybe it leads to him being the focal point of a trade with the 12th pick and some other stuff. Keep an eye on that one. There's gonna be a lot of stuff that happens this next five weeks. The other thing is the review system has to be better. This game was almost three hours tonight and we had a couple no brainers where it was like in the fourth quarter. There's an obvious clear path foul. Seems like you just go over to the monitor, you watch it once, like, oh yeah. And then you just do it. There was a couple flagrant possibilities and they just stare at it and they're watching replays like they're Christopher Nolan editing the Odyssey. And it's like, just look at the replay. You should be able to know within 10 seconds. I don't understand why they haven't sped this up. And you have a sport like baseball that has added the shot clock and all these little wrinkles to just increase the pace of the game. The NBA just seems completely uninterested in it. So maybe instead of expansion, maybe try to improve the product before we start. Adding teams to the product would be my advice anyway. I think okc, I thought they were going to sweep. I still think they're going to sweep. And if you're the Lakers, you didn't have Luka. I don't know what else you could have done other than maybe trade a number one pick for desunmu. I still don't think he changes the outcome of this series. And you have a really good coach and you might. LeBron's done enough. I think you have to think about trying to bring him back on a smaller deal and trying to pay Reeves and then trying to build around them. Unless Cleveland keeps doing what they're doing, which is what we're going to talk about next because this Cleveland thing is going so bad that we are now moving into a scenario of LeBron as the savior over the summer. I didn't think it would happen during this season because I never thought Mitchell would allow it. But honestly, Mitchell doesn't have a lot of say. He has never really had true playoff success. The stats are fine, but he has never made a run. And you watch this series and Cade's the best guy in the series and Mitchell isn't. Cade's controlling all aspects of it. Mitchell isn't. And I think Mitchell has probably lost the right to tell the team, you can't get LeBron. This team's going to make some moves. But I want to talk about Detroit first. They've won five straight playoff games. It's basically Cade just being awesome and then enough Tobias. I think Tobias has been really strong the last week and a half. He always, they always know they can go to him with like 8 seconds left on the shot clock. He'll get like a decent shot. He can get his turnaround. Their defense has been great. They've bullied the Cavs all over the place. What they did tonight was nuts. And I think the only good sign for Cleveland. I don't even know if this is a good sign. Detroit went 14 for 28 from three and this game was still close with two minutes left. So if you're Cleveland, you're thinking, they shot the lights out, we played like crap, we're going to be home, we can flip this. The difference is not only can they not get stops when it matters, not only did they have trouble chasing the three point shooters around the line, that Duncan Robinson stuff was terrible. Literally. He can do only one thing and you're, you're letting him move around picks and getting wide open shots. The thing I was worried about with Cleveland and why I thought they had a. I thought last series would be tough just because their defense is so sketchy. Especially, you know, I just feel like you can get good shots and three point shots on them if you want. Detroit's doing it. Detroit looks now the best they've looked all playoffs. But then you look at, you know, Harden's going to take all the shit tomorrow because he's nine for 28 the series. Eleven turnovers today was three for 13. He was zero for four and threes, four turnovers was minus 15. The defense was worse than the offense. He looks slow for him. He always played like at a methodical, picked his spots kind of, kind of way and it just, he actually, Detroit's making him look old and he's lost the ball multiple times on moves that he used to make in his sleep for the first 16 years of his career. So this trade so far has been a disaster, unless you just think of it. As a salary dump. And maybe that's what it was because Garland had that contract for a couple more years the Clippers took. I don't know if they made a wink, wink deal with Harden, but if, if, if he thinks he's going to make $40 million next year or something like that would be irresponsible for a team that's way over the luxury tax anyway. He just hasn't been good. And the crazy thing is there were no signs at all that James Harden might stink in a playoff series over the course of his career. We had no evidence. Oh, I guess we had a decade and a half evidence. Mobley is the one that's more interesting than me. I assumed James Harden would be up and down in the playoffs and he'd probably forget to guard people and he'd have some bad games and I'm sure maybe he'll come back in Game 3 and have 27 points and 10 assists and it'll look fine. Then he'll stink it. He'll do his whole James Harden roller coaster ride. Mobley is the more egregious one to me. He's put up nine points of one rebound today. Not in the first quarter, in the whole game. It was a classic. I forgot you were out there game. And this is, you know, he's 24 years old and Atkinson made excuses for Harden after the game. He's basically like, we can't have our hall of Famer take two shots in the second half. I'll take that one. I would argue he probably could. And I don't think he's playing like a Hall of Famer anymore. James Harden. What he really should have said is, I'd love for Evan Mobley to show up in this series because Detroit's pushing us around and pounding us. I got this email. I was going to do a mailbag at the top, but I ended up having too many basketball thoughts. Zach Connolly from Australia wrote, I'll keep it simple. Does Evan Mobley suck compared to what he should actually be? Interesting question. So it's not that he sucks, it's just the standard we have in our head. Does he suck for that? He now has multiple playoff appearances and nothing to really show for it. What are you doing with your Evan Mobley stock, which I have a ton of from when he got drafted. All right, so we're five years in. He's 24 years old. This is where you should start showing signs that you're rounding into the player you're going to be. I think he's an 18 and 9 guy. This is what he's been pretty consistently all the way through. He's been 18 and 9, shot 30% from 3 this year. And he went backwards like last year. It felt like he was coming on as a three point shooter. It went the other way this season in the playoffs. Every playoffs he's dropped to basically being a 17 and 8. It's fine. He made second team all NBA last year. He was not in consideration this year. And the fear for me, is he noticeably better than he was three years ago or did we just kind of flatline it from year two on? Is he just doing this because when you're 20, I think from 24 to 27 is when you should be going up. And by 27, 26, 27, you should be at the, at the peak of your athletic powers and pretty close to the peak of who you're going to be as a player. The fear is he might be. You are what you are guy at this point. And I don't really know, you know, there you could say maybe if, if they didn't have Jared Allen, he was center, maybe his stats would go up. Maybe he's almost like a smaller ball 5. Sure. Here's the contract numbers because it kicks in next year. Five years, 269 million. I'm getting a really good defensive player who I don't think got any all defense votes this year, but did last year. And I'm getting 18 and 9 and I'm getting situations where I don't really feel him. I don't feel his impact in the game the way I should for a max guy. And I wonder like, will he be the fall guy? What's he worth? Like let's say Brooklyn got the third pick in the draft and they have a ton of cap space and they don't have their pick a year from now. So it's actually in their interest to be better this year. And Cleveland really has to get away from luxury tax. And what if they offered Mobley straight up for the third pick? Is he worth it? Would you rather have Cam Boozer on a rookie contract or Caleb Wilson or a rookie contract, or would you rather play pay mobley 50 million a year? And if you're the Cavs, would you rather save 40 million, give half of that to LeBron and that's your new team. You have Caleb Wilson and LeBron instead of Evan Mobley. I just think these are the questions that are going to be asked about the Cavs. And the Cavs have now moved into pole position for. I'm prepared for anything. I'm prepared for Mitchell to ask for a trade. I'm prepared for them to just trade Mitchell. I'm prepared for a Moby trade. Jared Allen would be easy because he's making less money, but he's still making 30 million a year, which is a lot for our center that's not an all star. And then Harden, are they going to keep his contract or not? This team, everything's in play. Giannis is in play. Pick a Jamal Murray for Mitchell. Crazy shit like that. They're just going to be an all time trade machine if they continue to proceed in this series like they are. And the trait I think is just more physical. I think they have the best player and I think they're going to win this series. And I find it hard to believe that Cleveland will come back and win four out of five. So that will open the door for a lot of stuff, including what do we have with Evan Mobley? Where are we going? Knicks Sixers. Really fun game too. Lot of lead changes. I never felt like Philly was going to win. Now. Embiid wasn't playing, but I just kind of trusted the Knicks to finish it and I don't really know why. I trusted in the same way where last year with the Celtics. I didn't trust the Celtics to hold onto the lead as it was evaporating. Embiid lasted a week and somehow knocked out the Celtics and then went out again. And I can't tell you how many phone calls, emails, texts related to the Celtics I've been on as all the Celtics fans have spent the last five days just kind of wondering what the F happened? Why did Tatum, why wasn't he on a minutes limit? Why did they run Tatum into the ground? Why did Ron Harper start game 7? Why did they get away from their style that worked for the whole regular season? Why did they play Vucevich at all? Why didn't they just put Jordan, Walsh and Hugo on maxi for the entire game and just try to slow him down and wear him down because he was the key to the entire series? Why didn't they put Embiid into the pick and roll stuff that the Knicks just immediately did in game one? Just the recipe that was sitting there for the entire series for the Celtics? I need some honey water. Hold on. I want that on camera. That's how worked up I had. I had to get water for my voice. But really one of the worst series losses I can remember for a Boston team because I as I've said now in three podcasts in a row, I don't think they ever thought they were losing to Philadelphia. I think they used the series as this testing ground, let's fuck around. And then panicked when things started to not work out. So the Sixers, it was great. They advanced to the next round. They're going to lose the Knicks and I think the best thing is they flip those Celtics Sixers situation. They revive Paul George's trade value, which is huge because I think they can get off that contract now if they want to. They might not want to. The way he went at Brown and Tatum and even in Knicks game too, I thought he really went toe to toe with those guys. Their one chance of coming back is a Van Denobies not healthy. It seems like he's going to be a game. Time for game three. We'll see what they do with the refs in game three. The thing with the Knicks is that they're deep enough that, you know, they'll just tell Bridges to go in the Anunoby role. They'll play their bench. They have good bench guys, I think. And I would just be surprised if this went more than five games. And I think the big mistake, Chris Ryan said it. We did. We did rewatchables. We taped the Tropic Thunder rewatchables on Monday and Chris Ryan said it. We hadn't even seen a Sixers Knicks games yet and he was just like, I don't know why we're playing a B tonight. We're not going to win. Why are we putting the miles on him? Rest him like make game two the game. And somehow Chris Ryan knew more than everyone on the Sixers because they played him and he ended up getting banged up. We'll see if he plays. I'm not really sure it's going to matter. And if the Knicks end up blowing this, it would really rank way, way up there because it just feels like they're in complete control. Knicks fans, I know a lot of them lot calmer than they were before game four of the Atlanta series. I got an email from Tony Showtime who said in the last few months, Cat has improved his defense. He's fouling people less and has stepped into a playmaking leadership role. Technically true. I mean, he is averaging like six assists right now. He's also just kind of likable. I've been telling my friends he's Rocky 4ing me. Cat is Rocky and Rocky 4 and I am the rushing crowd. I came into the experience not as a fan, but his play and perseverance has won me over. Have you ever been Rocky Ford by an athlete? Take care of BS don't forget to feed house. That's from Tony Showtime. I put some thought into that. I was trying to think who my greatest Rocky four guys were. And number one is J.D. drew, who the Red Sox signed in the mid 2000s and was. I just really disliked him. The patience at the plate. I just never thought he was going to get a hit ever. He played passively. He didn't have the spirit of the 04 Red Sox. And we paid him, I think 70 million for five years. And I never liked him. And then he hit the $70 million grand slam against the Indians and ended up swinging the 2007 playoffs. And he totally Rocky Ford me. I have him. I have Derek Lowe. Roller coaster ride with Derek Lowe in the Red Sox for. For years there. And then he threw no hitter. Then he became a playoff hero. I mean, we had so many heroes in 2004 and he was one of the best ones, I think. Can't remember he pitched on like two days rest. Well, all those playoff games blend together that. But he was one of the heroes. So he's won. Chris Hogan when the Patriots signed him and it just seemed like we've pushed it one too many white guys too far. And then he came up big in the one playoffs and made a couple of big catches and gained my trust. He Rocky Ford me and then Porzingis was my last one. I really was worried about Porzingis. What was that going to look like? Why couldn't he play with Luka? The trade made sense, but deep down I was never a Porzingis guy. And then by the time we finished the 2024 finals, that would have run through a while for him. So I think Those are my four finishing last. Nikola Vucevic. I think he's a Rocky 5 guy. That's where I landed on him last series. Wolves, Spurs. I thought the Wolves were actually gonna have the eye of the Tiger the rest of the playoffs. And they played game two with. We got one already. The rest is gravy. Anytime that you could see it right away. And the spurs played great. They got Fox going early. They tested out Carter Bryant, which I feel like is going to be really important for this series because the way he guards Randle and Nas Reed gives them a little size with Wemby. Nice win all the way around. They killed him. The spurs are one of those teams where when they're up 20, they look unbelievable. Still a little worried about them in the last four minutes of tight games. We'll see what happens. You know, when we get to Minnesota. I still feel like this is a 5050 series. That game 2 did not scare me off. Nick Wright and I talked a lot about it on on Tuesday's pod and whatever it was a recipe for a blowout. I didn't see it. I thought Minnesota was going to show up, but they got the game they needed to get. A couple of mailbag questions, then we'll get to Letterman. This is from Frank. You did the Lottery Karma rankings and mentioned the Heat not having a top 10 pick since 08. You mentioned the BAM 83 point game. But the biggest karma coming Miami's way is Miami getting screwed on the Rozier trade, only getting a measly second round pickback. The league left them in limbo for months and then ruled that Miami couldn't even get its own first back. Could that incentivize the basketball gods to sprinkle enough karma to grant them a top four pick this year? That's from Frank. You know what? When I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I should have thought of this. They really got screwed on that Rozier thing. They traded for a guy who is now under a federal felony investigation for point shaving and for stuff that he did when he was on the Hornets. So yeah, I have to adjust my rankings. I still have Indiana first, Atlanta second, Washington third. I think Miami's fourth because I forgot about the Rozier trade. I think that's a lot of lottery karma points. So thanks to Frank for pointing that one out. This comes from Morgan Taylor, who is a Toronto Raptors fan and he says, Messiah you, Harry Stanley. And he says my biggest fear now as a Raptors fan is that Giannis asked to go to Dallas and in the opening press conference Giannis comes out and says he's always wanted to play for Messiah. These guys have had a long time relationship and when we first thought Giannis might be available, Toronto was always a team, morgan says. I really felt like Toronto had a solid chance of landing him up until they fired the best exec in the NBA to save a few bucks. Thoughts? I hadn't thought of this. I've been very focused on Giannis, Jaylen Brown trades and whether it made sense to trade for Giannis and how many years he could have left here at an elite level with a lot of miles on him and a lot of injuries the last year. And I didn't even realize Boston might have not even been the main contender The Dallas thing makes a ton of sense. If I'm Dallas, I have that pick, which we'll see what happens in the lottery, but they're going to be somewhere between 1 and 8. I think they have like a 35, 36% chance of moving the top four, but let's say it's going to be 6, 7, 8 range, which will still be a really good player in this draft. And I think a nice trade thing. I was trying to figure out things they could do and things Milwaukee would want and one thing that would really help, ironically, the Celtics have this giant $28 million trade exception. So they could take Daniel Gafford in the trade because they need another center, he's making almost 20 million a year. Send Hauser back to Dallas into the trade exception they have. So Dallas would save 10 million there and then be able to add Giannis and then Milwaukee, they would get the Kwe Thompson, Najee Marshall expirings, max Christie, Dallas's 2026 first, OKC's 2026 first because they have that end of the round, but still. And then they have the Lakers 29 first and maybe throw in a, a swap there. And the only reason I don't think they would do this trade Milwaukee is because, you know, they don't have control of their picks the next five years. So just doing a trade for picks and say and to save money basically doesn't help the situation of, well, what happens if we have a top three worst team next year and we don't have our pick. But it is interesting. So I wonder like what would be the tipping point of picks and stuff Dallas would have to throw in there. If I'm Dallas, I'm doing everything I can to end up with Kyrie Cooper, Flag and Giannis, you know, within reason and if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. But really interested to see what Giannis's trade value is and how desperate teams are to go after him. And you know, we've been talking about it for nine, 10 months, but I think a lot of teams are looking at this the same way. Guy's been in the 2013 draft to now 13 years, hasn't really been 100% healthy through a season for a few years now and what are you trading for and how much do you want to trade for? The risk of this could be Dwight howard in the mid 2010s for all we know. Thinking about that with my team, I think the reason the Celtics would think about it is Jalen's got The three huge years left. Giannis has one huge year left. You'd add an extension to that so the money would be around the same and then you would hope you get lucky. If you saw Brad Stevens press conference, he was not happy with the playoff series, how the team played, being as three point happy as they are. He mentioned dunks multiple times and mentioned just being more physical and it just, it felt like he was laying a lot of breadcrumbs to a Giannis trade. So we'll see. This could end up being Giannis. I think the teams will keep will keep adding to the list as more and more teams have unhappy endings to their season. Tom from Toronto, this is the last one I'll do. Oh, I got two left. Tom from Toronto Want to know has ever been more of a peak time for local sports radio content in Boston? Thank God I'm not there right now. From Vrabo to Jalen to the Red Sox, just hot topics all around. Has any other time beaten it? So right now for sports radio topics and you have to understand Boston sports radio, which is notoriously, horribly negative and always glass half full at all times. So this is like a gold mine. You had the Celtics choking in round one. Joe Maz ran Tatum into the ground. Does Jalen want out and fake Giannis trade. So that's the smorgasbord right there. The Red Sox just fired their manager, their GMs a robot. They had the curse of Mookie Betts. They haven't won since 2018. Now they've been 20 dumb moves and everyone wants John Henry to sell fodder all the way around. Bruins 15 year cup drought, wasting Pasta's career. He's 30 years old now. They just got screwed over in the lottery where the Maple Leafs pick dropped one spot. They got the sixth pick in the draft and said the Maple Leafs won the lottery. So you have that and then you have the Patriots embarrassing Super bowl loss. You can do the were they ever good all along? 4th place, 4th place schedule to 1st place schedule, Drake May Diddy, rope a dopas. You have all that. You have the A.J. brown trade and then you have Vrabel, the head coach of the England Patriots being involved in one of the two or three craziest Boston scandals ever for sports. So there's that. So I went through all the years in my head and I settled on a year. The only one I could think of that was as kind of loaded as this one. 1996. So I'm talking winter 96 into 1997. Which was one of the worst winners to live in Boston, just in general. I think we had like four blizzards that year, but we had the Patriots made the super bowl. And then Parcells decided he was on his way out, he wasn't going to coach the team. So breaking up with Kraft to make the super bowl find out that he was maybe even planning to do the Jets. And so we had that. Everyone's taking sides. People are blaming Kraft, Parcell's unbelievable talk radio topic and the super bowl loss. You had the Celtics, who were in full tank mode at that point for Tim Duncan and Tim Duncan's playing college basketball. You had the Bruins, who were the worst team in the league that year. They ended up tanking as well. And then you had Clemens leaving the Red Sox and drawing the ire of everybody. We were so mad. That was, I think my second or third piece ever. Free as pin in 2001 was called is Roger Clemens the Antichrist? Also, the Yankees just won the World Series. So if you're just talking about like a dark, dark, dark place for Boston Fans, I think 96 was worse. You know, we've had a lot of good stuff happening with the Boston teams, but this is a lot of fodder. Which leads to my last email from Zach in Parkland. Florida is the big winner out of the Vrabo Rossini scandal. Actually, Drake May had a terrible playoff run capped with a Super bowl performance that would have followed them all off season. However, Vrabo, like a true leader, has completely taken that burden off his young qb. Even if May starts off slow next year, it's almost a guarantee that Vrabel will still be shouldering the blame due to the chaos he has caused. Zach from Parkland. Finally a silver lining in the Vrabo Rossini scandal. This story, I did a whole thing, I think two, three weeks ago about how crazy this story was. And every time I think it's over, something else happens leading to what happened today, which was TMC video of a seven months pregnant Diana Rossini going on a clandestine boat trip in Tennessee with Mike Vrabel while she was carrying her future son, Michael. Yeah, this is a fucking crazy story. This is the first time I talked to my dad today where we were like, can he still coach the team? Like this is. Is he gonna take a leave of absence? Is more stuff gonna come out? There's video of them on a boat trip in 2001, 2021. I, I just, it feels like every day there's three social media clips of her on Some podcast. And Vrabel's somehow on the show too, or she's talking about her husband. This is like, this story's a nightmare. I feel so bad for everybody involved. And yet you can't look away. It's like a car accident. And honestly, I used to have this thing, the Tyson zone. When any story. I think I started in the early 2000s where the Tyson zone got to the point where you would just believe any story about Mike Tyson. You'd be like, mike Tyson got in a fight with a zombie bat and bit the bat's head off. You're like, I believe it. I'm hitting that point with this Rossini variable story. I went from I don't want to talk about this at all to being like, wow, we might lose our coach. And I guess the only reason we wouldn't is our owner hasn't exactly. Doesn't have a clean slate of things that's happened with him either. Maybe he'll be a little more forgiving, trying to be nice. Just a bonkers story. I don't have anything else to say. I just hope no more videos come out. Please. I'm tapping out. I'm tapping out. I'm like, I need Arnold Scalin to throw. I'm in the camel clutch with the iron cheek. I need Arnold Scanlan to throw the white towel and then Sabi. I really need to tap out from this raybostini story. Please, no more, please. Please. We're gonna take a break and we're gonna come back with my hero, David Letterman. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to by FanDuel. The NBA playoffs is going strong. Every possession matters. Every bucket swings the game tonight your shot to boost the bet because all customers get a profit boost tonight. So when the moment hits, your win hits bigger and FanDuel has given you better payouts on same game parlays all NBA playoffs long you could target. Let's say you think Philly's going to come back and beat the Knicks. 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