2026 NBA Draft Winners and Losers With Joe House and J. Kyle Mann

24:43Well, the biggest problem with Trey

24:45Bill Simmons:is he's this three-point Curry lookalike three-point shooter, but the threes don't go in. And he doesn't play off the ball. I mean, that's the key thing. His style makes sense if the threes go in, but he's been, you know, low 30s now for three years. Well, he's going to set up. Trey Johnson is going to have nothing but open looks. He's going to be. This is the master facilitator version of Trey Young. One of the all-time leading assist guys by, you know, per game. This is true. He did lead the league in assists in recent memory. We were going to do a poll for, do you think the Wizards made a mistake with the Trey Young contract?

25:22Bill Simmons:But Netflix said we couldn't do polls where it's 100%. Yes, they made a mistake. They wanted us to have polls where people had two votes. Another winner. So we mentioned this earlier, Utah. They take Peterson. We'll see how this turns out. Obviously, the ceiling of this is the highest of all these guys. On paper, and it didn't really fully cement itself until they actually took him. And he was walking up there and he seemed really relieved and happy with Triple J, Kessler, Lloyd Marketed, George, Peterson. It's your starting five. Ace Bailey is your sixth man. They have sense of bar. They have some good pieces.

26:04Bill Simmons:They have an owner who's going to spend money. And you could see how they would have talked themselves into like, this is actually, Boozer would be an awesome pick for depth. And maybe he's the best guy in the draft. But if we hit with Peterson, this is like the missing piece for us. We could be like a six seed next year. So what do we expect from him next year, Kyle, man? I mean, he could average over 20 next year, I think, for sure. That's definitely possible. Wow, really? Yeah, I think so. He's like, I mean, you can't say he's one of the generational scoring talent and then not kind of, I mean, I think he could definitely do that.

26:38He's...

26:38Bill Simmons:Not 20 missed games, right? 20 points a game. 20 points a game. Okay. He and Keontae, I think, are the biggest question about just how do those guys find kind of a synergy together. But, man, just the shooting, a one through five shooting on that team. I mean, it's crazy. That's what's worked for eight years when everybody on your team in a playoff series can shoot. House, did you have a moment with him where maybe like a 1 a.m. you cheated on AJ and you looked at some YouTube clips and watched a little Darren Peterson and you started thinking about it? Took your engagement ring off for an hour.

27:13Bill Simmons:Well, I don't want to talk about... Stay married, house. I am married. Super happily married. I don't wear one either. I lost three. I don't either. I lost a while back and my ring fell off and I never got a new one. I lost three. I wore it. I lost three different ones anyway. I did flirt with the idea of a... I will say, Darren Peterson and I had 24 hours. You went to Cabo for 24 hours? I mean, I took a look. I was like, wow. Maybe I didn't give... Wow, he looks like Kobe. I didn't give enough. I don't think I gave this guy enough credit. I need to think about this a little bit. It really was the movie list.

28:01That's what really pushed me. He's a deep thinker. That was the most important thing he did. He's a calm guy. Oh, he looks interstellar.

28:08Bill Simmons:He's outstanding. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this would be really fun. Look, great coach, stable owner. He goes with Will Hardy. Goes with the... stable ownership franchise goes with a really thirsty fan base, a fan base that has been there for a long, long time since they moved there in the eighties has had some, you know, really good moments made two finals in 97, 98 had a nice almost run there with Williams and Boozer. Um, and then the Mitchell go bear thing just never really played out, but they've been once a decade, they've been relevant and they were obviously the most relevant with Malone and Stockton, But that's a really, really starving fan base that will show up in big ways.

28:47Bill Simmons:So that might be great. I will say this, Kyle, man. Danny Ainge, really awesome track record with taking elite guys. And if he likes Peterson, that makes me feel a lot better about Peterson as weird as that sounds, right? This is the same guy who took Durant over Odin or wanted to take Durant over Odin. I think he hones in on star talent in a unique way and obviously likes this guy. So I think that's a great sign for the Jazz. he's never going to cower from like oh are you going to be able to handle you know unless it's just like a are there examples of just totally you guys had him for a long time bill i mean you know the track record really well is there a guy that he ever was scared away from like it's just not worth it even though you told us he went the other way yeah he would take like the jr giddens types the super talented screw-up types just because they had talent like he kind of couldn't resist those guys.

29:36Bill Simmons:He always saw the talent. So with this, you have talent, work ethic, a whole bunch of things. So Utah, I don't know. This would be a good Netflix poll. Could Utah be a playoff team next year? House, do you think, could you see them as one of the top eight seeds next year? Is that conceivable to you or no? You're basically saying that they're going to replace Phoenix. I think that's how you get there. And at least on paper, the talent is there. they're way more talented like it's not even close the the enormous unknown is like what's will hardy capable of like how how can this all come together with this team actually trying to win and it feels like we might have the answer in the first 10 games of the season like i you you said that you think that peterson's gonna start i think it's fine to bring him off the bench let let ace start either way it doesn't really matter but it's kind of a um an embarrassment of riches and a really fascinating challenge for them.

30:36But the West is so good. It's Portland and Phoenix that they're going to be competing with.

30:43Bill Simmons:In Portland, he still has a chance to get better. We'll see with Phoenix. The Netflix audience thinks Utah should have taken Peterson 600 % on that. You mentioned the fugitive. I was noting this in our draft grades. I was like, do you think Darren Peterson sees any sort of kinship with Richard Kimball, the way he's in a bus. His college season is like a bus crash and it's rolling down the hill and he miraculously escapes it as it explodes and still gets taken number two. Do you think there's maybe some parallels there? Shaves his beard, dyes his hair. Yeah, it starts out bad. I mean, there was one game where he told the coach, wasn't that a big game, like 15 minutes before the game?

31:21Bill Simmons:I'm not playing. Not going, yeah. That was when I got really concerned. Look, the talent's there. we've talked about it a bunch on the pod there's no question if you're going to pick who has come into the league in the last 30 years who's looked the most like young kobe you would pick peterson um there's red flags though that i can't ignore i don't know how it's going to play out i'd be hesitant to make a prediction but i will say this is the best scenario i think for him um it's gonna be far away in the in the pacific northwest is that where's where's no that's on Pacific Mountain Mountain West.

31:56Bill Simmons:I mean, it's like almost nine o 'clock. How's that? Hold John and Vinny's two hours ago. Vegas, but like four out. It's like it's closer to Vegas than you think out there. Yeah. West Coast, whatever. Yeah. Perfect spot for him. Well, I'm going to take a break and regroup after saying Utah is in the Pacific Northwest. We're going to be back in one second. The rest of the winners and losers. Yeah, there's some good ones. All right. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. this summer soccer is here. The watch parties will be spectacular and they'll be going every day back to back to back. Don't worry, Uber Eats has your game day essentials covered with 30 % off offers from Aldi, Kroger, Dollar General.

32:38Bill Simmons:Oh yeah, all the snacks and groceries to keep your crowd happy delivered straight to your door. Like chips, dips, wings, guac, fresh ingredients for the perfect game day spread. Order in so you can stay locked in on the game, all the hosting, none of the hassle. Order now for 30 % off your game day snacks and grocery order only on Uber Eats for a limited time. Offer eligible for 30 % off entire order. Taxes, fees and terms apply. Offer valid through July 5th. Product availability varies by region. Exclusions may apply. Winners and losers. We got to hit Memphis. Shout out to our guy, verno verno was at a draft party he said the entire city was rooting for booser um no no disrespect to peterson but i think i think that city's had a little bit of a roller coaster ride the last few years with unreliable guys and he's basically looking forward to a guy who you could just come into the league and pencil in for 20 and 11 every year for the next 12 years of his career he actually sent me the video the crowd exploded at the draft party when peterson went number two so this is like a classic Memphis guy this is the grit and grind Grizzlies he would have fit right in you have him and Boozer him and Coward and maybe Edie Wells?

33:58Bill Simmons:I like Wells well yeah they have a bunch of dudes and I think you just tell them coming out of the gate if if Ja calls you to go out and celebrate the pick tell them you have the sniffles and maybe get out of that one what do you think of Boozer and Memphis Kyle? I think it's going to be great I mean, like you said, he fits their sort of organizational identity, you know, from the past. But he also, you know, they're big on analytics. They're big on efficiency and winning players and things like that. So he checks both boxes. And I feel like whenever we say grit and grind, I think sometimes we say we make it sound like, you know, we're prioritizing that over skill, over everything.

34:36We're just going to claw you to death. It's like Boozer plays that way. But and he has all those things, but he's just kind of like a modernized version of his dad. I heard Legler say Kevin Love. That was something we had in the guy. That's something that I've thought for a while, that he's just got all these kind of intangible skills that he can space it if they want to play him and Zach Eady together. I think he'll make him like Cam Spencer. He'll make Cam Spencer and Cedric Coward better with his passing so they can work off the ball. It's a great fit, man, and it's organizational mouthwash.

35:05Like we were saying, if Peterson had been there at three, do you think they even would have taken him? It's such an opportunity. Maybe you don't pass it up. But I think this is the outcome that they all wanted. You know, I asked for an O earlier in the night. I was like, I mean, is that who? And resounding yes, they wanted Boozer and they got him.

35:24Bill Simmons:Would have been an interesting one, House, if Boozer goes too. Now you have Wilson, who is the most Memphis-y kind of guy ever. Like, that's a classic. Couldn't try harder. Great kid. Like, would have fit in with all the different teams they had. Would they have done that or would they have rolled the dice? then later house they deal 16 for 17 in 2 seconds so OKC can take Bennett starts which is the most predictable moment of the night and then they go backwards from 17 to 21 with Detroit so Detroit can take a Corey they pick up 3 more seconds and I'm like ready to stand on my couch and applaud because I think they're going to take Phylon and they took Lopez so I did not stand up on my couch and applaud.

36:13Bill Simmons:I'm going to give them both a winner for picking up five seconds to move five picks backwards. But let me ask you a thing. I don't understand. I thought when they picked for Detroit, when they took a Corey for Detroit, I thought he would be an awesome guy for that young nucleus that they have going in Memphis. What do you think the thought process was? not taking a point guard. The thought process is probably they're stuck with Ja Morant. They didn't want to bring in another point. I don't think they have a landing spot for him. Has kind of a similar profile to Morant, except Acori is super downhill, but he just leans scoring more than playmaking than Ja.

36:55But, I mean, yeah, it would have been really fun. I think he would have been a nice change of pace from the size and the grinding kind of thing that they're going to have going on. Just an interesting off-speed pitch in the way that Mara is going to be for OKC, who I don't know if we're going to, we'll probably get to him in a minute. But yeah, I thought O 'Korey would have been really fun. For people who haven't seen him, I mean, he's just like ultimate jitterbug. I always say he's like if an NFL kick returner was playing point guard. Like you just can't, you can't stay in front of him and you can't grab onto him.

37:27He's just, he's greased lightning with a basketball in his hands. He was one of the guys I was praying,

37:33Bill Simmons:well, I was praying for one of those guards to follow the Celtics in 27, Anderson. Phylon um Corey like just one of them just hoping that there was a run on other positions and sometimes guys get shoved down and it started to happen with Phylon because it felt like if he didn't if Philly didn't take him it really felt like the next couple teams wouldn't have taken him and that so sometimes that happens but that never really happens what were you going to say House? Just I think it was a sneaky good pick by Detroit Corey yeah another really good and helped him yeah you know what they needed somebody who could create a shot greed in April and May and maybe even June.

38:14Bill Simmons:Well, great times for Memphis. They end up with the third pick. They don't win the lottery. They might've gotten the best guy. How so you you'll root for Boozer, but you don't want him to be too good, right? You're hoping he's like a solid a minus. I'm rooting for all of those guys. It's such a good draft. I'm fascinated. You don't want him to be better than AJ. Just admit it house. No, it's, it's all situational. We're like, it's going to be impossible to like parse who, you know, we'll see, we'll see like from the raw offensive talent, you know, we'll be able to judge some, but like Peterson's going to look incredible in Utah.

38:49I'm prepared for that right away in the same manner that Dylan Harper looked absolutely bonkers. But remember Dylan Harper played in the G league this season. Like it wasn't right away.

39:01Bill Simmons:I think we screwed that up. I think Carter Bryant did. I'm not sure Harper did. I might have screwed that up, but now you took my screw up. Oh, well, there was extended stretches where he was not getting minutes. There was extended stretches where he couldn't get on the floor. And it was clear that they were doing something in terms of the work. It took him a while. He was a slow burn. I don't think that's going to be the case with Peterson. I think we're going to see him right away. I have another winner. This is a quick one. the Knicks being a defending champion at the NBA draft. It was weird.

39:37Was that weird? Happy Knicks fans.

39:39Bill Simmons:They celebrated the title multiple times. The Knicks were on the clock. Everybody was cheering. They showed the trophy. It was just happy. Nobody was booing. They weren't showing Spike Lee looking like he was ready to have six drinks. They weren't booing the pick. You didn't see Knicks fans just ready to be angry like the Jets fans are at every draft. It was just happiness, Kyle, man. Did you wonder for a minute if the booing would continue? Just out of habit? Just that they won, and that would be just like a nice, soothing balm on their bad feelings. I wondered if they'd boo. So, of course, they immediately booed him when he came out.

40:17Bill Simmons:They did boo the San Antonio Spurs, which I enjoyed. All right. I'm bouncing around. We haven't gotten to Chicago yet, but we'll get to them. Because I needed a loser. loser number 10 Brandon Burris who I love probably one of my three favorite guys in the draft could have gotten drafted by Dallas and played with Cooper flag at number nine and Kyrie and just been in meaningful basketball games right away with a bunch of role players you could have fallen to 11 and joined Steph Curry one of the 10 or 12 greatest players of all time on their last run of relevance with two years with Steve Kerr and Draymond and maybe LeBron going there and the whole thing.

40:58Bill Simmons:He could have been part of that playing for Arizona's Steve Kerr, the Arizona connection. What happens? He gets drafted by the Bucs at 10, the crappy Bucs, the all-time mediocre. There's never been a more likely 31-win team than this Bucs team. And now he has to fight for shots with a bunch of guys on their team. And I just got bummed out, Kyle. I think the good thing about Burry's though, is that I don't know that he'll necessarily be bummed about that because he's just such a quality, like fits in wherever he is. I mean, it's a missed opportunity for him. Can I be bummed for him? You're welcome to do that.

41:35Yeah, I'll permit that. He's, yeah, I mean, he missed out on being in a more fun basketball environment in the short term, obviously. I think for the, you can clearly see the thinking for the Bucs, though. It's just like they don't necessarily, and I hope they're not thinking they know they have a centerpiece right now. They're still going to try to figure out what their direction is and taking somebody that Burries will fit into whatever they choose to do, you know, and then they took Amen with their other pick as sort of an upside swing. But I thought he made sense for them to pick because he's just going to be around for whatever happens.

42:05Bill Simmons:And that's one of the things with this draft house. I feel like 20 years ago, they'd take Amen at 10 and Burries falls to the Warriors at 11. And then we spend the next five years going, are you fucking kidding me? How does this happen? But no, the Bucs wisely were like, Like, you know who we should take? The guy who's by far the best player in this spot right now. So now Burris has to go to this weird team. If he gets a text that says, Kevin Porter Jr. and Kyle Kuzma want to take you to dinner tomorrow night, again, I'd go with sniffles, maybe some bronchitis, maybe some tinnitus. Maybe you went to a concert, your ears were hurting.

42:41Bill Simmons:Right, the ring ears. Were you surprised that the Mavericks did not take him because they took Merez Johnson instead? All of that whole situation with Dallas changed, I think, in a pretty dramatic way with the Dusty May thing. Yeah. Like look at that situation that presents itself. And the most interesting thing is Dusty May got to choose his, his favorite who, who he thought was going to be most impactful at the pro level. And he chose Marez. Here's the best part about that house. He can also say he didn't choose it. Of course. No, I, you're absolutely right. Yeah. So I, I just got the job. They were already locked in on Mraz.

43:23Bill Simmons:Obviously, I told them he's a great kid, but I just got hired. I can't come in and start telling these guys what to do. I just got hired a week ago. But he probably was like, yeah. Because everything, and this is why we all loved him, Kyle. This was just the classic. These are the guys that would fall in the draft 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago. Just the heartbeat of a great team in college. the engine, all the quotes about him where it's like, we could never have a bad practice because of this guy. Every time we needed to pick up in a game, he'd do something. He was relentless. The most competitive motherfucker on the planet.

44:04Bill Simmons:All the stuff you want to hear. All things that we discounted for years and years and then finally started listening to. But you were a little more down on him in the draft guide than... Where'd you land on him? Oh, I ended up with Merez at 13. So, I mean, I wasn't like out of it. So, he went nine. Four ahead. Yeah. No, I mean, the argument there for him, he's really young, too. I think people should keep that in mind. Like, Merez played a year of college at Illinois and went and played, like, FIBA U19 with, like, AJ and Mikel Brown and those guys. So, he's really had a year. So, he's young for a college sophomore and just really dogged.

44:42I mean, and I think that Cooper being there and making, like, the playmaking progress that he made. and then you got Kyrie coming back, but granted, we don't totally know what's going to happen with that. Because you were thinking maybe they'd make a swing at like a playmaker type guy there, but you talked about it that like, I think the conventional wisdom has just kind of evolved over the years where you would just see teams get in the top 10 and be like, it's this illusion of being in the top 10 that makes you feel like you have to be in this mindset of like, well, we're here. We got to like take this chance on an upside pick, right?

45:13It's like, and the upside picks year to year can be like pretty volatile. They can be huge risks. And you'll see teams take the swing at those guys and end up with like a Kevin Knox or somebody like, ooh, you get tantalized. Like, oh, he's inefficient, but I'm tantalized. And the safer thing to do is to take the dude who can switch one through five, like Mraz Johnson, who's a winner, who's going to be on your team. He's not going to be a star, but it's a safe, smart pick. I like it. I think it's good.

45:40Bill Simmons:I told you, I did this exercise. I went through the last five drafts and tried to separate the guys based on studs, playoff guys are just wild cards. And wild cards can be upside or small guards or shooters. And the playoff guys, year after year, like in last year's draft, it was Cedric Howard, Murray Boyles, Carter Bryan, and Hugo were the four guys that are just guys that have that playoff profile, that can guard different positions, that have energy. They bring some sort of skill set that seems to matter when it gets to April and May. In 24, the playoff guys were your guy, Sar, House. I can't give him a stud.

46:18Bill Simmons:But he's, you know, maybe Serge Ibaka in the right situation. Better Serge Ibaka. Klingon, A.J. Mitchell, Jared McCain, Baylor Shireman. Right? So again, no small offense first shooting guards. No kind of upside guys. These are just dudes that play. And then the year before that was Kamara, Kaysom Wallace, Jaquez, Derek Lively, and Podzemski. as like your playoff guys. So I look at Merez and I'm just like, he just feels like he's in those three classes. I can just see him in a playoff series. Everybody seemed to think OKC was either going to take him or trade up if they didn't feel like they could get him at 12.

47:01Bill Simmons:And I do wonder if they've infected the thinking of these teams a little bit. Back to Milwaukee, though. I had as a loser the honest trade already 24 hours later, which I didn't like yesterday when we did the, the, uh, urgent gathering podcast. Um, I usually like to get a blue chipper when I'm trading one of the best 25 parts of all time. One of the things they got was the 13th pick in the draft and they took Nate Amon, who I think was the most polarizing guy of these first 15 classic. He, he hits, I don't want to be mean about somebody who's 20, but hits the draft checklist of, well, he didn't shoot last year, but he's a good shooter.

47:47Bill Simmons:Well, he struggled down the end of last year, but he was injured. You could see the upside. It's all like upside and not stuff if you actually watch the games and you're just like, what is this guy? Is he Brad Sellers? So what is this guy? Billis was like, he got fouled a lot. He stuck his nose in there. It was just kind of... Yeah, he sounds like he's talking about the coach's kid. We're really getting creative with it. I mean, I do think there's something there. It's just a matter of where you... what level of investment you want to put in him. I mean, I was lower on him than consensus. I ended up with him at 20 just because of where I was comfortable with that.

48:23I mean, I heard somebody on another NBA show say that he reminded him of Perry Jones III, which is kind of, honestly, the way people used to talk about Perry Jones, he'd be like, oh, it's so big. Watch him move. Oh my God. And you just get caught up in these hypothetical vortexes where you're like, oh, the hypotheticals, man. And it's like, no, I kind of would like to see something not hypothetical at some point, but he's like Senac. It's like he's a guy who's a streaky shooter, and he's just not comfortable at the rim. It's like, maybe you can kind of develop him into like a solid role player.

48:53I don't know if he'll be a star, but I think role player is what I would aim at first.

48:57Bill Simmons:At least with Senac, he rebounds, right? He's got one skill that could be like, well, at least he does that. Right? I don't know if they, amen. I think the Perry Jones thing is a really good, it's a really good one. There's so many of those guys' house. Why do us feel like we had way more of those guys in the 90s and the 2000s. We probably did. Maybe just the whole infrastructure for youth basketball is just better now. But listen, maybe it'll happen. I don't know. But he set off a lot of red flags for me. My favorite, though, about the honest trade, Shamsu seems to really want to make it work for the Bucks that this trade was a good trade.

49:35Bill Simmons:When it was, as I said yesterday, this is a trade you make when you want to keep your job and everyone else's job in the front office for another three years. Just a lot of picks that are out in the future. You're sort of rebuilding. You have these guys that you might keep or trade and at no point does anybody look at you and say, well, why aren't we better? We just traded for Jalen Brown. Shouldn't we have 50 wins? Why do we have 30? Sham said at one point during the draft, the calls are continuing to come in for the Milwaukee Bucks for their guys. I find this hard to believe. I actually literally heard the opposite, that the calls were going out from the Milwaukee Bucks asking if anybody was excited about this.

50:17Bill Simmons:House, you never gave your thoughts on the podcast about the Miami Giannis trade. My first reaction was, wow, this is a rare lose-lose trade. You don't get a lot of those in the NBA. Now, for Miami. Miami had to do it because what the hell else were they going to do? But yeah, I didn't like the trick for them either. It is Giannis. So I'm being a little facetious. I get it from their side. Yeah. I get it. Exactly right. But like, okay, great job. They moved up from being the play-in 10th team to the fifth best team in the East? Sixth best team? Yeah. What do you think, Kyle? You think they moved that high?

50:57Bill Simmons:I mean, this is the conversation to be had, right? Well, you're factoring in five seed. you're saying Giannis is going to play 70 games with five. Exactly right. Which that I am doing. All of their top six guys are going to play 70 games because they can't afford for any of those guys to miss 15 or 20 games here or there. They really can't. When we did the pod yesterday, we're like, well, they'll bring Norm Powell back. And then today it's like, yeah, Norm Powell's not coming back. They don't have enough money to pay him. So we'll see. They can patch it together. But what do you think, Kyle? Defensively, I think they could be pretty interesting.

51:31Yes. Oh, yeah. I mean, they're going to have to work their magic in the margins in finding guys, though. I mean, because you're going to need some more, you know. Shooting. Yeah, you're going to need some more shooting. I mean, but that's kind of their specialty. They pull those guys just out of nothing. Like, they find them, they target them. And there's a few guys in this draft, I think, that they could go target. But I'll be interested to see if they climb as high as five. I mean, Giannis being on your team automatically makes you dominant in some capacity, and he's always something you've got to deal with.

51:59So you guys might be right. I might be a little on the cynical side. I'm just sad for the Milwaukee fans. The Milwaukee fans deserved the end of Giannis to be better than it turned out. They got bummed out, blown out of the playoffs two years ago. They got blown out of the playoffs or three years ago, two years ago, then didn't make the playoffs last year. Yeah, it's a bummer.

52:20Bill Simmons:And one thing I forgot to say yesterday, and I wish I had been harder on this part yesterday. You know, they shouldn't trade Giannis a year ago, which we've covered on many pots, but I should have said yesterday. not only did they not trade Giannis a year ago they went all in with that Miles Turner Hail Mary that involved stretching Dave Millard for$22 million a year all the way through this decade and now they've just traded Giannis for way less than they probably could have gotten another loser it's 2026 guys the NBA still has to do this thing where teams make a trade but then somebody's on the clock and they make the pick but we just found out five minutes ago that the pick got traded.

53:01Bill Simmons:Why can't we figure this out, Kyle? Why not? How hard is this? We have everybody on the desk just said they flipped 16 for 17. It's not, it's OKC on the clock at 16. No, Memphis takes Bennett Sturtz. No, they're taking for OKC. We just heard that. Why do we have to do this? Is there some kind of legality thing there where they can speculate about it on the broadcast, but the NBA can't officially say it? Is it something more strict like that? Or what is it? Well, I'm sure there's a process for submitting the trade and the trade has to be approved by the league office. And until that's done, no trade is official.

53:42Bill Simmons:House, they can do whatever they want. It's their fucking league. They can make you do anything. Speaking of doing anything, you can vote on Netflix right now whether you think Giannis will ever make the finals in Miami. Not even win the finals, make the finals. I'm sad. What would your take be on that house? No chance. No chance. Oh, you would go no chance. Zero. Never say never, but unlikely. Can we talk about how it should not be two nights again? Do you not miss the one night experience? Because the second round is so bad. Isn't it a waste of everybody's time to do it in two nights? I want to go back to one.

54:18Bill Simmons:I have always wanted it to be, especially after having done the draft a couple years, just the first 14 picks and take 10 minutes between picks. Oh, I like that. That way they can have, this is my next loser, by the way, the Lisa Salters interviews when there's real basketball shit going on. Who are these for? Who are they for? Who are they for? Who are they for? They do a set with the freaking living room. What the fuck is that for? Kyle, what does this moment mean to you? It's the same question to every family. It means a lot. I just got drafted. It's so meaningful to me. There's my dad. Really, really.

54:57Bill Simmons:Really. Cathartic stuff. There's real basketball shit. The Clippers took Wogler at five, and it's, okay, now what's going to happen with these next four picks? I just feel like everybody watching this draft cares about the basketball stuff, not the family stuff. Can we get some more in the weed? Maybe not too far in the weeds, but just can we get a little more, what's this going to look like on court? like go to the screen show us a clip you know they had two channels they had abc and that espn and somehow they had lisa salters on both of them doing interviews pick one have abc be the one my wife would watch because she likes the interviews i want to know all the mechanics of the draft as it's happening atlanta's on the clock at number eight it's like are they going to trade this there's been rumors all week that they might trade this who would trade it what are the candidates could could they trade this right now for trade murphy but no we had to we had to interview daris SACUF and his family.

55:51Bill Simmons:And I just don't know who that's for. I don't get it. What's a back of the envelope math guy's name? We could have that feed where they go to him and he just for 30 seconds shows you like the analytics or the... Oh, Kornacki? Yeah, Kornacki. Something like that. He's on a different channel, but yeah. Jim Clark. Wow, we'd just... The equivalent. The equivalent, indeed. Good news, guys. The calls are continuing to come in for Bucs players. The Bucs are just ringing. Yeah. They just got a Kuzma call. Winner! It was Samsonite, the luggage company. Oh, the votes came in too for Giannis. And 87 % of people watching this said, no, he will not make the finals in Miami.

56:35Bill Simmons:Sorry, Miami. Winner! Darius Acuff going to Sacramento. Is he the most fun Sacramento king we've ever had? What's your top three, House? Well, they were so close. Like, dude, yes. I mean, come on. Mitch Richmond? Sure. Sure. Yes. Would you put Boogie on there? That era, Doug Christie was an endless source of amusement. Doug Christie wasn't fun, except for his wife. Oh, yes, he was. He was. I guess the shit with the wife is fun. Entertaining to talk about. Doug Christie inherently fun is kind of, I don't know about that one. I'll phrase it another way. Who is the best league pass guy? I've had league pass since 2000 or 2001.

57:17Bill Simmons:Who's the best league pass guy they've ever had? Chris Webber? white chocolate end of story, right? I mean, that run, that run like early basketball internet where they were like the clips where you could watch the top 10. I don't know. I always joke about this. The white chocolate is a problem versus what it was like to just watch white chocolate for 82 games. But that was pretty disparity. That was pre widespread league pass. So perception was reality. I was seeing those clips and I was like, he's great. And I didn't realize he was not great for years. It was a long time. There's a chance. A-cuff is just absolutely awesome on the Kings and everyone in Sacramento is going to be wearing A-cuff jerseys.

57:53Bill Simmons:I'm all in. House and I have been all in really for the entire college basketball season. Absolutely loved him. He checks every box for me, including it's not perfect because he's not gigantic. He might get picked on defensively. He's going to a franchise that has had been living under a ladder and has black cats on the front door when you walk in and every sort of bad luck, broken mirrors everywhere, and every sort of bad luck thing you can have. I just think the kids got it. And we'll talk about one team that passed up on them. But Kyle, are you as, on a scale of 1 to 10, where are you compared to being house?

58:30Bill Simmons:House and I are a 10. I think I'm, the framing of how I like Acuff is maybe a little different than, I don't know, I don't know what you all are envisioning for him, but I thought of him, if you're riding him as your primary offensive star who's just always got the ball in his and you're living and dying with what he does in the half court. I don't love that as much as I like him as like a very, very good game manager guy who can hit open shots, who can bring stability. Lord knows the Sacramento Kings could use that in all facets. I mean, it's funny. It's almost been 10 years ago since they took Fox.

59:06That was the last time that they took a promising guard who was a bright kid and everything. that's I'm with him is not as necessarily like this our whole solar system revolves around this guy. I think he's probably better as like your third star. I think if you're going to build a team like a high level team.

59:26Bill Simmons:House could he be as good as Kyrie in your opinion? I have a different comp for him that I felt this way for a long time. I really feel like he's a second coming of Dame. I feel like he's Dame 2.0 and I love it. I'm going to steal it. 44. from three as a freshman in fucking college and could just, they weren't easy threes. Volumes. They weren't open threes. He didn't play with anybody that could pass the ball. He was the only dude on that team. That team was yakety-sacks. They were athletic, but they didn't have anybody. He shot like 51 % on catch and shoots, and he barely got any. I think Dame's way better.

1:00:08The Kyrie, he just doesn't wiggle. Oh, as a camp.

1:00:10Bill Simmons:It reminds me of the Kyrie part that he reminds me of is just the either-hands thing in traffic. Yeah. Like, his ability to just finish at these weird, goofy angles. I don't think Dame can do that. Dame came into the league after, I think he was 22, and was good right away, but it took him, I would say, three years. Like, I remember he had a really bad playoff series in 2015 against Memphis. Took him a couple years to then go up that next level. I feel like A-Cup's going to be further along, and he's younger, too. but I like the Dame thing. To me, that's the motto of like, could he be at 25 points a game?

1:00:44Bill Simmons:Like 25 and seven, has the ball a lot. Maybe you need some extra offense next to him, but that would be what I see, Kyle. Yeah. When did Dame hit the game, the series winner? Was that 14 or 15? Yeah, it was later. It was, I think, the 17 range. It was after KD left OKC. So anyway, the Kings, who, you know, have been, are probably the biggest train wreck in the league, I would say. Do we have a bigger train wreck? Now they have a fun player. I'm excited for their fans. I don't know if this was a winner or a loser, but the Warriors, it seemed like Joe Lacob had an argument with Mike Dunleavy in the draft party.

1:01:21Bill Simmons:And it might not have been. I'm just seeing what I said on social media, but I thought that was pretty funny. Winner? Kyle, you love this one. The Spurs at 20. They drafted your guy. You've been riding for somebody. Why don't you tell us about him? Jaden Quaintance was a pretty highly regarded prospect. He went to Arizona State last year. And everybody that watched his tape from Kentucky this year, I've had people be like, oh, it's just Kentucky. I'm like, he barely played for Kentucky. It really is not that. All of his tape is from Arizona State. He was 17 years old and was like defensively just ridiculously dominant.

1:02:01I just think that I had this thought process during the playoffs. He's probably, if he's healthy, that's the big question is, that's the thing that happened between now and when he was dominant at Arizona State. He tore his ACL, came back too early. There's some like real like time lord kind of worry about like, is this going to keep happening with him? But if he's right, I think that he could net out where he could be as high as like five in this draft in like a few years from now because he's that defensively special, in my opinion. I know people have worry about his offense, but I'm just like, this dude dunks everything.

1:02:33We don't worry about what Mitchell Robinson does around the basket. I'm like, he screens and he dunks everything. So he's time lord-ish.

1:02:39Bill Simmons:He is. You tweeted this one in May. You tweeted how he'd be the perfect guy for the Spurs. This was like a month ago. I mocked him to the Spurs in one of our mocks because I was like, I didn't have any intel. I was just like, I think this just makes a lot of sense. He fits their brand in terms of the type of kid he is, too. A little soft-spoken, pretty bright kid. Plays chess. He's a big chess player. And then, yeah, one game during the playoffs when OKC beat the Spurs, I was like, they need Quaintance. They need to draft Quaintance. Would you rather drafted him or a head coach? What a setup. So rude.

1:03:16So rude.

1:03:17Bill Simmons:Why'd you make me make that joke? You texted me to set you up with that. No, he didn't. Now, listen, Mitch Johnson's a great coach. None of that finals was his fault, except for the 43 things that happened that were poorly coached. The whole team is young. They're all experiencing this for the first time together. Mitch Johnson, don't blame him. They're all young. All I know is we, House and I made fun of Rick Adelman during college and then after the college. By the way, RIP Rick Adelman. He was Hall of Famer. No, he was great, but we would always get mad about his game management. and Mitch Johnson's game management was a hundred times worse than all the stuff we had with him or Dunleavy or some of the other coaches we used to make fun of.

1:04:01Bill Simmons:Mitch Johnson's younger than Steph Curry. He's young. He's young. That whole thing I chalk up. But I think Quaintance is absolutely perfect because it solves a lot of the defensive challenges that this team... They still need size, which is a very weird thing to say with Wemmy. Who cares whether or not Quaintance can score? It doesn't matter. You're not worried about... And you have a year with him, too, because you have Cornette. I think Carter Bryant's going to play for them next year. By the way, Netflix did a poll for is Darius Acuff the most fun Kings rookie basically ever? And 54 % said yes.

1:04:39Keegan Murray had a lot of buzz when they brought him in. He's going to be more fun than Keegan Murray. Come on, House. No, but I'm saying the buzz surrounding him And as he arrived there, there was a big excitement. Exciting. One more. Cutting. Yeah.

1:04:54Bill Simmons:One more winner before we go to break. Daryl Morey. Trades Jared McCain for pick 22 in three seconds. And then Jared McCain goes to OKC and does really well there. And it's, I think, one of the reasons Daryl Morey gets fired. Well, Philly with 22 takes Phylon, who is one of my favorite guys in the draft. I think he's been vindicated. Great trade. Just like that. Love it. McCain was a declining asset. He just turned him into Phylon in two more years on a rookie contract. Let's go, Daryl. Somebody hire him. I had it on good authority that they wanted Phylon last year. They might have promised him last year.

1:05:37So Daryl's vision fulfilled. And yeah.

1:05:41Bill Simmons:He has some Daryl juice behind him. Some Daryl sprinkles. Daryl juice. Do I like Phylon too much? Because the knock on him is he's too skinny and there's a whole weight limit thing with point guards where if you go below 175 pounds, people get concerned. I don't care. I was a little more leaning towards the Hornets taking him. I thought that's who they should have taken. I know the Christian Anderson pick that I know our guy Khan is going to have another dude who's a great dribble pull-up shooter, fits their brand. but I thought Acuff is a tougher player. I thought that he would be a better fit.

1:06:19Phylon, you mean. Yeah, yeah. I thought that Phylon would fit with the Hornets better. I was surprised they didn't take it. I agree.

1:06:24Bill Simmons:I thought every pick after 14, I was ready for him to go. And guess what? House, now he goes to 22. He goes to Philadelphia, a city that takes everything personally and hates everybody else. And he's going to have a giant chip on his shoulder. He's going to fit right in. It's going to be a great situation for him. All jokes aside. I think that with that backcourt and, you know, what they're all of them together. Yeah, let's do it. All right. We have a lot more to get to. We're going to take one more break. It's going to be a little bit longer when we have time to look at Twitter for two minutes, but we're going to take a break and come back with the rest of the winners and losers.

1:07:01Bill Simmons:Now for a special part of today's episode, where we're going to be talking about the superior matches, teams and players of FIFA World Cup 26 brought to you by Michelob Ultra, the official beer sponsor of FIFA World Cup 26 and a superior light beer. So let's get into the moments that stood above the rest and made a superior level of impact, at least so far. We're still pretty early in the World Cup. My MVPs right now, Messi has to be number one. Already a legend, already probably leading the GOAT combo, had five goals in two games, missed a penalty kick to make it a little interesting in the second game that he played, but it was so great to watch, so special.

1:07:41Bill Simmons:And I was thinking he might have the highest approval rate of any athlete in any sport right now. Who doesn't like Messi? If somebody said they didn't like Messi, you would look at them like they were staring at you cross-eyed or something. It's an insane opinion. Everyone loves Messi. That's it. This just reinforced that. So that's one. Second one for me, Team USA, which threw its hat in the ring as a perennial power. It's not perennial because it's the first time it's happened in 2010, but it sounds really good that it's a printer power. But yeah, this is the first time we've actually thought that an American team could make maybe the final eight, maybe even the final four, as crazy as that sounds since 2010, since Donovan with the Algeria goal.

1:08:24Bill Simmons:And it's been a long 16 years really ever since. And now hope again, very exciting to the point they're playing their third world cup game. They can rest most of their starters. So that's been great. Third thing for me. Alexi Lalas. Great job getting everybody talking about the Fox studio show. Good job. People are talking about it. Fourth one, the African nations. Um, you have Morocco, Egypt, Ghana, Cape Verde, and, and the DR Congo all probably making the final 32. I think the record before was three, but, uh, I just watched today. I watched Ghana tie England. They, they parked the bus, um, which as somebody who's been involved in a lot of youth in high school and college soccer watching over the years, it's, it's mostly annoying when teams parked the bus, but in this case, Ghana did a really good job.

1:09:21Bill Simmons:They needed a tie. They parked the bus. They knew what they were doing and they got out of it. And now they're going to make round 32. So, uh, Just cool, though, to see this entire continent kind of make their presence felt, especially with the extra teams. So you have that. Goals. We have more teams, which there's six to eight teams that probably have no business whatsoever being in the World Cup, but it has led to more goals. It's led to, you can do parlays where you bet somebody to have two goals in a game with somebody else to have two goals in a game. All kinds of fun things. Who doesn't love goals?

1:09:58Bill Simmons:as we keep going in the world cup and the games get better and better, it's going to be a lot of one, nothing, a lot of two, one, you're going to miss some of these goals. Ronaldo. That's been fun. Is he washed up? Well, he scored two goals today against a team that wasn't good, but he had two goals. Um, but it's, it's fun to watch somebody just, just trying to hold on. Who doesn't have it anymore. Who can't identify with that? And then last but not least for me, just out of, out of the, out of the early stuff, it really looks like we're getting France versus Germany in the round of 16. I like when we have world cup matchups that also feel like they could have been any sort of major conflict that we've had in the world in the last 400 years, right?

1:10:43Bill Simmons:France, Germany just feels weighty. It feels important. It feels like that's a game that should be in the finals. Now we're going to get it in the round of 16 and it's going to be awesome. And we're going to get Mbappe and a very, very fun France team who if I had to pick right now, I'm leaning toward Argentina just because of messy and just because they play so great together, but France would be the other one. I think those would be my two and not hot takes because those are two of the favorites. But anyway, those are my superior moments. Ultra wants to hear your superior moments from the FIFA world cup 26.

1:11:16Bill Simmons:You have the chance to vote after every FIFA world cup 2026 match for the superior player of the match on the FIFA plus app. That player will get the superior player of the match trophy. representing the host countries of Canada, Mexico, and of course, the U.S. of A. Celebrate every goal, save, and win with U.S. Soccer and Michelob Ultra. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn. For small business, every hire matters, but the time and resources required to hire right are limited. Luckily, LinkedIn Hiring Pro is built for that reality. It's your hiring partner designed to help you hire with confidence by surfacing only the right candidates without turning hiring into another full-time job.

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1:12:23Bill Simmons:It's not always easy to show love, but there is one way to express how you feel, food. And what better way to say I love you than with Panda Express's delicious, authentically cooked American Chinese cuisine. Whether it's eating with someone you love or while watching the team you love, you can pick from tasty options like orange chicken, honey walnut shrimp, Kung Pao chicken, and black pepper sirloin steak. Have you eaten yet? Order now or visit a Panda Express near you. This episode is brought to you by Holiday Inn by IHG. If I'm ever traveling for work, where I stay is so important. I actually really care about this because sometimes I even have to do a podcast wherever I'm staying.

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1:13:52Bill Simmons:And if you go back, the Bonsa was one, Peterson was two, and Boozer was three. Wow. Start there. Can you guess who the number four pick was? He was somebody taking in the first 20 picks. Let house guess because I follow this stuff. Oh, you already know the answer. Kyle man probably knows the answer. He went in the top 20. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. I'm scrolling through super fast. House don't cheat. Amen. Amen. That would be my guess. House cheated. No, I... I had the draft. I have... This is the draft. How would I know? Nate Amant was fourth. Some trackpad action over there. I was suspicious of.

1:14:27Bill Simmons:Yeah, because I'm looking at the draft. I don't know these guys. I was in fifth. And number six, the Celtics pick. Ooh. Yeah, baby. This is something... Senec. They used to do in the past with Danny Ainge. They would take these dudes that had a weird college year. And I don't think he even had a weird college year, but they would take somebody that they're basically banking on what he was the year before his college year. I remember they did this with Avery Bradley because Avery Bradley was the number one pick in the draft. They took him, whatever. Acuff was seven. Brown was eight. Co-op was 10.

1:15:01Bill Simmons:Burry's was 12. And we could keep going. And then Kingston, Kingston Fleming's 22. Can I give you a good, an example of a good version of a guy falling the way that snack did is an example of it working is jay mcdaniels coming out of high school was a kid who thought bill is very happy jay mcdaniels was a kid who basically thought he was kevin durant coming out of high school and played like he was just like i'm just a dribble pull-up guy a tall dribble pull-up guy something happened to him when he was in between college and the NBA where someone got in his ear and was just like, hey man, you can make a lot more money if you do this.

1:15:41And it got through to him and he turned, just the switch flipped and suddenly he's this defensive monster. Senac, I'm just saying, there are many paths to being successful if you have the right people around you. So I hope that's what's happening here.

1:15:55Bill Simmons:That's what I told House when I wanted House to be a competitive eater when he was in law school. And I was like, you can make a lot more money eating. I know you can do this. He didn't listen to me. All right, so more winners and losers just quickly. Dusty May, we mentioned, who gets this Dallas job, has Cooper flag, and then three of his kids get drafted in the top 12. That was pretty fucking cool. I like that. Okay, this is a combo. The Hawks and the Pelicans. Hawks as the winners. pelicans as the losers because they traded their queen for kingston flemings as it turns out that is the final um final haul on that trade from a year ago so i'll ask both of you who would you rather have their queen maybe this would be a good netflix poll their queen or kingston flemings who would you rather have for the next 10 years I was amazed by Derek Queen so you would you you're pro Derek Queen I think it's the way it shook out it's now a closer call it doesn't excuse the unprotected nature of the pick there's no excusing that ever under any circumstances but having seen Derek Queen play NBA basketball against NBA players I know that he can play in the NBA I know he's got you know I really liked him too.

1:17:19Bill Simmons:I think he's going to have to be on the right kind of team with the right kind of people around him. And that person is not Zion Williamson. But I do think... We'll see with Fleming's. What do you think, Kyle? Queen was... I mean, they both have issues, right? I mean, when you weigh them against... Because Kingston's a little small. Derek is like, is he a center? You got to put him next to a stretch five to really work. So there are a lot of kind of caveats to work through. I personally think I would lean towards Kingston right now just because I think Kingston is going to be additive and people are pitting him against these other guys as scoring guards.

1:17:58Kingston is very, very fast, getting off the ball. I think his shot's going to come around. He's a transition monster. I compared him to Tyrese Maxey a little bit in transition with his speed. But then, you know, I don't know. I'm still not sure if Queen is going to be a playoff-level guy. Like the defensive stuff just really concerns me. Is the shooting going to come around? Right.

1:18:20Bill Simmons:Could he be a good stats, bad team guy, basically? Can you imagine Queen playing in like any of the last two series? Like I just kind of feel like they'd go at him every single time. You know, I like him. The thing I do like about him is he's always excelled wherever he's been. He's one of those guys, which is like the best part of Cam Boozer too. Like wherever he's been, he's been on good teams. He's been the guy. They're putting together a little Netflix poll. We're going to have the people decide. Flemings or Queen? This would be one of the only polls ever. The Hawks end up with Flemings. They took Zuby at 23, who was one of my favorite.

1:18:56Bill Simmons:I was hoping he would get to the Celtics. And they used their cap space to trade for Aaron Wiggins, basically got him for free. And I really like Aaron Wiggins. It wasn't his fault. He was on this completely loaded team. And they re-signed McCollum. I like where they're at. The one thing they were really missing was somebody like Fleming. Fleming's like, you know, a point guard who could guard other teams' point guards who could push the pace, create a little offense. I like the pick. I thought that's who they were going to take and I still really like Burry's. That was the only thing I was thinking was could they take him, maybe play him and McCall him together, but I get why they did what they did.

1:19:33Bill Simmons:So we do have results. Netflix audience, 67 % for Derek Queen. There we go. 33 % for Fleming's. Joe Dumars, vindicated one year later after getting pillared on this podcast everywhere else. How many of those people have seen Kicks and Fimmings play? Yeah, well, we'll see what that poll looks like in a year. Anyway, good night for the Clippers, who is another winner. They turned Zubats, who I voted for third team on NBA a couple years ago, but last year was not playing like it. They turned him into Wogler and a 2029 pick. I thought Burries made a little more sense, but Wogler, the higher upside and it really seems like Kyle it feels like that 46 point game against Purdue was a transformative draft pick thing even more than the final four like every time I saw Billis on a show he was talking about it like he watched a UFO land like what this kid did against Purdue and I watched all the highlights from it it really was great he was 9 for 11 from 3 but that's kind of the that's the game you point to if you're like hey can you send me 10 minutes on what this kid's like and you'd send him the Purdue game and be like, this is the best version of him, right?

1:20:47That was an example of a team that Purdue team was especially not equipped to check a 6 '6 ball screen savvy point guard who has crazy dribble pull-up. He shot 40 % on pull-up threes just in pick and roll on pretty high volume. So if you conceded that shot to him, he made it. Purdue had a kid, Oscar Clough, who was just kind of this, Like he, he kind of looked like a dad in a men's league out there. He was good player, but he just, he was not, not fleet of foot out there to guard a Keaton Wagler and he, he lit them up. So yeah, but overall, man, I, I think this pick makes sense because I'm, I'm putting less pressure on him and Garland, like being on the floor all together all the time.

1:21:32I think you bring them along a little slow, let Wagler get the reps with the second unit, maybe play with the starters a little bit and be like the secondary kind of guy because he's capable of that. He has a lot of spot-up chops too, so he'll be a spacer for them until he's ready to take more of the car keys.

1:21:48Bill Simmons:Potentially three 20-point-a-game scores. Here's the big test for Wogler. I'm going to ask House. House, you're in town and I have Clipper tickets. They're not playing anybody. It's not like Golden State or somebody that we would be like, of course we're going. It's like a middle of the road team. It's not Milwaukee either. It's like it's not Brooklyn. Let's say it's like the Pistons. Well, you'd be excited to see the Pistons. Definitely, yeah. It's like an 8-R. Phoenix. Phoenix. Phoenix is in town. And I'm like, we could go. We could drive down the game. It'd be like 45 minutes. This will be, we'll eat at the game.

1:22:27Bill Simmons:And you get to see Keaton Wogler. Are you saying yes or no? Is that pulling you away from a good meal house? Or we could just order food at my house and watch games on the three TVs. Does Keaton Wagler get you to get in the car and go 45 minutes to the Intuit Dome to go see him? The problem is I have really good seats. I haven't been to the Intuit Dome yet. So I would definitely say, whenever the first time is that I'm there, that we can go to a game, I'm going to go. It won't matter. But I am interested in whatever this Clippers team ends up being because they're in the midst of not quite, they're retooling.

1:23:08It's interesting to me. And I love Wagner's IQ. The thing I was wondering about, where was he on your high school list? Because he didn't exist.

1:23:19Bill Simmons:He didn't make the top 150. He had one of the great out of nowhere runs in the history of college basketball. What about the Stanford kid, the point guard? Didn't he also come out of nowhere? not like that people knew who he was he was going to Harvard he was supposed to go to Harvard the thing with Wagler I'm calling him Wagler he's related to Franz Wagner the thing with Wagler if you're just going ceiling from the fifth pick on he probably had the highest ceiling that's somebody that he might be Shea Gilgis Alexander for all we know because if you're talking about just watching, I actually went back and watched Shea's Kentucky, his year, like the 15-minute YouTube clip of Shea, and it's like, you can see the pieces of it.

1:24:11Bill Simmons:You couldn't see the MVP version of it, but you could see the pieces and the footwork and the two-way game, and he was a better two-way player than Wogler was. But Wogler offensively was way ahead of where Shea was at Kentucky, right? Yeah, it's interesting because they're kind of inverted like in the way that they like Wogler is all like he's just so methodical like setting up ball screens to get to his shot and he can just burrow his way into the mid-range and in college Shea was the opposite he was just like he was just uncheckable getting downhill like and he was just a layup master well a lot different than the way he plays now in terms of having upside I mean upside at this spot the upside I feel like kind of falls that fell off in terms of like the legitimate swings of they could be stars.

1:24:55It's only like two or three guys past five, including Wogler. Who are the other guys?

1:25:03Bill Simmons:Acuff is on that list for you or no? I feel like I kind of know what Acuff is. I don't know where the levels are that we go that are just like, man, they shock me. Brown is, yeah, I think Brown is one of the guys. Another sneaky one is Daylon Swain, who the Bulls ended up with. I think he's like a sneaky upside guy. The Bulls coming up. Yeah, 15th pick. So, yeah. The Clippers had to do it. It's one of those things that if they had the 8th or 9th pick, it probably would have made more sense. They would have taken Burries, and that would have been a classic two-guard, but they'd take a swing. Loser Steve Kerr, who's going to have to coach Yaxl and Draymond at the same time.

1:25:42Bill Simmons:What is this going to be like? Two of the most passionate guys we've had in the league in 10 years. Both winners, both super competitive, and they might fight to the death. I don't know what's going to happen. What's going to happen, Kyle? I kind of wonder what Yaxl is going to look like in a system that is going to require his attention to be divided a lot. We will see about that because he played on just a battering ram of a Michigan team and his job was to guard the ball most of the time. So he had everything that was important to him was in front of him. So I'll just be curious to see in the speed of the read-react Golden State system while it's still there.

1:26:23You know, they're going to have him probably pass this into some other era of a different style that I'm sure he'll define him. But in the short term, I'll be curious to see how turbulent his ability to like keep up with the speed of what they do is. Because you could see some like, I mean, you don't want to say Jordan Poole. I'm not saying he's going to like give him a concussion for a punch, but I don't know. Or to be the opposite. The vets will bring him along and give him like guardrails that'll be good for him. I don't know. It's going to be fascinating to watch.

1:26:50Bill Simmons:Well, he's almost the same age as some of the vets, so it's fine. He's going to be 24 in December. Are you more older than Moses Moody? I 100 % agreed with the pick. I thought they would have taken more as there, but Dallas jumped on them at nine. House, Draymond, Yaxle, Curry, Porzingis, and LeBron James. How far am I going? How far am I going in the West? changes things. I think you can make it out of the play-in. I think you can make it out of the play-in. What if I changed Porzingis for Anthony Davis? Oh, no joke. Anthony Davis, Draymond, Yaxo, Curry, and LeBron. I just go big. I have size everywhere, and I have two guys, Draymond and Yaxo, who can guard perimeter guys.

1:27:45He made a face. Like, he'd take KP back. No, I would not. I would not.

1:27:48Bill Simmons:But there's no scenario. I mean, it has to be. That'd be one way to get in with Jalen Brown. Jalen Brown loved him. Be like, Jalen, we didn't really try to trade you. And KP's coming back. So a three-way trade. All's forgiven. House didn't seem that excited about LeBron and Yaxle and the Warriors with Anthony Davis. Didn't seem like a change of finals pick of San Antonio or OKC. Winner, quickly, Chicago. They get Wilson at number four with a chip on his shoulder. I love Wilson. I just think I'm completely all 100 % in. I'm all in. And he's the first legit Bulls star since Derrick Rose. You could tell me that Vucevic was a star or Jimmy Butler pre-Miami.

1:28:30Bill Simmons:Fine. Whatever. This kid has it. They'll probably build the team around him. I hope they keep giddy. They'll be playing up and down and everybody's going to love him. And then they get Swain at 15. Kyle, would you say this is your number one winner of the draft? Swain and Wilson together? I like it together. I had a funny moment where I sat down and I was like, huh, Caleb Wilson with this Bulls roster and I started looking down the Bulls roster and I was like, ah, fuck it. I was just like, what am I even thinking about? I was like, you start trying to do the gymnastics of like... What if they had had Io and Kobe White on the team that they just could have brought back with their bird rights on top of Giddy and Caleb Wilson probably would have maybe made more sense.

1:29:12I got a wild one for you. I think, Daylon Swain could be swappable for Josh Giddey because they're similar plays. I think he could end up being a better two-way player than Josh and do similar things. Similar size, playmaker, athlete, and then he can play defense.

1:29:27Bill Simmons:So, well, to that point, every year there's the Kawhi, right? Where Kawhi in 2011, I sent House a clip today of when the Wizards, Jay Billis is at the desk and he's like, I think Kawhi Leonard would be a great pick here at number six. I think he's going to be a really good player blah blah blah fits in with the Wizards and then it goes to the podium and they're like with the sixth pick the Washington Wizards take Jan Besley it wasn't Kawhi Leonard but every year there's the Kawhi Leonard of wow if this guy could just blank he'll be awesome so with Swain isn't it if this guy can just if he can just figure out how to shoot this kid's going to be awesome because he rebounds and defends.

1:30:13Bill Simmons:He runs the floor. He does everything else. But the shot is why he wasn't a lottery pick. So what if he learns how to shoot, Kyle? He can score. He can really score. He's just got kind of a deliberate wind-up shot. And I don't know if it's a rebuild. It's just he got to the point where if you gave him time, it wasn't like Thompson Twins where it's just like, all right, let's just run the other way. This ain't going to happen. He can score. And he has touch. So you kind of can talk yourself into it happening. but somebody was asking me about like who has the best handle in this class and i was just like swain has some of the best dribble separation in the class with like a cory like he's he's nasty he can like you'll watch him get low with the ball you'll be like i can't tell if that dude's like 6 '1 and then when he stands up you're like holy shit he's huge he's like six seven and a half and choose so it's a great bet for chicago uh before we do our next winner and loser we have to wake up house a little bit because it's 12 30 so house i ordered from john and bennie's no no i'm just gonna i'm gonna talk about food to get you excited okay good it's my wife's away that means that means the uh food delivery order for the solo you really have nobody judging you or anything i did john and bennie's i got uh the chicken cutlets with the gem lettuce salad that they have with the spicy dressing yeah and then you know what else i did i just got a pizza even know i don't eat pizza i don't really eat bread i got the sunny boy pizza which is bacon and uh and cheese and there's some like caramelized onions on it you didn't have two pieces of that or any of that bullshit right i did it i gave the crust of the dogs they were very grateful the crust of the dogs i got a big plate i cut up the chicken cutlet i put it put it in their spicy little salad i put a little balsamic on it and and i just chowed down and it was wonderful These rare, special, unexpected where you're, you know, because you're married and you have a diagnosis.

1:32:07You're with your wife and you have your time. It's a negotiation. We're going to do this together. And JKM, you share. What are we going to share together? Oh, no. Just like when you get to the time where it's like, I'm going to order for me. And I'm going to have a cheeseburger. I want the hot dog with a little cheese on it, too.

1:32:25Bill Simmons:See, this is why I always win because I always play the only child card for this stuff. It's like, I don't want to share. I'm an only child You do have that card, you son of a bitch I do, I just say I don't want to share I do that with everyone who is friends with me knows like desserts I don't want to share dessert, I don't want to share ice cream with you, I don't want to share pudding with you I don't want to share Sunday with you I've never tried to share dessert with you I don't want to share a piece of pie with you I don't ask I might grab the first bite, but I don't like sharing I'm an only child, I'm not used to it House had multiple brothers He has a sister.

1:32:59Bill Simmons:Yeah. He's used to sharing food. Anyway, back to the draft. Winners and losers. So Sean Marks, I don't know whether you give him a winner or loser. I'll let House decide. Loser. I don't need any more information. You just said Sean Marks. They showed him in the draft room. They're celebrating like they just won the finals. The whole Nets draft room is celebrating. and it was because they were taking Mikel Brown who missed 14 games last year and has a bad back. And high fives around. I mean, yeah. He's the guy out of all these top 12 guys, the guy I was worried about the most. I might be wrong.

1:33:38Bill Simmons:I'm not saying he's going to be a bust. I just have concerns with the injury prone stuff, durability, and the fact that he's talking in interviews about I was in so much pain with my back. Like, you're 19. Why do you have back problems? This makes me nervous, Kyle. yeah they just kind of slid it in there that they were like uh yeah he played fewer games than terren peterson and the peterson thing we were speculating we still didn't totally know what it was and we were like i think we're on the other side of this it's not really bad back is like that's that's not one that you want coming in i've like michael porter jr came in and had the what the micro discectomy i haven't had back surgery but i think that was the procedure um yeah i don't know if he's out of the woods in the back thing but even if he was if we're just talking about him as a player.

1:34:24My whole thing the whole time is just he's super talent, man. I mean, like, he pushes you to have, like, a high pickup point. He can shoot the shit out of the thing. He can really pass the ball with either hand. It's just he's a little chaotic. Maybe he reigns that in in the half court. Like, he seems to drive without a plan a little much for my liking to the point of, like, it's a little bit of a Lamello-esque chaos in a way that's... But LaMelo is also...

1:34:53Bill Simmons:You think Julius Randle and Michael Porter Jr. will enjoy that or no? I'm not saying... It could happen for him. He really does have a lot of talent. He has more... It makes sense for the Nets if you're looking at the guys. They don't have anybody with that kind of upside on their roster right now. Every year, Kyle gets super conflicted with one guy in the lottery. And this has been your guy for three months. You're just like... Oh, I thought you were saying my guy. Yeah, I've been conflicted about him for sure. Really conflicted because he is probably, if you're building the buildings of all these guys, he is one of the biggest buildings because his basement goes 10 floors down, but the ceiling goes pretty high too.

1:35:31Bill Simmons:We're up 20 floors the other way. I don't know. I'm listen, house, I'm admittedly terrible at, at analyzing guys like this because I gravitate away from these guys. They make me nervous. And I always am glass half empty on these guys instead of glass half full. these super talented, kind of chaotic. I'm not sure if you're durable. Like I just get worried. Where are you on this? It's the exact same place. And here's the problem. I feel like we've earned the skepticism. Like the Nets had, was it five or six first round? It was five first round picks last season. We set the over under at one. Will one of those five picks.

1:36:14A year ago, we did this. A year ago. look like an actual NBA player. Notation guy in April and May and June. Do we think that they got there? Do we think they got to one? Maybe Demond. Demond. That's it. Maybe Traore is the 10th man? I mean, JKM, are we being too harsh? No on Seraf. No on Danny Wolfe. No on... It was Drake Powell was the other one from North Carolina, the athletic... Well, here's the thing.

1:36:41Bill Simmons:This is one of my favorite draft things where you do a draft last year. and it's like, well, we took point guards last year. We can't take A-Cuff. Are you sure? Because A-Cuff's better than every point guard you have. Name one who can play. It's like when teams do this in the NFL with quarterbacks. They're like, we can't take a quarterback. We took one last year. It's like, yeah, you took a shitty quarterback last year. You still need a quarterback. Just because you took a quarterback last year doesn't need, you still need one. I just would have taken A-Cuff, and I would have figured it out, and tried to figure out what he looked like with Demmon and just gone that way.

1:37:20Bill Simmons:That's, I think, if you're the Nets, I'm not looking for upside. I kind of just want somebody good. I've just lost the city, which I had lost anyway. I lost it 19 times over with this Knicks finals. And I thought Acuff would have at least solved a little bit of buzz problems. Now they're keeping their fingers crossed with Brown, who has the upside. Mike Hill's bigger than Acuff. Sure. They're past him being good. Who's your comp for him for if he's actually really good, who is he? Well, I mean, I've comped him to Anthony Simons and Keontae throughout. Because I've said, I'm not sure that he's a bona fide, I know I can build a basketball team.

1:38:05Keontae worked towards earning a little more positivity and optimism on that front this past year. Not according to the Jazz, because they were like, hey, we want to see you do it again. but I thought it was interesting that Mike L compared himself to Anthony Simons. So I kind of feel like he's going to be, that's kind of what I expect him to be. Like this guy could go get 30, 40 on a given night. He's kind of our, he's, he's sort of adjacent to our superstar, but on any given night, he could look like a superstar. That's kind of what I expect him to be because he's super talented and defensively going to be a struggle, but the talents there has,

1:38:38Bill Simmons:did that make you feel better or worse? Absolutely terrible. It got worse. Hefferny Simon can't find a team. Poor guy. Everybody, well, we tried with Hefferny for a little while. So the injury, he's injury prone. The defense might not be there. And he's adjacent to my star. I tried to get not conflicted for a minute. Just give me that. Let me have that. This message is brought to you by Mariner. It takes the right team to help develop an athlete's talents. Managing your money works the same way. Have you ever thought, am I getting the most out of my financial plan? You're ready for Mariner. With Mariner, you get an advisor backed by a full team of specialists.

1:39:17Bill Simmons:So everything's working together toward your goals. Take the next step in your financial journey with Mariner. Investment advisory services offered through Mariner LLC and SEC registered investment advisor. For more information, visit mariner.com. This episode is brought to you by TikTok. Did you know you can use TikTok to connect even more with the sports you love? It's not just highlights, it's everything around the game, including the sports community. Find breakdowns of classic basketball plays, deep dives on baseball stats, even videos on how athletes train and recover. There are people teaching strategy, sports, history, even ways to improve your jump shot.

1:39:54Bill Simmons:It's kind of like the biggest locker room ever, and everyone's sharing what they know on TikTok. Well, I'll give you a positive winner we can end on. Charlotte gets Steinbach at 14 and they take Anderson at 18. They take two German guys. They just said, fuck it. We're double German-ing down. And guess what? There's another one tomorrow in the second round that they can take the guard who's the teammate on the young German team, right? Jack Kale, yeah. Yeah, people kind of like him. I wasn't that impressed with the thing. They should bring in Rondo while they're at it. I mean, not Rondo, Schroeder.

1:40:33Bill Simmons:Shooter hasn't played for sure. The German Ronto. So other than Khan having to learn German, I think both of those guys are playoff rotation guys. I like Anderson. He was another one of those guys I was hoping would miraculously fall out of the Celtics where he's just, I know what he is. He's going to be able to create offense. I don't think he's one of your three or four best guys on a championship team or a high playoff team. But I think he could be the third guard on a really good team, and which is what he would be on the Charlotte team. So I like that. And then Steinbach house. You would like Steinbach.

1:41:08Bill Simmons:Now I'm not sure he'll ever be able to play defense successfully ever. Um, but he is a motherfucking rebounder. Holy shit. I really, he was one of the guys I probably spent the most time on. Cause he's definitely an NBA player and he's definitely a rotation guy. And he might be a little flawed, but has, um, a couple above average skills, Kyle, like seems like pretty high IQ. played you know with adults overseas when he was like 15 16 17 just got the shit kicked out of him and he is an awesome rebounder like awesome um so i don't know i kind of like the pick for them at 14 even though i'm not sure if he's ever the fourth best guy on a really good team i think that he i've i've said that he's like the spiritual successor to steven adams because you can watch him play and he's just an absolute pain in the ass tedious like annoys people with his ability to just get a hand on every ball um but the fit with this charlotte team it just makes so much sense because you're basically just putting like a garbage disposal at the bottom of like he makes so much sense i made this comparison that i i used to i love to shoot threes i used to play pickup with this like five seven dude who was like the best rebounder i've ever played with his nickname was the Wolverine his name is shout out to Kenny but I would literally just shoot threes and he would walk the ball back out to me at the top of the arc and hand it back to me and I was joking with Barry I was like this is the equivalent of that for the Hornets it's like they've got these guys who want to get shots up Christian Anderson 100 % in line with that one of the best pull-up shooters in the country this past year Steinbach is just going to just inhale every rebound that comes like him is like a rock near an event horizon at a black hole it's just like it's going in the black hole.

1:42:53Like that's, that's what Steinbach is like. I haven't seen any of this guy. You gotta check him out. I haven't checked him out. I love this. He would have been the guy

1:43:00Bill Simmons:we would have loved to have played pickup with where he's like moving toward where the rebound's gonna be as the guy's shooting it. He's just like, he's over there. That means the ball's probably gonna go a little long and maybe bounce here and I'm just gonna move here now and then I'm gonna tip it in. Like he just, he's gonna be a double figures rebound guy playing like 24 minutes a game and then probably will give up a bunch of shit on the other end. They need it though. They're dying for that. They, they, they need that size. They need that rebounding. I wouldn't have liked them nine, 10, but I thought 14 was the right range.

1:43:31Bill Simmons:And the last thing we didn't talk to, which I'll let you guys decide if they're a winner or a loser, but okay. See who had 12 and 17 didn't trade up. And they took Mara who, um, was being rumored to be going six to eight range. At one point, I did this on my pod last week. The more I stared at it, the minutes per game just weren't there. Like he, barely played a UCLA, played 23 minutes a game last year. I think he is what he is, which is like, he's coming off the bench. Maybe Luke Cornett crossed with Porzingis on the Celtics style as like a change the game type thing and giving you eight, nine minutes and a half.

1:44:07Bill Simmons:I don't think he's a starting center. Edie was different because Edie played big minutes at Purdue and showed the work. Now he already broke down. But I think for what OKC wants, Kyle, this guy comes in, he's certain matchups, seven, eight minutes, some Hartenstein insurance, pretty good passer, really good hands. Seems like his teammates love them. And I thought there was a chance he could fall to Charlotte, which I think would have been great for them. But I think for OKC at 12, if you're not getting Moraes and you're not getting Yaxo, this was the logical next pick, right? Yeah. I mean, I think it checks a lot of boxes.

1:44:45You know, obviously there's that big guy in the West that this is akin to when Shaq was in the West. Six more fouls. Just started affecting roster construction in a way that we haven't really seen in a while. That'd be an interesting study to do, like which guys caused the most ripple effect of roster construction. But Mara, yeah. The other thing too is that the idea of Mara kind of fits what I thought OKC might do with Edie a couple years ago. I thought that it'd be interesting if they just took Edie and was like, we play this one way, but for 16 minutes a game, we're going to play in this other way that is going to be brutal for you.

1:45:22We're fucking you up. Yeah. And I think Mara, but also Mara adds, he adds the women insurance, but he also adds his passing adds another, he instantly would become one of their best passers. I think like, and you could, you could play him with those movement shooters like McCain, who loves to play on and off ball, get him to what you, you got Isaiah Joe still, I forget his contract situation, but then Jalen Williams, like, I think he makes sense on that front too. If they, if they choose to keep him,

1:45:47Bill Simmons:you know what? He's just, what he just laid out house reminded me of in the mid 80s when we had that celtics rockets finals and it was hakeem and samson yeah and mikhail parish walton bird and then everybody in league was like we got to get bigger need centers and then all of a sudden there were these hilarious draft picks for like three straight years john conch conch joe klein uve blob that was the era it was just people were just grabbing centers because it was like oh we need them we need them need him i don't know if this was the version of that but you like this pick too for them right absolutely for all the reasons uh jkm just laid out but but uh in addition it's it's it's so consistent with the path that they're on because they have to flip out a couple of these these guys that they've you know they're at the end of the road yeah it could be and and maybe dort uh And now we've got two viable Sturt and Marr, both guys who slide in, rookie contracts, not in a hurry.

1:46:46We don't have to, like, they don't have to immediately contribute. They can get some minutes. They're sitting on Topic and the kid from Georgetown, right? Yeah, and those guys might be. They might be punting on those guys. Maybe so. Those guys never set the floor. Well, Sturt was, thanks to Kyle and Tate's prodding,

1:47:03Bill Simmons:I became more and more fascinated with Sturt. the minutes thing is like one of the craziest things I can ever remember in all the draft studying. He's like an Alabama running back. The marathon man. He played over 1 ,300 minutes in college. It's like impossible. He didn't even make the final four. To the running backs in Alabama. Doesn't come out of games. I don't remember college basketball players, this being like part of the appeal is I don't come out like the way we would have centers 40 years ago. Good shooter. You seem to think Kyle, you thought he could be a little initiating the offensive in the right system, right?

1:47:38Bill Simmons:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he transferred up from Division II. I think it was Northwest Missouri State, and they just kicked ass, and his coach, Ben McCollum, and they just leveled up together. Went to Drake, kicked ass, won in the tournament. Leveled up to Iowa, kicked ass. And he just carried a gigantic pick-and-roll load. I just kind of feel like Sturtz, when he gets in the NBA, is going to be like, you mean somebody else could handle the ball for a little? Yeah, what am I going to do? I can catch and shoot it. That's okay. I love this. I just think that's going to be a nice breath of fresh air. He grew up an Oklahoma City fan, if I'm not mistaken.

1:48:17He's a Midwest kid. Classic Preston. He fits their profile.

1:48:21Bill Simmons:Preston's like, this kid will love it here. He won't complain once. He has one of those haircuts from the late 50s. Not early 50s, late 50s. Real big tin haircut. He went to his uncle's barbershop, and he got a little... But I thought that was a really nice one. It was right around, again, this goes back to the problem with talking about this draft. It was right around where he was supposed to go. You could call out the picks in real time as they were happening for the first, I don't know, 15, 16 and probably be right most of the time. So yeah. So House, do you feel like, I think Wemby's losing sweep over this Mara pick or no?

1:48:58Bill Simmons:Absolutely not. he's like oh another oklahoma city chump that i'm gonna put into my french fry machine and and slice him up he was like you should have should have gotten a peds dealer for chet holmgren she drafted that because i'm just gonna run all over him again um all right so before we go on winners and losers this is a day after the uh oh wait i had one more thing what was your favorite pick after like last 12 picks of the draft Kyle just for a team and matchup because some people like the Lakers that guy they got from Baylor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Carr. He's awesome. He's a good fit with them because I think that that's the right around.

1:49:41It's the right environment for him. They'll be able to bring him along slowly and he's going to get the types of shots that are going to be good for him. Luke is just going to you know baby bird feed him the types of looks that'll be good for him. I said I like the Quaintance pick. Other than that, I mean, Josh Jefferson is a good player. You know, of course, that's another sort of dubious shooter that Brooklyn picked up. Alex Karaban's a good add for, I just actually just now noticed that Sacramento's going to be, if you want to add two culture guys that are going to, you know, maybe start to shift some of the vibe in Sacramento, Karaban's another dude who, that's the last place I would have thought he would have ended up.

1:50:21But, you know, guy played for UConn, one, and I'm a really, really winning player. So, yeah. Here we go.

1:50:27Bill Simmons:Maybe things are changing. House, where do you think Hugo would have gone in this draft? Hugo Gonzalez. I call him Hugo. Where do you think Hugo goes in this draft? Second round. House. Neighborhood of Kareem. Where do you think Hugo would have gone? No, in all seriousness, where does he go? He's 20 years old. Which version of you? If he had come into this draft as the player that he is right now. We saw him for a year. There's a new rule. He gets to reclassify and go back in the draft and get drafted by someone else.

1:50:57Bill Simmons:top 15 I don't know oh thanks House top 15 I think I would have him much higher than yeah I think that's fair I think he would have been around Yaxl honestly listen that's top 15 the national media is having the national basketball fans having a lot of fun about Hugo potentially being the deal breaker for the honest thing is that what this is about it is funny I'm just telling you they value him like he would have been in the top 12 of that draft. Okay. And the thing is, here's the thing. And I don't know if I said this strongly enough yesterday. Like they made one offer two weeks ago and it was, you know, Jalen and two picks.

1:51:35Bill Simmons:Did it, was it a firm offer? Was it, we'd probably do this. I don't know what they said. They never made another offer. And I think the bucks were waiting for them to circle back and they just, they were like, eh, I don't know. It almost made me wonder if they had buyer's remorse after they made the first offer. We're like a day later, like, fuck. why do we do that and then walk is like hey still waiting on that next off and like yeah maybe tomorrow and they just like never they never made another offer so i don't know how badly they wanted janice but i'll tell you this though a day later i'm um i'm actually really relieved that that didn't happen now we have to figure out the jalen brown part which i think is going to be for an interesting ride this summer well how do you think it plays out house i think it's completely solvable.

1:52:21I don't know why. I think that, um, if they all say the right thing to do is to bring the team back together and we're going to go in and we're all together on this, uh, effort, then that's it. The, you know, Jalen can come in and they'll do a team meeting. Like those guys want a championship together. And I think that like, you know, it's business that's happening around them on the outside. But I think inside the locker room, JB and Tatum, they carry weight. And those two guys, the most important thing is, are those two guys on the same page? Does it seem like whatever? They're both in France right now.

1:53:01So there we go. I don't know if they're together. Will they spend any time at all? Go find a bottle of Bordeaux together. Are you okay with that, Bill? I mean, they're in France. What if they're picking out clothes? It was a problem with AJ. I'm just wondering. I'm just asking questions.

1:53:15Bill Simmons:I think I had to fly to France to get a suit. Now, the thing with those guys, I think a lot of the times the problems with the NBA is it's not the two guys. It's the people around each guy. That becomes a problem. Okay. And, you know, you have somebody like House in my life being like, I can't believe ESPN did that. It's fucking assholes. I'm like, yeah, they're fucking assholes. You just need me, Mark Jackson. No, I didn't. They actually were assholes. I actually didn't need House for that. But yeah, I was thinking about the maddest I've ever been at somebody I worked with where I still had to do my job.

1:53:49Bill Simmons:And it was definitely after I got suspended for three weeks, two without pay. And then I had to go back and start writing my column again and do Grantland Basketball Hour. And you know what? I sucked it up and did my job. But that's what Jalen Brown's going to have to do because he's making$57 million a year. So I'm sure his feelings are hurt. But what's he going to do? He's going to pay to play basketball. And he was in a trade and he's going to have to figure it out now the bigger question for me is do the celtics think it's salvageable and what happened over the last six weeks that made them think that they should pursue a trade with jalen in it in the first place so only they don't that uh we did have a last poll house for the netflix audience listening um who is the most likely to end up in my will and the choices were hugo Khan Knipple or Joe House and Khan won 62 % of course I was hoping all three of us might make it why can't all of us get a little something cool 33.3 maybe that's how I'll split it up I'll split it up by the results of Netflix feels fair listen Khan and I have to work on our German this summer we're gonna have a very busy busy summer put him in the car he's got two German teammates I want him to be prepared drive him around LA you know he's gotta learn about sauerkraut what are some of the good German food suggestions.

1:55:07Bill Simmons:Streusel? German food is the sausages and the, yeah, Spetzel. It's like it's very heavy. It's good fall food. Well, we've ordered, there's a good German place near us that we've ordered Worst House. Yeah, that makes sense. It's good, but you feel sick for like two hours after. That's why they have to drink the dark beer because the key is to make yourself feel even worse. Silly your stomach. Yeah, the food is heavy and it's like, let's, what could we add to this? I'm German. We're a brooding, vice-driven people. We want to sit around and, you know, that's what we want to do. What's your favorite German food?

1:55:44Bill Simmons:How's your last in the poll? You're 18 % right now. I don't have one. Who goes ahead of you two at 20? I got cut out of the will. Sons of bitches. Jesus. I was going to at least leave you some of the uncuts. Carpool con. Uncut sheets of my action in my attic. All right, Kyle, any last thoughts? Oh, man. I mean, we covered a lot there. I think that draft from a talent standpoint was an A, and from an entertainment standpoint, probably a C -. A little uneventful, yeah. It wasn't, yeah, we got the late couple argument. It'd be interesting to see what went on with that. I mean, I didn't get to monitor the social media as much because I was writing as it went.

1:56:24But takeaway here, I mean, like we've said, all three, these top three teams could come away happy. I really think that's a distinct possibility. I don't know that we're going to have a secretary at Gap. We might, but I'd be surprised.

1:56:34Bill Simmons:House, last thoughts other than AJ DeBonta is on your team. I want to find a young aspiring writer that we can do running diaries with, bring back the running diary, but I don't want to have anything to do with it by name. I don't want you to have anything to do with it. And I want JKM to name. There were amazing, amazing jokes to be made about many aspects of what we observed tonight. There were lots of things that we saw. Yeah, there was some text. There was like the sitting down in the living room thing had a ton. There was some very interesting family dynamics. So there was like, you know, unexpected relations.

1:57:16Bill Simmons:There was some random aging cameos. It was. There was the ESPN cameraman just honing in on the guys who hadn't gotten picked at. It's like, hey, it's filing. And just. Get out of his face. That's a tradition. Are you sad? Do you feel sad yet? Where are the tears? Show me the tears. kid. He just had five people on the booth, which would have driven me crazy. We need a burner diary. That's my takeaway. Because we can't have anything to do with it anymore. We can't make the jokes we used to make. I think you're right. Well, I'm sorry you lost in the poll house. Kyle, man, great to see you. Great work on the draft.

1:57:54Bill Simmons:I thought it was one of your best ones. Joe House, congrats on the Wiz. Great as always. Thanks to everybody at Netflix. Thanks to and Eduardo and Jack and Chris as well for helping out with the live stream. Guess what? I'm not going to have a podcast on Thursday house. Do you know why? Are you going to Hawaii? No, I'm getting a colonoscopy. Finally. Thank God. I'm doing it. You have no idea. I know you're going to be, you're going to come out when they wake you up. You're going to be like, Oh no, no, no, no. Just put me back. Let me sleep for another hour. Give me more of the special. It's incredible.

1:58:33It's the best. I mean, if I wish I had a colonoscopy on Thursday, maybe I'll sign myself up for one. It's the best snap.

1:58:41Bill Simmons:That's the lesson at the end of this two-hour podcast. Take care of yourself. Take care of yourself. I take care of myself in all these different ways. And for whatever reason, this was the one thing I hadn't done. So I'm doing it on Thursday. No new rewatchables on Thursday, though. We have the good sun going up. And then I'll be back on Sunday with the good sun and the good butthole. Great job by you. only way I will do a podcast before Sunday is if there's some sort of Jalen Brown trade, even if it's right after the colonoscopy, I'm coming on. I don't care if I'm drugged up. That's the pod I want.

1:59:10Bill Simmons:Yeah. Post-colonoscopy Jalen Brown trade pod. The drugs are good. Yeah. All right, Kyle. House, thank you. Thanks, everybody, Netflix, and I'll see you on Sunday.

1:59:48Bill Simmons:Thank you. support in Massachusetts or call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York for Louisiana. Call 877-770-7867. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18+.

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