Shadeur’s Slide, NFL Draft Takes, a Nuggets Code Red and Brunson Goes Villain

Summary

Summary of "Shadeur’s Slide, NFL Draft Takes, a Nuggets Code Red and Brunson Goes Villain" | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Release Date: April 25, 2025
Host/Author: The Ringer, Bill Simmons
Episode Title: Shadeur’s Slide, NFL Draft Takes, a Nuggets Code Red and Brunson Goes Villain

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Introduction

In this episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast, Bill Simmons and his panel delve deep into the latest happenings in the sports world, focusing primarily on the recent NFL Draft and the ongoing NBA Playoffs. The discussion is enriched with insights from recurring contributors Cousin Sal, Joe House, and guest appearances by celebrities, athletes, and media personalities such as Joe House, and Rob Mahoney. The episode provides a comprehensive analysis of draft moves, team strategies, and critical playoff performances, ensuring listeners are well-informed and engaged.

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NFL Draft Analysis

Trade Winds and Strategic Moves

The NFL Draft segment kicks off with Bill Simmons dissecting the Jaguars' significant trade maneuver to acquire Travis Hunter. Simmons expresses surprise and skepticism about the Jaguars' decision to trade a substantial package for Hunter, stating, "I think the Browns were thinking the same thing any of us would think if we were in this situation" ([14:30]). He questions the sustainability of trading large assets for a versatile player, especially when quarterbacks are typically the coveted position in trades.

Browns' Smart Strategy

Simmons praises the Browns' decision-making, highlighting their ability to secure multiple picks without overextending. He remarks, "It's always disorienting when the Browns do something smart. That was one of my first takeaways from this because it's just usually the Browns lose a trade like this" ([10:45]). This contrasts sharply with the Jaguars' aggressive approach, positioning the Browns as a team with a more measured and strategic mindset.

Shador Sanders' Unexpected Drop

A significant portion of the draft discussion revolves around Shador Sanders' unexpected slide to the second round. Simmons marvels at the drop, questioning the consensus that led to this outcome: "Everybody has picked apart Sanders to the point that I don't even know what to think anymore" ([17:20]). The panel debates the reasons behind Sanders falling, with van Lathan suggesting that despite Sanders' resilience and clutch performances at Colorado, scouts may have concerns about his arm strength and fit within NFL schemes.

Will Campbell's Draft Stock

The conversation shifts to Will Campbell, drafted by the Patriots, where Simmons defends the pick despite criticisms about Campbell's arm length. He asserts, "He is a dog. You guys got a good one" ([44:27]). Van Lathan adds weight to this argument, emphasizing Campbell's performance against elite pass rushers: "The guy faced some of the best, most talented pass rushers in the entire country and he didn't hold up. He fucking dominated" ([22:22]).

Notable Quotes:

• Bill Simmons: "It's always disorienting when the Browns do something smart." ([10:45])
• Van Lathan: "He is a dog. You guys got a good one." ([44:27])

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NBA Playoffs Breakdown

Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Memphis Grizzlies

The NBA Playoffs discussion begins with a recapitulation of the Oklahoma City Thunder's dramatic comeback against the Memphis Grizzlies. Rob Mahoney highlights the impact of Alex Caruso's defensive prowess, stating, "Alex Caruso literally just, like, stopped the Grizzlies from scoring, like, 10 times." ([51:25]). The panel expresses disappointment over Grizzlies' poor performance despite a strong first half, attributing their downfall to inadequate support and over-reliance on key players.

Denver Nuggets' Struggles and Clippers' Dominance

A significant focus is placed on the Denver Nuggets' faltering performance against the LA Clippers. Simmons remarks on the Nuggets' defensive weaknesses and lack of depth, saying, "I don't remember teams with players this good just really not being in the mix." ([73:30]). The conversation underscores Nikola Jokić's stellar play juxtaposed with the team's overall instability, leading to doubts about their championship viability.

Knicks vs. Pistons Series

The Knicks' narrow victory over the Pistons is dissected, with emphasis on Jalen Brunson's controversial performances. Simmons critiques Brunson's game management, noting, "It's like, every possession, you are allowed to just play basketball." ([85:15]). The panel discusses the Knicks' defensive lapses and reliance on Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns to secure wins, questioning the team's long-term consistency.

Notable Quotes:

• Bill Simmons: "Alex Caruso literally just, like, stopped the Grizzlies from scoring, like, 10 times." ([51:25])
• Rob Mahoney: "How taxing title runs are... these guys are looking around for reinforcements." ([69:14])

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Draft Picks and Team Strategies

Evaluating Value Picks and Regretful Selections

The panel evaluates various draft picks, highlighting both value and questionable choices. Simmons praises Shador Sanders' potential despite his draft position, while expressing skepticism about Ted McMillan's selection by the Panthers: "I thought him going to The Panthers at 8 was the worst pick in the draft." ([40:43]). They also discuss the Falcons' unconventional trades, with Simmons finding humor in the team's over-aggressive pick movements: "It's like, how can you move up 20 spots from 46 to 26?" ([33:05]).

Favorite Picks of the Draft

Van Lathan identifies Ashen Genty to the Raiders as the favorite pick, commending Genty's dominance and fit within the team: "He is such a fucking dominant football player and he's going to a team that has some pieces where he's going to really be get a chance to produce." ([46:52]). Chris Ryan lauds Hampton's selection by the Chargers for his reliability in running the ball: "He's going to be a top guy and... just a plug and play guy that's going to be like an all-pro potentially."

Notable Quotes:

• Bill Simmons: "I thought Ted McMillan can't get enough separation." ([46:12])
• Van Lathan: "He is such a fucking dominant football player." ([46:52])

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Controversies and Fan Reactions

Shador Sanders' Interview Fallout

The episode touches upon the fallout from Shador Sanders' interviews, with Deion Sanders criticizing Dan Orlovsky for his comments: "Deion goes, oh, my God, he's a hater." ([38:00]). This sparks a discussion on the personal biases that may influence draft positions and team decisions, raising questions about the authenticity and impact of such relationships on players' careers.

Opinions on Draft and Playoff Atmosphere

Bill Simmons vocalizes his confusion and skepticism about the NFL Draft's fanfare, questioning the enthusiasm and rationale behind attending such events: "I don't get it. I'm not trying to sound superior to people... So you know, in this parking lot behind." ([22:22]). The panel shares similar sentiments, with Chris Ryan and Van Lathan expressing their lack of understanding regarding the draft's allure compared to other high-energy events like New Year's Eve.

Notable Quotes:

• Bill Simmons: "I don't get it. I'm not trying to sound superior to people." ([22:22])
• Chris Ryan: "I don't get it at all. I don't get it." ([22:22])

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Closing Thoughts and Future Outlook

As the episode draws to a close, the panel reflects on the overarching narratives shaping the current sports landscape. Bill Simmons emphasizes the depth and competitiveness of the NBA, highlighting strategies and player performances that could define future seasons. The discussion extends to the challenges teams face in maintaining consistency and leveraging their core strengths to overcome playoff hurdles.

Bill Simmons concludes with anticipation for upcoming matches and the evolving dynamics in both the NFL and NBA, urging listeners to stay engaged and informed as the sports seasons progress.

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Conclusion

This episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast offers an in-depth exploration of the NFL Draft's pivotal moments and the NBA Playoffs' intense matchups. Through thoughtful analysis, engaging debates, and expert insights, Bill Simmons and his panel provide listeners with a nuanced understanding of current sports events. Notable quotes and key takeaways enrich the discussion, making it a valuable listen for sports enthusiasts seeking comprehensive coverage of recent developments.

Transcript

[Bill Simmons]

You're listening to the Bill Simmons podcast, presented by FanDuel. FanDuel has made it easier than ever to see how your bets are doing without even opening the app. Now you can get the latest updates. Follow along in real time directly from your phone's lock screen. Yeah, or Apple Watch. No login required. Just head to your My Bets page to turn it on. If you don't already have it. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app today to get in on the action. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of this episode for additional details. You must be 21+ in President select states. Gambling problem. Call win 800 gamble or visit rg-help.com Coming up, NFL Draft NBA playoffs. Yeah, what a night. It's all next. 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. Also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. We put up a ton of NFL coverage podcasts. We did a live show with McShay. McShay's got the newsletter. We got the ringer dot com. We have our final draft guide with the all the grades. Everything's, everything's happening in the Ringer NFL Draft Show. McShay Show. Rosillo's tomorrow. Go check out all of it. I did some NFL draft here at the top. I gave my thoughts. Then just randomly, Ceruti and Van joined and we talked about Sanders and dart. So we talked a lot of NFL draft at the top. And then Mahoney, Rob Mahoney and Chris Ryan came on to talk about all the basketball. That happened tonight, too. It was an incredible, incredible sports night. Trying to follow everything. The games could have been better, but just in general. Thursday the the last Thursday in April. Always a winner. We're talking about all but next, first, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, so we just watched the NFL draft and three basketball playoff games all at the same time. It was really great. And I wrote Down a bunch of notes for the NFL draft because anyone I wanted to have with me in this first segment, this is all doing another pod for the ringer. So you know what? I'm going to solo. I'm a pro, I can do it. But I did have some thoughts. First of all, the Jaguars trading the second pick to pick Travis Hunter, which was somehow another devastating Patriots moment. I had already mourned the fact that we screwed up week 18. We screwed up our chance to have a top pick and to trade down and get all this stuff. And then the Browns had the second pick. They get number five a second, a fourth and a 2026 for Hunter. And I just, I almost started drinking, but I knew I had a podcast. It's always disorienting when the Browns do something smart. That was one of my first takeaways from this because it's just usually the Browns lose a trade like this. I thought this was insane by the Jaguars. I know everyone thinks Travis Hunter is a one on one, all that stuff, but I just don't think you trade huge packages like this unless you're getting a quarterback. I think the Browns were thinking the same thing any of us would think if we were in this situation. When in doubt, trade with the Kahn family. I think they've become like Vivek and the Kings in the NBA. I think the Kahn and the Jaguars, I think that whole family is the same way. It's like cool. They're going to overpay for second pick. We can move down three spots, take Mason Graham, get a first round pick, get a second, get a fourth. Sure, let's do that. One of the cool things though, ESPN covered this in the moment Cam Ward was getting picked. I think he was even going up to the podium and Schefter came right in and was like we had a trade, blah blah blah. I think with the NBA they always wait. You find out the trade happened on Twitter before anything happens. And then I liked how it felt like it was part of the action. They announced the trade when they did the pick. This isn't hard. NBA just get this shit together. I guess the the positive for Jacksonville, if there is a positive for overpaying for Travis Hunter when we've never seen anybody be able to play both sides of the ball anymore. And I can't wait to watch because it's going to be super fun. They're probably like a top seven or top eight. I'm at least intrigued to see what's going on on the multi view with them for the first four weeks of the season with Hunter and with Brian Thomas Jr. Who I loved watching last year. But the big thing I was thinking was those London games, which they always suck when the Jaguars are involved. And now it's like Travis Hunter's in the London games for the next couple years. That's a bonus. That's worth getting up at 6:30 in the morning in the Pacific Coast. Be like, all right, get to watch Travis Hunter. Maybe he'll play D back and receiver the whole game. The big thing for me though, once again they've overpaid to get Trevor Lawrence some toys. So they've spent money on Christian Kirk, Calvin Ridley, Evan Ingram, right, big money on Christian Kirk. That was a much maligned signing back in the day. They drafted Michael Thomas with a first round pick. That was smart. They drafted Travis Etienne, 25th in the first round. I think the same year they picked Lawrence and then they paid Lawrence huge money. It just seems like they're constantly trying to throw assets at him, hoping he's good. And the thing is he might not be good. So we'll see. But at least, at least the London games will be fun. But I thought that was a good trade for the Browns. Next thing. So Shador Sanders. This just kept going for weeks and weeks. I'm not throwing darts because I certainly talked about it on my podcast a couple times. It was weird to think that he wasn't going to go in the first round In a league where it feels like a third of the teams always need a quarterback. When teams who were drafting in this first round needed a quarterback, the Giants passed on him twice. They haven't had a quarterback since Eli retired. Mel Kuiper just felt he just had. I'm going down with the ship energy. Most of the mock draft guys just didn't think Sanders should be a top 20 pick, including Todd McShay. The Ringer draft guys that we have and, and Kuiper was just, I, I guess like if Sanders turns out to be an awesome pro, this will be great for Kuiper. But you know, I was going nuts the year Lamar fell because the Pats had a chance to get him. And you know, and it just, with, with Brady's advancing age, it just seemed like a no brainer. But in that case, it seemed really crazy that Lamar was falling with how talented he was in college and how he was clearly something. Everybody has picked apart Sanders to the point that I don't even know what to think anymore. So maybe he ends up in Cleveland tomorrow. By the time you hear this. And if that happens in Cleveland, we thought maybe could we take him at 2 and they get him at 33. They desperately need a quarterback. That's a really fun outcome. He got. This is great for. I was thinking this is great for us. This is just great content, right? I root for content sometimes. Sanders chip on his shoulder. Now everyone passed me. This becomes Aaron Rodgers 2.0. If he can ever be even half as good as Aaron Rodgers. We get to argue about saying the Giants trade back in and they take Jackson Dart. Right? They pass on Sanders. That's going to be fun to monitor. Feel like there's going to be some incredible sports media stuff that happens over the next two weeks. You can kind of read between the lines on what some of the angles will be. I think people will disgrace themselves. I can't wait. And it's going to be hilarious if Sanders actually ends up being much better than the Jackson Dart. But I don't. I think the thing, the legacy today was neither of those guys are even that good that people were able to get that wound up about it. But maybe. Maybe tomorrow. But look, this is like, I root for as many good movies as possible. I root for as many good TV shows as possible. I root for as many good point guards as possible, and I root for as many good quarterbacks as possible because I like watching football for 11 hours a day on Sunday and over and over again. We have too many shitty quarterbacks. And I hope Shador Sanders is good because we need more quarterbacks, but we'll see. Hopefully he goes to Cleveland or a team that needs him and he gets to play and we'll find out why he dropped at 33. Another angle. Kim Ward. Poor guy. Goes number one usually. That's like, I can't. We're talking about him constantly. Oh, my God. What do you think? How good can you be? What's the ceiling? Can he turn Tennessee around right now? Nobody. There were no K. Moore conversations. I think I did multiple draft podcasts. I don't even remember talking about him. He goes number one, gets immediately overshadowed by this Travis Hunter trade. Then there's the Sanders is falling drama that just overtakes everything. And then the Giants take Abdul Carter, but then they trade back for Jackson Dart. So once again, we're not talking about Cam Ward. And plus, he's on Tennessee, a team that's not very good and a weird start to your career. But, hey, good for you, Cam Ward. I have no idea if you're going to be good. I was reading some Stuff where people thought maybe he would have been the fifth or sixth quarterback last year, and instead he goes one this year. We'll see. My guy, Will Campbell, who I talked myself into officially today, I did a YouTube short. Look, the Pats need a left tackle. This was the case I made in the YouTube short. If he. If they're picking 8th, I would have been delighted to get them. And if you look at how the draft broke down, we had tackles taken four. Membo to the jets at seven. Banks went to the Saints at nine. Nobody thought Banks was going to go in the top 10. Well, he did, because everybody wants fucking left tackle. And that was why Will Campbell had to be four. And the analogy I made was, in 2016, the Celtics took Jaylen Brown because Danny Ainge felt like the league was moving toward wings who could shoot and defend and guard multiple positions. Jalen Brown, if you remember, was supposed to be the seventh or eighth pick. On every mock draft, they took him third. The crowd thought they were either trading that pick for Paul George in Boston or taking Chris Dunn, who was a local Providence guy. And there were some boos when they took Jaylen Brown, and then he turned out to be Jaylen Brown. My point is, just because you got a guy who probably should have gone 6, 7, 8 with the fourth pick, what are they going to do? There were two drafts. There were the first three guys, then there was everybody else. And if you look at the way the guys four through 12, it became one of those beauties, the eye of the beholder drafts, Right? Campbell goes to New England. Graham goes to Cleveland. Genti goes to Vegas, 6. Membo goes to the Jets 7. Ted McMillan goes to Carolina at 8. Banks goes ninth, and Loveland goes over Tyler Warren at 10. And it's just like you could have done this draft two weeks ago, and that order might have been completely different. So I just think with. With Campbell, they need a left tackle. They have nobody who can block. And the most important guy on the team plays quarterback. And if he could be the 12th best left tackle in the league, you got to do it. Now, a couple other Will Campbell things that have gotten me really excited. He talked about. I talked about this with Schrager the other day. Vrabel did put on the pads, and he did go at Campbell to kind of feel what his body was. And I had been hearing about this for a week or so, and Campbell, I guess, knocked him over. And Vrabel was really impressed by that. But Frable, I've got to confirm multiple ways now, he Loves putting the pads on, hitting the guys, feeling their body mass, feeling how sturdy they are. So love. Will Campbell grew up in Monroe, Louisiana, home of Bill Russell. Not nothing. He cried for 25 seconds on stage today after he got drafted. I got a little choked up. He said, I'm going to fight and die to protect them with everything I got. When was asked about, how are you going to protect Drake, may I repeat, I'm going to fight and die to protect them with everything I got. I'm all in on this guy. There's been a lot of jokes in the Boston area. It's been a pretty polarizing pick. There was a tweet. I forget who did it. It was one of the, I think we guys that showed a picture of him crying, and it was like, Will Campbell's arms are too short to wipe away the tears. We're going to get a lot of that Will Campbell. I think it's an inch difference. It doesn't faze me. I think we get in trouble with drafts when people don't fit the boxes we have for the types of bodies. And the reason I mentioned this with a basketball analogy is because we watched Jalen Brunson on the Knicks tonight as Will Campbell's getting drafted, who has now become one of the, I think 10 best players in the league. 10 or 12 best players. He fell to the second round in the NBA draft because he was too short, wasn't fast enough. Like, I, you know, I'm. I'm in my 50s now. We've been doing this with drafts my whole life. What, this center's an inch too small. Draymond Green falls to 37 in the draft because what is he? Is he center? Can he shoot? These guys don't fit in boxes. And if Will Campbell has been awesome his whole career, and the one catch on him is his arms might be an inch too short. Like, guess what? We need a left tackle. Hopefully his arms start too short. So I'm in on this pick. I'm going to defend it. I sign off on it. I think they did the right thing. I also think nobody wanted to trade up, so that was it. So Loveland went over Ty Warrant to the Bears at 10 because Ben Johnson, oh, he needs a tight end. Meanwhile, Anyone who spent $30 on Sam LaPorter in their draft last year wanted to. Wanted to punch themselves in the face. So we'll see how Loveland does. I don't know. Is that. Are the Bears fallen victim to. We have Caleb Williams. Let's just keep drafting offensive Weapons and not building a right team around him. We'll see. They spent a lot of money in the offensive line. I didn't love that pick, but the picks that I did love and granted I parachuted into this, but I did really get into the draft this year because of the PAT situation. I really thought they were going to trade back. So I was kind of looking at 20 guys and doing the deep dives on them. So the picks that I did like. Jalen Walker fell to Atlanta at 15 and he was one of the ones that seemed like he was a fast riser down the stretch and he was even getting rumored for a second at four And Peter Schrager was doing his whole to a man, people will tell you that this guy just wows the room. He's one of those like great character, wows the room. Guy fell to 15 to a team that never seems to have a pass rush. So I really liked that pick for them and it just felt like they got good value. I loved Hampton to The Chargers at 22, who everyone thought was the second best running back in this draft. And maybe some people felt like the distance between him and Gente wasn't really even that significant. This guy just seems like a kick ass, bang the line, keep the chains moving guy. And they needed somebody like this. And I just thought at 22 that's where you want to take a running back. And then Matthew golden went 23 to the Packers. I'm just going to say this, I'm going to make a prediction. I think he's going to be better than McMillan and I'll get to McMillan in a second. And then I like that. Houston was able to trade 25 for 34, 99 and a third round pick because the Giants got excited about Jackson Dart who might be a career backup. But I thought that was smart that they were loading up on picks because they need stuff. My favorite dumb trademark was Atlanta traded number 46, number 242 and a 20, 26 first round pick to the Rams for number 26. And I just, I love having the Falcons with this current administration in the draft. It's like in my, in my vote out draft with Sal and those guys, we have our crazy friend Brad's in there and you just never know where you're getting every year with Brad this year he took like nine or 10 running backs and it was just like of course he did. He's Brad that's basically become the Falcons. Nobody moves up 20 spots from 46 to 26 and gives a first round pick in a draft where by the time we got to the mid-20s, I don't think anyone was doing backflips. I thought that was hilarious. I thought it was a very fun draft. For glass half empty stereotypes. Will Campbell has short arms. Genti runs with his pads too high. Apparently. Heard that one a couple times. Membo. You can see this in the ringer draft guide was called a, a a leaner and a lunger, which I think are bad traits for, for a tackle apparently. But my number one, and this is why I didn't like the Ted McMillan pick was and I thought that was the worst pick. I thought him going to The Panthers at 8 was the worst pick in the draft. We'll see if I'm right or wrong, but Ted McMillan can't get enough separation was the thing that people were hanging on. There was also the he loves volleyball more than football. I'm not going to acknowledge that they can't get enough separation. I think it's a real thing because the Patriots over and over again have drafted receivers or signed receivers like Devonte Parker who. The guys are never open because they can't get any separation. And then the quarterback has to make like perfect throws just to get in the ball. You see these highlights of these guys in college making one handed catches, jumping over five, nine defensive backs and I just, I want guys who are wide open. If I'm drafting a receiver, I want somebody like golden where you see the clips and he's just like wide open in all the clips. I want guys like that. I don't care about the guys who can make the catches in traffic. It seems like those guys are more likely to bust than anything. So I would say out of all the glass half empty stereotypes, that's the one I might believe in most. Mainly because I've been burned by 20 plus years of terrible Patriots picks. Another big takeaway from this draft, which I think people say every year, but I was really thinking about it this year. Why do people go to the NFL draft? I feel like I get 99.9% of the sports fan experience, which is a reason that I think I've had some success over the years. This I don't get. And I was thinking like during the darkest, most interesting, most bored stretches of my entire life, which is probably my mid-20s, when I was broke and barely employed or unemployed sometimes or semi employed and then employed again, my mom was paying my mobile gas card, was charging soda food on it, hoping she wouldn't notice. Even then, my darkest moments I never would have wanted to go to the NFL draft. I wouldn't have wanted to go if it was in Boston, much less driving to Foxborough to go. I just don't get it. And I'm not saying I'm right or wrong. I just don't personally understand it. I don't get it. And maybe if Van pops on here in a second, I'll ask him, but everybody seems like they have a great time. But this year, specifically to go to Green Bay, which is a really hard place to go to to find a hotel, it's hard. The airport situation's a disaster. I just. I don't get it. I also didn't get why Roger Goodell came out on a bike. And I don't get in general why he tries so hard to pretend he's this great, awesome guy when we all know he's, you know, he's a business assassin. That's the reason he's stayed the commissioner of this song. But you're not going to fool us riding a bike and bear hugging teammates or draft picks. One other note, the Giants triple down on their defensive line and it's fun. I have a lot of Giants fans in my life to make fun of them about this because they immediately default to the first super bowl win over the Pats. Will worked out for us in 2007. It's not going to work out this time because the rest of your team really sucks and your quarterbacks are Jackson, Darth and Tommy DeVito and Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston. And I wish you all a lot of luck and I still hate you for 2007 and 2011. So I just wanted to get that in. But this is the Mike Lombardi theory with if you have a strength double down on the strength. This is one of my favorite Lombardi theories that we'll see. This Giants thing will be a good example. Can we be really awesome at one part of football and can we be so awesome at it that we'll actually transfer to the rest of football? Those are all my notes. The only thing about people going to the draft I did enjoy when the Packer fans booed the Bears. Steve McMichael came on, they had the memorial, the moment of silence or whatever happened there and the crowd got respectful for a second and then went back to busting the Bears again. That whole packers bear thing is really funny and I enjoy that. I still don't know why you would stand there as people got picked. I just don't get it. I'm not. I'm not trying to sound superior to people. I. I just don't personally understand it. So if anyone can explain it to me, I'd love to. I'd love to know more. All right, Saruti, you have. Do you have a take on this?

[Chris Ryan]

I have no idea why people are there. I don't. I don't get it at all. I don't get it.

[Bill Simmons]

What do they do between the picks?

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Because they, they. You know, it's like. I guess the whole point would be, like, can you get on TV to be the one Giants fan, like, holding up your jersey and just yelling? I don't know. I. I don't know. I don't get it. And like, you know, maybe we're just really out of touch and, like, losers. I. I don't. I don't know. Like, I mean, I'm trying not to be, like, the anti fun guy, but I just. I don't get how.

[Rob Mahoney]

I was.

[Chris Ryan]

I literally asked my wife, I was like, would you rather be in Times Square for New Year's Eve or at the NFL draft? And she was like, I honestly don't know.

[Bill Simmons]

New Year's Eve's a good example because I don't get that either, but at least I get it a little bit because it's something to do on New Year's. It's like, what'd you do if we went to Times Square? We had to do it. Yeah. It seems awful.

[Van Lathan]

Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

But NFL draft seems. Can you drink at this? Like, do they sell food? They must. Right?

[Chris Ryan]

And I mean, you're so far away from the state. Like, they were doing the aerial shots, and you're not even close to the stage. I mean, the people close to the stage, I don't even think, you know, like, I would say 95% of the audience was not even remotely near the stage area. You're just, like, in this parking lot behind. Behind it.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know. It looks like you're, like, at a concert at Wembley Stadium.

[Chris Ryan]

Correct.

[Bill Simmons]

And you're way in the back, like, watching, you know, whoever.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Do you feel the same way about the NBA draft?

[Bill Simmons]

No. Because it's a little more confined. This just seems like this massive sporting event that I just don't get it.

[Chris Ryan]

Do you agree with Party get hammered. And, you know, maybe that's just the sell which, you know, rose trip. And you just get there and everybody's kind of. You rent an Airbnb for a weekend and you just kind of do your thing. Maybe that's a. Maybe that's fun.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. That's the thing is I don't, I'm not saying I'm leaving the door open, that I'm completely wrong and I'm just not seeing it correctly, but I don't see it in any way. Do you think Sanders should have fallen in the second round?

[Chris Ryan]

I, I feel like I like him more than the consensus does. Like all these GMs and anonymous. I love the Anonymous thing today. It was like there was people trying to out Anonymous, everyone else with anonymous quotes. I don't know. I mean, I obviously wasn't in any of the meetings with the guy, but I kind of respected him. Like, he seems like he's got a decent head on his shoulders given who he is, who his dad is. And he got his ass kicked at Colorado almost every single week and really never complained and was just a baller. So I don't know, I'm not a talent evaluator, but I, I, I respect his game. But clearly there's just, I think, you know, it was weird on the broadcast because they, they just kind of refused to ever say like, hey, maybe he's just not that talented and that's why he's not. They kept, you know, Kuyper kept bringing it up. They kept talking about how, you know, about his dad showing him and it was kind of awkward and maybe it's just, hey, he's not that good of an arm strength guy. And you know, why are we taking that guy in the first round? Maybe it's as simple as that.

[Bill Simmons]

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[Van Lathan]

I was as surprised with his fall as I was with Anthony Richardson's rise when he was going through the process, because I had watched so much of him. I watched so much of him and I had seen him like never really Play competent quarterback at Florida. Outside of some moments and a couple of games with Shador, it's completely the opposite. I expected that the measurables wouldn't be crazy because when you watch him you think sometimes is he a noodle alarm? He obviously isn't hyper twitchy as far as his movement when he decides to run. However, just watching him as a football player, as a football player he won games and he changed programs when he got to the destinations that he ended up in college football. Now a lot of people might say, hey, his record at Colorado was mediocre and it was. But if you look at what Colorado was before he got there, a lot of that offense is on his shoulders and he always made plays and he seemed like the kind of guy that you would want at quarterback in terms of the toughness, the ability to make throws in big moments, the ability to make big game winning drives. He's getting his ass kicked. But when it was time to measure out and get in front of people, I guess they didn't like what they saw.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, the two things that don't make sense to me, big games on the road with crowds, right. Making plays, making clutch plays every once in a while, which he definitely did. He seemed like he had a knack for the moment. And then you mentioned the key thing, how freaking tough he was, which I think when you're at the next level, you're just going to either going to stand in the pocket and take hits or you're not. We've seen so many quarterbacks who seem like they're afraid to get hit. I'm not saying he should have gone 10th or 12th, but it's hard for me to believe once we get in the 20s with how hard it is to find a quarterback that he wouldn't have gone in 20s, which makes me think they thought he was like Andy Dalton, basically like a poor man's Andy Dalton.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, Van, you watch Jackson dart and, and especially the Florida game was not, not a pretty watch.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Chris Ryan]

But you know, he's got the arm strength and I guess more of the ideal athleticism. He runs a little bit better than Shador does. I, it, I don't know, like it's, it's one of those things where, because you're right like he, like Colorado's defense was terrible both years he was there and he carried them to, you know, ranked, you know, Colorado being a ranked team for most of the time. He's, he's an impressive dude to me but clearly, you know, if you don't have A good arm. Like, like the Anthony Richardson thing. Like, dudes get tricked into that all the time, you know, Right. The guys, he's 6 foot 5, he's built like an Adonis. He runs well. The one throw, the one throw he had last year off his back foot, you know, they'll show that highlight for years to come. It's like, all right, we'll bank on that guy. It's hard to bank on a guy who. All right, what's his main trait? Like, he's tough and he's. He's kind of accurate or he's pretty accurate, but he doesn't have a great army.

[Van Lathan]

Like, well, see, see, this is what I would say about that. I understand what you're saying. Just I don't want to. You know, Rich is in the NFL now. He just was the example that popped in my head. But like, I watched him like legitimately struggle to grasp his offense and to be consistently productive in it. And all year long there were narratives about whether or not the guy was hurt or what was the reason that he couldn't play. You know, I can't really say that about Jackson Dart. What I can say about Jackson Dart is that there are times in big moments, in big games where Jackson Dart wasn't there. And there are. There were weird off games where it seemed like teams kind of had ganged out Kiffin's scheme a little bit and they were able to shut down Jackson Dart and render him ineffective. But when you look at the team, Ole Miss team from last year, they spent a lot of money. Trey Harris was hurt most of the year. That was a guy who probably would have been a first round pick at receiver. And then Juice Wells, the big transfer that came in from South Carolina, he didn't work out. He had a disappointing season. So it wasn't like they had explosion all over the office. They had Ulysses Bentley, they had some other guys in the backfield that were running the ball pretty well, but the team was a little bit off kilter. Dart was shouldering a lot, a lot of the load for them offensively because they weren't really getting separation from their wide receivers and a lot of stuff was going on there. Two things I'll say differently, though. He had a multi, multimillion dollar squad. There were dudes or supposed dudes everywhere. The reason why you would say that, Shador Sanders, you have to call him clutch, is because Colorado was incapable of dominating anyone. If they were going to win a game, it was normally going to be by six. It was going to Be by three. And Shador was going to have to make plays for them to win.

[Chris Ryan]

50 to 40.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, yeah, he was going to have to make plays for them to win. And I'm just surprised that no one saw. When you talk about the Intangibles, a lot of people are talking about, well, he's bad in an interview. He's cocky, he's this, he's that. The Intangibles that I saw was a guy who was able to rally his team and get them to really play for him. A guy who stood in there behind one of the worst offensive lines I've ever seen in college football history. Like, one of the worst lines I've ever seen and make plays and deliver throws. And there was a throw in that. Not to filibuster or belabor. There was a throw I specifically remember in the North Dakota State game where he gets drilled and the ball comes out. And I'm thinking, that's a pick. I'm like, oh, my God, that's a pick. No, he floated it to Horn. Horn ran under it. And I think that he scored. So I just thought that somebody would say, that's a guy that I could build an offense around, particularly one of these obviously dome teams. But I guess it didn't. They didn't feel that way. You know what I mean?

[Bill Simmons]

Well, I talked about this earlier, but wouldn't it be amazing if he ended up in Cleveland when we thought there was a chance he could have gone to Cleveland before people realized it was in top three, but now he could go to Cleveland. A team that has been in hell with their quarterbacks since Baker Mayfield left, and now he goes there, could have a wide open Runway to be good right away. He'd have a better offensive line than he had at Colorado.

[Chris Ryan]

But that's, I don't know the thing I was. Van, where would you want to see him? Because I was thinking during the draft, I'm like, does he. Does he fit well in New York or Cleveland in a cold weather city where, like, he's got to drive the ball in what could be bad weather? Like, I. He's, you know, the Saints in a dome. Like that feels just way, way bad. I don't know what the exact fit is, but I, I didn't know if he's a saint.

[Bill Simmons]

One of those cold weather climbs. How about the.

[Van Lathan]

Into it? I mean, look at this point, you know, I take Lucifer at quarterback rather than Derek Carr. Like, there are all kinds of people, like O.J. simpson could quarterback us. You know what I Mean, Kanye West. Like, there are a lot of people that they could put in their quarterback right now that I take over. Derek Carr pretty much like anybody. But look, there's no doubt that in the right situation, Shador Sanders has what it takes to be successful. What I am not. I'm a guy who watches a lot of college football. Like, I watched every snap that Dart took this year. I watched every snap that Sanders took this year. Right? I just watch every game possible, and especially the teams in the sec. I have to watch them. What I can't do is get granular as far as the breakdown of what NFL guys see that makes them go, oh, my God, this guy is undraftable. I can only tell you the tape that I saw, like, when they were playing games, actual games on a football field. And on a football field, it seems like Shador Sanders is a winning player. Jackson Darth is a great, big strong guy who's incredibly tough. Incredibly tough. But I don't know, man. That offense is. Is.

[Ceruti]

It's.

[Van Lathan]

It's designed to manufacture statistics. It's a simple offense because they go so fast. So there's just a lot of things that Jackson Dart might be asked to do on the next level that I don't think he was asked to do it.

[Bill Simmons]

Ole Miss, handsome guy, and maybe that'll be his legacy. Handsome guy coming to interview seems. Seems like he's like, Brad Pitt's coming in. Cleveland has 33 and 36. The two teams between them are Houston, who already have a quarterback in Tennessee who just drafted a quarterback. And if they passed on him twice, when their quarterbacks are Kenny Pickett and Deshaun Watson, who's out for the year and who everybody in Cleveland hates, that is just damning. And then you go to. The Raiders are sitting there at 37, and could they try to move up? Like, I. I can't imagine him getting by at 37. Then it's like, all right, what the fuck's going on? Van, when does this become one of the most reprehensible sports media people yelling at each other stories we've had in a while? What. What needs to happen. Yokich and Jokic vs Embiid for the MVP was the last time. It got really dark.

[Van Lathan]

I got drawn into that.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, yeah.

[Van Lathan]

I don't know. The cultural story of this one is pretty big as well. I saw Deion get at Dan Orlovsky on Twitter. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody said that Dan Orlofsky is a hater now because he gave a somewhat negative opinion about Shador Sanders. And it wasn't really a negative opinion. He said, if Shador Sanders doesn't go in the first round or if a couple teams pass on him, this will be why. These are the things that he needs to work on. And someone comes and says, I didn't know he was a hater. And Deion goes, oh, my God, he's a hater. The Deion part of this just cannot be overlooked. The fact that Deion is such a gigantic personality that maybe there are some people that have been rubbed the wrong way by the entire Colorado apparatus. And that is the thing that's going to be gnawing at the talking heads for the next couple of days. Because, you know, quarterbacks fall all the time. But this one's going to be seen as a gigantic injustice where it could be just a guy that the NFL scouts don't like, or it could be more.

[Bill Simmons]

The injustice to me is that we don't have enough good quarterbacks. So you have to really think this guy doesn't have it. If you're like, we still don't know who the Steelers quarterback is, Rudy, Is it like Kirk Cousins now? Like, what is it like, really, they're going to do the Aaron Rodgers roller coaster, kind of keep their fingers crossed for a guy who seemed like he was washed last year.

[Chris Ryan]

But I would say the counterpoint would be every. Every draft expert has basically told us that, like, Cam Ward in last year's draft is going, what, like fifth or sixth of all of the quarterbacks. So if you think Cam Ward is better than Shador Sanders, which I think we all probably do, at least as a prospect, that's. That means he's at least seventh. The seventh best quarterback in, you know, and how many, how many times are seven quarterbacks going round one? So is he just being. Was he just kind of being propped up? Because, hey, we need to latch on to somebody. Quarterbacks are sexy. Usually two to three go in the first round. Like, maybe he's up there when, like, you know, I guess the statistics would tell you that this draft is just not a great quarterback draft. So I don't know, it seems cluster. I really don't know what to believe.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, that's what happens with these clusters with the draft, where you're the best looking person in your cluster, but it's not a good cluster. And you can fool people into thinking you're better than you are. I thought that was really interesting that people. I saw the same stuff that people thought, like, Bo Nix would have gone ahead of Cam Ward if they were in the same draft. That's crazy.

[Van Lathan]

Jesus. I guess, Yeah, I get what you're saying, but I looked at that sort of from a different perspective to where it's a weak quarterback draft. Like a weak one, right? And he still fell out of the top out of the first round. Like, we watched a draft where Michael Pennix with a really questionable medical, like, that guy's a stud quarterback, don't get me wrong. And he ran 4, 5 when he was at the combine, so obviously his legs work. But we watched him get taken. We watched the JJ McCarthy thing. Still blows my mind, right? And it's not. I'm not saying that the guy's not good. I'm saying that we're talking about someone that was in a hand the ball off, make a couple of plays a game offense, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Game manager.

[Van Lathan]

A game manager. He is about to be handed the keys to the kingdom up in Minnesota. All of that stuff together. I know that the team won a lot, and that's got to mean something. But I'm saying now it just seems like it wasn't that Shador Sanders didn't find the right fit in the first round. It seemed like he was radioactive, which it wasn't.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, it does seem like the interviews were a real thing, right? So people were being anonymous because they didn't want people coming at them. But it didn't seem like a fake story. It did seem like something that turned some teams off.

[Van Lathan]

But can I ask you a question? Let's say that it's not a fake story. The question is, why is it a story? Why would an anonymous source.

[Bill Simmons]

You.

[Van Lathan]

You have a bad interview with Shador Sanders, Right?

[Bill Simmons]

Why are they saying.

[Van Lathan]

I'm just asking. Yeah, I'm not, by the way. I'm not. I'm not casting any type of expression. I'm saying, I'm asking why? Like, you have a bad interview with out.

[Bill Simmons]

Because you want to get him in the second round, and you're like, yeah, that guy's a fucking asshole. And meanwhile, I hope he falls to 33.

[Van Lathan]

But it got to a point to where every single fucking thing was so negative. Like, did you hear that we watched him tie his shoes and it took him fucking five seconds to do the loop de loop. Something's wrong with this guy. He's undraftable.

[Bill Simmons]

It was like the Draft day movie. It was the birthday party. It was Bo Cowhen, the whole thing.

[Van Lathan]

So I'm just, you know, by the way, I'm not. I'm just saying that this was pretty remarkable for. From a guy. There's that other tweet from Deion where Deion is saying, hey, my son's gonna go top five.

[Rob Mahoney]

Really?

[Van Lathan]

Like, everyone was saying that he was going to be like a top five.

[Bill Simmons]

Draft pick, something versus Ward for three months.

[Chris Ryan]

But that cooled off the last couple of days.

[Bill Simmons]

It did.

[Chris Ryan]

You know that it almost.

[Bill Simmons]

Last couple of weeks.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

But it almost feels like. Did we just kind of like talk ourselves into something that was never actually going to be real? You know, and.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, I know as a Patriots fan, hoping that two quarterbacks were going top three, you could feel it shifting in fucking February that once the first wave of analysis came in on him, it wasn't. It was pretty bleak. So I don't get it.

[Van Lathan]

There's one other thing that. That I looked back at it and I was like, these things didn't help, at least to me. So Ken Ward and Shador Sanders trained together. And so all throughout the last couple of months, there were all of these training videos of them and they were throwing together. And, you know, Ward would step up and he would throw a couple reps, and then Shador would step up and he would throw a couple reps. And I remember watching both of those guys throw and being like, uh. Oh.

[Bill Simmons]

You know.

[Van Lathan]

You know what I mean?

[Bill Simmons]

Like, ugh.

[Van Lathan]

Like, don't get me wrong, Shador throws a pretty football. I think he's a first round quarterback. I think he's going to have a successful NFL career. But the physical difference between the guys was pretty remarkable. When you watch both of them throw.

[Bill Simmons]

Dan, can we go rapid fire really quick? Will Campbell, number four, Patriots. His arms are apparently an inch too short. I've talked myself into the pick, but you loved him. Can you make the Will Campbell face? Case for my Patriot fan friends, all.

[Van Lathan]

I can say is that the guy faced some of the best, most talented pass rushers in the entire country and he didn't hold up. He fucking dominated. He dominated.

[Bill Simmons]

He didn't.

[Van Lathan]

He wasn't a. This is a guy who can hold up at tackle for you. This was a dominating pass blocker. And I'm sorry, man. Actual game, shit has to matter. He is a dog. You guys got a good one.

[Bill Simmons]

Did it make you cry when he cried?

[Van Lathan]

No, I thought. I thought it was actually more interesting that when he was walking up to the podium to go talk to Goodell, that he completely ignored Brian Kelly like that. That freaked me out. As an LSU fan, I'm wondering, do they fuck with this guy? Like, he completely Ignored Brian Kelly. Brian Kelly actually went gave one of these to him. He didn't have any time for.

[Bill Simmons]

Coach, what was your favorite pick of the first 15 rounds? For value slash. You think the guy's gonna absolutely kick ass for the team for value slash.

[Van Lathan]

Kick ass for the team. I mean the value picks are pretty obvious here.

[Bill Simmons]

You know notice how he's not saying Kelvin Banks to the Saints at nine. That didn't jump off out of the tongue.

[Van Lathan]

I think the entire, I think the entire time was supported. The entire state was surprised that that they, that they took a tackle. This is not a value pick but my favorite pick of the entire draft was one that was scripted exactly the way it was supposed to go. It was ashen Genty to the Raiders because of all of the excellent players that we've talked about all year long. He is such a fucking dominant football player. He's such a dominant football player and he's going to a team that has some pieces where he's going to really be get a chance to produce. I think he's going to have like a flat out awesome rookie year. I'm excited to use them on Madden too.

[Bill Simmons]

Serriti, what was your favorite value slash? I love this fit. I love everything about this pick.

[Chris Ryan]

I love Hampton to the Chargers. What do you think his. Because what do you think he's going to go in an auction draft? Like dudes are going to lose that.

[Bill Simmons]

Because all he's going to do he's.

[Chris Ryan]

Like a $40 run the ball. Yeah like he's going to be a top guy and you know there's a lot of people that said, you know Genti's like you know physically just a freak and special but that Hampton's not that far behind him and I that's like a perfect because. Because all those charges, running backs too were just like ticking time bombs. Like you know with all Dobbins is you know just another injury waiting to happen unfortunately and Gus Edwards is like a thousand years old or at least seems like it like it just seems like a plug and play guy that's going to be like an all pro potentially like in a couple of seasons.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, that was one of those. If you took them at 12 it's like ah, it's high but that's a nice pick. But when you get him at 22 you're like oh no brainer that I agree with you that one. The Falcons getting, getting Walker and then I really let Gold into the packers. They just over and over again just keep getting these receivers The Pats haven't, haven't been able to Draft 1 in 20 years. And the packers over and over again are just grabbing these dudes. But I thought that was a good one.

[Chris Ryan]

The Eagles kind of did it again too, with Jihad Campbell. Right. Fans, like, great pick.

[Ceruti]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Like, they just get another SEC stud who somehow falls and there's the injury concern, but man, yeah, yeah, it was.

[Van Lathan]

He had the injury, but it's a great pick. A terrorizing player when he's healthy, man.

[Bill Simmons]

Would you have taken Travis Hunter or Abdul Carter if you had the second pick, Travis Hunter? Okay. Would you have traded all that stuff Jacksonville traded to get him?

[Van Lathan]

Probably not. But if, if, if you're there, I take him in in front of Carter because to me, like, if you. What's the best case scenario for Carter that he turns into like a Michael Parsons type of player? He's not quite as good as Michael Parsons. Right?

[Bill Simmons]

Michael Parsons. Slightly poor man's Parsons, I think slightly poor man's Parsons.

[Van Lathan]

Right. Hunter, though, to me has the opportunity, particularly if he just decides on one side of the ball. To me, the defensive side of the ball is where I think he needs to be. He could be everything. He could be the next Deion Sanders, Darrell Revis type of player that like, locks up a side of the field for a team for X amount of years.

[Bill Simmons]

That was a very fun pick. All right. Thanks for staying up with us, man.

[Rob Mahoney]

No problem.

[Bill Simmons]

Thanks, Saruti. Always good to see your face as well. We're going to take a break. Come back with Cr Mahoney. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn. During the season, every baseball team plays 162 games. It's a true test of endurance. It's not enough to have a hot month or two. You need sustained dominance throughout. Well, the same is true for your small business. It's not enough to have a great Q2, even a great year. You want year over year growth that starts with better hires that'll be there for the long haul. To find Those hires, use LinkedIn. LinkedIn has strong hiring data and insights that you won't find anywhere else. To help pair you with with the best candidates, from unique skills and interests to the connections you have in common. Based on LinkedIn data, 72% of small businesses say that LinkedIn helps them find high quality talent. LinkedIn also lets you go beyond people who are actively applying. In a given week, 171 million LinkedIn members aren't actively seeking jobs, but they are open to new opportunities. That's a big pool to miss out on. If you're not hiring with LinkedIn, find your next great hire on LinkedIn. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com Simmons that's LinkedIn.com Simmons to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by Cognigy. Customer service can be so frustrating. Waiting on hold, being transferred around, repeating yourself. So flip the script with Cognigy's Agentic AI. Their AI AI agents do more than automate. They collaborate seamlessly, integrating into any system.

[Ceruti]

AgentIQ AI works alongside your customer Care.

[Bill Simmons]

Team to deliver service, support and experiences at scale, reducing costs and making customers happy. Experience cognigy's agenti [e-mail] happy all right, we're recording this 9:33pm no Wi Fi in my house for some reason, so I'm using my iPhone. I think it looks fine. The dream team is here. Rob Mahoney Chris ryan Just watched OKC come back from at least 55 points. Mahoney was that the John Morant got injured game or the Alex Crusoe? Not quite the Alex Crusoe game, but if it was a bigger game, it would be the Alex Crusoe game game.

[Ceruti]

Why not both? But the I think the dark clouds of John Morant falling that hard in the fashion that he did and the way that the game just completely flipped on its head the moment that he left. It's hard. Not for that, for that not to be the top line takeaway. It's just such a bummer.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I mean he's, he's always somebody you worried was going to get injured in every game because of the way he played. But that was not his fault. That was a pretty fluky cr. Was that dirty to you at all or not really.

[Rob Mahoney]

I actually did do a little bit of research. I did some Zapruder on this. It does feel like Dort's slipping before he even realizes that jaw's there, but I'm sure other people have differing opinions.

[Bill Simmons]

Tough, tough week for guys slipping and then undercutting famous stars in the playoffs.

[Rob Mahoney]

Do you want to get it off your chest early or do you want to save it for later?

[Bill Simmons]

Not great. Not great. I'll tell you what OKC did show me though, okay? It's never good to lose by 30 when you're you're the favorites to win the title in a game three when it looked like the series was over after the first two games and then Ja gets her momentum shifts but it was still like a 24 point game in the third quarter, you know, and then OKC did the thing that, you know, I really appreciate. If you're going to have some championship pedigree, can you really crack down? Can you go on a run? Can you crack the defense up another level? And then all of a sudden, it started to feel like the first two games. So, Rob, weirdly, I think that game was like a win and something that maybe OKC needed for those last two rounds that they're going to get to would be my takeaway.

[Ceruti]

No, I mean, it's certainly a better context than winning by 50 plus. Right. Like, these are the kinds of. These are the kinds of runs you want to have to make. And I think the Caruso point you laid up top is really important. This idea that he is a crucial part of their closing groups and I think showed in this case, you got to play that dude off the floor because he will fuck you up and he will end your season. Like, the number of just completely disruptive defensive plays he had down the stretch against bigs, against wings, against guards. He just, like, his defensive range is so incredible, and the only thing you can really do is try to challenge him to hit some shots. Try to. Try to, you know, spate, I think, push him on the other end to the point that OKC has to make some hard calls. And they just never reached that point because Caruso was that good. And ultimately, I think because Chet and J Dub were that good, too.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah. It's pretty rare to go into a closing stretch of a game, especially with a comeback that significant. It was like, I think they were down 29 at the most. Right.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

And then to have the defensive possessions be the thing you're going to walk away remembering.

[Bill Simmons]

I know.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's not like it's. It's not like Corey Brewer and Josh Smith, like, bombing away. It's like, no, Alex Caruso literally just, like, stopped the Grizzlies from scoring, like, 10 times. And that swings the game.

[Bill Simmons]

CR. As a scrappy former little basketball player, did you. Is there a kinship watching him take on Jaren Jackson? Is there anything more fun if we were just going to rank things that don't quite get anything?

[Rob Mahoney]

As a guy with a receding hairline.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, did you see that?

[Ceruti]

There are many inroads to this metaphor.

[Bill Simmons]

It turns out, but it's one of those things that's so secretly fun about basketball that we all enjoy but we don't talk about nearly enough, is when the much smaller guy is guarding the bigger guy who's just being Completely exposed. We're seeing it a little bit in the Golden State Houston series too with Draymond and Fred Van Vliet where they're just like, Fred Van Vliet's like 5:11. We're going to put him on Draymond. What are you guys going to do? And he can't do anything. But for Jaren Jackson, who I did not vote for all NBA and I think is a frustrating player to watch sometimes, but I don't. I did not think that was a good look for him.

[Rob Mahoney]

CR Yeah, I thought he had that one nice shot that went high off the glass towards the end of the game. Like every once in a while he pulls something out of his bag. His handle does not really. He doesn't have the handle of somebody that you can trust in a fourth quarter in a big game like that. Right now, I will say that for Memphis, it's probably incredibly difficult to navigate the jaws here. Jaws not here. Yeah, because they feel like such a different roster. When he goes out, it automatically makes, you know, your canards like that much more important. Your conchar is important. Like, whereas those guys should be additive and not essential. And so I just, I really feel for Memphis. They're probably not. They're probably never going to win this series and they were probably going to get maybe not swept, but it was probably going to be a gentleman's sweep. And now it just seems like this might be a franchise altering night for them.

[Ceruti]

Yeah, I mean that was like a best case shooting half for Memphis. Overall, they were hitting everything. It was just everything was clicking into place, starting with Scottie Pippen Jr. Having such an amazing game. For them to have to give it all back like this is so dispiriting is so crushing. And I think the Jaren Jackson piece of this is interesting to talk about because OKC is a horrible matchup for him. Like, I think his handle is good enough to beat Biggs. It's not good enough to beat the Alex Carusos and certainly to drive into the teeth of a defense like Oklahoma City. It's just that's where you really strain even the more developed part of his skill set from this year.

[Bill Simmons]

So it seems like John might be seriously hurt. We have no idea as we're taping this, but he came back out in crutches. Crutches never good. Maybe it's a hip thing. Maybe they think it might be a. Who knows? I don't want to speculate, but honestly.

[Ceruti]

When he took his jersey off coming off the court, I He was. He was not responding as if he was going to be coming back out there. You could see that he was in a lot of pain. You could say he was in a lot of anguish over that fall. It was. It was a tough scene all around.

[Rob Mahoney]

I hated it, man. It was just like, it's the. The. The jaw experience in such a sick nutshell where he was about to do something incredibly sick.

[Ceruti]

Yep.

[Rob Mahoney]

And you're like, this is why I watch basketball. This is incredible. And then just the freaky, fluky stuff. But I want. I want, like, guys to try to do stuff like that. That's why you watch hoops.

[Ceruti]

The audacity to hurdle Lou Dort is what makes Ja Ja, but it's also what leads to these plays.

[Rob Mahoney]

Unfortunately, I missed it live, so I went back a couple of minutes because when I flipped over, I flipped over when I saw Verno tweet like, oh, no. And I was like, this could only be one of three or four things. So I went back, and when I established it wasn't a Cowboys draft pick situation, I was like, oh, let me find when the jaw injury must happen. And I went too far back. And you can watch him and you can see, like, all the life in his eyes, and he's just such the heartbeat of the franchise while he's out there and, like, the crowd is feeding off of him. So it was really eerie to go back, like, even a minute before the injury, and then it all changes.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. When Verno tweets, oh, no. The most likely scenario is a jaw injury. Given that the NFL draft tonight, it was probably like, I have over two and a half quarterbacks in the first round. Oh, no. I mean, there was all kinds of gambling possibilities too. This okcp's. You know, there's not a lot to learn from this series. It's a. I think, pretty much of a mismatch. And if Memphis was going to win a game, it was going to be tonight. But for the most part, this was either going to be four or five. But it did get interesting down there. Five minutes left. Memphis is playing really hard. Pippin's doing some interesting stuff against SGA as, like, a smaller guy trying to, like, kind of dive down on his dribble. And, you know, they're throwing, like, some flash double teams at him. They're bouncing off him and just trying to watch them execute. And the big guy was Holmgren, where you really felt the stretch fiveness of him. And he was not shy about taking shots. He made one big one. But I was Watching that, did you notice anything down the stretch there? Because that's going to happen to them. They're going to play the Clippers probably in round two, right? They might play Golden State or the Lakers, who knows, in round three. And then the Celtics are waiting for them. And there's going to be these little pockets at the end of games, these real crunch time moments when teams are going to be throwing everything they have at them that try to knock them out of their offense. It's like, all right, Jalen Williams, let's see it. Hey, Chet, can you make that? Alex Crusoe, are you afraid of the corner? How about you, Lou Dort, what did you notice from the last five minutes?

[Ceruti]

I mean, I think just a lot of optimism from the Chet piece of this game. Just a monster second half overall, that is heartening. As far as his piece in that.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Ceruti]

They're always going to have the questions about this sort of secondary offense. They're also going to have those questions, as you say, about what is the best optimal defense to throw at SGA in a playoff setting. And I think Scottie Pippen Jr. Does a good job against pretty much every star he's asked to guard. Real yeoman's work. Considering what he's asked to do. You could say the same of a Chris Dunn matchup. Derrick Jones Jr. Is one of the few defenders in the league who actually seemed to have an effect on SGA in the regular season during some of their matchups. And so the challenge of a team like the Clippers, as Denver is finding out is the sheer variety of shit that they can throw at you and the way that they can mix up their coverages and their assignments and keep you guessing at all times. And if something is going to throw the Thunder off their game, and I'm not sure it will in a way that they're going to lose a series, but it would have to be disruptive in that way.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, it's really hard. I said this last Thursday. It's hard for me to imagine them not winning the title. I thought that this was like a real cool gut check win. Despite the fact that the headline will be Jaw. The chat thing that I noticed down the stretch, Bill with the threes was just like how he rendered Ed kind of unplayable. I mean, he was still out there, but like watching Edie try to like get out to the perimeter, I was just like, just gotta grab it.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it's. It's the perfect OKC box score. If you're saying, what's the Blueprint for what their championship clinching box score would look like. Right. SGA 31, eight. Holmgren 24, eight rebounds. Williams 26, six and five. And then Caruso, how many steals did he have? Four, 10, six with four with four steals.

[Rob Mahoney]

But how many deflections?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, yeah. And just crazy. And had a couple of those. Kawhi Leonard, I'm just gonna take the ball from you now.

[Ceruti]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

Moments that are always fun.

[Rob Mahoney]

He was MF ing the crowd as a defender. I've not seen that recently.

[Bill Simmons]

I remember the first year he started playing for the Lakers and it became a big thing because his hair was so weird. He hadn't shaved his hair yet and he just had one of those like super duper. Almost like one of those sports writers at a Super bowl haircuts where you're like, what is going on with that guy's head? And it became a huge talking point on social media where they were like, look at this guy, this white guy. The Lakers have. What's going on with this dude? And he had a couple. I remember LeBron broke some sort of record and Caruso was one of the first people that high fived him. And it was like, wow, it's so awkward, this Caruso guy. And then we all kind of realized watching them, hey, this guy's pretty good. Am I crazy or is Caruso, like, decent? And then it just kind of kept going. He's a decently big part of that 2020 title team and it's gone and gone. And now I find it hard to believe, Rob, that he's not a crunch time guy for them. Right. He's going to probably be out there in big games. Yeah, right?

[Ceruti]

Yeah. It is going to come down to whether you can push him and push them in that way where he has to be more of an offensive presence if you can leverage it. But he's such a good playmaker in a facilitating capacity and he's such a smart cutter. I feel like he always has stuff he can do. And of course, if you're creating enough havoc on defense to create fast breaks, you're going to win those trade offs. The issue with Caruso has honestly not even really been his offense. Historically. It's been like, can he be healthy enough to play a lot over the course of entire seasons? And with the way everything is shortened up now, it really doesn't matter. You can just put him out there for 25 to 30 minutes a night if the matchup allows it, and he's going to do you a lot of good.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, we thought we were going to be leading this podcast with Clippers Nuggets. I talked about this on a pod earlier this week when I. When I had Zach on and we talked about Kawhi for a while and then at the end we're talking about this series and I felt deep in my gut that there was a chance the Nuggets might really go sideways. Like, I bet the Clippers tonight. I. I just. I don't know if the Nuggets think they're good. I mean, the Nuggets, I don't know if they believe in whatever they're doing. And you can kind of feel it. That game got away from them fast. The Clippers made a bunch of threes. I thought Jokic was spectacular in the first quarter. It was. It felt like he was on pace for 30 assayists. But defensively they're just really limited. Their bench today. At one point, I don't know what they finished with. At one point.

[Rob Mahoney]

Russ was out, right?

[Ceruti]

Yeah. Foot injury apparently going on.

[Bill Simmons]

They finished with six points from the bench.

[Rob Mahoney]

You're not going to win a playoff game.

[Bill Simmons]

Not ideal. And they were down 20 points for basically two hours. And now. Weird schedule clerk. This is the quirk. This doesn't usually happen in the first round, but they're playing again 3pm PT on Saturday. So it's 40 hours after this game ended. Yeah. And that is.

[Ceruti]

They have five and a half playable guys right now. Maybe Peyton Watson's been like kind of a disaster in some of his minutes so far. If Russ can't play like, this is the thing about all of the hand wringing, about the highs and lows of Russell Westbrook, like they just straight up need his minutes more than anything. Like they can't afford this much. Julian Strother as they're going to have to throw out there if Russ can't go. And overall, the construction of the team, to your point, Bill, does not feel like one that would give you a lot of confidence if you're Nikola Jokic, if you're Jamal Murray, if you're Aaron Gordon with one functional calf, like, I don't know how you watch the team around you, not close out to shooter after shooter after shooter and think, oh, we're just a couple of effort plays away or we're a couple of strategic tweaks away. This feels like a chasm in the series that's developing. And I think in part because the Nuggets, they just looked shook by the end of this game.

[Rob Mahoney]

They look like a team that fired Their coach and GM a week before the season ended.

[Ceruti]

Sure do.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, shit. I forgot they did that.

[Rob Mahoney]

And there's three guys on the team who have been the sort of core roots of this. Of this, like, run, and it just feels like the end of a cycle. And these guys are looking around for reinforcements, and the only place they can look is to Westbrook, who's bounced around the NBA for a couple of seasons now, and the. The bridge to nowhere, like. Like the. The young kids that they were supposed to develop just are obviously not ready or capable. And Porter, on any given day, you're like, are you on planet Earth or not, man? So it's just.

[Ceruti]

We've got one arm now, too. Like, it's. It's just not a good recipe for him.

[Rob Mahoney]

After watching these three games, I'm surprised they won one. That's what I'll say.

[Ceruti]

Wow.

[Bill Simmons]

Chris, do you think they should have hired Vincent Hannah as their interim coach?

[Ceruti]

Just.

[Rob Mahoney]

I mean, Adelman is, like, doing his best, I guess. I don't even know what you would do with a week's prep to become the head coach of a. Of a championship hopeful, but I think if we were wondering whether or not Cronky was like, Josh Coney was like, oh, I think we actually have the pedigree to win the title. We just need different voices in the room versus. I want to get this stuff, these guys out of here so we can get ready for the draft and the off season. Now I think it might be the latter.

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, even Westbrook saying, my foot's hurt is like, you fucking get hurt. Walking your doggy. Be there.

[Rob Mahoney]

Do you just have me here to do Heat? Basically, basketball inside.

[Ceruti]

Just pulled the string on his back.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, I feel bad for poor Edelman. I just think at this point, they might have been better off just hiring actors to play. To play the coach. Just bring somebody in. Bring in Ben Affleck and just tell him to be the way back guy. Wow. Yeah. Just to tell him to look like he had a few the night before, and he's just going to yell at the refs and stuff. I. I have to ask the king of narratives, Chris Ryan.

[Rob Mahoney]

Oh, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

If the Nuggets lose badly again Saturday, I think, and combined with OKC sweeping Memphis, the narratives are going to come shooting left and right like a T shirt gun, one of which will be, you voted for Jokic for mvp, and he just. He just lost in five. Shouldn't have won game one.

[Rob Mahoney]

Who is you?

[Ceruti]

We're trying to figure out who did this.

[Bill Simmons]

Me And Marcillo and probably about 20 other people, I think voted for Jokic.

[Ceruti]

And me, to be fair.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

How do you feel about that?

[Ceruti]

I feel fine. I feel like it's a regular season award and I will sleep soundly at night with that knowledge.

[Bill Simmons]

I actually feel better about it because Denver has been so exposed in this series that it kind of cements why I voted for him in the first place. I couldn't believe how mediocre his team was.

[Rob Mahoney]

That's right. I never surrender.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Just going forward now. So what else do we have for king of narratives CR for this one?

[Rob Mahoney]

Just how taxing title runs are. I mean, even I think your beloved Celtics are experiencing this a little bit physically. Obviously that has something to do with the sort of the elbows and the dives going on in that series, but it's amazing to watch. Just even Jokic and how like the tank is kind of like. I mean it's not empty, but it is certainly half full and maybe has like a little bit of like accidental diesel in there at this point. And maybe he's looking around, he's saying, I don't have any help, but how do you rebuild this team if you're. I mean you. I'm asking you because I'm like, what. What are their moves here? What are their options? Is there like is. You have to take two steps back to take a step forward. I. I hate to like be writing their obituary already, but he's too amazing.

[Bill Simmons]

It's tough to do the down two 1. What are they doing this off season. But it was hard not to think of that during the game.

[Rob Mahoney]

Squeak out a game one win.

[Ceruti]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

In overtime one and didn't really look that in it tonight. Game two was a little closer, but like I just feel like the Clippers are attacking them from all over the court like Rob said earlier.

[Bill Simmons]

So I.

[Rob Mahoney]

The narrative here is like, man, like winning a title and being competitive over the course of a three year stretch will really take a lot about a franchise.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, Rob, you're looking at a Michael Porter. My problem for your problem trade. Right. That's probably where it starts. Do you have somebody you're not happy with? Because we have Michael Porter Jr. What about a swaparoo? I would say that with be the first thing they try to do or.

[Ceruti]

To get two functional rotation players for Michael Porter Jr. Right. Like Denver does need depth in such a bad way. They do need shooting. They need the stuff that at his best MPJ is able to provide right now. He's clearly not at his best. Maybe he's not at his best consistently enough for, you know, the, the salary slot he takes and the role you're asking him to fill on the team. But I don't know, their problems cut so much deeper. Like they're just not going to go on any long runs if this is how they're going to defend. And functionally, the core of the team is not going to get dramatically better in that regard unless you start making some pretty dramatic moves.

[Rob Mahoney]

And it's so hard. Right. Because if you look back in, in retrospect, it's like we've talked, I think you, everybody's talked about this on their pods and stuff. But like KCP obviously would have been a valuable person for this team to have. Within the logic of the team's construction, it would have worked. But it's not like KCP set the world on fire as a member of the Magic. So it's like I can see why they were like, we, we need to get off these guys. We can't pay like guys a little bit out of their prime for past performance. I understand all that, but Jesus, when you're watching what they put out there, it's like it's unbelievable that they won a title a couple years ago.

[Ceruti]

It was incredible too, Bill. Like you were saying, Jokic's passing in the first quarter really was awesome. Like high level Jokic stuff. What you would expect from a player of his pedigree. You watch them go on a run, you're seeing him set up these guys with all these no look passes, you're like, okay, Denver's really got something. You look at the scoreboard, they are up four points. I just think the Clippers have done such an amazing job of just chipping away at all of these Nuggets runs. A lot of that is James Harden in particular, who played amazing basketball today. Kawhi Leonard wasn't even that good and it just did not matter as far as like the Clippers consistency of scoring went. So they've just been able to mitigate every little bit of something that the Nuggets have put together. And it's. When you're in that position for Denver, it just takes all of the wind out of you.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. When you, you basically have five and a half six guys and Russ is one of the six and he's not even playing the flip side.

[Rob Mahoney]

The flip side with the Clippers is like they can beat you with just their two best guys or they can beat you from the margins with Powell. And like if Batum's going to have four threes.

[Ceruti]

Oh my God.

[Bill Simmons]

Back.

[Rob Mahoney]

I don't know what The Magic Nick Batum 3 number is for a victory, but it, it looked a lot like tonight.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, this is what I've been saying all year and I don't. I get it. America's probably not focused on the Clippers home regular season games, but they have a legitimately good home court advantage now. And you could feel it in that first half when they hit a couple threes. The crowd was delirious and you know, they got hot. When a team's going to make that many threes at home, they're probably winning a playoff game. But man, when Kawhi is as good as he's been and he, you know, he was 21 and 11, six assists today and Harden was probably their best player in the game, but Kawhi was still seemingly Kawhi and just seemed so athletic. He had that one play in the first half when he went coast to coast on a steal. Did those two long Kawhi steps with Jokic next to him and got it in there. And I just think the Clippers are really good. I'm just going to keep saying it. I think people have to take them seriously as a contender. I think with the Nuggets. You know, Doc was on. When Doc was doing my pod, when Doc did my pod after Denver 1, he was talking about how much he loves Porter and how just how happy he was for that guy and how people don't realize how big he is and he could rebound. I remember him raving about him. I remember filing it away like, I wonder if Doc ever runs a team, would Porter be somebody he targets? And then you're thinking about Milwaukee in this other series and that's another team that's going to be. We're stuck. What do we do? I feel like, Rob, we're, we're at peak. We have an awesome player, but we're stuck. What do we do? I think I feel like we've hit the peak in recent NBA history. You look around these teams like we have Giannis and we have no chance. Yeah, we have Jokic and there's no way we're winning three straight rounds with the team we have. I don't remember teams with players this good just really not being in the mix. And I think it speaks to how deep the league is now.

[Ceruti]

It's how deep the league is. It's also some of these teams, especially in more of the mid and small markets, running scared of what the apron is going to mean for them and preemptively trying to get ahead of some of these problems in the way that Chris was talking about, it wouldn't have fully saved the Nuggets. And there's some parallel versions of that for the Bucks where, if anything, maybe they've been a little too aggressive in steering into the skid of their finances. Maybe they've been too aggressive in steering into the skid, certainly of the age curve of, like, leaning on someone like Dame Lillard to be Giannis's primary running mate. You couldn't have anticipated the blood clot, but you could have anticipated some of the gradual decline year over year that a small guard is going to have, naturally. And so then you end up with Giannis Antetokounmpo. You end up with Nikola Jokic surrounded by teams that are, like, fine, you know, pretty good, and because they are so amazing, will, at some points, trick you into thinking that they're probably a little bit better than they are. And that's a really dangerous place to be at a team to take. Like, it's hard to take an honest assessment of who your sixth and seventh and eighth guys are when every time they're shooting an open three from Giannis or they're getting a backdoor cut from Jokic. Like, it's hard to take stock of your team in those circumstances.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah. And it's a. It seems like the. The theme of all of these teams seems to be losing out on their core role players or veterans that are looking for a new contract. They miss those guys, like, whether it's the warriors, the Bucks, whether it's Denver. And then they wind up regretting it because it's so impossible to, like, find that exact guy, the exact kcp, the exact name, Warrior role player. I mean, I guess Iggy, Bunsey, Pody retired. I mean, like, it's the person that holds everything together and does all this little stuff. And I just. I. I don't even.

[Bill Simmons]

I.

[Rob Mahoney]

As a someone who cheers for somebody who's not contending, I can't even imagine how difficult it must be.

[Bill Simmons]

Who's your team?

[Ceruti]

I forgot you weren't cheering for Toby tonight.

[Rob Mahoney]

I'm cheering for basketball. I'm cheering for the Pistons.

[Ceruti]

B ball. Paul.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Toby was 0 for 6 in that Knicks game today, and CR was like, burning hell. He's at least going for 20. He's been good. Speaking of him, Ben Simmons had a couple moments in the Clips game, too.

[Rob Mahoney]

Plus nine.

[Ceruti]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Broke out a headband, made a stop on somebody and did a little like stare to the crowd, kind of yell to the crowd stuff. Continued his streak of dribbling hard right to the logo and. And then skidding to a stop and handing the ball off to a guard.

[Rob Mahoney]

I have a suggestion for you for the last act of your career. You've done a lot with your career, but I want you to lose all your hair.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

Then grow out a crazy sports writer receding hairline and become the poet of the Intuit Dome and just write about Ben Simmons connection to the wall. You know, this was the day Ben Simmons became a Clipper.

[Bill Simmons]

That would be. What if we started just assigning pieces like that and telling people to just sell the hell out of them. Like somebody goes in and writes like a really heartfelt. Ben Simmons has finally found a home here today. He exploded for zero points and three rebounds. But his defensive stop in the first half really made it. Um, yeah, I mean, Derek Jones and Batum coming off the bench is a hundred times better than anything Denver has. They have seven guys plus the, the Simmons thing.

[Ceruti]

Yeah, I mean, you joke about the Simmons part. The Clippers winning his minutes so decisively is as the win of damning a piece of evidence like that. That is really where you are if you're the Denver Nuggets is you're straight up getting embarrassed by the Ben Simmons zone defense minutes. And Jokic is on the floor for a lot of those. Right. And you're still trying to figure it out. You could see them trying to cut behind it, trying to like work some angles. None of it felt sustainable. None of it felt like they ever got into an actual rhythm. Breaking down, I repeat, a Ben Simmons zone defense. That's the series right there.

[Bill Simmons]

I do not see a path for them. I'm going to game four. I think the only way they win. Well, two things. One, the Clippers could just have a game where they go like six for four. Three, yeah, yeah. I mean anybody can just suck in a game and not make any threes. And if you don't make any threes, you could lose to anybody. The only other guy I can see is Murray. Like they need like a 38 point Murray game. But when you watch how the Clippers, all these guys, they can throw at him, it's just, I think it's a tall ass. They just have too many dudes. So I think, I thought Priscilla and I said on Sunday, the Nuggets are up one nothing. And both of us were like, haven't changed my opinion at all. I still feel exactly the same. And I think it's going to be really hard for Nuggets to win now. I don't think they can win. Let's take, let's take a break and talk about the Malice at The Palace Part 2. Knicks. Pistons. Pistons. Knicks. I thought this was a potential Steve Kerr game, which is what he gave me this theory years ago. And I was monitoring it. The young. We're so psyched to be in the playoffs again. Playoff team hosting the game three. And the energy's through the roof and everybody's like, oh my God, they're going to go ape shit in this game. The crowd's going to be amazing. And then they come out and they lay an egg. They did not lay an egg. The Knicks were really good. And I think that the thing that jumps out to me cr. The shot distribution, which was a big topic the last couple days because you have all these really good offensive players and you have Jalen Brunson in game two, shooting 27 times and taking 12 free throws. I went on Termini and Eddie's show yesterday and we were talking about like, hey, BRUNSON, you had 37. That's not necessarily a good thing for your team. If Towns looks like he, you know, wants to go listen to Morrissey after the game and you know, OG and Obi has 10 points, like maybe get maybe a little more distribution. And it's basically the Isaiah Thomas, mid-80s Pistons rule of, yeah, I could have scored 35, but I scored 23 and three other guys on my team had an awesome game. So the shot distribution this time, 20, Brunson 18, Towns 17, Anobi 13, Bridges. All four guys had 20 points and up. And that to me feels like the balance. So my question you see, are intentional or unintentional?

[Rob Mahoney]

I think it was probably intentional. I don't think you can have a roster so overly committed to this starting five and this core and just be like, but it's still a one man show. And you guys just stand in the corners. And also, I mean, like Brunson missing time over the course of the season, I think, tellingly, when he missed some time in this last bit of the regular season, that's when Bridges kind of blossomed a little bit. I mean, I know that Knicks fans have a love hate relationship with him, but he needed to be a little bit more featured and a little bit more set up to be. To be a future player. I, I gotta admit. Can we talk a little bit about the Brunson experience?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, let's go.

[Rob Mahoney]

I'm so excited to do so don't dislike Jalen Brunson.

[Ceruti]

Yeah, but I'm coming to this with trauma. I will say, given last year's playoffs.

[Rob Mahoney]

If I was a Pistons fan, I would hate Jalen Brunson.

[Ceruti]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

And I want to like him. It's hard right now. I'm not enjoying this. Are you guys enjoying this?

[Bill Simmons]

How much of this has to do with the Knicks sixer series last year almost torpedoing your friendship with fantasy?

[Rob Mahoney]

We're fine. We're good. Patched it up 26%. Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

What's your take, Rob, on Jalen Brunson? One of the league's most unlikely underdog stories ever. Then now getting the backlash.

[Ceruti]

I'm becoming a little radicalized, I gotta say. I have a quite high tolerance for James Harden esque theatrics. I'm mostly fine with.

[Rob Mahoney]

He makes Harden look like Bronco Nagursky. This is the thing.

[Ceruti]

And I think, I think the juxtaposition of him specifically against Assad Thompson in the series, who's just playing good, wholesome defense, but with a hyper athletic frame, and you're just seeing him get baited into sometimes dumb young player shit and sometimes inexplicable non calls that Jalen Brunson gets the benefit of. I will say I thought the first half in this game, Jalen Brunson was participating in every version of that possible and trying to seal every one of these calls. I thought he cleaned it up a lot in the second half. And I thought that some of what we were talking about in terms of the shot distribution paid off too. Like, he just looked really fresh and was such a huge part of them rebuffing all of these Pistons runs. In part because he wasn't trying to sell all these dumb fouls. Every single possession and hitting the floor every single time. At some point you can. You are allowed to just play basketball. And I like when Jalen Brunson just plays basketball. I like when he draws some fouls too. But we need a little bit of shame, Just a modicum of shame.

[Rob Mahoney]

The Pistons fans were trying to. Trying to show him some shame. They were chanting F Jalen Brunson or Fu Brunson. And it wasn't really. It obviously kind of fired him up a little bit. He closed really well. I think it's probably his size throws me off a lot because he goes in there like a bowling. Like a pinball, really. And he just starts flying around the lane. Yeah, the head snap thing is like jarring. I think is to watch visually. I think it's the stuff on the perimeter that bothers me the most. The diving in, like, you know, diving into guys when there's like there he's being defended outside the three point line and just shoulder dropping going into them or, you know, flopping down after he's coming down from his shot because he thinks somebody is in his landing zone. But yeah, I think that. Go ahead.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, I went to a Celtics Knicks game, like maybe January or February, I can't remember, and was talking about how I hadn't realized that he'd become the best flopper extraordinaire in the entire league. And a lot of Knicks fans got mad about it. They're like, fuck you. How dare you? He's worse than James Harden. It's like, yeah, because it's not just him driving to the basket and flailing to get a call. It's. It's all the stuff he's doing off the ball. It's when somebody sets him a pick and it's just a lot of him throwing his arms up in the air. But it's gamesmanship and it works. Cause it gets the crowd fired up. Especially in a playoff series. I thought the crowd was awesome. And there was this great moment, the first of many altercations in this game when it got heated and you could hear the crowd, the decibels of the crowd. Everyone was so excited there might be a fight. And it was like I was trying to think, is there an arena that is more ready to see a battle on the court than Detroit? Ironically, they had the biggest one of the of the century. But they were just like, let's fucking go. Let's drop the gloves. They thought it was like a Red Wings game. Did you know we're not allowed to fight in basketball?

[Rob Mahoney]

When Towns got into it with who's the Piston he got into it with.

[Bill Simmons]

That was Paul Reed. Was.

[Ceruti]

It was Paul Reed.

[Van Lathan]

Paul.

[Ceruti]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

And then they, they panned Isaiah Stewart on the bench.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

And he's wearing like a full suit and he's just like, like, I wish.

[Bill Simmons]

I was out there. I thought it's like I should have just worn my jersey because then I could have. I know at least.

[Rob Mahoney]

The funniest part about this game to me was that there were more dads in the crowd than like a California youth soccer match. It was like Bridges was fighting with Tim Hardaway. Senior Rick Brunson was fighting with Kate Cunningham and with Jalen Rose.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

I was just like, this is an amazing testament to like, so, like, what's going on with the Amount of kids in the, in the NBA, you know.

[Bill Simmons]

So if I'm the, if I'm Detroit, I, I thought the Knicks were going to win this in four or five from Detroit. I feel like I'm in the vicinity of this series. It's the opposite of the Denver game, even if you look at the box score. They got a really good hardaway game. They got a solid Cunningham game, typical for him. Some turnovers. They had a really good shooter game. And I continue to wonder why Miami didn't want Schroeder. I'm just going to ask that in every podcast. Miami's like, we're good now. They don't have Terry, Roger. They don't really have a point card. But Tobias was the one. He had five points, two for nine. He was the one that had the bad one. They're in these games. I think all of these games are going to be close. I don't see a blowout either way. I like the matchup of the two, but it feels like Detroit's. What do you think, Rob? Like two hairs below, three hairs below.

[Ceruti]

They are close, but I came away from this game, which is a two point game, feeling pretty confident about the Knicks margin for error because everything you laid out is true. Like those are all elements of the game. Some went well for Detroit, some didn't. They kind of all came out in the wash for them. For the Knicks. Part of it, I thought the Knicks just straight up botched their pick and roll defense for a huge portion of this game. Just were not on the same page at all. They got nothing from their bench through the entirety of this game. They got out shot from three, they got out offensive rebounded, and they still win. Squeaking it out. But down the stretch, it really did feel like I trust Jalen Brunson to make these plays. I trust even like Carl Anthony Towns to make these plays. Who. He had a tremendous game overall. And to the idea of whether, you know, the shot distribution was intentional or not. Kat coming out super aggro. You can usually tell really quickly kind of what's in his head. He kind of has it all out on his sleeve. And his intention to make his presence felt on this game, I think changed a lot of it early. And that then opened up for Jalen Brunson to do a lot of the closing, late clutch player of the year. Jalen Brunson. Oh, yeah, I forgot a real award that exists.

[Bill Simmons]

I did not vote for him. You know, I voted for Jokic because he's the best offensive player in the week. And that's the ball of the time. I did see the guy.

[Ceruti]

I did see it. We discussed previously, Bill, that you had Jason Tatum third on your ballot for clutch player of the year.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, he's been bunch of late game shots. You didn't like that pick?

[Rob Mahoney]

I'm not 19. He's only 19.

[Ceruti]

I'm not disputing it. I'm just saying I saw the full voting and there was exactly 1/3 place vote for Jason Tatum for clutch player of the year. So congratulations for looking your way into voting history.

[Bill Simmons]

The Boston fans are bad. Cause I didn't vote for Pritchard for six man of the year. So I don't. Am I a homer? Am I an anti homer who's just. I don't know. I'm all over the. The map. The. The. The Schroeder pcr. When can this guy just find a home? I love having him in playoff series. Is he just like. He's like automatic QB and Thanksgiving. He's just gonna bounce around every playoff.

[Rob Mahoney]

He's like Woody Guthrie riding the rails. He's just. Yeah, you know, he's just a vagabond of the NBA. I mean, I think that the problem for the Pistons is that they're relying on Schroeder, Tim Hardaway Jr. And Beasley. Although Beasley had an awesome CZ season. Those guys can't be your second options. Third options, you know, like the cade needs one more guy. I think they're hoping or hoped it was Jaden Ivy. I. I love Jaden Ivy. Even though, like, he hasn't quite realized his potential. Tough injury. I have to ask you guys, when you.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, I thought you were going. Durant right there.

[Rob Mahoney]

Oh, no, no, don't do that.

[Ceruti]

Don't do that.

[Bill Simmons]

Why not?

[Rob Mahoney]

Come on, man.

[Bill Simmons]

Why couldn't we go Durant? Why not?

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah. I wanted to know whether or not when you watch the Knicks, Rob, does this look like a team that can go very far with this style of basketball and with this. The, like this just feels very much like we have now pushed this to the limit of what this team can do under Tibs and with this roster construction, that's what it looks like.

[Bill Simmons]

The Tibbs part is. The key part is that the roster is the roster. Plus Tibs.

[Chris Ryan]

Rob.

[Ceruti]

Yeah, even what we were talking about as far as Jalen Brunson overextending in the previous games, some of that is a Tibbs style of offense as well. Some of it is Jalen Brunson. Some of it is a guy like Kat, who can sort of ebb and flow in these games that doesn't always like claim his spot as far as his role in the offense goes, if he's not really, really focusing and thinking about it. I think Tibbs is such a weird coach because he cleans up so many things for you, but he also so clearly leaves all of this other low hanging fruit that some other coach could come in and do and make your team a little bit better in these particular ways. For example, I'm just like, I remain stunned by how little 15 pick and roll the Knicks run. Like Jalen Brunson and Carl Anthony Towns are your best players. It almost doesn't matter who is guarding them. You can do that anytime you want. And certainly every second that Jalen Duran is guarding Karl Towns, which was a lot of the second half after the Pistons kind of switched that matchup. Why are you not running pick and roll at Jalen Duran every second he's on the court?

[Bill Simmons]

Also, why aren't you doing it with Bridges in Towns? Like, it doesn't just have to be Brunson. Bridges is good at that too. Lots of options.

[Ceruti]

So, yeah, so I like, I respect Tibbs a lot. I think he brings a lot to this team. But there is something to the idea of the formula maxing out at a certain point.

[Bill Simmons]

CR who is. When Towns does the thing where he intentionally starts some sort of altercation and then does the evil laughing thing. Is that Garcia and Internal Affairs? What movie character is that for you? Cobra Kai person? Who is that? What movie villain?

[Rob Mahoney]

It's just more like it is the guy who. It's like the guy in train spotting who throws the pint glass over his shoulder and doesn't see where it's going. Like, he's not quite Begby, but he has like a little bit of like who started the fight. Yeah, this is weird.

[Bill Simmons]

I do enjoy it. I don't know if he's ever actually been in an NBA fight, but he's always like in the around and in the mix of some of these. It's pretty funny.

[Ceruti]

I thought he was trying to get ejected. Like, what was that?

[Rob Mahoney]

But he was pissed. I mean, like, do you think. I think. I think the thing is that Brunson's. Whether or not you like watching it, it clearly works because it drives other players nuts completely. And you know, like, I don't really have like the rule book in front of me to judge whether or not that was a backcourt violation in the last second there, but he was doing a lot of stuff to just get. Duran Duran was going nuts after for a while there.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, yeah, I've, I've liked during this series. Yeah, Towns was the full Towns experience. I thought he had a really good game, but then of course he couldn't resist having the terrible foul at the worst possible time with like two minutes left. Don't, don't forget. I, I have to. It's almost like when, when my dog jumps in this little fountain thing we have every once in a while he gets super excited and he jumps in and then he looks at us like, I had to, guys, I'm sorry. I just, it was sitting there, it was cold. I had to do it. Towns has to like, he just can't help it. He has to have the one foul in the last three minutes and he has to almost get it out of his system. I think it goes six, six.

[Rob Mahoney]

So you think Detroit gets one more here?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, yeah, I think I'm going to lose. One of my bets was Nixon four or five. And I think the trick gets one more right. They get a game where they shoot really well. Towns gets into foul trouble. We haven't had a foul trouble game. That's the other thing with these game fours. The league can get a little creative with some of this stuff.

[Rob Mahoney]

Lakers, Wolves, game three.

[Bill Simmons]

Cr. Can I have your animosity rank for round one?

[Rob Mahoney]

Certainly. Luca and Rudy are, are pretty high up there. I was trying to, I was asking a couple of people last night, I was like, what is the Rudy original sin against Luca? And I guess he did punch him in the stomach or hit him in the stomach like a long time ago. Yeah, but I always laugh. I was at the game, Game one, he is shit talking Rudy the entire game like with like true hatred in his eyes. And nobody from the T Wolves stands up for Rudy. It is one of those things where it's just like, you know what, man, go ahead. You know, if you want to waste energy telling this guy to go fuck himself, that's fine. So I would definitely put Luka and Rudy up there pretty high, team wise.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay, can we wait, Can I have a couple other candidates for the.

[Rob Mahoney]

Oh yeah, please.

[Bill Simmons]

I think Dame Halliburton has to be.

[Rob Mahoney]

I was going to say just straight.

[Bill Simmons]

Up is, oh, you're going straight up team versus team. Team. Yeah, I would go, I would go Dame Halbert. But also team versus team. And then, you know, it's bad when they just cut to James Johnson randomly when he's not even really playing. Like he's over there just lurking in the corner for James Johnson. He'll kill you. Yeah. Bucks Pacers is way up there. I think Celt's Magic is starting to, like, they've made Al Horford badge, which is almost impossible.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yes.

[Ceruti]

KCP versus Al Horford.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, they made Al Horford mad.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Which happens, like, three times a year. I was kind of shocked by that. I don't know. One of the most popular, nicest Celtics, probably the most popular Celtics teammate of the last 15 years, and he was ready to hit KCP with a two by four. What about going at Magic fans on Twitter? Pretty amazing stuff.

[Ceruti]

What about Draymond? With each and every rocket.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Ceruti]

Like, completely separate arguments and frustrations with all of them somehow. And I appreciate his ability to compartmentalize personally.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, don't you feel like that has a chance to go up a notch? Because clearly, the way they're guarding him with Van Vliet. Well, Van Vliet, we haven't really seen him have a moment with Dylan Brooks yet. There's gonna be no Butler in Game 3, so Draymond's gonna be in that mode. Like, I've gotta do more. Um, yeah. That's a good one, dude.

[Ceruti]

Oh, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I think Bucks Pacers is the most inexplicable one, though. I don't. It's just a bunch of nice guys on both teams, and yet they hate each other. And it feels like it's gonna be the Anchorman brawl every time. Every time it gets heated. Um, I'm trying to think. Anything else? Maybe some Lou Dort Memphis game four.

[Rob Mahoney]

I mean, yeah, they were getting in his ass a little bit, and I saw Draymond tw, like, put up an Instagram story that was like, that's a dirty play. But I think when you go back and watch it, it's really hard to see Dort, like, oh, I'm going to tackle job midair here. You know, he's, like, slipping as Pippen turns around.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, I told any human being. Oh, go ahead, Rob.

[Ceruti]

I would challenge any human being to try to move fast enough while rotating their body to beat John Morant to a quick twitch spot in order to even try to undercut it. Like, it's just not a realistic human thing to do, even for Lou Dort.

[Bill Simmons]

I told Sir Rudy and Kevin Clark that I had worked up a proper amount of hatred by, like, basically the halftime of game two for the Magic and for KCP. And they said, don't worry. We also hate KCP because he's been. I think he was like, one for 100 at that point in the series.

[Rob Mahoney]

That's the funniest thing, is you getting really cranky because you're worried one of the Celtics is going to get, you know, mortally injured too.

[Bill Simmons]

They, they, I know they hurt Tatum and it's a contact sport. Bill Porzingis got split open like it was a fucking steel cage match against Roman Reigns. It's like, oh my God, it's busted wide open.

[Ceruti]

Well, they tagged in Gogo Batase. That's what happens after he comes into the game.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, my dad was so upset. He sent me some of the funniest texts just about Batadze. He was like, who is this guy? He just comes in and fouls people. They. I don't think he's been logging a lot of Orlando Magic.

[Rob Mahoney]

It would be funny if after the Pacers get eliminated, you give James Johnson your dad's tickets so that it just pans up to James Johnson anytime a Celtics player gets targeted.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, I mean, we always talk about movie coolers, right? Like. Like Swayze and Roadhouse was the best one ever. And then we've seen people try to rip off that gimmick over and over again in movies. And James Johnson's the real life cooler. It seems like.

[Ceruti]

Well, he's the point. He's aged out of Swayze.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, but he's still wearing a uniform, right? I guess. Or does he become an assistant coach and do it that way?

[Rob Mahoney]

It's practically what Rick Brunson did tonight.

[Bill Simmons]

That's true. So tomorrow we have Boston, Orlando, Indiana, Milwaukee, Lakers, Minnesota. Which one are you more excited about out of those three? Cr Me?

[Rob Mahoney]

Lakers, Minnesota. That's been one of my favorite series so far.

[Ceruti]

Same for your rep. Yeah, I don't like. I would like to think that Pacers, Bucks is going to be fun and competitive and maybe have a spin on that series. I just don't really see what levers the Bucks can pull to really change things there. They kind of are what they are and Giannis is going to be amazing. But how do they really make anything happen versus we clearly know how the Wolves make things happen. And it's hit a fuckton of threes, make really sharp decisions with the ball, and counteract at least some of what the Lakers have going on on the other end.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. So when I was talking to Eddie in Termini yesterday, Eddie, Eddie was thinking, thought, Giannis and Muake can come back and they're going to win the next two and this is going to be a long series and I just don't see It. I just think Indiana is just significantly better than them. And the way that Milwaukee wins game three, Giannis has a big game, but you could almost spot him the big game. And I still think Indiana wins, but the game that's looming, that hasn't happened yet is the Indiana fucks up the game in the last four minutes. Game. We have not had that yet. Oh, this is combined with, well, combined with, you know, Milwaukee home for game three, the refs. That's. That's a game where you're probably going to get some calls. And I could just see this one being like, man, I can't believe we're not up 30 right now. How do we lose that? It feels like it could be one of those.

[Ceruti]

It's possible. They're not that bad in crunch time. For the record, they.

[Bill Simmons]

I know. I just. I think they're.

[Ceruti]

I don't about average.

[Bill Simmons]

Well. So game two, what are they up 17 and then all of a sudden it's a two point game. Like they just have a lot of that. Yeah, yeah. Where it's just like, how did you let this team back in there? Lakers, Minnesota. What I'm watching for after going to game two is just. Is Edwards going to get involved earlier than he did? There was some interesting Gobert. It didn't feel this way at the game, but there was some interesting GOBERT actually defending one on one against LeBron Luca and I think it was LeBron. Maybe it was LeBron and Luca, but they were like basically 4 and 13 when 4 for 13 when they went at him. Reeves had I think a little more success. I felt like Minnesota did not ever want that to happen and they were in complete panic every time gobert was, you know, in isolation with those guys. But I, I'm going to be interested to see if they just keep doing that or if there's an extra wrinkle. I didn't like what I saw from Connolly at all in game two. So what is that just hard for him to play two games in three days. What do we have with that? There was some interesting Shannon minutes in that game that I wonder, like in a home game, could he swing it from an energy standpoint, I still. Rob. I'd still just still feel like the Lakers are really limited, man. That's like a team, that's a team that has five and a half guys. They have no rim protection at all and they're just putting this incredible burden on LeBron and Rui to basically protect the rim and rebound. Yeah, that I don't Know if sustainable. But wait, are you seeing anything else?

[Ceruti]

I mean, their defense was pretty incredible with that group. But, yeah, the more times you have to do that repetitively and the more times you're doing it and giving Ann a chance to look at it and see how to break it down and they're going to film sessions in between is going to get harder and harder. And there's no alternative, right? There's not the option to just play Jackson Hayes 35 minutes. You can't do it. So all they have to do is stretch out Dorian and Rui and LeBron as much as you possibly can. And I thought LeBron was awesome on defense in particular in that game.

[Bill Simmons]

He was great.

[Ceruti]

Ultimately, the Lakers, I mean, they didn't light the world on fire with their own scoring. They won that game because they locked the Wolves up and they forced a team that's a little shaky in its decision making to make some characteristically Wolves mistakes.

[Rob Mahoney]

Bill, did you notice it was the loading up on Ant? Because he said after the game that it felt like a zone and that he has to go watch the tape. But in game one, they were loading up on Ant, and I. I didn't necessarily think it was zone, but they were definitely cheating onto him and he was. They were. I thought they were moving the ball really well in game one. The Wolves were. Obviously, they had threes coming out at, like, their ears that game, but it didn't feel significantly different on tv watching it, like. So I was kind of surprised that Ant was like, well, that was a new wrinkle. I hadn't seen that yet. You.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I didn't see it at all. And I thought he was just too tentative. And I talked to somebody involved with the team at halftime and I was like, what's up with Ant? He said his shoulders bothered him and seemed like he was tentative. So I think he had, because he.

[Rob Mahoney]

Was swinging a lot. Like, he was kind of like moving his arm around.

[Bill Simmons]

There was one time he came to the table to go back in the game and he had one of those giant Normatec kind of straight jacket things on, and it almost seemed like demonstrative. Like, my shoulder hurts. Look, I'm wearing this giant contraption. It was just weird. I thought it was a weird game for him, but I don't see him doing that in Minnesota. I could see him coming back hard. So if you. Is there any 0 and 2 team you think could come back? Rob?

[Ceruti]

I don't think so.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay.

[Ceruti]

Is there. Is there any. Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

Is there anyone you believe I Don't think the Heat are coming back. Like, I mean, who else would we be talking about?

[Bill Simmons]

But the Heat doesn't look very promising. Is Rogier. Is he just. Like, we're never going to see him again? Like, what's, what's. What was Rozier's injury? I mean, he's out for the year, right?

[Ceruti]

Even if you had him, would you play him over Davion Mitchell, who I think is just a better player at this point than Kurt Rozier is.

[Bill Simmons]

I, I like this feels like it should be a bigger story, this whole Rozier thing, like how we don't have to talk about some of the stuff he was involved with. But this guy went from they traded a first round pick, he was averaging 25 a game on Charlotte to now he's. He just has disappeared and nobody even talks about him during the games. It's just.

[Ceruti]

I mean, I think he's in a. I think he's in a. Like, he's still pretty injured, I believe.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I think he might be out for at least a round or two. But.

[Rob Mahoney]

But meanwhile, home prices on the Davion Peninsula are just. They're shooting up, man. I mean, it's a really competitive market.

[Bill Simmons]

Cerutty told me two nights ago that if Orlando paid $100 million a summer for Ty Jerome, he wouldn't blink. That was what he said. He said, if it got that high, fine. At least we got our guy. Kind of how I felt about Milton Williams Patriots CR. It's like 26 a year. Whatever. We needed a nose tackle, but Tyrone, are you psychedelic? Ceridi's already moved mentally to the Ty Jerome Suggs era for the Magic.

[Ceruti]

Honestly, pretty sick.

[Rob Mahoney]

You drafted a guy with dinosaur arms. Are you excited? Little T. Rex arms.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, I've heard the jokes and you know, he's. We root for underdogs in New England and Boston.

[Rob Mahoney]

You want to get an underdog? Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I just want to know how an inch became so important for the left tackle. So 33 inch arms, he's fine. But 32 and three eighths, he's not fine.

[Rob Mahoney]

We'll find out.

[Bill Simmons]

That's how we're going to go. I remember a guy when a guy named Jalen Brunson dropped to the second round because it wasn't tall enough, if you remember that one. All right. Any last things? What's the thing you're most excited about this weekend? Rep?

[Ceruti]

I'm trying to think of which of these series can get. I feel a little disoriented because the series that we were loving are now also stilted if Jimmy Butler doesn't play. If the Clippers keep really accelerating into the series. Is there anything else in this first round that we're, like, really psyched about other than I. We've already talked about a little bit, but I do want to see the Wolves counterpunch. I do want to see what they've got. I think that's probably the most interesting next step for me.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, I thought, like, I agree with Rob. Like, I think Wolves, Lakers is the best remaining series and the one that I feel like has the most chapters. I don't know how many games it's going to go, but after game one, I was like, holy shit, these guys have more athleticism than the Lakers. Like, this is crazy. And. And now I. I'm a little bit more measured about it.

[Bill Simmons]

I would not count out Milwaukee in Game 3, even though I don't think they're very good. New York, Detroit feels like it might have some legs or some Orlando do. Pulling a rock fight routine against Boston, maybe stealing a game. But yeah, this. We might be the Clippers. Denver seems like it might head to head, might be headed to being a bust. So we're flip it after a week.

[Rob Mahoney]

What's the team you're most impressed by?

[Ceruti]

It's gotta be the Clippers, I think, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I think the Clippers, because they should probably.

[Rob Mahoney]

Clippers and I would say Thunder were impressive today.

[Ceruti]

I mean, the thing is, they were already so impressive, you know, the Clippers, we wanted to see how they stack up against a team like Denver so much. And they've had all the answers. Right. The fact that they're dictating all the terms of this series so far is really demonstrative at this stage in the playoffs.

[Bill Simmons]

I would say out of the eight series, the only one I don't have a handle on. And part of it is the Butler injury. But just the matchup is just. I don't think either team is happy with how they're playing the Golden State. Houston, it's just. It's a weird one. I don't like Houston's offense. I don't like anything Golden State's doing if Butler's not out there, I just don't think. I don't think they're good enough. And a lot of it seems to hinge on how each game is being officiated, which I never really like. And then the Rockets just have these wild cards where it's like, all right, Jalen Green made a couple threes, so is he good now? Because I think he could go one for 11 tomorrow night, you know? Yeah, I don't trust basically anyone on their team. And then what? They're getting away with defending Curry. Not to be a Curry defender, but the league's in a weird space right now because they've been really good about, you know, letting defenders be able to. Letting defenders be able to basically contact.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Make contact when somebody's driving to the basket or whatever. I don't think they've done a good job of cleaning up the stuff way off the ball and some of the holds and just. I. And. And conversely, I don't think they've done a good job with the moving screens either. But it just seems like all the stuff off the ball is worse than ever. And then the. The physicality of guys going to the basket has actually been handled. But I just think the Rockets are getting away with crazy shitting. And Steph, I don't like it.

[Ceruti]

I don't know that I've seen a minute go by in the series where someone's arm isn't around Steph's hip, just like locked in, holding him in place as he tries to cut around the court. It's just. Yeah, he's always had some of that where defenders are allowed to get away with things with Steph that they wouldn't be in any other context or if he had the ball in his hands, as you're saying, it would be officiated completely differently. Somehow he still busts loose. As long as they have enough bodies to make their lineups work, and without Jimmy Butler, if that's going to be more than game three, I just don't think they have the bodies to make the lineups work.

[Rob Mahoney]

You'll be happy to know that folks on Warriors Twitter are doing collages of Ime Udoka coach teams diving at other guys legs and making dirty plays. So there are. There are watchers on the wall making sure our refs are accountable.

[Van Lathan]

Wow.

[Ceruti]

We're in a very healthy place, I'll say. To the Pistons Knicks game today. It was refreshing to see the game end and both teams are just furious with the officiating. Right. The backcourt violation for Brunson, as you said, Chris, was cited chapter and verse.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, what about rebound, where no time went off the clock and then the guy ran the baseline on the side next to the Knicks bench and batting the ball, which I haven't seen in 20 years.

[Ceruti]

Just something for everybody to be pissed about. It really warms the heart.

[Bill Simmons]

All right, well, Rob, I know you're going to be excited. What do you have for TV this weekend other than the basketball?

[Ceruti]

We got the last of us going on. We got your friends and neighbors going on. There's some pretty solid TV happening right now.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Cr, have you stole from your neighbors at all or you haven't crossed that line yet.

[Ceruti]

You're a Birkin guy.

[Rob Mahoney]

I'm worried a little bit about some of their security systems that they got here.

[Bill Simmons]

No cameras in any of these houses. In your friends and neighbors, Nobody has a nanny cam.

[Rob Mahoney]

He's got a device that turns off the WI fi this pretty soon.

[Bill Simmons]

All right. Thanks guys. Thanks for staying up with me.

[Rob Mahoney]

Thanks for you got it though.

[Bill Simmons]

All right. Thanks to Saruti and Gahao. Thanks to Van and CR and Mahoney. Don't forget about Celtic City. Eight episodes on Max right now. Ninth episode is coming on Monday night, 9:00pm HBO. It is the final episode of a series that I am really proud of, so please go check it out. New Rewatch was coming Monday as well. Priscilla and I are going live on Sunday again on this podcast on YouTube so you can subscribe to the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. By the way, FanDuel's ringer player performance double profit boost token is moved to Sundays during the playoffs where you can claim a 30% boost on one of my favorite betting markets. I'll do a tweet that day and if you don't know about those, you gotta check them out. Two leg parlays. You take an NBA player pop, combine it with a bet on that player's team to win and go nuts. So potentially like Minnesota Lakers, you could take Edwards for threes points, take Minnesota to win and there you go. This Sunday. Be sure to claim your Profit boost on FanDuel sportsbook before you watch the action. I will see you on Sunday with Priscillo. Enjoy the weekend. Must be 21 plus in President select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 + in President D.C. gambling problem. Call 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com, call 1-887-897777 or visit ccpg.org chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelpline massachusetts.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24. 7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE NY or text Hopeny in New York. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn. During the season, every baseball team plays 162 games it's a true test of endurance. It's not enough to have a hot month or two. You need sustained dominance throughout. Well, the same is true for your small business. It's not enough to have a great Q2 or even a great year. You want year over year growth that starts with better hires that'll be there for the long haul. To find Those hires, use LinkedIn. LinkedIn has strong hiring data and insights that you won't find anywhere else to help pair you with the best candidates, from unique skills and interests to the connections you have in common. Based on LinkedIn data, 72% of small businesses say that LinkedIn helps them find high quality talent. LinkedIn also lets you go beyond people who are actively applying in a given week. 171 million LinkedIn members aren't actively seeking jobs, but they are open to new opportunities. That's a big pool to miss out on. If you're not hiring with LinkedIn. Find your next great hire on LinkedIn. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com Simmons that's LinkedIn.com Simmons to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. What do I look forward to every NBA playoff season? Well, I'm always hoping the Celtics do well. I'm always hoping we have great storylines, great games, great matchups, great games. Sevens. I just hope for good basketball. But the NBA playoffs are even better with Michelob Ultra, the official beer partner of the NBA. Plus, they're getting fans closer to the game with a chance to win courtside tickets and more. Enter now michelobulture.com Courtside Michelob Ultra Superior Access Courtside 2024-25 sweepstakes. No purchase necessary. Open to US residents 21 or older. Ends on July 1, 2025. Multiple entry periods. Visit michelobutra.com SuperiorAccess Courtside for free entry, entry deadlines and official rules. Message and data rates may apply. Void where prohibited.