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The Bill Simmons Podcast
SGA vs. Jokic, Celts-Lakers, and the State of NBA Media With Ryen Russillo and Bryan Curtis
02:10:23
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- [00:00]
Bill Simmons
Coming up, we figure out a way to talk about okc, basketball, sports media, a lot of stuff with Brisillo and Brian Curtis next. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Michelob Ultra. A superior light beer and the ultimate trophy. Win or lose, you're bound to enjoy the ride with a good beer in hand. Michelob Ultra crisp, refreshing, only 95 calories. A superior light beer. No matter the game, sport or season, Superior is worth playing for. So sign up for ultra courtside@michelobultra.com courtside and you can enjoy some of these games with a nice beer in your hand. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2025 Anheuser Busch Michelob Ultra registered light beer, St. Louis, Missouri must be 21 plus to order alcohol. Alcohol available only in select markets. This episode is brought to you by the new MGM original series, Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue. All right, here's one for the mystery fans. There are 10 passports, nine bodies and one deadly secret. That's the setup for nine bodies in a Mexican Morgue, the new MGM original series that'll keep you guessing till the very end. The plane crashes deep in the jungle. Nine passengers survive. Until they don't. One by one, the survivors start dying in brutal, mysterious ways. Now they're not just fighting the elements. They're fighting to stay alive. Starring Emmy award winner Eric McCormick, this gripping thriller will have you second guessing everything. Watch Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue streaming now on MJN with new episodes Sundays. By the way, great movies at mjn. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast network where I am on the Prestige TV podcast recapping White Lotus every Sunday night right after the episode runs on HBO and on Max Me, Joanna Robinson, Mallory Rubin, you can hear our recap. Episode four is this weekend. It is on the Prestige TV. You can also watch it on the Ringer Dash TV YouTube channel and then the rewatchables. Monday night we're doing best in show. Yeah, Christopher Guest dogs. It's me and Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson. My White Lotus crew. It's threatening to become sports movie month on the Rewatchables because we did Rocky last week. Best in show this week and two more spots left. I don't know. Could be another sports Movie Month. Hey, FanDuel Sportsbook. They have some really fun bets right now. Player performance doubles, two leg parlays already made for you. Take an NBA player prop, combine it with the bet on that players team to win. We have a ringer PBT we call them on player performance bet placed on any of the Tuesday games. So Washington, Detroit, Milwaukee, Indiana. That's a fun one because Indiana always plays well against Milwaukee. Maybe grab some Hal Burton with Indiana to win. Stay tuned for my picks on Tuesday on Twitter. Be sure to claim the ringer PBT in the carousel in the FanDuel sportsbook app this Tuesday. I have Ryan Marcillo come up in a second. We taped right after the OKC Denver game and then Brian Curtis is going to join us midway through to talk about some of the crazy sports media shit that's going on and also some big picture sports media stuff. So this is an action packed two hours. First, our friends from Pro Jab. All right, we're taping. It's 12:30 Pacific time. Just watched OKC Denver. I'm a little groggy today. Rosillo. Okay, Daylight savings combined with going to bed last night. Wanted to throw something on flip through the cable guide. Cause I'm old and I still flip through cable guides. Cast Away had just started a movie I've seen 100,000 times. I did a solo rewatchables for and I'm like, ah, I'll just watch the beginning. And I'm up till like 1:45 in the morning, which was really 2:45 in the morning. And I just loved that movie. But I had to ask you, what's your castaway move coming out of the gate? You're just stranded on the island. Do you figure out how to do a home gym about a year in? What does your island look like?
- [04:18]
Ryan Rosillo
I've actually thought about this.
- [04:20]
Bill Simmons
Okay, great.
- [04:21]
Ryan Rosillo
And I'm glad that you asked because I like watching alone. It's a good fall asleep show. It is.
- [04:27]
Bill Simmons
Because there's no music for like 50 minutes. So it's peaceful. It's just like ocean sounds.
- [04:33]
Ryan Rosillo
And there was a guy in the most recent one who checked out after one night and I felt like there should be some kind of fine.
- [04:41]
Bill Simmons
He checked that after one night?
- [04:43]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, one night he was like, I'm out, I'm tapping out. He really missed his family. So I think I'd be geared towards doing better because I would have no one to miss. But I would get so upset about how skinny I would be coming out of it that I would never ever do it. Not that I would do well anyway. Like I might have a decent fort. But when I was thinking about it, I was like, you did all this like build up and I've done this, I've trained, I've been in the outback. I've you know, they're in Tasmania, so it's definitely challenging. And then he was done after one night. And then I thought, is that the best thing ever to get over, like a fight with your wife is you sign up for a loan and then you say you've missed them so badly, you tap out after just one night. It's probably the best relationship repair move possible. So maybe he's actually playing the game ahead of everybody else. Cast away.
- [05:26]
Bill Simmons
Wait, can I say one thing on a loan?
- [05:28]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, yeah, of course.
- [05:30]
Bill Simmons
You don't think the wife would be like, wait a second, what just happened? You spent four months training for this show. You quit in a day. Are you just a quitter? What are our kids going to be like? Did you pass along your quitting DNA to our children?
- [05:45]
Ryan Rosillo
I mean, stay a second night. I understand the buzz.
- [05:49]
Bill Simmons
Try to make it like four days. Some people know when they know they're just out.
- [05:55]
Ryan Rosillo
But then you have to watch. You watch the people after like 24 hours going, what'd you think it was gonna be? Yeah, what'd you. What'd you. Yeah, it's gonna be really hard. And there's not a grocery store. Like, figure it out. So.
- [06:07]
Bill Simmons
Well, my dream in life was for my wife to be on Survivor. Cause I think she just would have kept winning challenges. But she also goes crazy if she's not eating regularly.
- [06:17]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, see, I.
- [06:18]
Bill Simmons
She would have been like, they would have been constantly trying to vote her off and then she just would have saved her ass again at the next challenge. I, you know, I, I always have wanted to know somebody that I really know in my life who went on one of those shows. And I'm still waiting. Maybe it'll be you. Maybe you don't know in Tasmania. No. Somebody that I'm actually like is in my life where I'm like, oh, my God, this is going to be amazing. Priscilla's on alone.
- [06:42]
Ryan Rosillo
I won't, though. I won't. Because I. I'd be like 185 coming out of it and I'd never be the same.
- [06:47]
Bill Simmons
You wouldn't just drink like a lot of coconut like that. There's probably some nutrients you could. No, nothing. All right, do your castaway. What was your castaway take?
- [06:55]
Ryan Rosillo
I'd light the entire island on fire within 24 hours. I think that's the best chance of me being noticed. I've thought about it. I think that's the only move.
- [07:02]
Bill Simmons
I thought about that last night too. Cause he goes to the top where he tests out whether he wants to hang himself on the top of the island. And wouldn't the move be to just set everything as high as possible, the highest peak of the island, set it on fire as much as you can. So you're getting. At some point they've got a notice. Although they did say it was a 500,000 square foot radius.
- [07:24]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, I'm not saying it's gonna work, but I just. I think in those first couple days is your only chance of being noticed or say the first week or whatever.
- [07:34]
Bill Simmons
So if you got like 10 day window. Yeah, yeah, I did this. When I did the solo castaway pod during the first two months of COVID I did this. But I'm always amazed the husband doesn't wake up. That's my favorite part of the movie. Cause Hank's. He's back. Helen Hunt won't see him. And then that first night, he just says, fuck it, and takes a cab to her house. Husband's just sleeping through it. I know it's raining, but that first night, I'm probably gonna be sleeping with one eye open, knowing my wife is just in a tizzy that the love of her life actually survived. I'm probably gonna be up for a couple days there, just making sure.
- [08:15]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, I can imagine if you were the new husband and if Helen Hunt were like, look, you know, he's kind of my soul mate and I owe it to him. And then just years later, you just. You just put in hours that irks. Just constantly drinking. And guys would be like, he's the guy, he's the. And then he just kind of turns and goes, what are you supposed to do? You know, like, bad, bad beat.
- [08:41]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. Maybe the move would have been to bow out. Okc Denver. So there's this. And I don't know if I just noticed it this year, but it might be every year where we have to. There's this new thing the media does, and it's not new, where they lecture people that we're not talking about somebody enough or we got to give these guys more credit. It's like this lecture thing. It's a way of talking about a team because you don't really have anything that interesting to say. So you look in the camera and you lecture people about, we're not talking about OKC enough. I don't know what we're doing, people. And you do that thing. We did this. I remember the first time I really noticed this was that the year after the Suns made the finals, when they were awesome. Because I think I did it where the Suns were really good that second year and nobody was talking about them. And at some point, there was a week where I was like, we're not talking about the Suns. What are we doing?
- [09:32]
Ryan Rosillo
I did it, right? We did it.
- [09:35]
Bill Simmons
We all did it. I think we probably did it together. And then I think the Celtics did it. Last year. I think the Celtics hit that point where there was kind of not a lot to say. They shot a lot of threes. They hadn't won anything yet. And I feel like OKC is in this zone this year. I have some theories for this.
- [09:51]
Ryan Rosillo
Okay.
- [09:52]
Bill Simmons
Basically, the subject heading would be, why is it not that fun to talk about OKC yet? Because they just dusted Denver tonight and they have a guy who's going to win the mvp, and yet everybody's like, ah, what is your opinion for why this is not fun yet?
- [10:07]
Ryan Rosillo
Well, I don't know why it's not fun, because I think they're a lot of fun to watch. Just their aggressiveness. You look at the blocks. They have 14 blocks in today's game. San Antonio leads the league with six blocks per game. So, like, there's just things that I've always noticed against Oklahoma City, if you screw around, if you wait around, you're just going to be in trouble. Now that they've rolled out this double big thing they're doing with Chet and experimenting with that, and then they bring Chet back in, like watching Phoenix play against Denver in comparison to watching Oklahoma seat, like, yeah, it was. Hey, do you want to sit up here, Jokic? Do you want to get a catch here? Do you want to be able to just turn and face the defense without any kind of pressure on you whatsoever? And Jokic was great in the first quarter. I don't know how much the elbow injury played into him, missing, missing his free throws on top of everything else, but there's just not a lot of room. There's not a lot of time, and you just cannot screw around against the Thunder. So I don't know why it wouldn't be fun, because. Sga. Sga. Okay. Is he not as fun as Ant? All right, fine. But, I mean, this guy's on an absolute tear.
- [11:02]
Bill Simmons
I'm about to have fun talking about SGA with you just. Just like three minutes from now, but I'm just flagging that for you now.
- [11:08]
Ryan Rosillo
The final thing I would say as we kind of go through this is that I've always said, I just think we have a hard time with new. We have a really hard time with new, maybe even more so in the NBA, like, when's the last time something was new? A team that hadn't won a championship, players that hadn't won a championship where you thought, you know what, I'm all in on this team because for me it's been a long time.
- [11:25]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. Even Boston last year, who'd had the scars and had some tough losses and gotten in the finals, and it was still the same thing. Well, you know, we'll see. We'll see if they can win four rounds. I think there's a couple issues with okc. None of them are their fault. One is that they're new. Two is that there's nothing polarizing about them whatsoever. There's no argument. There's no, like, I'm going to sit in a sports bar and have an OKC argument about Jalen Williams or Chet Holmgren. Like, they've just done everything correctly. They've added talent really smartly. They built a fun team. I think their eight, nine man rotation is pretty unassailably put together. They have all these picks coming and there's no zag. And whenever there's not a zag, I think people have struggle. They struggle to figure out, like, well, how do we talk about this then? Because you just end up going, this team's great. This team's awesome. But you watch them today and this team, I, I think that thing that is so impressive to me is that they can linger in these games and they'll be up like four, they'll be up three, they'll be up six, but then they'll just have this 8, 0 run out of nowhere. And all of a sudden the game's 14, 15. It's not even threes. It's like defense. It's a second chance rebound. It's SGA just scoring six points in a row. I think they're really scary. Do I think Denver could beat them in a series or the Lakers just by slowing things down by the pressure going up? I wouldn't say no way. But OKC just has so many advantages. You mentioned the two big stink today, their malleability now when they do that versus when they can go small, that's something they just didn't have last year. But the SGA piece of it, you know, I was looking at it. I was looking at all the best guard seasons. He's having one of the best guard seasons non MJ in the history of the league. Like when you're talking about team success, his, like, his production, his consistency. That was his 40th, 30 point game today he had another 40 point game. The way that he's played against other big teams, how consistent he is night to night, how unstoppable he kind of is, I think that's probably the number one talking point with them now. For me. It's like, where does this SGA season rank against some of the other great guard seasons we've seen in our lifetime? When you talk about Kobe and Harden and Curry and even somebody like Jordan, statistically, he's moved into that stratosphere, which to me is the biggest surprise.
- [13:58]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah. Because I think when you look at his three point shooting, even though he didn't hit any today, it didn't really matter. You know, that was maybe the final piece of him being this unstoppable scorer. But you know, he's. You're right though. Like whenever you think about the polarizing part of who we talk about, you know, whether it's the Lakers being at the top, you know, there's just going to be a lot of people that don't like the Lakers. There's obviously going to be a lot of people who don't like Boston. Maybe Cleveland falls in this category a little bit, but maybe there's a little bit more hesitation on like what Mitchell is. Even though what I would always defend with Mitchell is say what you want about some of the playoff exits. Like, at least you know that his ceiling is these like legendary playoff performances where he can just go for like 45 and take over a game. And he has zero fear with Boston. Did you know he passed Jordan, by the way, for most points per game against the Celtics in franchise history?
- [14:46]
Bill Simmons
Seriously?
- [14:47]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, he's ahead of Jordan now.
- [14:49]
Bill Simmons
Wow.
- [14:50]
Ryan Rosillo
With that game, with that comeback.
- [14:53]
Bill Simmons
Jesus.
- [14:53]
Ryan Rosillo
Two Fridays ago. Yeah. So I think you're right because there's nothing to hate. They're. They also like, if anything people be like they might be a little boring, which. Which is maybe part of the problem. Which is. Right. I do not find them boring. I mean, think about how deep this team is. Granted, it's one game, but they shut everybody down. Right. For this game. And you know, I don't know if they did it strategically knowing they had Denver back to back here. Maybe everybody was due. They play Jalen Williams, the Arkansas Jalen Williams, Usman, Jang, Kenrich, Williams, Isaiah Joe, Aaron Wiggins goes for 30. All those guys played 30 minutes. You know, Brandon Carlson's playing 14. Like, and they beat Portland by 20. So this team, it's probably the worst. If there was an expansion draft press, he would be like, God, Damn it.
- [15:40]
Bill Simmons
But yeah, you're right.
- [15:42]
Ryan Rosillo
I. I'm so impressed with them. If you look at them night to night, you know, they. They seem to kind of figure out what you're trying to do. Even the zone possessions that they did a good job against sga, slowing him down a little bit. Like eventually great players are going to kind of figure out your zone. Denver has really no perimeter matchup for SGA on top of everything else. Maybe the SGA free throw things upset people, but he's number one in drives. He's averaging 21 drives per game, 15 points per game off those drives, which is three more than Zion, who has great drive numbers considering his minute totals. And there's plenty of guys that hunt free throws that I can get frustrated with over the course of the game. I don't even know that I find him as frustrating as some of the other people. I just think he's that hard to defend because of the size. So it really comes down to the number two guy. Is there a number two guy that you trust enough in the playoffs for them to get through four rounds? And I think there's still enough people out there that maybe doubt if Jalen Williams is that guy.
- [16:34]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. And they're in the same issue. The Celtics are in with that. Top of the second quarter, top of the fourth quarter. Can Jalen Williams run the offense for like four or five minutes, which is the Jalen Brown issue with the Celtics sometimes the SGA piece of it. Just because I've been watching them really closely, because I've been trying to think like, if the Celtics see him in the finals, is there a way to defend this? What is he doing exactly right? And he's got basically three different things that he vacillates between. He has that thing, you just go to the basket. Like if you fall asleep for a split second, he's got this first step and he can get to the rim and he can finish. But then he also has the. I'm gonna pretend I'm gonna do the get to the rim thing and I just stop. And there's no way your body momentum can stop with me. And then I'm gonna be elevating as you're still trying to catch up, and I make a 15 footer. But then the third thing he does, and I don't know how you stop it. And he did it a couple times in the fourth quarter today. He has the ball like top of the three point line, top of the key, and people are defending him and they're doing everything Perfectly. And it just seems like he's trying to decide what to do and whether he wants to swing the ball. And then he'll just, he'll make like a subtle. And all of a sudden he's shooting and every single time the team is a split second lay down realizing he's about to take an 18 footer and I don't know how he does it. I've never seen a guard get these shots that he wants without the defense realizing that that's the shot he was setting up for. Like Brunson will do different versions of this, right? He has his little spots on the court and he has that herky jerky style. But I always know he's going to shoot SGA shooting as I'm registering. Oh, he's probably going to shoot here. And he's already like releasing the ball and he's just so good at it now. He's so good from 18ft that the model I was thinking Rossella was it's like the, like the most efficient version possible of where Kobe was getting to in that 03 to 09 range where just as and Kobe would try to swing between these three pointers, get into the line and then this like 15 to 18 foot range jump shot. And SJ is just more efficient at it. Like he's 53, 54% per game on some of these and they're just always going in. And I think about the Celtics, it's like, how do you stop this? What's your move? Like, do you just say jrue Holiday on him all the time? Well, then they're just going to get him in switches until he gets the guy that he wants on him and then he does it to them. But it's. This is why he's going to win the mvp, I think, because when you watch them against these good teams, he always seems to get his points no matter what the other team is doing. And that's going to be the case for him ultimately. Plus the wins.
- [19:08]
Ryan Rosillo
I couldn't believe when it was what, 89, 85. I'm like, how is Denver still in this game, right?
- [19:15]
Bill Simmons
Getting nothing from Jokic for two quarters, right?
- [19:19]
Ryan Rosillo
And then Aaron Gordon who's out. And if you look at the numbers for them, when Aaron Gordon's out, I think they're 14 and 11. Now, if you include today's game, and I think they're 26 and 12 with them, those numbers can be off by a game here or there because sometimes it's. It's a little misleading to look it up. But when you think about the switches like they were attacking Jokic and you know that's something you're still going to want to do. And I always wonder if we would look at Jokic a little bit different defensively, as if he were an issue for them if they didn't have the title already. I know I probably look at it and go, hey, he's at least positioned right, but at least it's somebody you can think of attacking. And then if it's not going to be beating Christian Brown off the dribble, which you can do without the screen, you can switch into Murray. You know, Westbrook's kind of hit or miss. You know, there's just a bunch of stuff that you can attack out there. And a lot of it changes when Aaron Gordon's not in the game. Not that Gordon would be defending him one on one like 30ft away, but I think the way you described his different ways of getting into his offense is, is the other part. The shot attempt is still available later for him with all the stuff that he does than a lot of high volume scorers because he can kind of slow it all down. It's not like Luca, but it's almost the same thing where you don't really speed them up. They play with this incredible pace and whatever is flying around them, they're still completely in control of all of their options. And at his size, and then to be able to pull up from mid range, like even those zone possessions where it felt like Malone was slowing them down and clogging it up a little bit, which I love when teams do like, hey, something's not working. Why don't you throw some zone at him? Make them think about it. Now, some of these teams fall apart when they face a zone, but ultimately the more you keep doing it, especially with a team like the Thunder where everybody's good with the ball in their hands, they should be able to figure it out. So if you're talking Celtics part of it, they're clearly going to have better matchups against SGA and they're going to have a better rim protector if Porzingis is playing. If you have four different perimeter guys that you can throw at them, that's great. Yeah, yeah. And size too, on top of everything else. Because Denver doesn't really have any perimeter size other than Porter Jr. Again, Porter Jr. And Gordon against him, that's probably guys that are too big. So it's really coming off of the corner corners. And I think part, you know, I don't I don't like the assumptions. Like, what if OKC doesn't hit those open corner threes as everybody helps off of the corners to go to sga, you're like, all right, well, welcome to the league. Yeah, but at least they have, like, Wallace hit one. I think he was 1 for 4. Dort hit a couple. Caruso had one late. Like, I like OKC's chances. If those are the corner guys that you're Isaiah Joe, throw him in there. Like, that's the way the team is built. So, yeah, there's not somebody else necessarily at, like, SGA's level as a two guard or a two option, I should say. And no one really has, like, another MVP waiting like that. So it's not really a fair criticism of okC, but I've heard that talked about. It's like, what happens with those secondary shooters in a tight playoff game. And I'm just like, well, that's. That's kind of the league. So I don't know why specific to them.
- [22:15]
Bill Simmons
I mentioned the three different ways. It seems like he scores. I should have mentioned the fourth way, too, which is this team's or just a really good transition team. They, you know, long rebounds or if they get a steal, they just finish plays. And SJ is really good in the open four, too, which I think that's probably the fourth way he's getting his points. He's up.
- [22:34]
Ryan Rosillo
Something else to add, though, about this team. Yeah, Your Kobe thing with sga. SGA is totally fine getting rid of a ball.
- [22:41]
Bill Simmons
Right.
- [22:42]
Ryan Rosillo
So that's another part of it where, you know, if he's out there and he's going like, I still may be alive in this possession. I do think some teams get used to their number one scoring option once they're past a certain moment of just being okay. Now I'm not really in the play. I'm not going to cut. I'm not going to relocate on the perimeter. These guys feel really, really connected. Maybe because they all came up together and because they're young and last year felt like, wow, they were already this good. I think there's a personality to this team that also makes me like them.
- [23:12]
Bill Simmons
That's another piece that makes it not that fun to quote, unquote, talk about them. Because they all like each other and get along. They do interviews after the game. There's no, like, ah, I wonder, is Jalen Williams jay jealous about SGA? But there's none of that shit. So SJ is 33 a game, 53% field goal plus 17.6 net rating heading into this game. Although a lot of the OKC guys are way up 31.1 PR which is really rare for a guard that's top 20 all time and he plays every game which I'm always going to say this over and over again. Durability should matter a little more when we talk about all this stuff. But if you compare it to Curry in 2016 when the warriors went 73 and 930 points a game, 35 and 7 basically. And he had all the 504590 percentage stuff. MJ in 92 when the Bulls went 67 and 15 he was 36 and 6. 52% played 80 games. Kobe probably his best season was.03 for team success combined with the stats 37 and 6 and then Harden in 2018 when they went 65 and 17 he was 36 and 9. So as crazy as this sounds, he's having the best statistical season of any of these guards combined with like did you win in the mid-60s or higher? So if you're talking about because I've heard some people be like joke. Jokic has to be the MVP again. I just think sga, I don't know who I'm voting for yet. I'm taking it to the last week as always. But watching SGA do this over and over again in these big games, just get to his 40 points. His team is usually winning. He's doing it day after day after day. He has a dramatic effect on everybody. I just think he's checking all the boxes. It would be hard for me to believe he's not going to win. If they win 66 games.
- [25:12]
Ryan Rosillo
This helps. You know. National broadcast Head to head Jokic has the greatest first quarter is not enough of a factor. SGA closes it out. I imagine more people are probably paying attention to today's slated games than maybe a late Friday overtime win against Phoenix where he goes 30, 20 and 20. And at Jokic's seventh 15, 1515 game this season, which is the most I think since Oscar Robertson. So I mean you get a good.
- [25:38]
Bill Simmons
You see the stat. He had a triple double on Friday night in the beginning of the third quarter and then a second triple double during the game on Friday. He put together two different triple doubles in one game.
- [25:51]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah I the momentum part for SGA with voters. My guess would be SGA is going to win it because of how good the team is because of a head to head look. They go back at it again tomorrow night, right?
- [26:04]
Bill Simmons
I'm going to be awesome tomorrow night.
- [26:06]
Ryan Rosillo
I'VE never once thought SGA was better than Jokic.
- [26:09]
Bill Simmons
I don't know. I still think Jokic is the best player in the league.
- [26:12]
Ryan Rosillo
So if it's close at the end of the year, I'm going to remember that. If I still have a vote, we can get into some of the advanced stuff and depending on the day you sort it, it's SGA or Jokic and it's really, really close. What I think there's always a part of it too of like if Jokic took more shots, would we be more enamored with his scoring output? But it's just not the way he's going to play. I also think OKC is just a better basketball team. So, yeah, I'm still leaning Jokic and I, I want to remind myself of that. If it's close, who do you think is the best player? And I don't. I don't know that, you know, even with this season, what SGA's done, I'll ever actually think that he's better than Jokic and that will factor into my voting. And I wonder if Jokic, like depending on seating and all that kind of stuff with the west, it will kind of matter, you think for Denver with their home court, it should kind of matter. But I think Jokic cost himself one in the mb, the MB MVP season because towards the end of it, yeah, it just seemed like he didn't care about it as much. So I wonder if that was minus.
- [27:11]
Bill Simmons
Sj is minus 600. I'm not deciding until the last week, but everything, everything SJ is doing, I find it hard to believe he's not going to win with the record and everything else. But I'm with you. If I'm just starting from scratch and who is the best player in the league, it's really hard for me to think it's not game to game. All the stuff Jokic does. I think he's been in a harder spot this year with his team not knowing where you're getting from Murray the first two months. Gordon's been up and down the last like six weeks with injuries. Westbrook they're relying on in this insane way now they don't have a bench at all. SJ has at least if you're going to like and it's not his fault but he at least knows when he leaves the game they're not going to immediately crater. But it's a good battle. It's a really good battle. I hope it doesn't get. I hope it doesn't get Cantankerous. It will get closer, but I'm sure it will.
- [28:07]
Ryan Rosillo
Even saying some of the stuff I've said already. But if somebody said, you need to explain that to me, I was just going to know. I. I don't. You need to explain Jokic.
- [28:19]
Bill Simmons
Also, it's good to talk to, like, if you talk to people who actually coach in the league or run teams, Jokic is still the bar for the teams. It's a little like Mahomes. Mahomes wasn't the best player in the league last year in the NFL, but he was still the bar that people pointed to when they thought, like, who do we have to get by to actually win the title? You looked at him, you looked at Mahomes first. I think you look at Jokic first.
- [28:41]
Ryan Rosillo
It'D be one thing too, of like, Jokic was having a down season at sga. There was just a huge gap between the stats, and then you kind of start leaning towards, okay, well, this guy's had such a better season that I can't actually, because I think there's some curry stuff with LeBron where I don't know that anybody thought Curry was actually better than LeBron. He was just having those seasons. And part of the story, which I think is always a huge part with voters, because voters like stories, is that when it's new and it's kind of this next level of accomplishment, at least for the regular season, because that's what the award is, that player's going to have a ton of momentum. So I'm with you. I'd be surprised if SGA doesn't win it.
- [29:19]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. Well, if OKC wins tomorrow and they win the back to back against Denver, it's probably going to be a wrap at this point. All right, we're going to take a quick break and then let's talk about lessons from Lakers Boston last night. One of the best parts of the tournament is when an underdog takes down a powerhouse. This was in my formative years with March madness in the 80s. It was always the most fun when this happened. Right now, those upsets can get even better. This week on FanDuel. If your underdog bet wins, you'll land even more winnings with the profit boost. So it's your chance to ride the long shots, the scrappy teams, the one that refuse to go quietly. You can even get some ideas from one Shining podcast with Tate Frazier. What a great podcast that is. If you've been waiting and joining FanDuel, there's no better time. The app is easy to use and when you win, you'll get paid instantly. Just visit FanDuel.com BS to download America's number one sportsbook today and back your dog of the day with a profit boost. Because after all, anything can happen in March. Must be 21 plus in President Select States or 18 plus in President DC. Opt in required wager of at least plus 100 odds required bonus issues as non withdrawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply including any token expiration and max wager amount. See terms@supportsplit.fanda.com, game problem. Call 1-800- GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com this episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra Michelob Ultra A superior light beer and the ultimate trophy. Win or lose, you're bound to enjoy the ride with a good beer in hand. Michelob ultra crisp refreshing only 95 calories. A superior light beer. No matter the game, sport or season, superior is worth playing for. Always be prepared for a win. In order Michelob Ultra today available on doordash by the way, enjoy responsibly. 2025 Anheuser Busch Michelob Ultra Light Beer St. Louis, Missouri must be 21 plus to order alcohol. Alcohol available only in select markets One thing I forgot to mention about okc, that Philly pick is such a monkey wrench in this draft. If that ends up being seven, eight or nine. I just, I kept thinking about it watching that game. Like, what does this team even need? What are they? What it's like, yeah, we got upgrade. They like every part of the team I kind of like. So anyway, all right, Lakers, Celtics felt like a massive basketball game last night. It felt like real theater. And the Lakers were a little compromised. No Rui and no even Jackson Hayes. I can't believe I'm saying it, but not having both of those guys having no centers. Yeah, having no center is an issue against a team that has size and could drive the basketball. Celtson F KP but that game was really fun to watch. Tatum was awesome. The crowd was really interesting. I knew multiple people that were there and there were some Laker fans there. I think there was some secondary market Laker fans. So there was a real energy in the arena and the Lakers just couldn't keep up. It was unsustainable with those two guys. Then LeBron breaks down anyway. But what big lesson did you take from that game? Anything.
- [32:20]
Ryan Rosillo
Horford. It's just incredible that this guy is doing what he's doing at this age. You start thinking, okay, how much more does he Have. And that was probably a couple years ago when you're thinking, oh, you know, remember that year he was lighting it up from three from the regular season, which he's done a couple times. And then in the playoffs, it was just kind of over. I think it's just really fitting, too, considering he was such a huge free agent signing. And then I think a lot of fans were like, I thought this guy was, like a max player. And how come he's not, like, doing more of these things and you're just going, well, there's just more to it than just the scoring for Horford. It's being positioned the right way. It's. It's. It's a guy you want on your basketball team. And then he goes to Philly, he gets flipped to okc. Speaking to that pick, he gets basically sat down because OKC's rebuilding. And then he comes back to Boston and he's a huge, huge. The luxury of having an Al Horford to step in when Porzingis isn't available is incredible. And it was very clear that Boston had their hunting strategy, because we talked about, like, that hunt happy approach to basketball. That look is a big part of everything that you're watching every night. But the Lakers, like, let's kill Al Horford tonight. Okay? So I don't know if you saw the numbers afterwards. The tracking. Bontemps had it on ESPN.com they targeted Horford 23 times last night.
- [33:41]
Bill Simmons
That's.
- [33:42]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah. According to Second Spectrum, the second most isolations against any player in a single game since the player tracking started in 2003. He allowed 0.39 points per direct play, the second best efficiency by any player to defend at least 15 isolations in a game the last 12 seasons. The Lakers deciding, what we like here is attacking Al and watching al spread out one on one, 25ft away from the basket. Getting down into a stance and fighting through every one of these hunting switches. Like, I lost track of other stuff that was happening in the game because I was having, you know, you ever notice, like, something in a game, you go, hey, I got to start watching the game here. Like, you've. You're focused. I couldn't stop watching him and just, like, out. I. I couldn't. I was so impressed with him that he held up that way. And then I thought, okay, are they going to get, like, are they just wearing him out to the point where this is going to become a real problem later on? And look, they got the huge lead. Lakers make a big comeback there. But Horford was a story.
- [34:45]
Bill Simmons
He's really comfortable at least banging with LeBron. Which is funny because there was that whole stretch when LeBron just owned the Hawks. And even though his minutes are the same this year, it doesn't feel like they've used him in the same ways. They've been way more bubble wrappy with him and then if they really need him, they'll unleash him in a game like that. I agree with you. He's awesome. I don't understand how he's still doing it. I was surprised the Lakers didn't try to get Reeves going a little bit more because I think that's somebody the Celtics have had trouble matching up with. Just those kind of herky jerky guards in general seem to do okay against them. But I thought the Lakers just got too trapped into this idea of what they thought they wanted to do. It was also a really weird Luca game who clearly wasn't 100%. My dad was at the game, he was texting me and he was just like, what's wrong with Luka? Like I started getting those texts pretty early, like something's not right. He doesn't seem right and just, he just seemed off. And then LeBron got hurt, which, you know, he, he tweaked the groin. We'll see how long he's out. But this is the problem when you're overcompensating for these other things that are missing and you can fly around and you can look really good in a Thursday night game, but it's not sustainable. You can't, can't put that kind of rebound and defense pressure on LeBron. So you know, he might, they might drop out, drop down now to like the four or five seed we might get Lakers Warriors. Round one is, is not inconceivable at this point, which I think would, would be just a nuts series. One thing I noticed before LeBron got hurt, I like this is the most fun I think I've had watching him since that, since the COVID season. Just some of the decisions, some of the ways he was attacking the Celtics, how comfortable athletically he was. It was actually looking a little 2018 LeBron ish to me. That whole run he had in the Cavs team, but he has obviously better teammates. I, I still would not want to see this team in a series. Even if they don't have a center. I assume they're going to have at least Ruby and Hayes when they get to a series. But how fast that they can make up these little 8 point whatevers I just. I'm just still taking them seriously. Last night didn't change anything for me. And then from a Celtics standpoint, I thought Bob Ryan had a great tweet about it. He said, this Celtics team is like a gifted child with a concentration problem. That was Bob Ryan's take on last night's game. Cause how many times have they been up? 22, 23. And they just fuck around for six minutes, and the lead's seven, and the crowd's groaning, and we're like, come on, guys, finish the game here. They do it over and over again. And last night was another example. So those are all my takeaways, I.
- [37:35]
Ryan Rosillo
Think, leading into this. To be fair, the Lakers have that overtime win against the Knicks, which was an awesome game on Thursday. They had been home since the last week of February, so they started a home stand. I think they would have been home From Denver Probably 23rd February if they didn't come back. So it's their first time they're on the road. That game's March 8th. Boston sat a bunch of guys against Philly. Like, Boston should have been up for that game. Should have been better rested. And when the line came out, it was like five and a half. I remember thinking, like, I don't know, this might. This might be a spot. I guess the Lakers part of it has been really hard for me because I can't believe they're this good defensively and they've won all of these games. And the one thing that you thought when they added Luca, you go, okay, well, how's that perimeter going to hold up defensively? And then LeBron cranks it back up after having stretches this season where it looked like he was alive. But you'd imagine you got to give him the benefit of the doubt in a playoff series. But I'm with you. Like, I went to, as we talked about last week, a bunch of Lakers games in a pretty quick amount of time. Like, I just.
- [38:38]
Bill Simmons
I know you're like the new Diane Cannon. I know it's you, Diane Cannon and Lou Adler just go to the Laker games one day.
- [38:45]
Ryan Rosillo
One day, bill. But watching LeBron shot making like, this is not why you're listening to the pod. Like, here's a little say that LeBron's good at basketball. But the shot making in the angle stuff, and these fadeaways that he's incorporated where you expect it to go in every single time. Like, I can't believe how often he's making these shots that the takeoff and the starting Point of it, like, that's. That's going to go in.
- [39:09]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [39:10]
Ryan Rosillo
And so, you know, whether we're talking all NBA stuff, and then you look at like the points per possession and what he's done, and his life should be easier. His life should be easier now with Luca, where I think, you know, there's a version of it going back to peak Miami, LeBron, where you just never wanted the ball out of his hands, even though, you know, Wade is an incredible player and what he would offer in here, I think the Luca part of it makes his life a little bit easier. So I don't. I don't put a ton of stock into last night's game, because I think the way it was set up like you would expect, Boston was going to win that one.
- [39:44]
Bill Simmons
Well, so they dialed up the minutes. I mean, they. They went for it. Like Tatum didn't. Tatum didn't come out for the first, like 19 minutes of the game. He played four games all the way through. Yeah, he went all the way through. They took him out for like a minute in the second quarter. I was like, jesus. I think they really wanted it. Cause the Lakers kicked their ass. It was interesting though, my dad after the game. Cause I FaceTimed them this morning. We were breaking it down and he was like. I thought they were scarier with Davis. That. Which it was, I thought was a great zag by him. I don't know if he's eligible now to come on first take and just like zag hard against Perk and sas. But, um. But he was just like, I. He was like. I thought that team was really hard for us to play because how big and how physical they were. Now it's like, you know, he. And he's made the same point that I was thinking watching the game and the announcers talked about too. Like, Jalen loves playing against Luca for some reason, I don't know what it is, but Luka brings out the best out of Jalen. And Jalen really feels like he goes into these Luka games, like we're at least going to be a draw in these games and the rest of my team is better. So. Yeah, I still feel like when it comes down to the playoffs and those two guys trying to figure out at least one of them's out there all the time, all the shit we've talked about forever. I actually think we can't talk about this Lakers team enough. This is such a fascinating situation to have this one guy who's one of the greatest players of all time, who's playing as well as he's played in five years. And then this other guy who had a chance to be the future of the league, who's on his team. I think I've watched every quarter of the Lakers since these two guys have been playing together. I can't get enough of it.
- [41:23]
Ryan Rosillo
I was going to ask you this about the Boston part of it.
- [41:25]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [41:27]
Ryan Rosillo
So the Bob Ryan thing is really funny, right? It's really funny. And clearly you watch them a ton. I watch them a lot. And I started to have the same feelings again, where it's like, why are you guys waiting so late to go into your offense? Now it's shut down. Now it's Jaylen Brown pulling up from this 15, 17 foot. Like, these are. These are tough shots. And honestly, it feels like Jalen makes more of them than I expected.
- [41:51]
Bill Simmons
He was really good last night for most of the game, but there's just.
- [41:54]
Ryan Rosillo
A lot of those shots. You're like, that's. That's what you guys are going to settle with. You're going to have, you know, four people watching. And I think I did it. When I did my horrible 15 teams in 15 minutes. It took 40 minutes because the whole gag is that it's supposed to be 30 teams in 30 minutes. And I tried really hard to keep it to 30 minutes, and I think I did an hour. So I'll try to. I'll try to fix that next year. But every time you start going through this Boston stuff, you're like, okay, well, let me look at the offense. All right, top five offense. Let me look up the clutch offense. Okay. It's third in the NBA behind Cleveland and Denver. So do you think you watch the Celtics too much and you take it more personally when they get bogged down into bad offensive sets? When they have a lead where it seems like they're settling, they take too late to get into stuff, maybe get a little hunt happy. When there's really no number that tells you it's that much of a flaw.
- [42:40]
Bill Simmons
It's a. I've watched too much of this team thing. When they're up 23, I don't feel safe at all. I'm just waiting for stupid shit to happen. And that's. That's the biggest criticism I can have against them. They're up 91, 69. I'm like, all right, there's going to be a run here. I'm just going to. Just hopefully. Hopefully Joe Maz will call, sniff it out, call timeout before it gets too bad. And then it happens. You look at the net rating. So the last 20 games they're still fourth. They're 15 and 5. In their last 20 they're plus 7.8. They haven't been like as kick ass as I think they were in this stretch last year. And if you look at the top six teams who I think are Cleveland, OKC and Boston drop off Denver, Lakers, Golden State as the teams that have a chance to win the title. Minnesota I think has to be considered maybe as like a wild, wild, wild card, who the fuck knows. And then Detroit has just been awesome with advanced metrics for like 25, 30 games and that's been our top eight. I just would have thought the Celtics would be doing a little bit better. That's if you're going to talk about like as a Celtic fan, what am I concerned about? They're not dominating like they did last year in some of these games. Whereas OKC, it feels like OKC is usually going to be up 20, 25 against a shitty team. And the Celt's like, well maybe they will now. They've been resting dudes. Like they had that Portland game the other night where they were just like, hey, Pritchard and White just shoot, shoot the lights out. They had another game where it's basically just Tatum and a bunch of G leaguers. So they've been using the schedule and that's, that is some of the net rating stuff. But I'd like to see them go on one little streak here before the playoffs. A little like what Cleveland's doing right.
- [44:28]
Ryan Rosillo
Now, a little kick ass stretch. Do you think it has anything to do with Porzingis in and out though or you like into a flow?
- [44:39]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, no, you're right, it might. Let's talk all NBA. We're gonna bring in Brian Curtis in a couple minutes. Let's talk all NBA really quick. I can't remember with 20 games left, the first team already being done because it's going to be Jokic, Tatum, Giannis SGA and Mitchell. Especially with there might have been some sort of LeBron push with how good he's been the last like six, seven weeks. But now if he's going to miss some time, that's probably out. I don't see there if there's any way. I don't see any of those guys losing their spot. I think that's a wrap. But then we get to the second and third teams and I think it's going to be a free for all where, you know, if you only want to take Two guards for the second team, it's Edwards and Brunson and Cade. You have to pick two or you can tweak it and cheat and just put all three of them on there. I think LeBron is clearly second team all NBA at this point with the way he's played the last two months. And then center is between Towns and Triple J. If you want to do a center for the hell of it. I also feel like Mobley and Jalen Williams have to be on there just because of how well their teams are. I think both of those teams should have two all NBAs. And then after that you could talk me into 15 guys. But is there anything as you kind of look, because we're going to do this every week, we'll call it all NBA Watch. Is there any sort of storyline you're looking at to see could this guy pass this guy, could this guy lose his spot? Because for me, KD is not an all NBA guy if they're going to be an under.500 team.
- [46:10]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, I wrote down Katie, there's so many names that I had to write down where I think we've had other years. You're like, I think it's like 17 for 15 and then there's the line. And you knew the LeBron push would have been interesting. If you wanted to put Tatum at guard right now, would you, would you have agreed with that?
- [46:30]
Bill Simmons
So LeBron versus Mitchell for first team spot? Basically, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really tough for me because Cleveland Mitchell's so important what Cleveland does. I really feel like wins should matter at least a little in this. I feel like his stats would be better if the team wasn't as good as it is. There's some games where he plays like 28 minutes. It's not his fault they're beating teams by 25 now.
- [46:52]
Ryan Rosillo
It's kind of taking care of itself because a growing injury, especially being older already with a one to two week thing like you hope this doesn't linger that it changes. Because I really want to see what LA can do. Like I'm excited about them now being raised to a level of actually having expectations where I don't really think I had that many expectations for him a couple months ago. But you could if you wanted to do that, because Tatum basically plays point guard, so I don't think it'd be that much of a stretch. Even though he's not going to be listed as a guard with Drew and Derrick White out there and even Jalen Brown. So forget that. I think you're right. With Mitchell rewarding Cleveland, he's the best player. So I think the LeBron thing kind of takes care of itself.
- [47:30]
Bill Simmons
Mitchell's been awesome in big games, too. I think he deserves it.
- [47:34]
Ryan Rosillo
I'm not even saying I was. I just thought at least, like, being creative. What was the other argument? If we wanted to try to play around with the idea that it was.
- [47:42]
Bill Simmons
Like Stone first team LeBron, like the last six weeks, it's something like 29, 10 and 7, something like that. And he's playing like great defense and he's like their best rebounder. So I don't know. He was in there. He had forged his way into the combo. There's no question.
- [47:58]
Ryan Rosillo
He's at 58 games, though, so it'll be interesting. Is he going to be able to.
- [48:01]
Bill Simmons
Get seven left, right?
- [48:02]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, he's going to get seven more out of the. I don't know how many more.
- [48:05]
Bill Simmons
If you had to pick two of Edwards, Brunson, Cade, if you're going to go traditional, how would you rank those three? Just with the all NBA seasons they're having? Because I would have Brunson, Cade, Edwards third. Because I think what Cade's doing on Detroit is unbelievable.
- [48:23]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah.
- [48:26]
Bill Simmons
I would say, though, like, I get the Ant thing. Ant stats are great. Records are on there. It's a battle.
- [48:33]
Ryan Rosillo
They're the same record. I mean, Minnesota has one more win. They both have 29 losses. So I think you could probably, if you really wanted to push and say, well, ant's doing it 36, 29 with this team in the West. I had Ant, I had Cade, third team.
- [48:45]
Bill Simmons
Okay.
- [48:46]
Ryan Rosillo
But I think Brunson, it seems like we're both. I think it's kind of interesting that both of us start with Brunson and then it's the other spot.
- [48:52]
Bill Simmons
Well, if Brunson misses four weeks with that ankle injury, maybe, maybe that flips. Not his fault. But it might. That might be the thing.
- [49:01]
Ryan Rosillo
Do you have Cat second team?
- [49:03]
Bill Simmons
It's Cat versus Triple J. I think there's been some tough Cat games lately. You agree? It's been a couple cringers. Yeah, but he's so good in that he'd take a shot in the Laker game in the fourth quarter. Ot, they didn't run a play for him.
- [49:21]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, but I think, you know, look what he's done over the full course of the season. Pretty remarkable, especially if you're going by traditional center. He's actually played center 54 games.
- [49:32]
Bill Simmons
I get it. I just think with. With Jackson on Memphis that team's 38 and 24, although they've lost four straight and they never seem to know if Jaws playing or not. And he's the most reliable guy they have. I would. I had Towns, but I don't. He's. He's not in. In Penn.
- [49:55]
Ryan Rosillo
So were you doing four. Are you doing three forwards and two guards then second team?
- [49:59]
Bill Simmons
I right now had Towns, LeBron Edwards, Brunson and Cade. I had them all in. But I'm not going to keep it that way because I'm. I'm still going to go traditional even though they gave us the out to fuck around with the position.
- [50:10]
Ryan Rosillo
What about Mobley?
- [50:11]
Bill Simmons
I have Mobley, third team. And if. And if it has to be two forwards, I would move Mobley to second team because of the defense and some of the other stuff. And I got to say, like, I think Jalen Williams has to be a third team right now with the record of that team. And. And then it's just wide open after that because I. The way Jalen Brown has played for the last four or five weeks, I think he's played himself back into the combo. Harden's got to be in there. Halliburton has been a lot better lately.
- [50:41]
Ryan Rosillo
Garland Halliburton, at least, like I wrote the name down.
- [50:44]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, he's Halliburton. In the conversation again. Garland is in like the distant conversation.
- [50:52]
Ryan Rosillo
What about Steph? Who would you go, Steph or Garland?
- [50:54]
Bill Simmons
Well, Steph is the other one and I. And the way Steph has been playing, I would have Steph over Garland because I think what's happening to Steph, Steph's the one to watch. Steph's the one with the arrow pointed next to him in the. On the record charts because he's got the swagger back. Did you watch, did you end up watching Pistons, warriors last night?
- [51:14]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, I watched it after the Lakers.
- [51:15]
Bill Simmons
I had it on one of the small TVs. It's big. Stew is just like I'm getting. He's like, I'm starting something with somebody. He's on the bench. He starts something anyway. But they played two really good games this year. Pistons and Warriors. Pistons making a late run for League Pass MVP. The Rockets had it locked up 40 games into the year. Now the Pistons are like they're climbing up. They're. They. They've just had a lot of good ones.
- [51:42]
Ryan Rosillo
The Pistons made it hard on them. You're just kind of expecting Golden State's going to put together a few nice possessions here and it's Going to be a wrap. And it just. It wasn't. I mean, Draymond green hitting a 3 of all people kind of closed the game out. They made it really hard on Golden State. Like those possessions towards the last, I don't know, six minutes or so or the fourth quarter. And this Beasley story's been unbelievable and, like, unbelievable. All those guys want to get into it with you. And that's why I feel like Big Stu was left out. It was a massive overreaction. Getting upset with Stephen, feeling himself a little bit. Yeah, he was in front of their bench, but it wasn't like he was falling down on the guys. But Stewart doesn't care, and teams need guys like that.
- [52:21]
Bill Simmons
He's gone after Stefan LeBron in his career. That has to be the only person.
- [52:29]
Ryan Rosillo
Hope there's not like a magic appreciation night for the next time the Pistons play the Lakers. Walk right up to him.
- [52:37]
Bill Simmons
Kerr had a. They had one of those post game locker room speeches after the Brooklyn game. Kerr gave a speech and, you know, it was basically like an NFL film speech, but at the end was talking about, we know we're going to win these close games now. We know how good we are in these close games. Like, he. Basically their whole thing for the first 45, 50 games of the year was, why do we suck in the clutch? We have Steph Curry. Why aren't we winning these games? How are we blowing these games late? What the fuck is happening this team now? And you can feel it last night with the Pistons game, which was a tight game, and it was a back and forth, and I was watching and thinking, the warriors are going to win. The key play of the game, Jimmy Butler, left corner, takes Tobias off and hits like an 18 footer. And it was like, they just didn't have that. You couldn't go to Wiggins in that spot. Right. It's just, whatever happened with that Butler trade, everyone fell into place. Moody became a better defensive guy, and I'm taking them very seriously. Still, Golden State, could they win four straight rounds? Probably not. But would I want to win any round? Would I want to see them in any round? No. Would they be totally comfortable playing okc? Yes, they love playing okc. Those games are always good with that. They're always wide open and crazy, and I think they could absolutely hang with them in a series. I don't think they would win it, but I think they could hang.
- [53:59]
Ryan Rosillo
You could be asking a lot of looney against okc, because you'd have to go back to that. And They've liked using Quentin Post here just to space it out.
- [54:09]
Bill Simmons
That makes sense.
- [54:09]
Ryan Rosillo
Last night. Last night.
- [54:11]
Bill Simmons
Big airball last night.
- [54:12]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah. It's interesting though, like, looking around the league, you're seeing teams go with some of this double big stuff. Boston's been doing a little bit more on Brzingis is playing Oklahoma City, basically admitted, hey, the rest of this year we're kind of experimenting with what we have here. And there'll be times where I think, okay, they're going to split Chet and hard up again, and then they bring them both out. And that speaks to just, you want to talk about an organization that's okay night to night going, let's see what we have and what these combinations look like. And have we found something with this double big? Houston's been doing it where it's a little bit different depending on what, how you want to describe it, with Shingoon or Jabari, but they've been doing Stephen Adams with Jabari. There's been some of these teams that have tried some of this double big stuff. But then I've also watched nights where teams are just closing it out really, really small. And I don't know if some of these teams that would prefer to close small are going to run into something in a playoff matchup where it's just. It's just too much like where PJ Tucker was trying to play center for the Rockets. I don't know if it'll be that extreme.
- [55:08]
Bill Simmons
P.J. tucker on the Knicks now, they said experienced veteran and an enforcer.
- [55:16]
Ryan Rosillo
Okay, that's great.
- [55:19]
Bill Simmons
On paper. Makes sense. We're going to take a break and come back with our friend Brian Curtis. This episode is brought to you by VRBO Private Vacation Rentals. With vrbo, you always get the whole house so you and your fellow fans can cheer on your team in peace. What's worse than watching a game with somebody who's not rooting for the same team? You're rooting for nothing. But that's why if you book a vacation house with vrbo, you know all the people in your house, they'll be friends, they'll be family. Ideally, they'll be the ones who also root for my teams. Plan a winning vacation. Make it a vrbo. This message is a paid partnership with Apple Card. If you want to take control of your finances, Apple Card is where it starts. A credit card that can give you up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase. I have one. I can tell you this is true. I know and love Apple Card. So many places I can use it, especially during a busy time of year with football, basketball, the holidays, all at once. I can use my Apple card on tickets to a game, a gift from my dad, or even tickets as a gift for my dad. Plus, anytime there's a new Apple product, it's a lot easier. Apply for an Apple card today. It's easy. Just go to the wallet app on your iPhone again. That easy? Subject to credit approval. Apple card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch terms and more@applecard.com all right, we're bringing in a third party here to spruce things up. Second episode of White Lotus. Brian Curtis is here, editor at large of the Ringer. You can hear him on the press box. A great podcast also, Dallas fan. Is Dallas going to be okay? Curtis, give us the update. My God. I just right now.
- [56:54]
Brian Curtis
Did you see that sad Mark Cuban interview?
- [56:56]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [56:57]
Brian Curtis
He finally broke his silence and he said, part of the reason I wanted to sell the team is because I didn't want my kids to make a move like trading away Luka in his prime. And then they would get roasted on social media.
- [57:12]
Bill Simmons
I was like, I know about that.
- [57:13]
Brian Curtis
Is that the reason you sold the team?
- [57:15]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. I'm not going to buy that story. Mark Cuban, how bad can this get? Worse.
- [57:22]
Brian Curtis
How would it get worse at this point?
- [57:24]
Bill Simmons
I don't know. Rossello, do you ever remember an NBA fan base being this upset at a team before? Since you follow basketball, Seattle. Oh, yeah. I guess that's the last level the team actually has to just move.
- [57:40]
Ryan Rosillo
Let me ask you this. Would you rather be a Sonics fan or a Mavericks fan?
- [57:45]
Bill Simmons
Well, if you're a Sonics fan, you know you're at least getting an expansion team, right?
- [57:49]
Ryan Rosillo
But they're just gone. Whereas now with the Mavs, they're still here. And I'm so glad you brought up that Cuban quote. He has been on a bender of quotes the last couple years. There's just no way that you were like, you know what? The number one priority is my offspring avoiding criticism, being faced with a task of something like this. At least he had said, make a better deal. Like, finally he said what everybody else had collectively agreed to here. Because whenever that trade, I mean, like, I still haven't gotten over it.
- [58:19]
Bill Simmons
Me neither.
- [58:20]
Ryan Rosillo
You just see people on TV like, hey, people are acting like Anthony Davis. No one's acting like Anthony Davis is bad. We can't believe this trade happened is the only point in the way that it happened, which we've already covered a million different times. So I was glad to hear Cuban say that. Just do a better deal.
- [58:36]
Bill Simmons
We still don't know why Cuban sold, why he sold when he did, what the reasons for. There's some not so conspiracy. Conspiracy theories about it. It was an organization that had gotten into some trouble behind the scenes in a couple different ways. There was always rumors about maybe he wasn't as liquid as people thought, but. And it was a deal that he made like a year before the deal actually happened. And weirdly, he sold pretty low for what the value of the franchise probably was, considering he had a top five guy. There's still some stuff that hasn't added up for me. Would you agree, Curtis?
- [59:10]
Brian Curtis
I would. And my podcast pal in Dallas, Jake Kemp, brought up another one, which is what happened to Mark Cuban running basketball operations with the Mavericks.
- [59:19]
Bill Simmons
Well, that. We knew that was bullshit, though.
- [59:21]
Ryan Rosillo
But it wasn't covered that way. To Curtis's point, it's crazy true.
- [59:25]
Bill Simmons
Well, because people just bought. What he was saying was like, no, no, I'm still going to be involved. And that's. It's never worked that way ever.
- [59:31]
Brian Curtis
And so it was not in any contract that he signed when he sold his share of The Mavericks for 3.5 billion. This was just purely a, hey, you can stay in on basketball thing. And Mark Cuban was cool with that, right? Mark Cuban sold that to the public. Like these guys told me this, but it's not in this incredibly complicated contract I just signed to sell the team.
- [59:52]
Bill Simmons
Well, it's interesting because he's not getting villainized at all for the Luca thing. And it's a little similar to when the Sonics left Seattle and everybody blamed the guys that bought the team and then moved them to okc.
- [60:03]
Ryan Rosillo
This is.
- [60:04]
Bill Simmons
We did the Sonic Boom podcast about it, but Howard Schultz, the guy that owned the Sonics, the Starbucks guy, he was just as big of a villain because he sold the team to these guys, knowing they were probably going to move him. But then he's like, well, I didn't know that. You can play dumb. You can do all you want. In this case, Cuban's selling the franchise to these guys who clearly didn't know what this family that clearly didn't know what they were doing. Who knows what their intentions were? And it's almost like, could he have put in the deal, you're not allowed to trade Luka Doncic for the entire 2000s. Maybe he should have put something in there like that. But that's not why we brought Brian Curtis on NBA media discourse in 2025. It feels like we're in the weirdest place we've ever been. Culminating on Thursday night between the third and fourth quarter of a Lakers game on national TV. LeBron James walks over and gets in Steve Naismith's face about stuff he said about his son. And it goes viral that night. And Stephen A. He wasn't, you know, he feels like he had to address it. Right. Rossello. He might not have addressed it otherwise, but once it went viral, he didn't want to. He didn't want to. Might not ever come up. He had to address it. And then it's this two, three day cycle. Where are we going, Curtis? What's the end game here? What is the end game with just the media getting louder and louder and becoming part of the story in all these different ways? Something that I'm not sure anybody likes, but it just feels like we're getting more and more of it.
- [61:37]
Brian Curtis
It's so funny because not only did we have Stephen A. Reluctantly addressing it on First Take it and then on his podcast, also.
- [61:45]
Bill Simmons
Also reluctantly because he had more to say. The two hour show wasn't enough.
- [61:49]
Brian Curtis
My other favorite detail was that he mentioned he was sitting with Ari Emanuel and Larry David.
- [61:53]
Bill Simmons
Yes.
- [61:54]
Brian Curtis
Not germane to the LeBron confrontation, but just wanted to let everybody know that that's who we're sitting with there in.
- [62:00]
Bill Simmons
The Curb youb Enthusiasm. Tripp Shacks. Seats. Same seats. Anyway.
- [62:06]
Brian Curtis
Yeah. He also said if LeBron called me, I would take the call.
- [62:11]
Bill Simmons
Right.
- [62:11]
Brian Curtis
So I would not send the most famous basketball player in the world to voicemail repeatedly. We did clear that up. It's good to hear in the thing, by the way. We could talk about. There's so many things to talk about. But the whole Stephen A. Thing that really, that got me was he said, why didn't LeBron or why didn't Clutch call me to hash this out? And I'm, you know, in certain ways we can talk about the brawny part of this because I think I'm sympathetic to a lot of what Stephen A. Had said about brawny. And the idea that somehow Bronnie is talking about. Bronnie is talking about your family and crossing this red line. Like, I don't totally buy that, but the whole idea is like, wait, if we say something on a podcast or he says something on television, does that mean the person who's aggrieved can only respond to us privately?
- [62:56]
Bill Simmons
Right.
- [62:56]
Brian Curtis
So we say it publicly. But then they need to keep all their business behind closed doors. Like, wait, if you had a Problem. Why didn't you call me? Well, you said it on tv. Whatever I'm upset about.
- [63:06]
Bill Simmons
Right.
- [63:06]
Brian Curtis
Like, shouldn't they're media figures, too, in a way? Shouldn't they? I don't know. Anyway, that also tripped me up a little bit.
- [63:12]
Bill Simmons
Doing it during a game was pretty unusual. That was different. I don't know if that's happened before.
- [63:18]
Ryan Rosillo
I think it's a win for LeBron, though. I think it's a win for LeBron in that moment because it's. It looks cool.
- [63:23]
Bill Simmons
It does. Well, especially he's what, six inches taller? Five inches taller? He looks intimidating.
- [63:31]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah. See, I think he's a pretty theatrical guy. And it was a moment to kind of look like this whole thing gets really, really weird, because if somebody's like, hey, that's just a father caring about his son. You don't tell somebody that they're wrong about it. But the reason why the rules for this have changed is that ultimately, once Bronnie has an NBA uniform on, this is what we do, and we're going to talk about it. And he's going to get way more criticism than somebody else who's not playing because of the lead up and that it felt like the most important thing was to show the power of clutch, to be able to get this guy a guaranteed contract for three years, because I think the fourth year is an option. So it's a big win. Look what we can do. And we pulled this off and all this stuff, and it's kind of celebrated by the Lakers. Like, look at this. We're going to make history. They were smart. Get it over with. Have him play with his father immediately. I think there's elements of it where you can go, okay, I. I understand that part of it. But they. I think they misunderstood how nasty he was going to get if he continued to look like the player that. Those of us that did the draft tape for his USC thing, where it just felt like he never really stood out. But you remember selling. The selling point of Bronnie was that he was a glue guy. Like, who takes glue guys in the draft, right?
- [64:43]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, he's 6:1, not a point guard, not a shooter. Glue guy. Who's the comp is Heavion Mitchell? Ultimately, that was the question. Could it be Davion Mitchell, who's like a ninth man?
- [64:56]
Ryan Rosillo
Okay. But I don't know, Curtis, if you're probably a little bit more tuned into it than I am, but do you feel like Stephen A. Had crossed a line that deserved that showdown, that stare down with LeBron.
- [65:10]
Brian Curtis
So there's not a, like, you know, Library of Congress transcript of everything Stephen A. Said about Bronny, which I wouldn't have had time to read even if there was. But I think this all starts in January. There's that game against the Sixers, and Stephen A. Had a couple of hits after that about Bronny, but really what he said was, LeBron put. You put. Is putting his son in a bad situation. He's shadow gming his son to the Lakers. He has a tweet. What was that now? Two years ago? Like, bronnie's better than guys I'm watching on league pass. He sets him up as being really, really good, and then he put him in a bad situation. And that as his dad and as one of the greatest basketball players of all time, you should know that this isn't a great place for him to be in right now. It's just not. That was the point. I mean, again and again, it's Stephen A. So it has, you know, I'm not doing it justice, probably. And if LeBron's watching that, I'm sure he can find some phrase or something to latch onto. But that was the point. And that's a discussion you guys have had 1,000 times about LeBron James and the Lakers.
- [66:12]
Bill Simmons
Well, I think when you get to the opening night and you put the Griffeys courtside and you do all that stuff, you're bringing attention to something, and then to expect people not to discuss it and the merits of it, I think, seems pretty naive.
- [66:25]
Ryan Rosillo
I think Ken Griffey Sr. Turned to Jr. Was like, say he go number one, too, right?
- [66:30]
Bill Simmons
Or did he go, what the fuck? Like, we were amazing. I don't know. I just feel bad for Bronnie. That's why we haven't really talked about it that much on this pod. He seems like a nice kid. I've always heard good things about him, and I don't necessarily think he has to be in this situation, but to expect people not to talk about it is pretty nuts.
- [66:54]
Ryan Rosillo
What I loved, though, was the lead up to it. And then he's drafted, and you had people on TV all of a sudden.
- [66:59]
Bill Simmons
Trying to talk the world into it.
- [67:00]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, but they were pro nepotism, right? Just like, this is. This is a good thing, right? This is.
- [67:06]
Bill Simmons
This happens in every other walk of life. Why can't it happen here?
- [67:09]
Ryan Rosillo
And I just always felt like it was a really simple explanation to be like, because this one gets a uniform. Well, this is. This is different than Going the back and be in charge of travel.
- [67:21]
Bill Simmons
What's the bigger picture thing? Take LeBron out of it. That Stephen A. Who I think has been promoted by the network a certain way, right, as like a star on the level of the stars that we're watching in these games. Right. Right down to the playoff games when they're. Instead of having the walk ins with, you know, Jalen Brunson or whoever, it's Stephen A. Walking into a Knicks game and they're covering it like he's an all NBA guy. And this just seems like the philosophy of the network now is to be loud, loud, loud, loud, loud. It used to be some sort of a balance of like, let's do some really good stuff and let's have a couple pieces of what we're doing be loud. But for the most part, we're going to try to be a whole bunch of things. And now it seems like the loud is winning. Curtis?
- [68:07]
Brian Curtis
Yeah. When you said we haven't seen this on the court, we have seen this in the locker room a bunch of times, including, by the way, with Joel Embiid earlier this year. This is a pretty standard locker room media member athlete confrontation. I don't like what you said about me. I don't like what you wrote about. But the difference is what you point to. Stephen A. Had almost literally just agreed to $100 million a year contract. He's the face of the network. $100 million total contract.
- [68:34]
Bill Simmons
$100 million a year would be a lot.
- [68:36]
Brian Curtis
Excuse me. Yes, that's a lot. But he's the face of the network and as you say, it's a face of ESPN's approach. And with ESPN, I think there's an interesting question of whether they're doing more of this kind of stuff or whether the other stuff at ESPN has just been stripped away to such a degree that this becomes a bigger part of espn? You see what I mean? Like when you get rid of Zach Lowe, when you chop off all these parts of espn, Stephen A. Is just going to be a larger part of the network. He's just going to seem bigger, whether he actually is, you know, occupying more hours of airtime or not.
- [69:13]
Bill Simmons
What do you think, Priscilla? Do you feel like there's been a subtle shift of how they're presenting stuff? Is this just the way social media and the way people follow sports in 2025? Is this just they're serving the red meat to the people who want to eat the red meat? What is this?
- [69:31]
Ryan Rosillo
I've argued now for years where I Felt like I finally figured it out is that the audience gets what we want. So I think the audience actually does like this stuff. I had more friends ask me about whose side I was on between LeBron and Stephen A. Than any other basketball question I've been asked by my friends this entire season. So I think it is a win for espn. I think it's a win for Stephen A. I mean, you can get into whether or not somebody should be doing this on tv. Like, remember four years ago when he went at Durant and, like, looked at the camera? He was like, give me the solo shot. It was like, you don't want to go at me. And I remember watching that going, would I ever be in a position where I was threatening somebody else on tv? I don't know that I'd ever really want to be that way. But, I mean, this is all. Whether it's good or bad, it's all a win. It's all a win for Stephen a. We spent 20 minutes talking about him, and this is exactly what he would want. So that's. I think that's how you keep score of this. Yeah.
- [70:27]
Bill Simmons
A couple days earlier, Barkley had that whole thing. He starts the show they clearly planned on. I'm going to take some shots at the competition. And then Stephen A. Spun it after. Like, he wasn't talking about me. Charles and I are good. And it was like. I think he was talking about your whole. The first take and countdown. He was definitely talking about the way ESPN covers basketball, which you're a part of. It wasn't just directed at Perkins, but then Perkins came back, and that was another thing that happened. And all of this happened, I think, the same day where we had rival guys on two different networks taking shots at each other who might end up, you know, they're not really working together because they're producing a show out of Atlanta. And then the Steve Nay thing, and it's just like, is this just what we are now?
- [71:13]
Brian Curtis
Yeah. And it ends with Kenan Thompson wearing a beard on Weekend Update. Like, that's.
- [71:17]
Bill Simmons
That was doing a Perkins impersonation.
- [71:19]
Brian Curtis
We got a Trump parody, and we got a. We got a perk parody. Like, that's.
- [71:23]
Ryan Rosillo
Think about that. There's someone doing a Kendrick Perkins impersonation on Saturday Night Live. That's a win for Kendrick. Perkins. Perkins.
- [71:29]
Brian Curtis
100%.
- [71:30]
Bill Simmons
It's a big win.
- [71:31]
Brian Curtis
100%.
- [71:32]
Ryan Rosillo
If you had said, hey, do you think this will happen one day?
- [71:35]
Bill Simmons
Right.
- [71:36]
Ryan Rosillo
No.
- [71:37]
Bill Simmons
What.
- [71:38]
Ryan Rosillo
How would Perkins ever be relevant enough for somebody to be doing an impersonation of him in Saturday Night Live. So there you go, that's the win for him. So I think all of these things are wins. Not that, hey, all PR is good PR because I think I'd push back on a few stories from famous people who are like, I don't know if that's good. I don't know if that's going to help that person. But the TNT countdown deal, like TNT gets to be a show. Like there can be plenty of shows that I like or don't like on certain nights. If I wanted to sit here and bash tnt, I could. And go, you mean the show that in this, in this world where the NBA is trying to figure out where it fits in and all the criticisms of it and the projections of different ratings arguments that I think some are valid and a lot are terrible, where you have all of these players from previous eras just shitting on the product all the time. But then that's why everybody kind of loves the show. But at least they're allowed to be a show when they're done with the second game on Thursday night. Those guys hang out all night and it's loose and they get to be a real studio show. And when I look at what ESPN asks of its on air people, I don't even think it's a fair fight. Even if you don't like anyone that's on espn, which I wouldn't say that's my position. There's some people where I'm like, okay, you know what? I like where this person's coming from. All right, this one, I probably know what I'm going to get here. I don't watch a ton of them because I have to watch so many games. I don't want to spend extra time watching studio stuff. When the second TNT game's over, I'll probably go and watch another game that I wasn't really watching that closely. But whenever anything's compared to tnt, I don't know that people in television. Well, people in television should understand. I don't know that we talk about enough of the room that they're given to be the show that everybody else wants to emulate but never lets their people on air have the same opportunity and same structure.
- [73:20]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, it's eight minute halftimes. It's an hour after the game.
- [73:23]
Ryan Rosillo
Eight minute halftime, Are you serious?
- [73:25]
Bill Simmons
I mean, I'm saying an eight minute segment just in a row. ESPN segment might be three minutes. You know, you have four people. You gotta move, you gotta move around. They'll actually have a Conversation. I was always jealous of it. Yeah. I feel like with these pregame, postgame halftime shows, the post game show is always gonna win, Curtis, because you're reacting to something we just saw. It's the same reason why we do a lot of emergency pods or pods right after games, because it's like this just happened. What'd you think? Is always gonna win. And espn, a lot of their stuff is steered toward coming up later. What do you think's gonna happen? I think this is gonna happen. I think Jaylen Brown's gonna have a big game. It's just not. Cause you're, you know, there's only so much you can do with that stuff. But being able to react to what just happened is a huge advantage. The other thing is the TNT show is a comedy show. Like, my wife will be sitting next to me, like on her phone, and when those guys come on and she sees Barkley, like she's interested for six minutes because she thinks those guys are funny. And I don't. You know, no other show has that.
- [74:27]
Brian Curtis
I don't think I completely agree about the post game thing. And that's why the Late Sports center with SVP is often better because he's got the guy on who just won the game. He's doing the breakdown of the game, whether it's football or basketball. I felt some of the angst from the TNT thing is about moving to espn, too. I mean, that was clearly part of it, right? Hey, we got this great show over here. We're moving over there.
- [74:49]
Bill Simmons
They're really not. They're doing it out of Atlanta still, though, right? They're moving to their simulcast on espn. I guess they're moving there. Do you think they're worried things are going to change?
- [74:59]
Brian Curtis
Well, it felt to me like going from place A to place B was part of the subtext of that. You know, we created this. We won. Right. For 20 years, we won the studio show War Over ESPN. Now they're paying us to come over there. Some of us got new contracts, which we heard a ton about the last year and change to go over there. But it also felt like that was a little bit of what Barkley was saying, those bozos over there, whatever word he used. And now we're going over there. That was interesting to me.
- [75:31]
Bill Simmons
Well, do you feel. So the main. His main critique was all they did was talk about the Lakers and the Celtics and the Knicks and, you know, that's. And Stephen A's response was, well, we have two hours and we have eight segments. I Mean, and if you do, I haven't watched a lot of two hour first takes but they do bounce around a lot of stuff. What they lead with is usually the biggest teams. Marcello, they've been doing that since you were a young pup there. They're always going to push people toward talk Lakers, talk Cowboys, talk Yankees, like whoever the biggest teams are.
- [76:07]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, but I mean it's also a group on TNT who takes pride in not knowing who any of the players are. So like spare me the fucking deep dives, guys. Like how come you're not talking about who's better in half court? How come you're not talking about switches more? I mean those guys don't talk about any of that stuff. So I don't. And honestly, I don't know that anybody really wants it. Hasn't everybody tried this? Haven't all of us that are like basketball and football nerds, haven't we always talked about how much we would love the idea of all these matchup shows and these deep dive stuff and film study and let's show it like we've talked about it. Nobody ever wants to do it. And when they had it on the NFL when I used to watch that before the Countdown show back when I was a kid and Sal Pal and those guys, I loved it. I loved it. And check this out. Third and seven. The interior feet of Hunt at 22 are too far inside the hashes.
- [77:02]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [77:03]
Ryan Rosillo
And Neil O'Donnell knows he has the go route to the outside. So you know, maybe I was a moron and just thought it was all brilliant shit, but I liked it. And there's nobody does it. No, I mean there's people on YouTube doing it and some breakdown. So I don't know if their numbers are really good. Maybe there's some people out there that are doing some really good stuff. But as far as like brand name networks giving you that, is it because everybody in TV is stupid or is it because people are going to tune in or click on the tab of Stephen A. Responds to the brawny disagreement. Well, everybody's clicking on the last thing.
- [77:38]
Bill Simmons
That's how they sell the headlines of the stuff too.
- [77:41]
Brian Curtis
Yeah, and it's not apples to apples because if Charles Barkley was hosting a show every weekday morning, the A block would not be Thunder and Cavs. That's just not the case.
- [77:51]
Ryan Rosillo
Exactly.
- [77:52]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [77:52]
Brian Curtis
The show would not just. They would not lead with it.
- [77:55]
Ryan Rosillo
I also think that ESPN actually, and maybe you'll be surprised, they get so much unwarranted shit just because they're the one partner that has all of these other slots to fill. If TNT didn't have Charmed reruns, okay, and Bones, and they had the next guy coming on to talk about something. You know, same thing with like CBS and NFL and the network partners for the, if, if those channels were actually just 24 hour sports stuff, then you would find more stuff that you would have a problem with. Look, I don't, I don't love all the coverage that I see. It's not for me. That's fine. I know I'm not, I'm not really the person any of that stuff is targeted towards, but I think that's always lost in that there's so many more things to criticize with ESPN because there's just so much more real estate compared to all of these other partners.
- [78:53]
Bill Simmons
What is the strategy if you had to describe a big picture content strategy for them as we head into the heart of the mid-2020s here, Curtis, what would it be?
- [79:05]
Brian Curtis
I think every decision or just about every decision they've made over the last couple of years goes to two things. Get ready for the first ever ESPN super bowl in two years. That's Joe and Troy. That's SVP to Monday Night Countdown. That's changing the producer of Monday Night Football, et cetera. Number two, get ready for the launch of Flagship this fall, their streaming service. And when you think about it like that, you're like, why was around the Horn canceled? Oh, not bucket number one, not bucket number two. Why is Zach Lowe no longer there when he's the best basketball writer on the planet? Oh, not number one, not number two. And to me, it's so focused on those two things, especially the second thing, especially Flagship, that if you just read it like that, the decisions, whether we agree with them or not, start to all make sense to me.
- [79:55]
Bill Simmons
And that includes the social media strategy and how they use a lot of those clips because they're just pushing interest and fervor toward that flagship thing. Which begs the bigger question. Do you think the flagship thing's going to work?
- [80:08]
Brian Curtis
That's the question. But that to me is. That's their existential question. Like, we have to get this thing to work. We're moving out of cable world, we're moving into streaming world. This thing has to work. Every decision, right? Why do we pay so much for the College Football Playoff? Again? Why do we buy the sec? Why do we do. That's all Flagship stuff. And when you get left out of that conversation, if you're ESPN Radio, let's say right mention around the horn. If you're not in that directly, is there a place anymore are they that worried about you? And I think the answer is obviously no.
- [80:39]
Bill Simmons
Well, so where does the stuff, like all the weird original stuff they do on espn, like some of the stuff Omaha does, does that stuff, Is that part of their plan or is it just going to be game rights and reaction shows and that's the future of the company?
- [80:53]
Brian Curtis
I think it's mostly that though. I think they do like stars. And since that's Manning stuff, maybe that gets grandfathered in to the plan. Right. Because if you're a star, then you get to do different things.
- [81:04]
Bill Simmons
Right. On the Barclay being on ESPN next year. Piece of it. And just that show in general, look, who knows? It doesn't feel like it's going to go great. It's like one of those when Conan took over Jay Leno show and Jay Leno didn't want to leave. And there was just even before it started, you're like, ah, this something feels off. Just somebody delivering a show to ESPN that they're not in control of, which we're seeing now with McAfee, which I'm sure they have mixed opinions on. But just in Barkley, who just doesn't give a shit anymore, is the other piece of this. Right. And Kenny, I'm not sure he really cares. Like, they're just gonna go and they're gonna push and they're gonna tweak and they're gonna do their thing. It really has a chance to be fascinating, I think. And I don't know how it plays out.
- [82:01]
Brian Curtis
Well, I'm with Ryan. The key is to also. Will it just be able to roll into the night? Cause that's the magic of the show. If it doesn't roll into the night, it's not inside the NBA.
- [82:12]
Ryan Rosillo
And the fact that it's on so late too, I think leads to the goofiness. You've been there all day, you've gone through the two games and then you're on those long stretches and that whole post game is on so late. I think it actually is an advantage because it's so loose because it's almost like none of them want to be there. But Bill, I think you're right. Like Barkley has been, has been on this thing for a couple years now of like, I might do this, I might do this, I might quit. They're going to shut down. And then you were kind of like, wait, are they not going to be on the air in 24, 25. And then you looked it up like, nope, they're still going to be on. So I'm like, why are they talking about it this way? And then as soon as it transitions over, Barclay's going to make fun of ESPN within 30 seconds of them going on the air. Okay. And since it's going to be licensed or however, I don't know what the structure is in comparison to some of the other stuff, Curtis, you would know better than I would is the understanding of just keep doing your own thing. And that might be the ESPN model. And that they're not really gonna worry about it the way they would worry about a studio show in the past. Because who could ever, who could ever on the TV side of ESPN show up to those guys and be like, love what you've been doing.
- [83:19]
Bill Simmons
Here are kids.
- [83:20]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, here are some tweaks. Don't even, like, I don't even know if anybody would bother doing something like that.
- [83:27]
Bill Simmons
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- [85:23]
Brian Curtis
I was gonna say he's been my.
- [85:24]
Bill Simmons
Friend for a long time.
- [85:25]
Brian Curtis
Does Tony wanna do that?
- [85:27]
Bill Simmons
I just. He's. There's. He's so maniacally precious about the format of that show and how sustainable it's been for this whole century to then just double it and be like, all right, more of us and we're gonna have an interview. I just don't see him at his age wanting to do that.
- [85:43]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, but didn't he write a book called Back for the Cash?
- [85:46]
Bill Simmons
Well, that's.
- [85:47]
Ryan Rosillo
Doesn't.
- [85:48]
Bill Simmons
He might have enough cash number. I think he has enough cash. But I do wonder. I was thinking of PTI and there might be a chance to reinvent that show a little bit. Because when you think. And I've talked a bunch about how the content cycle has shifted in the last 15 years that I've been doing this where it's just gotten faster and faster to the point that Sal and I went from taping Monday afternoons in the late 2000s guest alliance to now we're doing it like literally right after an NBC game ends. And you have these guys coming out at 5:30 ESPN and it's like if you don't watch that show when it's happening, it's got like maybe a two, three hour shelf life. Cause we're going right into sports. So it's like Luka Doncic's first game back in la, first home game. What do you think's gonna happen tonight? Wobon? Like you can't listen to that nine hours later. So I do wonder, is there a chance to reinvent the show? Do you think they're. They. It's just too stuck in its ways at this point, Curtis, or what happens?
- [86:45]
Brian Curtis
And you think reinvent it, like making it longer, making it different, making it quicker, reacts to something.
- [86:50]
Bill Simmons
Do you rebuild it? Do you rebuild the structure? Because I think if you were doing that show now, you'd probably want it to be on at 10 in the morning. I think you would want it to be on coming off the night or nine in the morning. You'd want it coming off the night before with the same format go I think would be a bigger advantage. I think the 5:30 is really hard. I mean have you thought about that? Rossillo? Yeah.
- [87:14]
Ryan Rosillo
Remember this?
- [87:14]
Bill Simmons
I feel like sometimes when we do pods late I feel like it's like this feels almost stale now when it's going to come out.
- [87:21]
Ryan Rosillo
Think about what the 6 o'clock sports center was. That was the marquee sports center. I remember they used to offer it to Scott all the time and Scott would just say I'm a games guy. I'm a games guy. I want to watch the games in the studio with the staff. I want to figure out how we want to talk about the games once the games are released over. I don't want to do the six. And they wanted him to do the six all the time and he was turning down what was thought at the time like the marquee slot. When's the last time you turned on the 6 o'clock sports center?
- [87:49]
Bill Simmons
It's pretty rare at that point you're thinking about the games that are about to happen.
- [87:55]
Ryan Rosillo
Games are already on.
- [87:56]
Bill Simmons
I don't remember the last time.
- [87:57]
Ryan Rosillo
Well they're not already on obviously because it's 6:00 East Coast. But I'm gearing up for the game 3:00 our time. Right. I'm waiting or I'm waiting until the last possible moment to turn on the TV knowing that TV is going to be on in my house for the next six hours. I think you're right about the Kornheiser Wilbond thing being early. Would they want to do it? I also think a huge advantage they have over every other show is if they launch that show brand new tomorrow, would it have any traction at all? Because it's almost like radio where it's so habit forming that there's such an older generation of people that have been watching that show for 20 plus years. Because I'll hear people talk about it like hey this is the only show I trust anymore. This is the only thing. Like there's all of this equity with that show, this buy in for the show where and again I'm the wrong person here. But when I catch it there's never something where I go oh I hadn't thought of that NBA angle or well.
- [88:51]
Bill Simmons
You'Re coming for the two guys, right?
- [88:53]
Ryan Rosillo
It's because of their chemistry. It's because of their Personality. But I don't expect Kornheiser to say something about the Oklahoma City Thunder that I never would have thought of because I doubt he's staying up late watching Thunder games. So there's this buy in with those two because of their personality, but also the habit forming thing that you have with radio. And that's what I think is so different about that show. It's almost like this audio product that benefited from being in one of the best slots that you could have because it was lead into the 6 o'clock that used to matter. And Curtis knows this. But one of the biggest things with audio is just habit. Why are you listening to that show? I don't know. I just like it on in the background. Oh, I throw it on in the car and you might not even like the person.
- [89:37]
Bill Simmons
What do you think, Curtis? What is PTI two years from now?
- [89:41]
Brian Curtis
Well, that's the thing is I think when we talk about ESPN as a streaming service rather than a cable channel, just the entire calculus is different because you're no longer thinking about hey, we gotta get from 5 to 5:30, then we gotta have another ride home show from 5:30 to 6. Like that. Thinking isn't the same, right? If you were watching television at 5 or 5:30 in the afternoon and you're choosing through a bunch of streaming options, you can watch 10,000 movies, you can watch White Lotus, you can watch whatever the hell you want. So my prediction would be, look, if they get Tony Mike to do an hour, I'm sure they'd love that because that shows Grandfather Day and that shows a hit on its own rights. But what I would think they're going to do with a whole daytime lineup is just other than the things we talked about, let's just go inexpensive, let's get through the day because our big wins in streaming will be games and stuff attached to games.
- [90:30]
Bill Simmons
And that's it.
- [90:31]
Brian Curtis
That's the business. I just think that's what it is. And I think the whole daytime part of ESPN gets devalued.
- [90:37]
Ryan Rosillo
I had a matter though, sorry. I actually just want to ask her. People in my position can get really entitled about this stuff. I'm never going to work there again. But just that all of these landing spots exist for different people. And you're like, how could they get rid of this? How could they get rid of all these shows? How are you getting rid of around the Horn? You know, why wouldn't they have done this? Why wouldn't they? Do you think ESPN ultimately got to the point it Was like, okay, first take, we get a half a million viewers. We actually kind of own this slot here. There's not like there's a ton of competition midday in sports from anybody else. Obviously Fox tried to do that at some point. That hasn't worked out. Do you think the right answer, even though on air people would never want to hear it, is that, why do you have all of these resources into a bunch of shows that for the most part, there's not many of these shows are killing it with the ratings.
- [91:27]
Bill Simmons
You just run video podcasts of stuff you already did. Just kind of chew up innings with that and save a ton of money. It is an interesting question.
- [91:35]
Brian Curtis
It wouldn't be the first time it's happened in the history of cable. That's when I was a kid that was all cables, like, oh, press your luck, reruns on for the next four hours. I mean. And I think, Ryan, I think you're exactly right. And I think the. It's. But it's all of television, right? We're just so used to this thing of like, oh, it's mid morning. That means there's game shows and then there's these, you know, soap operas are going to start and all these things. And I just think when the future is streaming, you know, it's not happy if it's our friends that are affected by it or people we like. But it's like, they just don't. It's just not that important to them anymore.
- [92:05]
Ryan Rosillo
It's so clear.
- [92:06]
Brian Curtis
I mean, like, we know this, right? They're not like, hey, we're losing a daytime hit show. Let's come up with another one. Let's get Ride Home Industries to come up with another one to replace. They're just not thinking that way anymore.
- [92:17]
Bill Simmons
I had a great TV viewing experience the other day, although it was a sad one, too. But the Bruins were trading Marshan and there were rumors he might be going. And my dad texted me. I'm like, what? So I'm trying to find, like, is there an NHL trade deadline show? What's going on here? Ended up on the NHL Network. It was just two dudes. The show is out of like, 1981, and they're going through info and it's. This thing is happening. I was watching it. Consuming in a way. And that's where those shows still have an impact, where it's like, this just happened. How do I get information about it? You'll see it like, NBA trade deadlines like that. Or like the day of free agency in the NBA on July 1 or NFL. Something happens on a Tuesday, you know, there's a trade or somebody's out for the year. It seems like the immediacy of this just happened. How do I just get any sort of information? I don't even care. I honestly don't know the names of the two guys who hosted this NHL show, but I watched it for like 45 minutes like they did. They didn't. It's a conditional second. What's going on? Yeah, that's my NHL network story. Priscilla seems like he's enjoying it.
- [93:33]
Ryan Rosillo
I used to watch the MLB trade deadline stuff. Like, I had a job in a front office. I worked at night, so I wasn't really taking a day off or disrupting my normal routine. But I would sit there with a notepad and I would have my scouting books that I bought from Borders and I'd have baseball America ready to go. And I would just sit there being like, oh, my God, that's that Lefty who, you know, he was incredible against. Wow.
- [93:58]
Bill Simmons
The Cardinals gave him up. He was their number eight prospect.
- [94:00]
Ryan Rosillo
Did you see a split of Chattanooga? This is incredible. I loved those shows and I love that you had a moment where you got to feel it in real time. But I just wonder if anybody's going to that anymore, if they're thinking I need to throw on a studio show. Like, I still love the NBA trade deadline stuff because it's my everyday, but I don't. I don't know if I would go to it with the same anticipation. And look, it's funny. Gammons could make up shit 25 years ago. And I was entertained. I was all in. I'm like, you know, we've already talked about my attraction to diamond notes in the past, but I just wonder if it moves too fast now where the value of the Woj stuff and the Sham stuff was. Making sure you had their Twitter feed. Like, I wonder if Elon, although Elon's been busy, should he actually suspend insiders accounts that are only reporting breaking news a minute after somebody else has? Because I've noticed a lot of that. Is it worth it just to stay in the game to be like, I didn't break this. Fuck it. Sources confirm, you know, and then like, is that replaced the immediacy, the need? You know, it would be great. It'd be great if there were three or four people out there that I felt like I trusted to put the work in. Maybe a Zach Lowe, obviously a wind horse with all of his sources. Somebody that's good at both the information and being good in a studio and stuff. Like, I still love that stuff and I would watch this stuff if I'm not taping with you during the trade deadline. But I always have to ask myself, are you one of the only people that still want something like that? Your joy for an NHL trading deadline studio show? Are you the asshole?
- [95:37]
Bill Simmons
Right? Right. There were trades and it's like a five person trade. And I didn't know who any of the five people were. And I'm like, oh, surprised they did that. You had to have opinions on that stuff.
- [95:49]
Brian Curtis
I think that's still the magic of tv is when you can just go live with stuff like that. I mean, that, that. I mean, I'm.
- [95:55]
Ryan Rosillo
Will we miss it though? Will we? Because I've thought about that with podcasting and radio. Like, I did some interview where I didn't. I thought, well, you know, look, the Luca trade is a perfect example. Luca trade happens. Bill and I are with Mahoney 10 minutes later. So we're replacing the. The live part of it. But I. I do wonder if there's. And I think I'm wrong. I think I'm wrong to wonder if there's ever a moment moving forward where people go, you know, what I kind of miss is just knowing this show was live and they were reacting in the moment. Cause I think it's all replaced.
- [96:26]
Bill Simmons
Curtis would like this story. So I'm a kid, I'm staying at my mom's house in Connecticut. And I don't think it was the fan. It was even a New York sports station that wasn't the fan. And Dave Sims was hosting like a NBA draft show. And you remember being a kid in the 80s, there's just no information. You don't know any. You might be like, Sports Illustrated might have, like, here's how we think the top 13 in the draft's gonna be like, oh, my God. Like, there was just nothing. You couldn't find anything about anything. And there was this radio show and they just did the draft for like three, four hours. And you could have. A bulldozer could have driven through my. And I just would have, like, moved rooms because I just wanted to hear this show so bad. And I do wonder, like, that sensation has to be gone these days, right? Curtis? There's no. There's no show like that anymore.
- [97:20]
Brian Curtis
No, I mean, I do think the Luke is such an extreme example. But that night, I mean, first of all, when I saw that you guys were taping, I was like, here we go. I'm ready. I'm excited about that. But then when I saw that Windhorst had gotten on ESPN and they kind of brocawed him onto the air and got him in a suit like someone had just died, you know, like, it was like, this is big. You know, Brian's awake, Brian's in a suit. Brian's ready to go. Like, that was like. As a viewer, I'm like, this is exciting, you know, this makes me feel like, holy shit, something amazing has just happened.
- [97:50]
Bill Simmons
Do you think Windhorse is like, fuck, man, I was going to play golf tomorrow. Now. Now I'm on a connecting flight to Hartford because they need me to get in there.
- [98:01]
Ryan Rosillo
But see, like, that's. I like that you brought up the wind horse thing. Because at that point you're thinking, all right, who could actually be on TV that I would want to hear from? Okay. That I know is going to have something that. I don't know. Not that you or I are at the same level of reporters or whatever, but I think we're probably pretty good on it, right? If Luca gets traded, you and I are going to be in space.
- [98:20]
Bill Simmons
We can hang for an hour.
- [98:21]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah. The beauty of a wind horse, which seems to be where all of this is moving away from, is that I know in those few minutes, he's going to kill it and he's going to have something the rest of us don't have. And he also had that rant during the playoffs last year, which he also said after he did the rant, nobody actually came to him to be like, hey, you're taking. You would have thought somebody would have gone, hey, leave our guy alone. Even if Windhorse was right, which he was. And so Windhorse had all of these awesome moments in that spot that I fear we're going to lose forever.
- [99:01]
Brian Curtis
Yeah, that's that old school TV authority too, I think. Like, I'm paying attention to you.
- [99:05]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah.
- [99:06]
Brian Curtis
You know, you know stuff. And you also just have a kind of presence on the air, you know, which when horse comes, I think from being in print a little bit and seeming like kind of a reluctant secondary.
- [99:17]
Ryan Rosillo
TV guy, the Gobert move for him was like all time. Like his approval rating would he. After that, it was like, everybody's like, I love this guy.
- [99:27]
Bill Simmons
I gotta say, the Luca thing he did when The Celts went up 30 in the finals. Cause I actually watched that. Cause I was watching after Luca got traded. I'm just like consuming everything, trying to figure out what could have happened. And it was like a pre planned monologue. In his head, he's doing it stand up on the court. He clearly had something to say. He also clearly had information from somebody on the Dallas side that colored why he was doing this. And he was really convicted about it. And he was like, this is a real problem for this team that this guy is handling big games and big moments like this. He hurt the team today. He's got to fix this. And now when you look back at that moment, I haven't talked to him about it, but that was probably the genesis of when that trade happened, that Finals where we still think it's the dumbest NBA trade of our lifetimes, but that was probably where they were like, this fucking guy. And it just. That was it. And they just start complaining about him and complaining about him behind the scenes, and that's it. But, yeah, people are. There's still good journalism out there. And I also feel like the bar of people kind of policing it has been really good. I think people are getting away with a lot less chicanery and putting out false shit. Nobody wants to be wrong. I think people are really careful about when they put something out. And occasionally we get a fight at a Starbucks, at the combine.
- [100:48]
Brian Curtis
We're from Howard Schultz's son.
- [100:50]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. Did you lead the press box with that, or was that just a deep dive investigation after the fact?
- [100:56]
Brian Curtis
That was almost my, you know, wind horse Luca trade moment. I almost had to go live. Do I have a suit?
- [101:03]
Bill Simmons
I don't. Priscilla, have you done the combine?
- [101:06]
Ryan Rosillo
Have I ever gone to.
- [101:08]
Bill Simmons
Right. You've done it, right? No.
- [101:09]
Ryan Rosillo
No, he never did it, ever. McShay was trying to get me to go and do it, like, kind of before. I think he had done his own thing. I think last year, he'd asked me, hey, do you have any interest? But it just. It hits at a really bad time. Like, it's just when the basketball cranks up. I'll be honest, I'm pretty sick of football at that point.
- [101:27]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [101:28]
Ryan Rosillo
And so I think from.
- [101:28]
Bill Simmons
I have to decompress. Yeah.
- [101:30]
Ryan Rosillo
I think from a networking standpoint, it's really great if you have anything going on in the media, because everybody's just kind of around. You're making a lot of contacts and everything. But I don't know, man. I can get a little selfish about my schedule.
- [101:43]
Bill Simmons
I haven't really talked to you about this, but McShay and I text a little bit now.
- [101:49]
Ryan Rosillo
Interesting.
- [101:51]
Bill Simmons
I'll just sometimes text him football stuff, and then he'll text me back.
- [101:55]
Ryan Rosillo
That's pretty cool. I put Bill On a thread with my college roommate, which is incredible.
- [101:59]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. I'm on a thread with Solo's roommate and conspiracy theorist extraordinaire Timmy and Bill hit a. It's one of my favorite threads. Every time there's a text, I'm excited about it.
- [102:15]
Ryan Rosillo
It's great because the Boston guys, because he's not from Boston, but the Boston guys are like, Bill's on a thread with you and Walsh. I went, yeah. Like, how did that happen? I go, yeah, it's rarefied air with all this stuff.
- [102:27]
Bill Simmons
It started with a UFO conversation in Denver and then we just kept going. Hey, welcome to a special part of the show which is brought to you today by Audi with their all new, fully electric Audi Q6E. Tron wanted to do. This isn't like we're not going to do like a recap of Celtic City each episode, but I want to do like one little piece from each episode that I thought we could talk about in a modern context. So the first episode, a lot of it's about Bob Cousy, who I feel like has this fascinating big picture, whatever he means, in the context of American sports in the 21st century, it's either underrated or overrated. But it's not what I think people think like, that. You could. He's the most popular player of the first 15 years of the league. He was the first exciting player the league ever had. And he actually should be discussed maybe a little more reverentially than he is. And instead, the only time he's been discussed this decade was JJ when he did the plumbers. That whole plumbers thing that he did when he kind of disparaged the first 15 years of the league and people got upset about that. But Curtis, just as a sports historian, Bob Cousy, big picture. What are your immediate thoughts?
- [103:40]
Brian Curtis
I'm a guy who primarily is venerated. I don't know if properly or maybe venerated at all in Boston newspapers right now. I mean, I feel he is lost. I feel he's the guy that gets the Globe column every once in a while.
- [103:58]
Bill Simmons
Bob Kooz is still alive and he's still proud to be a Celtic.
- [104:00]
Brian Curtis
He gets a couple things like. Yeah, right. I mean, I'm just trying to think of where he lands in culture pre documentary, not that many places.
- [104:09]
Bill Simmons
It's interesting to look at the anniversary teams because they would do. They did like a 25th anniversary team for the NBA in like 1971. And Cousy was clearly on that. He's one of the 10 guys. And then you do, you know, the 40th anniversary, he's still there, and the 50th anniversary and then. But it's just. As the years pass, you just start getting shoved out. Right. For the newer guys or the legends. And the thing with him, there's all these different time machine guys. That would be so much fun if you could just take them out and put them in a different era. You could take, I don't know, Jason Tatum right now and put him in 1955. And people would be like, what's happening? Koozie would be fun in the reverse, like if he just came into the way leaks played out, or it's just like he's just going nuts throwing like these behind the back crazy passes. He's always trying to do fast breaks. How does this play out, Rosilla?
- [105:06]
Ryan Rosillo
He probably struggled a little bit. I think if you just dropped him.
- [105:08]
Bill Simmons
In the shooting machine, they'd play off him.
- [105:11]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, I think they. They go under the screens 33% for his career from the floor. But, yeah, I don't know if it's because of the Holy Cross thing, because my family. Obviously you went to Holy Cross, but there was a version of events where I was going to go there. My family on my father's side loves Holy Cross. So there's just this absolute admiration for Koozie veneration. Yeah. It's just this wasn't a bad word spoken about Bob Cousy, my entire upbringing. Right. And so then once you get Internet access and you start digging through it, you're like, what. What is the fuck is this? But that's where I think this becomes a real mistake. His Rookie year was 75 fucking years ago. Okay? So, like, the game was a little different. They ran up and down, they shot it immediately. And he was the best point guard of his generation for a really long time, if you want to get into the Oscar Robertson stats thing and all that kind of stuff. And yes, the team was always better. And there was just a different element of what sports were back then because they were able to keep the team together. And Red was just better than everybody else. I just. I think it's entirely unfair to look at his shooting splits and the fact that he dribbled with one hand and then dump all over the guy when his rookie year was 19, 50, 51. I mean, can we, can we. Is that okay?
- [106:27]
Bill Simmons
Well, have you ever Cousy's talked about this? When you dribbled back then, you. You couldn't carry the ball. You couldn't carry the. Couldn't carry it under. You had to literally dribble like that. Right. And you're playing in these shitty sneakers. It's not. It's like night and day. It's like comparing automobiles from the 1950s to now. I think the passing, the highlights are still really fun. Like we had a bunch of them in the first episode. The behind the head, the way he would like bring guys in and you know, everybody was, everybody was in play when he was the point guard. I do miss like I feel like that type of point guard is. Doesn't really exist anymore. Right. You're almost like a score slash distributor now. You're more like a Darius Garland type. There's not. Rondo is probably maybe the last kind of piece of whatever Cousy was way, way back then. The way Rondo played I think was. I don't know if we'll see it again. Will we see it again, Priscilla?
- [107:23]
Ryan Rosillo
I just don't know that you can survive having somebody that's. You can just ignore, you know, whether it's. Whether it's a big. I mean you can have a non shooting center, but it puts you at a disadvantage. You could have a non shooting point guard, but it just puts you to disadvantage. So I think you're just looking for shooting at all five positions the entire time. You know, Rondo at his best was terrific, but he still was thinking, you know, kind of went under the screen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I also thought there was something with Rondo that, that took away. I don't know, I didn't want to turn this into a Ronald criticism, but when he would scream for the outlet every single time, I think there were times where it was like he wanted to be in charge of the possession. He used to drive some of the other guys crazy.
- [108:00]
Bill Simmons
He's like the guy who always wanted to drive on the cross country trip.
- [108:04]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, that's fine. Go ahead, you could drive. I'll be back here studying. I don't know. I think the Koozie. I think guys that get really nasty about Koozie. I just want to be like, can you pick something else to be upset about?
- [108:20]
Bill Simmons
Curtis in the 80s it was cousy and Heinson with Mike Gorman. Cousy was the third guy a bunch and it was amazing. And it's still up there for my favorite announcing teams of all time because Koozy and Heinson had this, you know, amazing relationship where they over. I think they overlapped. For one year at Holy Cross they played together for. Oh, no they didn't overlap at Holy Cross, but they both went to Holy Cross. And then they played together with the Celtics, I think, for seven years. So they just. There was this real friendship with them. And they were also, like, pretty critical of. You know, they had a combined, like, 15 rings, so they'd be critical of the players they were watching. And it was just like hanging it. It was like a podcast. It was. It was amazing. Cousy had that. There were just names he couldn't say because he had that crazy French accent. Like, he. Rajon Rondo just would have been unachievable for Koozie. There's no way he was even going near it.
- [109:15]
Ryan Rosillo
But I was thinking about that, though, when I was, you know, look, because he was just such a legend from the area that we're from. So maybe people aren't really understanding it, but when they used to be on the broadcast, they would kill players, okay? Kill players.
- [109:30]
Bill Simmons
Could not care less, right?
- [109:32]
Ryan Rosillo
And if there was an opposing guy that stunk and had a big. I remember there was this guy for the Nets who, like, went for 30 or something. It's the Celtics. And Koozie would just be like, I've never seen this. You know, he. I can't even do the accent. It's so. It's so tough. But it was just like, this guy's never done anything his whole life. Like, what is this? And it was kind of funny, like, coming off of last week about the positive, negative stuff of it. There is no broadcast. You could talk studio shows and, you know, whatever we saw from first take at different times in the nastiness that he can get to and be like, how different is this from other times, the broadcasts? You are not going to hear anyone criticized in an NBA broadcast, especially a national broadcast. But even the home broadcasts are just so positive about the home team. They don't really have that much time to even be negative. I mean, look, the fouls, it's all homersm. We get it back then they would just destroy. Like, it would almost. You look forward to a Koozie game because it was going to be so.
- [110:26]
Bill Simmons
Unhinged and funny, especially when the team was bad. Well, Curtis, you remember Bill Walton, when he did the NBC in the mid-90s, was considered so negative, I think they had to take him off. They could actually, like, he. He was, like, too critical. Because it's another thing, like, Bill Walton was one of the best 30 players, 35 players of all time. So he would watch somebody suck, and he would just call it out and I think it got too negative even for NBA coverage. Do you remember that?
- [110:55]
Brian Curtis
Yeah. Well, he was killing the players on the court and he was killing Steve Snapper Jones in the seat next to him.
- [110:59]
Bill Simmons
At the same time, he was just killing everybody. It's funny because he's such a happy, joyous guy and it just was the thing. Anyway, the all new fully electric Audi Q6E Tron. A huge leap forward featuring effortless power, serious acceleration, the most advanced tech of any audio ever. Experience technology that puts you center stage with the panoramic digital stage. What's your car strategy when you have the kid in the car, Curtis? IPad. Just nothing. Look out the window. What do you do?
- [111:27]
Brian Curtis
Yeah, it's audio books.
- [111:30]
Bill Simmons
Audiobooks. Oh, smart.
- [111:31]
Brian Curtis
Little car sickness, you know. So audiobook is kind of nice.
- [111:34]
Bill Simmons
Well, you got a panoramic digital stage in the Audi. Plus an optional screen for front seat passengers. Perfect for watching the latest sports documentary, the Q6E Tron. Not just the new EV. It's a new way to experience driving. Learn more@audiusa.com always pay careful attention to the road. Do not drive while distracted. Before you go, Curtis, can I sneak.
- [111:51]
Brian Curtis
A Bill Walton memory in here too, please?
- [111:53]
Bill Simmons
Do it now.
- [111:54]
Brian Curtis
All right, so Steve Snapper Jones is talking about Shaq's foul shooting. Pretty sure this is during the finals, maybe the conference finals. Shaq goes up to the line, makes one, and Walton just in the broadcast goes, I believe that's called face. And then I'm pretty sure if I'm remembering this right, Shaq makes another free throw. Actually goes two for two. He goes, I believe that's also called face. Just right in the middle of the broadcast. Huge NBA game.
- [112:20]
Bill Simmons
But he was just too weird. Ultimately, I think PAC 12, PAC 12 was, was probably the right landing.
- [112:26]
Brian Curtis
People misremembered that later. They're like, he was amazing. Wearing an Uncle Sam suit. Like, yeah, that wasn't great during the NBA final.
- [112:32]
Ryan Rosillo
So I think the Walton stuff though was just the, the theatrics of it that maybe didn't play as well on a weekend afternoon where I just remember there would be like a turnover. It'd be like, that's gonna be worse. That's terrible. The worst pass of Pooh Richardson's career. Will he ever recover?
- [112:53]
Bill Simmons
Pooh Richardson, you just be like, I.
- [112:55]
Ryan Rosillo
Don'T know, it's 67, 64. A lot of time left in this one.
- [112:59]
Bill Simmons
So ESPN premiered their three man lineup. After the all star or three broadcaster lineup. Doris, Richard, Jefferson and Breen. NBC announced that they're Signing Reggie Miller to be the person next year. And it's just weird. To me, it seems like in the NBA, for whatever reason, and maybe it's because they make too much money as players and they just. The studio gig is easier. He gets whatever you want. But it seems like the, the big names kind of gravitate to the studios and not the games. Will we ever have a great game broadcaster again?
- [113:33]
Brian Curtis
Curtis, how many have we had yet nationally? I mean, you and I always have this conversation. It's like, who's a John Matt in the NBA? And you can pick guys, you can pick a hubie, you can pick. Van Gundy had a good run, but it was just like there wasn't that guy ever really. And it's funny, if it were the NFL, somebody the other day was like, should they add Tom Brady? The Fox studio? It's like, they're not Tom Brady in the studio.
- [113:57]
Ryan Rosillo
It's like you're doing games.
- [113:58]
Brian Curtis
This is the thing you do got. We need you to do the games. And I don't know if it's just a thankless job because you don't get as much time to talk as an NFL announcer or what, but yeah, it's funny.
- [114:08]
Bill Simmons
What do you think, Rossillo? Because you love Van Gundy. And I still, I went like, I probably was too down on Van Gundy because I didn't really think about what it was going to be like when we didn't have him. And I really missed him in a game like last night.
- [114:24]
Ryan Rosillo
I just think Van Gundy was the best to have done it on the NBA. And I thought there was a huge gap after him because even no matter what was happening, people got really annoyed with the Breen Mark Jackson being Gundy thing because people were like, oh, it's like a podcast or whatever. But sometimes within the game, it's okay to stay with a talking point. And, you know, the real chemistry is knowing when Breen needs the room to do play by play to get you through the stuff that matters, but then finding a way to circle back to the talking point. And then if you got a blowout with that group, then you know, again, it turned into, oh, they're doing a podcast again. And maybe it was a little too negative on the NBA stuff, but at least I felt like it was authentic. And then Van Gundy would have a moment that he would pick up that nobody else would pick up. He would just pick up these little things that was happening within the game. It just meant that he knew every little detail. And why is this guy, why is he coming in here as sub here? Like, Van Gundy would give you a couple of those moments that I just don't know that anybody else has given you enough consistently. I really like Richard. I know it's tough because he's coming into an already established thing with Doris and Breen, but I don't know, I think they'll be fine. I really do.
- [115:37]
Bill Simmons
Three persons hard.
- [115:38]
Ryan Rosillo
I know three persons hard.
- [115:39]
Bill Simmons
I don't think there's enough time in basketball for the three people. And even like the Breen, Van Gundy, Jackson, Jackson really laid out. I mean Jackson was, I don't know, it was Van Gundy's broadcast and then Jackson would chime in with stuff. But that the, the balance, the usage rate, Jackson was lower. I think it's a hard thing to navigate because those games, it goes by so fast. You have like a five, six minute stretch. That's just, it's going, going, going, going. I thought Steve Kerr was the best one that I'd heard. There was even a moment this year when I was thinking when it seemed like the worst season might be going sideways, like, oh shit, could we get Steve back for tb? Cause that would be incredible. You know, I, I think it's probably a coach who's recently. I think Doc could have been really good last year if, if he hadn't left after 40 games. I think it's probably a coach who has recently gone against everybody. He's calling the games is probably the biggest advantage for this. And then the ability to actually be candid about what they're seeing.
- [116:40]
Brian Curtis
He's got to be done because the coach that gets into broadcasting is getting in there to get his next coaching job. So it's got to be like a Madden type where like, I'm out, this.
- [116:48]
Bill Simmons
Is it, I'm out. And now I'm going to be letting it fly from now on. But the other problem is I think Wade could have been really interesting if he had just been like, all I want to do is be a TV color guy for games. But Wade's made $400 million or $380 million, whatever it was like he owns a piece of Utah. So I don't know if the money is the same, whereas the NFL could be like, no, Tom Brady, come do this, here's $35 million or hey, Trey Aikman, keep doing this. Here's a lot of money. The money is just different. I just don't think it matters as much in basketball. In football, there's a weightiness, you Kind of need for a big game. You really want to be in good hands with the right announcers. You really want to have them walk you through stuff and teach you stuff. I don't know if basketball needs that as much. Do you think it needs it? Priscilla, do you feel like we needed the greatest announcers ever for OKC Denver today? Because for the most part, you kind of know what's happening.
- [117:46]
Ryan Rosillo
The guys today are great, by the way. Passion Legs are terrific.
- [117:50]
Bill Simmons
Legs did a good job today. That was one of the reasons I thought about it.
- [117:53]
Ryan Rosillo
Has a lot of moments in games where he is on it. Like, he is seeing some of the stuff that I'm talking about. There was a game, I forget. I think it might have been a Phoenix game or something, but he basically had figured out, like, this coverage isn't working. He goes look for them to bring two on this next one and try to meet him on the catch. And he just. He predicted the future. It was perfect. And the next possession of the thing that the team was running on the catch, the other team brought two defenders. And I just think that's really important stuff. Like, just give me a couple of those, you know, just a couple of game that tells me that, you know, because you played or because you coach or you've. You spent your life in the sport, there's going to be a couple moments that I may not be picking up on all this stuff, because I think even in tv, sometimes at home, I can find myself, like, losing track of some of the stuff. You're like, oh, I didn't realize that they. They haven't contested or this is the guy that they're ignoring. As you're trying to keep track of all the stuff that's happening in the game, the big moment stuff. I think you're right. I think football needs it a little bit more. That overhead shot of a stadium, 100,000 people, people losing their minds. I think that's why Musburger lasted as long as he did. I think Brent would be the first. He even admitted it in some of the interviews. He's like, I stick to last names. He almost wanted to find a way to be more efficient and, like, limit the bad shots. But when it was Saturday night and it was a big college football matchup and you heard Musburger bring you in, it just sounded right. Even if he might screw up a third down, because I think there's some football guys that, if I'm really paying attention, I'm like, is this guy screwing up all the time or whatever. But I don't know that we care. I think part of it is, is it a voice that I feel familiar with? And it's hard to become that. Like you just have to keep getting all those opportunities. But I think that's a big reason why they went back to Musburger later in his life, because it felt right. When that camera shop or camera shot opened up and the first voice we heard was his.
- [119:50]
Bill Simmons
One thing I liked about Van Gundy that I missed now, and I actually thought the game last night needed. Maybe Jefferson can get there. There is a, you know, there's the. What's happening in the game. You have that whole piece. What are the storylines coming into the game? Van Gundy was really good at like the Celtics last night. Tatum just doesn't come out for the whole first quarter. They start the second quarter, Joe Maz leaves him out, leaves plays in the first 18 minutes of the game. And at some point during that, because I was texting with, with Celtic friends about it, we're like, oh, shit, we're treating this like a game seven. Like, this is really interesting that we're treating the game this way. Like we're going big minutes for the best guys in the team. Like, hmm, this is an interesting subplot that's developing. And they just didn't talk about it on the broadcast. And I always thought Van Gundy, stuff like that didn't slide by him. And that's kind of the last thing is when some sort of big thing is developing out of a game, you got to see it immediately. And if you don't, then why are you there?
- [120:51]
Brian Curtis
Yeah. And to me, that's a play by play announcers thing too. Noticing that, that you're Talking about going 18, that's a thing. I think that a Breen, an Ian Eagle, a Tirico, when he starts doing it full time next year, will be all over. You know, that's the thing. They, they can, I mean, basketball to me is just such a play by play announcer sport. Like it's their, it's their game, you know, much more than a football game is. And the really good ones will just be all over little things like that. They know.
- [121:16]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, I remember when Jalen and I did a game with Tirico, we did like a Celtic Laker game, 2013 or 14, and Tirico just let us do our thing for like 42, 43 minutes. Then last five minutes, it was like, okay, guys, I've got this.
- [121:31]
Brian Curtis
It was just.
- [121:32]
Bill Simmons
Then he just took over the last five and I Was like, oh, yeah. Cause it's ultimately, it's a play by play sport. All right. I could talk about this stuff all day. Curtis, what do you care about this week for the pot? Anything.
- [121:42]
Brian Curtis
Oh, my God. We got an NBA four pack coming up tomorrow.
- [121:46]
Bill Simmons
What does that mean?
- [121:47]
Ryan Rosillo
We got.
- [121:47]
Brian Curtis
Well, we got four pack, Stephen A. Of course.
- [121:50]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah.
- [121:51]
Brian Curtis
We got Draymond, Carl Anthony Towns, which we didn't even really get into. We got the Cuban interview.
- [121:56]
Bill Simmons
That one is like, just apologize. You got it wrong.
- [121:59]
Brian Curtis
But the best part, if you're going.
- [122:00]
Bill Simmons
To have a platform, apologize when you fuck stuff up. That's it.
- [122:03]
Brian Curtis
But the best part was him getting the whole trademark name of the podcast in. In the non apology. Right, right. That made me so happy.
- [122:13]
Bill Simmons
So what's the fourth part of the fourth part?
- [122:16]
Brian Curtis
Wait, Stephen Draymond, Barkley, Oatmeal. That's four Cuban.
- [122:21]
Ryan Rosillo
That's fine.
- [122:22]
Brian Curtis
Cuban.
- [122:22]
Bill Simmons
In Cuban. Okay. Yeah. Priscilla, what do you care about this week?
- [122:26]
Ryan Rosillo
Did your dad text you that they could. He could kind of understand why they traded Luka? After watching him up and down the.
- [122:32]
Bill Simmons
Court, he did express concern that Luka did not seem healthy.
- [122:38]
Ryan Rosillo
Okay.
- [122:40]
Bill Simmons
That was this thing. My dad was always scared of the Lakers with Davis. That was a real thing for him. He's always scared of teams with size in the playoffs when things slow down. So there you go. Before we go, quick question, Marcelo. So I was tweeting about, does the NFL salary cap matter when it goes up $30 million a year?
- [122:58]
Brian Curtis
No.
- [122:58]
Ryan Rosillo
It's unbelievable.
- [122:59]
Bill Simmons
Why do we do these, like, hundred best free agents coming up and all of them are just going to resign with their teams? Because you can just spend whatever you want.
- [123:07]
Ryan Rosillo
Miles Garrett having a change of heart rate.
- [123:10]
Brian Curtis
Great.
- [123:12]
Ryan Rosillo
I love how dumb we all are. Like, he couldn't just go, oh, I didn't know they were going to pay me this. Yeah, let's go, let's go.
- [123:19]
Bill Simmons
Well, and then.
- [123:20]
Ryan Rosillo
But instead they have to craft something, like, as if he was sitting around being like, you know, really love this place.
- [123:26]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. The more I'm thinking about it, once you put that four in the. In the yearly salary instead of the three, I really started like Cleveland a lot more. Is this bad for Parsons and the Cowboys, though? It feels like it might be.
- [123:39]
Brian Curtis
It's horrible. He was already licking his lips on Twitter today. I mean, he's like, oh, yeah, here we go. Cowboys waited too long again.
- [123:47]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. Cause with the cap, I get it. I understand. It keeps going up and all you're doing is just pushing money to the next year. And hoping that at some point you don't have to pay the piper. And then if you get in a Russell Wilson, Denver situation, that's when it goes bad where it's like you keep pushing the money and then it's like, oh, this guy didn't work out. Now we are completely fucked for an entire season. But for the most part, it just seems like these teams can just, you know, Dallas is going to be able to afford Parsons. It just seems like all these teams can afford whoever they want, because they can.
- [124:17]
Ryan Rosillo
I mean, the spikes every year it's gone up like 7, 8. It went up 14% one year and 24, it went up 13% against the previous year. So the salary cap for 2025 is 279. In 2015, it was 143. So the cap has almost doubled in 10 years. And so every time you're structuring these contracts. And by the way, there's another lesson in there too. It's like, why are you waiting to do any extension with anybody? Like a jump bar chase or like a Micah Parsons, like, get it over with. Do your quarterback early. So a lot of the times too, when you see the quarterback numbers come out and you're like, that guy's getting paid that much. And it's that guaranteed, you go do year four of this deal, it's going to look like a steal based on percentage of the salary cap. So we talked about some of the NFL, NBA part of it. I don't know that that's ever addressed enough. You can, you can't really be in cap hell anymore in the NFL.
- [125:10]
Bill Simmons
Doesn't seem like it. Well, there's one way you can, but not. There's one way. If you have the desean Watson, Russell Wilson, like, big money thing that goes completely wrong. And even then it's like, it's okay.
- [125:22]
Brian Curtis
But they have to be able just not to play at all, which was what those guys were both into.
- [125:26]
Ryan Rosillo
I'm not saying it's impossible, but if, if you were to look at these projections and where the cap is ultimately going in the NFL, I don't. There's just more leeway on top of the other cap rule with the NFL that I don't know that anybody ever really talks about in like carrying over some of that cap space, which we've always talked about with the NBA. Because the NBA cap thing that I hate is that depending on when your rookies are due their extensions, you can have this cap room window. And then you have to spend it on somebody that you probably don't want to. And then it ends up that everybody's spending way too much on a free agent, signing the non like tier one guys just because you're hoping somebody takes your cap space because all that cap space disappears just because the rookies have a raise in the NFL. Sure, there's part of that with the quarterback, or maybe you nail it with like an all pro guy who's a non quarterback and some of this stuff. But looking at how, how much this cap has taken off, it fixes a lot of problems for teams.
- [126:27]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, the Pats needed a left tackle and still do. And there was this long list of free agent left tackles and now all of them are gone. And then I get a complete panic on the Pats fans text threads because it's like our two choices now are to overpay somebody who's not good or to take a guy who might end up being a guard instead of a tackle with the fourth pick in the draft. And it's just like I thought we were getting Ronnie Stanley. That was on everybody's list. Oh, wait, he's going back to the Ravens. I don't get it. My favorite cap thing ever was that whenever the hockey lost its mind and people were given like 20 year contracts as a cap to remember that.
- [127:06]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah.
- [127:07]
Bill Simmons
And it was like, this guy's going to have a 20 year, $80 million contract and it gets spread out. It's like, what's going on? All right, Brian Curtis, great to see you as always. Rosillo, I will see you. I will see you next Sunday. I'm sure we'll see you at a home Lakers games, since you're the new Diane Canaan Kovalchuk.
- [127:26]
Ryan Rosillo
17 years. 102 million with the Devils.
- [127:30]
Bill Simmons
17 years.
- [127:34]
Ryan Rosillo
Can you imagine if NBA GMs were allowed to do that?
- [127:37]
Brian Curtis
Oh, my God.
- [127:38]
Bill Simmons
Oh, my God. It would not be good. All right, good to see you. See you next week, Priscilla.
- [127:42]
Ryan Rosillo
See you.
- [127:43]
Bill Simmons
All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Sarudi and Gahal and Kyle. Don't forget you can watch this on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. I hope you watched as a video podcast on Spotify. Don't forget about the rewatchables coming Monday night. We did Best in Show threatening to become Sports Movie Month. Who knows? And then Prestige TV podcast where we're hitting White Lotus. We're also covering Severance on there too. I'm not on that pod, but I am on the White Lotus recap pods on Sunday nights and I have an absolute shitload of fun doing those with Mallory and Joanna. I will see you on this podcast on Tuesday. Must be 21 plus and President select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18/plus and President D.C. gambling problem. Call 1-800- gambler or visit rg-help.com, call 1-887-89-7777 or visit ccpg.org chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit Gambling Helpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24. 7 support Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE NY or text Hopeny in New York.