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- [00:00]
Bill Simmons
You're listening to the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. FanDuel has made it easier than ever to see how your bets are doing without even opening the app. Now you can get the latest updates. Follow along in real time directly from your phone's lock screen. Yeah, or Apple Watch. No login required, just head to your My Bets page to turn it on if you don't already have it. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app today to get in on the action. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and help lines available and listen to the end of this episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus in President select states gambling problem. Call win 800 gamble or visit rg-help.com the NFL draft is in four weeks. Don't forget to listen to Todd McShay show or subscribe to his newsletter because he has some great, great, great draft stuff. Check it out. This episode is brought to you by Intuit TurboTax Taxes was waiting and wondering and worrying. It's almost like how in the old days of fantasy football we used to have to tally the scores on a Monday and then the commissioner would just mail them out to everybody and you'd wait three days to see if you won. Those were the old ways of doing it. Now Taxes is matching with a TurboTax Live full service expert who gives your taxes their undivided attention. They can file your taxes as soon as today and while they do, you get real time updates on their progress, meaning you can get back to what's important. The game. Now this is taxes into a TurboTax get an expert now on TurboTax.com we're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network put up a new rewatchables last night it was Good Will Hunting. The episode that we did live in Boston last Thursday at House of Blues. So much fun. You can watch that on The Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. Prestige TV pod. I did White Lotus episode 7 recap 4 for that and that is on the Ringer Dash TV YouTube channel as well as a video podcast on Spotify. We've been putting a ton of video pods up on Spotify, including today's guest, Zach Lowe. We announced late Sunday night that he is going to be joining the Ringer and Spotify. He launched the Zach Lowe show, which you can subscribe to on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. It's going to be a video podcast twice a week, Mondays, Thursdays maybe a couple other stunt special pods episodes during the course of the playoffs. Who knows? Writing is tbd. We talked about that. When he comes on here in a little bit, we want to do a big gimmick for Zach's return pod. He has not done a podcast since I think, beginning of October, something like that. So he had a lot of takes to get off and I had a blast. We went for two hours. It's super fun. Zach Lowe is back. He's here. Coming up first, our friends from Projip. All right, my old friend Zach Lowe is here. He is joining the ringer and Spotify. We're back, baby. We launched the podcast that is called the Zach Lowe Show. It's going to be Monday next week. There's a YouTube channel that's already up and you're going to be doing a bunch of stuff for us. And I couldn't be more excited about it. This is a great week. Great to see you.
- [03:30]
Zach Lowe
It's good to see you too. And yeah, new name, new show, new graphics, new everything. And I've been paying attention to the NBA season as I normally would have. Even though I didn't have a job, I've been watching, probably even more than usual because I've had no other work to do. I've been meeting people in the city when they've coming in. I've traveled to some places, so I've kept my finger on the pulse in preparation for a potential in season return, which is now imminent.
- [03:56]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, I was worried you might just sit out the whole year and we wouldn't get you for the awards, the playoffs, anything. But I think to me, the catalyst was the Luca trade. That was the moment where you were like, oh, my God, I need a platform. Give me a platform right now.
- [04:12]
Zach Lowe
So I was asleep when that happened because I don't have a job. And so I didn't have to be up at 12:30 in the morning or 12:15 in the morning. I woke up the next day and obviously my phone is just, there's a million notifications. And I didn't even look at it. I was like, I guess Jimmy Butler got traded overnight. I guess that finally happened. And then like eight more minutes passed and I looked, I was like, oh, my God. And then I still, I still. I mean, we're going to talk about the Lakers a lot. And I watched their game against the Rockets last night. One of my buddies, Nathan, is a huge Rockets fan. I went over and watched with him. And we're almost two months out and I'm like, I just can't even believe that he's on their team. And having been to a Lakers game recently, like, they can't even believe that he's on their team. It's insane.
- [04:52]
Bill Simmons
No. And it's. I feel the same way every time I watch them. There's three or four moments where I just kind of step out of the watching experience and go, how did this happen? How did we let this happen? How do we let this happen to the Lakers? What were some of the other big things that, you know, you were gone for 4/5 of the season? What were some of the other stuff you wished? Oh man, I wish I had a column or oh man, I wish I had a podcast. I would love to chime in on this. What were some of the big stories?
- [05:20]
Zach Lowe
Well, let's see. I got laid off on a Wednesday. I flew back on a Thursday. I had several friends meet me at my house, along with my wife with alcohol. And two or three drinks into that night, Karl Anthony Towns got traded to the Knicks in what I would rate as a top 10 most interesting trade that has happened in the 15 plus years I've covered the NBA. And we were just laughing at the fortune of what, what timing. Like you don't see a lot of trades of that magnitude right before the season starts. So that was one just, I mean the all time, we'll never have a perfect storm of disaster seasons like we've had in Phoenix, Philadelphia and Dallas. Like it's just incomprehensible how badly all of those things have gone and all in totally different ways. Some self inflicted, others not. And I just think, you know, I'm just looking at the standings to jog my memory. I mean the excellence of the Cavs and the Thunder would have been really fun to talk about all year. And I still, you know, some, some outlets including Spotify, Ringer accepted. I still don't think those teams have been talked enough about enough. I mean the thunder are 63 and 12 with like the greatest net rating in the history of basketball. And I just, you know, so many interesting storylines like, oh, here come the, here comes the Chet Hartenstein combination. How's that going to work? How's Caruso fitting in off the bench, the Cavs and Kenny Atkinson reworking their offense and Donovan Mitchell being sold on a lesser role. And you and me both, we're going to be wrong a lot. One of the things we've both been right on is amid all the maybe Evan Mobley is a bit overhyped. Maybe he's like, he's like, you know, whoever. Bad big man 2.0. I won't name any names. We were like, no, we're like keeping the stock. This guy's going to be awesome. And he's been awesome. And he's been awesome. Not in the way that people necessarily like. The low hanging fruit with him was, well, he's just got to shoot a lot of threes and make more threes. And the Cavs were like, you can shoot some more threes and it would be helpful. But how about we redesign our offense? Enable you as a passer and how about you just beat the hell out of people inside and get super aggressive and physical and it's really worked. And I just, those, those things jump out. Sorry, you asked an open ended question.
- [07:41]
Bill Simmons
No, that was.
- [07:41]
Zach Lowe
I haven't talked into a microphone in a long time. I got a lot of takes.
- [07:45]
Bill Simmons
There was a lot of stuff to work with there. No, I think Mobley and Tatum are in the finals of. Oh, I didn't realize you were kind of a bully deep down. Both of those guys, I think, have asserted themselves in ways that we always wondered, is it in there? And Tatum, who's been awesome, right? He's been one of the top three or four players in the league for most of the decade. Top five, whatever rankings you want to do. But he's in there. He's first team all NBA, multiple times. There was that small piece of like, does he really want to stick it to the other team? Does he want to eviscerate the guy he's going against? Does he want to send a message? Does he want to bully somebody? Does he want to take offense to how he's being defended? And I don't know whether it was, you know, not winning the awards during the, during the championship season last year or what happened in the Olympics, or just age the fact that he's 27. But I personally see a little bit of an edge to him that I don't think was there last year. And I think it's really helped The Celtics team you look at like, I think they're 15 and one in their last 16 playing for nothing. They're the two seed. They've been the two seed forever. But there's an edge to them now and they go on the road. I feel like they have that little swagger that I think you need on a back to back team. I think he's a big reason for it. And then Moby, same thing. Like, just seems like he's not a pushover anymore. Anybody else in that group with those two that dug down and found something that you were surprised by as a.
- [09:10]
Zach Lowe
Team or as individual players?
- [09:11]
Bill Simmons
Individuals.
- [09:16]
Zach Lowe
You're springing this one on me as you do.
- [09:18]
Bill Simmons
Well, you knew, I guess Reeves would be another one. Right. That had a little more in there than maybe we were.
- [09:24]
Zach Lowe
Yeah. I don't want to spoil our are coming talk. Reeves is. Reeves is going to make All Star, an All Star team at some point, if not multiple all star teams. Reeves is very, very good. I've been impressed until, you know, it's been a little rocky the last couple of weeks, but I like at least offensively how Cat has attacked his season in New York. I was a Cade stockholder. I actually think Cade's level of improvement has been maybe a little overblown, but he's been awesome and he's probably going to make an all NBA team this year. That's been fun to watch. And, and I know that you are just. I've. I've listened enough to know that you just enjoy the fact that the Pistons want to fight everybody every night and including a, well, potentially very dangerous one in Minnesota the other night involving all the usual like round up the usual suspects. And. And here we are. So those, those are. Those are some. The fight in Brooklyn Nets were fun for a minute. The Clippers. We're going to talk about the Clippers. If you had told me the Clippers are going to be 43 and 32 in this four team morass for five to eight with Kawhi having played less than half the season and look on a lot of nights like oh, like is this a. Do I. Do I gotta like get back into this again? Like am I going to fall for the. The not fall for it but that like I don't see Ty Lou's name coming up a lot in coach of the Year and, and I think that he at least should be like in the. In the third place, second place talk.
- [10:52]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, well, when I went to that Clipper OKC game last week and I was watching the intensity and the physicality of it and it kind of helped frame where my brain was for the playoffs because I feel like whatever competitiveness I was watching that game and how high level it was, so I left the game and I'm driving home and I'm like how many teams could actually get to that? And it's interesting that the Clippers are one of the teams. Right. We don't know what's going to happen with the West. Like Memphis is still in the middle of the pack in the playoff thing, but they might be the eighth seed by the time we actually finish the season. There's going to be, it's going to be roulette left and right. But I see a team like Minnesota and I think like fundamentally they could get to what I watched in that game, right? Intensity, competitiveness, defense, switching physicality. I think the warriors might be able to get there, as weird as that sounds with how late they've gotten in the season. The question for me is the Lakers because they're big and we went to the Laker game together last week. They're missing a rim protector. LeBron has to rebound, I think a little more than maybe he's ever had as a burden in his career. And same for Luca. Like they're going to have to patch some stuff together, but ultimately it's a pretty physical team in kind of a different way. Do you think they have that in them that when we're talking about intensity, competitiveness, the defense, the banging. We saw it last night, it seems like they do, but I'm a little suspicious just because of how much of the load is on a 40 year old LeBron.
- [12:22]
Zach Lowe
I think that's fair. They're actually, they've actually been outscored with LeBron, Luca and Reaves all on the floor together. And yet by the, and that's mostly because of defense. I think all those guys are bought into the right kind of style on offense. I've talked to some of their coaches about it. They're like very, very excited by some of the off ball stuff, by some of the motion that those guys have bought into. And I do, I do. I mean three to four series is going to be hard for a team with a 40 year old. And once you get by the first round, it's every other day, relentlessly the whole way. But they have a level at least for an isolated period of time. Maybe not six weeks, eight weeks, but I wouldn't count it out either. But they have a level. I'm a believer. Like they're, they're a strange team because they're huge. Like they sometimes play three. They basically start three power forwards in a center. Sometimes when they take the center out, they basically replace him with another power forward. Two of the power forward size guys are two of the five greatest passers in recent, if not all time history of the NBA. Hachimura has been great for them. Vincent has been great in the last month, Finney Smith has been great. Their non center lineups have been been Tough to deal with. And they just have those two nasty Terminator passing chess master dudes at the top of it. Like, I wouldn't want to, they beat the Rockets last night and like I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to play them. I, I would think hard about picking them over essentially any team but the Thunder in the playoffs. And I don't think the Thunder love that matchup either and have not loved that matchup. And by the way, you mentioned LeBron, a lot of concern about, you know, his up and down play since he came back from another injury. Yeah, couple, couple of games where like the double digit streak seemed to be in semi jeopardy for a hot second. Um, I like, all fair, fine. A, he's 40. B, like, remember he guarded Jokic in the playoffs a couple years ago and guarded him pretty well and it was like a six or eight minute stretch and that's like all they could ask of him last night. JJ Redick can go to this 40 year old dude and be like, we just need you to guard Shangun for maybe the entire game. Can you, can you go do it? And he's like, yeah, I'll bang, I'll bang with him the whole game. Like, that's right. Deserves a lot of credit for that.
- [14:37]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. And the thing that jumped out to me seeing them a couple times in person recently is athletically he doesn't. You know, I remember there was a moment with Karl Malone in the early 2000s where he still looked like Karl Malone. His hair was going, but physically he was about as imposing. But athletically there was just some slip and you could feel it, and you could feel that when Jordan was on the Wizards. Now granted, it was a different era. They have way better ways to stay at the top physically now. But you could see like, oh, he's losing this, he's losing that. LeBron will have these moments where it's like, this guy looks athletically as devastating as he was 10 years ago. He had that block last night in the Houston game where he was up and he read it and it was like, it wasn't a chase down block, but it was half court. But he was up in the air. I was like, all right, yeah, I think round one is going to be a little easier for them with all the breaks. Round two is where, round two is to separate the men's from the men from the boys round. And that's where the teams with the bench, like Cleveland and OKC in Boston, it's such an advantage. I mean, just playing every other day.
- [15:40]
Zach Lowe
If one to eight. If, if the play, if the, if the seven and eight seeds come out of this group of Clippers, Minnesota Warriors, Grizzlies that are all jostling for those places, and one of the Dallas, Sacramento, Phoenix brigade of losers does not like, somehow sneak in to one of those spots every round. One series is going to be a battle featuring a team that you could talk yourself into winning other than maybe Memphis, the way Memphis is sliding right now, but they have an upside that's pretty high, too. And by the way, can we just say before we get to it, because I don't know how much time we're going to talk about them, how embarrassing is it that the Phoenix Suns cannot catch for 10th, either the Kings, who can't beat anybody right now, or the Mavericks, who finally got some of their players back but have largely had, like, no players, and the Suns still can't catch them. And I know you and Rosilla have talked about how pathetic they've looked defensively in a lot of games, how disengaged they've looked, but like, these teams are begging, begging to be. These teams have been the equivalent of Eastern Conference play in teams for like a month, which is a horrible insult to levy at any Western Conference team. And the Suns are like, we still can't catch it. We can't catch you. And they've had.
- [16:55]
Bill Simmons
If you kept a list, if the expanded standings, had a list of, wow, you just didn't care tonight, games other than the lottery teams and the teams that are tanking, Phoenix would easily be the number one. I mean, how many.
- [17:09]
Zach Lowe
How. Speaking of that, how many, how many emails did the league send Danny Ainge before they finally had to find the Jazz? The one of the great parlor games of the season has been looking at the Jazz box score every night and being like, all right, so who didn't play? And yesterday it was Walter Kessler, Walker Kessler DNP returned to conditioning. Lowry, Mark. Is Lowry. Markkanen dead? Did. Is John Collins on a beach in, in, in Mexico somewhere? Like, it's so embarrassing. The Jazz have. They're all. The Raptors have been embarrassing for the past month. Like, hey, we're just not gonna play any of our guys in the second half of any close games. The Jazz have been embarrassing the entire year and Phoenix has somehow been more embarrassing than the Jazz relative to expect expectations. Yeah, I got all the takes. I haven't talked to him.
- [17:55]
Bill Simmons
I know you're Fireball.
- [17:56]
Zach Lowe
I haven't been able to make fun of the 26 teams with trade front with trade places with us. Matt Ishby, a statement that's going to be in Springfield one day. That was the best with 26 Euroleague teams. 20, 26.
- [18:12]
Bill Simmons
I think it's been all the teams, even college, G League Europe. Doesn't matter. Yeah, okay.
- [18:19]
Zach Lowe
Sorry.
- [18:20]
Bill Simmons
Phoenix and Philly. I think it's been a really, really crazy, weird season, but I think when you see all of these teams that are either falling apart down the stretch, throwing away second halves, resting guys, or sitting guys out for the season with fake injuries like foot contusion, back, back stiffness, like, we're, we're, we're. We've never been better at fake injuries. This is another case for me that we should be at 70 games. Why do we need this extra month of 12 teams not giving a shit?
- [18:49]
Zach Lowe
How shocked were you when Zion got shut down for the season the other day? Like, just like. Was it the equivalent of the Luca trade level of shock that the Pelicans had to shut down Zion for the season?
- [18:58]
Bill Simmons
I was amazed. He played 30 games and then they had the list of all the games he's played. I mean, when you look at the Zion and Ja, that, that combo and that draft and how few those guys have actually been, how few times those guys have actually been available in games, pretty incredible for how much time we spent talking about that lottery coming up, how important it was, how transformative it could be, and then, you know, neither of those guys could stay in the court.
- [19:23]
Zach Lowe
That's why all the talk about what happened with Taylor Jenkins, you know, what. What happened with Noel Laroche, what happened with Isalo, this Finnish coach that they've hired and now promoted. Why now? Why with nine games left? Well, they're sliding. They can't beat any good teams. Their record against above. 500 teams is terrible. They had expectations, blah, blah. It shouldn't be the sixth paragraph of that, that you mentioned that John Morant just plays half the games and Brandon Clark's injury was a sneaky big blow to their team. He was a big blue guy for them. A lot of their best lineups and like, if you take out your best, if not your, maybe your best bench player, but certainly your best backup big, and your star plays half the games. Like you're. Yeah, you're not going to beat a lot of the above. 500 teams in the Western Conference. It's going to be hard.
- [20:11]
Bill Simmons
And the vibes are off. I think, you know, people have been writing about it, but I think the teams that have been interacting with them and Playing them are kind of like, ah, you know, same thing with Phoenix. You could feel it early on with that Phoenix season. I think to me the Philly thing was not surprising to me at all. I went under on them in the over unders. I didn't like the Paul George signing and was trying to be careful about how I framed it. I thought it was the wrong city for him. I thought it was super risky. I knew why they had to do it but I wasn't surprised how it played out. I'm still stunned by Phoenix and it's one of those things you look back and you're like how did we get this so wrong? Why did we think Budenholzer was going to come in and unleash this awesome offense? And it's been the opposite. Why did we misread the chemistry thing? Why did we discount role players? I still don't have an answer because if you're doing the all NBA exercises, Booker and Durant credential wise are kind of in the mix for a third team. And yet I don't know if I can do it because of how bad that team's been week, week to week to week. I don't have an answer. So you're watching this from home. Are you like what would you have written if you could have written a Sun's piece in January?
- [21:24]
Zach Lowe
Well, I mean that the offense is just fine and fine is it going to be good enough and it's not dynamic enough. It's still not dynamic enough. You know you can go back and look at the transactions that they've made. We don't even need to get into the Durant thing. But just the Ayton, Tumani Kamara who's really good in Portland for Nurkic thing has turned into a disaster. And then you have to salary dump Nurkic and attach more stuff to salary dump him and Beal just doesn't play like Beal still doesn't play enough games to get the offense running at full throttle. And then the defense is, you know, the bottom 10 in defense is basically all the tanking teams in Phoenix and some of their bad defensive games are the mistakes. The non rotations are just suggestive of a team that doesn't care and they have better games than that sometimes. But sometimes it's like no, no one, no one rotated from the weak side. Like no one even seems angry that no one rotated from the weak side. No one gives the my bad for not rotating from the weak side. Just like all right, onto the next one.
- [22:29]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, if you're going 1 to 10. How close knit does a team look when you're watching them in person? And 10 would be any team that Tim Duncan was on where he had his arm around every single player on his team during every timeout and every foul stoppage. And that was just the feel good, we love each other kind of era. That was one of the reasons, like I'll defend Tim Duncan to the death. His team's always had that tightness, that closeness. You could see it when you went to the games and the Suns were like a, a one and a half or a two. I was, I was shocked. They just looked like vessels passing in the night timeouts. Nobody talking, people shooting foul shots, just five guys standing in different things. Like all the check marks of things you don't want. And you know, I think you and I are. I hate using the word defenders, but I think we've been pretty pro. KD and his legacy and how great he's been over the last almost two decades, it gets tough when you look at these last few years. I think it's going to become part of how people remember him that he was on just a series of unhappy teams. He still has a chance to fix it. Maybe this summer, wherever he goes, maybe with after his max. He's already talked about how he'll take a minimum contract to end his career on a good team, but it's not nothing. This has been four years of what's wrong with KD's team.
- [23:47]
Zach Lowe
I don't want to do the Durant thing now, the Durant what if thing. But I will say that I have long been so fascinated with Durant that after the warriors won their second championship and it was largely anticlimactic, the only piece I could think of to write the headline was what does Kevin Durant want? And it was a lot about how he had been unfulfilled by winning the first championship. And I talked to him and I talked to tons of people who had been around him. And literally three nights ago, watching an NBA game with a buddy, asking me, he was asking me about Kevin Durant and I said, man, I don't really want to write a book. It's one of the things I thought about during this time. Not the right time for me, but boy, would I love to write the Kevin Durant book. I just think his career and the fork in the road of the 2016 off season and the reverse engineering you could do the what ifs, all the paths not taken, is just endlessly going to be fascinating because Talent wise and statistics wise, there's like, no question this guy's one of the 10 to 12 best players that has ever played. And there's been nobody like him ever, stylistically. And anyway, that's it. No more. No more kd. Unless we talk about where he's going to get traded.
- [24:57]
Bill Simmons
I think it's fair to. Even though LeBron has the most points ever, I think KD has a legitimate argument for best scoring forward in the history of the league. When you look at, like, the peak years he had, plus the totality of all the seasons, things like that. You mentioned all the what ifs, though. Just one thing, and then we'll move on. The Seattle thing, I think, is a bigger what if than 2016. If that team just stays in Seattle. And that was. I think that should have been a top seven or eight market just from an owner spending money. They had all this money moving in from the tech world that was already there, and that was going to keep getting bigger. And I just think there's this alternate universe where Howard Schultz doesn't sell, the Sonics stay there, and Durant's still in Seattle, and he's the most beloved athlete in the history of the city, or at least since Ken Griffey. But he's in the running for most beloved Seattle athlete ever. And I really think that's a parallel universe that could exist. He never leaves. That team grows together, they spend money, they win titles. And we're discussing him in a completely different way. And I think that's real.
- [26:07]
Zach Lowe
Let me. I live about as far from Seattle as possible in the NBA market, right? The Sonics have not existed for what, 17 years, 18 years now, since 2008. I still have a Sonics conversation with somebody in New York or Connecticut every other week, every month. I see kids who have never were not alive when the Sonics existed, wearing the green and yellow, like just throwback stuff that their parents got. The Sonics matter so much to so many people. And something about that color scheme, the Peyton Kemp teams, the frenetic way they played, has stuck in the collective memory and even, like, outlasted the generation of fans who were there. And obviously we all agree, like, they need to come back in Seattle. The supersonics need to exist again.
- [27:01]
Bill Simmons
Well, it's going to happen, especially after The Celtics got 6 billion-plus, which was the number Adam Silver wanted the whole time I talked about it last summer, they wanted to get to six. Now they can get six for the two expansion teams. I'm not positive who the two teams are going to be. I think it's 100% Vegas and 90% Seattle. We'll see. But I'm really hoping it's Seattle and if it's not one of the expansion teams, I think there's a couple teams that could potentially be franchise movers. We're going to take a break and come back and play. We had to do a gimmick on your return to the pot.
- [27:37]
Zach Lowe
Let's go.
- [27:37]
Bill Simmons
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- [30:28]
Zach Lowe
Yeah.
- [30:28]
Bill Simmons
Cause I watched the whole game. I was really interested in Houston and how they would play the Lakers and what a weird matchup that is and like the amount of athletes they have, could they basically just kind of overrun the Lakers a little? A little like what the Bulls did. The game I went to when the Bulls just tried, basically ran them off the court and the Lakers fell asleep and they let it happen. It was like, well what, what would this look like? What would this look like as they whip all these athletes at the Lakers for two and a half straight hours? And my fear in the back of my head for the Rockets was this is going to be a close game in the last eight minutes and the Lakers are just going to out execute them and I'm not going to love the shots the Rockets took. There's going to be those mismatches. The toughest thing with the Lakers now is you have those three guys and the third guy is Reeves, who is a guy that on most teams I think is now like a 23 to 25 points a game guy who can not only create his own shot, but create shots for other people. And now you're putting your worst defender on him and you're just constantly trying to, it's like whack a mole trying to figure out who do you stop. And the Rockets lost. And I don't think it was an accident. I think if those teams played in the playoff series, that would be the result. What was your take watching it?
- [31:41]
Zach Lowe
Yeah, I mean the Lakers are big team and your little guy Your Fred Van Vliet is either Gauragaard, Reeves, or if Finney Smith's on the floor, maybe Finney Smith instead of Hayes or maybe Hachimura, who got a couple post ups last night in that kind of matchup. You know, the Lakers are running a lot of stuff where Reaves and LeBron will screen for each other away from the ball while Luca has it. And that cutting is what in teams don't want to switch because they don't want to switch a small guy onto LeBron and they have Luka just waiting for whatever pass opens up. And when they don't switch, someone cuts open or there was a miscommunication. I think Finney Smith got a three in the second half last night out of it. They're just hard to beat in a chess match, no matter how athletic you are, because they're big. But the Rockets, like if the Rockets could throw speed plus shooting at them, that's a different kind of equation for the Lakers. It's just speed but not enough shooting, not enough shot making. You saw with the Rockets last night. They still can't decide. Jalen Green's on the bench in the fourth quarter late in the game, presumably their best offensive player. I don't think he is. I think Sengun is. But then there's minutes in the fourth quarter where Shingoon's on the bench for a long time. They're playing Jabari Smith at center. They're not even playing Smith. They're playing five wings. And I'm sitting there thinking like, I think a lot of this offense has just got to run through shangun and. But LeBron, they got a takeaway on an entry pass late in that game. We all saw this coming for the Rockets. It's why they're going to be maybe the most interesting team in the NBA over the playoffs. And depending on what happens in the playoffs, after the playoffs. But I, I don't, I mean, look, I think that would be, that series would be a really, really hard fought series. I probably would. I, I guess I would probably pick the Lake. I haven't thought about it, but I would probably pick the Lakers just based on experience and, and reliability. If they, if they stay healthy, Houston.
- [33:30]
Bill Simmons
Is still the number two. They have a, as we're taping this, they have a one loss, basically a one and a half game lead over Denver. And the Lakers are kind of surging toward them. But the two spot means you're looking at Golden State, Minnesota, the Clippers, unless Memphis drops down there. And I don't I just feel like Houston when I watch them, as good as the record's been and I've enjoyed them and I think they're in the running for League Pass MVPs this year. I feel like they're a year away. They're a move away. And I don't the move probably involves Shangoon or Green, but they're, they, they don't have that. Like I got this guy in offense, which is why the Booker option would have been so interesting for them. I don't know what they do, but don't you think like one year from now I'm really interested to see where they are?
- [34:19]
Zach Lowe
Oh, like, well, first of all, it's funny. I was talking about this with somebody yesterday in the league and it's like, you know, look, we all know that they've kicked around both of the Phoenix stars, right? And I think there's some division internally about the Durant question there. IME Odoka obviously has a history with Durant, really likes him. This person asked me what do the Rockets do if they lose in the first round? Like, and I think the implication was that would make them even hungrier to go for like a big win now trade. I said, well, let's flip it around. What if they win a round and they lose to Denver in seven games, like a really hard fought like I can feel good about this outcome and my implication was does that make you more confident in staying the course? And the scout that I was talking to flipped it around and said, actually it may make you think we're so close that we still should go for the right kind of like all in upgrade and it's just going to be interesting to see how they perform in the playoffs and what the implications of that are. Offensively, I just don't think they're good enough. But you know, defensively, toughness wise, they have everything. And one of my favorite subplots of the whole season has been the Stephen Adams resurgence and the fact that they stumbled into this Adam Shengoon just were I looked at the numbers of that lineup. It's, it was, I think it, I think they're now after last night, plus 103 points in 130 minutes with those two guys on the floor with an offensive rebounding rate that would rank in the hundredth percentile of all lineups and a defensive rebounding rate that would rank in, in the hundredth percentile of all lineups, just beating the hell out of everybody. I don't know if it works. I don't Know how it works. They're just so gigantic across the board. Really interesting team. They've drafted really well. Reed shepherd doesn't play. Cam Whitmore doesn't play. Like they have good guys who don't play.
- [36:10]
Bill Simmons
I know that's kind of the league now. These teams are so deep that you have these dudes who would have been like 6th or 7th men on good playoff teams 10 years ago who get DNPs. I can't believe Adams. Do you know how old he is? He's only 24 years old.
- [36:23]
Zach Lowe
No, he's older. I think he's like 28.
- [36:25]
Bill Simmons
No, he's like 22 years old. No, I don't know.
- [36:29]
Zach Lowe
Oh, you're. I was gonna say which Adams. Am I forgetting it? Adams. I think he's like 28 or 29.
- [36:33]
Bill Simmons
He's been around forever and you just feel like he's a veteran. Oh, he's 31 now.
- [36:39]
Zach Lowe
One of the all time.
- [36:40]
Bill Simmons
Does it feel like he's been in. Okay. He was on OKC like a hundred years ago playing with like perk. And you know Derek Fisher.
- [36:46]
Zach Lowe
Yeah, he's a grizzled. He's a grizzled veteran who was also a grizzly.
- [36:52]
Bill Simmons
Anyway, I don't know what to make of Houston. FanDuel didn't either when they. We. I found these. Cool. They had these odds for making each round. And you can look at it now. Houston, to make the Western finals right now so they'd have to win two rounds is plus 7:70. And they have home court right now as it stands in round one and round two. And fanduel is still like, go ahead, bet at eight to one odds. I bet. I bet it's not going to hit. So I think people agree. And you know, there's this with the veteran teams, Golden State, Lakers and Denver specifically. There's still such a fear factor with them based on what the upside is and you know, the pedigree that I think this is the hardest other than the OKC piece. This is the hardest conference to figure out in a long time. Well, like, who's going to make the Western finals? You could talk me into six teams.
- [37:47]
Zach Lowe
You could. You. It sounds disrespectful to the rockets, who are 49 and 27. Their net rating is plus 5 for 100%, which is very good. Memphis is plus 4.7. Minnesota's plus 4.5. And surging. The Lakers are well below that. They're at just plus 0.8. But they did remake their entire team in the most seismic trade in the history of the NBA. Like not long ago, Denver's + 4.1. That's relatively close. And Denver has the pedigree and the best player. And so, like, don't throw the record out because the record matters. It's going to get them home court in a lot of rounds. It can get them a higher seed and all that, but these teams are not that far apart, particularly the way Minnesota's trending, Denver's trending. We haven't mentioned the warriors are plus 2.7, but they're obviously, I think 18 and 5 since they got Butler, and either Butler or Stephen missed three of those losses. So totally different team there, too. It's. It's just the top eight in the west, if currently. And if that's the playoff field, it's just one really good team after another. Clippers are. Clippers are plus 4.0 net rating. They're not far away either, remarkably.
- [38:53]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. And the Clippers, you know that they have a pretty easy schedule the rest of the way. That's the other thing when I'm looking at this, where it's like they're, they're the eight seed. They play the Pelicans Wednesday. They have back to backs at home against the Mavericks. They play the Spurs Rockets at Sacramento and then at Golden State to finish the season. So I don't know if Kawhi's playing all those games. You know, could they run the slate and get into the four or five spot? It's going to be, it's going to be so much fun to see who plays who. And, you know, I'm obviously, as a, as a longtime Steph guy who just, who just enjoys watching him play basketball, especially in big playoff games. Be fun to see him. Denver, Jokic.
- [39:38]
Zach Lowe
Are there any. Is, Are there any not Steph guys like Steph? It's the opposite of like Waiters Island. And, you know, you were on Re Sachet island. Like, Steph is just like a planet. There's. There's nobody that's not a Steph guy.
- [39:50]
Bill Simmons
What happened with your realtor on Reese's Shea Island? Did you.
- [39:52]
Zach Lowe
Did you. I've liked Recessey all season. I have the, I have the text to Atlanta Hawks officials and coaches to prove it. I'm like, this guy's good. And now he's surging, but he just knows. Look, is he going to be. Is he the guy. Is he the dream number one pick when you win the lottery? No. Maybe that guy's coming this year. Maybe that guy's coming next year. That guy came the year before, et cetera. But it was very clear right away the guy knows how to play basketball, and he's big and he's a decent athlete and he's smart and he does a lot of things pretty well. And now he's coming along. And, you know, you'd have Hawks fans saying, wait a second. You'd have Hawks fans saying, hey, wait a second. Don't give Rookie of the Year to Castle quite yet. Our guy's making a push on a team that actually semi matters this season.
- [40:33]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, I think that's fair. To answer your Steph question, I think there was some. There was some Levon LeBron vs Steph stuff in the late 2010s where the two fan bases got a little frisky about pushing their guy at the expense of the other guy. But it feels like that's done, you know? And I think. I think all of these dudes. LeBron has a different thing because he's battling the ghosts of Kobe and mj. He's in, like, two totally different conversations. Kobe with the Laker fans and then Jordan with everybody else. Curry's like, I just think he's. He's in that place where it's like, yeah, it'd be really cool if we got to watch it. Play Jokic. Same way. Be cool if we got Jokic for a couple rounds. Lakers, hey, we get Luka and LeBron for a couple rounds. No matter how it plays out, it's going to be fun. All right, we're going to do our gimmick.
- [41:21]
Zach Lowe
Let's do it.
- [41:22]
Bill Simmons
Actually, let's take one more break and we'll do the gimmick. This episode is brought to you by VRBO Private Vacation Rentals. With vrbo, you always get the whole house so you and your fellow fans can cheer on your team in peace. What's worse than watching a game with somebody who's not rooting for the same team? You're rooting for nothing. But that's why if you book a vacation house with vrbo, you know all the people in your house, they'll be friends, they'll be family. Ideally, they'll be the ones who also root for my teams. Plan a winning vacation. Make it a vrbove. This episode is brought to you by. Michelob Ultra. Michelob Ultra. A superior light beer and the ultimate trophy. Win or lose, you're bound to enjoy the ride with a good beer in hand. Michelob ultra crisp. Refreshing, only 95 calories. A superior light beer. No matter the game, sport or season superior is worth playing for. So sign up for our ultra courtside@michelobultra.com courtside and you can enjoy some of these games with a nice beer in your hand. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2025 Anheuser Busch Michelob Ultra registered light beer, St. Louis, Missouri. Must be 21 plus to order alcohol. Alcohol available only in select markets. All right, so way back when, and it's been 10 years since we officially worked together, other than doing cameos on each other's pods, but we did the grantline Basketball Hour, a great show with a great set that only lasted 10 episodes. One of the things we did heading into the playoffs was 25 most intriguing players. And I think I made the list and didn't consult you on it. And then we just ripped through it and can I tell it to 25? Yeah.
- [43:02]
Zach Lowe
I have zero memory of that ever happening. I have no. Like, we did a television show and that was the topic and it was. Yeah, I like that.
- [43:08]
Bill Simmons
10 years ago.
- [43:09]
Zach Lowe
I have no. I must have been so frightened to be appearing on television with my bad shoes and my baggy suits back then that I just blocked the whole thing out.
- [43:20]
Bill Simmons
Well, I remember I had to basically bully you to come on the show. I had to bully you into doing a podcast, and I had to bully you into coming on the TV show. You just were like, I just want to write. I just want to. Just want to do my thing. I don't. I don't want any of this. 25 most intriguing players was the gimmick. We are tweaking it this time, borrowing a little bit from Fantasy's movie draft, where it's not really a draft, but it's like categories, and you have to pick one thing for each category. So we created a bunch of categories. We each only get one person in the categories. It's not a 1 through 25, but you can pick the guy you want and put them in the category, and then you get to talk about them, and then that guy is off the board and you can't get a guy.
- [44:03]
Zach Lowe
So I never get to pick. We can't pick a guy for two categories. You cannot.
- [44:06]
Bill Simmons
Okay, now, did I already screw you up?
- [44:09]
Zach Lowe
No, no, no. I'm good.
- [44:10]
Bill Simmons
Okay.
- [44:10]
Zach Lowe
I'm good. I just want clarity. That makes it harder.
- [44:13]
Bill Simmons
Here are the categories in alphabetical order. Apex superstar, Beloved bench guy, Crossroads guy. So that can be. Is he in a postseasons crossroads? Is he in a crossroads in his career? Is he in a crossroads with his team? He's in some sort of crossroads. Defensive stud. Feel good star, hot seat coach, hot seat player, legacy guy. Because, you know, everybody loves a good legacy conversation.
- [44:49]
Zach Lowe
Gotta have it.
- [44:50]
Bill Simmons
Second banana, third banana. The leap trade machine guy and weak link. Did we. Did I put that one in there? I meant to say.
- [45:03]
Zach Lowe
No. That's a surprise. That's a surprise.
- [45:04]
Bill Simmons
Surprise category. Weak link. Weak link as a surprise category. So we're probably gonna have more than 25. I'm gonna give you the first pick on your comeback pod. You can have any player for any category who you've taken.
- [45:17]
Zach Lowe
Any player for any category.
- [45:19]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [45:20]
Zach Lowe
All right. I'm gonna. I'm gonna go second banana and I'm gonna cheat right away and pick two guys, a duo together. If you want to pick it to.
- [45:29]
Bill Simmons
You're already bending the rules. We just started.
- [45:32]
Zach Lowe
Yeah, I'm bending the rules. You can. You can make it one if you want, depending on the two guys I'm going to mention. But I am going to start with Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren as the number two and three guys on the Oklahoma City Thunder. They underperformed against Dallas in last season's playoffs. When the going got tough. They couldn't make enough shots. Check. Couldn't make enough threes. Jalen couldn't just score enough points. The non Shea offense fell apart against the Mavericks. Obviously this is a different team. It's a deeper team. It's a better team. Aaron Wiggins has made a leap. Isaiah Joe is better. The Hartenstein homegren combo is mauling people. They have different optionality. They have Caruso coming off the bench. Shay's better. J. Dubs better. Chad. They're all better. At some point, I think they're number two or number three in offense in the NBA. Shay is likely going to win the mvp having one of the greatest scoring seasons of all time. If you can take care of the ball against them, and I realize nobody can. They are remarkably. I wonder how many teams have done this. They're number one enforcing turnovers on defense and number one in not turning the ball over on offense. It's like they start every game ahead 10, 0 just because of turnovers. But if they run into a low turnover team like the Mavericks with Luka were the entire time Luka was there before they inexplicably traded him. This year. They. They might have a game or two when their offense in the half court comes into some moments of like, huh? Like they're not making threes. Dort. Dort has an over eight game. You know whatever. Even though he shot 40% this season, Shay's on the bench. Like, are those guys ready? All the evidence, like, I picked my. My pick, and I have. I. I haven't had a podcast this year. I picked Celtics over Thunder in the finals at the beginning of the season. That's on Twitter. I have never wavered from that, not for one second. So don't take this as a shot at the Thunder, but there's just going to be a moment where it's game three of a one one series and the offense is, like, a little clogged. And can those guys. Can those pick one of them? Whether it's Chet rolling to the rim as the five or shooting threes or J Dub just running things or whatever, one of them is going to have to have a moment where they rise up, and I think they're ready for it.
- [47:42]
Bill Simmons
I'll allow the combo pick. I don't like that you cheated coming out of the gate, but we'll allow it.
- [47:47]
Zach Lowe
Well, who's the second? Who do you even call the second banana? I guess offensively it's Jalen Williams. Then if you want to take one and we're talking offense, it's Jalen Williams.
- [47:56]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, I think it's a double banana situation. I think. I think you might be right. But it is the thing I worry about with okc, and it's the thing, as I think about the Celtics making the finals and playing them and what.
- [48:10]
Zach Lowe
How.
- [48:10]
Bill Simmons
What they're going to do against OKC and how they're going to try to beat them. I would assume all of it is going to be about making Shay give up the ball, sending multiple guys at him, and making Jalen Williams or Chet play 4 and 3 or Hartenstein. Now the OKC with the Hartenstein piece of it, because he's always been really good at the foul line, and he's always been good in those four and three situations. So when he's out there, it gets tougher. But I still feel like, hey, Jalen Williams, can you beat us? Is going to be a strategy. Well, Chet's a little different because Chet always gets his points in the flow. They're not like, oh, let's run our three Chet plays. But Jalen Williams, they need. They need him to beat guys off the dribble. They need a little pull up from 15ft, and he's really good. But that's a different spotlight. And we haven't seen it. We didn't see it in the NBA Cup. We didn't see it last year in the playoffs. We just haven't seen him do it on a big stage yet.
- [49:01]
Zach Lowe
I'm glad you mentioned the NBA cup because we talked about this in LA. Somebody else mentioned the NBA cup to me 10 days ago and I was like, that, that happened this year. Who won that again? And I'm like, it's a bad sign that someone who lives and breathes the NBA has zero memory. It took me a second, about minute, 30 seconds to remember exactly who was in the final four and what happened. And I don't care at all that the Milwaukee Bucks won the NBA Cup. It does not matter to me. I don't think it really matters to the Bucks. Like, it's just. I don't know how to. It's a. I guess it's cool, the courts are fun, but do you care? I don't care.
- [49:46]
Bill Simmons
I think the problem with the NBA cup is it was cool as it was happening, but now we have two years in the bank and it's meaningless.
- [49:54]
Zach Lowe
Yeah. The playoffs come and you're like, oh, this is the real, the real stuff is about to start.
- [49:58]
Bill Simmons
Like, yeah, the Bucks don't even have remotely the same team anymore. They've, you know, they're, they're keeping their fingers crossed on Kyle Kuzma corner threes. They don't know when Dame's coming back. They're a team that's going in the wrong direction and it doesn't matter that they win the NBA Cup. I don't know how to fix that.
- [50:14]
Zach Lowe
So Chet, Chet Hartenstein, the numbers on those two, which is obviously the mid season curveball they threw at the league when, when Chet finally got healthy after Hartenstein missed the beginning of the season. Plus 15 per 100 possessions. Elite offense, elite defense, elite rebounding. Hartenstein's passing and floater have fit in about as well as could possibly have been expected. And it's just another. It's not a curveball. It's the way they, they start games. And it's worked. It's worked that well. And I just. One of the things I love about the Thunder and I, I wish I'd been at a podcast to talk about it is there's something old school about it. Again, they're your second or third or fourth in offense or whatever. So it's not like they're not an amazing offensive team.
- [50:56]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [50:56]
Zach Lowe
I just love the fact that in this, like, are there too many points? Is scoring too easy? Are there too many threes? The team at the top of the standings is like, you know what? We are going to win first and foremost, because we are a historically great defensive team that is going to take the ball from you a lot of times. And when we're not taking the ball from you, we're going to be all up in your shit, all over the floor. Deflections, steals, physicality, size, everything. And when our offense sputters, that was the old. That was the way the NBA used to be. Like your jumpers comes go, defense travels, defense shows up to every game. And that the Thunder have that element to it. And I love how, how intense they are, how proud they are, how they do not relent at all. And they're betting more than anything else on, hey, yeah. Even if worst case scenario happens to our offense, good luck scoring on us more than we score on you.
- [51:48]
Bill Simmons
It's the nightmare scenario for the Lakers. And I am in the camp of don't get sucked into, oh, the Lakers expertise. Veteran, like two scorers. This is the kind of team, like when I, when I saw OKC on Sunday night play the Clippers and they were missing a couple guys so they had to play Dort and Caruso and Wallace together and it was like, Jesus Christ. This is the most terrifying perimeter defense I've ever seen in my life. Those three together, they have all these looks. I think the Celtics are the same way where the Celtics can because of Porzingis and Horford. And then they can have like the. All of a sudden there's four white guys out there and all of them can shoot. All of a sudden they're playing double bigs. All of a sudden Tatum is playing stretch five. Like they have different looks. But the okc, the wrinkles they have to me are the second biggest reason that you're going to pick them to win the NBA title. If you're going to pick them. And I'm about to give you the number one reason.
- [52:43]
Zach Lowe
All right, so yeah. Do you. How does this draft work? Do you now pick your second banana or do you go to any category, anywhere you want?
- [52:49]
Bill Simmons
I do whatever I want. You just made up these rules 10 minutes ago. I'm going to the apex superstar category.
- [52:56]
Zach Lowe
Okay.
- [52:56]
Bill Simmons
And I'm taking sga.
- [52:59]
Zach Lowe
Oh, good.
- [52:59]
Bill Simmons
Because, you know, we have a week and a half left and Jokic, who's one of my favorite players, non Celtics, probably ever having the best statistical season he's ever had. And I think he's carried a massive load. And at this point, I still think I'm voting for sga. I mean, the odds, it's not. It's not a controversial Pick. The odds are way, way up there for them. But the piece that's interesting to me heading into the playoffs, it isn't just can OKC win the title. It isn't just can Sam Presti who's, you know, done a pretty incredible job for almost two decades here. Is this all going to finally work out? Are we in an 86 Celtics with also having the number two pick in the draft coming up Scenario of holy shit, not only is this the best team in the league, but they also have this asset and all these young players and what the hell are we going to do? They're in that zone. But for SGA there's no zone.
- [53:56]
Zach Lowe
By the way, no one's ever been in their zone. There's never been a team, not with.
- [53:59]
Bill Simmons
This many assets, this good now and.
- [54:01]
Zach Lowe
This set up for the future. I said this a year and a half to two years ago on this on the low post podcast which doesn't exist. They are the best present plus future setup in the history of basketball. And I don't know enough about the history of the other sports to say the history of all professional sports. I just have a hard time believing there's another convincing any the only case.
- [54:20]
Bill Simmons
Is the Celts after they won the 86 title with bias coming for those 48 hours before he tragically died which we covered in Celtic City in episode five. That's the only other thing I could think of where they went 67 and 15. They were 50 and one at home. They had a three time MVP and they were adding somebody who worst case scenario was going to be as good as, you know, in that Barkley Karl Malone thing. That's the only thing I could think of. Here's the case for sga why I took him here. If they win the title and they just kick everybody's ass and they end up finishing, I don't know can they get to what, 69, 70 wins for the season and then the they end up being like an 84, 85, 86 win team which would put them on the short short list with him at the lead. On top of the fact that he's having one of the greatest offensive seasons in the history of the guard position. Like it's, it's up there with any Oscar season. I talked about this a couple weeks ago. Any Jordan season, any Kobe season. Like pick a great guard, he's either doing better than one of their best seasons or he's right there. And then if he just keeps that rolling through the playoffs and we finish mid June and we're like, holy shit. The Thunder just went 86 and 16 and SGA averaged 35 in the playoffs. And this is now Michael Jordan. I think he's the most intriguing guy to me in the whole at in either conference. He has the most at stake.
- [55:47]
Zach Lowe
I had him on my legacy list for essentially all the same reasons. A chance to cement his place in not only the current NBA, but to begin cementing his place in NBA history with a dominant playoff run. And you know, I, I looked up his stats from the MAV series last year and they were way better than I remembered or would have guessed. His scoring carried over into that series and his efficiency carried over into that series. He's not an a, A plus playmaker like some of the other, you know, like Jokic, like Luka, like LeBron. Yeah, but he's B plus, A minus and he's gotten better. And I think that series, the Maverick size, the way they clogged the lane on him, tested his playmaking and I don't think he was quite there yet as a playmaker. And I don't think the Thunder supporting cast and shooters were definitely not quite there yet. I think they're there now and I don't see any reason. I mean people talk about you got to put size on him. This guy's a good matchup for him. You've talked about Tatum trying to guard him or Brown trying to guard him or Anthony Edwards trying to guard him. Like no one has been able to really guard him. And I don't see any reason that the scoring is going to. It might slow down a little bit just because the percentages are preposterous across the board. I think the scoring is going to persist and I think the team around him is more ready and I think he's more. The other parts of his game are more ready and I think he's just unbelievable and I expected him to continue to be unbelievable in the playoffs.
- [57:15]
Bill Simmons
I hate nobody's talking about these guys enough and nobody's giving these guys enough credit. Converse, talk, conversation on talk shows. Because I feel like we've talked about OKC a lot, all over the place. It's just the way the infrastructure is going to go. They're always going to talk about LeBron and the Lakers and the big ass teams a little bit more. Just how it goes. I actually feel like we haven't totally talked about how great SGA is as a scorer. I feel like we're like a couple conversations videos breakdown short because watching it in person and watching all the moves he has and watching the yo yo shit he does and how helpless defenders are against him when they know what he's trying to do and how he can get to the rim and how he uses contact, how every team thinks he's getting all the calls and they're pissed off the whole game. It's just. It's really a master performance.
- [58:10]
Zach Lowe
It's.
- [58:10]
Bill Simmons
He's really great. And I think going against him in a finals is fucking terrifying.
- [58:16]
Zach Lowe
No.
- [58:16]
Bill Simmons
No matter what round, but especially like for the Celtics and they have the perfect team to stop him, right? They have wings with size, they have weight, they have holiday, they have rim protection. With Porzingis, it's everything you'd want. And I still think he'd get 35 a game against them. I don't think it matters.
- [58:32]
Zach Lowe
I mean, I agree. And it's an art. What he does is art. It's beautiful to watch. It's unstoppable. The level of space he creates when you don't even realize that he's about to create it is just. He'll have five feet of open space and you're like, wait, did he even do a hard jab step? Like what move was that? That got that?
- [58:54]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, they were guarding him at mid court.
- [58:55]
Zach Lowe
How did he. People are so afraid of him getting by them because he has a top gear that he doesn't use much. Because he doesn' he doesn't have to use it much. That he just a little glance forward guys are like jumping back and he's just pulling up for these wide open 18 footers. And I think the reason, you know, people in the MVP argument, which thankfully I have not had to be a part of this year and hasn't been so ugly like it was the last couple years either. You know, people will point to the defense and say, you know, SGA is a plus defender. Jokic is not. And I think that's largely been true this year. Jokic is rebounding and just positional smarts and hands at a position where defense really matters I think is a little bit underrated. But to me the difference has been teams game plan to attack Jokic. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it doesn't. The Nuggets are 20th in defense is not good enough this year. We'll see if it tightens up in the playoffs. Teams can game plan to attack Shay too, because there's just no one else to attack on Oklahoma City. He's kind of like their Curry in that way. A better defense player obviously than Curry ever was, but there Was just. Curry was the weak link because every other link was as solid as a link could get on those peak Warrior teams. And the Thunder aren't worried about it. Like, he, he's big. He's stronger than you think. He blocks sh. He has more blocks and steals than Jokic combined. And it's not close. And they are ideally positioned around him to tilt the floor toward him if he needs any help. But they, they're not. They don't have to sit in coaches meetings and think, boy, what do we do when this team puts Shay in the pick and roll? Or when this guy targets Shay? Sure, when Luka has him, it's going to be, you know, the size advantage is what it is. But they don't have to sit there and think that hard about, oh, we gotta, we gotta scrap everything we're doing defensively because they're gonna go at Shay this way or that way.
- [60:42]
Bill Simmons
Right. It's so funny how it's evolved. Cause when I was going to see him as a rookie on the Clippers and it was like, ah, this guy's kind of rondo. Yeah. I could see him like, you know, elite defensive player and a good playmaker. Like, he's really interesting player. He's definitely going to be really good. But this is like, he's one of the best guards I've ever seen in person, ever. I don't, I don't know how long that list is, and I'll probably have to figure it out at some point, but it's. It's on the short list of the, the best, most impactful guys. Like the Clipper game I went to Sunday. He couldn't buy a shot. Just was one of those. The ball was rolling around the rim, the ball was hit in the back, like he was getting all the shots he wanted. They just weren't going in. And it was kind of shocking to watch. I was like, oh, my God, Shay's not getting bounces. He always gets bounces. Anyway. All right, we're on a slow pace. We've only done two. What's your next guy?
- [61:36]
Zach Lowe
All right, I'm going to go. In the interest of leaving you some of the categories that are.
- [61:43]
Bill Simmons
You don't have to leave me anything. You just try to destroy me like OKC is going to try to destroy the Lakers.
- [61:48]
Zach Lowe
I didn't know we were actually building a team. I, I was. I, I feel like this guy qualifies as either one of the bananas, but I'll take him in the leap category. On the other number one seed Evan Mobley in the playoffs. I just can't wait to see how this Cavs team looks in the playoffs on both ends of the floor. I think their offense is number one with a bullet. Mitchell has done enough in the playoffs. He's had a couple dud playoff series but he's also had a couple like three or four. Oh my God. Playoff series. So like I trust him Garland. I trust, I trust the offense largely despite the spacing concerns, it's still, you know, theoretically exists playing two big guys together defensively. I'm, I'm very interested to see depending on the matchups and if they do get to Boston, how they match up in some of those series and where Mobley is on the floor and how, how does he have to guard Tatum? Does he guard Brown? He's guarded all these guys here and there, but how do they utilize him? But I think the Evan Mobley thing is, I mean even against the Celtics last year when Jalen Jared Allen got hurt, he played center and all of a sudden everyone's like oh he's got to play center. This is, he looked amazing rolling to the rim and dunking and he looks amazing now with the big to big passing with the cutting with just oh, you're going to put a wing on me. I'm just going to dribble from 18ft out and beat the hell out of him and hit a hook shot. I, I, I just, I, I would have him in Penn on second team all NBA. I actually thought about him for the fifth spot on first team all NBA. When Mitchell started slumping a little bit, I think Mitchell has now popped out of that slump and reclaimed that spot. But that's how good you know and I heard you and Rosillo talking about whether Anthony Edwards was coming for that spot. And I was saying like I think actually Mobley, given he's averaging 21 a game, what he does on defense, what he does as a playmaker has a case to be at least in that discussion. But I have him in Penn second team all NBA. And all that said, we've seen what happens to this team's offense in the playoffs. It's a totally different offense. New coach Garland's healthy. That was the most undersold thing in dumb NBA conversations going into the season is people just not remembering what a miserable season Darius Garland had health wise last season and what a difference a healthy Darius Garland was going to make. But there's going to be moments where the floor gets tight and a team really challenges them to does your like all your little fancy cutting stuff, which I think they've actually done a little less of lately when I've watched them all that's going to be scouted. We're going to be totally dialed in on that. It's going to get harder and it's going to get harder in ways that test Evan Mobley and this team reasonably now has championship expectations that don't ride only on him. But I think he is the biggest swing factor along with their, you know, how are they going to defend these big wings when they run into them? Like is Max Stru really the guy? Is DeAndre Hunter really the guy that DeAndre by the way, did DeAndre Hunter lineup like Hunter in Streuss's place and the other four starters has only played like 30 minutes. I'm actually surprised how little they've used that lineup.
- [64:51]
Bill Simmons
Think they're saving it?
- [64:53]
Zach Lowe
I don't know. I just think they like they've been.
- [64:55]
Bill Simmons
Number one seed for like a month. I don't really understand why their defense went sideways. I'm with you on Moby. There's going to be. I think he's their most important guy in a Celtic series. More important than Mitchell, anyone else they have. And there's going to be two or three times in that series where he has an open three in the last four minutes of a game they need. And I'm not sure if it's going to go in or not. And it might and it might not. But that's going to be the thing. If he's. If he's hitting threes and doing all the other stuff and looking like late 90s kg on top of the three point thing, then that, then they could win the title. That there's no question.
- [65:29]
Zach Lowe
Is he, is he defensive? Is he defensive player of the year? I can't decide. I don't have a ballot because I gave mine up last year and even if I wanted to get it back, I don't think they give them to unemployed people.
- [65:39]
Bill Simmons
But you're employed.
- [65:41]
Zach Lowe
But now I am.
- [65:42]
Bill Simmons
But we'll get you a ballot.
- [65:44]
Zach Lowe
I can't. I'm starting to buy into the Draymond self created hype for defensive player of the year because he has been spectacular the entire year. Jaren Jackson Jr. Has missed some games and still gets into foul trouble like once every three games. They just have to take him out constantly because he's in foul trouble. And obviously Wemby, Wemby is not eligible.
- [66:03]
Bill Simmons
You know, I'm going to continue that conversation with my next pick. Cause I have some thoughts.
- [66:10]
Zach Lowe
Okay.
- [66:11]
Bill Simmons
I'm going to grab in the defensive stud category.
- [66:15]
Zach Lowe
Okay.
- [66:15]
Bill Simmons
Lou Dort.
- [66:17]
Zach Lowe
Wow. Okay.
- [66:21]
Bill Simmons
I haven't done all my defensive player of the year work and I'm not going to say I think it should be this guy. I really want to like study it because I think it's really interesting that there's no clear cut guy. I'll just say this. Lou Dort is the best defensive player I've watched this season in multiple games. And I've been shocked by some of the shit he's done. I don't.
- [66:42]
Zach Lowe
I think it's possible he's never made an all defense team. And if that's the case, that's going to change this year.
- [66:47]
Bill Simmons
I. What he did to Jalen Brown in the game in Boston was like startling. Like. And you know, we were arguing on Sunday's pot about how tall he is because I was watching him stand next to other dudes and I swear he looks like he's six two, Maybe he's like six three, whatever he is, but he guards everybody. And the thing with him that, you know, how good of a defensive player he is is like people get actively bummed out when he's on them. Like he, like he had a game, I think a week or two weeks ago when he just was like, I'm just going to take out Desmond Bain today. And Desmond Bain went 1 for 12. He destroyed Brown in the Boston game. I went to that Clipper game and he could guard everybody in the Clippers. I've been to two KC OKC Clipper games where Hardens just has this look like this is the worst two and a half hours of my life. All these dudes, but especially Dort. And I just think, right, I know Daniels has been amazing and, you know, so good. The hands, the steel, absolutely incredible Poke checks, the athleticism. He's won games with his defense.
- [67:50]
Zach Lowe
I think I'd have him as a most improved player. By the way, I know all the smart money is on Cade. I think considering expectations and expectations and prior track record, I don't think anyone's made a bigger leap than Dyson Daniels. I mean, it's not surprising when he scores 20 points in a game and also does what he does. Dort is a great pick.
- [68:13]
Bill Simmons
Wait, can I say one thing on Daniels? Yeah. Because I completely agree and obviously not allowed to bet on the awards. I always want to mention that, but I always look to see, am I missing something? Like, Dort was 26 to 1 last week and I'm Like, I haven't done all my work yet, but if you just put a gun in my head right now and said, pick a defensive player of the year, I think I'd pick Dort. Cause he was the best defender I've seen. I felt the same way about Daniels. I thought he was going to be favored for most improved player. But it's Cade and Daniels is plus 110. I'm not shocked that Cade's better. He was the number one pick in the draft and he's has a better coach. And whatever Daniels was, you know, thrown into the Dejounte Murray trade, basically, you know, he was one of the prizes. But it wasn't like, oh my God, they traded Dyson Daniels. It was like, I don't know what that guy is. And now you watch him and he's like an absolute keeper. And I don't know why he wouldn't be the most improved player of the year. I don't get it.
- [69:11]
Zach Lowe
So the incredible thing about Oklahoma City's defense is Dort is going to be their all defense representative. I actually think I would have Jalen Williams on as well. I think I would have two Thunder players on as well.
- [69:24]
Bill Simmons
They missed him that Clipper game. I went to not having him on Kawhi, you could feel the difference because that 6, 8 type of guy, you.
- [69:31]
Zach Lowe
Can look at a lot of the metrics who will. And the metrics will tell you the Thunder have three better defensive players on their roster than those two guys. And none of the three, Hartenstein, Holmgren and Caruso are eligible for awards because of games played, admittance played. But the statistics scream out that those guys would be in this conversation too. And it's like, oh my God, how many.
- [69:53]
Bill Simmons
You mentioned Wallace and Wallace.
- [69:55]
Zach Lowe
Wallace, yeah, Wallace is another one. Wallace is like he and Jalen Williams. You don't see a lot of guys who will just. I'm just going to swipe at the ball constantly because I can do it without fouling you. And they just, when they're in the mood or whatever, they're just like, I'm going to go for every, every time you dribble the ball, I'm going to try to get the ball from you. And it's unnerving.
- [70:19]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, it's. This is why, you know, sometimes this happens, we have to pick a player. And it's probably not Lou Dort, but whatever OKC is doing defensively, it almost needs like, you need like a defensive players of the year award just to capture the fucking havoc. And they start immediately and the teams, you can see it in their faces. Really, like, oh, my God, this really. You're going to defend me 90ft? Yeah, we are actually. We're going to make your life miserable for two and a half hours. And then Wallace is going to go out and Caruso is going to come in. Oh, hey, how about we're going to throw some blue door down you. That team's a nightmare. Make your next pick.
- [70:55]
Zach Lowe
Okay, I'm going to go. I'm going to go. Crossroads player.
- [71:03]
Bill Simmons
Okay.
- [71:05]
Zach Lowe
And I'm going to go with Karl Anthony Towns.
- [71:07]
Bill Simmons
Ah, he was on my list now to some degree.
- [71:11]
Zach Lowe
I think Towns crossed the crossroads, so to speak. Did he last year in the Denver series. And I even wrote about it on ESPN about, you know, all of a sudden the turnovers were down, the fouls were down. There was a calmness and a steadiness to his game that combined with his shot making were like, okay, this is the guy that we've seen in the regular season and this is the guy we've been waiting for. He guarded Durant really well considering the sort of stylistic differences between them in the first round when Minnesota beat the hell out of Phoenix, despite Phoenix having a roster that only three teams in the NBA wouldn't trade for or wouldn't trade with, according to Matt Ishbia.
- [71:54]
Bill Simmons
You love that.
- [71:55]
Zach Lowe
I do. And then he sputtered again against the Mavs in the conference finals. Then he averaged 19 points, he shot poorly. And then he gets traded in this just massive, total shift of his life from. He found a way to thrive next to a real behemoth center and Rudy Gobert who could do all the dirty work on defense around the rim that he's not very good at. And now he is a almost a full time center now for the Knicks, who are living the benefits of that on offense and feeling the pain of it on defense. And Mitchell Robinson just hasn't played enough minutes yet that we can see sort of how that pairing works. And I'm actually surprised Tibbs has not used it much, even when Mitchell Robinson's been available for 15, 18 minutes a game. I thought we'd see more of it just to see can we replicate some of what happened in Minnesota, even if that means like a little bit less of one of the core wing guys who have all been good to great for the Knicks this year. Brunson's got to get healthy. We all know that the team is dead in the water without him. They're a spectacular offensive team in Brunson's absence You've talked a lot about this. I've talked a lot about this with people behind the scenes this year. They weren't using bridges enough. You don't trade all that stuff for bridges if you're not going to lean into him as a secondary ball handler. Even when he's the third, fourth or fifth best guy on the floor. He has that skill set that you should swing the ball for him to do. Hey, do a inverted McKill bridges. Jalen Brunson Pick and roll. Swing into a McKill bridges. Towns pick and roll. Just involve him more now. They've had to. He's thrived.
- [73:32]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. Who could have believed that a guy who used to average 23, 24 a game would actually know what to do if you ran a play for him?
- [73:38]
Zach Lowe
And he's even gotten to the free throw line a little bit. He's averaging like three and a half, three free throws a game since Brunson went out, which feels like an avalanche compared to the hero he was averaging before that. But I do think they've been almost written off. I think is a real threat to Cleveland. Boston is a different story. Boston is a nightmare matchup for them. I think the Knicks are better than I have. I'm higher on this team than consensus. Despite the obvious limitations of Towns in the middle. I think they were the biggest threat to Boston last season. Obviously they've completely remade their team since then. Now they might have a very interesting first round. They will have a very interesting first round series either against an upstart Pistons team or maybe even the remnants of the Bucks.
- [74:26]
Bill Simmons
The remnants of the Bucks.
- [74:27]
Zach Lowe
I think there's a great team in here somewhere, even as is. And a lot of that has to do with Towns finding a way to still contribute on offense. When teams do what they're going to do, which is put wings on him and put their centers on Josh Hart. And his production in those scenarios has been uneven. And just can he do enough defensively to survive with all the help around him? You could argue he. He crossed the crossroads last year. He kind of did. But this is a new team, new setting new expectations as good or better, I think, than the Minnesota team he was on last year. And I just, you know, let's. Let's see how it looks. And is the Robinson thing still a wild card that we could see a little bit more of in the playoffs or is that. Is it just too late for that? I'm curious about that too.
- [75:16]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. I'm not banking on Mitchell Robinson.
- [75:18]
Zach Lowe
No, you can't.
- [75:20]
Bill Simmons
Celtics are a nightmare matchup for Towns. There's so many different ways that was the opening game.
- [75:26]
Zach Lowe
Wasn't. That wasn't that opening night. And it was just like, this is a. The Celtics. I think it was opening night. And Missoula came out with a game plan that was like game one of a playoff series between the Celtics and the Knicks. Just let's exploit every advantage we have, including overtowns.
- [75:39]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. It's been interesting because there's been some Celtic games where they haven't wanted to tip anything at all. And then there's been other games when they've tried to send a message, and that was one of the messages. I like the Towns pick. I don't really know what he is, but this is going to be the best version ever of it. Right? He's never going to be better than he is this year. He's never going to be in a better situation as a stretch five slash, flimsy rim protector on a really good team. So we'll see. I. I actually have been shocked by how well that trade worked out. I think if you had told me what's going to be a disaster, Paul George on the Sixers or Towns on the Knicks and had like a betting line on it, I would have said -160 Paul George. But I think there would have been some Towns action.
- [76:24]
Zach Lowe
You think it's surprising that it was so it got to. Paul George has to cancel his podcast. It's so bad levels of disaster.
- [76:31]
Bill Simmons
What are we going to do with that podcast piece? All right. Well, man, there's a lot of good picks left. Let's. Let's go legacy guy for my next pick.
- [76:49]
Zach Lowe
Okay.
- [76:53]
Bill Simmons
And some good legacies on the line.
- [76:55]
Zach Lowe
Here on the line.
- [76:57]
Bill Simmons
Some good legacies on the line. There's going to be a lot of legacy talk.
- [77:00]
Zach Lowe
If he doesn't show up in the playoffs, his legacy is tarnished forever.
- [77:05]
Bill Simmons
This is it. He has to come through tonight. I think the Tatum legacy case is by far the most interesting of all the legacies, except for the Laker guys, and I don't want to take the Laker guys. I'll. I'll leave them to you. The Tatum thing coming back from last year where he doesn't win either award, and then he goes to the Olympics, misses the first two practices, just had a kid, ends up not playing, buried on the bench. And then his transformation this year, and if he actually comes through it with a much tougher playoff competition this year and becomes the guy that we've been watching the last couple months. I think there's a real edge to him. I've been so impressed. Look, I know the Celtics have been locked in two seed forever. I've been so impressed with how they've looked the last month or so. And I know when teams get locked into playoff spots they have a tendency to drift one way or another. Or you could have a tendency to overreact to what you're seeing. I'm seeing a really mentally tough team. And I think Missoula is fanatical about this whole season, about what it's like to defend a title, what it takes, what kind of mental edge you need, how you have to have a bullseye, how you have to have a chip on your shoulder. I think he's been motivated them a lot. I think he's been really challenging them. And Tatum has been the guy that he's challenged the most and Tatum does the most. And now he's in a situation where if they win the title, this is no one A1B situation anymore. He's the best guy in this team and he's one of the best three to four guys in the league. And if they win the title, did.
- [78:41]
Zach Lowe
You waver from he's the best guy on the team at any point. I know Jaylen Brown won finals.
- [78:44]
Bill Simmons
I'm just saying There was like one A1B stuff last year with those guys. They were a pairing. They're not really a pairing anymore. He's the best guy in the team and if he rips through and they win back to back and he's by far the best guy now, it's a different conversation about where he is career wise, where he is historically, people start looking at his decade, the all NBAs, all the playoffs and there's some real, there's some real great stuff sitting for him now. So I just wanted to, just wanted to capture the moment there.
- [79:13]
Zach Lowe
Zach, he was number one on my legacy on my list of guys to potentially take for this category. Just because if you are the best player and you win finals MVP and you break the no repeat streak that the NBA is in right now and you do it emphatically, you become a two time champion, a back to back champion on the Boston Celtics, I think you catapult up into different historical kinds of conversations. I think he's going to get there anyway because he's still so. He's right in the meat of his prime of his career. He has so many years left. His career numbers if he stays healthy are going to be outrageous across the board. He's Just become a better all around player year to year, every year, in every possible way. Six assists a game this season, his career, his defense is always good. You never have to ask Jayson Tatum to play hard on defense, to play smart on defense, to take tough matchups, to guard up in size, to do whatever the team needs him to do. He's just an awesome player. And you know, you don't win the title without being mentally tough. They are mentally tough. I think there's been periods of this season where their offense is. Has not. I mean, Ryan, I've heard him call it hunt happy. Where they just kind of settle into old patterns and the patterns are effective, but you feel them just sort of just settling for the sake of settling. When they don't do that, when they mix in the hunting of the small guys, which if they get a Halliburton or a Garland or whoever is going to be a huge part of every brunson of every series that they could possibly be in a dame if, knock on wood, dame can get healthy. When they mix that in with, don't forget you have a pick and pop, big man. Don't forget we have all these other off ball actions that we can run. They become very, very hard to guard. And he's at the apex of all that.
- [81:03]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, there's a strength thing with him. Remember like LeBron in the late 2000s when we were like, he's gotta get stronger, he's gotta start posting up people, he's gotta be more physical. And then there was some moment probably when he got to Cleveland again after the Miami thing where all of a sudden physically he just seemed imposing and you could feel it and you could feel the shift. And it's like, you can't guard LeBron with that guy anymore. A little of that's happening with Tatum. When they try to put smaller guys on him. He just is bullying people and he's really strong now. I've been really impressed. I think he's. I think he's checked every box for me. I was worried last summer, you know, his three point shot was going sideways. He's benched in the Olympics. I was like, oh my God, where's this going? And instead it went the best possible way. What's your next pick?
- [81:49]
Zach Lowe
All right, someone's got to do it. I'll just go to the trade machine category now.
- [81:55]
Bill Simmons
I'd love. Someone's got you.
- [81:57]
Zach Lowe
Someone's got to do it.
- [81:58]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [82:01]
Zach Lowe
Haven't talked about Giannis yet. Let's talk about Giannis.
- [82:03]
Bill Simmons
Oh, oh. I Thought you were going someone else. Jesus.
- [82:07]
Zach Lowe
No, I mean, we can do the Durant thing. We can do the. What does Boston do with its payroll thing going forward?
- [82:13]
Bill Simmons
Plenty of time for that.
- [82:14]
Zach Lowe
Like, that's all fun. That's. We've all done that stuff. The Bucks just exist right now in this purgatory of. I think even with Dame, even with Portis coming back, even with Kuzma integrated into the lineup, it just felt like with just. Just not good enough. And.
- [82:35]
Bill Simmons
And he's putting up 30, 12 and six every game, and it was like, what did I just watch?
- [82:40]
Zach Lowe
And I'm a Damian Lillard true believer. He's been on my MVP ballot multiple times when I've had an MVP ballot, on average, higher than. Other than he was in sort of the aggregate voting in those seasons. I think he's one of the greatest leaders the NBA has had in a long time. I'm surprised when I look at his stats from this year and I see how good they are, because I haven't felt that level of terror and impact from him as consistently as the stats would suggest. And maybe that's just me unfairly. Not unfairly. Maybe that's just my brain watching the Bucks and being like, there's just too much. You know, there's just too much Kyle Kuzma happening. There's too, like, Taurean Prince has been awesome. Just too much Torian Prince happening. They're too dependent on Brook Lopez being awesome. They're just. They aren't good enough, I don't think. And I don't think they've been. There's no evidence that they're good enough other than you just don't want to see Giannis ever in a playoff series. And if it just. If it just ends up that they aren't good enough, you know, and right now they're sixth. And so I think that would manifest in Dame. No Dame. Whatever it ends up being, they just lose. They lose to the Knicks in six games. They don't have home. The Knicks have been better than them all year. Whatever. I don't. I'd have to look deeper into that series, about what the matchups would be and who would guard Giannis and who Giannis would guard and who would guard towns. Giannis would probably guard towns a lot. All that, you know, they don't really have a lot of pathways to just revamp the team completely in a way that makes sense. We've tiptoed around this territory two or three separate times in the last five years and never gotten there. I is. I don't know. I don't know what else to say other than a lot of the eyes of the league are going to be on the Bucks again if they flame out in the first round. I even saw there was a, I think a New York Post story I saw linked on Netflix.
- [84:30]
Bill Simmons
It started. I didn't think it would be to the playoffs when it started.
- [84:33]
Zach Lowe
I mean we're already talking about Brooklyn. It's plan A. I thought I brought. I thought Brooklyn's plan A was suck for two straight years and. But they couldn't even execute that plan well enough this year at least lottery wise.
- [84:44]
Bill Simmons
I'm not accepting any. You know, if I have to dust off Picasso the trade machine territory, I will. But I'm not ready to talk about the honest future in detail yet because that's. I don't want to spoil our June podcast.
- [84:57]
Zach Lowe
Okay.
- [84:57]
Bill Simmons
But I, but. I have two buts. But Houston has to be the first team if we're going to start making a fake Yanis trade.
- [85:05]
Zach Lowe
Well, I look, I could have done. Houston has been first.
- [85:07]
Bill Simmons
Houston has to be the first team.
- [85:09]
Zach Lowe
Like I said, I could have done Durant. Everyone knows Durant's getting traded this summer. I could have done Porzingis Holiday. However, the Celtics, if they, if they don't win the title and or they decide we just can't be this expensive what they do. But you know, those are easy. Why not get a little dicey?
- [85:24]
Bill Simmons
Well, that leads to my second but and here's why I think I completely agree with this pick and why you went there. If you're a Knicks fan and I know a bunch of them, you're not that scared of the Bucks. And they have Giannis in the middle of another awesome Giannis season and people are like I would you rather play the Pistons, Pacers or Bucks? Is a real combo we're having. I think giannis could average 40 and 20 in that series and they would still lose in five or six. I don't think it would matter. I just think they're beating the, they're beating the Bucks. And if you're Giannis, you're at the point of your career. I don't know what's important to him. He keeps it close to the vest. But is this just going to be with the rest of his career? Is like I don't feel bad for him because they traded a shitload of stuff for day.
- [86:04]
Zach Lowe
They won a championship. He's a.
- [86:06]
Bill Simmons
And they won a championship.
- [86:07]
Zach Lowe
Yeah.
- [86:07]
Bill Simmons
So this is sometimes the price when you give up that many draft picks, eventually you gotta come pay the bill at dinner. And then they're paying the bill.
- [86:14]
Zach Lowe
I hate to say it, the AJ Johnson kid in Washington who got tossed into that Kuzma trade with Chris Middleton?
- [86:22]
Bill Simmons
Oh, he bought some stock.
- [86:23]
Zach Lowe
He's got something, man. Like people, the draft, Knicks all were like, this dude is a monster athlete. He's got something. And now he gets to play. Because if you're on the Wizards roster and you're healthy, you now get to play. Yeah, and he's got some stuff. It's not quite Quentin Grimes level regret. Just throw that on top of the Luca trade. Grimes had 40. What now again? But there's something there.
- [86:46]
Bill Simmons
All right, one more break and then we'll rip through the end of this this episode is brought to you by Nissan if you're planning on an adventurous 2025, you're gonna need a car that can keep up with you and conquer anything in your path. The Nissan Armada Pro 4X is that car with a twin turbo V6 engine, ready to propel your adventures. Up to 8,500 pounds of towing capacity to haul all your favorite toys and space for eight passengers. This unshakable fortress will chew up and spit out anything you throw at it. Learn more at the all new 2025 Nissan Armada at nissanusa.com Towing capacity varies by configuration. See Nissan Towing Guide and Owner's Manual for additional information. Always secure Cargo this episode is brought to you by LinkedIn. During the season, every baseball team plays 162 games. It's a true test of endurance. It's not enough to have a hot month or two. You need sustained dominance throughout. Well, the same is true for your small business. It's not enough to have a great Q2 or even a great year. You want year over year growth that starts with better hires that'll be there for the long haul. To find Those hires, use LinkedIn. LinkedIn has strong hiring data and insights that you won't find anywhere else to help pair you with the best candidates, from unique skills and interests to the connections you have in common. Based on LinkedIn data, 72% of small businesses say that LinkedIn helps them find high quality talent. LinkedIn also lets you go beyond people who are actively applying in a given week. 171 million LinkedIn members aren't actively seeking jobs, but they are open to new opportunities. That's a big pool to miss out on. If you're not hiring with LinkedIn. Find your next great hire on LinkedIn. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com Simmons that's LinkedIn.com Simmons to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by max. The Emmy Award winning series Hacks returns this April. The new season follows Deborah Vance making a move from her Vegas residency to Hollywood showbiz, and tensions rise as Deborah and Ava try to get their late night show off the ground and make history while doing it. Starring Gene Smart and Hannah EinBinder, Hack Season 4 is streaming Thursday, April 10, exclusively on Max. And don't forget to check out the official Hacks podcast on Spotify. All right, since you picked the trade machine guy and Giannis, which I thought was a fantastic pick, I gotta grab the other guy who has to be considered here. John Morant. Watching Memphis last night, the stuff that's been leaking out from there the past week, the fact that he doesn't play, the fact that the Grizzlies now feel like 2022 is about 11 years ago. I just don't know where this goes for him physically. It already seems like he's starting to break down a little bit. There's some questions about what's going on with his knees, his shoulder, is he a winning player? And I just would love to be in the room if Memphis and Charlotte got on the phone and started talking about John Lamelo.
- [89:46]
Zach Lowe
Oh my gosh, I would just love.
- [89:47]
Bill Simmons
To be the third party for that conversation. Now the Memphis fans are going to get mad and the Charlotte fans are going to probably get mad too, but I would love to be in the room if that conversation is broached and then they both went into separate conference rooms. And I'd love to be in both of those rooms at the same time as they batted around what made sense and what didn't make sense. But I, I just find it hard to believe that he is not going to, I don't want to say shop be shopped, but I don't think they're hanging up.
- [90:18]
Zach Lowe
Well, when Zach Kleiman, the Grizz gm, came out a couple weeks ago and said in, in almost needlessly strong terms, like we're not trading John Moran, like you can there. He made some statement about like it's cool that the, it's fun that the inside people want to speculate about we're not trading John Moran, I was like, I must have, I mean, I know I haven't been fully employed this year, but I must have missed the parade of people like knocking on the door to trade four first round picks for John Moran maybe for a guy making.
- [90:46]
Bill Simmons
A max who doesn't play, I'm sure.
- [90:48]
Zach Lowe
There are teams that would give up a lot of stuff for him, but I don't, you know, like he hasn't played enough. And I think one of the under discussed stories of the season before the grizzly season went off the rails was he just hasn't looked like the same guy in the ways that he has to be consistently excellent at to be a number one guy on a great team. He's not finishing in the paint the same. His turnovers are up. He looks wild and out of control sometimes and he's always played with a certain wildness. But he could compensate with it. He could compensate for it with just. I'm such an incredible athlete that I'll make something out of this crowded, crazy situation. And more often than not, compared to before, he's not making anything productive out of it. And look, the jump shot has always been a question mark. He's shooting under 30% from three. I think teams give him threes. He's took, he's taken a lot of threes in a lot of games. That's either going to happen or it's not going to happen. The jama rant thing was just all about he's going to be unstoppable in the paint. And you want to pin it on this strange offense that they've been running this year with less pick and roll, more cutting, more motion, the kind of wheel offensive they've been running. Okay, fine, like he just hasn't. Look, when he get what it used to be, when he got into the paint and rose up or started pivoting and faking, you knew he's going to get off a pretty clean shot here or something that works for him. And now he gets in there and it's like this could go haywire in a lot of different ways. And the percentages back it up. He just hasn't. He look there. He has core skill sets and, and, and stuff that he's never going to be great at. He's got to be great at the core stuff to be John Morant and he hasn't been great at the core stuff this year.
- [92:23]
Bill Simmons
Free throw attempts down shot's not getting better and he doesn't play. We covered this on Sunday, but want to get him the board. All right, you're up.
- [92:33]
Zach Lowe
What? I can pick any category?
- [92:34]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, any category.
- [92:37]
Zach Lowe
All right, let's talk about, you know, there's a feel good category, there's a beloved bench guy category. I'm going to pick somebody who qualifies for both. I was so happy to hear you talk up the case of Malik Beasley for six man of the Year. We have not talked about the Pistons yet other than a little aside on Cade. I don't even quite understand how they're this good, but they've been a top 10 net rating team now almost for the full season and top six or seven for quite a while. And I can hear the Internet smart guys being like, why? You know Malik Beasley in the playoffs, he's going to struggle on defense. Yeah, no kidding. We know like we got it. Like he's going to get targeted on defense. Not great defense. Everybody knows he's been so phenomenal offensively and so critical to unlocking that team and that roster and Cade specifically and Duran and just, he just keeps shooting threes. He's. I haven't looked it up in the last month, but I was like a month ago I tweeted something like he was at some threshold of attempts like 12 per 36 minutes or 11 per 36 minutes and over 42% that only Steph had ever done before in any season. And I kept hearing how the sixth man of the year was going to come down to Peyton Pritchard and Ty Jerome. Like, am I crazy or is Malik Beasley been neck and neck with Peyton Pritchard and above Ty Jerome just based on minutes played alone? Ty Jerome has been unbelievable for the Cavs. DeAndre Hunter also belongs in that conversation. But Malik Beasley should be in consideration for number one in six man of the year and that team, look, I don't know how high their ceiling is. I don't know how Jalen Duran, who I've always been much higher on, I have like a. He's one of my like white whale of the NBA. I'm just fascinated by him. This, the physicality, the athleticism and all that. I don't know how he's going to respond. He's only 21 still, I think to play off offenses going at him in the pick and roll, I'm not quite as scared of them if I'm one of the east favorites as maybe the numbers suggest I should be. But they are a great story and Malik Beasley has been a huge part of it. So I'm just going to give him a little nod as my beloved bench guy.
- [94:49]
Bill Simmons
I love it and I'm with you. Like I'm just telling you right now, I'm voting for him for six man of the Year.
- [94:56]
Zach Lowe
Pritchard, you're going to get booed in Boston and that the Pritch Please shirts. You're not. You're not going to be allowed to buy one of those.
- [95:04]
Bill Simmons
I love Pritchard, but he's on an awesome team and the team can survive whether he's good or not. Game to game. Detric can't. Beasley is beyond an irrational confidence guy for him. They actually need him to make big shots night after night after night to succeed. The Celtics don't need Pritchard in the same way. Like, he's eight to one for six. Man of the year. I don't. I don't get that. I think Pritchard's going to win, but I just think Beasley's for coming off the bench, what he has to do and what his role is. I think it's more important. I am going to grab my beloved bench guy. Since you took one. Al Horford for the Boston Celtics, who. It feels like his career should either be over or close. I don't really fully understand it. And if you do, the exercise of going back into the 2000s and seeing how many guys from the Drafts in the 2000s are still playing. He is now, I think one of the last guys left. It's like LeBron, Chris, Paul, him, Conley, Durant. I think those are the final five. Maybe from years of service. But he also played in college. Wasn't like he was like one year down college. I think he had at least two years, maybe three in college. He's so important to the Celtics team again. And I don't know whether it's a rejuvenation thing. He stopped eating red meat. What's going on? But he's swinging games like everyone talked about that Laker game when he defended LeBron over and over and over again, or Luka or whoever they want to throw at him. But he's become really important and they've figured out how to move him through the season, not put too much wear and tear on him. And he's going to be a huge asset for them. And I can't believe the kind of career he's having. Like, he's a guaranteed hall of Famer now, I think. Right? I mean, every.
- [96:46]
Zach Lowe
There's no. I don't know. I don't know how many all star teams he's made off top, but enough.
- [96:50]
Bill Simmons
But you know what other hall of Fame he's in? He's in the. I can't believe you reinvented the second half of your career like this hall of Fame where if you Watch what he was the first half of it versus what he is now. There's some similarities, but it's a completely different impact. Everything. So when you consider his career was almost over five years ago. Marcel and I talked about it a couple weeks ago like this was a wrap in Philly.
- [97:14]
Zach Lowe
It keeps changing because when he turned into a spacing, three point shooting, big man, five time all star by the way, it started off as it often does, of like, all right, the release is medium to slow. He needs some time and space. And now it's just if he's in the corner, you can contest it. You can be closing out on him. That thing is up there quick. And he had 26 points last night. He's still a force defensively. I will say, you know, he's had as switchy as he still is for his age. He's had playoff moments against both Donovan Mitchell and Trey Young, who we haven't talked about. Trey Young's on my list for a lot of different categories where those quicker, smaller guys on switches can make him look old again. But the Celtics are, look, I mean I picked him to win the championship, I'd still pick him to win the championship. He's been awesome. And I think you've got to just be so relieved that Porzingis has come back from whatever viral thing that was and looks spectacular.
- [98:12]
Bill Simmons
We don't, we don't talk about my dad and I don't talk about Porzingis. We've just agreed not to discuss anything. It's like talking if he plays for two straight weeks, it's like talking through a no hitter. We're just like, eh, Porzingis looking pretty good. Corford I think in the running for most beloved Celtic teammate. I can remember just from anecdotally what people in the organization say, what the teammates say, the quotes that are in newspapers, just beloved. I mean it really feels like he, he had like a lifelong impact on Tatum as a human being. Like shit like that, shit that goes beyond basketball. I just think he is an all timer. I hope he keeps coming to games after he retires. He has moved into the fabric of the team in the city in a real way.
- [99:00]
Zach Lowe
I remember when they were, when they were in the finals last year and they were up 2 1, 3 1. You know, I wrote a big for Grantland. I wrote a big profile of Al Warford back in the day.
- [99:10]
Bill Simmons
I remember that one.
- [99:12]
Zach Lowe
And I just started calling. I thought about maybe I should write something. Maybe I could work it into the Celtics win the championship piece and it ultimately died on the vine. But I started calling just like Joe Kemnoa, Kyle Korver, Billy Donovan, Kenny Atkinson, Mike Budenholzer. Suspecting that they were all watching the finals with more of an emotional investment that you would think, considering the distance between them. Yeah, and Hal Horford. And they were all dying for him to finally win the championship. I mean, they were all over the moon for him. Billy Donovan was, like, texting me from Europe, being like, do you need a quote? You know, here's like. Like, they just love that guy. Every stop on his career. All those people were watching the finals being like, this guy deserves to win the championship. But you just don't see that as much anymore.
- [100:00]
Bill Simmons
No, you don't. All right, we gotta. We gotta move with some pace now. What's your next pick? Okay, why don't you take Trey Young somewhere? Let's talk about him.
- [100:09]
Zach Lowe
I'll go. Crossroads guy, Trey Young. You know, it's funny.
- [100:15]
Bill Simmons
You've taken two Crossroads guys.
- [100:17]
Zach Lowe
I don't know.
- [100:17]
Bill Simmons
I'm allowed. I'm gonna allow it.
- [100:20]
Zach Lowe
No, I could put it. I could be a trade. He could be a trade machine guy. You can't be a feel good guy. So, I don't know. I mean, my feel good guy, I'll tell. You know what? No, I'm not going to take Troy Young. My feel good guy, I guess, will be Steph Curry. Because this was the best case scenario for Steph Curry. Yeah, you just don't get even when you have the rare chances that the warriors got is an elite team who had this, like, gap year or gap year. So they got to pick high in the draft, and they whiffed on the highest pick they had in Wiseman. You just don't get to contend for this long. And the most likely outcome for Steph was always going to be he rides out the Twilight in Golden State. The most likely good outcome. Good outcome. Upside outcome was he rides out the Twilight and Golden State on good, solid teams that don't really have a chance to win the championship, but they're good enough. They're 46, 48, 49 win teams that if they made the conference finals because of matchups and just excellence, luck, whatever, like, that's not surprising. It's kind of a fun team. And I think because the Butler trade just fell into the league's lap, they're better than that now. I still. I. It's hard for me to see them winning the championship, but they're. They're a pretty goddamn good team with him with Butler. And I just think, you know, The warriors are 18 and five with those two guys. They're a threat to beat anybody in the west, maybe excepting Oklahoma City, because they're just such a giant favorite over everybody else. I just think it's going to be awesome, assuming they make the top six, which is not a guarantee by any means that we're going to see them play real meaningful games with real meaningful stakes where it's not just like, oh, this is kind of cute that Steph has a chance to win a first round series and we all know they're going to get destroyed in the next round. Like, it's not that this is a real team.
- [102:12]
Bill Simmons
It'S a delay. And it's why you do the Jimmy Butler trade, which I described as not a Hail Mary, but throwing in a double coverage on third and 14 and hoping your guy makes a play. They had to do it. You just.
- [102:25]
Zach Lowe
I loved it for them right from the start. I thought I saw it was completely risk free.
- [102:29]
Bill Simmons
I would, I would have put Kaminga in it too, if I had to. If it was the choice between the first round pick or Kamenka, I would have, I would have thrown Kaminga in there. It's a great pick. I have nothing to add. Feel good star. For me, I think Mitchell belongs here because, you know, the Utah thing wasn't. He had some good moments there and it got a little rocky near the end. And then he goes to Cleveland and was a weird trade. They gave up a lot. And then the next couple years, people like me and maybe even you were talking about, he eventually wants to end up in New York, which I'm 100% sure is true. And then the Knicks door closes with Brunson, Brooklyn falls apart and it becomes one of those situations where it's like, maybe this is the best spot for me. I really think that he probably went through that thought exercise and landed there. Like, we have really good players. Maybe I could be on a championship team. How do I elevate these guys? And you know, we talked about how he slipped a little since the All Star break, but the game the other night was a good example of like he still has that, that think to him. You know that when you're in a playoff series, we're in a game six, game seven. I need somebody who can go toe to toe with whoever the best guy is in the other team. I think he has it and he has a chance to now not only be a first team all NBA guy, but to maybe play for the in the Finals. I think he's a great guy. I've always heard good things about him. He does a lot of good charitable stuff and seems like a good teammate. I think the Cavs guys all love him, and I'm just happy he's in that moment because I like him.
- [104:15]
Zach Lowe
One peg down, the Darius Garland situation also could have gone sideways. And the rumblings around that were about his. I won't say unhappiness, but the uncertainty of whether this was really going to be the place for him with Donovan Mitchell having superseded him as the alpha guy in the back court. Those were true. And he's figured it out. He got healthy. They figured it out together. He's a. One of my favorite players to watch in the NBA. Deserved All Star. It's. It's a great, great pick. Love it.
- [104:42]
Bill Simmons
Okay. All right, you're up. I can't believe we haven't done hot seat coach yet.
- [104:47]
Zach Lowe
Well. Cause it's just.
- [104:47]
Bill Simmons
It's like we're both scared.
- [104:49]
Zach Lowe
It's a sad conversation to have.
- [104:51]
Bill Simmons
Well, we could do. Why don't you just do fat fat one? Let's do. Let's each do a hot seat coach. Really? We don't have to talk about it. I'll go first.
- [104:57]
Zach Lowe
I mean, you know Mike Buer.
- [105:02]
Bill Simmons
Oh, all right. That's fair. I think the seat, it's like an inferno. I don't know if it's hot. I think he's an inferno.
- [105:10]
Zach Lowe
A, like, he's. He's a proven good coach. And B, are you that embarrassing that you're just going to have a new coach every single year? Keep doing this like, you're not any co. You're not going to give any coach any time.
- [105:24]
Bill Simmons
I don't see how he comes back. I just think this is. This is who HBA is. I think he just, every year is like, all right, this. None of this was my fault. Again, who could I blame? I have tibs for this category.
- [105:38]
Zach Lowe
Oh, my God.
- [105:39]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. I sure do. Yeah.
- [105:43]
Zach Lowe
Over. I mean, I could think of, like, three names.
- [105:46]
Bill Simmons
That's fine.
- [105:47]
Zach Lowe
Not even counting the teams that aren't making the playoffs. I'm just looking at playoff teams.
- [105:51]
Bill Simmons
I have tibs.
- [105:51]
Zach Lowe
Wow.
- [105:52]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [105:53]
Zach Lowe
Okay. Make the case. I have a feeling I know the case, but I want to hear you make the case.
- [105:58]
Bill Simmons
Defensively, they're pretty easy to score on. Offensively, the numbers are great, and the Brunson Towns thing is legendary. All that stuff. I just feel like from a creativity standpoint, the stuff you mentioned earlier, and I've been Talking about all year and the Knicks fans don't want to hear it. But I just don't understand why you're trading all that stuff for Bridges and. And then you don't give a shit about using them ever. I think there's a version of this team that is way scarier to me as a Celtics fan than they've tapped into. I don't think he's used the bench enough. I think he's played the guys way too many minutes.
- [106:33]
Zach Lowe
You don't think so? You don't think the bench has been utilized enough? There was a game in December, I think it was December where they. I didn't watch the game. I looked at the box score the next day. They beat the Hornets by 24 points. I think the final score is 125. 101. Obviously 24 game. 24 point game can be semi close. It's points, whatever.
- [106:53]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [106:54]
Zach Lowe
McHale bridges. Someone could fact check me on this. I'm going from the top of my head. Played the first 46 minutes and 30 seconds of the game consecutively in a game the knicks won by 24 points. And I was like, how. How is that even. How's that even allowed? Like, I don't like. Anyway.
- [107:15]
Bill Simmons
We both like Tibbs. I think there's a real question of whether his coaching style can be sustainable for 10 months if you're trying. Nine months if you're trying to win a title. And we're going to find out.
- [107:25]
Zach Lowe
Let me defend.
- [107:26]
Bill Simmons
Stepped on somebody's foot. It wasn't the. I can't say it was the minutes that caused it, but I just. I don't think it's sustainable how he coaches and I don't think he's been creative enough.
- [107:34]
Zach Lowe
Let me defend the offensive creation. Creation is maybe the wrong word because the Bridges thing has been underutilized until now in part because the town's Brunson thing is. Is so unguardable. So Tibbs has been. And all the Tibbs backers around the league will tell you he's been. His teams have performed better offensively than his reputation. He's had a lot of top 10 offenses in the. In Minnesota, Chicago, elsewhere. And even though he's been pigeonholed as this defensive Mastermind behind the 2008 Celtics and other great defensive teams, the Bulls with Noah and Gibson and all those guys. And that's true, they're right. And almost all of those offenses have been of just the complete brute force variety. Like we just don't turn the ball over. We're number one or two in offensive rebounding. We're number one or two in free throws and we just beat the hell out of you. We just, we isolate, we play simple basketball, low risk basketball, and we beat the hell out of you. This team still has some of that in him, but it's not built to be a great offensive rebounding team. It's not built to be a beat the hell out of your team. It is built to have a Josh Hart runs the ball down your throat six times a game team. But I do, I. You can quibble with the Bridges thing, and I think you're right.
- [108:46]
Bill Simmons
I do think, can I quibble the minutes thing too? Because it's those two things together that I think are the biggest red flags.
- [108:52]
Zach Lowe
That's definitely right. But I do think it was interesting and smart how he decided to use Towns as a passing hub very early on in the season. They have a lot of artful cutting in their offense because of the way Towns lifts the opposing center off if the center is guarding him. Bridges is a good cutter, Anunoby's a good cutter. Hart is a great cutter, and he leaned into that in a way that I think was smart and made their offense a little bit more unpredictable than Brunson pounding the ball and Cat pounding post ups and just spamming pick and pops, which I think they could always run more pick and pops with those guys. I, I, early in the season I was like, this is different than I envisioned it. And he's built an elite offense now. He's got elite offensive talent, no doubt, but he's constructed an elite offense that doesn't look anything like and doesn't project statistically anything like the other elite offense that he's had before.
- [109:41]
Bill Simmons
Counter. He has awesome guys on offense. You and I could have done that.
- [109:44]
Zach Lowe
It's true. It's true.
- [109:46]
Bill Simmons
He's on the hot seat for me. If they lose to that weird Bucks team in round one or they get absolutely smoked by the Celtics around two.
- [109:53]
Zach Lowe
Well, so, so I think that's the most likely outcome, right, Is like the Celtics beat them four one, maybe four two. And is that a, is that a failure or, or do you say, well, you know, we need.
- [110:05]
Bill Simmons
Or do you say he's taken them as far as they could go? Well, we'll find out. All right. What's your next pick?
- [110:09]
Zach Lowe
Well, can I just name another coach?
- [110:12]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [110:12]
Zach Lowe
Let me be very clear. I'm a little rusty on this one. Let me be very clear for the aggregators. This coach is not in any danger of being fired. This coach's seat is ice cold. This coach was in the coach of the year conversation last year. I think he was number two on my ballot and he was on pace to be that high this year before injuries struck his team. We are long past the point where the Orlando Magic's offense, despite Suggs being out, despite Anthony being out, despite Mo Wagner being out, all of that, it just should not be this bad. It's so bad and so unwatchable and so uncreative that at some point someone in the what is remains of the basketball media in Orlando has to gently ask the question of like, so what's the idea for this offense? And now the idea might be we should.
- [111:02]
Bill Simmons
Why are we 0.7, 8.7 per possession?
- [111:05]
Zach Lowe
The idea might be we trade a lot of stuff for a guard that can create a lot of the offense. We don't have that. The idea might be we trade a lot of stuff for a center that is either a threat diving to the basket, a threat popping for threes. A threat is a passer. They don't really have a guy who's a really good threat at any of those things. Oh God. So those are all fair answers too, but the coaching staff has just got no scrutiny for the fact that this offense stinks. And it stinks no matter who's on the court. And It's. They're like 27th in offense and I know their guys were hurt and I know that they had injuries that it takes those oblique things for Franz and Paolo, it takes time to recover from them. They still stink. Now offensively it's like, it's, It's. They scored 87 points last night against the Clippers.
- [111:51]
Bill Simmons
So I'm going to make that hot seat wildcard. So we had hot seat coach and that was supposed to be hot seat player, but we'll make it a wild card pick player coach.
- [111:59]
Zach Lowe
Yeah. Can we agree with you?
- [112:01]
Bill Simmons
I don't know why their offense is so bad.
- [112:02]
Zach Lowe
Can we just at least have a meeting about it where we're like maybe we need to bring in an assistant who does this really well. Can we at least talk about are we not. Are there when do what. When is the expiration date on the Magic or like a feel good story? Is that. Are we done with that yet?
- [112:15]
Bill Simmons
Maybe they should hire one of the 17 fired Grizzlies assistant coaches.
- [112:19]
Zach Lowe
Can we treat them like a real team now?
- [112:21]
Bill Simmons
Like Ceruti right now is high fiving people in his living room. I have for my hot seat wild card, Julius Randle, we don't need to talk about it. There's a scenario where he just completely torpedoes Minnesota in round one and people are like, that guy sucks. You can ruin them. He ruined Minnesota. Got to get him out of here.
- [112:41]
Zach Lowe
I would advise Willis fans to not check his playoff stats, which are in very few games, but still.
- [112:47]
Bill Simmons
What's your next pick? You certainly picked an apex superstar.
- [112:51]
Zach Lowe
I mean, I was just going to pick, I was just going to pick Luca because it's been the subplot of the fascinating plot of the season is Luka Doncic place for the Los Angeles Lakers. He plays for LeBron James. He led his team to the finals last year in the conference finals two years ago. You know, look, we don't need to get into the trade or the off court. Whatever issues that are, you know, just are what they are and have been what they have been. I don't think he's looked like a, a, A plus Luka yet in LA almost at all. He still looks a little slower than usual to me and he's not a speed guy, obviously.
- [113:30]
Bill Simmons
The game we went to, he scored what, 21 points in the first eight minutes and it was really exciting.
- [113:35]
Zach Lowe
And it was really exciting. He shot tons of threes. His two point field goal percentage is down, his turnovers are up. And a lot of that is just learning. New system, new city, new teammates, new world. Like the best player of a generation is over here and I'm on his team and I think they've all bought into the right things. He's been very good for them. He would make an all star team. He would make an all NBA team. He would probably make first team all NBA for sure. Well, I mean, I don't know about sure, but he would make first team all NBA if he were healthy and playing this exactly the way he's played for the Lakers. He's almost a first team all NBA caliber player. If not definitely so and so you.
- [114:11]
Bill Simmons
Wouldn'T have traded Anthony Davis and Max Christie in a number one form?
- [114:15]
Zach Lowe
I wouldn't have done it. From whose perspective? I would have done or you wouldn't.
- [114:18]
Bill Simmons
Have taken that as a trade offer. If you were the Mavs, you would have said no.
- [114:22]
Zach Lowe
I would have.
- [114:23]
Bill Simmons
Doncic would have been your move.
- [114:24]
Zach Lowe
If I worked in the Mavs front office, I think I would be fired now. I think Nico Harrison would have fired me or. Because I would have just, I would have thrown everything I had against this trade and they would have found me annoying and an irritant. I, I do, I Do think, you know, a robust discussion within the master and office occurred at some point. But oh, but I thought only three.
- [114:49]
Bill Simmons
People knew about the trade. When, when do we have to stop pretending that that was the case?
- [114:53]
Zach Lowe
But, but I have to stop pretending.
- [114:54]
Bill Simmons
That LeBron and Rich Paul and Anthony Davis didn't know about it.
- [114:57]
Zach Lowe
I can't believe he's on the Lakers. And right away you framed it, not you. A lot of people framed it correctly as like, wow, they've got the bridge to the post LeBron era, which they did not have before. They have the best possible unimaginable version of it. And I think in the shock of the trade and the realization that the Lakers had found yet another generational superstar to carry the generational superstar torch, I think it took like a week or 10 days for people to be like, oh, this team's kind of good. Like this team's kind of interesting and dangerous and they can play different styles and different lineups with no center and.
- [115:36]
Bill Simmons
Well, should we do an rip for the people who had the 48 hours of. I'm not sure these guys can play together. That was one of my favorites.
- [115:45]
Zach Lowe
Unbelievable.
- [115:47]
Bill Simmons
That was great. That was a nice little basketball IQ test.
- [115:49]
Zach Lowe
It's, it's like we've all, I think starting with Wade and LeBron there's just been this overthinking of well, you just can't pair two ball dominant guys. Just can't. It's just, it's. Even though that duo obviously succeeded at a crazy level, it's there. That's LeBron James. It's a different story. LeBron James in his prime. Like they're, they're not just two ball dominant guys, they're two of the five greatest passers maybe ever. And they're two ball dominant guys with very good to elite post up games. And that's the kind of thing that Phoenix and all its ball dominant guys does not have. They don't have guys who can change the geometry of the floor in tons of different ways by getting to spots on the floor with a bully ball game that those two guys have, let.
- [116:37]
Bill Simmons
Alone the team, they both have an inside outside game and can pass. And the other thing is they don't have to play all the minutes together. That's the piece I thought of right away and I wasn't alone of like, well fuck, one of these guys is going to be out there for two and a half hours.
- [116:51]
Zach Lowe
Well, and you know what? You know what I've loved that the Lakers have done if you watch their rotations carefully. Luke is the one who gets the solo minutes. Reaves and LeBron will be on the bench together. And almost all the time LeBron is out there. If Luke is resting, Reaves is also playing with LeBron. So LeBron does not have to do the heavy lifting by himself ever. And I know he's been, by his standards, unproductive as a scorer lately, by his incredible standards. I think that is the only avenue to set them up for short term success was to lift the burden on LeBron to that degree and unlock all this other stuff that we talked about earlier that they're doing. Well, I think this is a really dangerous team that if Luca can rediscover a Luca form. Yeah, I just, I never want to see that guy in a playoff series. And they got a. They got a lot of like Gabe Vincent sitting shot. They got a lot of stuff going on right now that's interesting.
- [117:42]
Bill Simmons
And the crowd likes the team. They're going to be tough to beat in la. Yeah, the, the. Well, that leads to my third banana pick, which is Austin Reeves. We don't need to spend 10 minutes on it, but I think he's the best third. The best third scorer on a team, not just this year, but in a while. Like when you're talking about a guy that might be able to score in the 30s even if the whole team's playing, but also One of our two guys is out. Can you score 40 tonight? He can do that. There's nobody, nobody has that in the NBA right now and nobody's had it for a while. I was trying to think of like best third scores on really good teams and you go backwards to Steph kd and then Clay was the third scorer. But even as great as Clay was and as great of a shooter as he was, you couldn't run the offense through him. They can run the offense to Reeves for like six, seven minutes and he actually can create shots for himself or other people. Like, it's. It's pretty great. So I. There's a lot of good third bananas. I think he's the best one.
- [118:42]
Zach Lowe
Phoenix fans are so mad that they're scoring trio just. We didn't even, didn't even pop up in either of our brains. Also mad Sacramento Kings fans who are like, well, what about The Zach Levine, Demar DeRozan Demonte Sabonis trio? That's pretty. Can we talk about that?
- [118:57]
Bill Simmons
By the way, that's a team to watch. And they're not even. We haven't even mentioned them yet.
- [119:00]
Zach Lowe
Well, Levine was Going to be one of my. I don't know what categories we have left, but Levine was going to be a third banana pick for me as well.
- [119:08]
Bill Simmons
I'll do it right now.
- [119:09]
Zach Lowe
Just because what a, what a catastrophic year for a franchise that seemed to have finally veered out of the catastrophe lane and just was like, you know what we want, we want, we want to go right back to it. Let's just fire the code.
- [119:25]
Bill Simmons
Did you like what they got in the Fox trade at all then?
- [119:30]
Zach Lowe
He got some okay, draft equity. I mean, if you're going to have to trade a guy to get an all star in. Zach Levine has been an all star and some draft equity is fine. Like, I just like the fact that they fired the coach, the fact that they pissed him off so much and now he's talked about it on record in a couple of different places. He's like, yeah, they fired the coach and they left me to hang out to dry and made it look like it was my fault. And I actually like the coach and like, what's wrong with our organization? Not great. When an ex player who you just traded who is like a beloved part of your team is like a week later being like, oh yeah, that's a circus over there basically. And they get Levine back. And Levine in a lot of these games just feels like almost an afterthought. And, and, and he's averaging 21 a game, which is actually not a lot for him. His assist to turnover ratio has gotten like perilously close to even with the Kings. And it just feels like between DeRozan and Sabonis and now Monk coming off the bench, I realized like, for Levine to be worth it, he's not a great passer and he's a minus defender. He's got to take a lot of shots. And it feels like he is sort of semi predictably, I guess, trying to feel out like, how do I fit in here? Or the coaches are trying to figure out he just hasn't been the explosion of productivity that the numbers in Chicago suggested he would be. And you know, don't feel like the Kings and the Bulls are destined to keep. Just keep trading these guys amongst each other.
- [120:52]
Bill Simmons
Maybe just trading with each other. Well, I mean, this Kings thing now it's a decade and a half almost. We did that Grantland draft room war room short when they let us behind the scenes. Remember that? It's on YouTube somewhere.
- [121:04]
Zach Lowe
Oh yeah.
- [121:04]
Bill Simmons
And they end up taking Nick Stauskaskas.
- [121:06]
Zach Lowe
Yeah.
- [121:07]
Bill Simmons
And Vivek is kind of nudging people Towards Stavskis.
- [121:11]
Zach Lowe
They sing to him. Don't they, like sing or chant something.
- [121:14]
Bill Simmons
Like 1, 2, 3, something. I'm going to make this quick. My crossroads guys, Kawhi Leonard. And here's why he should be flattered.
- [121:24]
Zach Lowe
To be still in a crossroads given his health situation.
- [121:28]
Bill Simmons
And I love Kawhi, so his bounce is there. If you see it in person, I don't know how long that's going to last. And it's gotten to the point when he's out there with the other guys, they have the Clipper fans, I think rightfully so, or like we can hang with any team in the league. And the reason he's a crossroads thing is I think the Clipper fans are at the crossroads with that feeling. This is now over a half decade of, well, if Kawhi can just. And I think this is it. And if. And if he gets hurt again or he falls apart in some way or he's not there or in round one, all of a sudden Game three Shams is reporting Kawhi Leonard is doubtful for tonight. I just don't think the Clipper fans want to do it again. This has been five years of this. So there it's a crossroads from a sense of you can't realistically think you can win the title if he's one of your highest paid guys and best guys in the team when he hasn't been able to make it through a season and a half a decade. And that's it. You don't need to have anything else.
- [122:32]
Zach Lowe
Okay, I had some.
- [122:34]
Bill Simmons
Unless you have. Go ahead.
- [122:35]
Zach Lowe
Well, I think the Paul George decision, which looks like a stroke of genius in retrospect, even though they did offer him a three year, 100 whatever, $50 million deal, I remember talking about that and saying, yeah, it's great. They've signed all these nice role players and Harden's back to make that decision. Signals to me that you don't think the team is presently constructed can win a championship. If you thought it could win a championship, you'd go all in. And they didn't go all in. So I don't think they entered this season necessarily expecting to be in this kind of conversation that we're talking about now of like they can go toe to toe with people and here they are. They're a really well balanced team. Like I love, you know, Powell and Chris Dunn go out and incomes. Another defender in Derrick Jones Jr. To replace Dunn and another score in Bogdanovich to replace Powell. I think my hottest Clipper take is that if Each of Zubots belongs. I don't think he's going to make third team all NBA for me. But you need to have him on the list of guys that you've considered for 13 ball. NBA along with James Harden. Is making a late push. Is he making a late push for you? He's making a late push.
- [123:37]
Bill Simmons
I do the list every week. He was on my third team this week. I don't know if he's going to stay, but he's in there. Great. What do you have for a defensive stud? That's a. That's a hole for you right now.
- [123:47]
Zach Lowe
That hasn't been picked. You can pick between Amin Thompson and OGN and obi.
- [123:53]
Bill Simmons
Let's do Amin Thompson.
- [123:56]
Zach Lowe
What else? The guy's an absolute freak. I mean, just the plays he makes are ridiculous. I couldn't like him anymore. I don't care that every time you.
- [124:06]
Bill Simmons
Saw him in person this year, right?
- [124:08]
Zach Lowe
Yeah, yeah.
- [124:09]
Bill Simmons
We were texting about it.
- [124:10]
Zach Lowe
It's.
- [124:10]
Bill Simmons
It's different in person. It's like all these guys are amazing athletes and yet he's a better athlete than all the amazing athletes. It's crazy.
- [124:18]
Zach Lowe
I had a front office person, not Rockets, just yesterday. Literally yesterday I was talking about it because this is what I do. I talk about Aman Thompson, I guess said he's the best athlete in the NBA, full stop. And his brother might be the second best athlete in the NBA. He said they're the best athletes in the NBA.
- [124:33]
Bill Simmons
Jesus.
- [124:33]
Zach Lowe
And they play the right way. And he's just. We. We haven't seen one of those in a while where a guy comes off the bench, another guy gets hurt. He gets elevated into the starting five and it's immediately clear like, oh, yeah, he's never coming off the bench again. And this other guy. This other guy's. This other guy's not a starter anymore.
- [124:51]
Bill Simmons
I'm going to use a second banana pick because I have one. And I'm going to take Jimmy Butler just because I feel like he needs to be in any sort of most intriguing guys heading into the playoffs list. It's been really fun to watch him. I don't know what happened with Miami, and I think blame goes every. Everywhere. And it seemed it got really, really, really deeply, darkly personal with him and Pat Riley. About as personal as it's gotten with an executive and a player maybe ever. And I think it affected everything to the point where both sides needed to move on, and they did. And he went to Golden State and he's clicked with Draymond and the warriors took off immediately and it's prolonged Steph's prime and I can't wait to watch him in a playoff series again because he's fucking awesome in the playoffs. So where they land, we'll see who they're playing. We don't know. But it's great to have him involved because I did not like this Miami version of Jimmy this year. It was just felt like a wasted, wasted talent. This year it's like, this guy's good. He still has it in him. We're just going to throw a season away for no reason. So he is my second being a pick. All right, I don't know if I did this correctly, but it seems like we only have two spots left. I still need my leap guy and I'm going to give you a wild card pick so we can get to 25. And I just want to point out we haven't taken Nikola Jokic yet in this intriguing thing. So you have the floor. You haven't been able to talk about him for five.
- [126:14]
Zach Lowe
Wild card, wild card.
- [126:15]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, I'll give him.
- [126:17]
Zach Lowe
I'm going to just zig right away from that and go with related Jamal Murray. Jamal Murray might be the biggest wild card in the NBA. The first two months of the season, plus the Olympics, plus the way last season ended was like, oh, as great as the Yokich is as great as the Aaron Gordon fit is as steady as Michael Porter Jr jumper is as improved as Christian Brown, who belongs in the most improved player conversation too, as approved as he is. They can't win for a playoff series without Jamal Murray being the Jamal Murray who was the second best guy in a title team two years ago or something close to that. And he's been pretty damn good now for the next two and a half months. A little bit quieter lately than he was when he started really rolling and putting up. 30s and 40s and even I think he had a 50. They need, they need fully if they have that guy 28 a game. Jamal Murray, Killer Jamal Murray, Mid range assassin Jamal Murray. I wouldn't sleep on these guys. I don't think they quite have enough to win the championship, even if they get him, because I just think their bench is too much of a wild card and their defense hasn't been good enough. We know they're tough. We know they have one of the greatest players of all time, if not maybe the best player. I still would rank them the best player right now, even if I didn't vote him mvp. If they get that Jamal Murray, I wouldn't be. Wouldn't want to play them if I were any of these teams, including Oklahoma City.
- [127:53]
Bill Simmons
So we'll make Jamal and Jokic the co wild card.
- [127:57]
Zach Lowe
I mean, Jokic is in a wild card. Jokic is in a wild card. But I know exactly what I'm going to get from him almost every game and sometimes I'll get a 30, 20, 20, who knows?
- [128:06]
Bill Simmons
I was thinking more wild card like Yokich just rips through the west, beats OKC by himself, makes the finals again and we're like, oh my God, this is one of the eight greatest players of all time. I'm going to go with my last pick for the leap. Surprised he hasn't come up yet. Talked about him a little on Sunday. Tyrese Halberton.
- [128:28]
Zach Lowe
I'm so glad he brought up the Pacers.
- [128:31]
Bill Simmons
So they're in that four or five spot against Detroit. It looks like. Assuming Milwaukee stays in six and we all like Detroit. It's a feel good story, but I just think Indiana has a better team than them. Detroit's going to try to muck it up and there's a chance we might be really celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Artest melee in an actual way with the same uniforms maybe they wear.
- [128:53]
Zach Lowe
Don't say that. Don't.
- [128:54]
Bill Simmons
Well, I just, I. I'm just a little worried. Detroit, wow. Clearly loves, loves drawing and there was a trauma.
- [129:00]
Zach Lowe
There was a traumatized kid in the Wolves crowd. They gave him a jersey and he was like, yes, great. Thanks for the jersey.
- [129:06]
Bill Simmons
Thanks for the jersey. I just want to mention James Johnson's on the Pacers, so I'm prepared for anything in a Pacers Piston series. But with Hal Burton, the way he's played the last three months, he fully looks back to where he was the first two months of the previous season. There's a path here for him playing the Pistons around one, going toe to toe with the Cavs in round two, where it's just like we leave that series like, wow. Halliburton has been the best guy through four games. Holy shit. Are the Pacers going to beat the Cavs? They could just run up and down the way the Cavs defense has been the last month or so. There's some vulnerabilities. I guess. My question is, how good is Halbert? Is there a level for him to go up in the playoffs? Was last year just a fluke of injuries and the fact that the east wasn't deep and they snuck into the Eastern finals and it didn't mean anything? Or did that Actually mean a little more than we realized. I'm just intrigued. So I have him as my possible leap guy.
- [130:12]
Zach Lowe
Love it. He's on. He's on third team. All NBA for me right now on the ballot that I don't have. He's played even above that for quite a bit of the season now. They're just a really good team. I mean, I don't have their schedule in front of me, but they start. They were under 500, maybe 20 games into the season or thereabouts, and since then have been a legit, very good team. The Cav series would be interesting. The Cavs are a little bigger than they are on the front line, but the Siakam's really good. Turner's good. Obi Toppan feels like he has missed a shot in a month now.
- [130:47]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, there's like 10 years ago. Obi Toppin is in the running for six man of the year because we had way less, six better the year candidates. And we're like, hey, what about. We're just trying to talk ourselves into candidates. I mean, he comes in and swings games every once in a while.
- [131:00]
Zach Lowe
Look, they've got Turner's free agency hanging over their head and the tax implications of that. Someone I saw. I've seen it suggested, well, they could just dump Obi Top. I'm like, that guy's good. He's been good for their team. Dumping Obi Toppin is. There's pain. They're just a. They're a rock solid team, and if you're not healthy or you don't bring your A game, they can beat you four times in seven games. And Halliburton. Halliburton is just a guaranteed good offense by almost by himself.
- [131:27]
Bill Simmons
I just realized with the categories that I put Luka down twice for you, and that Jokic can be your legacy guy. So moving in here, here's where we.
- [131:36]
Zach Lowe
Land the Balkan guys.
- [131:38]
Bill Simmons
Apex superstar. I had sga, you had Luca, beloved bench guy. I had Horford, you had Malik Beasley. Crossroads guy. You have Cat. I have Kawhi. Defensive stud Lou Dort for me. Amen Thompson for you. Feel good star. Steph Curry for you. Donovan Mitchell for me. Hot seat coach. Controversial category. Boot and holes are for you. Tibbs for me. You jerked backwards and screamed out, whoa, Hot seat wild card. You went with Jamal Mosley on the Orlando Magic who can no longer score. I went with Julius Randle. Legacy guy. I have Tatum, you have Jokic. Second banana. You took Jalen Williams and Chet Hormon together. I allowed it I took Jimmy Butler, third banana, Austin Reeves for me. Levine for you. The Leap, Mobley for you. Halliburton for me. Trade machine guy, Giannis for you. Ja for me. And then a wild card pick, which I gave to you so we could get to 25. Jamal Murray. That gimmick actually worked.
- [132:46]
Zach Lowe
Covered a lot. Covered a lot of ground.
- [132:47]
Bill Simmons
I'm going to go back to. Basically, we didn't pick LeBron James. Maybe we should put him as another wild card.
- [132:53]
Zach Lowe
We talked about him a lot, though.
- [132:55]
Bill Simmons
Okay. He was. He'll be fine. Hopefully. Hopefully. Hopefully he's okay with not being mentioned as One of the 25 most intriguing players seen in the playoffs. He's kind of legacy and printed onto it. We don't even need to have him in.
- [133:08]
Zach Lowe
Well, he's not any. We can't call him either of the bananas. He's above a lot of these things.
- [133:14]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, yeah, he's lingering above. I'm sure there'll be some LeBron fans out there who'll be upset. They didn't even pick LeBron. Welcome back, Zach. Fuck you, Zach Lowe. You start your podcast on the Ringer next week, Monday. It's called the Zach Lowe Show. So I guess you're gonna have to do the welcome to the Low show.
- [133:33]
Zach Lowe
I'm gonna. We're workshopping. I'm gonna. I'm about to spend the next three hours recording different welcome tos just to make sure I get it exactly right for Monday.
- [133:42]
Bill Simmons
I remember losing the BS Report once upon a time, and it hurt. And it just became the BS podcast, and then that's how it went. Your YouTube channel, we launched that as well. There's going to be some writing stuff that we'll talk about as the playoffs get closer. That's a tbd. And anything that I didn't leave out.
- [134:03]
Zach Lowe
No, you said tbd. That's good. No, we'll see. We'll see. It's going to be fun. It's going to be fun. Playoffs are going to be fun. We're almost there.
- [134:10]
Bill Simmons
Ten years since we worked together steadily. And we're back. And it's great to have you back. It's great to have you in the basketball conversations. I had a fantastic time. Great to see you as always, my friend.
- [134:20]
Zach Lowe
Much appreciated across the board and look forward to a lot of good content over the next few months before. Before the NBA chills out for a bit again.
- [134:28]
Bill Simmons
All right, welcome back. All right, that's it for the podcast. You can watch it on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. You can always watch it as a video podcast on Spotify. I hope you're watching Celtic City. We put up an awesome episode, episode five. It was about the mid-80s and Larry Bird and and kind of the peak of the Bird era. The last interview I think anyone had with Bill Walton is in there and he's fantastic. And I think it's probably my favorite episode of the nine just because I I had the most attachments to that team. But you can check that out on Max. You can catch up on all the episodes there. You can check out the rewatchables as well because we put up Good Will Hunting the plan the rest of the week. I have podcast Thursday and then I think we're going Sunday earlier and then Prestige TV podcast might be live coming right off the White Lotus season finale. So it's going to be a busy week. Don't forget to subscribe to Zach's Pod and Zach on YouTube and we look forward to having him next week. I will see you on Thursday when we start.
- [135:36]
Zach Lowe
I don't have feelings with Him.
- [135:53]
Bill Simmons
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