Harden’s Moment, an NFL Schedule Glut, Owning the Jazz, and a Boston Sports Check-In—With Bryan Curtis, Bill’s Dad, and Ryan Smith

26:41Bill Simmons:This week has PGA tournament. It just feels like everybody's gotten better at both stretching out their schedules, but then also targeting dead weekends and then just kind of flooding us. And it's the first time I ever really remember feeling like I have trouble staying with everything. Like there's just too much. Like I haven't really watched a lot of the NHL playoffs this year and I usually love the NHL playoffs. I just haven't been able to watch that much. I wanted to ask you about that because ever since I've known you, you'll text me on like a Tuesday night. And it's like, you watching this Pelicans game?

27:15The announcer did something crazy tonight. Wait, what? That's on?

27:18Bill Simmons:Yeah. So I always feel like you're the highest consumption person I know. But you feel like you've reached your limit? Well, especially because all of the TV and movie stuff that's out there too. And then like Survivor 50 is really good this year. That's another 90 minutes that has now been thrown into my week. But the combo of like the basketball with how the college football seem to just get longer and longer and how January is now just absolutely loaded. And we kind of finally get a breath in February. I'm complaining about free sports, although I guess they're not free because we're paying for the streamers.

27:53Bill Simmons:But it feels like there's less breaths in the schedule. Whereas like even like when we started Grantland in 2011 and there was the NBA lockout and we were panicked. We were like, what the fuck are we going to talk about every week? What are we going to do? I remember when I was a kid, when they had the baseball lockout in 81 and then the other one in 94. And it just was like traumatic. It was, it was such a monkey wrench in the day-to-day life and there wasn't stuff to replace it. Now there's a million things to replace anything with. And I wonder if that's part of this is all the leagues in the sports field pressure to constantly be in front of us.

28:30Does that make sense? It does. I mean, Thanksgiving Eve is the funny one for me that when you and I were growing up, What was Thanksgiving Eve? The Survivor Series? It's a Thanksgiving Eve tradition. And that's not a sports night I'd really spent much time thinking about at all. The NFL schedule leak that just came out, Packers-Rams, Thanksgiving Eve. And that's a funny one, right? Because we know when the NFL came for Christmas Day, they wanted to stomp on the NBA. When they started programming those Saturdays in December with really good games, they wanted to stomp on the college football playoff.

29:06Who are they stomping on on Thanksgiving Eve? It's just attention. The attention economy. Goes to your point, though. They just want to be in front of us on another night and get the money they can get because you open up a new window and somebody's going to pay for it.

29:21Bill Simmons:So everything crests with the NFL with this Thanksgiving thing, which you just brought up, this Wednesday night game that they'd never had, three Thursday, Black Friday, Sunday, and Monday. There's going to be five days out of six where we have NFL, including three on Thursday. So part of me wonders, is the NFL just trying to break up families and trying to get everybody divorced? I think that has to be asked, right? Is it more single male sports fans? Maybe better for the NFL. I don't know what they're thinking there. But the Wednesday night thing blew my mind because that's a pretty, you know, that's like when you're in college, you come back and you go out with your high school friends, right?

30:04Bill Simmons:when that's a day usually people travel. Like even we've struggled with even trying to program that from a podcast standpoint, because you can see the audience goes down for those five days because everybody's traveling, everyone's with family, people might watch football, that's it. And the NFL is like, we're doubling down. We feel like we can actually own this entire stretch. Family and us, those are your two options. And Wednesday night is just aggressive and part of it's Netflix. Netflix, it's great for them, right? They want these signature one-off events versus having the week-to-week stuff.

30:40Bill Simmons:So they have the Wednesday night opening game in Australia. They have the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. That makes sense from a Netflix standpoint. I don't get it from an NFL standpoint except for money and attention. Money and attention, which you can see because all these games on Thanksgiving are bangers. Right. Packers-Rams, Bears-Lions, Eagles-Cowboys, Chiefs-Bills, and then the Black Friday game is Broncos-Steelers. So you're not just trying to dominate a holiday when you have a captive audience. You're trying to post a huge number, which really started last year. Remember they put Cowboys-Chiefs on Thanksgiving?

31:15And what people forget is that game had more viewers than either of the conference championship games last year. Unbelievable. It was the highest-rated non-Super Bowl game of the season. Right. 57 million people watched that game. so with the end it's almost just like you're you know shock and awe trying to get fireworks you know you could put a crappy game on there and it would do very well because it's Thanksgiving people are at home they want to watch football the NFL's not trying to do that anymore they're just trying to completely dominate

31:40Bill Simmons:also really hard to figure out what's an awesome game I talked to Gabe Spitzer at Netflix about this because he knew you know they obviously have at least some saying requests for what they could put in for the Christmas game right and when you basically the only thing you can have some sort of sense of is who's playing who so it's like if we really like the Patriots and we really like the Chargers could we make that a request and be like Patriots in LA against the Chargers can that be our Christmas game but how do you know like we have such like would the Giants be a team you'd actually want to request for Christmas because they have a fourth place schedule they have a new code start they might be really good.

32:24Bill Simmons:Maybe they're this year's Patriots. Or would you say, well, the Patriots are in the Super Bowl last year. Let's get them. And then they have the year from hell and they're six and 11 by the time the game happens. So yeah, I look at these things and it's like these games all look great. But the only one that's actually probably really reliable is Eagles Cowboys, because I know those two teams hate each other. Is Mahomes even going to be in that Chiefs-Bills game? How's his ACL stuff going to go? Are the Bills going to be good? What are they going to look like next year. I just, you don't know. So on paper, it looks great.

32:54Bill Simmons:But I understand the philosophy of the Packers, Rams, Bears, Lions. These are all like the signature teams in the league. Right? We have 12 out of 32. They're not putting the Panthers. No. Right? They're not rolling the dice with like the Raiders. Yeah. And you're also putting something that's a rivalry no matter what. Yeah. So you're not doing Cowboys, Falcons. Right. Cowboys Jaguars, because that's like, you know, at the very least, it's going to be a division grudge match. All right. So let's say we're in the room where two of the owners and we're worth a lot of money. The league is, has all these media deals in place.

33:35Bill Simmons:They've figured out this roundabout way of using the Paramount thing and the chance to be able to renew, to basically redo a bunch of their stuff at the end of the decade. combined with the NFL network selling to ESPN. So now they've just kind of moved some games around and made them worth more. It's like, yeah, we have these three doubleheaders, Monday Night Football ESPN games. We're just going to grab those three and we're going to sell them the highest bidder, Netflix or YouTube, you guys tell us. We're going to sell the opening night game. NBC, sorry, you don't have that anymore. Do you have a problem with that?

34:10Bill Simmons:Do you have a problem with that? What is NBC going to say? Hey, that's not fair. what they're really doing is weakening the Sunday Fox and CBS games. They're getting destroyed from the one o 'clock and the four o 'clock on, or in our case, in the West coast, the 10 o 'clock and the one 15, whatever they are. I think those games are going to probably suck this year. Right. I agree. And this is what happens with peak sports TV is you do hit the wall. There aren't, there just aren't that many good games. Now, fantasy and gambling can make a bad game into a watchable game for some people, but there just aren't that many at the end of the day, which is where you get to 18th game where you get to expansion, right?

34:52Then they start to, the wheels start to go in motion, but you're right, man. If you're an NFL owner right now, just think about this, how far we've come from 1993 when Rupert Murdoch came in with crazy money,$400 million a year,$400 million a year. I remember talking to Jerry Jones one time and he was like, when they brought that offer in, he was sitting next to Pat Bolan, the owner of the Broncos. And he goes, Brian, we were just kicking the shit out of ourselves under the table, just kicking each other with$400 million. This is amazing. Can you imagine now how many broken femurs there would be for all the money going around?

35:23Because there's like three Ruperts right now. You know, you have so much crazy money because the streamers want in, they want more NFL, and the networks know that if they lose the NFL, they're toast, they're gone.

35:37Bill Simmons:And then you have streamers versus networks with two different agendas that are perfect for the NFL, right? If you're a network, you want the continuity of every Sunday I have a game. Every Sunday night I have a game. Mondays I have a game versus Netflix, YouTube, Amazon. They're like, we just want impact. Amazon's a little better at the continuity stuff. Netflix didn't want to have a weekly game. they wanted to, you know, their schedule, the way it works is they want to populate their main screen with like, here's the biggest thing this week. So they only needed like three or four YouTube. YouTube's the one I can't really figure out what they want because they already have the Sunday ticket.

36:20Bill Simmons:And yeah, just having these one-off games, like, like, does you, I don't even, does YouTube even, this almost seems like a vanity thing for YouTube. Like we're YouTube, Watch this. We have NFL, but it's not like they need it. I think Netflix needs it a little bit. The streaming strategy is fascinating. And also because they can always change their minds. Yeah. The networks are like, as you say, we need Sunday football. We need these two time slots. Or if you're NBC, we need the night game. We need that every week. That's like part of that. That's what we have to have to keep this network alive.

36:49But if you're a streamer, you can be like, you know what? We're not interested in full seasons. Oh, wait. Renegotiations coming up a couple of years from now. we are interested in full seasons it turns out because football is so popular yeah i would argue

37:02Bill Simmons:for prime having the thursday night football has been really good for them yes um and they figured out their strategy with all their sports stuff is i think a little different than anyone because a lot of it's ad driven um they i think eventually they're going to have a lot of product stuff down there that you're going to see over the next five six years they're going to figure out a way to integrate when you're on prime. Oh, I like that ad. You click a button and all of a sudden I'm buying a pan or I'm buying Dave Chang's cooking something with some momofuku sauce. I'm like, oh, that sauce looks good.

37:35Bill Simmons:And all of a sudden I'm ordering it. So they have like their own set of agendas. Netflix has the, we're in front, we're the leaders. We just need to keep populating our stuff with one-off stuff, whether it's the Kevin Hart roast one week or Stranger Things or NFL. Elderly Mike Tyson. Right. or the press box with Brian Curtis, like whatever it needs to be. We're still waiting on the call up on that one. It might be. I think they're waiting to see how many football games they're getting. YouTube, I don't understand their strategy. I can't really elaborate because I think sometimes, and you saw this with the Amazon, with the Masters, to me, that's a pure vanity move.

38:17Bill Simmons:They don't really need the first round or first two rounds of the Masters, right? But you get it. and now like all the higher up level suits are like, go to Augusta, we have the masters. And now you're, basically you're in this like secret society for you just get to go in and play the course, you get to worm around. I don't really understand YouTube. So what is YouTube? What do you think is motivating them? Well, I'm kind of with you. I don't know if they know what their strategy with sports is yet, but there's this great luxury at this point in history to not know. if you're Fox you can't lose the NFL because then it's the Masked Singer and season 800 of the Simpsons and that's it right you're toast yeah but if you're a streamer you can play around with stuff you know what if we have old Mike Tyson come out and fight what if we have Mayweather Pacquiao what if we have a guy climb a building yeah yeah exactly like you can play around and just sort of see what works you know you still have to hit numbers and all that kind of stuff but like I don't know and to me it's like Building a sports division is a big step up, right?

39:22Dabbling in sports, saying, hey, let's go get Ian Eagle and let's go get Greg Olson and let's, you know, put together a little fantasy announcer booth and, you know, get one of the networks to produce a game for us. That's dabbling, right? That's a level. If you say we want a sports division where we have people hired working for us all the time, week after week of NFL program, that's a lot. It's a lot of money and it also takes a lot of talent and know-how. And you and I have seen this week after week watching the NFL. Not every network is as good at that as others. So then you bring yourself under this microscope.

39:54Are we doing this right? Do our games suck? Do our replays suck? Do our announcers suck? It's easier to dabble.

40:00Bill Simmons:Yeah, and they're listening to all the media critics and podcasts like this. And that's where they're getting feedback from, basically. Because they know not to trust social media and things like that. So first of all, you can not listen to anything. Or you can be like, did we do that? But like when Amazon, when they had the outage during the, what was it? The last minute of, what was it? The playing game or it was the playing game, right? It was Charlotte and Amazon just disappeared for 20 seconds and everyone nuts. Like that's a catastrophic moment for, for people running sports in Amazon. That's your worst case scenario.

40:37Bill Simmons:100%. But for the most part, I don't know. These it's, it's pretty hard for an announcer to ruin a game. it's pretty hard for a production to ruin a game if you care about who's playing and you know they can't they can only do so much like nbc has thrown away the pre-game and halftime shows for every sport they've covered for the last 20 years nobody really cares right like the basketball show now i don't know what they're doing but nobody cares it doesn't matter um with the football piece so if they add another week and it's clear they want to go now I thought it was really notable that they pushed the Super Bowl all the way to February 14th.

41:18Bill Simmons:The Super Bowl always, without fail, has been the first Sunday in February. And it's either February 1st through February 7th without fail. Single digits. No longer. Single digit number in February. Now we're at 14 and I almost feel like it's a feeler to see this is how it's going to work for us when we go to 18 weeks. what kind of number do we get if we push it back? And I don't know where this part ends either because think about this from the beginning. So they're also insisting on doing the preseason. So you're talking August all the way through February now. One, two, three, four, five. That's seven months.

41:58Bill Simmons:It's a seven month season. That seems crazy to me, right? It does. It does. But if you were going to grow, wouldn't you grow into February? right like staggered the other way i don't know there's something about the way the schedule was set up where college started people were kind of back from summer break and all that stuff kids went off school started for little kids um kids are in college and then the nfl would start and now it seems like they're kind of conceding that territory to college football and college football is the other one that like indiana's first game last year was august 19th their last game was January 19th.

42:37Bill Simmons:It's a five month schedule, not counting all the practices. So you're showing up in Indiana in mid June and you're going all the way through the middle of January. That's insane. Week zero is like one of the concepts that makes me laugh about peak sports TV, which we got to in college football. We have week one, but before week one, we have week zero. Right. There are games. Right. It's like, but zero is not a week. They're not good games. So it doesn't count as a week, but it's week zero. But it's something to watch. Yeah. But February to me, that's always been the dead zone of sports. I think there's a famous quote where somebody asked the sports writer, why did you quit?

43:10And said, February. Because there's anything to write about. So if you're the NFL, what if we stretch that another week? And we just keep going and bet that you're not going to want to watch regular season NBA as much as you're going to want to watch us.

43:21Bill Simmons:Right. February was always, for the sports community, it was vacations. There was always conferences in February and early March. It was always kind of the time everybody reset. And then March Madness would hit. Now March Madness is going to get longer? Like, what are they? Didn't they add, like, another 14 teams or something? They were about to? They did. Because, you know, 60-odd teams wasn't enough to pick a champion. This is one of the things I wanted to talk about. These different leagues are doing stuff that everybody is like, please don't do this. Like, not only the fans, but the people that play and coach the sports are like, yeah, don't do this.

44:01Bill Simmons:and whoever's in charge is always like, nah, actually we're going to do it. Thanks for the input. Like the NBA, I think pretty consistently across the board, everybody is saying the season is too long. Kurt Goldsberger had a great piece for us today about all the leg injuries. And it's something him and I had been talking about behind the scenes for months about, is there a way to actually capture, did something change? Because you could see in the basketball reference minutes from 12, 13 years ago, like the league leaders in minutes versus the league leaders now, people are 500 minutes less. It doesn't make sense, but it does make sense when you watch how it's played, all the leg injuries.

44:41Bill Simmons:And I, where are we going with all this stuff? The bet that's being made is that they will take the money and they will watch us roll our eyes and they'll say, you're going to watch anyway. I know you're going to watch. And let's, You and I could do a self-audit about this, right? Did we need a seventh team from every conference for the NFL playoffs? Absolutely, we didn't. Those teams have sucked, by and large, year after year. Did you not watch those games involving the seventh team? That was one where I was like, you got me. I kind of like this. I wasn't against that idea. If they added two more teams, I think that's now a mistake.

45:20NBA play-in game. I think you're pro, if I remember correctly.

45:25Bill Simmons:Yeah, I'm pro. You're pro? I've enjoyed it. They bet that they could have teams that would often have a losing record or be right around 500. And they put them in the postseason that Bill Simmons would watch and you watched? NBA Cup I watched. Am I a bad barometer, though? Because I'm going to watch anything. Yeah, but I'm just, what I think is like, what would the backlash look like? What if, you know, what would the NFL have to do to actually put a number on the scoreboard where they're like, whoa, people really hated that. This is a good question because somebody asked me this. What's the number for each sport that would make people go, what the fuck are you guys doing?

46:04Bill Simmons:Right? Which, so the NFL said, we're going to have a 20 game schedule next year. People would be like, what? You, no, no, no, no, no. We're tapping out. You can't do that. And I think for the NBA, just staying even is about as far as they can push it. Like if they went up to 90 games, I think honestly people would revolt. Sure. I think that would be awful. College football, I don't know what the number is. Indiana played 16 games last year. Yeah. Like, think about that. That's more than the 1972, as many as the 1972 Dolphins played. Oh, my God. And somebody was at the University of Texas, you know, in an 11-game college football world.

46:43Yeah. It feels like a ton, but I've watched every week of it. Right. It's amazing. And it's fun. Everybody's like, oh, this sucks. It's a new world. It's like, eh, I haven't reached that point yet.

46:52Bill Simmons:So you're good from late August all the way through January for college football. I mean, I'll tell you what. You know me. I'll watch any football game. Starting Thursday, I'll watch all day Saturday, and I'll watch all day Sunday, Sunday ticket. By Monday now, I'm dragging a lot. Yeah. I'm just like, Joe and Troy come on. I'm like, I'm not watching this, but I feel like I'm dragging. You're worn out. That's what that first weekend of the NBA playoffs is like by the eighth game. You're like, oof. I love this. I'm in. but I'm tired. Yeah. And I'll tell you what it is, is, you know, you've heard all these people talk about how confusing the world is now with the streaming services and how hard it is to watch things.

47:32They're not wrong, but they also lack the historical perspective of you and I, where it's like, it is also in certain ways easier to watch everything now.

47:41Bill Simmons:Yeah. There are more college football games at the click of a button than there ever were when I was a kid. Right. Even when I was in college. Texas used to have a pay-per-view game when I was in college. like here's one of our crappy games let's just put it on pay-per-view if you didn't come to the stadium like it is now there's so much it's easy to watch stuff now is it a pain in the ass to go from streamer to streamer and back and forth to television yeah it is it totally is I understand that but there's tons of stuff on there's tons of stuff on without really trying to watch anything yeah my life has spanned this entire kind of run we've had because I'm old enough to remember game six of the 1981 finals tape delayed in Boston.

48:22Bill Simmons:This is the Celtics winning the title. It was not on live. And I was in fifth or sixth grade and had to go to bed, then wake up for the game. My dad woke me up at 1130 so we could watch the game to see what happened. The other choice would have been to just listen to it on the radio. But when you think about all the NBA games that were lost over the years, they were NFL. I've talked about this before, but it sucks so much to be an NFL fan. If you were in a city, if you were like a Jets fan and you're living in New York city and they would do the thing where they were. Sucks to begin with. that sucks to begin with, but they would show Jets giants.

49:02Bill Simmons:You would only have two games. So be one, one and one and you, no thing can compete with the home team. And that was it. You didn't get to watch any other teams. So you're really tied to the, uh, the little game breaks, the halftime stuff, the highlights, the ticker on the bottom. That was kind of all we had. So I look at the stuff now where we're arguing about it's really hard to find where every single game is on. Like that's a decent problem to have. I think what's weird to me is like the Lakers playoff game the other night in LA was not on normal TV. And that's where this goes back to the question of how much money is enough to actually make it less likely people are going to like your sport.

49:48Bill Simmons:because there's just LA is a huge city. It's got people of all kinds of backgrounds and there's people that just aren't going to pay for Peacock in LA, right? That probably love the Lakers that either had to go to somebody's house who had Peacock or just had to find out what happened afterwards. And that's where I think you lose the narrative a little bit. At the very least, like the games in the local cities, I feel like should be on normal TV. That reminds me of old school NFL when there'd be a Cowboys game when I was a kid that wasn't sold out by Friday. Oh, that's right. And you'd start to hear the sports radio thing.

50:22It's like, oh, should we get tickets? I forgot about that. Because we're not going to be able to watch the game. We've got the home blackout. The home blackout, which is now nobody even understands that concept. Back in the day, there'd be this thing. Remember that? End of the week.

50:34Bill Simmons:Well, you have to explain this because there's probably people listening who don't even know what you're talking about. You had to sell out the game or it wasn't on local television. So if you lived in Cincinnati and the Bengals were 10 ,000 tickets shy, the team would then have to decide whether they wanted to buy the 10 ,000 tickets themselves so their fans could see the game they would give them to charity sometimes that was yeah i remember that being a thing but you'd start to hear this murmur late in the week it's a time to go buy tickets right because otherwise we're not going to be able to see the game again it's just like a totally different era of sports but was that the was that the get the laker game that was a 90 get-in price that was the cheapest Laker ticket of the season?

51:11Was that game four versus OKC? Do you see that? It was like$80 to one going to play after.

51:17Bill Simmons:Right. Well, that's happening now with World Cup. The tickets are starting to drop big time. Remember, they priced it at all these crazy heights, and now it feels like the get-in price is going to keep going down. World Cup is another thing. I mean, you could argue this is the craziest sports content year we've had. with football getting longer, adding World Cup. When does Winter Olympics start? We did it. Winter Olympics. We did it. That's right. Bill, I got bad news. That shows you how much I watched. February 6th through 22nd. You might remember some hockey. Yeah, I did watch the women's hockey and the men's hockey.

52:03Bill Simmons:But honestly, that's how much sports I've watched. I don't all this stuff is starting to blend together dude I'm with you I just feel like I mean I'm like Mike I feel like Mike Tirico we're just like rushing off to call another huge event the Hughes brothers it feels like it happened 10 years ago it does it is so much stuff it was 3 months ago it's so much stuff yeah and again like I think if you went to Young Bill and Young Brian it'd be like this is a dream because do you remember those nights when you'd be like there's nothing on I'd kill to watch a sporting event tonight I'm starting to really have trouble, like as I just proved with the Winter Olympics, the stuff is just going in one ear and out the other when you're watching it.

52:45Bill Simmons:And unless that's something I really have to focus on, which is basically for this podcast, NFL and basketball, I'm just finding like the baseball playoffs last year, which I watched a ton of. And now if you quiz me on what happened in the 25 playoffs, I'd be like, well, Dodgers played the Blue Jays. I remember that. Game seven. Who did the Blue Jays beat in the previous round? starts to get iffy. I'm like, I don't know. I watched it. I never used to be like that. Mariners? Mariners? Blue Jays Mariners, I think. Mariners. That's what it was. It was the Mariners. If we, between the two of us, we can reconstruct the last six months of sports.

53:21We'd have to help each other.

53:22Bill Simmons:Well, it's like, I had Letterman on last week. And one of the things I asked him was about like, with the 6 ,000 shows, do you, you know, he did 6 ,000 shows across the board. Do they all start to blend in together after a while? I was like, yeah, I don't, you know, remember little pieces, but you don't remember it. Like the, like when Jimmy Kimmel goes on his show for the first time on Letterman's show, he remembers every moment of it. And I wonder with sports, the influx of it, if that's just going to be what happens with our memories, where there's so much content, there's so much go out that three months after the winter Olympics, I couldn't remember if we had the winter Olympics yet.

53:57And part of it's the media. It just, everything goes fast. I was looking at, for some reason, I went to ESPN.com's homepage. I'm not totally sure why the other day, but I went to the homepage. What was that experience like? It was different. Kind of like going to the old apartment building you lived in when you were a young adult.

54:16Bill Simmons:They didn't have archives for their writers anymore. You have a writer like you just have to hope they wrote something. It was like going to the old apartment. The apartment had been torn down. Yeah. That's what it was like. But I can't remember. It was one of these sports stories that leaked out of your brain and mine, but some huge sports story the night before. And it just wasn't. It was barely on the homepage. and I don't even blame ESPN. It's just the world moves very fast now. You know, there's not the SI cover that comes out on Thursday and you're like, okay. Yeah. That was a week. That was what happened this week, right?

54:45Our brains are just ugly. It's like, oh, there's something there's a WWE thing tonight. What's up? What's going on? Ronda Rousey and it's fight tonight. Okay. And you just sort of ping pong to the next thing. It can't, it couldn't have been this much slower 45 years ago. I think it was. I honestly, you know what? I don't think the, I think if you and I were like a living agate page, it wasn't that slow because there's just a lot, there was a lot going on, but we just couldn't watch it. We didn't have access to it. Not on a, not on a Tuesday night. Well, I wonder if part of this, so social media basically starts for what it looks like

55:23Bill Simmons:now, probably like 18 years ago, 2008, 2009 range. Sure. Before it was, we were in the bookmark economy. If I wanted to find out about anything, I had my whole slew of bookmarks. I had websites I went to. I had writers I liked. I had a couple message boards for my favorite team, like the old school message boards. That was really it. And I would start my morning and I would just go through all the bookmarks. now I just probably go to Twitter or I go to a couple of the Boston sports Reddit pages. And that's kind of what I do. But I'm like, I wish I wish I could actually go back to the old bookmark thing.

56:08Bill Simmons:But if you'd be bookmarking things that wouldn't even be able to know how to serve you the content correctly. And the ringer is kind of anomaly in that respect. You can go to our website still and see all the stuff we have. There's not a lot of places that are easy to do that now. Apple news is one that I always go to now every day. And I always look to see, cause I, I subscribe to that. I get all the different websites and they, they do a pretty good job of curating what's going on. And that's like the closest I have to a bookmark experience now. I agree. Because if you're anywhere else, people, and again, we've, we've benefited from this being in the sports business, but like everybody jumps on small things now.

56:45Bill Simmons:Yeah. So it feels like nothing is, it feels like everything is big. You know, people are like, you know, I mean, just imagine like when we were, when we were young, Mel Kuyper seemed like a lunatic because he cared that much about the NFL draft. And now he's a normie because there's every Twitter account you follow cares about the draft and is already caring about next year's draft, even though it just ended. And so just everything seems big, you know, it's just, everything seems important. And then I think at the end of the day, nothing seems important or as important. Or everything seems big, but it's not like the J like for the Boston fans right now, the Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum, trying to interpret all of these little weird videos.

57:24Bill Simmons:I'd almost, like if we had this in 1982, this is all I would have done as a little kid is trying to figure out, wait, Mikhail doesn't maybe like Bird and just gone and driven myself crazy. Now you can, you know, Jalen's done multiple Twitch streams. He just did some other interview. Tatum now just did an interview. Then the people around them, then you have T-Mac being able to dine on a weekend of pretending he hadn't talked to Jalen Brown when he obviously did. And all of it's kind of meaningless. Like we're going to go through it now with Giannis over the next couple of weeks as people decide if he's going to get traded.

58:00Bill Simmons:And that's another thing is like people trying to sift through the bullshit of the quote unquote information reporters. Is this actual information or is there an agenda behind this information? How do I, you know, in real time, you're trying to decipher it like a police detective. What are the next few weeks of LeBron going to look like Speaking of which. It already started this week with the weird McMenamin story about he was upset that J.J. Reddick got a game ball and he didn't. So he walked out of the locker room. I was like, what is this? You're 41. They already told you you're the third best guy in the team.

58:34It's like one last time, right? Like when they have the movies, you know, the action movie with all the elderly action stars. This just feels like we got one more in us.

58:42Bill Simmons:Well, this is what I've been pushing for with the Warriors for weeks. and I actually think has a real chance to happen is LeBron going to the Warriors with Curry, with Draymond. They trade Butler's contract and a pick for Anthony Davis and they just do the old guy team and just go and sell out in every NBA city. And if you're LeBron, you have two choices. You either, see, now we're doing a LeBron segment. You can't fucking resist. It's like heroin. But if you're LeBron, you either take the minimum and try to win a title or you do the expendables in Golden State and you just have this two-year, you know, you're everywhere, you're a sellout everywhere, you're the biggest story wherever you go.

59:23Bill Simmons:And in a weird way, you've stolen some spotlight from OKC and San Antonio, who are the teams that are going to win the titles the next couple of years. But you have something different. You're basically like in the Hulk Hogan after he gave up the title to the Ultimate Warrior, but he was still the biggest sellout that they had, but he didn't need the title or like what Andre the Giant was like. I think that's what's sitting there for LeBron. I think that's his only move left. But this goes back to the attention economy. If they do that, there'll just be stories that come out of that all the time, which is one of the reasons you would do it.

59:55You think LeBron's interested in the attention economy? I do. I do. I do think he is. Do you think Draymond Green's jokes would go over better with LeBron than they did with Charles Barkley?

1:00:06Bill Simmons:What'd you think of that? I know you talked about it, but tell my audience. I just watched that moment I'm like is Draymond Green is he are we sure first of all are we sure that he's good maybe we're past that as an announcer but second of all like to be a good announcer I think you just have to have that ability to let people make fun of you a little bit to have the ability to eat it Charles Barkley has a great ability to eat it Stephen A I was saying this when the Knicks lose to the Thunder in the finals here in a couple weeks Stephen A's gonna come on there hang his head on the show. Yeah. 4-0.

1:00:43I can't believe it. I was so excited. And he's going to let himself be vulnerable. Can Draymond do that on television?

1:00:50Bill Simmons:There's that. And then there's also, as we've talked about many times, when you do those shows, it's professional wrestling and you have to sell the other person's moves. 100%. And I don't know if he's a move seller. You have to let the other guy get their stuff in. Yeah. like there's a there's a respectfulness that you have to have in that situation if you're him even though i thought barkley definitely seemed to be provoking him a little bit which i didn't think got enough you know he's basically just saying to his face you guys are done it's over you know and probably odds are draymond green is going to handle that that well but then he handles it the wrong way and comes back at him with something that wasn't really factually accurate and it was just awkward you know it's like exactly what you don't want when you're on those shows like you watch the Amazon show, which I think is the closest we have to a good show right now.

1:01:40Bill Simmons:There's a mutual respect with all those guys. They're not going to hang each other out to dry. But in general, the inside the NBA piece is interesting because it's the first time they've really had backlash. And I don't know how much of it is fair and how much of it isn't fair, but they've also been in everybody's life for such a long time that it's kind of, this is an inevitable way that this could probably end. But that whole thing has felt off the whole year. I love that show but the ESPN fit some of the time that they have the fact that they don't have the same time they had after the games which is when I really thought that show was at the most important and to me like Shaq is the biggest issue with the show like it just doesn't seem it seems like he's there because it's fun to be on the show but it doesn't seem like he follows basketball at a high enough level anymore like he doesn't know who people like Baylor Shireman are like you're on a studio show covering a sport.

1:02:37Bill Simmons:You know, you have to, there has to be some sort of a modicum of following the game. So, it just feels, it's like watching, a little like watching the Warriors, ironically, where it feels like they're having trouble trying to reinvent themselves. It's an interesting experiment of can you take something that's so awesome in one place that is a Turner Network and just transport it to the other place? Would it be the same? And the answer is no. Kind of the same. Same in a lot of ways. Yeah. You know, when they were doing their obits the other night, that had, you know, that felt like inside the NBA.

1:03:14Yeah. They were talking about Ted Turner. That felt like inside the NBA. But then there are moments where you're like, something just feels different.

1:03:21Bill Simmons:They have a chance to flip the narrative again these next couple rounds, I think. I think, you know, the basketball's better. There's more of a spotlight on them. It'll be easier for somebody like Shaq because there's only four teams left. He can just watch the game and figure out what happened. He knows the players. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He'll know who Shady Gildas Alexander is. But yeah, look, this is what happens. One other thing I had for the schedule stuff before we go. So the NBA season, 82 games, six play-in games, four playoff rounds. Conceivably, a play-in team could play 114 games in a year.

1:04:00Bill Simmons:Cleveland and Detroit we'll see what happens tomorrow night are on pace for 28 playoff games so combined with the 82 that's put you at 110 I can't remember what the record is but I think the I want to say like the 0 maybe the 05 Spurs somebody in the mid 2000s played like 108, 109 games something crazy there's no world in where the basketball they'll scale back to schedule I don't think they're not giving money back. It's actually more likely they're going to add teams. Yes. And create more inventory. Hockey's definitely adding more teams. Yes. The WNBA, to everybody's horror, is adding more teams.

1:04:45Bill Simmons:Which people are just stupefied by. And then baseball might be adding more teams. Which was dead five minutes ago and then now it's back. Yeah. Here's the thing. Whenever there's a playoff expansion, I always get a little nervous because you can never take it back. Right. You know, we're talking about this with college football now, right? Are they going to go to 16? Are they going to 24? You know, what's going to happen there? And the thing is, I'm always like, I would be happy to experiment for a year and see how we feel about this. But the thing is, you can't do that. It will never come back because you'll get money and then you'll say, well, who wants to give money back?

1:05:18Bill Simmons:I'm trying to think, have they ever unwound? They really haven't. The only thing they've ever unwound was the 2-3-2 of the NBA finals going back to the 2-2-1-1-1. but that wasn't taking away games. It wasn't taking away games. And it just, it feels everything. I mean, it's like, you know, wasn't that long ago the college football was two teams. That was it, right? It was the, you had the bowls, but it was the BCS matched one and two and that was it. And then you bigger and bigger and you can never go back. And that's the thing. In a just world, you'd be like, okay, we did too much. Let's just scale it back a little bit.

1:05:51But we know that would never happen.

1:05:54Bill Simmons:It's weird when everybody in the league seems to think the NBA should cut 10 games. And yet there's no way they will. And the players are cutting 10 games. It's just they still play them. You know, players just sit out. Well, the irony is when they get NBA Europe going, I'm talking about that later in the podcast with Ryan Smith briefly, because the Utah Jazz owner was on. He's coming on later. There's probably a world where if they can get, so I'm talking 25 years from now, if NBA Europe can get to the place it needs to get to where we just have an actual world championship. where they have the schedules kind of aligning and then it's like a best of three with the champion of the NBA and the champion of the, or they play it in October of the next year, however they do it.

1:06:36Bill Simmons:I just feel like if you gave Adam silver, if you got him drunk and gave him some truth serum, I would think he'd be like, this is what I'm really thinking. The actual world championship. Because the league's in a crazy spot where most of the best young players are from not here, which Perkins has been talking about on TV making it seem like we've lost our cars to Japan we're losing basketball people are fine basketball is still good I don't really care where the guys are from but it is a little weird so we'll get a world championship and then guess what we'll have more games should the world championship be 3 or 5 games it should be 7 what about 9 I don't know What month can we put it in?

1:07:24Bill Simmons:So it sounds like, to recap, you're not delighted by the NFL ads, but you'll also watch all the games every week. I think that's where we are. I've stayed. College football, you're okay with more football. Yeah. I mean, it did feel like a grind. I remember when Joel and I went to the national championship a couple years ago for the ringer, and it was on a Monday. Remember? And it would have been like a huge, I think it was a divisional round of the NFL the day before. And I was like, like Monday, we get to the stadium in Atlanta. We look at each other like, whoa, it's a lot. That was a national championship.

1:07:58NBA, you'd go lower. Lower.

1:08:02Bill Simmons:And then baseball, which is headed for a strike. I wonder where they're going to end up. It feels like the season could easily be shorter. That's one where, especially with the pitcher injuries and how hard it is just to keep everyone healthy. feels like 144 would be perfect. But then you throw away all the records. And we all lock in in the playoffs. Like, here we go. Yeah, in baseball, it feels like you could actually make the baseball playoffs maybe even a little longer. We'll see. Yeah. And again, I don't want to go there because once we do that, we'll never go back to the current stage, you know?

1:08:44Bill Simmons:The only one that I kind of like is the PGA, where... Move to the spring? Yeah, just the PGA being like, you know what, we're doing some of this wrong. We got to have more West Coast stuff. We got to have more stuff in primetime. Let's rethink some of our ideas. But the PGA is not going. We have more majors now. We're now having six. The PGA having the four majors, I think, has been really... I think they have four anchors in their schedule that the casual fans like myself can just jump in and be like, oh, PGA is this weekend. Here we go. All right, Brian Curtis. How's it going with Joe Anderson?

1:09:20Bill Simmons:Love the guy. How's it going with Shoemaker? You know I love the guy. I want both those guys. It's all Texans on the press box. Somehow I've been working with you and Shoemaker now for 15 years. Can you believe that? It's a long time. We're sending our work relationship to the ninth grade in high school. That's how long we've all been together. In a couple of weeks, it'll be 10 years at the ringer. Yeah, I can't believe that. 10 years together on this website. Unbelievable. All right, Brian Curtis. Great to see you. Thanks for popping on. Thanks, Bill. And now it's time for today's With the Assist segment presented by State Farm.

1:09:58Bill Simmons:Basketball full of unpredictable moments, big swings, clutch plays, last second finishes. You just never know round to round. But the one constant is having teammates you can rely on. And throughout NBA history, we've seen some unforgettable duos. You can almost feel it through the decades. You got Kobe and Shaq in the 2000s. You have MJ and Pip in the 90s. You have Bird and McHale and Magic and Kareem in the 80s. You're going through Cowens and Havlicek in the 70s. The great duos, are we going to have one now in San Antonio? I think it's going to be Wemby and Harper are going to be when 50 years from now, we're talking about the great duos from the late 2020s, early 2030s.

1:10:40Bill Simmons:Maybe it's those guys. I would say the best duos in the 2020s, you'd either go Brown and Tatum or you would go Jokic and Murray. I think for two players that just seem like they brought the best out of each other. Jokic and Murray in 2023, probably my favorite duo combo where we felt like they might win title after title after watching them in the playoffs that year. Well, just like in basketball, life can throw unexpected moments your way. And guess what? That's where State Farm comes in. They've got easy to use digital tools like the State Farm app and neighborhood State Farm agents as well.

1:11:16Bill Simmons:When you want to talk to a real person, like a good neighbor, State Farm is there with the assist. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability and eligibility vary by state. This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business. They keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 US-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum Business. So visit spectrum.com slash business to learn more.

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1:12:57Bill Simmons:People have been asking for them ever since the Celtics got eliminated. People thought you were too mad to come on. Then people... Thought maybe you're never coming on again. They didn't know where your head was at. The Patriots are falling apart. The Celtics fell apart. The Red Sox season is over. And my dad is here. How are you feeling? Well, as you just described, I'd also include the Bruins. Not only losing, but not getting the Toronto draft pick. So I was trying to decide when you said I had to come on today, which sports team hat I was going to wear. Yeah. Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, or Red Sox.

1:13:37And I decided I don't like any of them right now. So I'm wearing my Ruby's dad hat. Your dog, Ruby. Ruby is our special needs puppy.

1:13:51Bill Simmons:She's had some trouble in year one. Who gave you that hat, just out of curiosity? Michelle, who walks Ruby and Winnie, yeah. Okay. All right, so Bruins, you sit down for the lottery. They have to go back from five to six, the Maple Leafs. It's just one. Instead, they go up. Every year. Every year, somebody jumps ahead. So what happens? The Maple Leafs jump up, get the first pick, and now that gets moved. Oh, my gosh, yes. Yeah. And you and I were on a thread with our nephew, Brian. So that was just a coup de grace on top of everything that's been happening to our sports teams. And now we have this whatever's going on, Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum.

1:14:33Is Jalen Brown still on our team?

1:14:35Bill Simmons:Jalen Brown's still on the team. He was on the Jennifer Hudson show this week. I saw that. Talking about stuff and sent some Twitch. He's out there. You know, I wish instead of going on the Jennifer Hudson show, he was back in the gym dribbling and shooting free throws. He's resting his body.

1:14:57Bill Simmons:So you went to game seven. I went to the four home games. We won game one, looked really good. And then I saw three terrible losses, including game seven. Yeah. So what do you want to happen? Do you, would you, you're just talking as my dad, the Boston fan, Celtics fan. What do you want to happen? Do you want them to keep Tatum and Brown together or do you want to move Brown when his value is high? Yeah, it's a hard, hard question. But if the package was perfect for Jalen Brown, I would move him in a heartbeat. I don't know what that perfect package is. I'm just kind of tired of watching him. And, you know.

1:15:47Bill Simmons:Ten years of watching his offensive game, you're good? Well, something I think, I don't know if the Philadelphia got it into the referees' ears, but I watched the tape of a couple of the games. Almost every time he goes in to make a shot, he pushes off. Yeah. And they don't usually call it in the regular season, but it's apparent that he can't get his space unless he pushes. Whereas you see some of these other guys in other teams, and they get to their space quickly and shoot quickly. But I'm worried he's turning 30. His athleticism is what has made him the star he is. He's been having difficulty now getting his jump shot off without pushing.

1:16:35He can't make three throws. He's a black hole in terms of the ball going into him and not moving. Yeah. And he can't dribble. I don't understand after 10 years why he can't dribble.

1:16:47Bill Simmons:Well, I'm higher on him than you because... Yeah, I know you are. You've always been higher on him. I always valued the durability. I always thought he played hard and gave a shit. And I think the more we step back from the season, I think it was pretty weird that Tatum just showed up with six weeks left and they had to figure out how to incorporate that. In real time, it was fun to watch, but it doesn't seem like they ever... They had these two styles and they talked about it. Jalen talked about it after game seven when he said, I felt like we were playing more like us in game seven. Well, why do you think that?

1:17:20Bill Simmons:because Tatum wasn't playing because you guys were pushing the ball up because you had the ball more. But I do think fundamentally, you and I, you know, obviously the listeners aren't privy to our phone calls. We always talk about stylistically, Tatum likes to bring the ball up, take his time, figure out what he's going to do. Whereas I think Jalen likes to move faster with the guards. And it's the first time I feel like maybe they just want two separate things on a basketball team. Well, it's an interesting point because I'd say for the first, two-thirds of Taysom coming back, he deferred to Brown.

1:17:55And Brown was still the alpha dog in the offense. Tatum was more, a lot of time, in the corner, the way he was as a rookie.

1:18:04Bill Simmons:Yeah. And then when they got into the playoffs, it kind of switched, and Missoula shortened the bench. And to be honest, I know you and I have talked about it. I don't want to see the Brown or Tatum bringing the ball up. I want to see a guard bringing the ball up. I don't want to see Tatum dribbling until there's nine seconds left and he does ISO. And I don't want to see Brown bringing it up and losing the ball over and over. I want to see White or Pritchard bringing the ball up and, you know, play Brown and or Tatum at the high post or, you know, move them around. We stop moving when those two guys bring the ball up.

1:18:42Bill Simmons:I say that one Twitter clip, somebody did a great job of pointing out what Philly was trying to do with Jalen, where it was just basically like, fine, go one-on-one, knock yourself out. You'll make half of these, but we're not letting the three-point shooters do anything. And they stayed home with everybody. And it was a lot of Jalen going against good defenders, trying to like bang against them and get his spot. And that'll be the same thing with Tatum. It wasn't just that though. It really struck me after watching the Nick Philly series. I think Philly was really, really happy to see Tatum or Brown bring the ball up because when they went ISIL, Embiid just stood there.

1:19:22He wasn't moving around. He didn't have to move around. He wasn't wasting energy. We weren't tiring him out. In the fourth quarter, he was wide awake. And you watch the Knicks and it was a completely different way of attacking Embiid. They moved him all around. Yeah, they wanted him in pick and pops

1:19:40Bill Simmons:all the time where he had to let come out. And Tatum and Brown bringing the ball up. How many times did we have seven or eight seconds left and suddenly somebody had to take a shot? And Embiid, again, never moved. Well, it's funny. They were doing that to us with Keita, the pick-and-pop stuff, especially with Vucevic, just trying to get him where he'd have to jump out a second too late on a three-pointer. And then the Celtics were never doing that to Embiid, which was just bizarre. Which, you know. Oh boy, here we go. Did you put Joe back in second row? I'm not going there, but if Tatum and Brown consistently are bringing the ball up so that Embiid can just stand there and be lazy and rested, that's a coaching decision.

1:20:29That's a coaching strategy. If I'm the coach of the Celtics, I have Missoula. I have my guards bringing the ball up, and I have the ball moving all around. And I have Embiid tired by the fourth quarter.

1:20:43Bill Simmons:Well, this goes to what I said last week about it felt like they treated that Philly series as kind of a tester for what they were going to do in round two and round three. Let's see, what do we have with Vucevic? What do we have when Tatum brings the ball up? We have our bench shorter. And they never took Philly seriously enough until it's too late. You and I were both struck by Stevens' press conference, which was riveting. And he seemed both pissed off that they lost to Philly. I think he knew that Philly wasn't that good. But also pointing out, like, he didn't even think we were that good.

1:21:20Bill Simmons:He made a point of pointing out the 3-11 against the best teams in the league. He brought up Shireman and Hugo, which I thought was notable and how important Hugo is going to be for them next year. Meanwhile, Hugo got buried after the trade deadline. So I don't know. I felt like they weren't 100 % aligned watching the press conference. I agree. I mean, you and I talked about it afterwards that one of the great things about the regular season and how they overachieved, which was great because none of us expected 56 wins, was they used 10 or 11 people. they didn't tire out Brown and Tatum. They had wings coming off the bench over and over and running.

1:22:08You know, one thing about, you know, I'm not a real fan of Walsh, but boy, he runs his tail off.

1:22:14Bill Simmons:Yeah. Hugo runs his tail off. Shireman runs his tail off. What happens when they're sitting on the bench? Isolation again. We saw it, except for the championship year, every year for the past four years, isolation. but you bring those guys off the bench, they're moving all over and they're getting offensive rebounds. Right. And they're pressuring, like you saw what the Knicks did with Maxie for four games. Yeah. Just chasing them around, using bridges on them. We had all the guys to do that, but it was a real, really bad coaching series. And I thought, I've said this, I thought Missoula was great during the regular season.

1:22:51Bill Simmons:I just wonder, big picture, what did they learn from it? You know, the trade that they made to get under the luxury tax, getting rid of Simons, really did change the team. Because one of the things that made that team, the thing you and I liked was they always had two guards out there. Right. And it was two of the three at all times. And one of them was usually hot. And if two of them were hot, they were beating anybody. But usually you could get one of them going. Pritchard's trick-or-treat. White, the shooting was, you know, I just thought they put a lot of miles on them. I wonder, like, thinking about things they would have done differently, would they have put less miles on white and brown and not really cared what seed they got?

1:23:35Bill Simmons:I thought that was one of the lessons of the season, is it doesn't really matter what seed you are. It matters how healthy your guys are in April. Right. Two thoughts on that. I can recall during the regular season three or four games that we won because Simon's got hot. Yeah. Nobody else was hot. He came in, he got hot, and he would play the whole fourth quarter. And, you know, that trade made a huge difference, obviously, in terms of our depth at not just shooting guard, but a guard who could make a shot. You know, when our shots aren't falling and we don't have those subs in there grabbing offensive rebounds, we're just a static team.

1:24:15We're not moving.

1:24:16Bill Simmons:Well, do you feel like the window is these NBA teams have these four-year windows? This is a team that just lost in round one, you know? And it's the team that made the 22 finals, the 24 finals. We thought they were going to make the finals last year, and they had the crazy Knicks clap. Tatum gets hurt. And now you look at teams like OKC and San Antonio, and they just seem so much better set up, you know? Unless there's an awesome trade. Right. You know, and they do have some, they have a trade exception. They have the mid-level, da-da-da. And the other thing that struck me, though, and you've just brought it up about seeding.

1:24:55In retrospect, I would have preferred to have been the fourth seed. I think we matched up really well with Detroit.

1:25:04Bill Simmons:Yeah. I think we matched up really well with Orlando and the fifth seed as well. And we put a lot of miles on Brown to get to the second seed. and he just looked a little tired to me in the playoffs playing all those minutes. Can I throw a trade at you that I've been thinking about? Does this involve anybody from Milwaukee? No. Oh, okay. I'm starting to get nervous about the honest stuff. Yeah. I keep thinking of that segment I did on my podcast a month or so ago about older big men and what the track record is for year 14 and on. Right. You know, with Tatum and Brown, you always feel like with those two guys, you can build around them, figure out some sort of strategy.

1:25:54Bill Simmons:And Jalen turns 30 next year. Tatum's younger than he is. And that's like a five-year window. Giannis, it might be two. That's a good point. And so now we're condensing this window where you're also going against OKC and San Antonio who have all these young players and they have all the contracts staggered and the ability to add all these pieces. It's like, you know, you have these lightning in a bottle seasons. And I think we had one in 24 when we were able to get Porzingis and Drew. And everything kind of aligned. They spent a lot of money for that season. They, you know, the opponents fell in the right way.

1:26:30Bill Simmons:I think that's happened in the Knicks this season. What you just said, the opponents fell the right way. Yeah. Which didn't happen. You know, we faced a Philly team that if we played them three weeks ago, we would have swept them. We faced a Philly team that had one good week in them, and we just happened to hit them that one week, and then they died immediately. So I wonder, is this the time to take a swing? And I keep thinking about New Orleans and whether there's a way to get back Zion and Trey Murphy with Jalen and some picks and whatever else needs to go in there. and basically end up with Trey Murphy making half as much as Jalen and then taking this enormous flyer on Zion and trying to figure out, can you put Zion in a winning organization with a different fan situation and what's there?

1:27:32Bill Simmons:And if nothing's there, you bail on it and now you're paying Trey Murphy half as much as Jalen. I wonder if Steven's just thinking about stuff like that. Well, we both like Murphy. All the smart teams like him. Yeah. Williamson is so injury prone. It's hard to know what you're really getting. He's almost like the contract to make it work because Jalen's going to make like$58 million. But I wonder, because Brad is so outside the box with how he thinks about stuff that I wonder if he's thinking, Giannis, two-year window, where I'm probably not winning the title anyway, or can I try to reconfigure this so I can have, you know, I got to pay Pritchard.

1:28:11Bill Simmons:that's the other thing is they have to pay Pritchard 7 million this upcoming year and 7 million after free agent. He's a guy that's worth 20 plus. Um, and do I need a center would be the other thing I'd be thinking of. Like if I'm trading Jalen, do I need a bigger guy? Like do I have to, should I think about Sabonis? Do I think about Sabonis and trying to get more Sacramento Kings first round picks that are always worth it. He's another guy though that But he hasn't finished the season in a couple of years. Yeah, well, they shut him down this year. I'm just trying to think how many centers are out there that could make an impact.

1:28:49Bill Simmons:Do they feel like they need a center? The Vucevic thing obviously failed. My guess is, well, again, going back to the press conference, Steven certainly intimated that there'd be changes. Yeah, he wanted more stuff at the rim. He wanted a more conventional team. It felt like he was clearly tired of the style that they played. After that press conference, I did look at different teams and different big men. Doesn't necessarily have to be a center, but a big man. I mean, Utah has a couple of people as an example. There are teams that if Jalen was in the trade, I think you could get a big man and a wing back.

1:29:31and I'm just not sure if Stevens is ready to trade Brown. He flattered him in the press conference and a couple of days later in the newspaper and maybe that's the kiss of death.

1:29:45Bill Simmons:I know, but that's, I've always wanted to keep these guys together. This is, everything that's happened the last few months is starting to make me wonder, like, does Jalen just want his own team? Yeah. And does, I talked about this. a week ago. It just feels like the body language seems to be heading that way, in my opinion. Yeah, you wonder. I mean, we sit so close to the bench. I always watch Tatum and Brown together. And it was weird with Tatum coming back with so little time left in the season. But it was even weirder. We went to that game seven. Molly was able to go. We went to a bar first and We're sitting there and having a drink.

1:30:31And there's two Philadelphia fans sitting next to us. They have Philly gear on. And the guy says to the other guy, it's so great that Tatum's not playing. And I said, what did you say? He said, Tatum's not playing today. I was flabbergasted. Game seven, I just never expected he wouldn't give it a shot, I guess. I didn't know he wasn't playing.

1:30:56Bill Simmons:But it's understandable Considering he had a calf injury To the other calf That they pretended was a knee injury But it was a calf injury But did I have any confidence When I heard that? No Not too much confidence, no No Weird I mean, the reality is I was there for game five We're up three games to one You win game five at home Like you're supposed to Like the other teams did We're up 13 in game five Right Yeah, Tatum doesn't get hurt In a game six There is no game six Would we have beaten the Knicks? I don't know. It would have been a fun series. The thing I will never understand is why they put all those minutes on Tatum.

1:31:33Bill Simmons:That has never been explained properly. I don't get it. I don't understand it. I don't understand the quotes he had after about, but his right leg still isn't 100 % the size of the left leg and just stuff where it's like, what? You said you were recovered. You weren't recovered? And if that was the case, then why wasn't he on a minutes limit? Why is Wemby on a minutes limit, but he's not. Why was, there's been a bunch of guys in the league who, like LaMelo Ball, the whole year was under 30 minutes because they were trying to keep him healthy. Why were we putting minutes on him like that? I agree.

1:32:06Bill Simmons:If I was Chisholm, that would be the, I would have like a meeting and be like, the fuck, why did we, why did that guy play 43 minutes in game five? What are we doing? Well, it seemed like there was such an impetus to get the second seed instead of the third seed when in retrospect, we lost three games at home anyway. So did it matter? No. We were a better road team at times during the year. Whatever. There will be some major trade. I don't think you'll love watching Giannis, just for the record, if that's the trade. Not really your type of guy. No, I'm not saying that's the greatest trade that's out there, but I certainly think they're going to explore what can they get back for Jalen Brown.

1:32:48I don't see Tatum being the trade object.

1:32:52Bill Simmons:Red Sox, we don't need to talk about. It's disgusting what's happened. It's not just that. It's frustrating, disgusting, unreal that the Fenway group that has billions of dollars has become the cheapest franchise in the league with the highest prices to go to a game. Yeah. It makes no sense. and, you know, I'm not going to a game this year. I'm revolting. And your son's rich and you're still not going. I mean, think about that. Well, look at third base. We have a guy hitting 162 who's five feet tall. I mean, it's just an abomination what the Fenway Group has done to the image of the Red Sox. they got their four championships and then they said that's enough they were like well you suckers are now just going to pay for tickets for the rest of your life yeah and you can come in the 8th inning and sing Sweet Caroline and buy your pink hats and blue hats and we're going to make more money it's a shame it gets risky when you start playing that game of chicken with your fan base especially in this era you know you're you're you're people who are just like well if they don't care about the team i'm not going to care either we've seen right we've seen the red that happened in the early 80s a little bit and it happened a little bit in the in the 90s too where you could feel uh people are like all right is this how you're treating us then we'll go over here you know and there's three other teams and a bunch of other stuff to do well you can go online now and get great seats anytime you want.

1:34:40Right. That's a really shameful position that they've put the fan base in. And they also don't have the signature guy, which there's been years where they haven't, but they were, I think,

1:34:52Bill Simmons:putting all the eggs in the Roman Anthony basket. And that has not gone well. Which is, you know, is he fragile and injury prone? I don't know. But once again, he's hurt. All right. We've talked enough about the Red Sox. The Patriots are the other one. I know that's been the big topic. The head coach has been the big dinner topic in New England now for five weeks. It's not just that. We've talked about this for 20 years. Every time things seem pretty good with the Patriot franchise, something happens. Whether it's Deflategate or Spygate or some scandal or the owner of the team in a spa twice getting caught.

1:35:37or it's just one thing after another. And this is just the latest. This is a really bad story up here. It's not going to go away. It seems to have legs, you know, as a week goes by and then there's a new photo or a new story. And I feel badly. I really liked, loved the job the coach did last year. I thought he had the locker room really all going in the same direction. The camaraderie was great. We overachieved. We didn't have a bat. We had a somewhat easy schedule, but we overachieved. And now here we are again, and nobody's talking about the players. Right. The articles are about the coach.

1:36:27Bill Simmons:Yeah, we would almost have been better off losing in Denver. it turns out drake's hurt the rabble thing doesn't happen and then all the dialogue is about can they can they get back can they get there to the super bowl instead i mean they're gonna trade for aj brown on june 1st it seems like uh almost a formality at this point which would be the thing everyone talked about i so i've tried not to talk about the rabble thing that much because it's such a bummer of a story and they you know every side has kids and it's just i don't know it makes me It's a little unseemly, but I wonder like how you become the way he coached the team where he's like the patriarch of this Patriots family and everything is about family and team and being there for people and hugging each guy as they come off the field.

1:37:16Bill Simmons:And now will that seem disingenuous as he's doing it this year? That's, that's, I think that's a really way, good way of phrasing the most important question that people up here are asking, what's it going to be like? Is he going to be in the hallway hugging everybody again? Are the players going to look at him a little bit differently? Or maybe they'll like him more. The coach is getting after it.

1:37:44It's a sad story. You're talking two families, and I don't know the details. I just know what I read. I just wish I wasn't reading any of it. I'm just looking forward to the season. Waiting for the schedule to come out today. But that's not what's in the paper.

1:38:05Bill Simmons:So you care about the schedule? Brian Curtis and I just did a whole segment about this, that we think the schedule release day is ridiculous. But you like it. I haven't seen the schedule yet. No, but do you like it, though? You like looking at it and being like, oh, we're playing? Yeah, I like it. You just love it. That looks winnable. That's going to be a tough game. Where's the bye? yeah I like all that stuff we talked about the reason I had Brian Curtis on was we talked about this content glut we have now and how the football is adding these extra games and there's going to be a Wednesday night game before Thanksgiving and all this stuff you've been watching sports the entire time I've known you which is my whole life whenever it's on do you feel like there's a difference now with the amount of sports that's on or is it just harder to find it's a little bit of an overload so you feel the overload a little bit have you watched as much hockey playoffs as you usually watch?

1:38:56No. Well, that's not unusual. Once the Bruins got knocked out, I don't watch as much. Yeah, but you would watch, like,

1:39:03Bill Simmons:you would watch to root against Montreal and you'd pick random players. I've watched a couple of Montreal games. I watched the Colorado game yesterday. But my heart's not in it. I like the Bruins team. I thought they overachieved. I like the new coach. We're a couple of players short. We don't have a first-line center, da-da. But I like that we did as well as we did, and I have optimism for that team. They seem to have their act together. Wow. Bruins, number one in your rankings. Well, it's kind of weird, isn't it? I'm going to be back with the Pats. We still have Drake May. He's going to be healthy this season.

1:39:44Bill Simmons:Their team's going to be good. They have some good drafts. I'm going to be fired up by July. I am, too. I'm going to be fired up for the— I just wish the focus was on the draft picks, the movement of first year to second year players, progress, stuff like that. It's just not there right yet. Yet, maybe it will be. You don't think he's going to step down, do you? I don't know. Would I be 100 % shocked? No. See, I wouldn't either. But to me, like a leave of absence seems more realistic. Like he comes back when real training camp starts or something. But, you know, in the NFL, that's pretty massive for your coach to just not be around for two months.

1:40:30Bill Simmons:I don't know how they're going to handle it. And the owner is 88 years old, 86 years old, whatever he is. Right. So. Yeah. I hope he doesn't step down. I wouldn't be surprised if he does step down. I don't none of us know the whole story I hope it isn't the story that the paper keeps printing but I don't know I love how you're so forgiving of Braybill you demoted Joe to the second row again after the Philly series I didn't demote Joe I have texts where you said he's back in the second row I've had it that's private text between you and me you were done, you were so mad after the series you wouldn't come out I was mad, but...

1:41:15I couldn't even get you to come on today. You were still mad. And I'm not defending Graywell, by the way. I know. I don't know the details, but it doesn't look good. And I'm not putting Joe in the second row, but I think he has a testing year coming up that will determine whether he's here next summer. Wow. Yeah.

1:41:39Bill Simmons:My mind. What TV shows are you watching? The three Chicago TV show. I watched the movie you recommended. Oh, Crime 101. Yeah. Yeah. I still don't understand how they got, he got, they copped out the diamonds at the end. Spoiler. Oh, I'm sorry. You can't spoil the movie. Okay. So you like Crime 101 more than Rip or do you like Rip more than Crime 101? No, I like Rip more. All right. I didn't quite understand either one of them at the end, but I'll have to watch it a second time. You know, I agree with you on the lead actor in Crime 101. He was a little too passive. Chris Hemsworth. Yeah, I just didn't think he was good enough.

1:42:19Bill Simmons:That was my biggest issue with the movie. And I liked him in other stuff. Like, I thought he was great in Rush. Right. I didn't know he was in the movie. Yeah, I don't know what his plan was in 101. I didn't get it. He, like, intentionally was hard to figure out, and I didn't think it worked. I thought he just came across a little weak. Weak in personality, weak in demeanor. It would have been a great early 2000s Russell Crowe during his proof of life era role. That was what I needed from that. I needed just somebody at the peak of their powers, a little enigmatic, trying to figure out what they're thinking.

1:43:00Bill Simmons:That's a good... He would have been good before he gained 200 pounds, but he would have been good. Did you see Project Hail Mary? No. What channel is that on? It was a movie. It was with Brian Gosling. Yeah. It was the biggest movie of the year? No. No. I'll wait for it to come on cable. It's on Amazon right now. Oh, it is? Yeah, it's on all those. You have to pay for it. Well, I just put it to your account. Yeah, just charge it to my bill. What other TV shows are you watching? You love The Madison. I like FBI. I like The Madison. What about the Yellowstone spinoffs? You're in on that one. Well, yeah.

1:43:40Bill Simmons:I mean, I like the... The U.S. Marshals. You like that one? U.S. Marshals. I like that one. I haven't... The other ones, I think, start tomorrow night. You love the Madison, though. I like the Madison. Yeah. I like the acting in the Madison. Yeah. You and I talked about it last time. I couldn't stand the two daughters of the two grandkids. Two of your favorite actors, though. Kurt Russell and Michelle Fyfe. Yeah. And then I understand there's a season two already coming. Right. and a season three, I think already. You're not watching Euphoria? No. It's not my... Yeah, please don't watch that one.

1:44:18As you say, when I want to do something, you're not the demographic.

1:44:23Bill Simmons:That one, I definitely don't think you'd like that. There was no new CBS shows this year. Boston Blue, you're okay. No, I think it's poorly... You jumped out. I watch it, but it's poorly written. And I like... Donnie. I liked him in Blue Bloods because he had an edge to him. He's too nice a guy in the new one. But you never did The Pit. That was the shocking one to me. I 100 % you would have liked The Pit. I don't get how you missed that one. I did two episodes and then got caught up in life and haven't been able to get back to it. So maybe this summer. All right. Keep us posted. All right. I thought you did okay.

1:45:02Bill Simmons:You weren't as angry about the Celtics as I thought. Well, it's a good thing we didn't do this two weeks ago, a week and a half ago. All right. Yeah. All right, Dad. Enjoy all the sports this weekend. Do you have a PGA pick?

1:45:21Schaeffler? Schaeffler?

1:45:23Bill Simmons:Schaeffler? No. Oh, Schauffler. Xander Schauffler? Yeah. We call him Xander. Xander. I like Xander. Xander. Okay. There you go. It looks like, for me, Schaeffler's been in a slump. his irons aren't doing so well. All right, we'll enjoy it. I'll text you over the weekend. We're going to come back, take a break, come back with Utah Jazz owner, Ryan Smith. This episode is brought to you by Panda Express. It's not always easy to show love, but there is one way to express how you feel, food. And what better way to say, I love you than with Panda Express's delicious, authentically cooked American Chinese cuisine.

1:45:59Bill Simmons:Whether it's eating with someone you love or while watching the team you love, you can pick from tasty options like orange chicken, honey walnut shrimp, Kung Pao chicken, and black pepper sirloin steak. Have you eaten yet? Order now or visit a Panda Express near you. This episode is brought to you by Brooks Running. Sometimes in the sports world, we see performances so mind-blowing you think someone somewhere is bending the rules. Like when an unknown player comes out of nowhere and tears through the league with a dominant scoring streak. Well, the glycerin flex from Brooks is that phenomenon in shoe form.

1:46:31Bill Simmons:It provides a flexible cushion ride that's made to move with you. With a breathable upper, your shoe feels like a distraction-free second skin. It's the ultimate blend between human movement and tech. So if you want to feel the best parts of your run, flex the rules, the new Glycerin Flex. Shop the Glycerin Flex at brooksrunning.com. All right, we're taping this late Wednesday afternoon. So if anything happens over the next 24 hours, don't blame us. Ryan Smith is here. He's the owner of the Utah Jazz who finally had some luck in the lottery. What'd you do? What kind of tricks were you doing the week leading up?

1:47:05Bill Simmons:Were you wearing the same shirt every day? What superstitions do you have? Well, so I'm incredibly superstitious. And so what I decided to do was not go to Chicago. I mean, I've been there. I've been in that lottery room twice in the back room or once in the back room, once kind of on the side. And then obviously last year with my wife on stage, Ashley, with all the kids sitting there, man, that walk of shame. That walk of shame hurts. It stings for a really long time. And I was like, look, I'm 0 for 3 going to Chicago. I'm going to stay home. And I sat at home watching with my family, did our usual Sunday church stuff, went and sat there.

1:47:48And I'm one for one doing that. So that's a lot better. Church. That might have been the key. Maybe that's what you have to do now. Yeah, for sure.

1:47:58Bill Simmons:I said on the podcast. Oh, go ahead. No, you go. We had a record attendance at church in Utah on Sunday. Well, they moved it to Sunday to the lottery. Usually it's Tuesday night. I said on my podcast the other day, I thought they need to go back with the lot. I don't like the representatives. I want the people in the room who have the most stake. Either give me all the owners or give me the GMs, like the people. Because the most famous moments ever were Dave DeBuscher winning the Patrick Ewing lottery and just like almost losing his mind. or Jerry West when he didn't get LeBron James that year in 2003.

1:48:33Bill Simmons:I want to see the weight of the lottery on the people who actually care the most. And we've gotten away from that. Or you're just twisted where you're looking at people for most of their life. Most of their life have kind of been able to put their thumb on the scale for things or be successful and they have no control over this. Yes, that's exactly what I want. All right, so walk me through the emotions. so you're supposed to be what number you were four right yeah we were we won that we won the coin flip with uh sacramento and not televised yeah non-televised but we were four and so you know you kind of kind of hope in this draft i mean i think everyone was kind of had this could you stay top four i mean that was the discussion leading up or how would you do that And then, you know, you know that our, our kind of floor is eight and that's, that's kind of where you're thinking.

1:49:32And, you know, I was, I didn't mentally tell myself I'm perfectly fine at seven. It's great players all the way through. And, you know, it was almost unbelievable for us. Like, I mean, first of all, when the envelope, here's what's crazy. Like one of our camera guys came down and gave me the envelope. I just got this today, actually. Wow. And so when that was pulled out, first of all, when Sacramento was pulled out, my 13-year-old lost his mind and just went down because he saw purple. Right. And then the jazz, and then we got in the top four, and then obviously Chicago, Memphis, and then it was...

1:50:12You've never moved up, right? This is the first time ever? Never, never, never. never so the the faith lottery system i don't care who you are is kind of sitting there you're just like shaking your head a lot and it's a it's a crazy feeling and i think i think that you know i'm sure sacramento has some of that feeling right now i'm sure you know the vote brooklyn for sure there's no way not to there just really isn't and it if i'm a if i'm a consumer of sports and entertainment or television or drama like that's a pretty cool event you know because it it's you know the pain I mean I had people show me videos of restaurants here in Utah like erupting the restaurant the entire restaurant and it's pretty cool so

1:51:00Bill Simmons:we had the opposite I remember the worst Celtics one well there are two bad ones we had the 97 in 2007 so it was Duncan was the prize one year and then it was Durant or Odin it was either of them let's get one of the top two and the Celtics got fifth that year. And it was the opposite of those videos where the people in the bar is like, Oh, it was like, you know, it was like a traumatic event. And you're just looking at the rest of it. Like, what did I just waste the last year for? Now you're out of the woods. Like you actually have the kind of team you want. You've had, you've been in some lotteries, you traded for Jaron Jackson, you have marketing still, you never got rid of him.

1:51:36Bill Simmons:Now you have a top two pick your base Bailey. Like this is, this was a three-year odyssey to get to this point, basically. Yeah, especially taking over as a new owner, a new ownership group where we come in. It's probably not how you want to design your tenure when you start, but this is a little bit where you just trust the team you brought in and you say, hey, where are we at? And what are your goals, honestly? Our goals are win a championship in Utah. It's never happened as well. And I just don't think we're going to tiptoe into that. I think that it's going to require a running start, a little bit of help.

1:52:14It's going to require a different level of building than probably maybe what it takes to make the playoffs. And even those groups that have done that in the past, just given our market, given our luck, given where things are, it's like you've got to start. And that starts with our front office and our coaching and how we're going to go through this. And we've been close. I mean, I took over that Donovan and Rudy team. you know, where Trey Mann destroyed us in the corner there. Yeah. And it staples at the time. And man, that was a helpless feeling because that was kind of ours to have. And then, you know, kind of had to make some decisions after that.

1:52:59And so, you know, here we are. Like, I like where we're going. I like the assets that we have going forward. We have all of our picks, plus plus, and a lot of young talent. And honestly, I think every team is going to have to do this. I think this is a lot of my point around the lottery reform and everything else is like, we're going to have a certain number of teams that are going through the rebuild process and the rebuild experience and all have different sizes of markets. And I think as a league, which I love, we'll ask ourselves really hard questions around what do we want that rebuild experience to be?

1:53:37Bill Simmons:How long should it take? I've heard you use that word before. It's interesting because the other word is tanking, but it's really a rebuild because you're, you're trying to get to a much higher place than you're in. You, you guys became the linchpins for this in February, which was really the first time all the tanking slash rebuild dialogue happened. And I was part of it. I definitely did one of the first podcasts being like, we've got to fix this. Like this is the earliest this has ever gone. But from your vantage point, like if I own the jazz, I don't know how you would do another strategy, especially when you're looking at San Antonio who gets two, one and four in three straight years.

1:54:17Bill Simmons:And now you're watching them in the playoffs and all of those guys are awesome. And they're 20 and 21 and 22, the foundation of this 10 year contender. So if you see that, how do you not try to emulate that in some way? I don't know. Well, I think first of all, I don't think there's an ownership group that wants to go through this. I think that's first of all. No one in the league wants to do this. Especially, you look at our situation when we're taking over. You want to do the opposite. You want to go fast. You want to flex up. You want to show your fan base that you got some juice naturally.

1:54:53And so when you come in and you're like, okay, let me tell you what we're going to do. I know we got the All-Star game coming here this year, and we've been waiting on that. what we're going to do is trade our two all-stars probably not a popular spot to be right um but you've got to have conviction you got to have alignment and then you know you always start off with a retool right we're just gonna retool yeah and then it gets to a point what you're seeing with a lot of teams are like no no no no if we're gonna lay up in a weird way like don't lay up in the water. You know, the water is 200 yards and we're going to get on in three.

1:55:28Like, like we've got to, we've got to figure out how to, how to get out of this position and right or wrong. And I think you saw this with San Antonio, the decisions become pretty easy to, in the, in the top part of the draft, right? You know, you're, you're, you're betting between some pretty amazing options there, being in those drafter rooms and kind of being on the other side, it gets a lot more challenging or it's challenging all the way across but drafting 8-9 every

1:56:01Bill Simmons:year is a little harder. Well, I look at the situation you had when you took over. I don't know how much you want to say about it, but you had mentioned Gobert. You had the foundation of a team that was really consistently good but had not done as well maybe as people were hoping in the playoffs. right and it I don't know if it had run its course but it felt like it was hitting a little bit of a wall and then you have a franchise guy who the rumors start immediately he wants to go back to New York he wants to go here he wants to go there and this is the conundrum of the league right you go through this process you get a franchise guy but then you also have free agency you might not be able to keep the guy do you think there should be more mechanisms in place that favor the team when you've had somebody for, you know, five years, seven years, nine years with the, like, could there be luxury tax stuff, like benefits you could get for just having stability?

1:56:54No, I mean, look, this was all pretty new to me, right? I mean, my first day, we were kind of in the middle of the COVID and we had like two days to like sign Don and Rudy or 30 days. It was that short window. If you remember, I remember having two days before Monday, before we got to kind of go into it with Rudy. And I remember going up to his hotel room and being like, Hey bro, like, what do you care about? You know? And actually that was like my first meeting ever. It was just him and I talking because we knew each other before. And, you know, there was, there was a process and going and sitting down with Don and, and going through all that.

1:57:30And, you know, I think you almost, from what I'm learning about these championship runs, it's a little bit like you almost don't know what you need until you get on the track. And it's like this, I got to have a little more than the other team. So it's a little bit of a moving target. So running its course of a team, you'll see that this year, whatever will happen, the narrative will be around a couple of teams and get bounced out. They just don't have enough. And they've got to bring more than the next group. The hard part is when you're already ass set down. and you're over the cap, like we were into the tax.

1:58:14We'd given up a lot of picks for Conley. And so it's like, how deep do you want to cut into your future when you've been bouncing the first round like three times? Right. You know? And I think when Danny originally came in, he and I had a lot of real honest conversations about that. and ultimately he's like, hey, look, I've done this before. This is what we're doing and this is how we're going to think through this. He had been coming from a place where he'd been knocking on that door with a really good team in Boston for some time that he had kind of put together and then obviously the year he leaves, they end up going back, adding one more piece.

1:59:00Almost you don't know what you got and it's just one more piece and that didn't work and then one more piece and having those assets to be able to do that is really important.

1:59:08Bill Simmons:The year he left or the year you stole him? I mean, let's be honest. You kept stealing Celtics people. You stole both ages. You stole Will Hardy. Just go back to the well with Boston. Just keep taking our people. Brad doesn't answer my call. We tell Brad, Brad, your phone number is blocked on Brad's phone. Yeah, but I think the other thing is also, one of the things I do love, I'll just be honest, and it's not to get on the OKC train, But one of the things I do love is just, I mean, with Joe Kitchen in SGA is just how they haven't let the narrative come. Like, they've been pretty forward thinking on both of those individuals about, no, I like this market.

1:59:47I want to be here. You know, there's a lot of drama. There's a lot of narrative that comes out. Well, you're in a smaller market. You're in this or that. Like, it's loud enough for these players. You know, we see this in hockey. You know, so a lot of these players play the worst when they're in the biggest markets, you know, and I love the fact how they're embracing that market. There's nothing you can't do from OKC. There's nothing you can't do from Utah. There's nothing you can't do from Denver. There's nothing you can't do from these places. And I think that, you know, we've always had players who had their best years in Utah, always.

2:00:22Growing up, like you look at Hornacek, you look at Boozer, you look at D. Will. they'll all tell you after the fact like i had my best years in utah right why is that you know because they could come get locked in they could they could actually you know do it in in you know it's interesting because we're in such a global media market where instead of one or two voices there's everyone's got a voice like you know and so it's it's a little bit like we're playing in the United States and we're playing in Europe. Yeah, there's a difference there. Right.

2:00:56Bill Simmons:Well, you're unique in two ways. One, well, a lot of ways, but you came in, you didn't have new owner syndrome because I always feel like when the new owner comes in, they feel like they have to do this crazy, splashy move and shoot for the moon and try to improve the team. And that's usually when they get in the trouble. You did the opposite. You had to basically start a rebuild. But then the other thing, you are Utah. You're from there. you belong to that whole area. You're really invested in building up not sports, but just the culture, the mentality of how people see Salt Lake, how people see the city and the state, which normally when people come in, like Chisholm bought the Celtics, was a huge Celtic fan, but also wasn't living there the last 20 years.

2:01:40Bill Simmons:Now he's back. You were a Utah guy. You even had chances to maybe get some other teams and you were fixated on, no, it has to be this team. Yeah, so when we went through this process, it was. I mean, there's no secret. I was looking at Minnesota. I'd sold my company to SAP. I've come from tech, spent my whole career in tech, didn't do one thing else. And everyone's like, well, what company are you going to start next? And I was like, you guys, I want to do hoops. Play hoops every morning. I love going out to Boston and just hanging with the angels and like watching hoops with them. And I'd go down to summer league and play golf with DA.

2:02:19And like, you know, I just sit next to him in the suite watching players. And I was like, this is so fascinating. Like, I'm such a junkie. And it was the only thing that intrigued me. And so when the opportunity came, you know, everyone would say, hey, what are you going to do? What's next? And it's like, no, I, you know, and I called Adam and said, hey, look, like, I'm really interested in this. And, you know, for whatever reason, opportunity came to me on Minnesota. And, you know, the owner there, Glenn, was like super nice. But was he going to sell? Was he not going to sell? It seemed like the situation was a little runaway bride.

2:02:55Like, how's this going to go? And so we had worked down to it. And we were getting really down almost to the dock level. Like, we were drawing up docks. And, you know, my wife was just like, what about our season tickets for the jazz? and I was like well no no no no well like Minneapolis it's only two hours away like we'll figure this out um and I think she knew how I kind of go all in on stuff and she's not going to see me as much and she was just like I just love what the boys like we're jazz fans like this isn't going to work and then like you know you know when your partner's like not feeling something right like like I'm in day two and she's kind of not speaking I'm like all right.

2:03:39This isn't right. So I called Adam and I remember I was on the golf course. I pulled over into the trees in the cart and I was like, Hey, look, man, I can't, I can't do this. And then I went back to the family and owned the jazz forever and just said, Hey, there's ever a chance I turned down something else. Even if I could buy a little bit, like if not, I'll just be the best sponsor you've ever had. Like I'll do anything. And, you know, they called back like six months later and we're like, Hey, you still interested in that? And I was like, yeah, and a piece? Yeah, awesome. They're like, well, if we're going to do a piece, we're going to do the whole thing.

2:04:13I was like, what? And they're like, well, we need an offer. And I was like, I don't know what that looks like. And then ended up pulling up the Forbes valuation on my phone, ended up doing a deal. And then I was like, is this for real? The Forbes valuation? This isn't even accurate. Well, I don't know what you go off. It wasn't like today. Yeah, yeah, true. Four years ago, it was very different, right? Right. And then, you know, I remember calling Adam. And I said, well, we probably should talk to Adam. And Adam called and we were all on the phone together. He said, hey, we're transitioning the team in Utah and this and that.

2:04:46And Adam called me back. It was like we were having another conversation. It was a little bit like, hey, look, if you're lucky in life, you get to work in the NBA, work in sports. If you're really, really, really lucky, you can be a governor.

2:04:58Bill Simmons:Yeah. It's like no one gets the team. they grew up sneaking into the arena and then right they grew up cheering for like this is unheard of and like so it's not lost on me but that's also a lot more weight like i know what it's like to be a jazz fan like like i i had a funny one today we were in the drive i just got back from chicago we were in the combine interview and you know interviewing all the players and i'm sitting there and you know in austin and set all this up it was phenomenal i did a great job and But Cam Boozer's in there. And I asked one question because I didn't say much the whole time.

2:05:34I was kind of auditing the class. But Carlos is also one of our scouts. And a little bit like, you know, Carlos could only take us to the Western Conference Finals. Like, what do you think you can do, right? And that's the fandom coming out. I know the pain of not getting over the hump for Utah in so long. And being like when I took over and, you know, one of the second or third most winning his franchise in the last 30 years without getting over the hump. It's kind of crazy. And so, you know, I think the lottery moment for every jazz fans, every jazz fan was like, boy, it's like, whatever. It's just nice to get a little luck.

2:06:19It's nice to feel. It's nice to have the light shine a little bit. But, you know, and I think there is a little bit, I mean, there's no way to not look at it the last couple of years and say, hey, there's a lucky part of our game a little bit, right? And, you know, but if I look back at my career, like, I was extremely lucky, you know, in tech and when you were born and the timing and when I graduated, you know, college and where I went to work and what I almost went to go do but didn't. right? And so luck's a part of all of it.

2:06:56Bill Simmons:I didn't even think of the part that the lottery was in Chicago, the biggest nemesis of the Utah Jazz, the two finals in a row. And somehow, somehow Chicago finally gave it back a little bit. Yeah. Tiny bit. It's good. There's a lot of healing. Probably still a lot of healing left. Still today. And then the other weird thing about this ladder is there's a top four and I actually really like the next couple guys too but I think there's pretty clearly a top four and you guys have these indirect ties with two of the four right where you have Boozer who played for the Jazz for years with the best years of his career and is now involved with your team and then AJ who went to got pulled out went to prep school there went to BYU I know you guys are a little bit involved with the you know success of BYU so you've probably gotten to know him a little bit, right?

2:07:51Yeah. I mean, I go to BYU is like a mile from my house. So like, it's, it's kind of, it's my alma mater. It's where I went to school. It's where I play hoops three or four times a week. That's like part of why I live where I live. It's a little bit of like, you know, if you're going to live in Raleigh or whatever, you're right next to campus. Like I like the college town feel. Um, and you know, I also grew up here. It's weird. Like my parents, I was born in Eugene, Oregon. It's crazy. Danny and I were born in the same hospital right in eugene yeah and my dad was you know there was four of five kids and he said i'm gonna i'm gonna go from you know university of oregon in the late 70s to byu you probably couldn't get two more polar opposite spots and moved us here and um you know he grew up in washington state my mother's from palo alto california and you know we kind of settled here and I started a business here.

2:08:46I met my wife here. I have a lot that I've been given because of the state and everything else. And for me, it's not that I just went to school there. I grew up running those halls because my dad was a professor at BYU. And everyone thinks it's like, oh, you're just in charge of, or you just like to be with hoops and sports. And no, it's like, it would be really weird because I started Qualtrics really

2:09:18from an academic room with my father. It'd be really weird if I wasn't all in on there and all in on Utah. It's a little bit of like that every time I go there reminds me I feel like where I came from. You know? So it's cool that a potential top pick or wherever it ends up is like is coming through here and i'm sure all the dukies feel the same way about cam and you know it's kind of it's kind of how it's gone i mean i i get the amount of texts i get from everyone from duke like and you know there's a lot of them like the decision's easy like whatever it is they're coming like so and you got the byu contingent it's it's like there's a lot of drama around this and a lot of insight and narrative and um it's gonna be an interesting 40 couple days

2:10:09Bill Simmons:here well the utah thing i think has evolved really this century but from where we used to think like i'm living in boston i know nothing i'm just like ah mormons byu utah snow sundance that's like all you know and it really feels like that shifted over the last i would say 15 years now you have a hockey team and um there's just feels more energy around sundance um i think almost like peak now it's moving is it where's it moving to colorado eventually but yeah i'm sure you'll replace that with something but in general um real energy around the city and then you also have this weird stuff like you have the the stupid secret lives of mormon show there's a real house show it's right right out of central castle right so so there's all these different things going on with utah that just didn't exist 30 years ago what's what's fair and unfair about the utah thing So if you think about Utah, most people aren't from here.

2:11:08I'll just say that. My dad's from Washington. If I look at my mom's from California, my wife's from Las Vegas, there's not a better place for family life. There's just that. like i i'm fortunate i've got siblings all over like there's just something about utah i also think it's like look most states can only own one or two things authentically like what do you actually own or are positioned as that that no one else has right and you know as we as we went through our jersey designs and we've gone through this i've been asking myself and looked over the last couple of years, Silicon Slopes, the tech community, and the innovation in Utah, were probably the number two innovative hub.

2:12:06And everyone's going to be like, no, it's Austin. Or no, there was a time in 2018, I think we had as many startups or IPOs as New York City. You start looking at that and it's like, why? And people can say, do utahs sell out too early when they get businesses but if you look at what's come out of here from this next phase of influencers and how the world works and you know everyone has a different tie to folks the amount of people that come in and you know ski here and visit here i just saw pictures of conor mcdavid down at southern utah and the alma like yeah like like i saw that But it's crazy who comes through here.

2:12:48And it's like most time people vacation here. But I don't think we've done a very good job over the last 30 years branding ourselves. Yeah, because you feel like a small market, but you're not. Yeah. I said this on day one with the NBA. There's nothing that we have in common with a small market. You go to our airport, you can jump on a plane and go to Paris, go direct to Hong Kong or Seoul, Korea. You can go to London. That's not a small market. You're not having to do connections. You've got a tech ecosystem that is insane. So if you come out here and get a job in tech and it doesn't work out, you can get five other jobs in tech.

2:13:27Right. What we get branded for is because we don't have the urban living that most people associate with a big market. And that's because when you come to Utah, you actually kind of want to spread out. But we're the fastest growing, youngest demographic in the country. So what people also don't know is within Salt Lake City, within 90 miles, you've got 250 ,000 college kids that most come out here and want to stay here. And so you always want to bet on youth. If you take Stanford and Cal and Caltech out of Silicon Valley, you kind of don't have Silicon Valley. Right? What makes Boston special and kind of rejuvenating all the time is that education system.

2:14:16Bill Simmons:Right. And so I'm super long on cities and growth where there's always youth coming in and then what they do. The key is, and I feel like it's unique that my wife and I and our group, we're in a position to kind of take a little bit of the announcement or the baton of city building and community building. So right before I came here, I just announced a new health partnership for both of our teams. We're building this. We bought a mall, so 110-acre mall right in South Salt Lake. And we just put our Utah Mammoth hockey team is two years old, the practice facility there. We've got a corporate offices there.

2:15:04And then we just announced a new practice facility that will be done in September of next year for hoops all together. but with our own separate worlds. So we just announced with Intermountain a 60 ,000 square foot healthcare facility that services both, that's like super innovative. And this is part of our responsibility now with these teams. And we're actually doing the same thing downtown. We're creating this arena district right in front. We've got a live nation venue, got a major hotel going in that's five-star. We're looking at this to be like, okay, what's everyone's experience when they do want to go to urban living?

2:15:47Because I know the experiences when they come out is awesome. It's absolutely awesome. I mean, you got guys like Jordan Clarkson was here. He loved living down south and kind of having a house spreading out. And then you're 25 minutes from seven ski resorts. We got the Olympics coming back. So it's where I choose to raise my kids. It's fun. but you know there's a couple things we can authentically own and it's like come have the best years of your career and come have the healthiest mentally here because wellness is real and

2:16:24Bill Simmons:go ahead how many people own an NBA and an NHL team in the same city within the same ownership group together just Denver no yeah you've got Denver And then Dolan and then New York and New York. And you've got Toronto, which is kind of corporate owned or however that is. Yeah. And then you've got Leon's and what's going on in Washington. Right. And we're all set up different, you know. But you are a maniac competitor. So now you have these two winter sports. So you have NHL and NBA happening simultaneously. Like, what happens to you at night? So I prefer to have it. Like, if you're going to give me the heat, like, let's just do it all at once, right?

2:17:13Yeah. So I would just go every other night. I've told my kids, like, you know, dad works the night shift. Like, it's what we do a little. And so like we, I don't think anyone in our organization was acclimated the first year of like, we all knew hockey was coming. Yeah. But I don't think we knew hockey was coming.

2:17:33Bill Simmons:What's the crossover with the organization? Because some people will have, you know, basically somebody who's in control of everything. People will split it up both ways. How did you decide to attack it? So I think we looked around at all the different models and we're like, okay, none of this is for us. I believe when it comes to organizational structure, you build around people and you, you, you know, it's just got to feel right. Yeah. I feel like a little bit... I kind of... Operating in tech, no one's evaluated or... I would say innovated around organizational structure as much as tech has.

2:18:13Some people have one direct report. Some people have 20, the span of control, no titles, titles, open floor. However, you're just controlling... You can't control how people think these days. It's much more around the environment. And so... It took a step back and said, okay, how do we want this environment to work? And clearly, I didn't know a whole lot about hockey. So we were fortunate that we had a great GM and Bill Armstrong that came over. And then Chris Armstrong was actually a great friend. Tony Finau is actually a golf agent working in an agency, but was a hockey guy.

2:18:49Bill Simmons:Yeah. And represented a lot of hockey guys. And he was a big part of the idea. So those two kind of worked together on the hockey side. and Chris is a president, Bill is a GM. And they run that and report up to me. And then on the hoop side, which we can get into, I've got Austin now as our president of all basketball. And then - You stole him too. That was another one. Yeah. It was another Boston theft. That was your third one. Can I at least tell that story? How many do you get? You have three now. Yeah. Can I tell that story? Yeah. Yeah. I think it's important. So when Danny came over, you know, he didn't really want to be the president of basketball because he'd already done that a long time.

2:19:35And, you know, I was more like, Hey, what do you want to do? It's me, DA. Like he was actually super helpful in getting a team. And then it just worked out. Well, wait, wait, wait, going backwards though.

2:19:49Bill Simmons:You're friends with him a long time. You've been playing golf with him forever. Even when he stepped down from the Celtics, my shit detector was blinking hard I was like first of all I don't think he's giving up second of all that's his buddy that just got the jazz I'm suspicious but there was like a six month process and we're together we're actually at the Hero we're at Tiger Woods Golf Tournament we're there with Tony Finau and he's not working for anybody at the time and he won't tell me he's going to come help me because I don't think I didn't think his wife and Michelle and their family he was going to move to Utah And he'd had some health issues.

2:20:25Bill Simmons:He'd had a heart attack. Yeah. For sure. And he didn't want to go from being the president of basketball to being the president of basketball over here. He wasn't doing that. Yeah. He wanted to kind of shift gears a little bit. But in one week, I watched him in December, like, watched, like, six different games a night. I'm like, dude, you just watched, like, 30 basketball games from college to everything. And you don't even have a job. Like, who's paying you to do that? He's got the iPad, the laptop, and the TV up. And I'm like, who? You just do this for fun now? I was like, you might as well get paid for it.

2:21:01Come over and help. And then that started a process. And he really wanted... It came down to what he wanted to do. He wanted to help scout. He wanted to help with coaching and help manage the players and didn't really want to deal with much more than that. So he helped me. We came over. We started this process. We got into it. And I just love working with Danny. But I was driving last year with my wife. And me and Danny were going somewhere. And she said, hey, what happens if something happens to you and Danny? And I was like, well, that's kind of weird. Like, well, what do I do? What do I do with the team?

2:21:47I was like, well, let me tell you what you do. You call Austin Ainge and you tell him to come out, you're going to run it. Because Austin's an absolute star. Yeah. And I'd never had that conversation with him. Ever. He would never push anything. He's like, he just, it never happened. And then she was like, well, does Austin know that? Because I just saw he was interviewing for this president job or something online. Like, are you, don't you think you should tell him? Yeah. And I was like, it's actually a good idea. So I call Austin that day. It was right after the transaction. I said, hey, Austin, I don't know if you know this, but let me just explain the conversation I had with my wife.

2:22:31This is how I feel. You're my designated survivor.

2:22:33Bill Simmons:I need to tell you. This is how I feel. We've never had this conversation or anything like this, but this is how I feel. And so you need to know that. and if you're interviewing because i heard a couple other rumblings that someone was going to grab him and i knew that if they sat down with him it was going to be very close they were going to do it yeah because you love that he's got the age background but he's also his own guy like and i said you you need to know that you come knock on my door well he called me back and he's like, um, Hey, if I'm going to go, I want to go now. And I was like, what?

2:23:18Okay. And by five o 'clock that day, I had hired Austin as our president of basketball ops, but you didn't tell Danny yet. No, I didn't tell Danny. It had to work this way. Yeah. I was like, there's no way I could talk to Danny. No way. Too weird. And too, it's just, it's just like, he would, he would like hammer me that, are you doing this because of me or this? Like, he's just that way. Like he's, he's the hard math teacher. Yeah. That's just the way he is competitive as he is himself. He's, he's that competitive with his kids to go out a little bit and, and do this. I mean, Austin coached in the G League.

2:24:02But Austin, I knew Austin from BYU. He was a real, I wouldn't say he was unathletic, but he was a really smart point guard. Like I knew his basketball makeup. I had watched his career go. And I was like, there's something different. But he's also, you know, he's also got that, you know, Boston organization, you know, he's very disciplined, very open. I don't know what to say. It's almost East Coast educated type vibe with the Ainge background, which is a pretty cool combo. And so then I was like, oh, no, I've got to call Danny. And so I can't get a hold of Danny. So I'm like, someone told him.

2:24:47Oh, like he was mad at you? You thought he was like... No, I can't get a hold of him. I thought he was because I normally get a hold of him. But it was like a three-hour period where I couldn't get a hold of him. So I finally get a hold of him. I was like, DA, we've known each other for 15 years. We built incredible trust together. And I think it's either going to be really good after this call or you're going to be really mad at me. I just hired Austin as a president of Basketball Ops and you got to go figure out how to work for him.

2:25:19And it was quiet for a second, but there was no one more happy than DA. and it's just been awesome and so austin's in charge he's running the whole thing but you know part of this is like for me watching him and others and austin go to work and you know knowing where to point da you know i'm sitting in that i'm sitting in that draft interview room and i'm looking over and there's there's will with championships and the pop pedigree today. Austin's got a ring. Avery Bradley's in there. He's got a ring. And I see DA with three rings and pretty much built the fourth. I'm like, alright, this is a championship.

2:26:05I'm not going to know more than these people. And I just need to make a couple hard decisions a year or be a tiebreaker here.

2:26:14Bill Simmons:Well, the other thing with Danny is, he's basically he's such an anomaly with the draft. First of all, you never know. I just know from all the Celtics stuff, nobody knows what he thinks until the last week. That's why if there's any stories that come about, Utah likes this guy, Utah likes that guy, it's like, I promise they're not true. Danny's not even going to tell people it works. I'll just tell you this. I just rode back with him on the entire plane trying to debrief. Just trying to figure out what he thinks. He won't tell you. I've been through this three times. He does not want to influence Danny's a truth seeker.

2:26:47He really is. He doesn't lie. I'm sure he loves you. You call him and you're like, Danny, what do you think? He tells the truth in a weird way. Or he won't say anything. He's not going to lead something weird, but Danny's point of view is going to be something that... And I believe him on this. I believe that he did not know he was drafting one in that famous Jason Tatum where he goes back to three and then Jalen going back to three. I honestly believe he did not know who he was going to go take until right up to it. And the reason why is because I kind of got a read the day before the draft with Keontae and then got a different read 10 minutes before the draft.

2:27:36And so what I'm really excited for is that Austin can turn to his left. And have that as well. And Austin's an incredible, incredible talent evaluator. Like, you know, sitting next to that guy your entire life, like you learn that side of it. Plus, you know, but he thinks for himself. And so that's what you want. And then, you know, with Will, being able to have these guys talk to Will and Will's a unique coach, just awesome. and young, and I'm excited to see what he can do.

2:28:14Bill Simmons:The whole lottery reform thing, are you involved in any committees yet? Have you jumped on anything? Were you involved in the reform? I'm on the committee committee, I'm on the planning committee, and I'm on the social justice committee as well. And I think they've actually done a really good job of regardless of the committee here, of just like they had a bunch of GM calls. They basically set up the hotline. You call us with your ideas. And our group has talked to the league and other people in the league four or five times just to say, hey. And the answer is always like, yeah, happy to schedule a call.

2:28:53I'd love to listen. Well, if you thought about this, you thought about that. So in some ways, it's a little bit like us naming the mammoth. We're putting it out to the fan boat, which brings a lot of input in. But it's within a tighter group. and that's hard to decipher. But I think the league is looking at it all and saying, hey, we're all partners in this. We want to get it right. Let's make sure we understand every view. I'm empathetic to the rebuilding, but I think everyone's going to have to almost take a step back and say, hey, what's best for the product? It's not going to be perfect. And by the way, right or wrong, like luck's going to play a piece of this.

2:29:39And then what happens when you get the teams, the humans and the agents and all of that involved, like it's all, it's all great until you get the people involved. Right. And like, you see that with every CBA, like there's unintended consequences and this happens and, you know, you know, certain things trigger, but, um,

2:29:59Bill Simmons:I don't know. The only thing I really care about is that I don't think teams should, Like what happened with the Spurs, I think they have to figure out three top four picks in a row, like little wrinkles like that. So you can't just basically I know the odds are going to be stacked a little differently anyway. But it just feels like having that much luck three years in a row, they can kind of litigate a little bit. Yeah. And so I think we'll come way more. I mean, there's stuff that's being reported on the side. There's stuff that's being reported on the other side of how to do this. But no, I think there's something like, I'll just speak for myself.

2:30:35I'd be okay now that we're the second pick. Okay, great. You can't come in the top five next year. It solves a lot of problems. The next thing is like, hey, if you just unrestrict the picks that are restricted one through eight or one through seven, that also solves a lot of problems. I agree. Okay. And so I think that that's fair. And it's like, okay, then draft well. But when you're a team, I'm also super empathetic to the teams that can't get out because we are such a star-driven league. And hockey, it's a little different. You're grabbing guys. You're developing them. You're putting them down in the minors.

2:31:17The reward for one ball or one spot in this sport is so high. Right.

2:31:25Bill Simmons:Well, in hockey, there's so much volatility, even with the stars. Like you see Taylor Hall right now in Carolina, where all the Bruins had him. He was good. These guys can do this, where in basketball, you have these fixed guys that year after year, you don't have the same volatility, I don't think. Or the young guys. It's very rare for a young guy in hockey to come in and make such immediate impact. Like there's like a celebration. Once every eight years. And then, you know, you look this year and you got Vijay playing in the playoffs. You've got, I mean, it's pretty impressive. Dylan Harper, all this stuff.

2:32:01Yeah, Dylan Harper. Like, it's pretty impressive.

2:32:03Bill Simmons:Do you feel like you're part of a new, because I remember we've had these generations with NBA owners and in the mid-2000s that all of a sudden you had Cuban comes in with Grossbeck and the Celtics. And they're like these younger guys that came in and they were younger. They were more from the tech side. they were not trying to blow the league up a little bit, but maybe push the league in a different direction. And now it feels like we're heading that way again with some of the guys from your generation, like the Charlotte owners and Chisholm's coming in with the Celtics. It feels like something generationally is shifting, and I don't know what.

2:32:41100%. It's really clear. I mean, you've seen the asset class of sports become something that's super desirable. you're seeing also the groups of people coming in shift from family-owned to more like towers that have been stacked together. Like the lakers. Yeah. Yeah. Ownership groups that come in. And I also think the days of no one's... Let's just be honest. In no other world would you acquire a business for the size of the price of what Portland did and turn it over to somebody. That would never happen anywhere in business. You'd never be like, okay, I'm paying this for this luxury brand. Okay, yeah, someone else, I'll come see it next December.

2:33:31That's unheard of. And so now with, I don't know what's cause or effect, but as you look at the risk people are taking to get in here, I think long gone are the days where the principal or the main principal is not heavily involved. We're not going to see a day where a board's running it, a family office is just running it on the side. Those days are gone. They're gone in football. They're gone in everything else just because of what it is. And actually, if someone's stretching this far to acquire one of these, they also really understand the community aspect of it as well. Yeah. Because they care about that as well.

2:34:18And so I think that we're just in a new world. And you've seen it. In our world, it's Patrick Dumont. It's Ishbia. It's obviously Gabe and everyone up in Charlotte with Rick. And I think the wrestlers are somewhat new and coming in. And you look at the involvement, not only just with there or what Dundon's done in Carolina and now in Portland. like in a round and what they're building out, like it's a decision to say, hey, I'm actually could probably do what I want. This is what I want to go do. And like, I want to be involved. Now, that's a tough balance as well.

2:35:01Because I know enough. Look, I'm a hooper. I play all the time. Like I watch basketball. I'm a junkie. I watch every game. But like in this draft, for example,

2:35:15I'm going to say this our fan base shouldn't want me drafting this person when you've got the team with Austin and Danny and group you should feel a lot more comfortable than with me now I want to opine and have a thing but how involved you get you've got to be a little careful because you need to be involved enough to give the team air cover, right? Because everything's not going to go well and you need to understand the body of work that people are putting in. But at the same time, that's what gives them air cover to be able to have a long tenure. I often find that when people are too far out of it or they don't live in market, they become really reactive with coaches and GMs and stuff like that.

2:36:05when you're in it every day, you know that, all right, I know you're doing all the right things. We just need a break. And I learned this at Qualtrics just leading out. When we opened up in Europe, I was in every single detail in Europe and going through. And I remember my board coming to me going, you know what? Let's pull the plug on Europe. It's going too slow. It's not working. I'm like, hold on, hold on, hold on. It's here. It's here. And then four quarters later, the thing pops or when we started shifting our model and it's like, Hey, you know, this isn't working. It's super expensive. No, no, no.

2:36:41Hold on. Everything's always taken longer than I thought.

2:36:43Bill Simmons:And if you weren't as heavily involved, you, you might've been overrun by the board. Yeah. And so it's, it's, you got, you got to have polar opposite emotions to be able to manage it. You got to be able to manage. I got to be over involved, but also let the team work. But like when they come to you with the Jaron Jackson trade, ultimately you're you're stamping that one way or that like if you didn't want to do that the trade's not happening yeah for sure if i don't want to do it it's not happening yeah because you're taking on a big salary you're giving up draft picks like you're not going to be like okay i hate this but i trust you guys you at some point you have to be a little on board no and they want to read me in but in our organization the way we're lined up they want to call me and talk about it.

2:37:29But they also know that if Will, Danny and Austin or Will, Austin and Danny are aligned, I'm going to have a hard time saying honestly, I'm going to have a hard time really saying like, no, we shouldn't do that. Because I know that they've wrestled this thing down and thought through everything because they attack it differently. No one's going to get fired for the way they're thinking about this. And they know they can speak their mind. They know they can speak their mind with each other. And then when we do something, I've got to be able to be like, all right, guys, put your hand in the middle.

2:38:06We're riding a dime with this thing. I'm cool. The one thing I hate is just this revisionist history. And in sports, it's all the time. Should have done this. We should have done this. No, you were in the decision room. If we're doing this, no one's going to say that. No one's going to say we should have, I didn't say that. Like, if you want to say it, speak up right now. Because the second we pulled the trigger, it was your idea as much as it was anyone else's.

2:38:32Bill Simmons:Is it daunting to be in the West and watch these playoffs when you see San Antonio and OKC in your conference loaded with these guys thinking like, Jesus, we don't just have one mountain. It's like two mountains next to each other that we have to climb here. No, I think, I don't think it's ever, you know i don't i definitely don't think it's more daunting than going up against 23 and 19 or you know 1997 right right um i think i think that you know they they're both in a pretty good spot they are mountains to climb um i i would argue that you know there's people out there that say we're right behind it with where we sit and everything that's going on i think with lottery i think you're probably third with assets right now in the west so i agree with that but but i don't think any like it just shows how competitive this is and like what you're shooting for like you know it is it is what it is and you know i know you know d wade's and in our ownership group and like and just talking to him and like knowing that history of what it's like and what you had to do and really asking about the grind like it's pretty crazy to be able to turn to Danny and D Wade and be like walk me through like what you thought in you know March yeah of this year when you guys won and it was like this was stressful we didn't think this this is who we were up against we thought there was no way they had smoked us that then you get into the the moment then what happened you know it's like this changed or this changed or this how it is and you know that's that's kind of where it's at those are two similar teams right the 06 Heat that Wade won the title with and then the 08 Celtics that Danny won the title with where in two years there was the move and then there was the move after the move and then all of a sudden they're in the mix it's like whoa we're here let's go like that the 08 Celtics changed in nine months yeah and then even you know the battle within the series yeah there's that too I'll be interested to see how you handle that we haven't even seen that side of you yet but you're in like a conference final losing your mind on the sidelines wait I had another question for you about expansion which it seems like it got floated out there Adam has the two cities he seems to want to have be interested to see if they can get the money for those two teams but then everybody has to vote on it and you go from 30 to 32 teams, which is adding two teams to the league that you now have to beat.

2:41:22Bill Simmons:You're losing media share. Yeah. Do we have the right amount of teams? Where do you stand on this? Are you even allowed to talk about it? I mean, there's nothing I would say that I probably wouldn't say publicly or privately or whatever it is. I'm a guy. I kind of have one story. This is it. Right? And so, you know I think you need to zoom out because look part of me is like Vegas is extremely close right it's extremely close to us yeah very close I mean you might have seen the jersey exchange we did with the Vegas Knights everyone's like oh you were just trolling the Knights in the playoffs where you you put out that you'll exchange a jersey Vegas Knights jersey to a mammoth jersey and people are lined up around the block.

2:42:10It's like, no, no, no, no. The world doesn't understand that Southern Utah is 90 minutes from Vegas. When we opened up with the Mammoth, the Knights were the hockey team. And so on the selfish side, it's a little bit like, hey, that impacts our market a little more than probably most. and as you look in the West, you've already got some hills to climb. Two great markets, which I think they are, that are being floated. I want to have to get to our ultimate goal. We don't want to make it harder. And so I think there's a lot of people that could easily see or take that view of it or take, hey, how much money are you going to get?

2:42:56Or that's the view. But if you look at everything that Adam's doing holistically, and if you look at where sports is, why I'm so bullish on the NBA? We're probably the only league that can have the reach and the impact globally that this sport provides. So you look at that NBA logo. My sister-in-law's from Africa. She's from Zambia who married my brother. And right or wrong what people think about NBA Africa, brands go over to Africa and it's really hard. It's really hard to translate over time. They end up into something different, but just being in draft interviews and seeing these kids who come over, that NBA logo means something over there and it is the logo of basketball.

2:43:52And you're looking at Europe. We focus on the teams or this or that, but if you fast forward 20 years and you say, okay, NBA Europe, there's a league with a chance to actually have a view of all of sports with that NBA logo. It's pretty amazing. And if Seattle and Vegas are part of that bigger picture, I'll do it. I'm a partner. I think that's a great, or we'll have that discussion. But I look at it more holistically. It's not a seller of the NBA. It's more of like, holy cow, we have a sport with a ball that has a great mobile viewing experience. One of the best. I can watch NBA games from my phone and I love it.

2:44:46Our reach is insane. And by the way, people can have a team. People can pick it up. That's how I look at it globally and say, hey, how many users are we going to have? You always hear those stats that, oh, Manchester City or Man U has 1.2 million fans. If you look at the NBA in that way, I'm grateful that we're making the investment now for Europe. Someone already made the investment in the W. Someone already made the investment in Africa because we truly have a world who who wants that product and i think that's that's how i look at it and that's a weird way that's not a can it just so i think i don't look at it just those two teams i look at it's a global nba brand like where it can go and you know you can see being a part of vegas and you know it works

2:45:41Bill Simmons:yeah because like financially you'd be getting like let's say it's 15 billion for both teams you're getting a$500 million check to give up a small percentage of your media rights. Yeah, I don't really look at it that way. But that's not how you're looking at it. You're looking at it as the holistic. I get it. Yeah, it's holistic. There's not many sports that could be doing what the NBA is doing. Yeah, well, you can see the NFL. They just announced their schedule. They have nine international games. They're clearly very wary of this. They're super aggressive. Yeah. Super aggressive. They're like, hey, I want Christmas Day.

2:46:15I want this. I want that. Like, like all these leagues, I mean, we're all like, you look at what's going on. And I think that we, we truly, I think Adam's vision is a lot bigger and I think they're doing a really good job with it.

2:46:28Bill Simmons:Last question. To walk me into that room of 30 really rich, successful people. It's the board of governors and you guys have to talk about stuff and argue about stuff. And you're just at this big giant table in some room and you're all, and you're all successful people who are used to getting your own way the entire time. And now you have to hash shit out. What is that room like? What was it like the first time you went in there?

2:46:57Um, I mean, it's, it's hard. It's a daunting task. I mean, you know, if I, if I take a step back and if I'm the league, it's like, okay, how do you have a room of 30 people who all have opinions, who are all going through something that are all trying to kill each other that have to come in together and like, what do I do? Do I just, and there's a couple of camps that differently, I'm fortunate to be a part of a different couple of different leagues and have like, do you just say, Hey, here's the memo. Here's what we're discussing. Or do we actually care and open it up for debate and let everyone speak their piece and then try to make the most humane decision knowing that it's almost impossible.

2:47:40Bill Simmons:Yeah. And you have people with different, you have the small market teams, you have the, I don't want to pay the luxury tax teams. You have the, I have a lot of money. I want to win the title. I don't care what that cost team. You have the people that generate a bunch of revenue. They don't want to share it with everybody. So there's agendas everywhere. Nothing's like one little quadrant. Yeah. There's like vectors. Every issue is like seven watchmates. Yeah. Right. There's never anything that's like one quadrant. And so it's really, it's really hard. So on that front, like I think going into these things, it's, it's in anything, if that was your board or anything else, like it's not, you know, probably the most productive way to have a meeting.

2:48:26um but how else are you gonna do it you kind of have to do it there's no there's no way else to do it and i think what um our current setup is i don't think there's anyone in that room that doesn't feel like they can go and give input and they're at least listened to and that's that's pretty hard to do right and so i i would argue that you know whether it's tom dundon or whether it's you know even jim dolan or someone else like i feel like you know whether it's mickey or like they're able to do it and the capacity and the ability to add them to hear and maybe even feel that I see you is, it's a gift.

2:49:09And so I think that, you know, and look, I've been on someone that, I'll just be honest, I've been on the opposite side, maybe even my point of view at the time, a couple of different ways. I've been fine. I've been doing that. Like, I'm cool with how, I'm really cool with how we're going. And I'm even more bullish than ever on the NBA. And I'm excited to be doing this for a really, really long time.

2:49:35Bill Simmons:What's your fine total right now? You're down 500? I'm down more than that. Are you in seven figures yet? No. No, I'm not. I'm not human or Draymond level. All right. Try to keep that number below seven figures. No, it's part of it. I mean, there's a process and I get it. And, you know, it's just the tax. Congrats on everything. I think it's been cool to watch from afar. No, I mean, you're from there and all of a sudden you own these two teams and they become even better assets and staples of the community than they used to be. And you have this whole thing going now. Hopefully you'll get some luck in the lottery.

2:50:19Bill Simmons:but that's the thing you never know you have these four guys at the top and it's like pick seven might be the best guy in this draft it is it is such a you know and the funny thing is is like like i i remember will the first day a couple years ago he's like okay great everyone come i don't care where you're drafted i don't want school you went to i don't care anything like your life starts today right like like once the season starts no one no one cares internally like where you were drafted, how it was. You got veterans that have come in in the second round. You look at the Rudy Gobert's, you look at the Jokic.

2:50:54It really has to do with who we're going to invest in and taking a 10-year view on this. I just feel really fortunate with the group that has chosen to do this with us. Starting with Austin and then Will and DA obviously. What a

2:51:13Bill Simmons:blessing to have that dude around you know you know i remember being at the 22 finals and they invited danny to sit courtside with the celtics owners for one of the games and will hardy was really just involved or maybe it was 23 it was 22 or 23 when did you hire will hardy was it 23 yeah i think it was 23 maybe it was the 23 playoffs but i could see danny looking at will Hardy and watching how involved he was. And I said to my dad, Oh no, Danny's studying Will Hardy. This is bad. Because we knew Will Hardy, everybody loved Will Hardy, but I was like so not surprised when you hired Will Hardy.

2:51:53Well, people would ask and be like, he's like, I don't know. I like what that, I like what Boston, but who was the youngest coach in the league at the time? Yeah, he was great. We hired him and he's been... I'm glad he finally gets to go for wins now. He's an awesome partner. like and it's it's you know it's funny like danny austin and i all golf as will you know we're all golfers and you know it's it's fun like we can all just go play and then the time the end of the round is we have nothing else to talk about so it's good all right yeah and like a lot of times they're managing me i think it's like hey look okay whose whose job is it to go manage ryan a little bit.

2:52:34And, you know, it's been good. We're super fortunate.

2:52:38Bill Simmons:All right. I'm happy for you. Congratulations. Congratulations on everything. Thank you for all the time. Look forward to seeing you. I want to come to Salt Lake for a game at some point. So you should let you know, hang out with the angels. Good to see you. Thank you. Let's go. All right. Take care. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Brian Curtis and Ryan Smith and my dad and Gahal and Eduardo. Again, we don't know the schedule for Sunday yet. So check out on social media. We're definitely going live on Netflix at some point. Will it be after a game seven? Will it be after two game sevens?

2:53:06Bill Simmons:Will it be after just one game one? We don't know. We'll find out tomorrow night and you have a whole weekend to watch Borat because that's going to be the next rewatchables on Monday. Enjoy the weekend. I will see you on Sunday or Sunday night.

2:53:31You are sweeping on the wayside. On the first side of the day.

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