A Knicks Miracle (and an All-Time Spurs Collapse), a Mini-Mailbag, and a World Cup Preview | With Joe House, Kirk Goldsberry, Anthony Dabbundo, and Cousin Sal

22:32Bill Simmons:Talk about that because we've spent 20 minutes here and didn't talk about this Knicks team that hasn't won in 53 years. The fans are at it. So I'm hearing from people at the game and they're like, the refs have just, between Trump in game three and the refs in game four, the fans are just in this nervous, angry frenzy. And it's like affecting the team was the message I was getting from the stands. Like the energy is way off. The fan energy was affecting the team is what you're saying. energy was was just nothing was right it was almost like they had to hit rock bottom to come out of it and then it turns into one of the most joyous events not only in the history of the knicks but in the history of the league to win that game dude when the celtics won their game it was on the road and in la we we don't see a lot of home comebacks like that but that ends up being you know they're probably going to win the title that becomes one of the most iconic comebacks in in any sport not just basketball well we've all been to new york city a hundred times bill and I've never seen it like this.

23:32It is so electric. Everybody you walk by on the street has a Knicks shirt on. Everybody's talking about the Knicks, the cabbies. We've heard other people talking about it. But it is electric in there. But dude, there is a lot of pressure on this team. And I thought at some point in this game, they lost some of their composure. Mitch Robinson throws that elbow at Wemby. Wemby's motioning the, I'm in your head. And it was like, oh, wow. And then Alvarado like picked up Wemby's leg. Yeah, how was that not a flagrant, by the way? I think the refs were afraid of the crowd at that point. I don't really agree with that.

24:04You're right. I think KG's on the money. They're like, we don't like the energy in this crowd. The refs didn't like it. They were terrified of all those 72-year-old billionaires

24:13Bill Simmons:sitting in the first row. Jerry Davis was coming for him. I throw a catheter at them. No, they definitely... And then I thought in the second half, I thought the Knicks got way more physical, which they should have done. And the Spurs, every time they would get in trouble in this series, would just stop going to the basket. And that's why Castle was so important to them throughout the finals. And then just him not playing enough, they kind of missed their guys. Like, fuck it, I'm going to the basket. Yeah, and I was watching, I watched game seven with Chris Bosh, name drop. And I was watching it with him, the Oklahoma City series.

24:47And he said to me, he's like, when he needs his move, what's his move? And in those moments, like Timmy had, we knew what, if the Spurs were going through this 25 years ago, It would be Tim on the left block over the right shoulder off the glass. You know, he needs to develop that. And in these moments when Mike Brink's like, it just feels like they don't know what play they want to get to. That's where your superstar needs to have some bread and butter action. And to your earlier point, Bill, you know who has that? Jalen Brunson. He can get to the elbow. He can do the step back three. He can get into the lane and draw a foul.

25:23And it just feels like that was a real learning moment for these young guys. Like that's the difference between a mature NBA player and an immature NBA player. And that was on full display in the most important possessions of this game. That's such a good point. And I want to ask you a question about Wemby, but to me, honestly, the guy that I want having the ball under those circumstances that I trust going to the hole and Bill's already shaking his head is Harper. Harper's the guy that the playmaker that, that I want, I want to get those touches, Those Fox touches at the end. Now, Fox did nail that three, and that was a humongous three.

26:01But I think the only reason that it's not Harper in those possessions at the end is just because he's 20-whatever years old, and this is his first time in the league. But here's my question. And they were settling for threes over just going to the basket, which was the other issue. What a segue. What a setup. KG, it can't be the case. It can't be the case that the Spurs want Victor shooting a third, taking a third of his attempts from three. It just can't be the case that they prefer that. It doesn't make any sense. He wants it. Eight three-point attempts? Eight three-point attempts.

26:38Bill Simmons:I don't know why he's so afraid of foul line jumpers. It feels like I always think they're going in, like that little spot between the foul line and the top of the key. When you talk about he doesn't have a shot yet, the shot should be like a running jump hook or some sort of yeah i'm sticking my arm up in the air and kind of just flicking it down but that's the thing he's 22 in five years like think of all the great players over the years who every year they added something to their game so he's gonna add something i think house to answer your question about what's this move like i actually think it's that hard roll to the basket with this hand up and the alley-oop and what the knicks were started to do during this series is they're shoving them they are they're basically committing in the foul before he touches it.

27:20Bill Simmons:So it's not a shooting foul. And they must've done that five times today where they're shoving him off balance as he's about to get the dunk versus fouling him as he's getting the dunk. And it was smart. They've done, I think like they've, I think the Knicks have won every challenge they've had in the series. That's another one. Like they're just like really well coached. Now it didn't seem like that in the first quarter when they weren't playing defense and getting their asses kicked. But, um, but yeah, it's just a smart cerebral team. And And it comes down to plays like that Fox play. Fox not dribbling out the clock.

27:50Bill Simmons:OG realizing he might actually go for the layup and somehow blocking and not fouling him. And then making the play on the other end. From a Wemby standpoint. Kirk, I hate to frame it this way, but I'm going to do it anyway. Oh no. Maybe this is the Wemby. I need to be kicked into the nuts as hard as possible. And this will make me stronger for the long-term loss that seemingly all great athletes have? Yeah, I mean, that's the lore, right? That's the conventional wisdom. I'm still not ready to give up on this series, but if they lose, there's no question that the 90 % free throw shooter going to the line for the most important free throws of a season and going 0 for 2 in that situation, that's in between the ears, Bill.

28:38And yeah, I think he has...

28:41Bill Simmons:Also, he's a great free throw shooter. That's the other problem with that. He said 90%. Yeah, I mean, it's just like that made it worse because I thought, I know he's tired, but he's great at this. He's going to make these and didn't make either. Yeah, and then Castle goes up and makes them. And I feel like you could say those are just random numbers. I don't believe that. I think there was a poise and a fatigue thing. And that's the other thing is Victor is not the most... he doesn't have the endurance of somebody like Stephen Curry or these great players we've seen who've worked on their physiques and their conditioning for years and gotten to the point where at the end of the fourth quarter, a game's exactly like this.

29:19Stephen Curry's going to be the one who's in the best shape running around, making his jumpers, hitting those exact kinds of free throws. And it does look like it to me that Victor has a conditioning challenge ahead of him too. And these late games kind of prove it.

29:35Bill Simmons:Well, think about Steph. When did he hit all the ankle stuff and wasn't really until like year four, year five when he started around into who he is. House, what do you think the, what do you think the gambling line in this series is right now? You have to guess. Oh, whatever it opened at, but flipped. The Spurs were two to one favorites. Is it more than that now? Yeah. Oh, okay. I think they're factoring in the Chocola that happened tonight. Minus 400 for the Knicks. I'm Fandle. Minus 400. All right. Yeah. Wow. That sounds right. I mean, the Spurs... Two days off. All right. So if you're the Spurs...

30:15Dude, that's crazy.

30:16Bill Simmons:Let's go through this if you're the Spurs. You get two days off. You don't play until Saturday. You're going home. You led all four games in the final two minutes. And I think you led three of them in the final minute. You had two of the most memorable... last minute collapses in the recent history of the finals with Wemby throwing the pass off Castles back in game two. And then basically everything that happened in the last couple of minutes of this. And, you know, you could talk yourself into, all right, come on one game at a time. We can play with these guys. This team's not better than us.

30:53Bill Simmons:They haven't really beaten us yet. We've led double figures in every game. We've had leads of like 17 and 29. And, you know, let's just, let's just play our game don't get carried away but what does mitch johnson do differently other than maybe not playing wimby that many minutes i think they got to just do what they were playing so much better than the knicks for that first half yeah for an hour what does he do differently i i don't know i think one of the things i wanted to see you sort of brought it up earlier and it doesn't have to be harper but like pick on jalen brunson on defense like yeah run you have these three ferocious attack guards.

31:34De 'Aaron Fox maybe not as ferocious as normal. He's still dinged up. But could we pick on Brunson on defense? Wear him out? So you wouldn't

31:43Bill Simmons:pick on OG Ananobi? That's one of the things you'd change? I wouldn't pick on OG Ananobi. Or Josh Hart. Or Bridges is good. But yeah, I would try to get Cat in foul trouble on purpose. And I would attack with my fleet of attack guards, I would isolate and attack Jalen Brunson and drive situations. Well, and very quietly, that was the impact of Castle getting into foul trouble. Yeah. It was Champagny who was out there. Champagny got the majority, got 33 minutes to Castle's 26. And he killed them tonight, at least offensively. And that's somebody that was huge for them in the OKC series. And one more point on that.

32:30Bill Simmons:They're not carried over. One more point. When the Spurs won their only game in the series, guess who was in foul trouble? Jalen Brunson, because they were attacking him. He got those four fouls and he had to sit out. And that was a huge factor. And the Knicks, without Brunson on the floor, are completely guardable. and it's almost like the only time I've seen somebody really expose one defender this playoffs like I would try to do if I were Miss Johnson was the Knicks going after Harden over and over and over and over again in that series I would like to see a really sort of aggressive targeting of Jalen Brunson on defense by these guards I'm trying to remember other famous like last minute collapses like this and another one that has come up a few times over the last few weeks was that 95 Magic with the four missed free throws.

33:23Bill Simmons:Now that was like Nick Anderson four in a row. That was more abrupt. The game was over. It goes into overtime. And then I actually went back and watched it after we talked about it on the last pod. And I think Hakeem gets a tip in with like under a second left and OT to win it. And that young team cratered. There was a feeling maybe that would happen to the Spurs after game two. Didn't happen. And Wemby is one of the most confident young stars we've ever had. And he could just say, look, man, I got worn out. I was trying to do everything. I was going nuts. But I still feel like I'm the best player in the series.

34:01Bill Simmons:So no castle foul trouble. Wemby responds. What else do you need, House? More Dylan Harper? Well, I will say this to KG's observation earlier. The short turnaround time going from a Monday game to a Wednesday game, we don't have any more of those over the balance of this series. We have, we go Saturday, Tuesday, Friday, I think is, is game seven. Um, so with that cadence for sure that, that, that's a step in the right direction for, uh, Wemby. Um, but I, I mean, honestly, the way these games have played out, I don't think that there are, are, are big moves to, to be made. I mean, the Spurs were, were right there.

34:43The difference is knocking down two more shots in the fourth quarter. And they win by.

34:48Bill Simmons:And they be dribbling out the clock. Yeah. Any last notes, Kirk? Yeah, I've been telling people all week, like, well, I have a question for you. But it's like these teams are very close. And it's almost like if we flip the coin together seven times and heads won five of them, I'd be like, man, tails sucks, you know. That's how close the series is to me. but um here's my question for you bill simmons because you're the greatest sports writer of our time but you're retired i have to write i have to write the game five look ahead so i think joe house will indulge if the sports guy had the assignment that i have at your website the ringer.com for for tomorrow um what what are we thinking for game five five.

35:36Bill Simmons:Your Brunson defense when Castle can stay in the court is working. I don't know. We haven't seen like this is the, you know, I love coming on after these games, but not knowing what some of the advanced stats are. I'd love to know the on off when Castle's out there when he's not against Brunson, because it feels like when Castle's out there against Brunson, he has a hard time looking like Brunson. Right. So that'd be the first thing is like, hey, Castle, like just try to stay in the game for us because you're our best chance for this. Harper, the more he has the ball ad-libbing, doing Harper stuff, I just feel like they're in a better position.

36:12Bill Simmons:I'm not giving OG that corner three anymore. I'm just not. If I have to give up other stuff, that's fine. But he's, it's just going in every time now. And if it doesn't go in, he's beating somebody down the baseline and creating something else. Like you have to start treating him. I think like take him a little more seriously that i'm not afraid of anyone on that on that knicks bench um mcbride and shamit have gone sideways alvarado came up big but he was really like the last guy they could put out there and i this hasn't felt like it's the series for mitch um and then just hope keep trying to challenge towns and hope he does dumb stuff that third valley had was really stupid like you know that was a classic minnesota towns foul so i don't know what else would you add house nothing I mean in terms of of the narrative the interesting thing to me is what we got in that second half is the version of the Knicks each time they had a closeout game in front of them they go up on teams you know that was 58 to 30 well guess what we watched that against Atlanta we watched that against every time this next team had a chance to close somebody out and so that's the fascinating thing to me.

37:24This is a closeout game against a team that is an entirely different character than the Eastern Conference teams the Knicks went up against and just ran them off the floor. I honestly love the Spurs. Now, I don't know that the line's going to open up at what it's been Spurs at home. Four and a half, five and a half, something like that. I'm not going to lay the points out of respect to the Knicks, but I honestly think the Spurs are going to win.

37:50Bill Simmons:It's the smell of a Tony Brothers game. Oh, he's got the whiff. I smell fouls. Oh, I just smell another foul. Yeah, it feels like this would be a Tony special. We also haven't seen Foster in a while. That's what I thought the sports guy was going to say. Maybe we save him for game six at the Garden, a chance for him to be under the bright lights of Broadway and do his thing. Extender. Off the hook, Trump, who I think if the Knicks had lost this game too, I think the New York City fan base hatred of Trump would have gone to this level that would have never been seen before. And then Josh Hart would have been the other one if they lose that game, like we mentioned.

38:35Bill Simmons:He's immediately taken a seat next to Charles Smith with one of the worst moments in Knicks history. And the other irony of it is Knicks fans love Josh Hart. So of all people, and it looked like he was going to dunk, but then realized his steps were too far away and couldn't do it. So, all right. So, House thinks the Spurs are still alive in game five. I think I agree. But I don't think they can beat the Knicks three times in a row. I don't think that can happen. Without some sort of injury or something weird happening. If these are the teams and everyone's healthy, I don't see the Knicks losing three times in a row.

39:13If, obviously, they win game five, game six will be fascinating. I mean, a chance to win the NBA championship in Madison Square Garden in Manhattan with this fan base, that's a lot of pressure. It's going to be one of the most electric NBA games in the history of the league if that happens. But yeah, I could see a path for the Spurs, but certainly, like I said earlier, you're down 3-1. You had chances to win at least three of these games yourself. It's just, we've seen too many of these series built to, to, to, to really have faith in the Spurs at this point. All right, guys, I think we covered everything.

39:52Bill Simmons:I I'm in this, I'm amazed. We were all coherent and especially like knowing that the Spurs were a young team prone to do this and knowing that the Knicks love coming back. Yeah. Even when the game was 29, I wasn't exactly turning it off, but I felt like they missed their, it was like, it became a Salazzo the Turk game where it was like the Knicks missed their chance a couple times when they were getting it to 15-14 and then somebody hit a three and it was like, oh, this could have been a great comeback. And then all of a sudden the fourth quarter when Wembe got tired it flipped. And that was that.

40:28Bill Simmons:Alright, I'm sure we missed 17 things, but Kirk Goldsberry, Joe House, appreciate you guys. We're going to take a break, come back. I have a little mini mailbag for the audience right after this. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. USA fans, we got one for you. FanDuel dropping a massive USA super boost for the matchup on Friday against Paraguay. Right now, all customers can win up to$25 if the USA has one plus shot. One plus shot on goal, that's it. Whether it comes early or late from outside the box, right in front of the goal, every attack will feel a little bit bigger. You're just gonna be ready for one shot to get on the net.

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42:23Bill Simmons:So I want to give some content for the next couple of days. This mini mailbag, this segment sponsored by New Era. And you guys sent me some great questions. As always, you can send them to bspodcast33 at gmail.com. Thanks for all the nice notes and nice things people say. It gives me faith in society that we're still nice people. Couple thoughts here on home court advantage. So we'll start there. Harrison from Cincinnati. When I was talking about with Mahoney about why doesn't home court advantage matter like it used to. Harrison from Cincinnati said, what about dating apps? Players no longer need to go to a bar or club to pick up girls on the road anymore.

43:02Bill Simmons:Now they could just hop on a top dating app like Raya or check their Instagram DMs and invite someone to their hotel room without needing a drink or stay out late. Maybe this is the single biggest reason of the downfall of home court advantage. You know, I wanted to laugh at this. And then I was thinking about how players probably met people in the 90s and the 2000s versus how they'd be now. And it's probably way easier to be more discreet and meet people without having to actually go out in the general public and stay up late and do all that stuff. So can't be ruled out. Jalen Rose and I always used to have a joke when athletes would get into a town and they would say on Twitter, they would be landing in Miami and they'd be like, what's good Miami?

43:43Bill Simmons:And then you would just get all these DMs from whoever, people that knew you were in Miami. Yeah, maybe that is part of it. Maybe people are out until five in the morning at clubs anywhere. Oliver from Chicago wants to know, Is it possible athletes are just better at handling the pressure? They're bigger, stronger, faster over the time. Is it possible they've also improved at handling their pressure and emotions too? This is a follow up from Jake from Minneapolis. What about the impact sports psychologists have on modern players? Top prospects, recruits, college players all work with professional psychologists, mental health experts, whoever prepare them to play in these type of environments, big games handle the backlash.

44:24Bill Simmons:The impact of mental health to me is the most glaring difference from 30, 50 years from now. it's tough because I remember doing an interview with Adam Silver at the Sloan conference when he said actually he was the most worried he'd ever been about the mental health of players because of social media and people being online all the time and the tribalism of social and how fast people can mobilize against somebody or try to make them look bad, not to mention AI and all the other things. So I, to me, that's an even out. I don't, I wouldn't say that as a, is a factor, But I do wonder, like, maybe some of the psychology of sports we're getting a little better about handling adversity.

45:02Bill Simmons:Maybe that's a little better. This is a theory from Nick from Cleveland. With all the AAU teams, these guys have played probably a thousand different gyms over the years. They're constantly waking up, driving three hours, playing for six hours, coming home, eating McDonald's breakfast, getting back in the car, driving somewhere else. an 830 finals game after a day off is a walk in the park compared to what they probably dealt with for 10 years, um, along with proper sleep nutrition makes sense to me that they're better. Um, not against that. There's definitely, definitely, um, you're bouncing around more and you know, a gym is a gym after a while.

45:39Bill Simmons:Um, this is the big one that a couple of people brought this up with the refs, because I mentioned with Mahoney, like you really felt like you could sway the refs, especially there was two for a long time in the seventies and eighties. I can't remember when they went to three. There was, there's blood in the air. There were just outright, you can watch some of the stuff on YouTube. There were just some, some games that you just can't believe how one side of the officiating ones, which is so much harder to do now in the era of social media. I really feel like in the two thousands, this shifted with, from what was going on, basically from 1999 through the Miami Dallas series in 06.

46:20Bill Simmons:Then Donahue happens in 07. And all of a sudden we got way better at kind of monitoring what was going on with refs. So there is a before after that. And then Mitchell Epner says, what about video review? Not just in-game requests for replays, but the constant drilling the NBA refs get from league offices and calls they got right and wrong. They have the performance report after the games and they're hammering down on them left and right, maybe the refs are just better at calling stuff. Well, don't tell the Knicks fans this after game three, even though we're taping this before game four. But it's possible.

46:56Bill Simmons:I think it's way harder to have a completely terrible one-sided refereeing performance than it was. And there's probably more accountability for a variety of reasons. And Byron, a Pacer fan, and this is a tough playoffs to watch. she put in practice said you can't affect refs nearly as much now because bad calls will be reviewed and made right um you can't be terrible homer refs because it'll be graded and scrutinized by everybody so the refs are a piece of it um i think that travel the more i thought about it i think that travel is the number one thing that it's just easier than it was in the 70s and 80s the refs are more consistent um i mentioned the shooting motions with rob that but that it's it's a weird one, but there's just less variance.

47:38Bill Simmons:Everybody shoots the same. Um, and then the three pointers is the other one where three pointers can swing any game possible. So interesting topic. Patrick Franken wrote in about, um, he's a Milwaukee fan and, um, him and his fellow buck fans are now obsessed with that 82 and O game, which I'm sure people that's taken over the internet the last seven, eight days, um, where you make these teams and you try to go 82 and O and you spin it and there's a science to it. The best I've ever done is 80 and two. I really get, now I do the harder one where you don't get to look at the stats and you only get two spins, but I've just have never pulled off the 82 and now.

48:16Bill Simmons:And now that the finals is about to go into a break for a couple of days, I'm going to make a more concerted effort. But Patrick says, over the last two weeks, two guys have dominated our group chat, Truck Robinson and World Beef Free. truck because of his awesome name and insane stat lines from the late 70s um we're now down a youtube rabbit hole of watching truck highlights including a 1978 game against the spurs where he scored 39 and then he said world be free awesome name for the purposes 82 and 0 average 29 and 30 in the 78 79 seasons we got to the clippers none of us knew these guys existed prior to the game my question to you is can you spend two minutes breaking down one of their careers?

48:57Bill Simmons:Were they good stats, bad team guys? Could they have a better career on the right team? He came to the right place. I can't think of anyone on the planet who's more excited to answer this question. So, Truck Robinson, and he used to be Lloyd Free. He changed his name to World Be Free. Lloyd Free was on the Sixers. Truck Robinson was on the Bullets. Both of them played in the finals. Truck Robinson, 75 finals, and Lloyd Free, 77 finals. They were bench guys with better players ahead of them. And then they got traded and their stats went way up. And truck had truck had one of the craziest stat seasons.

49:31Bill Simmons:I think of anyone in the history of the league compared to when you look at the rest of their career where he averaged, he, he went to Washington, he signed a free agent, um, contract. I want to say with like Atlanta, but somehow ended up at new Orleans at one point and put up 23 and 15 for an entire year in the 78 season was first team on NBA. And this was a big stretch for power forwards where, um, this was when we had the fight with Kermit Washington. Um, they, you had Morris Lucas, George McGinnis, um, Kermit Washington. Um, you had a truck Robinson that just a lot of big physical power forwards that were around there at the same time, Buck Williams eventually came in the league and truck was probably the best rebounder of all of them.

50:15Bill Simmons:Now, as a kid, I don't think I ever saw him play he was barely ever in the playoffs um would pat he was in the wrong conference but he ended up getting traded again um to phoenix and i think 79 playoffs made the western finals with them and they lost to seattle so he was in the mix in real games they and then in 81 they lost to the kings but that was a team that sun's team maybe could have made the finals too um he was good though he was a banger super physical really good rebounder and ended up with the nike poster world be free i was way more focused on as a little kid um going from being when just the ultimate deon waiters type guy in philly goes to the clippers and just 29 a game the first year 30 a game the second year and was really fun to watch in person you think like now he would probably bomb i don't know 10 threes game nobody the three-point line didn't even show up till 1980 80, but with him, um, kind of, he, first of all, he was bald, but it was one of those bald, but had hair in the back.

51:16Bill Simmons:So he looked really distinct. He had this weird body. He had like kind of no neck and strong arms and this really cool, uh, jump shot and was just this really physical scoring guard that could score on anybody and was a classic. Like if you played at the Clippers, uh, world be free, could just put up 47 and beat you by himself, no matter what team you were. The Celtics, the last great run he had, the Celtics had a four-game series in 85 against him. And it was a great Larry Bird series. But he went toe-to-toe with World B. And World B finally kind of had a playoff moment. He never really, from the moment when he left Philly, was just never in the mix for the playoffs.

51:59Bill Simmons:So he has this whole career. It's pre-League Pass. It's pre-Twitter. But he was cool. and his Nike poster, I think, is one of the hardest ones to get. So these guys, like, I'm not surprised they're finally having an 82-0 moment when there was a micro league basketball. These were two of the seasons that were always great seasons because, you know, how many guards have averaged 30 a game? So anyway, congratulations to Truck and to World. And also the insanity of somebody changing their name from Lloyd Free to World Be Free. Like, it gives you a sense of what kind of character he was. cody from bloomington indiana said how me and adam friedland discussed the nets having no identity how to break into the city and wondered if it could be like the italian rivalry between inter and ac milan where um he thinks the net strategy should be to go in only on international players he said inter and ac milan have a deep rivalry initially based on ac milan wanted to have primarily Italian players and Inter, hope I'm saying that right, wanting to bring in international players, cause more of a class divide between fans, Inter fans being part of the bourgeois, Milan fans would be a little more working class.

53:15Bill Simmons:This sounds great. I didn't know any of this stuff. But he said how lifelong New Yorkers will always be Knick fans. So maybe the Nets should cater to the multicultural aspects of the city and go with an all international team. Honestly, best idea I've heard for the Nets all decade. You're not going to beat the Knicks conventionally. You're never going to get the city to care about them. If this whole last two months didn't tell you once and for all that you're a second-class citizen, you might even be like a fifth-class citizen. I like the international plan. I'm going to pass that along to the size who I don't know.

53:50So James was saying how,

53:54Bill Simmons:when we were talking about how Chet had to go to the Australian Outback, I forget who was on that podcast, like Dirk Nowitzki to get his game back. And he was saying, here are my three options for him, a month in the Amazon rainforest, climb Mount Everest. He could be the tallest person ever to climb Mount Everest. and then he said embed himself in a Ukrainian drone factory learn from the experts about protecting home court learn an underdog mentality and just garner some incredible goodwill I thought about this Chet thing I'm not sure he's at that dirt point yet the more I think about it guess what Wemby's destroying everybody he needs to figure out this summer I would advise him not to go on vacation but he needs to figure out had to get his three-point shot off faster so that when he plays Wemby, he can go in the corner and release a shot faster than Wemby can come out and challenge the shot.

54:52Bill Simmons:And that would be my advice. I'm not ready for him to go to a Ukrainian drone factory yet, but maybe we're a year away. Eric Moore wants to know, is Brunson's dad the most embarrassing parent in pro sports right now? So, I mean, this was LeVar Ball's title forever. This would be a really fun championship belt to pass along, the most embarrassing parent championship belt holder year by year. There's been some classics. Brunson's dad. So I go back and forth on this because I thought it was really lame when he crossed midcourt. Nobody else, first of all, you're not allowed to cross midcourt when you're a coach, right?

55:31Bill Simmons:It's midcourt line only. But when Fox and Brunson got into it earlier in the series and Rick Brunson walks all the way over and just kind of became a dad, It was like watching, you know, somebody in a 10-year-old AYSO game getting upset at the refs and just decided they could walk in the field. And then started talking shit to Fox and the announcers kind of let it go. I thought it was pretty embarrassing, actually. I thought it was weird. Counter, though, I think Brunson might be the enforcer of this Knicks team. He might, you know, they don't really, Towns, Ananobi, Mikael Bridges, Brunson. Josh Hart gets a little feisty sometimes Mitchell Robinson can throw some elbows but if there was ever like a brawl I feel like Rick Brunson would be the first guy in it so in some ways it's a little embarrassing that he still behaves like he's coaching an 11 year old AAU team with his son on the other hand he might be the toughest guy on the bench so I think LeVar Ball still has his title Adam from Waterloo, Ontario says I talked about the prolonged misery misery title belt about how the Knicks are probably the most miserable team with the most fans.

56:44Bill Simmons:Toronto's in there too. And Adam points out there's really a ton of parallels between the Knicks and the Leafs. A title drought of 50 plus years. Center of the universe for their respective sport. Having to deal with the fact that their biggest rival is actually the more decorated franchise. The Celtics and the Habs. So the Celtics for the Knicks and the Canadians. One of my least favorite franchises. I'm so excited they didn't win this year. for the Maple Leafs. Hell, the Leafs have even endured their own Dolan-esque batshit owner situation. Go ahead and Google Harold Ballard. Pretty good Google.

57:18Bill Simmons:The Leafs are at least 20 % of the reason that Will Arnett still smokes cigarettes. Can't speak to that. And then he said, my favorite part of this email is that you have to acknowledge the Celtics are the Habs of the NBA. I think this is a great parallel. And even though Toronto doesn't have as many fans and they have the generations of fans like the knicks do um the city is not as big as new york but it's big it's one of the biggest canadian cities and if they ever really got into the finals um the way the knicks did with a good team that had a chance to win i think we'd be running all the same check marks that we're running with the knicks right now so i like that um i didn't really like your joke about the Celtics being the Habs in the NBA.

58:04Bill Simmons:So I'm going to ignore that. This is a good one from Jeffrey Thompson.

58:13Oh, no, I'm sorry.

58:14Bill Simmons:This is from Michael in Los Angeles. Then the next one's from Jeffrey Thompson. I feel like anytime a role player is a good game in the playoffs, everyone's too quick to anoint it as the blank game. Alex Caruso goes off against the Spurs. It's already the Caruso game. Luke Cornett makes a game altering block. It's the Luke Cornett game. Not really. We said it the moment, but he said, which the blank games do you think stand the test of time? What's in the running for the best, the blank game along with Jordan's flu game. Um, I put some thought into this. I'm going to give us some thought starters and I'm not ready to have a final list yet, but, um, just off the top of my head, these were the 10 that came to mind for games.

58:55Bill Simmons:The Robert Horry game. Now he's the king of this. I wrote a whole column about this for ESPN that I then kind of turned into the Robert Horry chapter in my book about the best thing about Robert Horry is if you said, oh yeah, the Robert Horry game, you wouldn't know which game you're talking about. It could have been the shot he made against Sacramento. It could have been that unbelievable barrage of points that he scored in game five against Detroit when Rashid fouled them at the end, which is one of the dumbest plays of the century. Um, but he had multiple Robert horror games, but he's a good one.

59:29Bill Simmons:The Steve Kerr game, 2003 Dallas game six, Steve Kerr. It's like a sports movie. Steve Kerr barely playing anymore. It comes in, hits four threes and it's great. And it's the Steve Kerr game. You know that one immediately. The Bennett Salvatore game, game five, 2006 finals. Yeah. The OJ game, not OJ Mayo, OJ Simpson game five, out of the 1994 finals. That's a really good one because that was the car chase split screen. The J.R. Smith game, game one, 2018. Derek Fisher game. There might be some people pushing for a game four of the finals against Orlando. I think it was game four when, I think it was Rafer Alston, maybe Jameer Nelson.

1:00:10Bill Simmons:One of those guys didn't realize Fisher was going to shoot a three with nine seconds left and the Lakers are down three. Some of the worst defense of that decade. but the Derek Fisher game is a 0.4 seconds shot against the Spurs. The Heat game, this is for Boston fans only. This was game five of the 1984 finals when it was 100 plus degrees and Larry Bird somehow wasn't phased by the elements. The Jason Terry game, underrated. Game five, 2011, Dallas, when he hits, I think the number one Heat check shot I've ever seen in person. And they have the lead. There's like 30 seconds left. Either Wade or LeBron, I haven't seen in a while, Wade or LeBron gets switched on him.

1:00:57Bill Simmons:And the shot clock's running down a little bit, but he's maybe four feet behind the line and just says, fuck it, and takes this three and makes it. And the crowd absolutely lost their shit. The Mavs fans know what I'm talking about. This was as great as Dirk was that whole time. and it was the Dirk and that's it. He's the story from that. Jason Terry making that three, you could argue was the greatest moment in Mavs history. It was so incredible to be there for that. And I still can't believe he took it because it wasn't, we love Jason Terry, but it wasn't like he was the best guy in the team.

1:01:33Bill Simmons:It was like, I'm not even sure Kobe would have taken this. And he was just like, fuck it, I'm taking it. But I love that one. So that's the Jason Terry game for me. And then you have the flu game. And then you have the Artest Melee, which is in the Artest game. But those were the 10 that jumped to mind for me. The flu game is still the number one. Biggest impact, most important, most famous blank the game, or the blank game, and really important to the Jordan legacy. Jeffrey Thompson sent this before game three. He said, if the Spurs win game three and whatever happens after is bad for the Knicks, will we call it the Trump game?

1:02:15Yes.

1:02:17Bill Simmons:If the Knicks lose this series, which, you know, we're doing this midway through the series, but I think the Trump game will rise into that group that I just mentioned. Well, you'll know immediately what the Trump game was. Elias Posey from Milwaukee says, you mentioned comparisons between Cat and various players and how they turned their careers around improbably and became impactful playoff guys. I did that on Sunday's pod. I think you missed an obvious parallel. Pau Gasol to Towns. Very talented big men. Questions about their ability to be top-level championship guys. You pair them up with all-time leaders, clutch guys.

1:02:55Bill Simmons:Yeah, Jalen, throwing them in there. and through proximity, that guy levels up into a true number two option. Maybe not as many questions with Powell, but I think that's the closest comp. I think that's great. I'm mad at myself that I didn't think of that. You forget after the 2008 finals, even after the trade and they make the finals with them, there were still questions about, is Powell tough enough to be the guy, the number two guy on a title team? Is this a good enough wingman for Kobe? And he shed that. and I still I'm going to duck. The Laker fans are going to get so mad.

1:03:31Bill Simmons:There was a real case for Pau to be the 2010 Finals MVP. I'm already in the record. I always think the best player on a team should win unless they're an absolute disaster. But I thought Pau was awesome in that series. And if we're going to do the Iguodala-Curry thing or we're going to do the Jalen Brown over Tatum thing and that's just our mentality with picking Finals MVPs that we're not bringing in who's the best player who has the biggest responsibility i thought pow's won game seven like that series came down to one game and pow going against kg who admittedly wasn't the same kg after the surgery and no kendrick perkins and rasheed wallace playing 35 minutes basically passing out on the court um pow bullied us that game and i i sat behind the basket second half he bullied us and he's the reason i thought they won game seven So yeah, that Towns versus Powell, good one.

1:04:24Bill Simmons:Corey wants to know from Kelowna, if you could put Wemby Nyama on any team from the past, who would you pick just for fun? And he said, as a British Columbia guy, I'm biased towards Steve Nash, put Wemby on those Suns teams. And I think it would have been unbelievable, he said. You could also just put them on the Jordan Bulls, Curry Durant. Well, that's not fun. I was thinking 80s Lakers if you put him if you just time machined him in for Kareem for the 87 and 88 teams what that would look like this is a very strange question yeah but Steve Nash maybe the answer is Steve Nash I was trying to think of centers that it just would have Wemby would have been unleashed versus the center they had and tough question.

1:05:17Bill Simmons:You broke my brain with that one. I'm much more ready to talk about World Be Free and Chuck Robinson. Nat H in Oakland wants to know, I listened to your podcast with Mahoney. You detailed all the finals MVPs with funky results. Iguodala, Tony Parker, Jalen Brown. Why don't we replace finals MVP with playoffs MVP? Playoffs MVP would clear up all of this. I pushed for this hard in my book and I even laid out who all the playoff MVPs would be. And I have a document that has all of it out and it's very helpful. Like the ultimate example of this is Tim Duncan in 2007. If you handed out a playoff MVP, he wins.

1:05:57Bill Simmons:He was the most important player in that team. He should have won. And there's no record because the finals MVP went to Parker and that's all we had of him being the most important player in that team. I would say the same for Tatum in 2024, by the way. In general, I like having it. And I think there's some good arguments like 2015 the question would be could a losing player win this um 2015 you could make a case lebron could have been the playoffs mvp um with what everything he did that throughout the entire playoffs but i'd like here's the thing who's not interested in this i didn't really like the Eastern Western Conference finals MVPs because I think, I think giving out awards before the end of the championship, I think can screw a team up a little bit.

1:06:49Bill Simmons:I don't know if it was awesome for the 24 Celtics. I also don't like finals MVP because it's a small sample size, but I'm not against having it. If we had playoffs MVP too. And not only that, I would do like what they do with the NCAA where I would have my, my first team, all playoffs team at the end of the year, because the whole point of this is you want to be able to look back at this 30 years from now and remember like, Oh, what, who was the best guy in the playoffs? Who was the best guy in the finals? Who are the best five guys in the playoffs? And like, if you did it for these playoffs, you would have Wembenyama and you would have Jalen Brunson.

1:07:27Bill Simmons:You'd probably have Towns, right so there's three i think you would have stefan castle as the fourth and then who's the fifth if i was just picking like these are because it doesn't just have to be guys who could be from the finals right like maybe maybe sga is your fifth guy on that um or maybe it's no it's nobody from cleveland um but anyway i like that i like when the more we can do to capture snapshots of the season, the more happy I am. And then the last question I got, just a lot of where's Giannis going? Where do you think he's going? Is the trade going to happen before then?

1:08:08Bill Simmons:I thought Boston was out of this. I know Boston was out of this. And I was wondering if they were playing possum or not.

1:08:21Bill Simmons:I think they were playing little possum. I think they ran on Giannis. so I'm not recanting what I said before I I don't really know the reasons for it um maybe they felt like Miami's offer is an offer they could beat um maybe they wanted to drive maybe they want to drive the price of Miami's offer up and they don't actually have interest in him but as I said over and over again Giannis is pushing for Miami or Boston those are the two locations and really wants to end up in boston um because it would have the best chance to win a title and i think boston is not ruling out the idea is is my intel um and in general i'm prepared for anything of boston now um i think you could basically say i'm prepared it goes back to the brad stevens speech right after the philly series when he was really mad about the result and really questioning whether this was the right style and whether they needed to be in the paint more.

1:09:29Bill Simmons:And I wonder if they're going to use this opportunity with the assets they have, with the$27 million trade exception, to completely change what this team looks like. So who knows? They might not do anything, but I thought they were sitting out this Giannis thing and I no longer think that. That's all I'm going to say. We're going to take a break. We're going to come back with Cousin Sal and Anthony Dibundo, and we're going to talk World Cup. This episode is brought to you by Viore. When it comes to clothes that score high in both comfort and style, Viore is my MVP. Sunday performance joggers, oh yeah.

1:10:04Bill Simmons:They have the perfect I could watch a game and then go out to dinner vibe. And the meta pant, that's my number one I need to look like I tried option. Get 20 % off your first purchase at viore.com slash Simmons and discover the versatility of Viore clothing. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. This episode is brought to you by AMC. Entertainment Weekly calls AMCs the audacity, a gripping, funny, and sometimes chillingly of the moment tale. Starring Billy Magnuson and Sarah Goldberg, this Silicon Valley satire looks at what happens when the people building our future are falling apart themselves.

1:10:40Bill Simmons:From Jonathan Glatzer, a writer and producer on Succession and Better Call Saul, Don't miss the audacity every Sunday, only on AMC and AMC+. Learn more at amcplus.com. All right, the World Cup is here. Anthony DiBundo is in Los Angeles. Cousin Sal is also in Los Angeles. Somehow they're not together, but they are on the Ringer Gambling Show, and we have the World Cup. What? Wait a minute. You are not there either.

1:11:05Cousin Sal:I'm not there either. Nobody wants to be with DiBundo. I thought it was the three-person Zoom. I feel a little lonely. I thought it was going to be everybody on Zoom. DiBundo is so upset. He's like, why did they put me on a bus to stay in a hotel and blog three blocks from Skid Row. What am I doing? No one comes to see him. I came to LA, I'm staying downtown, and I'm like, okay, they're going to go to Hollywood to go to the Sycamore studio. I'm like, great, can't wait to see it. Sal, what time are you coming in? He said, coming in. I'm not doing that. Then I'd have to get lunch with you. No way.

1:11:33Bill Simmons:We have him in Skid Row working on ballots, sending in for ramen to try to lock down second place. Guys, the World Cup is here. It's six weeks. Like, Sal, you always get really sad after the NBA finals, and then you make some NBA draft bets, and then you talk yourself into Wimbledon, and then you lose some bets on that. And then July is just a wasteland for you, but now you have World Cup every day, basically. And then my favorite thing about you is you pretend you know what's going on in the World Cup. DeBundo actually knows. Who has a bigger advantage, you or DeBundo? You bandwagon soccer fan coming in, or DeBundo who's thought about this way too much?

1:12:08Cousin Sal:Oh, I would hope that he has the advantage. I mean, I'm actually excited for him. He, because he has never, he's gone on record saying he's never been this excited for an event. He told me in private, he hasn't been this excited since the first time a woman touched this piece of deal, which is like, um, like six weeks ago. So it's a vivid memory.

1:12:26Bill Simmons:April 27th. He said, no, it's good for you to bundle. To bundle. What's your favorite thing about this? Is it America rooting for the host country or the bets? it's just everything surrounding the world it's the fact that once the games kick off we don't have to talk about fifa we don't have to talk about ticket prices we don't have to talk about all the kind of disastrous stuff that's happened in the lead-up to this world cup we get to talk about the games the culture i mean all the videos that are coming out you got this german guy who's like doing a tour of the american south and he's he's got a huge following just go into fast food places and sporting events and people are like this is so cool you've got people in Kansas who are like, we're so happy to root for Algeria because they chose to come stay with us in Lawrence, Kansas, right?

1:13:14So that is the beauty of this tournament is that at the end of the day, we're all coming together to watch sports. And like, yes, I'll, of course, be rooting for my bets. I'll be adopting other countries, hoping the U.S. doesn't let us down. But there's just so much to get excited about for this.

1:13:28Bill Simmons:So who do you root for now that Italy is not involved somehow?

1:13:31Cousin Sal:I know. I know. We lost our home country. Yeah, we did lose our home country. And I'll rope for the U.S., but let's get it off the table. It's not a good bet, the U.S. futures. I'm sorry, because every book, it's like the biggest liability if U.S. wins. Like, this is betting Conor McGregor against Floyd, right? Like, every line should be different. DeBondo, am I wrong about that? Have they adjusted? No, they're not adjusted. We're not going to win the World Cup. We're not going to win the World Cup. And if we did win the World Cup, I said this in Sweden last week to a few of our other soccer fans at The Ringer.

1:14:04I think I might be done with sports if we win the World Cup. Done with soccer. There's no reason. There's nothing that will ever top that in soccer. So why am I even hanging around? I'm done. Well, we don't have to worry about it.

1:14:14Bill Simmons:It's not happening.

1:14:16Cousin Sal:Exactly. Well, now I'm rooting for it. I want the bundle to be done with soccer. This would be great. Let's start with that.

1:14:20Bill Simmons:All of these bets are unfandal or all these odds. USA to make the final 16 is minus 130, which seems high to me. Like, really, that's better than even odds that the USA is going to be one of the 16 teams left. Do you buy that one at all? That seems like a bad price. And we just talked about this on the ringer gambling show. Actually, I do think that we're at the point now with the U S men's national team where maybe everybody's a little too down on them. And are you zagging? This is exciting. I'm making the case. I'm making the case. They have not really lived up to the hype of this golden generation.

1:14:58And people have had a whole hundred think pieces and theories on, on why it is that the U.S. hasn't been what we all hoped they would be. But the number one reason is that this group of players, this core group, you could talk about the heart, all these other things. They have not been healthy. Tyler Adams, Christian Pulisic, Weston McKinney, Sergino Dest, all these key players for the Americans have missed a ton of soccer over the last four years to the point where you can basically count on one hand the number of games they've played with a full-strength team in the last four years. And it's still fragile, but the team that they're rolling up with on Friday night against Paraguay is about as healthy as they're going to be.

1:15:39Chris Richards is still in doubt, but it looks like he's going to start. So why not the United States? This is still the most talented group. They have a system that I think works in this back three that Pochettino's adopted. They have a ton of pressing energy. And right now, for at least the first game, they're healthy in a group that's pretty winnable. I'm buying, I'm buying the US. Wow. Sal, what are your thoughts?

1:16:01Cousin Sal:Well, I think that number that you just read, minus 130, it probably should be plus 140. I think people are betting out of their minds here. And let's look at Friday night. Like, USA is minus 110. Are they going to get free money out Friday night? Like, everybody looks at that. Oh, what a convenient number, minus 110. That's what we all deal with. It's a coin flip game. That's got draw written all over it, the bundle. You know it does.

1:16:23Bill Simmons:Yeah, we got to go through. I still don't understand the soccer betting. the three odds are minus 110 plus 240 and plus 330 so plus so one of those is the draw plus 240 we're betting like after 90 minutes it's a tie game plus 240 even sal doesn't want to bet that and sal loves sal loves nothing more than betting on the things nobody else wants to bet on you can't even talk yourself in a draw you're the same person who bets on no buzzer beaters in March Madness which is the least fun bet an American human being can make I don't even think you would bet on the draw

1:17:05Cousin Sal:I wouldn't, what I like to do is with soccer because you know, I love waking up and having money on something, so I'm EPL all year and everything, but I like the double chance, and the bundle laughs at me but I like to find a dance partner with the double chance, which means the US either draws or wins that's plus half a goal at minus 475. And then I parlay it with six other things that lose. So that's what I would do. It's not necessarily taking the draw, but it's covering yourself a little bit. One of my favorite parts of working with Sal, you know, the last year or so is that it'll be like a random Tuesday afternoon and I'll be just at my desk or something and I'll get a text from Sal, Real Madrid plus a half with like a money bag sign next to it.

1:17:46And like they scored like a last second goal to tie at like 330 in the afternoon. And he's just locked in on Real Madrid. And he's celebrating.

1:17:54Cousin Sal:That's right. Four more legs. I have like three more UFC guys to win before I cash that parlay. But yeah, yeah, that's how it goes.

1:18:02Bill Simmons:Well, the bigger gambling story with you guys is the French Open, I think bankrupted both of you. Oh, terrible. What happened? How do you declare for bankruptcy, Bundo? Is it like, do you have to go through Spotify? Is it like an individual thing? How does it work? You tell me, Bill. I don't know. I got a text from Danny Heifetz like three minutes after Sinner lost. He goes, are you still liquid? I hadn't heard from Heifetz in like a month and a half. He's been ducking my calls. He's been busy. You know, I think he got married or something. Yeah, he's on his honeymoon now. It's the summer of Heifetz.

1:18:34But he still managed to get in a text to me that said, hey, you still liquid after Sinner just died in the heat. Barely. We are still liquid.

1:18:43Bill Simmons:Well, so you know more about tennis than literally any human being I know, right? How did we not factor in the French Open gets super hot? and this means anybody could die in the heat and who were the top five people most likely to die in the heat. Where was that conversation? Because Sal, I know I didn't have it with Dibundo. Did he have it with anyone? No, Dibundo. We talked about it. We just chose to ignore it.

1:19:05Cousin Sal:This is what he does. He has all this knowledge and he knows the players and he waits for you to talk about a matchup and then he loves to correct you on the pronunciations of, oh, it's Svea Tech. It's not Svea Tech. There's an N in there somewhere. It's like, screw you. You told me Sinner at minus 275 was undervalued, and I didn't know it freaking cramped up like my wife the third week of, you know, whatever. I don't want to get into it. But for God's sake, you're betting against cramps in these French Open, these hot, warm-weather tournaments.

1:19:34Bill Simmons:Well, it really sounds like global warming is now changing the French Open that we once knew, and that anybody could just, it could be 98 degrees and somebody could just die. I've never seen, the highlights of that Sinner match were unbelievable. and I don't know why you don't just retire when it gets to that point. You're basically just like a boxer wobbling around, falling into the ropes and all that stuff. All right, we digress. I mean, he's not the only one too. There was a bunch of players. I mean, one player, Menchik, collapsed on the court. He had to be wheelchaired off and then he won his next match and then won another match into that.

1:20:06So, you know, Kasper Rood had a heat stroke, went into the locker room, came back and then won the match. So I don't know. It's crazy. But global warming is the biggest threat to Yannick Sinner's tennis dynasty.

1:20:17Bill Simmons:No question. All right, USA Paraguay, Friday night, SoFi Stadium, Los Angeles, California. And basically they're saying USA is dead even to win. It feels like this is the sucker bet of a lifetime just to grab USA to win. What is the case for not making this bet to Bunda other than it's a sucker bet? Paraguay's really good defensively. That's their calling card. They only give up 10 goals in South America during qualifying. They're a very defensively organized team with a ton of pressing defensive energy. So traditionally, the U.S. has kind of struggled against these kind of teams, especially the South American ones, because what the U.S.

1:21:00lacks is that deep-lying passer, that player who can make that special pass that unlocks a defense that's very tightly congested. But I will say, and this is why I like the back three, they are freeing up Anthony Robinson and Serginio Dest, who are traditionally fullbacks at the club level. They're playing more like as wingers, almost, essentially in this system. And I think Dest could be one of the keys to unlocking some of these more defensive teams because he's so effective at getting in space on the right and then playing crosses in. He has a really good connection with Pulisic. They connected at the last World Cup.

1:21:31They connected for the opening goal against Senegal and the friendly there. So I think Dest is kind of one of the underrated X factors for them trying to break down a team that's going to make it as difficult as possible to score.

1:21:41Bill Simmons:Sal, I'm going to just end up betting us because I'm going to the game and I want to root for it. I have to ask, though, your son Jack, Hall of Fame zagger, loves swimming against the stream more than anybody. It feels like him not rooting for USA has to be in play right now, right? What country has he picked that's not America?

1:22:00Cousin Sal:He likes Cameroon, of course, yeah. I feel that's old news. I feel like that's a 90s World Cup team that you would like. So he's in. Cameron, did he get the jersey? He likes Cameroon, yes. There's the Amazon guys banging on our door right now. I'm sure there's some kind of Cameroon-ish item coming here. Is he aware that they're not in the World Cup? No, I don't think he knows. Don't tell him. Don't tell him. He'll just be searching for the games.

1:22:27Bill Simmons:It's home until July. Their first game is in four years. I'm on Pinsonitos waiting to see who he picks on the fly on Friday when he realizes they're not actually in.

1:22:37Cousin Sal:I'm going Sean O'Malley Sean O'Malley UFC parlayed with USA plus a half a goal and that gets it to like minus 170 or something stupid.

1:22:48Bill Simmons:Sean O'Malley with USA plus half a goal Yeah So USA has to score a goal?

1:22:55Cousin Sal:We could add something there.

1:22:56Bill Simmons:No they just have to No they just need to not lose Alright gotcha. So they're basically minus or plus 0.5 goals Plus a half. That's it Yeah. Sal, I know you've studied this probably way longer than you should have. There's two different ways to look at who's going to win the World Cup. One is who do you think is going to win? And the second is what's the best value to bet on? You and I always tend to gravitate toward value over the actual logical. Here's who we think is going to win. So what is your value pick for the World Cup?

1:23:28Cousin Sal:My value pick, believe it or not, is Europe to win at minus 350. Europe, the continent. The whole continent, yes. The Bundo, don't laugh at these winners. This is a winner. You don't think, right? I mean, we might get an all-european final four. You think we could get an all-European final four, right? Like Portugal, England, France, Spain. It should be one through four there. And the Bundo has taken Spain after all this, after all the money Spotify's had to send him out here. He's just taking the favorite after all this. But you could expand. It does feel like the coward's way out. I know. I hate it.

1:24:02Also, their best player is not playing. in the tournament and has a hamstring injury, grade two that he's coming back from. So we'll see what it looks like with Yamal when he gets into the tournament. But ultimately, by process of elimination, I crossed off everybody else and was like, I guess I'm picking Spain.

1:24:17Bill Simmons:So who do I get with Europe at minus 350? Because the favorites right now, the top eight, are Spain, France, England, Portugal, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Netherlands, and then Belgium and Norway after that. And we all know England's not winning the World Cup. So you have Europe, but also knowing that they're, well, it is England. This is, yeah, this is, although maybe if the Knicks win the finals, maybe now England is on the table. Maybe anything's possible. But do you like that minus 350 to Bundo or no? You seem like you're scoffing at it. No, no, I do agree. I think the three best teams, and I think they're a small tier above the rest, are Spain, France, and England.

1:24:59England, I think, is the best defense in the field. France is the most talented team in terms of just naming guys, but they're a squad that have kind of underperformed their talent in terms of the eye test the last few tournaments, especially at the Euros two years ago when France looked pretty undercooked. They struggled to create chances at that, and they had a lot of the same players they do now. And then last year at the Nations League, and this is why I picked Spain over France. Spain and France have played each of the last two summers in the semifinals. At the Euros, they beat them two to one, and France really couldn't generate much in the whole second half.

1:25:31Spain just kept the ball and really dominated the second half of that game. And then last year in the Nations League, Spain won 5-4, but it was 5-1. It was a total demolition until France scored a bunch of consolation goals in the last five minutes, 10 minutes. So, you know, Spain has kind of been dominating France the last couple of summers. I don't think that much has changed. Same managers, same midfields, similar attacks. Lamin-Yemal is kind of the one big X factor. If they play again in the semifinals, I don't know how you

1:25:59Bill Simmons:wouldn't favor spain over france so the biggest threat to minus 350 europe is what argentina

1:26:07Cousin Sal:repeating but you also aren't you shorting them in the group stages brazil and argentina or just brazil i'm shorting brazil yeah i think morocco's somewhat live there yeah europe's good let's let's get on that let's get some nice nfl money bundled together there uh simmons we can get it can we

1:26:26Bill Simmons:You can parlay that with the Chiefs to win the AFC West. Oh, no, that bet's dead. What is our easy NFL bet that we could just throw in every year and feel great about it? We had the Pats to win the AFC East for the first 15 years I knew you, basically. Yeah. And then it became the Chiefs for the AFC West. Do we have that team now? I don't feel like we do.

1:26:46Cousin Sal:It's kind of sad. Cardinals to come in fourth place? I don't know what we would do. Let me throw something your way.

1:26:53Bill Simmons:Well, I heard on Gambling Show, you talked about the Browns under five and a half wins. Yeah. You lock that down now. Post my own scare. I thought that was like, they're going to play Sanders all year. Like I, it's not like their schedule is super easy. Um, right. Five and 12 or worse feels like the best over under I've heard for wins. There you go.

1:27:13Cousin Sal:We don't even have to hit it.

1:27:14Bill Simmons:It's like there's, there's more NFL tanking teams than usual heading into the season. Yeah. Jets, Cardinals, Dolphins, Browns. It's more than, you know, it's all the quarterbacks. So this is, this is, we, this was the thing. And we all did bad with basketball over-unders, the totality of them for the win totals. And the thing we didn't realize was with as many teams tanking as we're tanking, it actually weirdly shoved the records upwards because over and over again, you had two shitty teams that didn't want to win playing each other. So you had all these teams in the twenties and high twenties to bundle a team that's never won the world cup will win the world cup is plus 200.

1:27:55Bill Simmons:Wow. Terrible bet. Seems terrible because these are the countries. If you're looking, yeah. Well, it's Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Croatia, Hungary, basically. USA. And USA, but USA is not winning. Come on. So, so first time winner, no, is minus 260. I was about to say that if you're looking for like like a bridge jumper bet, a huge, like, we're just going to lay a huge number. That is my favorite one. There will be a team that wins the World Cup. I think so, yes. Could we parlay Europe will win the World Cup with that won't be a first-time winner? I don't know if that, is that legal on Pandora?

1:28:32Bill Simmons:Probably not. Probably a little too correlated, yeah. Yeah, I like the no first-time winner at minus 260. I like the odds more than the minus 350 for the Europe one. I'm doing both. There are seven teams that I think are in the quote-unquote favorites tier. And you could break them up. You could say contender, pretender with all those seven. But six of those seven have won it. And the one team that has never won it is Portugal. And we're going to get into futures, I guess, a little bit later. But the Ronaldo problem is kind of the defining situation for Portugal right now. And how they solve that is not very obvious to me.

1:29:07Bill Simmons:The problem is that they probably shouldn't be playing him as much as everyone expects them to play him. And I feel like we were there four years ago with this.

1:29:15Cousin Sal:Yeah.

1:29:16Bill Simmons:Right. We were. And, and two years ago and last year and we're still doing it. Yeah. So this is like LeBron. If LeBron's on the dream team at age 45, it's like, well, it is LeBron. And you just kind of have to throw him out there. But I think LeBron would be more willing to take like a third or fourth chair role and be like a really good passer IQ player. But Ronaldo that like, they have built this entire attack around him. Portugal, most crosses of any international team the last two years. Their midfield is elite. They have probably the second best midfield of the tournament. Fernandes, Vitinha, Neves.

1:29:50It's an amazing trio that can do a lot of different things. Fernandes just broke the record for assists in the Premier League, and yet they end up just playing all the crosses into Ronaldo. They have nobody who runs in behind. It's like this is not optimal, and as a result of Ronaldo and Rafael Liao, their left winger, not really doing a lot of defensive work, their defense isn't that good. Like, they struggle defensively relative to the, to the, you know, top elite teams. They're not as good defensively. So they have a manager who likes to attack. They have a manager who's relying on Ronaldo.

1:30:20And like, they just need to tell grandpa, like, they got to take the keys from him and say, you know, hey, you're allowed to go to the grocery store, but no more, no more highway driving, no more starting matches. But the problem is it's Ronaldo. So how do you say it? Like, what do you say? We're having the exact same problem right now

1:30:36Bill Simmons:with Chris Ryan. Like he's on too many pods. People are saying you got to phase it back. He's at a different point of his career.

1:30:42Cousin Sal:Simmons, this reminds me of when you coached the celebrity basketball game. And then you try to take Snoop out. And he's like, no, I'm not coming out.

1:30:52Bill Simmons:Was it Snoop? Who was it? Snoop put himself back in. He just looked me in the eye and said, I'm going to go back in. There's like five minutes left. I was like, okay, Snoop. We kind of had a moment. No, Kevin Hart was the one I had to get. I just couldn't take him out because he was the biggest star in the game. And Michael B. Jordan, who was the best player in the game. And it's just like, oh, we could win if we just give Michael B. Jordan the ball. But Kevin Hart's doing ISO. I'm still mad about it. You go back four years ago, right? And this was the crazy thing that happened at the World Cup.

1:31:23Portugal started Ronaldo in the group stage. They played Switzerland in the round of 16. And they played this young, up-and-coming striker named Gonzalo Ramos, who's now at PSG. And Gonzalo Ramos scored a hat trick, and they beat Switzerland 6-1. And everybody was like, that's it. They're moving on. Like he's been, he's been usurped. The next match, they play Morocco. They lose one nil and everybody's like, well, you know, that wouldn't happen if they had started Ronaldo. And then they went through the next qualifying cycle and Ronaldo scored a bunch of goals against a lot of bad teams. He's still very capable.

1:31:52If he just stands in the penalty area and creates space, he's got great instincts. The vet, the vet classic move, but they get back to the international tournament Euro 2024. And it almost got comical at the end. Like it was kind of sad because he kept taking all the free kicks. He was trying to get his goal. Then they won a penalty kick against Slovenia. He missed the penalty and he's crying on the field. And you're like, this is actually getting to the point where it's like a little uncomfortable. If you're trying to like do a hate watch, it's like, man, this is, I don't like Portugal. I bet against them, but like, this is kind of awkward now.

1:32:22And here we are again, he shows up to the World Cup. I hope he gets a goal early on. They've got a couple easy games to start the group. I think they'll be fine in the group stage, but you get to the knockouts and I think they're vulnerable.

1:32:33Bill Simmons:Isn't it only eight teams ever have won the World Cup or eight countries? Yes, eight countries. Italy, Uruguay, and then the big six favorites. Right, and Italy's no longer out. Okay, before we get to DeBundo's favorite futures that Sal and I are going to critique, Sal, are you a straight up or a parlay strategy guy for the World Cup? Because I think both you and I fall into trouble when we start grabbing things from different games and we talk ourselves into it. But it would seem like almost with World Cup, straight up would be the smarter way to play it. And yet neither of us are going to do that.

1:33:09Bill Simmons:Of course not.

1:33:10Cousin Sal:In fact, I got a whopper to throw at you guys. Let's hear it. Before we get to the bundle. The bundle. I need a legal pad. Which one's the draw? You need an illegal pad, because I don't know if this is going to work, but which one's the draw? Which one screws me? Germany to beat Curacao on Sunday. Spain to beat Cape Verde on Monday. Norway to beat Iraq on the 16th. 16th. Brazil to beat Haiti on the 19th. France to beat Iraq on the 22nd. Pays 150. A five-teamer? Five-teamer. These are monster numbers. As you can imagine, it adds up to minus 150. Who screws us?

1:33:49I mean, I think Iraq is one of the three worst teams. I think Kyrgyzawa is one of the three worst teams. Cape Verde is decent and they're not good, but they could compete with Spain, especially without Yamal. And like Spain is liable to have one of those. They're picking Spain to win the whole thing and they can't get by Cape Verde on Monday? Are you kidding me? I mean, I think it's going to be a winner. I think that one of the storylines, if you're being critical of the expanded format, is to say that traditionally the World Cup has not had a lot of blowouts in the group stage. There's just not that many bad, bad teams.

1:34:22The gap here is pretty big. I mean, Spain, three goal favorite in their first game. Germany, three and a half goal. like there could be some real five, six nil pastings. Whereas at the last World Cup, we only had like one or two in the whole tournament that were like that. This tournament with Haiti, Curacao, Qatar, you know, it's like there's some teams here that really aren't on the level. So you could see some crazy blowouts more than you're used to seeing.

1:34:46Bill Simmons:With those multi-game parlays, do we worry about the heat at all with that French Open style? Because there's going to be some games that are super hot. And in temperatures that are pretty unusual for world-class soccer. And I'm wondering, could that swing one of these? One of the funniest photos slash videos from the Club World Cup last year, because a lot of these players played in their club teams, played in the U.S. last summer, including Bayern. The players would actually sit in the locker room, in the dressing room, during the first half, the subs, just so they wouldn't sit on the bench and overheat.

1:35:19It's like Bayern was like, we're going to keep our subs in the dressing room, in the air conditioning, watching on a TV screen for the first half. And then we'll bring them out for the second half. They'll be fresh. They won't be exhausted. I do wonder if we see that because the studies have shown that any soccer game that kicks off above 85 degrees, there is a noticeable decline in just output. Pressing, shots, goals. The game just slows because the players don't have the stamina to play like that. It still favors the better teams, though, because they just have more good players they can bring on.

1:35:48You get five subs. That's a big advantage. So I think ultimately, the small minnow nations that don't have the subs are going to be the ones that hurt the most from the heat.

1:35:57Cousin Sal:Who has the most gingers, I guess, is what we're looking at. Yeah, true. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, sunburn people. Gotta look that up. I mean,

1:36:04Bill Simmons:we didn't have those... Scottish? Scottish, maybe? Right. Scottish. All right. Short Scotland. Norwegians. We didn't have those studies when my daughter is playing youth soccer in Norco at 103 degrees and we're doing two games in three hours and kids are collapsing in the field. We're like, pull them off! Get us up in! If we knew more about our sleep, what would we do differently? Would we go to bed at a consistent time or take steps to reduce interruptions to our sleep? With Sleep Score, Apple Watch measures your bedtime consistency, interruptions, and sleep duration. Then, every morning it combines these factors into an easy-to-understand score from 1 to 100, so you'll know how to take the quality of your sleep from okay to very high.

1:36:47Know your sleep score with Apple Watch. iPhone 11 or later required.

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1:37:29Bill Simmons:There's no way to, there's no, it's not on FanDuel. Is she playing singles? I don't know. Are you following this? Is it, could it be doubles? Could it be singles? Like, it feels like we're drifting towards something. And I feel like this story should be a hundred times bigger than it is. I mean, she played doubles yesterday. with Victoria Mboko, who's one of the top young up-and-coming players. She's Canadian. And they won comfortably in the first round. They played two players I'd never heard of. The crowd, though, at the Queens Club in London was amazing. Just every seat filled. It has a chance to be a huge story.

1:38:08But they haven't come out with wild cards yet. I can't imagine that she's playing singles already. Can I give you my theory? She's in the doubles. Does she get on center court?

1:38:16Bill Simmons:Why not? Doubles for Wimbledon. paving the way for a U.S. Open in August. Singles run? Singles, yeah. Like this is, I've always thought this. I've been predicting this for years. She's too great and she's too competitive. And now that her kids are a little bit older, I always thought maybe, if she's at the U.S. Open, that would be the fucking greatest thing that could happen for tennis. That would be like Tiger in 2019 at the Masters. Like, can you imagine the crowds for that? Can you imagine playing Serena at the U S open being the other person? Like what a fucking nightmare. Well, you know, Venus did this.

1:38:54Venus is not Serena, but Venus did this last summer where she got a wild card in DC and she beat Peyton Stearns. And I think it was in the first round, like a top 30 player. And DC was mobs for Venus Williams. Then she went to the U S open. They put her on the center court the first night against Carolina Mohova, who is a top 15 player. She wanted, she wanted to set off her. And I was sitting on the other court on Armstrong. and like you could just feel it. Everybody kept looking over their shoulders because the roars coming from Arthur Ashe were so loud that it was almost like distracting the players on Armstrong and we're all sitting there like, damn, like why aren't we at that match?

1:39:27Why aren't we at this match? So my two big summer predictions. Serena US Open. Not even Serena.

1:39:32Bill Simmons:Serena US Open, LeBron and the Warriors. I want to parlay that. Really? Yeah, those two together. I'm convinced both of those things are happening.

1:39:39Cousin Sal:Can we add something that Fandle just threw on the menu there that Bill's voice doesn't last six and a half NBA games? You've adopted Doc Rivers' voice. What happened now? I just need to retire.

1:39:53Bill Simmons:It's just too much talking this year. Doing two-hour rewatchables, doing live episodes. I'm just dying. I love it. Bill really needed Nixon. He needed Nixon four because his voice wasn't going to make Nixon six. Doc Simmons. Got him, man. All right, DeBundo, it's time. You want to do your three favorites, your four favorites, or your five favorites? You want to set the over under on number of futures I have so far. Oh, it's easily, easily 50, right? It's under that. It's about seven, 33, 17.

1:40:26Cousin Sal:Or you got to do some work there. Yeah. All right. Yeah. So give us, they're not done putting stuff up. Give us your best five.

1:40:32Bill Simmons:And then Sal and I will critique them as we go. And you can go into sending order from five to one if you want. Okay. We're going to start with number one, which is my dark horse, a team that I have been a fan of. I'm an honorary member. I might have to take a trip to Quito to get excited for this World Cup. Maybe if they make a deep run, I'll go do some tourism with the winnings. But we're going to be on Ecuador. This is going to be an Ecuador group. They are a popular underdog pick, but I like to think I was at least somewhat early to the show because we bet them at the Copa two years ago. I think this is a top five or six defense in the whole world.

1:41:08They are captained and led by a trio of defenders in Copier from Arsenal, Pacho from PSG, and then Moises Caicedo, their defensive central midfielder, who is probably the best ball winner, just pure ball winner in the world at Chelsea right now. So we know that they have an elite defensive spine. The big question is, can they score enough goals? They're led by a 36-year-old Ener Valencia. They have a young kid, Kendri Payas, who Chelsea bought and then loaned out back to South America. Like this Ecuadorian team is the textbook definition of the quote-unquote team nobody will want to play in the knockouts.

1:41:44And I think as a result, like they're in a tough group. They get Germany, they get Ivory Coast, like it's going to be a tough group for them. But when they get in the knockouts and they're playing a team who's maybe comparable to them or even better than them, they're very capable of making that match a total stalemate nightmare. And you can go back even two years ago, they played Argentina at the Copa America in the quarterfinals. And they went toe-to-toe with them, lost in the penalties, but were right there and had chances to win that match. Like this Ecuadorian side is not afraid of anybody.

1:42:13They're physical. They're ready for the heat. They have enough depth to withstand some of the potential, you know, gruelingness of this tournament. So here are the three bets that I think are worth placing a little money on Ecuador to win their group. Plus three 80 Ecuador to make the round of 16 plus one 50. And if you want to get really crazy plus five 50 to make the quarters, um, I have them in the quarterfinals in my bracket. I think they can make a run.

1:42:36Bill Simmons:Well, you also have South for the semis 12 to one. Yeah. Finals 3-1 and to win it all 100-1.

1:42:44Cousin Sal:Yeah, they're not winning it all. This is going to be the team that knocks out one of my European teams, right? That I need to advance to the final so I don't have a heart attack. Yeah. There's been action on the quarters.

1:42:57Bill Simmons:It's down to plus 460 to Bunda. Wow. See, obviously people are tuning in to the starting 11 on YouTube, seeing my video where I'm hyping up Ecuador at every possible turn. That could be it. There could be some movement. So 12 to one for final four is too rich for your blood. I mean, if you want to get really crazy, it wouldn't surprise me, right? Morocco did this, and it's not that dissimilar from what Morocco did. Like we have a very defined way of playing. We're a very good defensive team and we have two or three guys who can go on a run and create some chances on the break. And that's kind of what this Ecuador team wants to be.

1:43:28They only gave up five goals in 18 qualifying matches and they're playing Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay. They played all the good teams and they really shut them down. They came in second behind Argentina. So I think it's a fun team. Again, they might have to grind their way through the group stage because they're not going to score a ton of goals. But once they get in that knockout, which I think they will, they're going to be a tough out.

1:43:51Bill Simmons:So for the group, Ecuador is in the group with Germany. So you could do an exact order where you do Ecuador one, Germany two, and then you could go either way with the other two and do both bets and try to put some major action on that. I like the group bet, Sal. I know, but how many third-place teams make it to Bundo?

1:44:14Cousin Sal:Eight out of 12. That's a lot. A lot. And the thing is, with Curacao being in that group as kind of like the cannon fodder, if you just get three points, you're almost certainly advancing, unless your goal difference is truly terrible.

1:44:31Bill Simmons:Ecuador, Germany, Ivory Coast, that being the top three, would be plus 500. People like the Ivorians too. They have Yandy Amande, who's one of the most exciting. Ivorians. See, this is why he's elite. We wouldn't have known to call them the Ivorians. We would have called them the Ivory Coasters. Yeah. Their nickname is Lays Eliphant. And the city of Philadelphia is getting behind them. They're in Philly. We're very excited to root on the Ivorians too. One more thing with Ecuador, like used to hot weather. Yes. Okay. All right. What's your next one? Play right on the equator. Used to elevation if they end up in Mexico, which actually means equator, doesn't it?

1:45:14Yeah.

1:45:15Cousin Sal:Ecuador equator. Wow. Unbelievable. What's your next one to bud? Next one, we're going to go with the most reliable thing in my life, which is Switzerland to do well, make the knockouts of an international tournament, and then lose very quickly once they get there. Switzerland, to win Group B over the Canadians, minus 120. It was the last I checked at FanDuel.

1:45:39Bill Simmons:So you're not scared at all, Canadians, any home field advantage with that? Canada, they're the chaos maxers of international soccer. Their manager, Jesse Marsh, who is an American, who has certainly made his feelings known. He's a little bit hurt that he didn't get offered the American job when it came open once they fired Berhalter. He is known for the intense press, the chaotic energy. But the problem is Alphonso Davies is their best player by a wide margin. He's the best player in North America, and he is not healthy. He's coming back from an injury. He might be back at the end of the group stage, but I don't know that he will, and he won't be healthy if he does come back.

1:46:18So that's a problem. Bombito, their starting center back, just got hurt in their last friendly. One of their other main midfielders goes down. So all of a sudden, it's not a very deep team. It's a lot of like a couple of stars and some okay MLS guys. Now, they're literally shorthanded. And I think Canada, like if they try to press and run Switzerland off the pitch, Switzerland is very, very capable and experienced in their midfield. Like they have so many good passers. I kind of think the Swiss just beat them even though they're in Canada. Like Canada will still advance.

1:46:47Bill Simmons:South likes this. South likes going against Canada is exciting. Never mind it. Never, ever mind it. Yeah.

1:46:53Cousin Sal:I like John Candy, Michael J. Fox. Otherwise, they could go to hell. And they'll still probably come in second. Again, this group is not tough. Qatar is, for my money, the worst team in the field. But I don't see the upside of them beating Switzerland. Switzerland's a class above them. All right. Your third pick. My third pick, we're going to go back to our old friend, Ronaldo, in Portugal. I think Colombia is another team that I'm loving to back in these international settings. They have their own Luis Suarez. They have Luis Diaz, James Rodriguez, who is kind of like bookending his career. 2014, he was the golden boot winner at the World Cup.

1:47:32He put his name on the map. People, casual soccer fans, still know James Rodriguez just because of what he did at that World Cup. His club career never quite worked out to the heights that maybe people thought it would with all of his injuries. But then he comes back, and when he puts on the Columbia shirt, 2024, he was the best player at the Copa America. He's so good on set pieces, free kicks. That kind of player, love if the U.S. had one, is the difference maker at these kind of events. Colombia's plus 200 to win that group. The most exciting game of the group stage, bar none. Portugal against Colombia in Miami to end the group stage.

1:48:07That is going to be an incredible scene. It'll be two-thirds Colombians, one-thirds Ronaldo heads. It's going to be an amazing matchup, but I think Colombia's very live against Portugal to potentially upset them. And then if Portugal comes in second, all of a sudden the bracket gets very imbalanced. Portugal goes up into the section with France and Germany and everybody is like, oh, okay, what's going to happen here?

1:48:28Bill Simmons:That's a pretty good one. Sal, does it bother you that America isn't better at set pieces? It's like the one thing we could really control, right? Why? We could groom a guy to just have the best corner kicks of anyone in the world. This is like just a... I always feel like it's very public. I know he has to take it because he's like the guy on the team. I've never really enjoyed his corner kicks or his free kicks. I think he's...

1:48:53Cousin Sal:I mean, the corner kicks, I mean, don't we just need a giant in the middle? Like, that's... I don't want to interrupt, but I have Holland for golden boot. Like, that guy's seven and a half feet. You know, he's everyone's favorite Game of Thrones stand-in until the lookalike, but that's what I would do. I have a 14-1. Golden boot.

1:49:14Bill Simmons:I didn't realize we were doing golden boot odds.

1:49:16Cousin Sal:I don't even know where to find those. You've seen him before, Simmons. By the way, Simmons, he is in the top 100 most influential people in sports, along with you. Congratulations on that. Congratulations, yeah. Is there a dinner? Is there a group photo at Ted Sarando's house? What happens? I don't know.

1:49:33Bill Simmons:Maybe a group photo at Ted's house. We'll see.

1:49:35Cousin Sal:Gabundo's top 100 least influential people in sports. I don't know if you saw that list. No, he's gaining influence. Rapidly falling down the rankings once Ecuador loses every game at the World Cup.

1:49:46Bill Simmons:He's ripping off winners for us right now. Okay. All right. Give us, do speed round. I will say this, though. So the U.S. does have a set piece specialist. The problem is he's bad at everything else.

1:49:56Cousin Sal:He's eight years old. Yeah. Sebastian Berhalter, the son of former manager Greg Berhalter, is on the roster. He is incredible. I mean, the manager does like him. Pochettino has spoken highly of him. He said that he's the one guy on the team he doesn't have to rotate because he just has endless energy and all this stuff. And look, Berhalter is a very controversial figure. Both Berhalters are very controversial figures. But Sebastian's free kicks and corners are amazing. I mean, if you go watch the Gold Cup last summer, he had two assists on free kicks to Chris Richards. So are they going to actually let him do it in the World Cup?

1:50:30But you have to play. It's not like you can't just sub him in for the free kicks and then take him out again. He's like a very mediocre midfielder otherwise. So we might see him late. Like if they're down late, you know, and they're rotating through their guys, he's going to play. He's one of their main midfielders off the bench. But their set pieces will get noticeably better when Berhalter takes them as opposed to Pulisic, who has been always kind of eh.

1:50:53Bill Simmons:It always seems like he should be good at it, and he's just not. All right, you gave us three. Give us three speed round quick with no extra explanation, and Sal and I will decide what we want to hear out of the three. Which one do we like? Three quick ones. So we'll go Morocco. Morocco to win their group. so they're about plus 450 they're in the group with Brazil, Scotland and Haiti. Too much info. Too much info? Morocco plus 450 to win the group. Yeah. Jordan Pickford to win golden gloves at plus 750. Wow. How do you win golden gloves? What happens? It's the best goalkeeper. So it's just like best goalie in hockey?

1:51:37Bill Simmons:What is it? The Vezina? The Vezina, yeah. Basically. For the tournament. Now England is a Boring watch. Nope. Go to the next one. We'll go back. What's the next one? Okay. Pedri to win golden, golden ball. Not golden boot, golden ball. So that's the player of the tournament. 25 to one. All right. We got a Spanish midfielder. So golden ball is best part in the tournament. So none of them caught your interest. No, golden boot is most goals. Most goals. Yes. Are there any other goldens?

1:52:08Cousin Sal:It's just golden boot, golden ball. Three goldens. Three goldens. Golden girls for the cutaway to the chick who's bouncing. I don't know. I don't know what they do. So you can do a golden parlay. The fan cutaways are always special. A golden parlay would be nice. Yeah.

1:52:24Bill Simmons:That'd be good. All right. Give us one more and then Sal's going to decide what he wants more info on. Let's see. Let's go further. I don't want to get too crazy with like Scotland and stuff like that. How about Christian Pulisic to lead the U.S. in goals? Plus 320. Now you have my attention. He's the favorite though, right? Yeah. He's the co-favorite with Balogun. Yeah. Yeah. So who, who screws that up if you bet on Pulisic? Probably Balogun. Okay. The starting striker. You know, I'm excited to watch. I do think his connection with Pulisic was a little bit off in the, in the friendly against Germany.

1:52:59Like, you know, one of the most encouraging things I think for the United States was that friendly, the first hour against Germany, how much they were able to break through the press and get transition opportunities. and Pulisic and Balogun just didn't quite have the link, but they were close. And I think that's maybe one other X factor for the US. If they're able to do a better job linking up, creating chances, this team could be actually really dynamic going forward.

1:53:21Cousin Sal:All right, Sal, your favorite of those four? Well, I'm torn between two. I like Morocco because Morocco and Snuka and Morocco and Pedro Morales were some of my favorite feuds. And Morocco would take that strap. He would spit on the belt, but he loved it. I like Pickford though for a golden glove at plus 750. It might not even be his doing, right? The bundle, like their defense is so solid. They're going to be in one, nothing battles all the way through. And also just an English guy with the glove. They drink tea. They put the white gloves and they slap each other. It just makes the most sense.

1:53:55Cousin Sal:Plus 750. Okay. And the other thing is like, if they somehow do win a penalty shootout, like the England narrative is, oh, they never win the shootouts. What if they did win one or two? And all of a sudden Pickford is the hero, right? So that's the guy. What do you like, Simmons? Oh, I got one more. Japan to win group apps. I can't believe I skipped this one. Stop enough.

1:54:13Bill Simmons:It's supposed to be a half hour. You're killing it. My favorite is Browns under four and a half wins, plus 155 on Fando right now. Four and a half? They're winning five games, the Browns? Of course. Disgusting. Plus four and a half. Plus, I'm ready for, where's the plus three and a half? I love that. Under three and a half? I love it. They don't have it yet. The lowest they are right now is four and a half, but I'm three and a half. I'd be ready to activate. All right, so -

1:54:41Cousin Sal:Deshaun Watson's minus 196 to be the starting quarterback. Is that worse than Shador or Dylan Gabriel? Like, they're a mess. And we know they don't want to win. Yeah.

1:54:53Bill Simmons:They want to have the number one pick in the draft so they can take the quarterback.

1:54:56Cousin Sal:Okay. You know what I love, Simmons, real quick. Jared Verse, you know, he gets traded for Garrett. He comes on, he's on the Browns roster. And they're like, oh, well, Dylan Gabriel has the number eight to Jared Verse. Right? And Dylan Gabriel's like, they're like, oh, did he pay? He's like, I don't know, man. I was expecting to get money for it, but he kind of just took it.

1:55:14Bill Simmons:I saw that. And didn't he brag like, oh yeah, I'm going to be taking number eight and then just grabbed it. That's it. This is mine now. He got number-mogged. It's tough to be a short quarterback. You might get your jersey taken away. Yeah. Okay. Well, this was good. I think this was good prep for us. Do you have a favorite NFL bet, Sal? Yet? is it the Browns under?

1:55:37Cousin Sal:Really like, you know, Jacoby Brissett showing up to cards training camp really throws a monkey wrench in NFC West. I'm just excited. The Browns under for now. That's the only thing I gave out on the podcast, but we're 93 days away. Simmons, Dwight Freeney, John Randall, your boy, Richard. A little later this year, the September 9th feels a whiff late for us.

1:55:58Bill Simmons:It just feels. Can they move that up?

1:56:01Cousin Sal:You're one of the top hundred most influential. Can't they move that up a little?

1:56:04Bill Simmons:I'll talk to some of the other guys in the community. Yeah, please. But yeah. It's on Wednesday this year, right? Yeah, we're starting. It's starting later. And then it's just football games all the time from that point on. We go Wednesday, Thursday, no Friday, then Sunday, and then Monday. Right? Just for that. And so there's like fantasy football implications. Yeah. Everybody does their drafts the night before the season. Can't even do it this year. I know. We got 12 more Sundays. Bad for procrastinators. The NFL is hurting procrastinators. What would you put for AJ Brown over and under touchdowns this season, Dabundo?

1:56:39Bill Simmons:Would you go double figures? That would be high, but I think eight and a half. Oh, I think that's high, too. Every other game. Sal, I did have an idea for us for this. They have his yards at 1100, AJ Brown. Go ahead. What are they? I just think we go under on everybody. The one year we just do 50 unders. Because you think like the quarterbacks, five get hurt. Just like the top 50. I just think nobody likes to bet unders for future props. Oh, you're talking about yards.

1:57:10Cousin Sal:Yeah. For everything.

1:57:11Bill Simmons:for quarterback yards, for touchdowns, like over and over again, this hits and we just stare at it. I did this for years. You guys have been doing this for 20 years, right?

1:57:22Cousin Sal:They adjusted a little bit with the VIG. Like the under number will be like minus 130. And you don't like to brag about it because it does rely on guys getting hurt. But if you do it with all 30, let's say 30 running backs are listed, eight of them are going to be gone by like Halloween. Well, think about it with fantasy.

1:57:39Bill Simmons:I was going to say, like, we all spend 50 bucks on a running back, right? And how many of us are happy in November? Like, two of them stay healthy, ten of them get hurt or whatever. They have some sort of small injury or, you know. I just feel like it's roulette. One of these years. It's like you're just hoping to dodge the bullets all season. Yeah. But I would say this is year 19 of Guess the Lines, right? No, this is going to be our 20th year. This is 20. This is a chicken off 20. For the anniversary, you guys should just do, we're going full hater this year. Only hate. Just a full hater podcast.

1:58:13Cousin Sal:Oh, I like that. Yeah. What we learned. We're just bitter and beaten down.

1:58:18Bill Simmons:That'll be after Wimbledon in the U.S. Open when we finally get broken by that stuff.

1:58:23Cousin Sal:Ecuador screws us. Thanks to the bundo. All right. Sal, did I tell you about Sinner? I don't know. Tell us part of the podcast. He should be a bigger favorite for Wimbledon. Son of a bitch.

1:58:35Bill Simmons:Planting my flag. trying to get it back. I like it. All right. You can hear these two on the Ringer Gambling Show all the time, basically. And we have a lot of good World Cup stuff coming. And then Sal, we're within three months. We'll be doing our annual double over-unders pod sometime in the end of August. But yeah, great to see you guys. Thanks, fellas. Good to see you. Good job, Ayup. Good job, Ayup. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Goldsberry and House. Thanks to Dabundo and Sal as well. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo. I am going to be back Saturday night after game five of Nick Spurs.

1:59:13Bill Simmons:In the meantime, don't forget, we put up a new rewatchables. We did Single Wife Female, super fun, me and Van and Mallory. And the next one's going to be Hand That Rocks the Cradle. If you want to watch that on Netflix, check out all our podcasts and I'll see you on Saturday night. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino. or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Opt-in required, must wager in designated offer market. Max wager$25, restrictions apply. See full terms at sportsbook.fandle.com. Gave them a problem, call 1-800-GAMBLE or 1-800-MY-RESET.

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