Steph’s Last Ride, Philly’s Swoon and Bill’s ‘SNL 50’ GOAT Lists | with Rob Mahoney

Summary

Summary: The Bill Simmons Podcast – "Steph’s Last Ride, Philly’s Swoon and Bill’s ‘SNL 50’ GOAT Lists" featuring Rob Mahoney

Release Date: February 14, 2025
Host: Bill Simmons (The Ringer)
Guest: Rob Mahoney
Topic Overview: NBA season developments, playoff predictions, Golden State Warriors’ strategies, and reflections on Saturday Night Live (SNL) in honor of its 50th anniversary.

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1. Introduction

Bill Simmons welcomes listeners to the podcast, briefly mentioning the NBA trade deadline's excitement and promoting various sponsors. The main content begins shortly after, focusing on NBA analyses and later transitioning into discussions about SNL's milestone anniversary.

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2. Golden State Warriors’ Strategic Shift with Jimmy Butler

Key Discussion Points:

• Trade Impact: The Warriors acquired Jimmy Butler, which Bill believes has significantly improved the team’s dynamics.
  Bill Simmons: “Maybe Golden State actually shooting free throws. Great. Jimmy Butler helps with that.” [05:29]

• Team Dynamics: Butler’s presence adds a crucial post-up element and enhances offensive rebounding, balancing the team's previously seen weaknesses. Rob Mahoney: “I would say two things. Maybe Golden State actually shooting free throws. Great. Jimmy Butler helps with that.” [05:29]

• Complementary Skills: Butler complements Steph Curry and Draymond Green, providing additional playmaking and defensive prowess. Bill Simmons: “He also just in staggering him and Steph a little bit, it gives the warriors something to do.” [07:10]

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3. Stephen Curry’s Performance and Longevity

Key Discussion Points:

• Consistency Concerns: Bill expresses concerns over Curry’s recent performance consistency, noting a decline in high-impact games. Bill Simmons: “Curry was just a blind top seven, top eight guy. I'm not positive he's there anymore…” [11:12]

• Rob’s Insight: Rob suggests that Butler’s workload-sharing might alleviate some of Curry’s burdens, potentially stabilizing his performance. Rob Mahoney: “I suspect having Jimmy will help with some of that.” [12:05]

• Legacy and Influence: Despite concerns, Curry's presence on the court continues to have a substantial impact, intimidating opponents regardless of his scoring highs. Rob Mahoney: “...he just scares the hell out of people. I think that part will always be true even If Steph is 45 rolling out there.” [13:10]

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4. Western Conference Playoff Race Analysis

Key Discussion Points:

• Top Contenders: Focus on Denver Nuggets as frontrunners, OKC Thunder’s defensive strength, and Minnesota’s unexpected playoff push. Rob Mahoney: “The Nuggets are not unbeatable, but they look really tough right now.” [16:40]

• Dallas Mavericks: Their potential hinges on player returns like Anthony Davis and continued strong performances from Luka Doncic. Bill Simmons: “They have size, they have length, they have defense... if they can get Davis back in time.” [25:23]

• Playoff Dynamics: Discussion on how team strategies and player performances will shape the playoff landscape. Rob Mahoney: “You have to figure not just how to outflank them, but how to beat them.” [19:31]

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5. NBA Six Pack Highlights

Bill and Rob outline six major points shaping the NBA season:

1. Warriors’ Improvement: Butler’s addition enhancing team synergy.
2. Curry’s Aging: Potential dip in peak performance.
3. OKC’s Defense: Defensive strategies making them a tough contender.
4. Minnesota’s Rise: Surprising playoff viability.
5. Dallas’ Dependence: Success tied to key player health.
6. Denver’s Dominance: Leading as a top contender requiring strategic plays from rivals.

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6. Philadelphia 76ers’ Struggles

Key Discussion Points:

• Performance Decline: The Sixers are underperforming despite having key players like Joel Embiid and Paul George. Bill Simmons: “They are 20 and 34... they're 6 and 14 in their last 20.” [33:08]

• Injuries and Team Dynamics: Continuous injuries and lack of cohesive performance are highlighted as major issues. Rob Mahoney: “They should be actively looking at shutting Paul George down, managing these injuries.” [34:53]

• Draft Pick Concerns: The convoluted draft pick system is causing confusion among teams, affecting future team builds.

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7. Saturday Night Live (SNL) 50th Anniversary Reflections

Key Discussion Points:

• Personal Anecdotes: Bill shares his nostalgic memories of watching SNL as a child and the show's evolutionary impact on his life.

• Favorite Episodes and Sketches: Both Bill and Rob discuss their top SNL moments, highlighting iconic sketches and performances that have left a lasting cultural impact. Bill Simmons: “Stevie Wonder, 1983, which had the Stevie experience...” [28:18]

• SNL’s Influence on Pop Culture: Emphasis on how SNL has been instrumental in launching comedic careers and shaping entertainment trends over the decades.

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8. Conclusion and Promotions

Bill wraps up the episode by promoting upcoming content related to SNL 50 and encouraging listeners to engage with their other podcasts and platforms. Sponsors’ messages are interspersed, but these are omitted from the summary as per guidelines.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Bill Simmons: “Maybe Golden State actually shooting free throws. Great. Jimmy Butler helps with that.” [05:29]
• Rob Mahoney: “I suspect having Jimmy will help with some of that.” [12:05]
• Bill Simmons: “Curry was just a blind top seven, top eight guy. I'm not positive he's there anymore…” [11:12]
• Rob Mahoney: “He just scares the hell out of people. I think that part will always be true even If Steph is 45 rolling out there.” [13:10]
• Bill Simmons: “They are 20 and 34... they're 6 and 14 in their last 20.” [33:08]

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Final Thoughts

This episode offers an in-depth analysis of the current NBA season, focusing on pivotal team strategies, player performances, and playoff predictions. The latter part provides a heartfelt homage to SNL's storied history, celebrating its 50th anniversary with personal reflections and favorite moments. For listeners interested in both sports and entertainment, this episode encapsulates the intersection of competitive basketball and cultural legacy.

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This summary is intended to provide an overview of the podcast episode's key discussions and insights, structured for clarity and comprehensiveness. It excludes promotional segments and non-content sections to focus solely on the substantive conversations between Bill Simmons and Rob Mahoney.

Transcript

[Bill Simmons]

It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. The NBA season hitting full stride. Don't miss your chance to win some money with America's number one sportsbook. I mean post trade deadline we had one of the craziest trade deadlines we've ever had in the history of the league. We have Fox on San Antonio, Luka on the Lakers, Kuzma on the Bucks. Kidding. The Cavs got better. So you have a chance to get all these new look teams and maybe just ride Luka and his point over in the Lakers to win as a parlay over and over again as he gets vengeance on the Mavericks. Bet on fun markets like live quarter player props and parlays. Enjoy our new NBA Player Prop pages. The app is safe and secure and easy to use and when you win, you'll get paid instantly. So download the app today. Bet with FanDuel. An official partner of the NBA, the Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit RG Hope to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end episode for additional details. Must be 21/ and President select states gamma problem. Call 1-800- Gamble or visit rg-help.com we added new podcast to the Ringer Podcast network and Spotify. It is good. Hang with Amy Poehler. She's great. It's going to be a huge big fat awesome podcast. Subscribe Follow on Spotify premieres next week. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. If you're thinking about wellness right now, I've got some top picks for your 2025 plan. Keep your eye out for the yellow low price signs at Whole Foods Market. You can pick up responsibly farmed Atlantic salmon or no antibiotics ever. Favorites like boneless skinless chicken breasts or ground beef for less than you think. They even have their own in House brand $3.65 by Whole Foods Market with good stuff like almond milk, organic frozen fruit blends and a whole rainbow of organic produce. Shop Whole Foods Market in store, online and on Amazon for free pickup and convenient delivery Terms apply. Save on your wellness routine with great everyday prices at Whole Foods Market. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I put up a new rewatchables in honor of SNL 50. We did the blues Brothers, me, Chris Ryan and Sean Fennesee. It was a podcast you can watch as well on The Ringer Movies YouTube channel. Starting next week, video podcasts on Spotify of the Rewatchables everyone. Going forward, you'll be able to watch on the Spotify platform. We're doing another SNL movie next week. I might even spoil it at the end of this podcast so you can stay tuned for that one. Please check out theringer.com because we have a bunch of good content this week, including some really good SNL stuff. We have a fun NBA project coming next week, so stay tuned for that as well. And then the big news for the Ringer Podcast network. Starting this week, starting Sunday night, White Lotus is starting on hbo. Last year, Joanna or last season, Joanna Robinson and I, we did the recaps of White Lotus season two and I think we might have done season one too. I can't remember. Anyway, season two we did. We added Mallory Rubin. This season, White Lotus will end on hbo. We will be putting our podcast up as a video podcast on Spotify on the prestige TV pod and you can watch it on the Ringer TV YouTube channel as well. Our recaps and then on Wednesdays, Rob Mahoney and Joanna Robinson will have the pre caps for Prestige. They're also covering Severance on the Prestige TV Pod as well. So very excited. We love White Lotus, one of our favorite shows since we've had Grantlin in the Ringer. We're talking since 2011. This is one of the OGs, one of the most fun TV shows to talk about. So anyway, that's coming on the Prestige TV Pod. Coming on this podcast. I'm going to talk to Rob Mahoney actually about what's going on in the west. What's up with the warriors, can they turn it around? And we're going to open an NBA six pack. And then I had a whole SNL50 thing I wanted to do about my favorite sketches, episodes, characters, musical performances. It all makes sense. We listen to it. That's at the tail end of this pod. My fingers actually worked. I wrote some stuff. So there you go. It's all next. First, our friends from Pearl Jab. All right, Rob Mahoney is here. We are taping this part of the podcast late on Thursday night, 8pm PT. Just watched a bunch of basketball and it tied into what I wanted to talk about with you, the West. We're going to start with your Golden State win today. Your Dallas hold on and win you'd Minnesota beat okc. And then you look at the west and you have all these teams jammed together. Golden State's the 10 seed with 27 losses. Minnesota's the seventh seed with 25 losses. I'm the most interested in the warriors and I'VE watched every minute of all of their games since they made this Jimmy Butler trade. And there's something here and I don't know what it is yet, but I like it. I don't know where it's going to go. Their ceiling feels a little higher. I don't think they're going to win the title, but they're the most intriguing team to me. That's not Denver or the Lakers or obviously okc. I think they're the fourth most intriguing team to me. Rob.

[Rob Mahoney]

Okay, can I suggest what the thing is that you might be seeing?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, let's see it.

[Rob Mahoney]

I would say two things. Maybe Golden State actually shooting free throws. Great. Jimmy Butler helps with that. Two, something very exotic for the warriors, attempting to score around the basket and sometimes doing so successfully. Like they, they blow a lot of layups. They, they have a lot of guys who clam up a little bit around the basket or can get stifled out with length. They obviously play really small. But having Jimmy as any kind of presence inside, even if he's also missing some layups now and again, just as a cutter, as a driver, as a transition force, it's a nice counterbalance to everything else that the warriors have going on offensively.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it feels like I rounded them out. I also, like you mentioned the rebounding, the offensive rebounding, the free throws. That game yesterday that they played against Dallas where it basically came down to Moody makes a corner three, I think they win if Jimmy just goes to the basket with his right hand instead of crossing over going into Kyrie, they might win that one too. But the symmetry of the team seems to make sense now because Jimmy, even though, what is he, 6, 5, 6, 6?

[Rob Mahoney]

I think he's more 6, 7, 6, 8 range.

[Bill Simmons]

All right. Wherever he is, there's a post up element with them that they just didn't have before. Unless it was Kaminga. And when it's Kaminga, you lose some of the IQ stuff. With Butler, you don't. You get the IQ stuff. So now you have him with Draymond, with Steph. And it's funny to call them a high IQ team because they also make some of the stupidest plays you'll see every night. I don't think any team has sloppier, worse turnovers and yet they are a high QQ team.

[Rob Mahoney]

Like Steve Kerr is about to have an aneurysm at any given moment in these games. And you get it. Like some of the passes Draymond throws for being a genius level playmaker are absolutely baffling indefensible decision making at times. And yet they get away with it because they have these hot shooting stretches. Their defense is obviously still pretty rock solid overall and I think will only get better with Jimmy. But ultimately I'm totally with you as far as the post up elements of Jimmy's game. He's so intuitive in terms of the way he moves. That has fit in Golden State really seamlessly. And he also just in staggering him and Steph a little bit, it gives the warriors something to do and like, they were really lacking that when Steph was off the floor. It's like, what do we run? I guess Brandon Pajemski is going to dribble for 18 seconds. There was way too much of that happening. And Jimmy Butler, if nothing else, orients them to, okay, this is a, this is an actual first option. Even if he's not pounding the air out of the ball.

[Bill Simmons]

It's also a team that when Kaminga comes back, becomes even more interesting because now they'll have multiple things to look at. They could ride him. There's some Butler Kaminga stuff already. I don't know if you've seen it. Little hint of I might take this guy under my wing.

[Rob Mahoney]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Little mutual admiration society stuff. Maybe I'll take him to Jimmy Butler grad school. Not teach him the stuff from the last year in Miami, but the first couple years, one of the things that's been so much fun to watch with these Golden State games is just having Butler back as an invested, happy, engaged guy on the sidelines doing fist bumps, just super competitive aggro and not looking like he just lost his dog and that he wants to just walk off the court. So I'm glad to have him back.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, even in the games, like, Jimmy Butler is one of the best contested rebounders in the league in terms of just the overall effort he puts in and how he goes after it, even against Biggs. And if we're going to talk about like how Golden State makes a run or how they hold it together, how they challenge some of these other elite Western Conference teams, a big part of that is Jimmy Butler makes the version of small ball they play make a lot more sense. Moses Moody has been a thing for a while now, but the Moses Moody minutes make even more sense when you put him with Jimmy Butler. Kuminga is going to be a little different just because they are a little bit duplicative. They're going to be a little trickier to play together, especially if Draymond is also on the floor. Like that's, that's a. It can jam up a little bit too much. And I'm curious to see what Kerr does with that, how he tries to separate those guys if at all in the rotation because they're going to have to play a lot.

[Bill Simmons]

And Dallas in the first half of last night's game tried to use the Draymond, Jimmy lack of shooting from deep thing against them. And then Golden State figured that out. They went with a small ball thing. Dallas didn't have their centers last night, so it's hard to make too much out of it. But they went small, I guess. Jimmy was the, was the four. And then they had Moody and Pazemski and Curry with Draymond. And it was fun. They were like hustling around and it was old school. Draymond. Here's the thing I'm watching with them and I've been watching this for a while and I really started thinking about it with the ringer 100 with that exercise of just trying to rank the best players against each other. And Curry was just a blind top seven, top eight guy. I'm not positive he's there anymore and I don't know where he is in the top 20. But there's two things I've noticed. One is the consistency of being great just doesn't seem there. He's become a once a week, I'm awesome guy. He doesn't have the great kick ass games that he used to have. And I actually went through and I just looked at two things. Cause this is hard to kind of quantify. How do you measure somebody's ceiling as a great player versus where it's been the last 10 years? He's 36 years old. You can look at all the counting stats. They're down a little bit, but not like too much. But the thing that was interesting to me so in 2016, his second MVP season, he had 1340 plus point games. And then if you go on basketball reference, that weird game score thing they have that I think I mostly like, it's at least it's something, you know, if you're, if you're in the high 20s or higher, that means something good happened with the game. You played the er of box score stats, right?

[Rob Mahoney]

It gives you a general indication that something is up.

[Bill Simmons]

It's that you did a bunch of things well in the same game at kind of an unusually high level. So about 29 is a really nice game score. On Basketball reference, again, arbitrary. But he had 24, 29 plus games from a game score standpoint, in 16 this season he has 3. This season he has 040 point games. So even if you go back to 2022, he had 740 point games in their final season he had 1029 plus game score games. In 23 he had 1329 plus game score. The point is, every once in a while Steph Curry was like, we're not losing tonight. I'm Steph Curry. I'm just going to have an awesome game. And that's really not what I'm seeing from him in the same way this year. And I wonder if it changes after the All Star break or is this just who he is at age 36? I don't know the answer. What do you think?

[Rob Mahoney]

I suspect having Jimmy will help with some of that. And just from an overall workload perspective, Jimmy and Kuminga coming back will lift some of what is on Steph right now. Ultimately though, I think that is who he is at this point in his career. I don't think he's going to have those singular scoring outbursts all the time. But the good news for the, for Golden State, I don't think the rest of the league has entirely caught up to that. I don't think they will catch up to that because history tells us they don't. With legends, right, like you put Steph Curry on the floor, someone sees him, they are going to freak out. And that's why virtually regardless of how many points Step actually scores, he has a massive, massive on court impact in terms of the offensive production. Like he is not at a Jokic level because Jokic is really in a class unto himself there. But with Shai, right, like with the other really high level offensive operators, in terms of the difference of having him on the court even when he's not hitting consistently, even when he's not going for 35 or 40 points, he just scares the hell out of people. I think that part will always be true even If Steph is 45 rolling out there.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. If you're saying what defender makes a guy who's in the paint who realizes he's open run full speed at him like he's running out of a cabin in a horror movie. Steph is still number one in this. The other piece of it is they had to work so hard to get him offense in the first half of the season.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

With this goofy team they had. And he also had to play a lot because their record wasn't that good. And I do wonder with the reset of the break and then the Jimmy piece of it and the symmetry of the offense coming into play a little bit. And then Kaminga comes back, maybe it'll be easier for him to rack it up and have the thing that would make him special were like the 16 point third quarters and just the little scoring barrages. That's what's not happening anymore. And then you throw in the sloppiness. Like their clutch record this year, I think they're just like 500 and they've blown a bunch of dumb games.

[Rob Mahoney]

And by volume, they've just been in a lot of close games, which that in itself, as you're saying, is taxing because it forces step to play more minutes to even get to that point.

[Bill Simmons]

The reason I think it's important and I'm not doing the ESPN thing where it's like just a block. Just talk warriors or Lakers and that's it. That's the rule. I really do think there's something here. I think there's something here with the Butler, Curry, Draymond thing. I kind of like the role guys and I think if they can hang around, hang around, hang around. There's a competitive kind of intuitive infrastructure that some of these other teams don't have. Like, I don't trust Houston to have it. Memphis, I don't know what to make of anymore. I just assume Jaw's not playing now and I turn Memphis on. It's like surprising to see him. It's one thing after another with him. And then Minnesota is a mess. I don't try, especially when Edwards has. Edwards has had two, like really, really, really awful games in a row. They did win tonight. They beat okc. And um. But just. I don't. Maybe Minnesota will be the only one I see that I could see in the conference finals. I don't think it's gonna be Dallas, okc, Denver. Is there anybody else you have on your radar to maybe make the west finals and do like what Dallas did last year? Dallas catches fire. They have that streak. All of a sudden they're in conversation. Who is that this year?

[Rob Mahoney]

I still give Memphis a little credit in that conversation. I. I think we'll. We clearly have to wait and see what the Lakers are capable of. But at this point, Denver's got the inside track and teams are going to have to figure out not just how to outflank them, but how to beat them. Specifically if that matchup comes on board, which is, I would say the toughest single matchup available to anyone is what do you do with Nikola Jokic right now? Because we're seeing Minnesota case in point tonight. OKC is a vaunted, unbelievable defense, but Minnesota like has some inroads there to score against a team like Nas Reed is clearly a huge part of that formula. Granted, like they're not playing with their usual team. Julius Randle at Rudy Gobert, Mike Conley, Dante DiVincenzo and yet and Gobert didn't play tonight either. Absolutely. They didn't have the ability. Like they didn't have their normal set of players. But they found things that could work against the Thunder defense. For as wonderful as it is, I don't know that there's those answers for many teams about Nikola Jokic, there's just not a lot of conceptual stuff you can throw at him that's going to work. That's not to say you can't leverage the occasional off night from Jamal Murray. Elements of Russell Westbrook's game, parts of the back end of the rotation, Michael Porter maybe not swinging the ball as fast as as the Nuggets might like him to sometimes. Like there's, there's buttons to press. The Nuggets are not unbeatable, but they look really tough right now and they look like a really tough matchup specifically for the rest of this Western Conference field.

[Bill Simmons]

Murray came back with the Priscilla and I did that last time in Denver 0. Yeah, we had like, we had like a heart to heart with 1100 Nuggets fans. Like this Murray thing is bad like you guys. This is alarming what happening. But the best case scenario was he just needs to play himself in shape. And he did. He played himself in shape and he looked noticeably skinnier. Within three weeks his burst came back. The 55 point game he had this week was not an aberration. He's been blowing by people and look like Murray. So now all of a sudden those Jokic 48 point games, those are out the window. You don't need them anymore. Now he's back to being the by the end of the third quarter he's got 2212 9. Porter's also playing better. They just look like the Nuggets again. So I don't know, people like this podcast, for instance, maybe overreacting through the first two months, but the Murray thing was. The Murray thing was scary because the Paul George thing was also scary. And guess what? That continues to be completely terrifying. So there was real signs of danger, but Murray played himself out of it.

[Rob Mahoney]

To his credit, the Paul George thing is bordering on reanimated corpse at this point. And Jamal Murray has found some kind of life, some kind of burst. And I think most importantly, the edge and the aggressiveness in his game, that that's always when Jamal is feeling whatever injuries he has at a given point or just a shaking confidence, he doesn't push in the way that the Nuggets absolutely need him to push. And to see that version of Jamal Murray back, that's a thrilling thing to see.

[Bill Simmons]

So right now we have okc, Memphis, Denver is the top three. Denver threatening to pass Memphis, Houston, Lakers. And Houston just, you know, has. Has not been good for a couple weeks, but they've had some injuries. Lakers, I don't know what happens with them. 32 and 20, Clippers, 30 and 23 have been confusing for about a month now.

[Rob Mahoney]

They're fine.

[Bill Simmons]

And then we move into that Minnesota, Dallas, Sacramento, Golden State thing and we're talking about it when we do the NBA six pack. The most notable thing is the spurs feel like they've fallen out. And I think Phoenix is not dead, but people are definitely around the table like John Hamm and Landman. They're definitely around the hospital bed. And maybe the doctor's like, you might want to say your goodbyes soon. They're almost at that point. But it feels like we actually might know the 10 playoff teams now. Unless you think Sacramento can fall out of this because, like, they had a bad loss with New Orleans tonight. They've won some goofy games. They're 20, 27. They honestly could be like 22 and 34. So if Phoenix was going to catch a team, that would be the team I picked. But what do you think? Do we have our 10 now?

[Rob Mahoney]

I think this might be the 10. And that is somewhat confidence in the Kings, more so pessimism in the Suns on my part.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay. Confidence in the Kings.

[Rob Mahoney]

I mean, my confidence. I think they've got some stuff to work with. Like, I think they have a reasonable play in level roster as currently constructed. I agree, and there's nothing wrong with that. But there's a reason we're not going to be talking about them in the vein that we're talking about Golden State, which is to say an actual threat potentially to do something with the talent that they have. And we were talking about this on group chat today, too. I don't know if it's the Jimmy Butler element specifically that makes Golden State feel like a wild card in the same way that his Heat teams felt like a little bit of a wild card. It's just hard to write off. And it's hard to write off looking at this Golden State rotation and thinking, okay, you know what? Like when, when it really matters, the Pat Spencer minutes are going to evaporate and the Quinn post minutes are going to evaporate if they have to. Like, they're going to get what they need out of these supporting guys, but their best players are going to go the distance. And the question at that point will be how. How hard did Steph and Draymond and Jimmy have to push to get them into the play in or to get them into the playoff and will they have enough left from that point?

[Bill Simmons]

You made a point earlier about Minnesota and how something about them seems comfortable against okc, which is something you couldn't really say about a lot of teams. I think that might be just a lot of length on the perimeter and interchangeable guys and just people to throw at. SGA today was the recipe for how you beat OKC in a playoff series where one, SGA doesn't have good game.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And then two, they don't make a ton of threes. And you know, they, they. It is a team. And I guess you could say this about any team in the league, but I really feel with them, when they're down like 12 and you go, I mean this is it. This is how you beat them. And then they win like their next 13 by an average of 20 points a game. But they can have that, you know, you, you can hit them with the haymaker. So when they, if they're down 3, 2 in a playoff series on the road, in a game like today, that would be the recipe, I think. I still don't 100% trust anyone else on their team offensively except SGA and that, that's the one thing that gives me pause with like just pencil them in. Like they have the best odds to win the west and it's an easy pick for the finals. But that's the one thing that makes me nervous when it's really nerve wracking. Gut, gut crunch time. Ball crunch time.

[Rob Mahoney]

Nut crunch, nut crunch, I think is gut crunch. The gut, the old gut crunch.

[Bill Simmons]

Who, who am I going to if like Shay has five fouls late in the third quarter and I just need somebody to get me offense for like six minutes. That's what makes me nervous with them.

[Rob Mahoney]

The answer is probably J Dub and that's a reasonable answer. But he also doesn't exactly play that way all the time. Like they are such a process oriented team where they're just going to move it and go through their system and trust in the shots that they're they get. And I think reasonable people can disagree as to whether those shots are ultimately what you need in now tm. Gut crunching time.

[Bill Simmons]

I think gut crunch.

[Rob Mahoney]

Look, they, they clearly need a little bit more as evidenced by the fact that they can occasionally put up like a 14 point fourth quarter like they did against Minnesota today. That's not going to do it. Even in a game like this where you have a bit of a deficit you're working back from to begin with, it's an area where you hope over time J Dub grows into that responsibility. Chet Holmgren, who I think played his third game since come back from injury tonight, he will grow into that responsibility over time, hopefully. He looks quite rusty understandably right now, so he's going to get better and better over the back part of the season. But that's the wild card with them. And I think if they don't do as well in the playoffs as they would have liked or as many of us would have anticipated, a lot of us are going to be wondering was there a lever to pull there in terms of getting more of a sparkplug scorer at the deadline? Not someone who has to be a part of your permanent like a fixture in Oklahoma City, a pillar of the community. But could you not get a guy who could get a bucket on demand when you maybe really needed it?

[Bill Simmons]

We talked about a little last week. I'm in the camp. They're playing so well and they look so good. And Wiggins especially, that was the spot you would have improved. But he was just playing really well.

[Rob Mahoney]

You know, and it's balling out. He was scoring in bunches.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. So, all right, we trade Wiggins and contracts and a few of our picks to try to get DeAndre Hunter. Are we even better? Wiggins was playing really well. Yeah. Would you rather pay Wiggins like a much smaller contract or Hunter 18 millionaire. I can see why. They, they just, they, they always value the continuity and it's one of those things that if it's in May and they lose in round two, you're like, why didn't they make a trade? I told you.

[Rob Mahoney]

But you're right. Like, it's hard to look at a roster winning 80% of its games and being like, yeah, you should have done something. Like they're doing a lot every night to beat basically every opponent put in front of them.

[Bill Simmons]

And a close team, too. That really seems like that's, that's where even the Cavs messing with what they have. It gets a little dangerous when you have a team that like clearly likes each other for sure. Dallas is the only other, other team. Just quickly, who knows when Davis comes back. The way Kyrie has played and kind of, I mean, this is one of the great 180s we've had by an athlete, the Kyrie, the last two years where I think he senses the moment in the city of Dallas and the press conferences, the interviews that he's given, the way he's played, where he's like, no, no, I got this, come over here. Like, don't, don't abandon the ship yet. If they can get Davis back in time. I don't know if they can, but if they can, it is an interesting team. You know, they have size, they have length, they have defense. And the fans who seem like they were going to revolt against this team even three days ago, like, I don't know, they were into the game today, they were cheering those guys and you know, I. So they're kind of, I guess over here on the side, depending on where they land. Right now they are 30 and 26, but no Davis for at least a month. So there'll be somewhere between 8 to 8 to 10, I would say, in the play in. Right.

[Rob Mahoney]

I would think. And look, the win over Golden State yesterday, massive, massive game in terms of playing implications. But yeah, they need Davis back and more importantly, they just need a big A. A single able bodied big who is not omax prosper on stilts. Like they just need somebody in that spot to do big man things. And credit to them for getting, by the way, they have credit to them for winning tonight. Not only under the circumstances, missing all these bigs, missing Anthony Davis. But Kyrie didn't play in this game either. But his spirit lived on in Dante Exum and they beat the Heat and Dallas just kind of keeps on marching right now. It's been, it's been very impressive to see the way they've rallied.

[Bill Simmons]

They beat a Heat team that just looks mediocre every night. Now it just looks like it's the end of the line. I'm thinking about the gut crunch. It's like a 90s exercise machine. Like I'm doing. Yeah, you got the gut crunch right now. Call. Now it's half off. We're going to take a break and then we're going to rip off an NBA six pack. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Michelob Ultra. A superior light beer and the ultimate trophy. Win or lose, you're bound to enjoy the ride with a good beer in hand. Make Lobe Ultra crisp, refreshing. Only 95 calories. A superior light beer Good time to enjoy an Ultra Rob this weekend there's no basketball and God only knows the All Star weekend could go in any different direction. Just relax. You don't have to worry about watching 15 games at once. Just relax. Do whatever you do on the weekend. Have an Ultra. No matter the game, sport or season, Superior is worth playing for. Always be prepared for a win. In order Michelob Ultra today available on doordash by the way, enjoy responsibly. 2025 Anheuser Busch Michelob Ultra Light Beer St. Louis, Missouri must be 21 plus to order alcohol. Alcohol available only in select markets all right, Rob, it's time. It's time for a special part of today's episode brought to you by Michelob Ultra A superior light beer and not just because it's great tasting. Michelob Ultra is also getting fans closer to the game with Ultra Courtside. It lets you sign up for a chance to win signed merch, courtside seats and other one of a kind experiences. Which one of them was Go out with Big Waz for the night in LA. Just visit michelobaltra.com courtside Michelob Ultra Superior is worth paying for Speaking of Superior, let's unpack six major things going on in the basketball world right now. We have to start with the 76ers. So I was thinking big splash teams in the last 25 years that just ended up being disappointing going back to post lockout. The 1999 Rockets when they put Barkley and Pippen and it came together and they were like look at this. And then it was bad. The 2004 Lakers, even though they made the finals, that was still kind of disappointing the way it ended. But the big ones 2013 Lakers with Dwight and with Nash.

[Rob Mahoney]

Now this is going to be fun. Not fun, but very fun.

[Bill Simmons]

The Prokoroff Nets post KG trade with Pierce and Joe Johnson and Darren Williams and Prokoroff just oh my God, he's going to basically do what the Dodgers just did in baseball. Didn't happen. 2019 Celtics after they made the Eastern Finals without Kyrie. Kyrie came back. Hayward came back. Tatum, Jaylen Brown. I think I went on Jalen and Jacoby's ESPN show and predicted them to win in the mid-60s. That did not happen. The 22 Lakers with LeBron and AD and new addition Russell Westbrook, sure they ended up winning 33 games. And then the Nets after the foot on the line season. Of course, the KD Kyrie Harden thing. Where does the Sixers just sucking. They're 20 and 34. Where does this rank on the I can't believe this is happening scale for you? Because there were some signs.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, it's hard because there are the precursors. I don't think any of us were fully trusting Joel Embiid's health coming into the season. Certainly Paul George has given us reason to be dubious about his long term ability to stay on the court. But I would never have anticipated that. Basically every single thing that could go wrong has gone wrong. Every bright spot that has emerged in the rotation, short of Gershon Yabuzeli, which I'm not trying to jinx him, wrap him in bubble wrap, Protect Gershon at all costs, please. Every other bright spot in the rotation has been snuffed out by injury, by circumstance. Like nothing is working. And that's hard to predict, clearly, but also hard to wrap your mind around, like how so many things could go wrong at one time.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. So there was some Paul George stuff that came out today from Shams, that he had a screwed up finger tendon on his left hand. He's getting injections for it. I'm sure that's true, but it doesn't explain the fact that he looks just slower and more plodding and doesn't seem to have nearly the same burst and just seems like not only a step slow, but a second slow in his processing. And I don't know how that's the left hand tendon thing. I don't get it.

[Rob Mahoney]

I don't think it is. Yeah, I mean, we can kind of parse those things out because there is the step slow thing as well. Right. Like you're not getting past Zaire Williams against the Nets. That's a problem. Right? That's a problem on a game. In a game where Joel Embiid is not playing, Tyrese Maxey is not playing. This is your moment to do some of this and you make one shot and worse, you attempt seven. Horrible, horrible game for Paul George. All of that said, I have found myself at many points in the season being a bit of a Paul George apologist. Oh, and look, those days are very much behind me at this point. But the case for that apology, the defense of Paul George throughout most of the season has been a defense of the little things that he brings to the table. Right. It's orienting the offense, it's being an adult on the court when they've badly needed it. It's spacing the floor, it's keeping the ball moving. Good connecting stuff. But role player stuff. And at some point, if you're doing all the role player stuff and you're failing every time you're asked to be a star, we have to call you what you are. And it's a $50 million role player. And that's a very tough position for the Sixers to find themselves at the very outset of this deal.

[Bill Simmons]

He hasn't helped himself with some of the comments either.

[Rob Mahoney]

No.

[Bill Simmons]

Like when he complained about playing the five. There hasn't been a lot of I'll do whatever it takes to win games. If they need me to play there, I'll play there. It's just there's a lot of like basic, you have to look at how the outside world is looking at you stuff with him that just seems to be missing.

[Rob Mahoney]

A Sixer should know never to say that they're bored doing something like playing the five, because this life as a Sixer will be very interesting very quickly in ways that you do not want.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, the biggest thing they got was the Eagles had a playoff run and won the Super Bowl.

[Rob Mahoney]

That's very true.

[Bill Simmons]

And they Curtis and I talked about it on Thursday. The this rarely seen super bowl news dump after they won when they they're like, hey, Embiid might get surgery again. I don't know where this is going. And they just snuck that one out into the dead of night. But I think if, if Philly had been knocked down in Round one, the Eagles and then, you know, people really had a chance to stare at the Sixers season with the kind of season Maxi's having or is almost averaging 28 a game. Yabaselli, they really lucked out with that. And they're still, they're 20 and 34. They're 6 and 14 in their last 20. In that last 20, they have the 23rd net rating. So they're just been a bottom 18 for, you know, a good 40% of the season here. They've only gotten 17 games from Embiid and yet they're only a game and a half behind Chicago for the 10 seed. And Chicago doesn't want to keep winning. Well, so they might. They might stumble in anyway.

[Rob Mahoney]

I don't know if Chicago wants to keep winning or not because their roster would tell you that they don't. The public comments would tell you that they are attempting to. So I really have no idea what to make of any of that other than the fact that, look, the playing crop in the east is an absolute joke. It is teams that are either too hurt to compete, don't have the Resources to actually be good teams yet. Or in Philly's case, a little of both. Like they just are not in a competitive place by any stretch of the imagination. Quentin Grimes should not be your best player. Like, that is not a thing that should be happening. Justin Edwards should not be playing 30 minutes in a game. That's not, that's not where the Sixers ever anticipated this going, but it's the reality that they now have to navigate.

[Bill Simmons]

Orlando is 27 and 29 in the seventh seed and they haven't been happy with their team for two months. No, Atlanta is 26 and 29. They're the eight seed. They made two, like, borderline dump trades, the Hunter trade and the Bogdanovich trade. Those are trades you make when you don't care where your season is going. They can't really dump because they don't have their first round pick. But. And then you have Miami at the ninth seed, 25 and 28, who just look, you know, I think they'd be maybe the second worst team in the West. Would you, would you rather be Miami or Portland right now?

[Rob Mahoney]

Portland is tough because they are winning themselves out of the tank race at the moment. Yeah, I love it. Their future is tough. And we should say Philly's future in terms of their first round pick, which they may or may not be able to actually keep, is looking dicier by the minute. They have to be very careful they don't accidentally lose that pick at this point.

[Bill Simmons]

I want to audible to that as the second thing of the, of the six pack. But before we do the, the Embiid thing, do we see him again? He's played 17 games. Does he play 20?

[Rob Mahoney]

We should not see him again, like, tethered to this conversation. Like they should be actively looking at shutting Paul George down, shutting him beat down, managing these injuries over the back part of the season. It's time to regroup. Like, this is not going to resolve itself. And even if you could limp into the play in and even limp into the playoffs, that is not a success for this version of this team. Like, being an easy out in the first round is not success for the Sixers. So at this point, lean into the, like sear into the skid. Lean into the failure. Live to fight another day.

[Bill Simmons]

Frankly, the problem is making the playoffs. Embiid could never play 14 games in four weeks. It's never happening. So even if you like miraculously won both playing games, I don't know where that's getting you. All right, the second thing you mentioned, the Draft pick. OKC gets Phillies first after the top six. So Philly keeps it first six spots. If it's the seventh pick, OKC gets it. But this is one of many things. This is the all time what the hell is happening in the first round thing.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's batshit.

[Bill Simmons]

It's. It's either 15 or 6. There's so many teams. There's a couple things I can't even really figure out. Who gets to pick.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

So it's about half the league. OKC gets Phillies first after top six. They get Utah's first after the top. If it's out of the top 10, but Utah's probably going to keep that pick. Miami gets Golden State's first. If it falls out of the top 10, I think that's probably happening. Atlanta gets Sacramento's first. If it falls out of the top 12, I think that might happen. The Knicks get the Tritz first. If it falls out of the top 13, I think that's happening. So we already have four teams that are going to give their pick to somebody else. OKC gets Miami's first if they don't make the playoffs, basically. So that's 50, 50. We'll see. Then we have San Antonio gets Atlanta's first, Utah gets Minnesota and Cleveland's first. The Pelicans get the Lakers first. Brooklyn gets New Orleans first, Milwaukee's first and the Knicks first. I think that's right. Does Brooklyn get New Orleans first?

[Rob Mahoney]

I don't think they get New Orleans. I think they just get Milwaukee and Knicks.

[Bill Simmons]

All right, I'm going to take that one out. Brooklyn gets Milwaukee's first, the Knicks first. Keep in the air. Orlando gets Denver's first. And then we have this trade where OKC can swap and get the best pick from the Clips. Or Houston, their choice.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

Houston could take the second best pick and swap it to Brooklyn for Phoenix's first. Phoenix. Phoenix, I guess loses the pick either way and then the Clips get the worst of all those. I'm going to figure out that sequencing in about a month.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, we need a visual aid. We need somebody to come up with a flowchart.

[Bill Simmons]

All of those picks I laid out. What is the most alarming to you for the team losing the pick?

[Rob Mahoney]

Oh, great question.

[Bill Simmons]

Atlanta.

[Rob Mahoney]

The Atlanta ones are bad because it dramatically changes how they navigate their roster, what they're doing for the foreseeable future. On the one hand, I think it can be silly sometimes when teams like the Bulls, who were so protected they were probably going to keep their own pick anyway, go out of their way to trade to get their own pick back. It can be silly, but there is so much more freedom and flexibility as a franchise when you do own your own picks. Because the second they're out the door, the second you lose control of when you start the clock and when you start to rebuild and when you start to reboot and that's how you get into these weird lost seasons where you're sort of languishing either in the middle of the standings or just outside the play in accomplishing basically nothing but also losing lots of games and not getting any draft capital to result from it. The Atlanta ones feel really, really rough right now.

[Bill Simmons]

One thing I was thinking with all the OKC things in play like let's say they get the seventh pick from Philly.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And let's say they get Miami's pick cause Miami's a playoff team. Then they have their own pick and then they can also swap with the Clippers or Houston. So that's a middle. So they'll have four picks.

[Rob Mahoney]

Well, they'll have three. They'll have their own three.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh yeah, you're right.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Three including Phillies pick which could be in the 7, 8, 9 range.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

But then they have all these other picks because they have a million kajillion picks.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

And we've been watching this going what are they going to do with all these picks? They already like their roster. They only have a couple spots anyway. Could this be the year that they take that seventh, eighth, ninth Philly pick? If that's the pick, add like eight picks to it and just say give us Cooper flag. Here's the all time mother load of picks. Like let's say Charlotte gets the first pick and they could just trade back like six spots out of the Cooper Flag spot and just get a war chest of the the all time most picks ever in a trade from okc Just to move back six spots. You'd have to have like a four hour meeting about that. I feel like Cooper Flag's really good.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

I love him. I'm probably the highest on him out of. Out of. You know, because he's a big intangibles guy and I know I'm going to overreact as we get closer to June, but you'd have to really think about it because it's not a wembanyama pick.

[Rob Mahoney]

And if you're okc, I think you would also have to really think about it because what the Thunder need more than anything are cost controlled players. Really good players on cost controlled salaries. Their roster is about to get very, very expensive very, very quickly. If you could have four cost control years of Cooper Flag as you are contending with the rest of this roster. I'm hesitant to say this because we haven't seen Cooper Flag play in the NBA yet. If he is as good as advertised that he might be the single most attractive piece to the Thunder for Exactly that reason.

[Bill Simmons]

Stretch 4 can play some three good.

[Rob Mahoney]

Ball skills, incredibly competitive, doesn't need the ball, checks out.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. And I know whoever gets the first pick wouldn't want to trade him. But there's a price for everything and there's a price to make you go holy shit, like you're going to offer me 220 cents in the dollar for this pick. But I honestly think that's what OKC has to do.

[Rob Mahoney]

Here's the thing though. If that pick does convey and OKC gets Phillies pick, six teams will have 20 picks in the first round between them. OKC. One of them, Brooklyn, will have three picks. The spurs, the Jazz, the Magic, the Wizards will all have two picks. That is an incredible consolidation of draft capital. And I don't know who ends up keeping a lot of those picks and who ends up moving them on because they're clearly valuable for all of these cost controlled reasons we've just talked about. But if to just help you visualize at home as you're listening to us list off all of these swaps and protections and picks that may convey basically every single pick from 18 to 30 is going to go to a different team. Except for Indiana's pick and Boston's pick. That's it. Every other pick is probably going to change hands and that's insane.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I don't even know how they fix it. And Adam Silver should not be the one explaining who gets what. They should maybe like hire Bobby Marks just for three hours as like his assistant just to be over on the side just laying out, doing the touchscreen.

[Rob Mahoney]

Like we gotta, we have to raise pick swap literacy around the country at this point because this is becoming an epidemic.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, OKC in San Antonio. San Antonio is the other team. Like if Atlanta's pick miraculously got in the top four and it got to like four, San Antonio would have enough assets to really try to climb three picks. So it'll, it'll come down to how generational you think Cooper Flagg is. And you know, I don't think he's in the Wemby Anthony Davis, sure thing class. You really have to believe in some other stuff. I personally think there's no way he misses because how competitive he is. But you know, he's six, seven and a half. There's things you could. To me, he's the perfect stretch four, but we'll see. All right, next thing on the six pack, speaking of the draft, the Brooklyn Nets, the team that just won't tank, the team that has players telling reporters, hey, we're going to try to keep winning games. If you don't like it, don't root for us, which I love. So they're 20 and 34. They're one and a half games behind Chicago for the 10 seed, which is tied with Philly. But does it feel the same as Philly to you, Rob? Not.

[Rob Mahoney]

Not even a little bit.

[Bill Simmons]

They have a great coach. They, they made the mistake of they kept Cam Johnson and Nick Claxton, but they also have DLO on the. I'm so happy not to be on the Lakers anymore. I'm going to go nuts. Yeah, they're six and one in their last seven. Their defense held all seven opponents to under 107th net rating over that time. They bought out Ben Simmons, they traded Schroeder and they traded Finney Smith. And yet they're still hanging around. And this was not the plan. They made a trade with Houston, I'm sorry, with Houston to try to get their picks back and give them Phoenix picks. And they were going to tank. Now, I don't know, they might make the playoffs. What would you do if you were running Brooklyn? Okay. You think of fake injury or think of playoffs?

[Rob Mahoney]

I think go for it. Honestly, I think go for it. I. It's always tough in these positions and yes, I understand the long term arguments, but I'm with you that I am moved by the enthusiasm of the team. I am moved by the amount of backbone they've been playing with lately and ultimately particularly how good they've been on defense. This is a team that's like playing a pretty deep rotation, really high energy style, forcing a lot of turnovers. They can't score for shit even now, but they get a lot of stops and they play with a lot of effort. And ultimately, here's the thing, I say you encourage the guys to go for it and they ultimately will probably lose a lot of games anyway. But you didn't pull the rug out from under them. I think that's where you start to lose credibility with the players on your team is when you start actively sabotaging their efforts to win just for the sake of the lottery. But if there's a Way to let them run themselves out. And look, if you look at the teams that they've beaten at this recent stretch of games where they've been so successful, it's not exactly they will lose games against better teams eventually, but let them find their spine, let them find their style and ultimately what can be successful for them. And let Nick Claxton wake up a little bit because he had a bit of a slow start to the season. Like, these are meaningful developments for a team like Brooklyn.

[Bill Simmons]

I saw this happen a decade ago with Brad Stevens and the Celtics and we were all going nuts because we wanted them to lose. But ultimately, like, you do build some sort of a weird DNA that you didn't just roll over. Which brings me to the next person on my six pack list. Third next team, Charlotte, who has achieved peak tank. I don't know if you've looked at their box scores. They tried to trade Mark Williams and couldn't get rid of him. And now I guess he's just in limbo as they fight about whether that trade was legal or not. Brandon Miller had surgery, which is too bad. They signed Alfred Payton and Taj Gibson and both of them are playing. Both of them are playing extra minutes.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, there's not really another option.

[Bill Simmons]

They did. They took on Nurkic in a salary dump and Nurkic has now found his destiny where, you know, he'll have like a 27 rebound game where they still lose by 28. And then they also have Lamelo Ball, who's one of the great, great stats, bad team guys of the last 30 years. I thought it was hilarious that people are like, wow, how did he get left out of the All Star game? He just jacks up shots and they lose. He's not at all, sir.

[Rob Mahoney]

That's unkind. I think Lamar is better than that. I think he's better than that.

[Bill Simmons]

Was that an offensive Lamelo Ball?

[Rob Mahoney]

I'm. Look, I'm willing to go out on that particular limb. Like, I, I think Lamelo is. Look, he is on another planet in terms of some of the things he chooses to do, but has a facility with the game that not many guys have and ultimately is basically the only reason the Hornets have been anything close to solvent at any point in the season. So he doesn't have a lot to work with when he's out there. Bigger concern for me, in addition to all of his habits and kind of the judgments he makes on the court, clearly just like that, cursed ankles, tough injury history. If he's never going to be consistently healthy, how is he going to consistently grow as a creator and that's a problem for a player like him.

[Bill Simmons]

Would you want to play with him for six months a year? Be honest. Would you want to be his small forward? Would you want to be Brandon Miller?

[Rob Mahoney]

Would I want to play with anyone under the age of 25? I think the answer is probably no. There is a stylistic difference between us.

[Bill Simmons]

This is the only team I really like Charles Lee. I think he's a good coach. This is the only team I don't want Cooper Flag to go to. See.

[Rob Mahoney]

I think he and Lamelo could run beautifully together.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, I don't know. Anyway, they're in position to get him.

[Rob Mahoney]

They certainly were.

[Bill Simmons]

They're working it this episode is brought to by Michelob Ultra. Things have heated up in the NBA and that is an understatement. What is this Dallas team going to look like? What is it going to look like if Luka and LeBron are playing together? Can the Lakers have a chance to win a title? We don't even know what the rest of the trade deadline holds for us yet. There's a lot to see. It'll be better if you can watch it in person. Luckily for you, that's where Michelob Ultra Courtside comes in, getting fans closer to the action with a chance to win courtside tickets, signed merch and much more. Enter for your chance to win at michelobaltra.com Courtside Michelob Ultra Superior Access Courtside 2024-2025 Sweepstakes no purchase necessary. Open to US residents 21 or older. Begins on October 1, 2024 ends on July 1, 2025. Multiple entry periods. Visit michelobultra.com SuperiorAccess Courtside for free entry, entry deadlines and official rules. Message and data rates may apply. Void where prohibited. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. State Farm helps you score an affordable price when you choose to bundle home and auto insurance with personal price plan. Bundling home and auto that's a pro move. Just another way you can save on your insurance needs. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can bundle and save with the personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and and eligibility vary by state. Next one on the six Pack the Chicago Bulls putting together the finishing pieces of an epic 10 year run starting in the 1516 season 42 and 40, 41 and 41, 27 and 55, 22 and 60. 22 and 43, 31 and 41, 46 and 36 in the 22 season. Lost in the first round. 40 and 42, 39 and 43, 22 and 33. With a chance to make the play in again. This is Reinsdorf's like manifest destiny just to. To. To not pay luxury tax.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

To be somewhere near the plan, to not actually be a threat, to not really have a direction is like, are they tanking? Are they like, they resigned Lonzo Ball, they could have traded him for a first round pick. It came out. Now they kept them. They have giddy. They have Kobe White, kind of like Bodzelus Vucevich is still there.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

They overpaid Patrick Williams. I don't know what this team is. They don't either. And this is just what we're doing in the third biggest city in America. Rob.

[Rob Mahoney]

Apparently it is. I. I get from that 10,000 foot perspective, why Reinsdorf as the guy who comes up? I don't want to give Arturas Karnischevis too much cover here because I feel like Nico Harrison has done him an incredible favor. Patrick Dumont has done him an incredible favor, taking a lot of the airspace of the NBA right now. And I think it just kind of slid under the radar that after the deadline, Karnitzevos went up there, had his press conference and explained that there are three different ways to build the championship team. You can have two stars on it, you can have three stars on it, or you can have nine or 10 very good players.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

First of all, that has literally never happened before. No team has won A championship with nine or 10 very good players. Not a thing.

[Bill Simmons]

Also, what qualifier isn't a very good player a star?

[Rob Mahoney]

I don't know what threshold he's talking.

[Bill Simmons]

About, but what's better than very good? Like, great.

[Rob Mahoney]

Well, let's talk about that. If it is. Even if that were true, even if that were what the Bulls are trying to do, how many players on their current roster are very good or even like pretty good?

[Bill Simmons]

I don't think they have one very good player. I don't think Kobe White's very good. I think he's good.

[Rob Mahoney]

He's probably the closest. Theoretical Alonzo Ball might be the closest. We hope Matas Muzelas can be that Vuch some nights, very good.

[Bill Simmons]

To me, it's like if my, if my son came home from school and I said, how did your history test go? And he said, very good.

[Rob Mahoney]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm thinking that's like An A minus. Very good. It's like really positive.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, there are no A minus players on this roster. I'm not even sure, like this is a roster that is scraping for solid B, B minus talent right now. And to the extent that it's there, it's probably years away from developing.

[Bill Simmons]

They got nothing from lavine. They have no extra first round capital other than this weird protected first rounder they have from Portland that they'll probably never get. They have an absentee landlord. As an owner, I think I would take every single team in the east future over theirs.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah. So you would take Charlotte's? You would take the Philippines?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, Charlotte, the Brooklyn picks.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

Even Philly. I have Maxi and I have, you know, hopefully some tradable assets and maybe Embiid will come back. Maybe I could turn Embiida to something. I would rather have every other roster in the east over Chicago's. I don't even know what their number one asset is.

[Rob Mahoney]

What a day for the Wizards. You know, they had to win something eventually. They won your heart, at least relative to the Chicago Bulls. Congratulation. Congratulations to the ones that honestly, Jordan.

[Bill Simmons]

Poole's probably better than anyone in the Bulls this season.

[Rob Mahoney]

That is the darkest sentence that I've ever heard someone. And it might be true. I think it's true. I think it's true.

[Bill Simmons]

But I thought somebody should have traded for him. We talked about it last week. I actually think he's really figured some shit out and he's at least done it on a big stage before. But Carrington and they got guys, they're okay, they're going to have cap space.

[Rob Mahoney]

I want all due credit to Jordan Poole who's had an exceedingly normal NBA season and for him, for a guy that talented, that's a huge step forward.

[Bill Simmons]

If I was a Chicago Bulls fan, I would be losing my mind.

[Rob Mahoney]

Rightly so.

[Bill Simmons]

They're in the third biggest city in America. The Celtics are about to sell for between six and six and a half billion. So the Bulls are worth somewhere around there. Why can't they just sell the team if they're not going to run it correctly? How long can you live off the Jordan and how long can you be like, oh man, if D. Rose didn't get hurt in round one. Oh man, that was 13 years ago.

[Rob Mahoney]

I know.

[Bill Simmons]

Last one in the six pack you wanted to talk about the Suns, who have a net rating their last 15 games of 18th, who in their last 58 games including the playoffs are 26 and 32, who tried to trade Kevin Durant for about a week before they told him or his agent or his manager that that was even happening. And now it's like, yeah, this summer they're probably gonna trade kd. This is, this is grim. What are you seeing?

[Rob Mahoney]

It's not as loud or as dramatic as what's going on in Philly. And so, yeah, they get the lead in terms of the, like the Dumpster Fire power rankings here. I just. It's so disappointing to see the Suns in such disarray, quietly sucking all this year and seeing none of the primary stakeholders of that team do a single thing to fix it. And this isn't ultimately like a second apron problem or a no trade clause problem. Like, those are obstructions, right? In terms of Phoenix making its roster better. They're not obstructions for anyone on this team playing into the ball on defense. They're not obstructions for anyone on this team fighting for a rebound. They're not obstructions. Most crucially, for defining some semblance of offensive flow for a super talented team on paper, like, I know there is a worse than the sum of its parts thing happening here because basically none of the parts complement each other at all. It's just a lot of guys in their individual lanes not making each other better. And that is really a really tough watch for people like us at this stage in the season. I just don't get the sense that anyone involved in it particularly likes participating in that offense either or participating in this season. And so it's so disjointed, it's so unpleasant. I really dislike where the Phoenix Suns find themselves. And I don't wish this on any of them. This is just who they've been.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, the problem is they had a certain coach last year that they made the scapegoat for everything, Frank Vogel, who won the 2020 title. They brought in coach Bud. Completely different philosophy. He's going to unleash these guys offensively and they're even worse. But to me, it's a talent problem. I was looking right around this time where you have like, I would say okc, Boston and Cleveland are the three best teams, right? In some order. And then you think like, they probably have the best rosters, the nine man rotation. Who would you take on a team like Phoenix? How many of their guys, other than the top two, would even play for one of the top three teams? So that would be their Beal?

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, he would.

[Bill Simmons]

I think Beal would play off the bench for at least Boston and Cleveland. I don't know about okc maybe. Who's he playing over?

[Rob Mahoney]

He would play over.

[Bill Simmons]

Who's he playing over?

[Rob Mahoney]

They need somebody like him. That's.

[Bill Simmons]

That's sort of. So you're giving him Isaiah Joe's minutes?

[Rob Mahoney]

Sure. Yes. Okay. I feel fine giving Bradley Beal Isaiah Joe's minutes.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay, so he's in the seven, eight or ninth man range for the top three teams. Fair.

[Rob Mahoney]

Maybe sixth on the right roster.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay. First guy off the bench.

[Rob Mahoney]

First guy off the bench.

[Bill Simmons]

I would still rather bring Pritchard off the bench before him, but that's just me. Grayson Allen or Royce O'Neal? Do they play for any of the top three teams in the top nine of their rotations?

[Rob Mahoney]

I mean, this is kind of the Tory Craig corollary because didn't he just like just kind of crack into Boston's rotation a little bit?

[Bill Simmons]

10Th man. Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

Royce O'Neill can do a lot of Tory Craig things. I would say he's slightly better than Tory Craig on balance. Grayson Allen very much an issue of how much you need his shooting and frankly this season, whether his shot is on or not. Lately it's been looking a lot better. Start the season was not there. If he's streaky, he's not very viable. So that's a huge problem in terms of high level competition.

[Bill Simmons]

Nick Richards.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, I think he can get minutes.

[Bill Simmons]

Maybe Boston like the Keda, the random KEDA game. Maybe Nick Richards is the Luke. I bring this up because it's just grim what Phoenix did with. With all the stuff they traded away. And you know, I defended the Durant trade when it happened, or at least the idea of it. Even that night, none of us understood why Cam Johnson was in it. But when you're throwing in as many assets as they did, but then also paralyzing themselves to trade other picks and I don't see it now. And I don't really know what KD is worth this summer either. Yeah, see that's not like a miraculous parachute out of here. He's going to by that it's be his 19th season next year. What are you getting for him? Are you getting like Jalen Green and a first and a. I don't know, like what are you actually getting for Kevin Durant at this point in his career?

[Rob Mahoney]

If that's how he does this?

[Bill Simmons]

He's got one year left in his deal.

[Rob Mahoney]

That's even worse than this, frankly. If it like that's the hard thing about interrogating Kevin Durant trades is the packages feel more depressing. And the fact I think the packages also force you to confront what you as an organization in the Phoenix Suns have done with Devin Booker's career. A player who had to come into his own, who took his time, who grew as a playmaker, who grew as a creator, who, to be totally fair, is not having an amazing season by his standards, but a good enough one. A good enough Devin Booker season. And if you use that whole period of time and you have one trip to the finals in a somewhat weird Western Conference field and that's it, that's the primary feather in the cap of the Devin Booker era. That's really sad, honestly, for a star who's had this kind of long lasting relationship with the team, you would hope that a player like that would be rewarded with better.

[Bill Simmons]

How many teams did Luka fuck up during his career? In the Mavs. Yeah, because that Game seven definitely was some sort of weird Katos with the Suns.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

The Minnesota. The fact that they beat Minnesota, I think led to. I don't know if they trade Towns if they make the Finals.

[Rob Mahoney]

Probably not.

[Bill Simmons]

Um, then Dallas themselves, that's another one. Right. So there's already. There's three. With the blood on his hands. Yeah. The Phoenix thing feels like a rap. We have not heard a lot from MISHP lately. No, there are no fixes. And then they're in a conference where this can't happen. You're going to have San Antonio coming. OKC is already there. Jokic, you go on down the line. It's like there's. This is it.

[Rob Mahoney]

They have the toughest remaining strength of schedule of any team in the league from this point. I don't. They're not going to make it.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, the sad thing is Brooklyn had a few of those picks that they gave back to Houston to get their pick back so they could tank. And now they're not even tanking correctly. But those Phoenix picks are looking pretty juicy. Before we wrap up the six pack, San Antonio. When do they throw the flag into this season? They're just far enough away that you could talk me into it.

[Rob Mahoney]

What does throwing in the flag look like?

[Bill Simmons]

Some Wemby rest management. Some Wemby. Hey, we need to sit him down for three games. We were worried about some fake tendonitis and some fake part of his body.

[Rob Mahoney]

I'm not sure they need to do that. I think they're going to be again, perfectly fine coasting out, losing some of these games. Now, if the Fox thing catches on in such a huge way where it's unavoidable, then yeah, maybe you have that discussion, but part of trading for De'Aaron Fox is accelerating at least a little bit. And I think ultimately their position is not so much tethered to their own pick. Right. It's tethered to the other draft capital that they have is tethered to the guys they already have on roster. So I don't think they necessarily need to counter.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, Portland could pretty easily pass them. They could be the third worst team in the west and they would be either four or five or six teams worse than them in the East. They could be in the 6 to 9 range with that draft pick, which puts you in lottery mode.

[Rob Mahoney]

Not too sure.

[Bill Simmons]

I actually really thought that they were going to make a little bit of a run and they just can't. I thought Boston really exposed some of the issues with them. I don't know if you watched that game. They attacked Wemby in a really unique way that I haven't seen teams do before. And just in general, it just looked like two different classes of teams. And then you think the warriors got better? I don't really see the path for them. Anything else you want to hit before we go?

[Rob Mahoney]

I think we covered a lot of it. We covered every mid to terrible team in the Eastern Conference, it feels like. So we really gave the people what they want today.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, that's it for today's six pack. But if that's not enough for you, remember Michelob Ultra Courtside can get you closer to the action with tons of different prizes. Go stock up before the next game. Enter for your chance to [e-mail] Courtside Michelob Ultra Superior Access Courtside 2024-2025 Sweepstakes no purchase necessary. Open to US residents 21 or older. Begins October 1, 2024. That already happened. Ends on July 1, 2025. Multiple entry periods. Visit michelobultra.com SuperiorAccess Courtside for free entry. Entry deadlines I'm almost on official rules message and data rates may apply. Void where prohibited. Enjoy responsibly. 2025 Anheuser Busch Michelob Ultra Light Beer St. Louis, Missouri Rob we're both on the Prestige TV podcast doing white Lotus. I'm doing the recap with your TV wife Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin on Sunday nights. And then you and Joanne are doing the Pre Caps Dive into Theories on Wednesdays. You can find that on that's Gonna Be Videos podcast on the Prestige feed. That's also on our Ringer TV YouTube channel. What are you the most excited about? White Lotus Walton Goggins.

[Rob Mahoney]

Always Walton Goggins. But Carrie Coon. Never upset to see Carrie Coon on the screen.

[Bill Simmons]

And you haven't watched the first one yet.

[Rob Mahoney]

Not a bit. You know, I'm really looking forward to it. I'm really juiced for my personal trip to spiritual Thailand for this season.

[Bill Simmons]

So that's the thing. You get to go on an actual vacation with the cast.

[Rob Mahoney]

Wow.

[Bill Simmons]

You just live vicariously through your tv.

[Rob Mahoney]

From your lips to Daniel X ears. Let's lock it in. Let's get that expense report filed. I'm ready to go.

[Bill Simmons]

You live vicariously just like nice tv. Just kind of zone in. See the trees, There's a lot of monkeys. There's a lagoon. Yeah, lots of stuff.

[Rob Mahoney]

Love a lagoon.

[Bill Simmons]

Really good. Anyway, you can hear us both on the Prestige TV pod. You can hear Rob on the Ringer NBA show on Group Chat as well. And you can read him on an Excellent website called theringer.com Mahoney Good to see you.

[Rob Mahoney]

Thanks, Bill.

[Bill Simmons]

This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Whether you're ordering wings for the game, whipping up a seven layer dip, or ordering pizza, there's something about football that makes you want to eat. And this football season, Uber Eats has the best deals on game day food, no matter what you're craving, from two for one Pizza. To buy one, get one Wings. Uber Eats will be dropping new deals each week all season long. Uber Eats, the official on demand delivery partner of the NFL. Order now for game day. Terms and conditions apply. See app for details. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast and this episode is brought to you by Intuit. TurboTax didn't file with TurboTax last year. That's in the past. Now Taxes is getting the TurboTax app and filing your own taxes for free if you didn't file with them last year. Filed by February 28th all tax forms all 100% free. Now this is taxes intuit TurboTax new filers and filers who didn't use TurboTax last year only must start and file your own taxes in app by February 28th. Excludes TurboTax Live full terms at turbotax. Com this episode is brought to you by LinkedIn. In basketball, a blockbuster trade can make or break your playoff run before the deadline. GMs across the league scourge for the right data and insights, hoping their moves pay off February 6th trade deadline this year. By the way, just like in basketball, growing your small business in 2025 all comes down to how well, you can build your team that starts with better insights from LinkedIn with unique skills and interests to the connections you have in common. LinkedIn has the strongest hiring data and insights to help you identify the right professionals so you can make the best hiring decisions. LinkedIn pairs you with the high quality candidates you need to make your business grow and flourish. LinkedIn also lets you go beyond candidates who are actively applying in a given week. 171 million LinkedIn members aren't actively seeking jobs, but they are open to new opportunities. Who isn't? That's a big pool of people you don't want to miss out on, and who knows, one of them could be your next All Star player. So hire smarter in the new year. Find your next Great hire on LinkedIn. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com Simmons Once again, LinkedIn.com Simmons to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Saturday Night live premiered on October 11, 1975, the same night as game one of the World Series between Pete Rose's Big Red Machine and my beloved Boston Red Sox. I turned six two weeks earlier. I have one hazy memory from that shutout victory for the Red Sox in Game one. It was Louis T. Hunt teetering around the bases, somehow scoring while wearing a puffy blue warmup jacket. It was amazing. Was I sleeping later that night when John Belushi declared his intention to feed his fingertips to the Wolverines? Of course I was. But the 75 Red Sox were my first favorite baseball team, and SNL eventually became one of my favorite TV shows ever. For the rest of the 1970s, SNL thrived in some alternate universe that just would not include me. We all knew about the show in school. We knew it was funny. We noticed the commercials. We knew our parents stayed up to watch it. But we couldn't sample it until fourth grade because something special happened that year. That's when Best of SNL shows started popping up in primetime as fillers for NBC's canceled shows. Suddenly, the Nerds, the Coneheads, the Wild and Crazy Guys, the Cheeseburger Guys, they all became part of our lives. Needless to say, I loved everyone. I loved everything. But I really loved John Belushi. The Samurai guy, Joe Cocker, the Chocolate Donuts commercial, the but no update monologues. This human being actually existed every week on some show way past my bedtime. How is this fair? How could I watch more? How could I get there? We didn't have DVR, YouTube or social media in 1979, as you could probably guess. Once that week's SNL host said good night. The episode vanished into thin air. The only time you would watch it again is if it was in a rerun that summer. So I was out of luck until fate intervened. That same winter, my parents separated and I became an only child with an insane amount of leverage. Leverage used for self serving proclamations like, I don't care what my bedtime is, I'm staying up late for Saturday Live. So one of my first live SNL shows was hosted by Margot Kidder during Kidder's brief apex between Superman and Amityville Horror, two movies that I like. You wouldn't remember this apex unless you're over 50 years old, but one of SNL's underrated traits as an American pop culture institution, it catches 90% of our most famous actors, actresses and musicians at the exact point when they are precisely the most famous. Think about that. The most famous. That's snl, the best sketch from that show. Kidder's Lois Lane character threw a birthday party for Bill Murray's Superman character and she invited some various superheroes to come along. And I'm watching it live. I'm just sitting there waiting for my guy Belushi. And at the three minute mark, the doorbell rings. Kidder opens the door, there's Belushi, strolls in, cackling. He's covered in green. He's dressed like, oh my God, he's dressed like the Incredible Hulk. And even now you can listen for the audience laughing and clapping just at the mere sight of John belushi. Because in 1979, there was no safer comedy wager in America than John Belushi is the Incredible Hulk. So he ambled over to Superman, shakes his hand, screams in mug pain, oh, let go, let go, let go. And then later, he annihilates the bathroom with an Incredible Hulk poop. As everyone recoils in horror, he comes out. Come on, take it easy. It's not supposed to smell like roses. I never laughed so hard in my life. This was done. This was a wrap. I had a new favorite guy. I had a new favorite show. I stayed up for a few more season four episodes. And then Belushi left. He left with Dan Aykroyd for Hollywood. But I still watched all of season five. Once NBC started airing one hour best and best SNL shows on Wednesdays in the fall of 1979, suddenly kids like me could retroactively experience every famous sketch. Did NBC realize? Did they realize they were cultivating the next generation of SNL diehards? Of course they didn't. This was the same year they trotted out Supertrain. There wasn't a dumber TV network than NBC in 1980, so we can call it a happy accident. But that summer I made my father bring me to two R rated movies, Caddyshack and the Blues Brothers, just to see Chevy and Murray and Boushy and Aykroyd. In that fall, we bought a cumbersome BCR and SNL became part of my life for good. Over the next five decades, the most important sketches and moments hinged on four impossible to totally measure questions. Factor number one, what was the impact in the moment? For instance, you might have a personal history of the Wayne's World franchise that's colored by two movies and a whopping 19 SNL sketches. You heard me, they did 19. Maybe Wayne and Gar stopped making you laugh 25 years ago. I sure hope not, because we're doing Wayne's World on Monday's Rewatchables. That still holds up, by the way. But the first Wayne sketch happened on Leslie Nielsen's 2-89-show, not long after Mike Myers joined the cast, when he was simply the guy in the credits who had the same name as the killer from Halloween. That's how we knew him. Then they did Wayne's World. Everything killed Wayne killed Garth killed, the whole cable show in a basement angle killed. You watched the sketch of the moment, you thought, I want more of these guys. Do this sketch again. And for me, in the moment matters more than everything else, you know? You know, with more cowbell, Barry Gibb, talk show, Star Trek convention, Mr. Belvedere, you always know right away with SNL. So that's factor number one. Factor number two, is the sketch still funny right now? Little less important, because comedy, you know, sometimes doesn't age that great. Sometimes. The things we thought were funny in 1994, we don't think her as funny now. It's also hinging on something that happened in the moment sometimes, which is like one of the last Wayne's World sketches ever, which happened in 1994's Heather Locklear show, yet another host Apex. And in the sketch, Wayne starts dreaming that he ended up in Melrose Place. Now, this is something that would make no sense to anybody who's under 40 and can't remember Melrose Place that they watched in 2025. But in the Moment was one of TV's hottest shows. Sandler parodying Billy the P Whip Boyfriend was the highest of high comedy. You have to believe me, everyone despised that Billy character. Only the Internet didn't exist yet, and we couldn't properly ridicule him. So Adam Sandler spoke for everybody, and that matters, even if the sketch itself hasn't aged well. Factor number three does the sketch have any belated significance that transcended the sketch itself? Okay, here's a good example. Will Ferrell's first SNL season 19951996 that followed the critically reviled season 20, which nearly submarine the show and left New York magazine's infamous takedown cover story as its enduring legacy. How about that as a legacy? That summer, NBC makes a fuss. They're blowing up the cast, they're blowing up the writing staff, and you had a real sense the show was on life support, which would have been the third time in 20 years we felt that way. So season 21 Meryl Hemlock is hosting the first episode, I'm visiting my buddy Jim Grady in Connecticut, and we play shuffleboard until 4am at Sam's in Port Chester, where I'm still the goat One of those nights when I woke up on Sunday morning with my contact lenses still in my eyes, unable to remember how, I ended up on the sofa and wondering why I didn't have a blanket. Nobody else was awake. I loaded up SNL on Jim's TV and I watched through bleary eyes as Farrell's first big sketch comes on. Get off the Shed. And again I'm hungover as all how I could barely see and this new cast member is jumping right off the screen at me. Who is this guy? He dragged at least four wheezy post cigarette binge cough laughs out of me and at some point Jim heard me laughing and rolled out of bed. And I immediately replayed get off the Shed for him. And now Jim was saying, who is this guy? Later, Farrow plays a husband who kept coming up with off color excuses to derail his wife and get her off the phone. That character was funny too. Combining the impact of those two sketches, you knew that your life in 1995 was suddenly 0.77% better with this Will Ferrell guy. You knew right away and two decades later, Get off the Shed isn't one of Ferrell's 10 funniest SNL sketches. Husband Excuses probably doesn't crack the top 30, but that first episode mattered. There was a new sheriff in town. You needed to start watching SNL every week again, and that matters in the big scheme of things, right? So that's the third factor. The fourth factor. It's a cousin of in the moment. Did you know Immediately that something truly spectacular had just happened. All right, let's go back to 1975. Richard Pryor is about to host the 11th episode. They've already banked 10. SNL has already established itself as TV's most groundbreaking show. No comedy show belonged to the baby boobing generation until SNL showed up. This is a generation that devoured Rolling Stone. They devoured their rock music. They hated Vietnam and Nixon. They revered George Carlin, Richard Pryor. They loved improv. They loved Harvard Lampoon. They despised traditional sitcoms and variety shows like Carol Burnett. They needed their own show. So after 10 episodes, Michaels, Lorne Michaels, figures out a show to show structure for that specific audience that barely looks different than the one today. Sketches, Weekend Update, music, comedy performances, short film, basically in that order. I don't think he ever intended the show to reach 30 million people some nights, but who the fucking predict this shit? So Pryor was that generation's hottest comedian, which meant no season one episode carried higher expectations. Chevy Chase had already become a huge star. What happens? It becomes SNL's first pantheon show. Pryor's monologue, predictably great Exorcist parody kills Pryor, and Belushi did Samurai Hotel. And everything peaks with word association, which is a sketch that pitted two of comedy's biggest stars against one another. Pryor and Chevy Chase, who's the breakout guy for season one. And thanks to a sizzling performance by Pryor, the racial tension that builds during that sketch still plays 50 years later. It's not a sketch that's aged well, but it's one of the most important SNL moments ever because nobody had ever tried anything like it on live television before. This was dunking from the foul line. Shit. This was Dr. J in the ABA contest. That was word association. So my favorite SNL episode ever also had my favorite SNL sketch ever and my favorite musical performance ever. This was when Stevie Wonder hosted and they do this sketch called the Stevie Wonder experience. This is eight years after prior 1983. Wonder Host, right as Eddie Murphy is doing this wicked and slightly controversial impression of him. And Eddie's a huge star at this point. And you're watching the show live and you're thinking, there's no way Eddie's gonna do Stevie in front of Stevie, right? But you're secretly kind of hoping he would. So it finally happens in a sketch with Joe Piscopo, who's playing an agent. He brings in Stevie, who's a celebrity impersonator, and they audition for Murphy, who's a music executive. And the catch is that Stevie's character bills himself as a Stevie Wonder experience, only he's doing a Stevie impersonation. It's horrible. And Murphy goes, no, no, no, no, you're doing it all wrong. And proceeds to slip on a pair of sunglasses. And the crowd goes batshit. And he does Stevie with Stevie standing right next to him. So I'm 13 when this happened, which is probably the best age to fall in love with snl, even though I was already in love and you could think I'm crazy, I don't care. But the most exciting non sports TV moments of the early 80s were this sketch. Letterman taking a show to LA and having Carson as a guest. Michael Jackson singing Billie Jean and doing the moonwalk on the Motown 25 Special, which was amazing. Reagan getting shot by Hinckley, Roddy Piper smashing the coconut in Jimmy Snuka's head. And the premiere of Thriller on mtv. And I can't accept any other arguments. Anyway, Eddie brings the house down with an impression of Stevie singing My Sharia Moore. And he's unbelievably crushes it, kills it. Stevie's standing right there. Crowd settles down. Stevie tries his impersonation again. It's still terrible. Eddie takes over, nails it a second time. Crowd settles down. Scene shifts back to Stevie for one last attempt. And only this time fake Stevie suddenly turns into real Stevie and he belts out an acapella version that's. You can't even describe how good it is because nobody brought it quite like Stevie in his prime. He nails the last note and the studio erupts like someone made a mid court shot to win a tournament game. If you watch the tape, Piscopo breaks character. He lets out this delighted Yelp. That's how remarkable it was. So I know he's a first ballot hall of famer, I know he's a musical icon, but I can't imagine Stevie Wonder ever bringing the house down quite like that. And Eddie pushed him there. Of course, Eddie never breaks character. He waits for the applause to die down. He waits an extra second and then he finally says, nah, man, it still sucks. Huge laugh, perfect ending. One of the greatest sketches in the history of the show. And at that specific moment, you would bet anything that Murphy would be one of the biggest stars in the world someday. But that's what made him such a unicorn. By sheer coincidence, by dumb luck, an SNL show that desperately needed energy and diversity and a real star stumbled into someone basically created by God to appear on the show. So of the biggest stars In SNL history, only Eddie broke into show business. On the show, he was a cast member at 19, he was the show's meal ticket by 20, he was a movie star by 21. And he was a full fledged super duper star by 22 and headed to Hollywood for good at 23. We will never see it again. He's the most talented SNL cast member ever. He's the only one to host the show when he was starring on it. And for that and many other reasons, I have Eddie as the SNL goat cast member. And I'll fight people in a bar if they want to come up with somebody else. Here's the thing. Only Eddie and Will Ferrell could carry an entire season by themselves. This is like you're using the 2009 LeBron and the Cavs analogy. How many guys could you win 60 games with if they were the only really good guy in the team? That was Eddie and Will Ferrell. And that's really it. So if you're building the hypothetical goat SNL cast, I think you have to have Eddie and Farrell or I can't take the list seriously. It's non negotiable. But what would the rest of the cast look like? Well, three things. First of all, SNL needs to move like a basketball team. You need an eight man rotation, you need one wild card off the bench. You want enough minutes for everyone. This is always the mistake the show makes over the years when they have these big, fat swollen casts. You have a 90 minute show with commercials, it's really about 67 minutes of content. You have Weekend Update, you have two musical acts, so maybe five, six sketches max, plus a couple update things. You don't need 17 people, you need eight, maybe nine. So we'll have the wild card, we'll have the D'on Waiter spot. So that's one second.

[Rob Mahoney]

The best.

[Bill Simmons]

SNL cast members can either carry a sketch or Glue Guy a sketch. And the Glue Guy thing is super important because that was what Phil Hartman was the best at. You have to be able to do both. You can't just be a one man show. And in this case, it's a lot like basketball. Can you take over a game? Can you set other people up? Can you play characters? Can you play the straight man? Can you sell other people? Can you do anything? You want a whole cast of these people? Again, you gotta think like it's a basketball team. You want the ball to move around. And then the third thing is I was trying to include different eras to the best of My ability. So Eddie and Farrell ran. I got seven spots left. Phil Hartman was the best glue guy in the show's history. Dana Carvey, who I think is the most underrated male cast member. Now, he would have thrived on any cast for the entire 15 years and was a force of nature. Same for Bill Hader. So there's five, and I don't think you can leave any of them off. Eddie Farrell, Hartman, Carvey, hater. Best female cast member ever. It's still Gilda Radner. It's not fun to say because she was on the first cast and she kind of had the title to begin with, and then other people probably tried to take it from her, not knowing, but she's still the best. She's the best female cast member in the history of the show. Kristen Wiig was right up there, so she's included to that seven. And I thought Maya Rudolph was the most underrated female cast member ever. She could carry any type of sketch. She could do all the musical stuff. So that would be my eight. And then obviously, for the wild card, I gotta have Belushi. So I have Eddie Farrow, Gilda Wiig, Hartman Hayter, Carvey, Maya and Belushi. I'm rocking with those nine. My Weekend Update guy, Norm MacDonald. Come on. Still living on social media. Thirty years later, they're still running his jokes from Update. So I have Norm. I'm turning over all digital videos. I'm doing a time machine loop here to Andy Sandberg and Adam Sandler. They're just going to work together, even though they're from different eras. Knock yourself out, guys. And then I have the following 10 hosts. Tom Hanks, John Goodman, Steve Martin, Chris Walken, Alec Baldwin, Dave Chappelle, Emma Stone, ariana Grande, Melissa McCarthy, and Candice Bergen. I think if you're drawn from all the eras, that's the best 10 you're gonna come up with. But remember, this is my list. Doesn't mean it's right. I've only been watching the show for my entire life. What do I know? All right. 10 best episodes ever. So these are my 10. They might not be your 10. These are mine. Stevie Wonder, 1983, which had the Stevie experience, had the Canon camera ad Dion, the hairdresser, and three Stevie songs, including him singing Overjoyed, which is the best musical moment in the history of the show. That's one I won't argue about. Go watch it if you don't believe me. The crowd goes nuts and just keeps cheering. It's like a sporting event. So I have that episode, Richard Pryor, 1976, which also had two standups from him too. It had Samurai hotel word association. The Chevy Weekend Update. That's the first great SNL show. Jim Carrey in 1996, which was the last episode of the aforementioned comeback season. This is Carrey at the peak of his powers. He's coming off. He had the mask and Ace Ventura. He's dumb and dumber. He's suddenly one of the biggest movie stars. And SNL had rejected him. So he comes on with a huge chip on his shoulder. He does Fireman Bill Night at the Roxbury Joe Pesci show with Jimmy Stewart, does the Cheerleaders, does Jacuzzi Lifeguard. Also, you had Norm on Update, who was on fire. And you had a David Spade holiday minute, Hollywood minute. So this is probably the best show of the last 30 years that they had. And by the way, Soundgarden was the guest. Steve Martin in 1978. This was widely considered to be the best show of the Belushi Ackroyd Murray era. Blues Brothers, as the musical guest Steve Barton said, it was the peak of me actual quote. King Tut did the wordless gilded dancing scene. Wild and crazy guys, medieval barber. There was a point counterpoint on Weekend Update with Jane Curtin and Dane Aykroyd that I always enjoyed when Jane would make her point and then Dan would go, jane, you ignorant slut. And a joke that would not fly 50 years later. But it was really funny because that's what newscasts were like back then. It was these males just dominating the show. And the woman was over there. So they're paired in that really funny nerd. Science fair was on that as well. All right, fifth one, Tom Hanks in 1988, which I think is in the running for best season opener ever. And probably was. This had the Bush to caucus debate. Dan Aykroyd as Bob Dole, Jon Lovitz as Dukakis going, I can't believe I'm losing to this guy. So I have that. There's a parody of the movie Big Dennis Miller's on Update. They do the all drug Olympics on this one. They played a game show called Jew, Not a Jew. That's actually pretty funny. They did the girl Watchers thing with Lovetts and Hanks where they're just like, ah, my forehead's just a little too big and all that stuff. Mr. Short term memory Haunts and Friends. Great episode. So this is, I think, the most underrated episode for me. David Alan Grier in 1995. They do the Wake up and Smile sketch where the teleprompter and the morning show breaks and they all kind of turn on each other Lord of the Flies style. It's unbelievable. It's one of the 10 best sketches. So that's on there. Spade does Hollywood Minute. Will Ferrell does a Brian Boitano impersonation. Ted Koppel as doing a Michael Jackson Jack O Backo. David Alan Grier plays Brian Gumball off camera as this real kind of basically like a crazy hood. It's hilarious. And then Norm was on Update, so I'm putting that one on there. You also had Daryl Hammond on that show as Bill Clinton reviewing American president and talking about how much he loved that the the wife died. And then Silver Chair was somehow the musical guest. So you have that William Shatner in 1986. This had star Trek Convention and Altheim Sweeney's Sisters of Christmas TJ Hooker parody. They had the Star Trek 5 restaurant Enterprise. This is one of the top seven shows ever. They did A Wonderful Life parody. Tom Hanks in 1990. Hanks were two of the top seven. For me, this is the one. When Aerosmith came on. Aerosmith was on Wayne's World. Hanks was the groupie doing the Sibilance. Sibilance, Short Term Memory, Tales of Ribaldry, Girl of the Watchers, Millware and Update. Probably the best SNL cast of that era. So I have that. I have Eddie Murphy's comeback show in 2019, which was emotional because nobody ever thought he was going to come back after the show. Made fun of him a couple times. He finally came back. He did all his old characters and it was awesome. Christopher Walken in 1992 where he did Trivial Psychic, Perot and Stockdale. The Continental Stalk Talk. There was a Sinead O'Connor parody. There was a Pat sketch. There was a Hollywood Minute and Jay and Brady and Weekend Update and Arrested Development. So that's my top 10. I also have as honorable mentioned Timberlake in 2006 when he did Dick in a Box and Barry Gibbs show. Lindsay Lohan in 2004 when she was in that famous Debbie Downer sketch. There was also a really funny Harry Potter sketch, sting in 1991, which had the Sinatra Group in it. Some other stuff. Eddie Murphy when he came back to host in 1984. John Goodman in 1998 when this is the episode. They did Neil Diamond Storytellers. But he also played Linda Tripp with Monica Lewinsky. There was a morning latte thing. It's just a really good Episode start to finish. And then Adam Sandler, 2018, when he came back, he played the Farley song, which was, I think, one of the most emotional moments in show history. And then Betty White in 2010, when she came back, was really fun. So for my favorite sketches ever, and these are in no particular order, the Tony Bennett show. The first time Baldwin did this, when he had David Guest and Liza Minnelli on it, lines were crossed. That is still one of the five funniest sketches for me. It makes me laugh so hard. They sing a song together. It's making me laugh thinking about it. The Sinatra Group with Phil Hartman, when there was a parody of the McLaughlin Group and he's got Billy Idol on there and Luther Campbell and he's just killing everybody. I watched this in college with my buddy Jacko, who was my roommate at the time. We watched it on a Sunday morning after we woke up, But I think we watched it five times. And we were talking like Sinatra yelling at Steven Eddie for the rest of the week. Stevie Wonder Experience. I mentioned the Neil Diamond Storytellers. That's the one where Will Ferrell as Neil diamond just going off the rails and being like, this is a song about my hatred of immigrants. Just incredible stuff. Mr. Belvedere Fan Club. This is a fan club for Mr. Belvedere, Tom Hanks hosting, where they're all deciding how to interact with Mr. Belvedere. And it's really about fan obsession, but it's really, really good. Jackie Rogers Jr. Jack Potwad. That's with Martin Short. That was the funniest character he played on there. Dysfunctional family. Dinner with Sarah Michelle Giller. When Will Ferrell with the family's just kind of eating. But then they would yell at each other and calm down. More cowbell. You know that one. Buckwheat gets shot and Buckwheat died. Those two were classics. The first Bear Gibb talk show. I have that one. Debbie Downer at Disney. A classic. Greg the Alien. I think the most underrated Will Ferrell sketch where he's hosting a sports show, but he might be an alien. Star Trek convention with Shatner, when he has all the Star Trek people and he's like, what's wrong with you people? And starts yelling at them. Reagan the mastermind. Phil Hartman as Reagan the referee. Pittman show is one of my most underrated ones. John Goodman as referee Pittman. It's a talk show and all the people in the audience are like, hey, Referee Pittman, how do you shove your head up your ass? Is it like do you have to bend out? And it's just. They're just making referee jokes. Chippendale sketch with Chris Farley. Comedy Killers, which was like Jeopardy. But with comedy killers. And then the. The final answer ends up being the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Incredible, unfrozen caveman lawyer. Dysfunctional family feud. Trivial psychic Farley. The first time he did Matt Foley, Nick Cage and Tiny Elvis wake up and Smile, which I mentioned earlier. Night at the Roxbury with Jim Carrey, which was just unbelievable because they had done the sketch a couple times, and then he came in and just physically was somehow outshone Both of those guys. Election night 2016. I don't have a lot of ones from the last 10 years just because you got age with those. But election night 2016 with Chappelle, when everyone at the party's talking about how this is the worst thing that ever happened, and Chappelle's doing Chappelle stuff. Great. And then Bargazi's Washington dream thing was really good. And they've done two of those. But that was, I think, of the last five years. Probably the. Probably one of the greats. And then the only other one I forgot to mention was the Joe Montana one. Sincere guys do. And Joe Montana is the biggest star in football. And he's on there, and you could hear his thoughts. And his thoughts were, I'm gonna go upstairs and masturbate. And it just was, like, shocking to hear Joe Montana say that. So that would be my episodes. And then just for the hell of it, Musical acts. Best musical performance ever. Stevie Wonder. Overjoyed. Second best. Paul Simon, when he signed the boxer right after 9 11. Really great. Just, I think, one of the best moments in the history of the show with all the New York firefighters standing there and Giuliani. It's really special. Queens of the Stone Age, when they played little sister in 2002 and Farrell came out and did the cowbell. Amazing. You two did. I will follow at the end of an SNL episode in 04 and ended up. They broke the fourth wall and kind of went in the audience. That was amazing. The busboys sang Boys Are Back in town in 1983 right at Eddie's Apex. And Eddie just went out and sang it with them. And it felt like a moment. Run DMC, walk this way, 1986. White Stripes, dead leaves in 2002, which is just like Jack White and Meg White at their feet. Fucking Apex. It's awesome. Billy Joel sang Miami 2017 and 1981. It's really good. Nirvana Teen Spirit, 1992. Blues Brothers, Soul Man, 1978. Really fun to watch, though. Outkast sang Mrs. Jackson in 2002, Pearl Jam, Porch in 1992. You know, I love that. You know, I love Porch and Pearl Jam Hole was awesome. They sang violent in 1994. I would encourage you to find any of these, by the way. Billie Eilish, bad guy 2019, visually was amazing. Ken and Crowe sang around here in 1994, and it was their first song, not their second one, and they crushed it and it basically made them a hit band, which is the power of that show. If you crushed SNL, your albums took off. Sinead O'Connor, last day, 1990. Last day of our acquaintance, 1990. The Prince on that was actually her song, and she's incredible in that. And then two years later comes back and does the Pope thing and almost commits career suicide. Although now I think it's played out better for her. Kendrick in 2014 sang Aye, and it's great. Bowie did the man who Ruled the world in 1979, which was, I think, one of the coolest visual ones. Eminem and Dre Sang still in 1960, in 1999, and it's awesome. And then the last one I would recommend, if you want to go look up any of these, is Stevie Nicks, stand back in 1983, because there's some guy that is dancing during the performance. You'll know it when you see it. It's a moment unlike anything ever in the show. And also it's a really good song. So that's what I got. Those are all my SNL thoughts. I can't wait to watch SNL50. If you want to read what I thought about SNL40, it's in the Grantland Archives, actually, from. From 10 years ago, but that's it. Those are all my thoughts. I word dump them out to you on the pod and on the YouTube. You can watch me actually stumble through this. So there you go. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Rob Mahoney. Thanks to Kyle and Saruti and Gahau as well. Don't forget Prestige TV podcast this weekend. White Lotus Sunday night. Me and Joanna and Mallory are going to be breaking all of it down. New rewatchables coming on Monday. Wayne's World. And that will be the first video podcast on Spotify. Very excited about that. Enjoy the weekend. I will see you on this feed on Sunday night on the Wayside on the Bruce.

[Rob Mahoney]

I don't have to ever come in.