They Saved the NBA All-Star Game? Plus, the NBA’s Tumultuous Week, With Zach Lowe

Summary

The Bill Simmons Podcast — "They Saved the NBA All-Star Game? Plus, the NBA’s Tumultuous Week"

Date: February 16, 2026
Host: Bill Simmons
Guest: Zach Lowe (ESPN)

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Episode Overview

Bill Simmons and Zach Lowe dive into the surprisingly entertaining 2026 NBA All-Star Game—discussing how the league may have finally cracked a formula that made the event competitive after years of lackluster play. The conversation spans the All-Star format, player engagement, standout performances, the NBA's growing tanking crisis, convoluted draft incentives, Adam Silver’s crossroads as commissioner, and wider league storylines.

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Main Themes

• Redemption for the NBA All-Star Game with a new format and more effort from players.
• Ongoing problems for the NBA: tanking, season length, competitive balance, and the structure of the draft.
• Reimagining league policy and incentives from a fan and business perspective.
• Noteworthy performances and league rumors.

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Key Discussion Points, Insights, and Moments

The 2026 NBA All-Star Game: A "Win" for the League

• Background: Simmons and Lowe both entered the weekend with low expectations but were won over by the game's energy and effort.
• New Format: The "USA vs. World" theme, with added mini-game/round-robin structure, spurred legitimate competition for the first time in years.
  • Simmons: “Quarter by quarter, all of a sudden became super duper fun. Fourth quarter not fun, but first three super fun.” (01:38)
  • Lowe: “It was a pretty competitive game. Wasn’t like an NBA regular season level ... but definitely like worlds better than two years ago.” (02:00)
• Effort from Young Stars: Real engagement from players under 27 (Wemby, Edwards, Detroit guys, Jalen Brown, etc.) while veterans and some internationals (notably Jokic) showed little interest.
  • Memorable Moment: Kawhi Leonard’s third-quarter scoring frenzy. “He was on a burner today.” — Lowe (05:06)
  • Frustrations: Jokic’s lack of effort and general reluctance from some established stars: “Yokic is like, ‘When is this over, man? Can we just get outta here?’” — Lowe (03:04)

Positives and Gripes About Format and Presentation

• NBC’s Coverage: Lack of readily available stats annoyed both.
  • Simmons: "NBC wasn't showing us really any stats. I had no idea how anyone was doing." (03:28)
• Game Structure: The announcers (especially Reggie Miller) were criticized for over-hyping the drama.
  • Lowe: “Reggie was the most guilty of this... No one's really in desperation, you don’t have to go that far.” (04:36)
• Positive Takeaways: Simmons and Lowe were encouraged that the league might have finally found a sustainable All-Star formula after years of tinkering.
  • “It seems like we have found something that might work here with the All Star Game after 15 tries.” — Simmons (07:15)

Notable Quotes & Player Moments

• On Kawhi’s MVP-caliber quarter:
  “He was planting some trees in that third quarter, like left and right. And there was a scenario ... where it was like, holy shit, he’s going to win the MVP.” — Simmons (05:14)

• Player engagement transition:
  “...the LeBron generation decided they couldn’t be bothered ... the Yokage-Luka generation came in—they're not even going to run. Now we have these young guys.” — Simmons (07:36)

• Wembanyama’s commitment:
  “Wemby gets a lot of credit; he was putting it forth a week ago—‘I don’t care what the rest of you are doing, I’m going to try.’” — Lowe (11:08)

All-Star Weekend Events: What Works and What Doesn’t

• Three-Point Contest: Remains a highlight; suggestions to bring in more cross-league stars (Steph vs. Sabrina) and legends.
• Dunk Contest: Continues to struggle without star power. Both suggest rookies/sophomores should be required to participate to increase appeal.
  • Simmons: “We’ve run out of dunks. There’s nowhere else to go.” (38:52)
• Timing/Presentation: Condensed (less concert, more hoops) opening was much appreciated.
  • Simmons: “Boom, boom, we're playing.” (17:00)

NBA's Tumultuous Week: The Tanking Crisis and Solutions

Adam Silver’s Press Conference

• Both agree the commissioner showed unusual public frustration regarding competitive integrity and tanking.
  • Lowe: “This was his polite way of saying, I’m fucking sick of this shit and we're going to change a lot of stuff.” (49:31)

Five Intertwined Problems (Simmons, 50:33–52:53):

1. Season too long, lowest quality after NFL ends
2. Teams can tank without repercussions
3. Star players’ durability is declining
4. Fans/season ticket holders for weaker teams get a bad late-season product
5. All teams—including tankers—share luxury tax revenue

Potential Solutions Discussed:

• Penalties for Tanking:
  • Luxury tax disqualification for repeat tankers
  • Reducing cap space for bad-faith rebuilding, but Lowe warns of unintended consequences (54:57)
• Tweaking the Lottery:
  • No top-4 lottery picks in consecutive years for a team
  • Limit or abolish pick protections
• Format Fixes:
  • Dramatic "relegation” system where bottom 10 teams play each other only, and lose perks/revenue (62:26–64:28)
• Shorten the Season:
  • Both strongly advocate for cutting games (70-74 as the sweet spot), increasing randomness and health, and raising each game’s value.
• Radically Restructuring the Draft:
  • “Do you keep the reverse-order draft or reimagine it?” — Lowe (72:50)

Simmons’s Wildest Idea:

• Give top-5 prospects agency: After the consensus order, the player picks which eligible team they’ll sign with from among the teams that wanted him. (80:51)
• Lowe: “You are putting a team in position where—cut to Danny Ainge—seven consecutive players have snubbed the Jazz!”

League Rumors & Side Conversations

• The KD ‘Burner Account’ Allegations:
  Mid-podcast, news breaks about a potential KD burner scandal involving him talking trash about teammates. Both proceed cautiously. (18:23–19:41)

• Jayson Tatum’s Return:
  Speculation about possible return dates, with Simmons running through “Conspiracy Bill” scenarios, including NBC’s special access and Celtics/Philly schedule moves. (20:04–23:31)

• Team Sale Possibilities and Rumors:

  • Joe Lacob possibly buying the Padres, opening a door for Warriors sale?
  • Knicks, Bulls, Mavs, Titans for possible future sales, with wild speculation. (89:10–94:08)

• Other League Notes:

  • Giannis's ambiguous comments about his future—both podcasters express fatigue with the constant “will he or won’t he?”
  • Injury updates, MVP odds, and the shifting contender landscape (e.g., Houston’s injury woes, Lakers/Minnesota/Harden with Cleveland).

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• All-Star Game Discussion & Format Reaction:
  01:20 – 12:31
• Standout Players; Generational Shift:
  07:33 – 11:59
• All-Star Saturday & Events Critique:
  36:41 – 45:02
• NBA’s Tanking Crisis & Systemic Solutions:
  47:32 – 83:26
• Radical Draft Ideas & League Rumors:
  80:15 – 90:05
• Closing: Team Sale Speculation/Valentine’s Day Banter/Olympics Takes:
  89:10 – End

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Notable Quotes

“Quarter by quarter, all of a sudden became super duper fun...Two thumbs up, I thought it was a huge win for a league that needed a win this weekend.”
— Bill Simmons, 01:38/03:29

“Reggie was the most guilty of this ... It’s like no one’s really in desperation, but you don't have to go that far.”
— Zach Lowe, 04:36

“Adam did an awesome job with [the Sterling crisis]. That was the last time we were like, this is now a crisis. I think this is a crisis now...”
— Bill Simmons, 69:59

“Shortening the season solves a lot of problems ... I just think the benefits are enormous across the board other than this dip in per-game gate.”
— Zach Lowe, 66:15

“I'm working on... I’m going to call it the NBA Conclave as a way to solve the draft order...There’s like no idea too outlandish.”
— Zach Lowe, 82:16

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Summary Takeaway

Simmons and Lowe delivered an energized, idea-laden conversation focused on NBA reform and the future of the league, using the unexpectedly positive All-Star Game as a springboard. Both commended the league for the progress, but forcefully argued that the NBA needs bold, systemic changes to address tanking and keep fans engaged as media consumption habits shift. Their mix of in-the-weeds solutions and dynamic riffing made this a rich podcast for anyone interested in where the NBA—and professional sports—are headed.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Sa.

[A]

All right live on Netflix. Zach, Lois, here it's the Bill Simmons podcast. We just watched the NBA All Star Game 2026. Team Stripes took it down. I never thought I would say these words, Zach. I wish I had gone. I did.

[B]

It was a fun game. It was a fun game.

[A]

35, 40 minutes from my house. It would have been inconceivable to me 20 years ago, 25 years ago that I wouldn't have wanted to go to the All Star game. But it had just beaten me in a submission and I just didn't want to go. And then as the game kept going quarter by quarter all of a sudden became super duper fun. Fourth quarter not fun but first three super fun.

[B]

It was a great like a bit of redemption for the NBA. I made fun of the format. I still don't love like the round robin for minigame format. I love USA versus the world. But it was a pretty competitive game. It wasn't like an NBA regular season level of competition. It wasn't that intense transition defense wasn't great but. But it was definitely like worlds better than two years ago when it was 211 to 180 something and every the five all stars before that were all just dunk, dunk, dunk, laziness. This was like a fun game. There were fouls, there were blocked shots, there was buzzer beaters, drama. It was a lot.

[A]

There were a couple hard fouls but yeah, we had, we did not have a lot of the guy lazily running out to block a 3 at the top of the key and then just continuing to keep going and then getting the long pass for the dunk. Did had maybe two of those in the last game. More importantly, Zach and You're wearing the sign right now.

[B]

We defended America from the world Stars Stripes world. Thanks for showing up. Team USA versus Team usa.

[A]

Thanks for. Thanks for not caring.

[B]

Nicole Jokic, the one guy who just steadfast. I mean, we're going to give Luka a pass because he's coming off an injury. Jokic is also coming off an injury, but he's been playing and playing a lot of minutes. He just was like, he can't be roped into it. Like, oh, Wemby's trying hard. He's going to lift everybody up. And Ants trying hard. He's going to lift everybody up. And like, the Pistons guys are going like, it's a Detroit Pistons game. Yokage is like, when is this over, man? Like, can we just get out of here?

[A]

It's so weird because I don't know, I just would think he would love just fucking around in the game and doing weird passes and trying things and just having guys cut and just like, I don't know, having like this playhouse to do Yokic things. But he does not want to be bothered. Maybe they should have to get him engaged. Maybe it should be like a horse for the winner. $3 million horse, something like that. Anthony Edwards, MVP, 32 points. One of the things we were complaining about before we came on the stats, NBC wasn't showing us really any stats. I had no idea how anyone was doing. But when Kawhi ripped off the 31 points in third quarter, we were at least aware of that. I don't know how many points he ended up with. You know, there's some historical stuff that. Did we decide that that carries over? Like, did Kawhi have 50 points today? Did he have 45? We don't know. That was probably my biggest gripe other than Reggie Miller telling us for an hour that the guys were trying because I was watching, I could tell they were trying. But other than that, two thumbs up, I thought it was a huge win for a league that needed a win this weekend.

[B]

I do like what they did. The NBA really didn't need to win. I do like it when the announcers and Reggie was the most guilty of this. And I like Reggie. Overall, it's just like the world is in desperation mode here. They monster possession, got to get a stop. It's like no one's really in desperation, but you don't have to go. You don't have to go that far.

[A]

Yeah, they. He was definitely cooking the drama. Well, the big winner of anyone tonight was Kawhi Leonard, who aspired to be the mvp.

[B]

He did. He did. He burned. He burned up some nets. He was on a burner today.

[A]

He was planting some trees in that third quarter, like left and right. And there was a scenario at one point during that third quarter where it was like, holy shit, he's going to win the mvp. And Adam Silver is going to present it to him as Steve Ballmer is cheering in the background. And this is just going to be a moment because the general feeling is some sort of resolution is happening with this Clippers thing in the next couple weeks. I have no idea if that's true. That's just a general feeling. I'm just here to pass along general feelings. But Kawhi winning the MVP would have been hilarious.

[B]

I think we were all rooting for that, right? I mean, two years ago, two years ago, I remember Adam Silver presenting the MVP when it was the 200 something to 190 something or whatever game, and just like shaming the players. Just like a cranky, miserable parent who's fed up and just has had enough of the whole thing. Two years later, it would have been. All right. So I got to talk about the elephant in the room here. Kawhi Leonard in into it. Steve Ballmer, like Jokic, won't play hard for any of this. Steve Ballmer will not settle down. Steve Ballmer is in his same seat doing the same. Yeah, Piston arms churning. He's screaming. He will not settle down. It would have been. It would have been great theater and ant and team stars. I think he was a star. Team stars ruined it for us. Yeah.

[A]

So the star stripes, it seems like the older players were on the stripes, but they didn't fully differentiate it because there were some younger guys on that team as well. But the LeBron team had LeBron and KD and Kawhi. And then poor Jalen Brown, who I think had real ideas to win MVP in the first game, seemed like he was among the people that cared the most. And then Kawhi was just like, jalen, hold this. And then took over. But I thought the setup, which I didn't really fully understand all week, and nobody seemed to really fully understand it, and they asked Kawhi about it yesterday and he was like, I don't understand it, but it's basketball, so we'll figure it out. I thought it worked. And I think it comes back. And I think at the very least, with all the other things this league has to solve, we at least seems like. It seems like we have found something that might work here with the all star game after 15 tries. So maybe there's hope for the lottery now.

[B]

Well, let's. Can we go through what we liked and what we didn't like? Should we actually discuss the All Star Game and, like the format?

[A]

I'm ready. I took a ton of notes. So here's my big question for you, and I think it starts here. Like, the. I wrote down all the guys who seemed like they gave a shit, and it starts with Wemby Edwards, the two Detroit guys. Jaylen Brown, Barnes, Maxi, Denny Booker. I thought Booker, Booker, Booker and Jalen Brunson. All those guys are basically 27 and under. And I just wonder if this All Star thing was a little generational where the LeBron generation decided that they couldn't be bothered anymore. The Yokage Luka generation came in. They're like, you think you can't be bothered? We're not even going to run. And now we have these young guys. I thought the Detroit guys, especially Duran, I loved how he played today. I thought the Detroit guys, like, genuinely cared about, and that's why the game was good.

[B]

If I had a box score and not four box scores, I would look up how many block shots and steals Cade had in this game, because it felt like he had four blocks at the rim and, like, was really trying. And that's. It's what you like about the Pistons. It's. It's like the. The, like the fight against Charlotte is the downside of what they are, but the upside of what they are is, like, they legitimately just want to beat the hell out of you and out physical you and out tough you. And they want to make you, like, quit. They want to make you feel like. I don't. This is just too much for me today. I don't want to deal with this.

[A]

Yeah. Dern was like, really? This is the lineup you're going to play and just was. Was running amok in that. That last game, I thought. So they named the mvp, which ain't one. I don't think it's a bad idea to name. Almost like, we have all NBA to name the first team, guys who seem like they gave the most shits.

[B]

Okay. And we'll workshop the name, but sure.

[A]

Yeah. I don't know if that's sponsorable. I think that would be tough. But campers. Well, Wemby, Ant and Kawhi and the two Detroit guys would probably be my five. I think Jalen was sniffing it, but then as the. As it went along, but I think that would be my five. Wemby like, was genuinely enraged when Carl Anthony Towns screwed up.

[B]

It was great. It was great. The only thing they needed to do was not give up a three. And I think it was Abdia and Towns both rotated to the roller at the same time, leaving all the shooters open. And Wemby was like, like, ah. I just couldn't believe it.

[A]

All the guys who were on the Carl Anthony Towns chat who have played with him over the course of his career, that was a fun text thread after that happened.

[B]

Oh boy.

[A]

All the guys in the Timberwolves, the Knicks, it was just classic. The announcers are saying, look, all they have to do is not give up a three. And then he's like going with. I think it was Duran for a layup. But. But Wemby was like genuinely mad. Ant gave Wemby credit after the first game, which was great. And that first game was big because Barnes hit the 3. In OT, there was a 5.02.

[B]

Love the target score, by the way. Love the overtime target score. Great, great touch.

[A]

You could argue they should add a target score for each quarter, right?

[B]

Sure, why not?

[A]

Yeah, I think we could have gone 40 for each one. Maybe get gets a little faster, but. But yeah. So Barnes hits the three at some point. Like, I did an Instagram video. I was making fun of the game. Cause it had all the makings of another boring All Star Game for about five minutes.

[B]

Well, I mean, in your defense, we have been conditioned to expect exactly that.

[A]

I was like, all right, this is going to suck like all the other ones. But something switched with three minutes left in that first game. And I think all of us realized simultaneously, like, oh, so does Wimby get credit for that or is it just all the young guys?

[B]

I think Wemby gets a lot of credit for it because he was like, he was putting it forth a week ago. Like, I'm. I don't care what the rest of you are doing. I'm going to try. And if you don't try, and I try, my wingspan is like a million feet and I'm just going to swallow the whole game up by myself and embarrass you. I think he gets. But like, you know, we have to see next year. Is it carryover effect? Is it this format, us versus the world that actually made them try? Or was the outcry of how bad the All Star game had gotten? Was the shaming just so loud? Plus the shaming the general league has taken? I don't know if the players care about that, but the whole last Week has been a catastrophe for the NBA, as you've remarked. Maybe that's like a perfect storm of like, you know what? We got to put on a decent show tonight. Does it happen again next year? Like, I kind of want to see it, but this was undeniably a big success for the league.

[A]

I'm a generally optimistic glass half full guy. And my guess would be the positive reinforcement that these guys are going to get over the next 24 hours who actually like from people who like the game. Like, hey man, that was cool. That was really fun. Blah, blah, blah. Like I. That's got to carry over because I. It felt like this was headed toward being a lost cause. Like what happened with the NFL with the Pro Bowl. Like, we were right on the precipice of going over the cliff. And this was what, the fourth time they've changed this.

[B]

Yeah. Last year was another kind of round robin that I didn't understand. And actually last year I just sort of was like, I'm not even going to try. It's going to be bad. I'm not even going to try to understand it. And then we had the picking teams thing for a while and that they've tried a lot of different things.

[A]

None of it worked well. Barnes hit a 3 for the win in the first game. Edwards said shit during the post game, which I loved in the second game. De' Aaron Fox, did you think it was going in? Game winning three and they were down, had to go in. Did you think it was going in?

[B]

Because I did not. I felt good about it. He was open, he got to set his feet, you know, feel good. He got added to the All Star Game. Spurs coaching staff is there. I felt good about it because I was. That was the same. So this is the second game. I think that was the game. That game had an ant had just had to steal and a three to put his team ahead. And it was felt like ant had stamped like, this is my night. But when they brought it back that fast, I was like, oh, this is going to go in. This is going to be fun.

[A]

Third game, Kawhi goes on a run. We end up getting close to the 50s. Kawhi has 31 points, 11 for 13 from. From the field, six to seven threes and hits a step back three to take the lead. And that was like a legitimate. I wish I was there moment like that. Like, that was really as good as anything we've had this century in the All Star. Him just heating up, you know, sequentially. And you've seen him do it. You said on your pod earlier this week you thought he's been the best player in the league for what, the last two months?

[B]

Basically, since he came back. Since Thanksgiving, thereabouts. I mean, part of that is Jokic has missed a bunch of games. Shay is right there with him. Like Shai is just this metronome of. I mean, he's missed some games recently.

[A]

But I have some notes on that take. But I respect the take.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I, I don't know. It's like I, I would put Jaylen Brown head to head with him and they did go head to head at the Clippers and one and the team success is around the same. But I also. The. I think Cade. Cade. It's. It's weird. It's a weird year because a bunch of guys probably are in that conversation for who's playing the best, which is what is going to make MVP so bizarre if SGA and Jokic don't make it. I don't know what happens if those guys don't get the. Is it. Or what is the MVP threshold? Is it the same as all 65? Yeah. So if neither of those guys make it, I don't know what happens. I was looking at it on FanDuel today and the, the. I have this. The third odds are SJ is minus 180. Yokage is plus 290. Kate is the next one at 14 to 1.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And then Lucas 20 to 1. Wemby's 33 to 1 and Jalen Brown's 100 to 1. And there's a real chance SGA and Joker might not make that limit.

[B]

Well, all right. SGA's missed seven games.

[A]

So. But when's he coming back?

[B]

Unless this thing lingers longer than expected. He, He'll. He'll. He should be able to make it. Jokic, I believe, can only miss one more game. Maybe two. I can't remember off the top of my head.

[A]

It's probably sga.

[B]

It's probably.

[A]

There is.

[B]

It's. And he's been great. Like there's nothing. He's been awesome.

[A]

Yeah. Well, the other stuff that happened. Okay. Steph, did you see the shot he made in the pregame?

[B]

I did. And he has also declared that he will be participating in the three point Shootout next season, which is fantastic. Let's do that. And let's bring back the Sabrina vs Steph thing. That was awesome too.

[A]

And then KD was the MVP for content this weekend. And we'll talk about that in a little bit. We Had John Tesh did a live round ball rock. Shades of the video that I remember running on a trade value from him in some casino in 2009 dressed as like a pirate doing that. As one of my favorite YouTube clips we had. Norm Powell was on the world team.

[B]

He was.

[A]

They just needed a guy and it was like, well, his dad was born in Jamaica. Let's bring him in. Ingram, I felt the same as you. I heard you do this on your pod about Ingram making the All Star Game. I thought, I thought two Raptors and no Hornets felt like a stretch to me. I probably would have worked a Hornet in just to even it out. But what do I know was, did you have a backup choice for Angra?

[B]

Well, did we. Are we assuming that James Harden just called the league and was like, I'd rather just not just not go like.

[A]

Like you think like that trade made where. Yeah. James Harden, who is just. When you look at the. I. It was one of the things I did all morning. I was trying to figure out a whole bunch of different things. And har stats are really good.

[B]

Yeah, for sure. He should be really in the All Star Game.

[A]

Yeah, he probably should be. The other thing that happened, they condensed the All Star Game kind of warm up first part into 15 minutes. If you remember on TNT that went on forever. It was like they're introducing each guy, there's concerts and it was like almost it took an hour before the game started. And it was like, do I have to watch all this? What's the ruling? This was like, boom, boom, we're playing.

[B]

So after the second game, I went to eat dinner because I just assumed there was going to be a 50 minute concert before the third game. And then I started getting alerts that the game was about to start and I had to scarf my chicken vindaloo as fast as possible to get back out there for the third game. I was like, oh my, I love it. Give me the basketball. Like, I don't need. I don't need five concerts with a basketball game interspersed in between them.

[A]

Yeah, your. Your Twitter burner would not be get off my Dickerson.

[B]

It would be.

[A]

It would be don't eat my vindaloo. I think would be. And then. All right, three other things to flag here. One is that somebody, somebody asked LeBron about Israel before the game. And that felt like that's going to turn into a 24 hour cycle or at least it did until this KD Twitter thing happened, which I think we at least have to acknowledge that this is happening in Real time that there is a burner account.

[B]

I don't know what it is because I know what's happening. I know what's alleged to be happening, but I don't know if it's a Twitter account or a text thread or something. I don't get what's going on.

[A]

Oh, I thought it was a Twitter account, but it's an account and it's allegedly him. And there's a lot of signs that it's him just shit talking a bunch of people that he's either played with or played against. And if you go to basically any place on social media, you'll be able to find a lot of examples. And there is video of him in the warmup line looking at his phone and typing. That was also weird. I assume this is probably some. There's probably some smoke with the fire on this one. And we've never been in a situation. If this is all true and he's talking about guys that he plays with right now. I don't know if we've ever been in a situation like this. A social media scandal of revealed tweets, texts of somebody talking, disparaging people on his team that he then has to go play with tomorrow night. I think we've made new ground on this.

[B]

I'm gonna wait. I wanna see. I just. I need more information.

[A]

That's why we said allegedly and. Yeah, yeah, I need more information. This is why you're Spock. You're way more careful.

[B]

I just need more information. It doesn't look good, but I need more information.

[A]

By Tuesday, we'll know. We'll probably have a better idea. Conspiracy Bill is here. I don't have.

[B]

On a different topic or on this topic.

[A]

Different topic.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Maybe I'll bring out the wind Horse fingers.

[B]

I can't. I'm in suspense.

[A]

Come on. I don't know if you saw this over the weekend. Celtics Sixers on Sunday night, March 1st.

[B]

Okay, this is. This is a lot. This is disappointing for Conspiracy Bill. This is too easy. This is. This is like. Everyone's already talking about this move from.

[A]

6 to 8pm that got a well.

[B]

And they did you see during one of the breaks in the game, this.

[A]

Is where Conspiracy Bill is going.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I was like, that would be weird. That's a lot of pressure to do a Sunday night game as your comeback. Then randomly during. During breaks between. I think it was the third and the fourth game, a three minute Jayson Tatum comeback. Very well done, very well produced comeback video about his journey set up in a way, that made me super suspicious that NBC and him are working together in some way. And this is all part of the thing.

[B]

Like the. Clearly, NBC has had crazy access to this all along. I mean, they've got the trainer talking. They're in rooms when he's having cell phone conversations with people. I don't know who arranged it or what production companies or what. I don't know what it is. But clearly they've been in the. In, in the rooms with him.

[A]

Cause when the flex thing happened, that was. That was a red flag. But then I looked at the schedule that night and I was like, well, they. They said they were going to do stuff like this, and they're moving the game two hours, and that's an awesome game. Boston and Philly, they didn't know that that would be a great game. So maybe not. With that said, had been hearing first week of March for a while that it was going to be somewhere around that March 4, March 6 game. Conspiracy Bill has also noted that if you go on any ticket resale site for the Dallas March 6 game, the prices are way out of whack. And it can't just be because Cooper Flag's coming to town. Like, they're way out of whack. The prices are really, really high. So I'm factoring that in, too. And now the Sunday, and I talked to my dad today and I was like, you kept your Sunday and your Friday tickets, right? And he's like, oh, yeah, yeah, I still have them. So, yeah, it's really starting to look like March 1st or March 6th, but my money would be on March 1st now for him.

[B]

I'm a little surprised. I know this is Conspiracy Bill. Why is your tone not giddy about this? I mean, it.

[A]

It.

[B]

He's practicing with the red. The Red Claws. I almost called the main Celtics. So he's. He's doing real basketball stuff now with. Against real basketball players. Clearly we're heading in. In the direction of a potential return. Maybe soon.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Why are you not just over the moon?

[A]

Because I felt like this was coming for the last six weeks, and I. I'm not sure why anybody would have been surprised.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Because. Because I just feel like. And I've talked to a bunch of people and people ask me about it all the time, like, why would he come back? Why wouldn't he wait? And it's like, well, if he's ready to come back, why wouldn't he come back now and play 20, 25 minutes a game and ease back into it versus waiting until next October and putting all that pressure on him. I mean, even like I look at Kyrie and I don't know whether Kyrie's coming back or not. But I still don't understand why you wouldn't want to play like a little bit when you're ready to play. Like, how does that help you to just not play for another six months? I just taking 18 months off to do anything I think is a lot to ask for an athlete.

[B]

Well, their records are inverse 35 and 19 Celtics best record in the NBA. And the Mavs are tanking and that probably would explain some of it. But yeah, like, so you don't. I mean, I talked about this on my pod, but you do not buy at all this, this idea of like, is he going to hurt the chemistry of the team? Is there any, any of that? You're not worried about any of that?

[A]

I'm going to tell you that right after we take a break. Okay, I'm going to give you my answer. So let's go to a break. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The football season may be coming to an end, but things are only getting started on the court, on the hardwood, on the wood as some people call it. Fanduel the number one choice for same game parlays, live betting and much more during the NBA season. Don't forget, with FanDuel you get paid instantly when you win. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app right now and play your game 21+ in President select states or 18 in President DC, Kentucky or Wyoming game prom code 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com, call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You got to love a good deal, whether that's a quarterback on a short, low risk contract who competes like a top tier quarterback, like a Brock Purdy once upon a time. Or Expedia's bundle and save feature, which allows you to combine flights, hotels and cars into one package for impressive discounts. And not just that, but if you're a member, you can book an item now, add select items later and still enjoy bundled savings. For instance, if you're a football fan, you want to go to the championship, conference championship, the super bowl, wherever it is, and you don't know your team's going to be and all of a sudden they're in, what do you got to do? I got to get a hotel. I Get a flight, I get a car. Expedia can do all three. You never know when your team's going to be in a big game. Use Expedia. Now that is a winning strategy book now with Expedia. All right, you asked before the break, am I concerned at all about the Jayson Tatum thing? Of course I am. I just watched Drake may completely fall apart in the playoffs and possibly get hurt. Like I. I'm still in, I gotta shake my head out of glass half empty mode with my favorite teams. But in this case, everything makes sense. They trade Simons away, flip Vusa, flip. Basically flip Garza into Vucevich. And you figure Tatum just moves right into the minute shots vacancy of Simons. And now you have more size. Now you have the ability to even like play. Stretch five with them if you want and all kinds of stuff. But when you've been out for that long, banging bodies, that part's weird. The Jalen thing is, I talked about it a little on my podcast on Thursday, but the Jalen thing, he just really thinks it's his team now. I'll be really interested to see how they share that thing, which has always been, I think some of it was overblown. I don't know if the MVPs helped that much when Jalen won both of them. I kind of wish that they just split it. It would have been fine. Followed by the Olympics. And then, you know, Jalen's been pretty and he has a right to be this way because everybody counted this team out and said it was the gap year. Celtics, including me.

[B]

Including me. Guilty as charged.

[A]

I had. I was over 41 and a half, but like barely over.

[B]

I didn't think I was under. I have not been as wrong about a team as I've been about this Celtics team, I don't think, ever.

[A]

Wow. Well, I have some other people for that group just from this year's podcast, including the Suns. But Jalen, I do think he's been like this and he should be. And Tatum's going to have to move back into that. And the bigger thing for me is the style of play is different and you're better at that stuff than I am. But the way they play is just a little different than last year. And it's way more through the guards and it's with these centers set in, these big picks at the top and then rolling hard to the basket. And Pritchard and White have the ball a lot more than I think they did last year. And then Jalen, his ISO game on the two point stuff has just been elite like he has, I looked at it today. He has the most two point baskets over everybody but Shay and Shay's only like a little bit ahead of him and he's missed a couple more games, but that's how good he's been as a two point scorer. So how does he fit into this year's team, I think is the thing that I want to see.

[B]

Yeah, Jalen has been so good and so efficient on mid range shots off the dribble that I'm almost like he can't possibly sustain. Like he's over 50 something percent on really hard mid range shots and you think the other shoe is going to drop and not like in a big way. But is he going to settle back to like 44% or something? I don't worry about the style thing. To me they still kind of look like the Celtics. Spacing threes, guard, wing pick and rolls, targeted isolations, big wings playing bully ball against smaller guys, hunting them like Tatum does all that stuff. The style, the schematic, general like big picture style doesn't worry me at all. The only thing that I just, I'm like you, I'm interested to see is like, it's just so clearly Jalen Brown's team right now. Like there's just, he's, he's number one and everyone else is way down the totem pole. That does change. And even if Tatum isn't Tatum and he's not going to be Jason Tatum right away, he's not going to be Jason Tatum for a couple months probably at least like peak, peak, peak first team, all NBA. And even if he's aware of that and understands that it's Jalen Brown's team and I think all of those things are true, he's just played that way his entire basketball life. He's played that as, as the number one guy. It's not that easy to just sort of take your way to a different style of play or even like a hybrid style of play. But I, I, I think that it's workable. And you know, you have said you don't think they can make the finals as is. And if, if you believe that then this is a no brainer, like good thing because it, it, it might, there might be some hiccups, but your ceiling definitely gets higher around the league.

[A]

People seem to be concerned that the, the ceiling of this team is just so much higher with Tatum.

[B]

Right.

[A]

If, even if you even forget like they showed the highlights of that Knicks game when he got hurt. He was incredible in that game.

[B]

It's one of the best games he's ever played.

[A]

I was like one of the best games that might have been. Other than the Milwaukee 50 point game, that might have been the single best game he's played. I really liked his game six against Dallas too, but. But he was just awesome. And you kind of. I think there's been a little amnesia with how good he is and throwing him in there. Um, I can't wait to see how it goes. Jalen's had. Probably not going to ding Jalen on this, but he's probably had three too many. This is the most fun I've had in my career.

[B]

Kind of quotes I've always been able to do. I've always been able to do this.

[A]

Probably plus three in that category and minus three in the. I really miss my brother Jason. We've been putting together our whole career. It's going to be great to have him back. I'd probably like tilt that seesaw a little this way, but it's going to be. I don't think there's a more fascinating March story. Is there. Is there anything more interesting than watching Tatum try to figure out how to assimilate to this team? I don't think there is as a basketball story.

[B]

There are certain things happening in the NBA as a basketball story on one team. Probably not as I guess the Harden thing, but that's been pretty seamless on offense.

[A]

So Harden, that would have been my 1B is. And you know, I think we all saw at that one game when they beat Denver and Harden with a little more size and how easily he just can fit in with whatever team he wants to when he's like distributor James Harden. It just. It was felt different watching them in a good way for them. They. They didn't. You could still hunt James Harden and teams are going to do it in the playoffs, but at least like you can put him on bigger guys and try to hide him. So I thought that was interesting. Give me more All Star Game notes that you had.

[B]

All right, so.

[A]

Or All Star weekend.

[B]

Well, let's just start with the game. Yeah, I love USA versus the world. Nailed it. Don't need to change that. As we're talking about box scores and game two, Game three, Game four and all of this and I might be like too old school in this regard. Can we just have two teams? Like can we do us versus the world? But there's. And if we're worried about American players getting left out of All Star Status and they had the, you know, the 16, eight quotas that they had to hit this year. Just can we have 15 team rosters then? Because I just want to know like a. It was a little anticlimactic that it came down to us versus us in the end for the winning championship of All Star Weekend.

[A]

I think it was anticlimactic for the guys playing too. I thought the world piece of it brought out more maybe than the last game.

[B]

And I also just like to know like it's easier with two teams. I. It's very easy to keep track on who's like. Of who's on what team so that it very make. It makes the coaching choices down the stretch. Like they're playing these five guys and here are all the guys on the bench. Well, oh, Team Red. I don't remember who's on team Red. Like who is the coach sitting for team Red and the stakes. Like I shouldn't have to watch the first and second quarters and not understand the stakes of what's going on. And this team's got to win by four and this team's got to win. I have heard from people inside the league now, people in the league office who are sort of incentivized to defend every tweak they make and stuff that the players like the idea of the minigames that it feels like pick up to them. They like the, they like the quick finality of it. So maybe I'm fighting an uphill battle. But I like us versus the world. I like that it's my favorite thing from the picking teams format that they then ditched was watching teammates go against each other in the All Star games.

[A]

Like Brunson and Townsend.

[B]

Brunson and Cat is the best example. I like that. And this keeps that. I just like the clarity of one team versus another and the world. The international pool is definitely good enough to field a competitive 15 player roster. I mean how many of the seven best players in the league are world guys to begin with? I. That would be my one. My one note is I just would like to have one, one team against another team like a regular basketball game.

[A]

So the counter to that was if you go by quarter, that's what made it feel more like a pickup game. And if we have two teams, you can't do the quarter thing. I was trying to figure out. The part that I struggled with was how did they figure out what these two teams were that were the USA teams and whether next time they either have to do east as one side, west is the Other side for the two USA teams or do you have some sort of age cutoff where it's like 27 and up, 27 and down and that's how you do it.

[B]

And the pick at the quarter stuff, not only do the players supposedly like it, but it does. Although the last game was a blowout, it does mitigate against like. All right, well, the world is up by 35 going into the fourth quarter. This is going to be totally unsuspenseful. I just like to. I, I like the two teams thing. The stakes are more clear, the rotation decisions are more clear, the game makes more sense. And if they're trying hard because of its world versus us, then that, that would carry over too. I thought the jerseys were awesome. All three jersey kits awesome.

[A]

I like the Stars and Stripes as two of the three team names. That actually makes sense.

[B]

Stripes, baby.

[A]

USA Stars. USA Stripes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Good job.

[B]

I'm trying to think what other. I mean, clearly the game was better. There's just no question it was a pretty competitive basketball game. There were fouls, there was physicality, all of that. It was really fun.

[A]

The game never should have degenerated like it did over the last 25 years. And I still don't fully understand why that had to happen, but I don't understand a lot of things. I also don't understand All Star Weekend in general. I think if they're going to evolve the game, I think they have to really look at the weekend and having the Friday night, Saturday, Sunday thing, like there was just nobody there on Friday night. And maybe that part of it is you're doing it in Los Angeles and if you did it in Indiana or Milwaukee or Oklahoma City or Portland or even Boston, if Boston never gets the All Star Game again, the novelty of, oh, I want to go to everything, and then LA has had the game, I think four times in the last 22 years or something. The Saturday, they just, they just can't figure it out past the three point contest. And when you're at the point where you have Jackson Hayes doing running left handed, how is Jackson Hayes in the All Star Game? To me, the number one cry for help is that VJ Edgecomb didn't want to be in the dunk contest, it makes me think they shouldn't have it. Because we've had John Morant not want to be in it, we've had Zion not want to be in it, and now Vijay Edgecombe. And if I'm like VJ Edgecomb's manager, I would want him to be in it. It's like, dude, go kill this dunk contest. It's going to be worth like $10 million in sponsors for us. Go do some awesome dunks and raise the knowledge for people like my son who barely knows who he is, but people have just punted on it. So I don't know why they have it.

[B]

So what, so what do you, what do you want to happen? What do you. What is your All Star Friday and Saturday? Look, I'll. I'll give you my All Star Friday and Saturday. Zach Lowe's experience. Not going to All Star this year. Confession to make. I don't know if I'm going to get flack for this. Did not watch any of All Star Friday. Can't do. I didn't watch one minute. Can't do Celebrity Game. Don't care about the Rising Stars challenge. I just. I can't.

[A]

I lost our coaching in 2014. Yeah, well, it's hard to. It's just. We'll never, never understand what happened.

[B]

We caught Michael B. Jordan on the way up. Like. Like we'll never have access to that.

[A]

Guy like that we caught him and he didn't and he. We weren't getting him the ball. And some would say it's coaching, some would say it was people on the team. But we just blew it. It was a tough loss for us.

[B]

It was a tough one. I. Saturday night just unabashedly. I still love it. I watch it. But. So that's why. So this year they took away the skills challenge which fine and replaced it with the shooting stars thing which I thought was cool. Anytime you're throwing half court shots and I like it. Yeah. What. What is your All Star Saturday look like? We agree Friday stinks. They're going to keep it. The young guys like it. The agents for the young guys like it. It's cool. Whatever. What is. What is Saturday to just nothing. Have a. Have just have a two day all star weekend.

[A]

No, I. You have to have something on Saturday night. But I don't know why they can't merge Friday and Saturday into one mega night. Do it that way. I don't know why we need Friday night. Friday nights. Everyone's like everyone at the weekend would rather be going to parties than dinner anyway. And that's what, that's what's been part of the issue. So that's always the one where people give away the tickets. I still really like the three point contest. I think they made a mistake not factoring in Caitlin and Sabrina. I just think have to be in It. Even if it's like a Steph versus Steph and pick one other of our best NBA three point shooters, going against those two is some sort of, you know, some sort of battle. I think I just would have watched it. My rule is like, I'll just watch it. Dunk contest has gotten to the point I don't watch it live and I'll rewind it if people are telling me something crazy happened. Which in this case was poor Jace Richardson almost knocking himself unconscious.

[B]

That was a little scary.

[A]

Yeah, that was our. Almost our worst dunk accident we've ever had. But I just, I've been writing. I felt like I was writing this for page two in 2002. We've run out of dunks. There's nowhere else to go.

[B]

Okay. Shooting star is fine. I could take it or leave it. It was fun. I love the three point contest. It's always been my favorite event. In fact, it's one of the ones that they have added these little tweaks to and I've liked every tweak. I like the Moneyball rack and you get to pick where it is. I like the two State Farm extra long logo shots that are worth three points or whatever. I like that. I like everything about it. I like, love three point. I will. I thought I saw some people. I went on Twitter to see what the reaction was. Why'd you do that? People were mad. Like some people whose. Whose favorite players were in the three point contest and did not win were mad that a player who had not played this season was allowed into the three point contest and then won over their favorite player. I fucking love that Damian Lillard was in the three point contest. I love that he won it. It was awesome. He is awesome.

[A]

This is what all insane take.

[B]

This is what All Star weekend is supposed to be. A showcase of the best players. He's a two time champion and he won the freaking contest. You think my take is insane?

[A]

No, I think anyone who's like, anyone who's like, I don't like that dame lowered one when my player should have won instead is that's crazy. I'll go further. I would watch a legends three point contest too.

[B]

Could get ugly. I don't know if you want to see that. You see Ron Harper missed that layup in the Shooting Stars competition. You might have missed that.

[A]

Fine.

[B]

Here's my. Here's my other take on the three point contest. Khan on fire in round one.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Pressure may have got to him.

[A]

He had a long layoff. My guy.

[B]

And as I'm watching it. I'm thinking, is he not made for this level of pressure, for this level of moment? And is it because people coddle him by driving him home after podcasting instead of making him get an Uber like an adult and toughen up the pod?

[A]

I should have shown him some tough love after the po Just so you.

[B]

Thought it crossed my mind.

[A]

Yeah, he'll be fine.

[B]

I thought the dunk contest was good. The problem is that no one is. No one other than crazy die hard fans has heard of anybody in the dunk contest. I thought the dunks were good. There just aren't any new dunks. I kind of like that for the most part, other than the E40 dunk, they pretty much dispensed with props and just were like, we're going to jump really high and swing the ball around and do crazy stuff. I thought the dunks were good. People always hate on the dunk contest, and they hate on it because none of the stars do it. I don't know what's to be done about that, but I found it entertaining. It's faster now than it used to be. It doesn't take forever anymore. It's at least a quick event.

[A]

I just would have all the rookies do it.

[B]

Just make them do it. Like, it's part of your job as a rookie.

[A]

It's part of, like the cba. When you're in the league, we pick four. Because then you would add vj, you would add Cedric Coward like you. It just would have been more interesting. Right. We could have thrown together four rookies or maybe rookie sophomores. Maybe that's what it is.

[B]

Maybe.

[A]

But it goes back to when Zion and Ja didn't want to be. I thought when Blake Griffin was in it early in his career, I thought it was like a really important moment for his career. Like, I thought it elevated his star power. And we've seen that a few times over the years with younger players using the dunk contest to just become more famous. I don't know why he would toss that away.

[B]

So I was. I. We. We watched all the All Stars Saturday, and my. My. My wife and I went out to. To dinner and a comedy show. And we were over dinner and I was telling her that, like, the guy who won the dunk contest is basically played like 15 games or something in the NBA. And the guy who won the last two or three, whoever, is like a G league player. Yeah. And she was just like, appalled of, like, why. Why do the stars not do this? And.

[A]

Right.

[B]

I have permission from her to share this take. And I was like, well, I can't wait. LeBron's never done it. I don't. Is Ant. I don't think Ant's ever done it. And I did go back and say it's funny. A lot of big stars did do it, but it was when they were just ascending as rookies. Like Dame. Remember Dame did every event at All Star Weekend one year. Donovan Mitchell did it. Blake Griffin did it. The best rookies at least used to do it. And obviously back in the day, Jordan did it, Dominique did it. Big, big stars did it. And she was asking me like, why, why wouldn't LeBron James or whoever do it? And I said, well, there's no real incentive. Like the money means nothing to them. And they probably only see the downside of embarrassment.

[A]

Yeah, I was going to say the embarrassment overrides whatever.

[B]

The dog for being Chris Anderson, who missed 13 dunks in a row. And she was like. Basically said, you know, are they, are they not? So take a little embarrassment for the good of the game. Like you're. You're making a gajillion dollars. You're already one of the take LeBron or whoever, one of the best basketball players ever lived, stomach a little embarrassment. I was like, this is a good take. This is like a good. Just like a good pre comedy show drink right now. You're spitting fire on. I should let her come on.

[A]

Well, you have that combined with. Why don't they care about the All Star Game? It's all part of the same thing, which is, you know, do you. Do you want to carry the league in other ways than just trying to win the title and making a lot of money to play in it and do endorsements, you know, and should these guys feel a responsibility for All Star Weekend? And I'm not positive they should at this point. I don't think they have properly flipped it because there's been so much atrophy over the last 25 years. I feel like the guys in the 70s and 80s not to be the old guy, remember in the old days. And if you go back and watch those games, they're not as good as they're being romanticized. But I do feel those guys cared about promoting the league. Cause the league wasn't that successful. Right. And it's like, we gotta do this because this is gonna help the league. And then the problem is the league became very healthy and you don't have to promote something that's healthy. And I just think that's where it flipped.

[B]

Well, the dunk contest and the game are different, are distinct elements in terms of participation. The dunk contest is like it's a, it's not low stakes, but it's not a competitive 48 minute basketball game. Like you can do that as a steward of the game. And it's on Saturday, it's earlier in the weekend. I empathize with the players when they don't try in the Sunday game and they say look man, We've been here 72 hours and I've done 72 media hits. My shoe company needed me to do this. I had 14 activations that my agency set up for me and by the end of I'm exhausted by Sunday of All Star Weekend. If you're a player in the all Star game, you've just done wall to wall crap for 72 hours. You're exhausted. Like I don't blame them. Then in, in the 70s and 80s you went and had fun at All Star weekend on your own schedule and then you played a real basketball game.

[A]

I thought yesterday was really bad Saturday and I Saturday I thought the, thought it was bad. I didn't think there was any energy for it. And three point contest was about the.

[B]

Only people were saying the crowd was bad early probably didn't help, right? Like super. It was early eastern time zone.

[A]

How about this? Like they, I'm assuming they moved it for the Olympics. These two things. Well, why not pass it off to another partner and have it prime time. That's like to have all this stuff during the day LA time is really weird. I didn't understand why they did that at all.

[C]

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[A]

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[B]

Yeah. This was not the typical Adam thing is like we're considering all ideas, we leave no stone unturned. This was like this was his polite way of saying like, I'm fucking sick of this shit and we're going to change a lot of stuff.

[A]

Combined with I kind of feel like I might have to fix some of this stuff or I'm not going to be here in five years was the underlying piece of that too, because this is on his watch and at Some point if you're just a comm. I said this on Tuesday. If your job as the commissioner, if your only job is to make everyone as much money as possible and that's it, which you could argue he's done because the last media deal is by far the biggest they've ever gotten and all the franchise fees are the highest they've ever been. So if you're just judging them by that huge success, but if you're judging him by what is the league like competitively? This is about as bad a shape as we've been in since the early 80s with some of the issues. So here are the five things. I'm just going to throw them all.

[B]

You're going to list me the problems.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Season's too long. And more importantly, suffers competitively at the worst possible time, which is mid February through March, after football ends. Football ends, spotlight comes on you and it's right as 25 to 30% of your league is like, we're going to try to lose from now on. So that's problem one. Problem two, teams can tank, which we've had for 43 years, but there's no repercussions for the following season, only positives. If you tank, the best case scenario is you get an awesome pick. The worst case scenario is you're still going to get a good pick. There's no other repercussion. Issue three, the star players are less durable than ever, which has partly to do with the schedule and partly to do with how hard basketball is to play with. We've talked about that. Issue four is 25 to 35% of the fan bases get screwed on season tickets during the last basically 30 games of the season. Right? So it's like if you're a season ticket holder of Sacramento or Washington or Brooklyn, pick a team your last two and a half months, you can't give your tickets away. And then if you have one of the good teams in Sacramento, Brooklyn or Chicago on Wednesday night, where, I don't know if you saw that game, but Missoula just basically decided to use that as a practice for Nikola Vucevic because it was like, Chicago's giving up. We're just. They're out there in the fourth quarter, they're running plays for Vuch, trying to be like, he's like, fuck it. We use this practice. That's issue four. And then issue five. Any team can participate in luxury tax revenue if they're under the tax, no matter how little they care about this season. So you have to Me, this is about misaligned incentives where there's not enough recourse against the teams that don't care as much as they should. There's not enough protection for the fans. And then on top of it, the season's too long, which hurts the players, which is part of this, too. And it all kind of feeds together in this giant Jello Bowl. And those are the five things that I think they have to figure out how to make this better as a group. And I have some ideas for that, but I'm going to throw that at you first.

[B]

Well, first of all, I'm weirdly not worried about the Washington wizard season ticket holder because I'm already worried about his sanity or her sanity to begin with. Like, they, they just love basketball so much that I just don't even think they care who's playing in the game. So I'm going to leave them aside. Okay, So I, I listened to you and Nick Wright, and you were talking about consequences for tanking. You were talking about. And there are two different types of consequences that you just sort of alluded to just now. One is just strictly hitting the owner's pocketbooks. Like, like, you don't get to participate in the luxury tax windfall. Whatever. Another that you mentioned with Nick that I think is important to talk about is erasing cap space the following season for a team who's deemed to have tanked.

[A]

That was my favorite idea I've had in a while. So, like, to actually hurt you for the next season.

[B]

So that I think gets at the core of the. What really needs to be discussed here is like, the entire point of the draft. In the lottery, it is all based on the principle that the worst teams need help acquiring better talent. It's all about redistributing talent. And you either believe that that should be the case, that that's what the draft is for, or you don't. And then you're open to much more dramatic solutions. But on that point, penalizing cap space, it's hard to do that and still believe that the draft should be for redistribution of talent. Because if a team tanks and you take away their cap space, it's like almost a double penalty on that team. That's making it even harder for a bad team to get good again, which is what they're tanking to try to do. So that. That sort of like the, the money penalty, I'm fine with, like, hit the owners. They're billionaires. Like, whatever. I don't care. Making it harder for a bad team to get good to me by taking away cap space, by taking away team building resources to me, cuts against the entire idea of what the draft is supposed to be for. And the reason they're tanking anyway.

[A]

Well, couldn't the penalties be tied a little bit more to behavior? And I don't know, like I said in that pod with Nick, the cutoff was like, can you go 27 and 55? And if you can't do that, every win under we start taking stuff away. The reason I thought of this idea because I'm in. I've talked about it before. On the bottom in the league of dorks. This American League only keeper league fantasy where we have a 40 player roster, we do a minor league draft.

[B]

Unbelievable.

[A]

And this is a league that has been around longer than when I was in it. And one of the early problems they had was tanking. And it was like, I'll just throw away my season, I'll trade my best guys, I'll get picks and I'll try to get the first pick in the next year's draft and get the best rookie. And it becomes such a problem. We put in these penalties in the keeper league and they've actually worked. And it's like if you fall below, we do it by categories and it's like you fall below like 27 points, whatever it is. This is commissioner Mike Mendelssohn. You have $15 less to spend at the draft next year. So we have like, I think it's like 200. 200 bucks to spend at the draft. 250, whatever it is. And the 15 bucks, you really feel it the next year. So the teams that suck, they're like, well, I can't really tank completely because I don't want to fuck over next year too. And I think we have to start thinking that way with some of this stuff where there's two things. One is you can't get the top four lottery pick two years in a row. I just think that should be automatic voted through. You just should not be able to.

[B]

Some unintended consequences to it though.

[A]

What do you mean?

[B]

Well, if I'm a bad team and I know that a t another bad team is ineligible to pick in the top four. That might embolden me to like or if I'm just. That might. That might embolden me to do like a aggressive, a more aggressive tank than I had planned because I know I'm ahead of that team already.

[A]

Well, could they do something with the ping pong balls where if you finish in the Top four, you get that certain number of ping pong balls, but you now get the fifth team ping pong balls. We just take ping pong balls out of the lottery. So you can't get the most you have to get. You had this last year. You were in the top four. There's something with the ping pong balls I feel like they can experiment with too. Including, by the way, Adam finding teams with ping pong balls, taking combinations away. Yeah. Cause there's a thousand ping pong combinations, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You go to the ladder every year and you stare at these ping pong balls as they bounce around. But like, yeah, would Utah do some of this stuff? And Utah, by the way, has done a great job of being like, what do you mean? Those guys played 28 minutes. They just didn't play the fourth quarter. It's like, okay, guys. Also like, all the stuff about that OKC was behind the punishment for Utah because they have their protected pick. I thought was just downright hilarious because this was the team that traded for Al Horford, not to play him for a year, just sent him to the Bahamas and sat SGA at least once down the stretch. Was it once or twice where they were just like, we know you're a young player trying to be better, but you're going to sit down for two months here.

[B]

Yeah. No franchise is like, almost no franchise is like been scot free from tank.

[A]

I think all of them have done it because everyone's done it. If, if we were running a team, we would do this. Well, look, to be clear, no penalty to do it. It's not like, like what do I care? I'm trying to beat everyone else. This is a smart move.

[B]

So what people were talking about was I, I think the Athletic was the first to report it was that Oklahoma City is. Oklahoma City officials are like whispering to people in the media about Utah and.

[A]

Oh, that's not like OKC at all.

[B]

Well, look, for the record, no one from the Thunder has talked to me about Utah Jazz, so I cannot speak to that. But I said on my pod two months ago that it's like a lock that the Thunder are going to complain to the league about Utah if Utah decides to tank. And by the way, of course they are. These are 30 self interested entities. They only care about the what no matter what they say. They only care about them winning short term and long term. It's all competition. Of course they're going to.

[A]

Right. Well, I got a couple emails and I would give the people credit, but I. All right. I'll give Kyler Dickey sent this in. Why can't we eliminate pick protections?

[B]

Just that's on the table. You can.

[A]

They're definitely going to be like, you know what, we don't have these anymore. You can do swaps and you do pick protections. Top four, top seven, top eight. We're done. No more. They're hard to keep track of.

[B]

I would predict right now that something like that happens that, that, that like, I think, I think they will exist. But the proposal that they've really taken the most seriously is you can only do top four protection and you can only do lottery protected. Nothing, nothing in between. We're not doing any more of the. Whatever. Top eight.

[A]

But the lottery protected leaves leads to what that Derek Lively situation.

[B]

This is, this is my general. No, well, Derek Lively was top.

[A]

Or was that top ten, I think. Oh, yeah, all right, you're right. Top ten.

[B]

Anyway, go ahead. I'm sorry, I don't want to interrupt the email. Chin.

[A]

Well, it was just either you trade the first round pick or you don't. And when you trade it, it's gone like it was in the 80s and 90s. I'm still on this. See? Are you ready for the most interesting idea I got or did you have more to take some.

[B]

Go, go, go.

[A]

So a couple people sent versions of this and I'm going to go with the email I got from Eric Widen, who, and I don't agree with where he landed on this, but it sparked something that I thought was really interesting. He wanted to have a Lottery Cup 62 game mark. Three bottom teams in each conference are relegated to the lottery cup and only play each other the last 22 games. And then everybody else still plays, same scoring system, blah, blah, blah. I don't think they would do that. But I do wonder. It did spark something in my brain about is there a cutoff date where basically teams get relegated to go play each other. So I wrote down, assuming we still have a 30 team league and everybody plays each other twice, that's 58 games. You play everyone in your division once. Now we're at 62 games. So we have 20 games left. And then I'm gonna have to make up games that I'm about to cut out. So let's say everybody plays two games overseas for international money to try to make up some of the salary cap. So I'm at 64 games right now. So those would be neutral site games. 64, 18 to go. We eliminate 10 teams right there, five in each conference. We're done. So those five teams, right, those 10 would be Chicago, Milwaukee, Brooklyn, Indiana, Washington, Memphis, Dallas, Utah, New Orleans, Sacramento, you're done. You're all going to just play each other nine games. You all play each other. Once we're done, we're going to end up at 73 games. And guess what else happens to those teams, Zach? The worst five out of those teams cannot participate in luxury tax revenue. Any team. So we have a 74 game, we're going to have penalties for if you lose 50 plus games. 55 plus, we're throwing all that in there. And they finished with a 73 game season and that's it. So I have 20 teams left. They're all playing with each other, right? So I have in the conference 10 teams each nine games against each other and they just. You play everyone in your conference once. Now I'm at 73 games. Is this too complicated or does this make sense?

[B]

I mean, I'm trying to stick with you. I'm trying to think what, what are the, what are the stakes in the games between the 10 relegated teams? What are we playing for in those games?

[A]

Nothing.

[B]

Nothing.

[A]

You're like banished. You're in the fucking kids table. Enjoy. Tank away. Go, go see if you can out tank each other. We're not showing these games on tv. You're not going to participate in that. We're, it's just, you're over here now.

[B]

Is that good? Is that good for fans of those teams? Is that worse for fans of giving everybody.

[A]

I'm giving everybody 75% off tickets for those last nine games.

[B]

Good luck with that.

[A]

Yeah. And then after the 73 games, we eliminate the 10 seed. Let me know what you think of this. For game 74, we have one game battles for the 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, 6 seeds. One game higher seed gets home. We just play one gamers. Almost like the playing but better. Just playing for home court. I mean, I'm sorry, not for playing for the higher seed for each of those. And then we do play in stuff for 8, 9 and 78 and we're off. And the playoffs start after 74 games. And we have, because those seed games are so important, plus playing games, we have more money we can make from those games. So the flaw in this is like those 10 teams just being at the kids table would be the flaw in this idea.

[B]

It's. I, I need to sit with this a little bit. You also, I, I don't know that I want all the seeds, the playoff seeds and everything that comes with them to Be decided by a one game tournament where like a team could be like the seventh best team and somehow end up with the top seed. Is that possible?

[A]

No, no, no, because it's only one versus two.

[B]

Oh, I see.

[A]

Three versus four. I retract five versus six. Yeah, gotcha.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And then everyone understands in the plan anyway.

[B]

It's a. It's, it's a lot, but it would take some. It's like learning anything. Like my daughter and I learned a complicated new board. Do it once or twice. And now you learned it, now you've mastered it. Well.

[A]

So the easier way to do this is just we have. We knock out 10 teams at the 62, 64 game mark, wherever you want to say, and then the top 20 just play each other those last few weeks and the bottom 10 are just over there, not messing with anything. And they're just. We basically have relegation. Because a lot of people have asked me, why don't we have relegation? And the answer is, you can't. Like, that's not, it's not like in soccer. I get it, they've had it forever. But in basketball, like, no team, no good player would want to be on a relegated team. Right. You can't ask, like, I don't know, Trey Murphy to be like, hey, you're. You're just going to be in the shittier league this year.

[B]

You're in a different league. You and your team are in a different league.

[A]

Yeah. You're just down there now and like, you can't do. They're never going to do that. But I do wonder if the bigger thing to me is how do you shorten the season while also raising the stakes for these last few weeks?

[B]

Look, you've landed on there. We can get lost in the weeds of all these proposals. And I'm guilty of it too, but I like to zoom out and start thinking more broadly. Like, what are the central questions that we're really asking? And one of the central questions or conclusions in this case is the season is too long, the season is too shorter, and we all know why they're sticking with 82 games. It's purely money. Everybody involved, union players, union owners, whatever. And shortening the season is not quite a silver bullet, but it's pretty close because it just solves a lot of problems. It solves some of the wear and tear on the players.

[A]

It spreads the schedule out.

[B]

It spreads the schedule out. It introduces. Just. Even if you shaved 15 games off, I know you're 70 games, 12, 15 games. Whatever it is, it introduces A little bit more randomness. The shorter the season, the more random it is. If you're a team like Utah, if you do that, plus none of this protected pick nonsense. If you're a team like Utah and you start out 11 and 9, you're done. You're going for it like it's. You're already a third of the way through the season almost. There's no way you can parachute out of that. Your fans won't let it happen. Now you have 60 more games left. You have plenty of time to tank. I don't think it should be a 50 game or 55. Like those are so low as to be unrealistic. But if you can get down towards 65, 70, I just think the benefits are enormous across the board other than this, this dip in per game, gate, et cetera. Revenue that you would hope in the long run by the game being healthier, each game feeling more important. New TV deals, streaming deals coming in that, that is made up in the long, long run. And most owners are in this league to own their teams for a long time.

[A]

Yeah, so we've all heard. We've all talked to the same types of people and we've heard the same things. They're never going to give up the extra money.

[B]

But what's maddening. Five minutes. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but what's maddening about it is even those people. Does anyone think this is a bad idea on the merits? If you left aside the money? Even the people who are like, well, I can't take the money hit, they know on the merits the season is too long.

[A]

But this is why, and this is why I was hard on Silver on Tuesday. Because this is literally the most important decision of his entire career, him getting this across the finish line in some way.

[B]

And I'll bet he knows, he knows the season is too long.

[A]

If he can't do this, if he can't convince two separate groups of people who are tough to convince anyway, that the season has to be shorter. And here's all the reasons why, and here are some slight fixes that I think I could generate more money. I think more international games would help. They'd be able to make more money from that. And even whether it's that seed battle I had or whatever, like adding some games that feel like playoff games near the end of the season, that I think they could probably sell those games. I don't think this is not like a crazy amount of money that they're giving up. I know it's a Lot of money in the context of life. But for these guys, it's like you said, 70 to 72 games. Right? That's. Sure. That's 11% of the season. I still think it's worth it. And I still think that the making the league healthier in the long run is going to make everybody more money. And that's how they have to think. And what worries me is not only are they going to knock it off the 82, they're going to now expand and they're going to take the expansion fees for that, which could be 6, 7 million bucks or 7 billion bucks. So 14 billion each. Every owner is going to make another 475 billion, whatever. And I think that makes the league worse, too. Now we have two more teams tanking. So we're presenting all these reasons they should do this. And if anything, it's probably more likely they're going to stay at 82 and add two expansion teams versus having some hard conversations about should we just relocate two teams if we like these markets so much? They're doing this out of greed. And I've heard the theory like, oh, no, we have enough players now, which technically I agree with, but I don't agree with it when most of these guys on these teams are playing 62, 65, 66 games. The best guys. And you actually need depth now, right?

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

You need more guys. You don't. We can't get away with the rosters we had in 06. So I just. I don't think the team. The leagues needed a leader more than this, really, since anything since the sterling situation in 2014. That was the last. And Adam did an awesome job with that. That was the last time we were like, this is now a crisis. We're now hitting a point where the players on a team might strike a playoff game unless you do something. And he rose to the occasion and they made stuff happen. I think this is a crisis now that Utah thing and everything that's happened and all these teams that don't care when we're early February, this is an official crisis.

[B]

Well, and on 82 games, they've done the back and forth a little bit on does the science of load management and injury management. Is there any actual proof that fewer games reduces injuries? And they said, well, that's ridiculous. Well, they've done this dance of, well, we're studying it. Well, we haven't found anything. You can't prove a negative and this and that. Just set all that aside. Shortening the season solves a lot of Other like struct that solves but helps a lot of other structural issues with your league, including in at least some cases reducing the incentive to tank. For a team that didn't expect to be good is better than it is. And you'll have teams that are the other way, where they are worse than they are and start so far behind the eight ball that they can see the end of the season coming sooner. But I think that scenario is less frequent than the former where a team gets off to a hot start and it's like, all right, let's just let it ride.

[A]

Well, there's two groups of teams that suffer in this. One is the shitty teams. The fan bases of those teams where you're just able to throw away three, four years if you want. And it's actually probably a smart move versus like being the Bulls. We make fun of the Bulls all the time for going 40 and 42 every year. That's where you don't want to be in the NBA. And Adam even said that in his press conference. The other group, the group of the teams that are really successful for a five or a six year stretch, there's an extra wear and tear with that too. We saw that with Golden State, with The Curry, Clay, KD having Clay and KD both break down in the 2019 playoffs. We saw that with the Celtics where I think Tatum's played more minutes than he said this in the NBC. He's played more minutes than anyone since he came into the league and played big, big minutes in 22, 23, 24 and 25 and broke down. So you're asking these guys to over and over again play a hundred game seasons if they're good. You're also telling them if you played less than 65 games, you're not going to be eligible for all these awards and all the award bonuses. That part's fucked up too, right? They haven't solved the good side of this either, I don't think.

[B]

No, the question that I grapple with is there are always going to be bad teams. Like you can't legislate away bad teams. There's a natural life cycle that a lot of teams live of. They're good, then they get old, then they get bad as they turn over their players. Even in teams that leagues that don't have much, as much overtanking as basketball has always had in baseball, you get your September call ups, you get your trade, your veterans for prospects. That's all part of the natural cycle of sports. So there's always going to be bad teams. And the draft has always been there as a way to help bad teams get better. And the question the league is facing is as long as that's what you consider the draft for, to give the bad teams a better chance of getting the best players, there's going to be some incentive pointing for bad teams to be bad. Can you keep the reverse order draft principle at its core, that the worst teams draft highest? Can you maintain that and chip away at enough of the tweaks to eliminate the worst tanking or to really eliminate tanking? Do you just have to scrap that principle altogether and reimagine what the draft is? In other words, like, do you believe that the worst teams should by and large pick highest? If so, can you maintain that in some form, but eliminate protections, eliminate this and that to sort of mitigate the natural incentive to tank that the reverse order draft brings? Or is it such a big problem that you just have to be like, maybe the reverse order draft is just not the way to go anymore? Maybe we have to reimagine the entire concept? I don't know the answer to that. Those are the things that I am grappling with. And if you are a proponent of any system, and we don't need to talk about all the wild ideas that are out there, any system that does away with the reverse order draft altogether, you have to fundamentally be okay with. The Thunder get the first pick in the draft, the 2017 warriors get the first pick in the draft. Because that will happen at some point. As I said on my pod, it could happen this year via the Clippers, that the Thunder could get the first pick in the draft. But, like, you have to be okay with that. And I think, well, so we had that.

[A]

The Magic the year, the Weber year. That was the year we were like, oh, no. So, oh, this is. Wait, I like the lottery until this happened and everybody panicked.

[B]

And this is. I'm still thinking about it and talking to experts about it and trying to game out how these different universes look. But, like, these are the hard questions you answer, because I think the NBA is heading toward. Although Adam did in his press conference allude to, like, everything's on the table, like, any, like, reimagining.

[A]

It's the first time he's really come out because I was writing, I did the entertaining as hell tournament for the first time in, like, 2005. You wrote about the lottery wheel for Grantland in 2013. Right. It's not like we haven't been talking about trying to fix this the process. Sixers were another catalyst where we were like, fuck. But it feels worse now and I there's another piece to this that I think why it feels different in 2026 versus other decades. I think there's more stuff grabbing attention from people that the league is competing with. I was thinking about this last night with All Star Saturday, which was just for me, like always, I'm in. It's All Star Saturday. There's just more content, there's more things to do. There's. I think some of the other places, like even UFC and WWE and boxing, people have figured out how to fill the weekends. Football, the football season got longer. There are all these things where it just feels like we go from content to content to content. And you can't just really trot out the crappy All Star weekend anymore. And you can't trot out two months of bad basketball with one third of your league and expect that not to matter. Because what's going to happen is people. What's really the biggest fear that the league should have is the playoffs are always awesome and they're going to be particularly awesome this year. I was texting with some friends about this this weekend. I was like, this is going to suck for six weeks. We're going to get to early April and basketball is going to be awesome for 10 weeks.

[B]

It's going to be like Denver, Denver, Minnesota, first round.

[A]

It's going to be incredible. There's going to be so many storylines and we're all going to forget all this shit. The question for me is why does the league make everyone suffer? Until we get to that point, it's just bad. It's a bad business model they have. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn ads. The best B2B marketing gets wasted on the wrong people. So when you want to reach the right professionals, use LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals, including 130 million decision makers. And that's where it stands apart from the other ad buys. You could target your buyers by job title, industry, company role, seniority, skills, company revenue. So you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience. That's why LinkedIn Ads generates the highest B2B return and ad spend on all online ad networks. Seriously, all of them. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com SimmonsBill Terms and Conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by Onnit. Need to Perform at your best. Alpha Brain daily capsules help you react faster, stay calm under pressure and feel mentally sharp. That's how I'm feeling lately. Alpha Brain contains science backed ingredients trusted by professionals and designed for real results like memory, focus and productivity. I love all three of those things. Visit onnit.com right now and shop Alpha Brain to unlock your next level. That's O N N I T.com to fix it.

[B]

The question for me is, look, I don't know what, if anything is going to change and it requires a bunch of owners to get on board with whatever is proposed and the players union has to. Not that easy to just pull a lever and all of a sudden 17 different rules are changed. But I would rank the most likely outcome as a bunch of band aid tweaks to the reverse order slash lottery draft. So the protection thing that we're talking about, maybe you give the 7 and 8 seeds some lottery balls. The play in was also supposed to boost competitiveness and I think it has in the middle of the league to some degree, you know, whatever, whatever tweaks, you know that you, that maybe, maybe.

[A]

You do the top four pick back to back years, something like this, you can't win the lottery twice in a.

[B]

Row after March 1st. You get half a credit for every win instead of every, whatever it is like all these little, little levers, little mini levers that are like mini band aids. Can you do that? Is there enough of those where the equation clicks into place, where you've tightened it up enough but kept the reverse order draft and you can have the still have a reverse order draft but tightened up the tanking enough that we hit a sweet spot or do you have to reimagine everything? My guess is they're going to try all the mini band aids and do the mini band aids reveal, you know, new openings here and there for teams to game the system because every time they do a tweak or a band aid the smart teams figure out oh, this, this just incentivizes me to do this instead. And I don't, I don't know the answer to that. It's a very complicated question.

[A]

I did have one more idea and it's either the greatest idea I've ever had or the worst. And I don't think there's an in between. The first picks on the clock, the teams one through five with the first pick all put in who they would take in that spot. Whatever player is the consensus pick. He then goes up to the podium and he sees who picked him in that spot, and he gets to decide who he plays for.

[B]

So the bad teams are. It's still the bad teams, right?

[A]

So it's Cooper. It's Cooper Flag. Last year, he goes up and it's like Dallas, San Antonio, Philadelphia, Charlotte, and whoever the fifth team was, Utah. And it's like all of them have decided they would take Cooper Flag in this spot. Here's Cooper Flag. He walks up to the podium. I've decided to play for the San Antonio spurs. And they just win the lottery that way. And we give some player empowerment to this.

[B]

Do we do that again for the second pick?

[A]

Yeah, pick two.

[B]

And it's next five.

[A]

Next five. Yeah, they put it in and it's like they've all picked Dylan Harper. Dylan, come on up. Here are your five choices. You just do that for the first seven.

[B]

You are putting a team in position where it's like. It's like, cut to Danny Ainge. And seven consecutive players have snubbed the Jazz. I think you only get anybody.

[A]

You only do it for the top five or the top four or whatever. But I think I like the idea of one of the problems with the lottery is some of these guys just get sent to Siberia, you know, and. And maybe they should have more autonomy. And maybe that would want to make one of the players be in the draft. But it would be so interesting this year with Darren Peterson. It's like, okay, Darren. It turns into almost a reality show. Darren, all five teams have decided you are their first pick.

[B]

Wait.

[A]

It is now your choice.

[B]

Wait till my Tuesday show. Cause I'm still flushing it out. But I'm working on. I'm working on. I'm going to call it the NBA Conclave, as. As. As a way to solve the draft order. There's a lot of minds. There's a lot of minds chipping in on this. But it's. It's. There's like. There's no idea. Too outlandish.

[A]

Short term. If Adam had to do some bad date stuff, I think penalizing teams with luxury tax money, with salary cap space for the next year, and with the inability to repeatedly do this season after season. So the Kings. The Kings tried to be good.

[B]

Yeah. They just sucked. Like, what do you do with their detriment? Suck.

[A]

They're not tanking. And if they win the lottery, it's like, you know what? That. This is kind of the spirit of the rule. But I. I have an issue when it's a couple of the other teams that are still in this, again, like Washington we washed it, I think. Really reinvented this a little bit with the trading for guys who just aren't going to play. Utah did that, too.

[B]

Toronto did it last year.

[A]

Toronto did it last year. And this is just, you know. All right, so you. So both of us feel like something's going to happen, I think.

[B]

I mean, look, the process takes a long time. The competition committee recommends it to this, committee recommends it to this, and it's a vote here. But I would be surprised if we got to the 2028 lottery and the rules were not different and maybe even the 2027 lottery.

[A]

Couple other quick things before we go. Giannis gave some interview. The All Star break.

[B]

Can I pass? I pass.

[A]

No, he started with the as of today, I pass.

[B]

I pass.

[A]

I know. I remember like on when Twitter added the mute button. I'm. I'm ready to mute all the honest stories until July.

[B]

In his defense, people are interviewing him and they're asking him, and he. He says the same thing over and over again. I. I admire the steadfast. I'm just. I just. I'm ready to take a break.

[A]

Can you imagine having. Having a friend who may or may not be getting divorced or getting separated, but then won't say either way, what's going to happen? And this was just all the conversations you had for three years, and then you would go on double dates and then you would talk to them separately, and it just kind of went on forever. That's what this is starting to feel like. I just wish he would say I don't want to get traded.

[B]

It really is. Yeah. Look, I was just say that.

[A]

Now I'm roping into a Giannis conversation.

[B]

No, he doesn't. I don't. Because he doesn't want to get traded, but he wants to compete for the championship now. And those two things are currently incompatible. And I think he is. And everyone is struggling.

[A]

Or maybe that. Maybe they're not incompatible. I don't know if you saw the last two Bucks games.

[B]

I saw one of them. They beat.

[A]

Stuff's going down with the Bucks camp.

[B]

Thomas played well and.

[A]

And dang.

[B]

And Usman Jang, like, lit up the Thunder. I was watching that game and thinking, are the Thunder coaches, player development coaches taking joy in seeing the fruits of their labor and Usman Jang's labor pay off, but against them, I bet they are.

[A]

I would be trying to trade for all the 12 through 17 OKC guys. The Bucks are 23 and 30 and they're a 12 seed. Now, if we had my 64 game rule where you get relegated after 64 games. It would be exciting to watch the Bucks try to break into the top 20. But we have Atlanta at 26 and 30 and Miami at 29 and 27 as the eight seed. So it is conceivable the Bucks could creep in the vicinity, which is what I think. And then maybe Giannis does come back for the last month kind of watching that one. We have the Boston situation. We have watching James Harden on Cleveland. We have this amazing Charlotte renaissance where they're 16 and nine in their last 25 and like fourth in a net rating. We have Minnesota training in the top four. We have the Clippers punishment, which, or lack of a punishment resolution in some form.

[B]

Wait, can I stop for a second? Why is Minnesota trying to get into the top four so interesting to you? I mean, you know that I'm super high on Minnesota as the sleeper title contender. But why? Why not, like, what is more interesting about them than like Houston Lakers? Why is that on your map?

[A]

Because I look at the actual contenders and I make my little power poll each week and I try to figure out who I think has a realistic chance to win the title. I don't think you can do it as the road team in four straight rounds.

[B]

Sorry.

[A]

And I think for them you have to get at least the four seed, maybe even the three seed. They might have a chance to get all the way up to the three seed, but you're not doing it at five or six unless it's a really weird season or a really weak conference. This is not a weak conference.

[B]

Interestingly, I'm looking at their schedule now just for fun. They only play Houston three times and they've lost once. But two games are left. That could be an important head to head. I think they will pass the Lakers, I would assume.

[A]

Well, last question I had was related to Minnesota is whether Houston has reached a cross off point as a contender. Do you take them seriously as a contender anymore? Because I felt like the Adams Shangoon together thing was such a superpower for them and it was this crazy wrinkle that it was almost like watching an NFL team that could play three tight ends at the same time and just blow you off the line of scrimmage and had all these extra, you know, wrinkles. So it was like, oh shit, nobody else can do that. Losing that combined with Van Vliet and now we have this Durant situation gets worse. I just haven't liked how they've looked for a couple weeks. I know you talked about it too and to me, they were a team that I felt like was a legitimate, unquestioned contender. And I don't feel that way anymore when I watch them.

[B]

I was never quite there with them as like a top tier, a 1 contender. I did think they were in a universe of teams who could win the West. As of right now, I would be surprised if they, I don't think they can win the West. I don't think they can win three playoff series in the West.

[A]

They just lost too much. They lost that offensive rebounding crazy quirk. And they just don't have the right kind of, right kind of point guard situation, in my opinion. The only other thing that I thought was interesting basketball wise and then we can wrap it up. But whether Joe Lako buys the Padres or not was a wild card for me. I just found out about this for real on Thursday that he's one of many suitors for the Padres. And the Padres are an amazing business and I think they have a chance to go for maybe even more than would the Mets go for like two, six.

[B]

I don't even, I don't even remember. But you know, Joe Lakob, you want to, you want to go head to head with Stevie? Stevie C. Bring it on, buddy.

[A]

Well, that. So I'm wondering, so let's say, let's say he wins and he gets the Padres. Is it inconceivable to think that would be the next team available? Because I've asked it from people and everybody was like, no way, he'll never sell the Warriors. But this is kind of the perfect time to sell the warriors right now because you're at the height of the market, expansion money's coming, and then on top of it, the new owner can be the owner of the team that has Steph Curry on it for the next three to seven years, however long he plays. And you could just be like, you know what? Four titles. I couldn't have done better. I built this amazing infrastructure and now I'm going to take my talents over to baseball. I'm 70 years old. Interesting thought bubble, right?

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

I don't know what he's going to do. Maybe he'll try to own both. But I just, just got my, got my brain circulating. Who do you think is the next Giant team to sell in the NBA? Yeah, if you had, if we were doing a who's going to sell Draft and it had to be like a team with some, some oomph.

[B]

Some oomph. Well, the all Dallas noise has been very weird in the last Couple of weeks about, like, the. Mark Stein reports that Cuban had an investor trying to buy it back from Dumont. And then Dumont's being like, no, we're not selling the team. That's been.

[A]

Yeah, but if Cuban calls Dumont and says, I have this investor. We want to buy the Mavericks, and Dumont says, no, thanks. Is that a story or is that Cuban trying to get it out there that. To make it seem like he has a chance to get him back?

[B]

All right, so you're asking me just.

[A]

Blind pick, Blind pick, pick. Any kind of major. So Celtics are in the six and a half range. Lakers were valued at 10 somewhere. That would at least be a kind of in the circle range of the Celtic price.

[B]

I mean.

[A]

I probably should have prepped you for this.

[B]

No, I'm just. I'm thinking out loud. Like, what do I want to say?

[A]

What do you want to say?

[B]

Well, no, just, like, could Dolan sell the Knicks and keep. MSG is always. Just like, every six months there's rumblings.

[A]

You know, there's rum. Yeah. And he doesn't get along with Adam and blah, blah, blah.

[B]

My answer would be the Bulls. But there's just no sign of. Of that happening that I've heard. Then, like, remember, I have not paid much attention to, like, Tillman Fertita's financials, but. And there's been no buzz about it, but remember, there was like. Well, he stretched himself pretty far to buy the Rockets. I don't know. Just. I. I don't. Is there. Is there an answer you're looking at that I'm not. That I'm not seeing, because none of us, like, I'm not reporting any of this. I don't think any of this is real.

[A]

You mentioned the Knicks. Thought that was interesting. That always is rumored. But I almost feel like Dolan's so stubborn, he'd intentionally not sell the Knicks.

[B]

Plus, high times right now. I mean, like, yeah, title contender. MSG is going to be rocking. Jose Alvarado's on board.

[A]

Jose Alvarado is just a perfect Nick. Just.

[B]

I'm not even being sarcastic.

[A]

Like, perfect Nick, literally perfect Philly was on my radar.

[B]

I mean, those guys own a ton of teams.

[A]

They own a ton of stuff. I just, I'm.

[B]

Well, there's the arena.

[A]

No inside info, but that's.

[B]

That's an arena situation, too. Miami, you don't hear anything about the Erisons ever, Right?

[A]

Yeah. And it seems like by all indications, he's just going to turn the team over and then I got to do it. Clippers.

[B]

Steve Ballmer looks like he's having a blast. Like, I don't know if they're all putting on a good face, but he and Ty Lue and Lawrence Frank are grinning ear to ear as Kawhi lights up All Star Weekend. I don't know if you saw Ballmers during one of the commercials. I had the feed on, and he was addressing the crowd about All Star. He was just having a blast.

[A]

A couple people have sent me this email, so I'm sorry, I can't give you all credit, but it is a great idea. What if the punishment was Ballmer has to move the Clippers to Seattle and then sell the Intuit Dome to the Lakers, and then everyone wins. Lakers get a new stadium, but Seattle gets the Clippers. The Clippers finally get to leave California after 50 tortured years. We go back to one team here and we don't have to expand two more teams, which I still don't understand when we have a tanking crisis, why we would add more team. Kind of an interesting one. Okay, so what'd you do on Valentine? Oh, Gahau hates that. Sorry, Gahau. I should have prepped our producer Gahao for that. He's a big Clipper fan. He didn't like that idea at all. I'm sorry, Clipper fans.

[B]

These are just pie. Oh, we're just. You just put. You put me on the spot. And these are just pie in the sky thoughts, that's all.

[A]

Knicks would be interesting. What would the Knicks go for? You know, because I assume you can't get the arena, so you're renting games from the arena for the basketball team.

[B]

The arena and the tax breaks that go with.

[A]

Would be funny if the Nets. If Josiah was like, I'm out.

[B]

This just isn't fun.

[A]

This just sucks. I'm out. We're gonna keep the Liberty. That's way more fun. Somebody else please take this. What'd you do for Valentine's Day? Let's end there.

[B]

So one of the great things about being married to a badass European woman is that Valentine's Day is just not a thing. Like, they don't have it in Croatia. She doesn't care about it. She thinks it's a dumb, Hallmark manufactured fake holiday, which is just a home run for me. But by accident, we did have plans. We went to see Sam Morrow, who's a comedian. You probably know he's a lot of Knicks games. Absolutely hilarious. He and Anthony DeVito, who's his opener, performed in Stanford last night near where we live. So we got tickets for that. Not even realizing that it was Valentine's Day and we had a blast. We hung out with him backstage after. He was a great guy. We talked a lot about Nick, the Knicks and Knicks basketball. So that was our, that was our Valentine's Day. It was a great time.

[A]

Saw Seinfeld twice in Stanford in the 80s, well before the NBC show.

[B]

Wow. Yeah.

[A]

Loved him from his Letterman appearances and when I was in high school in Connecticut there he was passing through. Went both times.

[B]

Wow, that's great.

[A]

I had early sign. It was one of my best stock purchases, Seinfeld stock. I mean that one. I'm still getting residuals.

[B]

Oh shoot. If you bought it, then you're getting major residuals.

[A]

My wife and I, she's also a. Doesn't really care about the Valentine's Day thing, but we both got sick because anyone with kids, there's just colds everywhere. I'm amazed you're not sick.

[B]

Even, even kids your, your kids age just doesn't stop. They don't get any less disgusting.

[A]

I think I flew back to Boston a week ago, so I probably got infected. Maybe I was patient zero. But we were both sick and we just hung out all day and, and just acted sick together and watched TV and I gotta say, it was one of my best Valentine's Days ever.

[B]

It's a great, it sounds great.

[A]

Just watched a ton of movies. We watched the entire jfk, Carolyn Bissett, all three episodes on fx. Had a great time watching that. We watched Crazy Stupid Love because I.

[B]

Think that's going to be the next super underrated movie.

[A]

Well, it's going to be properly rated when we do it in the rewatch in a week.

[B]

But yeah. Is there been a Gosling miss? There probably has been.

[A]

I was looking at as IMDb and I was like Jesus, like there's some wins. Like a, like kind of like three more wins than maybe I had in my head anyway.

[B]

And he's ascending to top 5 all time SNL hosts. Like how many more home run snls does he have to have before he's in that category?

[A]

Yeah, in the Olympics I just kind of waiting for the hockey to heat up. That's where I've landed. And I'm more of a bobsled guy than a luge guy. That was another one of my teams that I've landed on.

[B]

So I, I, I'm only loosely paying attention because it's overlapping with the NBA side. Don't have any sports time. But the quad God guy, he does a Backflip.

[A]

Does a backflip. But he really. He really had, like, a Karl Malone, James Harden, like, it wasn't just a choke. I felt bad for him, but he didn't even have to break out, like, the major ammo.

[B]

Karl Malone getting roped into a Winter Olympics conversation only on the Bill Simmons podcast.

[A]

This was the Dangle the ball out so Michael Jordan can swipe it and go down and make the most famous shot in the history of the NBA.

[B]

This has been a Winter Olympics take I've been sitting on since the early 90s, when little teenage sports Van Zach had a lot of takes. I don't understand the niceties of sports like figure skating and gymnastics. The judge sports, I don't understand. Oh, that person's graceful and they spun really tight and did all this stuff. I just want to see you do crazy shit. Who can do the craziest shit and land it? That's how I process those sports. And Surya Bonali, back in the day, the French skater could do a backflip. And it drove me crazy at age 12 that they banned her from doing it because it was too dangerous. And now she's back in the news because now you're allowed to do it. And of course, she was not allowed to do it. And I was always on, like, I don't care what. She should win. She can do the craziest stuff. She should win. That's how I. Because I'm dumb. And I'm sure there's all sorts of stuff happening that I don't understand.

[A]

What's the practice part of it where somebody, like, breaks their neck trying to do it? I think is what the word is.

[B]

Well, that's fine, but, like, I just want to see the people do the crazy stuff. That's why someone. Biles is awesome. She just did. She does the. All the moves are named after her because no one else can do them.

[A]

All the skating stuff, you really get it if you're with your wife or girlfriend watching them lock in on the 17 different things going on that are just going over my head. It's like, my wife. I like these alt casts that we have. It really should be an Olympic outcast with somebody like my wife who's just having this alternate experience with the event. It's not like when you have the outcast for, like, football or basketball. It's just people watching, having basically the same takes as the announcers. Look, this is like, what we really need is like, oh, my God, why is he wearing that jacket? Like, she's so into it.

[B]

And I'm just. I'm just as dumb. The opposite way of just like. Like I. Like before. Before the criminal activity began, it was publicized. Tanya. Tanya, Nancy. I was team Tanya. Cause she could do crazier jumps. That's all. I don't care who's more graceful and this and that. I want the person who could do the crazy jumps.

[A]

We had a whole convo about. Would you want to be a married couple who was also a pairs figure skating couple? Like, how much. How much pressure. It's one thing. They always talk about the actors and actresses who are working with each other on some TV show or a movie. And it's like, God, that would be weird.

[B]

Eyes Wide Shut.

[A]

You're acting. Yeah, they broke up after. But then to have to add competition and day after day rigor and all the different things that come with that, I don't know. That's a tough one for the old relationship. I also don't know how you come down from that. Did you retire as skaters and you're like, hey, now what?

[B]

Did you see the curling spat yesterday? Between.

[A]

I did.

[B]

That was.

[A]

I have watched a lot of curling.

[B]

Is there an Isaiah Stewart of curling if there were another team?

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Like, could the broom have been wielded as a weapon? Just bam, right over the guy's head.

[A]

Well, Canada. Canada was a good candidate for this candidate where the guy's just trying to pull each other's jerseys over. I think my note on curling is I would go seven rounds, not 10.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I would speed it up.

[B]

I still. I have to Admit, I still.

[A]

10 rounds is a lot.

[B]

I don't understand the scoring system. I need to. I. I just. I don't pay any attention, really.

[A]

I also don't understand how they don't touch the pucks when the guys are doing the broom thing.

[B]

I assume that's a.

[A]

How they come so close to it and don't touch it.

[B]

I assume if you touch it, that's a full on. Like, you lose the whole thing.

[A]

Like, in some ways, those are the most impressive Olympic athletes we have.

[B]

That's a hot take.

[A]

It's a good one to end on. Thanks to Michelob Ultra. So your next podcast is going to be Tuesday.

[B]

Tuesday. We're switching up our schedule because I'm going to be doing these with you Sunday. So there's no point in me going on Monday so early Tuesday.

[A]

But you fixed the. You fixed the draft is going to be Tuesday's giving.

[B]

Who knows what. There's others. There's other. There's always stuff happening in the NBA, so we're going to talk about it.

[A]

I thought this was a really strong podcast for us. Except Conspiracy Bill. Maybe that. Maybe that wasn't a conspiracy Bill Tatum, Philly March 1 He kind of poo.

[B]

Pooed it, I expect. I just expect more outlandish conspiracies.

[A]

It's fair. I'm trying to think if I could have had a better one. Well, Joe Lakob selling the warriors to buy the Padres would be. That's not really a doubt.

[B]

That would be a big one.

[A]

That's just a hot take.

[B]

That would be a big one.

[A]

All right. Thanks to Michelob Ultra for for helping us out with this one. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. New rewatchables coming tomorrow. Goldeneye. Ooh, James Bond. Pierce Brosnan's first on Netflix now if you want to watch it. Zach Lowe, a pleasure as always. Good to see you.

[B]

Fun times. Thanks.

[A]

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