Lakers-Warriors Takeaways, Wilt Chamberlain, 'White Lotus,' and Half-Baked Ideas With Rob Mahoney and Kevin Wildes

24:52And frankly, we've seen all this stuff in action in a slightly different form with Cat versus Randall and, you know, no DiVincenzo. I just, I really like what they're putting together. And I think they're playing great basketball right now. Yeah, and all the advanced stats back it up. and they can shoot. And I'm with you. I'm never going to love Randall, but there's a physicality with him. If we're all being honest. But there's a physicality with him lately that I think there's a little bit more of an identity to the team as a whole when you watch them, where they've got size, identity, and Ant is just, there's no player on any other team that he doesn't think he's better than, for better and worse.

25:29And that's just the way it goes. I thought Denver, Minnesota, I thought that other night, I had already put my pod up with Zach on Tuesday before those two games and to watch Curry and Jokic do that back to back I know you guys talked about it in your pod but just that five hours of two of the great offensive players in the history of the league really really having a night and it just was all in a row and it got to the point with the Nuggets and it seemed like so many different times they had that game or they were going to lose that game and then it really seemed like they had it. And then Russ, who is just wandering around with a fucking pitchfork ready to just stab somebody with it.

26:09You just see it in these crunch times. You're just terrified. He's the Texas Chainsaw Massacre guy if you're rooting for Denver. But he's not even doing that. He's stabbing himself. He's like falling on his own rake over and over. It's a disaster. He was already horrible in the crunch time overtime section where there was eight times were like, just take him out. You're better off just not having him out there. He just didn't have it. And then he has that stretch in the last 10 seconds. And it was one of those games where you're like, when we get to game 82 on Sunday and we're trying to figure out all the playoff matchups, I feel like we're going to go back to that game and be like, remember that stupid game when Russ screwed up the Denver game?

26:47And now Denver's in the four spot playing the Lakers in the four five and then the loser or the winner plays OKC and they could have been three and played Houston in round two and just felt like one of those. And conversely, Minnesota, who if they can get to, even if they're in the 7-8 and they can get that 7, but I just want to play Houston. That's where I've landed with all these things. I want to play Houston. I want to play Memphis. Those are the two teams that I just think are a level below all these other ones. I think the exception to that would be if Denver slides and ends up somehow in the play-in, which is not incomprehensible.

27:25These teams are really bunched up. Yeah, it's like they'd have to drop two more, it looks like. They'd have to drop a couple spots. I think the Rockets could give the Nuggets a real run. I think that's a tough matchup for them. And I say this knowing the Rockets just blew a game against Denver with no Nikola Jokic. I'm acknowledging it. It happened. I don't think it's representative of the matchup. I think if you give these perimeter demons a chance to make Jamal Murray's life a living hell for seven games, I think they will do it. I think they have enough size to really gum things up. I think they're so physical.

27:56And that's really the question with Houston is what teams would really be bothered by high-end athleticism and high-end physicality. And I think Denver might be one of those teams, despite the fact that their lineups are quite big themselves. Yeah. And the other thing that really helps Houston is their half court in the last six, seven, eight minutes is pretty brutal. It can be. But against Denver's defense, it doesn't have to be that brutal. And then you have the Russ turnovers working in your favor. You know, you got some free opportunities on the board. Well, those guys, they're going to have their team.

28:26hopefully in this last week. Russ, I just can't imagine he sees crunch time again. You can't do it. It's too risky. Probably not. They play the Warriors on Friday night. Yeah. They end the season with the Rockets, which could be an all-time... Wait, what are these two teams up to? We're just guys... One team's just scratching multiple starters right before we go. Are we still doing the last day of the season? Like all the games are basically happening at the same time to prevent this sort of chicanery? Is that still going on? I haven't checked the schedule. Did that work? But didn't they do like the non-games and then the important games?

29:03Didn't they stagger them in some way? I mean, all you're really doing is forcing an assistant coach to sit on the back row with an iPad. You know, like they're still going to be watching. Well, so then the other piece is this Dallas-Sacrament of Phoenix Factory of Sadness and Portland somehow still alive even though they're just like, can we just get Cooper Flagg? Oh no, we won again. Dallas at 38-39, Sacramento 36-40, and Phoenix at 35-41. I've gotten to the point where I'm rooting against Phoenix because I don't want to see them in the play-in, but I don't want to see Sacramento in the play-in either.

29:40And I don't want to watch Dallas at all. I mean, Dallas might host a play-in game where the crowd is chanting fire Nico about the general manager as the play-in game's going. So I just kind of want to get to the final eight and see where it goes. The Clippers thing is the most interesting where they land. Because that's just a horrible 1-8 draw for a team that goes 69-13. Oh, my God. Here's your reward. The Clippers. They're healthy. Well, they're healthy for now. Yeah, they're healthy for, yeah, I guess today. We'll see. Wait, before you go, Draymond Green, Defensive Player of the Year. I'm sure that helped today.

30:19He had a nice big, awesome nationally televised game. was all over the place. I thought that was the most... Against the Lakers, he's always a little weird because I think, especially when it was against LeBron and AD and you always felt like he was kind of a tempered Draymond because those were his friends and he wasn't doing like usual Draymond shit. Tonight, he was not tempered. I thought he was very alpha-y and looked like the Draymond that we've become accustomed to. Defensive Player of the Year. Yeah, I think he's going to win. Is he a Defensive Player of the Year for you? I don't think so.

30:53I mean, look, he's Draymond Green. He deserves consideration. Probably deserves a place on the ballot at the end of the day. I'm more of an Evan Mobley voter at this point. Just the utility of what he brings to that defense. How many people he's constantly bailing out on every defensive possession. The flexibility between the 4-5 is not dissimilar from Draymond. I just think he is an absolute monster on that. And Draymond, if Draymond had been playing defensively the way he's played the last, I would say, 15 to 20 games all season, we're having a very different conversation. I don't think the first part of the season, especially the first half, he was quite at this peak elite level.

31:34This is still really high-level defensive play. I'm not disparaging Draymond Green. He's incredible, particularly on that end of the court. I just don't think he's put together the total body of work for it. I think it's a great point because the other one I was looking at was Lou Dort. I talked about that with Zach. Just separating everything, He's the best defensive player I've seen this year, but they're so afraid to give the perimeter guys that award. But he's done the most interesting stuff on defense for me. Do you take any responsibility for the perimeter gun shyness after the Marcus Smart debacle?

32:07Do you think that's what radicalized all of us? It might have. But that was a little bit like this year. This year, I mean, the problem with this year is Wemby should win defensive player of the year every year, and he got knocked out. And it's, you know, it's just almost like a political convention where the candidate everybody thought was going to win is out. And now it's all of a sudden there's 10 people arguing on stage. I just, I don't feel like any of these are like the greatest possible candidates. The same thing with Rookie of the Year where it's like, all right, I guess we got to vote for somebody.

32:41There's like 50 people deserving of all defense consideration. and I don't feel great about any of them necessarily as like the definitive defensive player of the year. You're right. Without Wemby, there is a vacuum. It's unavoidable. It's the most fun award subplot since it looks like MVP is a wrap. Coach of the year is just like, just do a shot and do a whip it and then just pick one of six guys. Is there a wrong coach of the year choice? I'm leaning toward Dagnall right now and he's definitely not going to win, but it's like if they win 70 games, I'm probably going to vote for them. Atkinson's good.

33:19Bickerstaff's good. You just pick five guys. It's easy. I feel like the Thunder, like Shea, I agree, is the favorite to win MVP, probably will win MVP. Otherwise, they suffer from that problem where their team is so good and there's credit going in so many different directions that Mark Dagnall probably isn't going to get the credit he deserves. Lou Dort probably isn't going to get the credit he deserves. They have so many good players who are probably going to be under the threshold for games played and so they won't get consideration for various teams and things. But holy shit, like there's so many places to assign credit for what OKC has done.

33:52And I think if you want to talk about the reason why they won as many games as they did, it's the professionalism and the intensity they play with every single fucking game. And that either comes from Mark Dagnall or it comes from Shea or both. And if you want to credit either of those guys for that, I think it's more than deserved. I'll throw in this too. Caruso 50 games. Hartinstein, 54. Chet, 28. Jalen Williams, 65. It's not like this team's been a healthy juggernaut all year. Like they hit the first two months of the year. They didn't have a center for like one of those months. None of it mattered.

34:28His name was Jalen Williams. He was their center for a fucking month. None of it mattered. Crazy. There you go. Well, for the listeners, you can skip forward from right here if you're not watching White Lotus because I have to talk White Lotus with Rob for one minute. So if you don't care about that, just skip forward ahead to Kevin Wilds because we're going to keep going. But if you do care about White Lotus, stick around because I'm going to ask you about White Lotus. 90 minute season finale. Yep. They won't send us screeners. Joanna Robinson, Mallory Rubin and I are going to be downtown LA watching it live, going live right after on YouTube.

35:01Have no idea what's going to happen. Is this going to be crazier than we expected or is it going to be like weirdly disappointing and more like thoughtful, existential, Buddhist, like we're going to have like almost like a philosophical religious experience or is there just going to be bodies everywhere? It is going to be a religious experience. Also, first of all, thank you for inviting me on now the third White Lotus Splinter pod. We've had every permutation of hosts possible. This is the only one left. This is the only one left for the finale. I will say, I don't know if this is great PR and marketing by them, but all the little quotes that are coming out from the cast hinting at the ominous results of the finale had me a little spooked.

35:45And again, maybe I'm just being played. I think the body count or the philosophical fallout is going to be pretty significant. I don't quite know which one yet. I went back and watched the first scene. Gunshot. Pause. Gunshot. Pause. Gunshot. Gunshots. Did you see any monkeys holding a gun? didn't see any monkeys well i mean i don't know they're going tarantino where three different groups of people are all shooting at each other yeah who knows but in the trailer which came out for the last episode they really play up the poisonous fruit in the first 20 seconds which we had talked about in our pod and you talked about on the deep dive pod about the fruit the blender they just kept coming back to it how annoying the blender is but now they put that in the trailer and now i don't know is that a red herring or what's i know especially because we i think we still have one tim ratliff vision yet of him wiping out his entire family at one time and maybe that is where the blender or the fruit come in is like the visualization of this terrible thing but not actually happening i don't know i mean he's not a good place he's just been walking around for days stoned out of his mind ready ready to do something to somebody.

37:03I got to say his usage rate's probably been a little too high. Yeah. I probably would have put him in the corner more just for spacing. Just then actually run plays for him. I think he can run some plays, but like when Shay's out, you know, like make him Aaron Wiggins and then we're all going to be fine. Was this the right number of episodes for you or was this six episodes stretched to seven so far? I think it was a little too many. I like that. It's not really a pacing problem so much as when people are off screen or kind of set to the side, they just idle in place for an indefinite period of time.

37:34And so that eventually, I think, starts to wear out its welcome. I think it should have been seven episodes, just in general. I thought the first season was too short. The middle season was the right length. This feels a whiff long, and you probably could have gotten away with 65-minute episodes and had six of them instead of seven. Just a classic Goldilocks scenario. With all that said, I love this show. I've been defending it to people who have you know, it's year three, people start to get used to the format, they start pitching and complaining about certain things, I'm just like this show's great, I love this show I love being on vacation in some weird place I love the characters, I love the mystery, it's always keeping you on your toes and I'm glad it exists Extremely glad it exists I think too, I think this finale's gonna win some people over I think the calamity has been bottled up for this 90 minutes and maybe that's just the wrong read but I kind of feel it in the air.

38:28Who is your favorite character this season? I love, I mean, I love Carrie Coon. So I am Lori Pilt. And everything chaotic happening around her right now is just a joy to watch. I can't be mad about any of it. Lori is also my, she's my second. Nah, she's my top three. I'm not going to pick a favorite, but my top three are Chelsea. Wait, you literally just asked me to pick a favorite. You have to pick a favorite. My podcast. No, all right. I'll pick my favorite. Chelsea's my favorite. Okay. Lori second, Saxon third. Saxon's coming up the power rankings. Watching Joanna do a 180 on Saxon was my highlight of 2025 so far.

39:09One of the great joys. Saxon's just bringing people together as his enlightenment processes within his tiny little brain. He's just bringing people together in really a celebration of everything that he's all about. So do you think Lockie, do you think he actually took the drugs that night before the threesome? Do you think he was actually drugged up? Or is this some sort of weird power play with him? I thought I had escaped the wake of talking about brothers jerking each other off. But we get dragged back into these things. I think he did take the drugs. I think it's maybe like paying a little too close attention to think that he spat them out.

39:51But I don't know why Lotus is a show that cares about the details. Maybe it's not impossible. You know, I ask because my daughter, who not only watches the show, but is intently following the TikTok conversation around it and always tells me this is a big thing on TikTok right now with some dumb aspect of the show. She claimed there's a TikTok where it doesn't seem like he took the drugs. It definitively proves that Lockheed did not take the drugs. Yeah, because TikTok would never lie to us. and there's no devices to twist any footage around in anything. Of course not. So I can't wait. White Lotus, so we're doing the live one and then you're doing the deep dive a couple days later with Joanna.

40:30And then we go right to the playoffs. I know, rolling right into it. Yeah. All right, Rob Mahoney, great to see you. Thanks, Bill. Thanks. The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by FanDuel. As you know, it's the final stretch of the NBA season. Playoff picture changing every second. Every three-pointer, fourth-quarter comeback means that much more with live betting on FanDuel. You can make the playoff picture a little prettier, a little more fun. Whether you're looking to ride with a hot shooter, you think a team is due for a run in the second half, get in on the action until the final buzzer with America's number one sportsbook.

41:01We have Denver Golden State coming on Friday. What a fun game to bet on. I have no idea if Denver even, where do they want to be in the rankings? So they want to be four, five, six, that they want to stay at three. We know Golden State wants to keep moving up, kind of like Ole State in that matchup, by the way. However you want to play, now is the perfect time to join FanDuel customers that are new. Get started with$200 in bonus bets if your first$5 bet wins. Visit FanDuel.com slash BS to join today. Make every moment more with FanDuel, official sports betting partner of the NBA. You must be 21 plus president of select states or 18 plus and president in DC.

41:36First online real money wage or only$5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as non-drawable bonus bets which expire seven days after receipt. restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.famber.com. Get them a problem, call 1-800-GAMBER. Visit rg-help.com. This episode is brought to you by Loom by Atlassian. Some things, they're just unnecessary. You see this in the NBA all the time. Why do you keep talking to that ref? He's going to tee you up. Stop doing it. Stop doing it. And then they keep doing it. And guess what? They get a tech to go. It's just as unnecessary as tedious business meetings.

42:07Good thing, you can use Loom instead. Use Loom to simultaneously record both your screen and yourself to share a quick update, provide feedback, train a colleague, everything in between, whatever. Plus, add Loom AI to your meetings for instant written notes and recordings. Try Loom today at loom.com. That is L-O-O-M.com. All right, we're taping this part of the podcast. It is late afternoon, East Coast time. Kevin Wilds just got off the set of First Things First. It's like talking to Clark Kent right after he got out of the phone booth. Wow. Thank you. Yeah. You got your, you still have your little handsome sports TV outfit.

42:46You just finished slinging takes, slinging takes like they were hash. I'm feeling great. Feeling great. Great time of year. Is April the best take month? Is this the most going on? NFL draft. Nobody really knows what they're talking about, but we all feel like we have to have takes on that. NBA playoffs are coming up. There's already NBA trade stuff happening. first month of baseball season. Got some baseball takes. March Madness takes. There's some Avengkin. Some March Madness is still in there. Masters is coming up. I think it's the best month for talking out of your ass when you don't really know what's going on.

43:18Are you sure? It's either if April is your first draft pick for takes, I would say week one NFL season that Monday or that Tuesday once the Monday night. Overreaction Monday? Oh, the first overreaction Monday. is just magnificent. But this is a good one. Overreaction Monday, it's just percolating that whole day of the first games back. Everyone's just ready to go nuts. Great teams off. The Eagles could lose by one point. I don't know. They probably peaked last year in the Super Bowl. Weren't ready. It's just great. I'm proudest of myself for the NFL draft because I watch maybe one or two college football games a week.

44:04If that. And have no idea what I'm talking about. But then I read all the mock drafts and I watch YouTube clips and then decide I'm an expert. Who do you want the Patriots to take? Because I've convinced myself I'm happy with four guys. Four guys? So I'm at Hunter. Yeah, Travis Hunter, Abdul Carter, trade down. Those are my three options. I'm happy with Will Campbell. And I'm happy with, I don't really want TMAC. but I kind of if we go offensive line I'm okay with it I mean T-Mac now this is one of the draft takes that's emerged is are we sure he's the best receiver in the draft oh come on Matthew Golden buzz McShay is pro Matthew Golden on the newsletter and the podcast he's doing he has Golden as the best receiver it's really fun when you have quarterbacks because it seems like Cam Moore is definitely going to Tennessee but when you have this quarterback situation with the two teams that desperately need a quarterback Cleveland and the Giants.

45:04But then nobody really seems to think Chador Sanders is a top eight pick and just how desperate. It's the age old philosophy. Some things change, sports changes, basketball, we're shooting more threes than ever. Baseball, we get a torpedo bat. Everything evolves in every sport. And then in football, should we take this quarterback this high, even though we're not positive he's a good prospect, is like the eternal question forever. I'm almost positive if Shador is good. I think Shador, if both teams pass on Shador and he has the Shador slide, I think that would be insane. If he ends up on the Steelers, I think it'd be great for the Steelers.

45:45But the Giants cannot pass on him. That would be bonkers. Well, the one thing that happens is if the first couple teams pass and the guy falls out of the range, sometimes then the guy almost has a little bit of a stink on him. And then the fall starts and it's like, And then, I mean, Rodgers is the most famous example of this, but this has happened in other years where it's like, oh, all of a sudden the guy's going to go to 17. I don't have it in front of me. But then after the Giants, there's a run of teams that don't need quarter. Starting with us, we don't need a quarterback. Then there's a run of teams, and I guess you get to, now with Geno's deal, the Raiders are out.

46:20Then it's the Saints. Well, you could say the Jets, but then they just paid all this money to Fields. Yeah. Yeah, the Jets would be interesting. I can't imagine he'd go by the Saints because the Saints are so handicapped by the cap that I don't understand how they would not pass up a chance to get somebody. But you'd have to really think he's going to be not good. Yeah. You know? All right. I don't know. You read like pocket presence, tough as nails. Yeah. Read stuff fast. He's been in the spotlight for a few years. There's all this intangible stuff with him. Then other people are like, he's just not a good enough quarterback.

46:56So, yeah, the draft's fun. We get to argue about arm length. basketball. We're talking about a playoff picture that just changes every day. It's ridiculous where you're like, coming up, what happens if Denver plays the Lakers? It's like they just might never play the Lakers. Coming up, are the Rockets the second best team in the West, which they are, or are they just a first round fodder ready to go home? Hey, are the Grizzlies a dangerous playoff team or should they blow the team up? We don't know. never know i was thinking with lebron if anyone's generated more takes than him and it has to be wilt chamberlain has to be the answer but i don't think the take infrastructure was in in place at that point great great but i think infrastructure so good take infrastructure was not there we just said newspapers and we had like local networks and some magazines like sport and Sports Illustrated and then just people arguing in bars.

47:53But I still feel like he's the most polarizing NBA star of all time. He's still polarizing now. Wilt? You think Wilt or LeBron? I think Wilt. I think it's 100 % Wilt. Do you count the take infrastructure? If two guys are arguing in a bar, it's a little bit if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around. Does anyone hear the take? Does the take still count or does it have to be recorded on someone's podcast that, you know, a lightly listened to podcast that two buddies are doing from a local bar that counts with the two guys in the sixties take doesn't count. Well, what's crazy about the sixties.

48:34And this is how I ended up deciding to write a Chamberlain Russell chapter when I did my book, when I was doing all the research, so many people weighed in on Wilt and it was players. It was stuff that never happens now, like long paragraphs from like Bill Bradley saying, here's why Wilt's a loser. Just laying out like in the book that he wrote. And you're just like, holy shit. Like people could just never decide who this guy was, whether he wanted to win. Even Russell was pretty critical of him. I'm ready for the Wilt, the Wilt Renaissance. It's already happening. You think so? He has a lightly managed YouTube presence where every once in a while the algorithm will serve me up.

49:18Like, here's Wilt blocking one from the top of the backboard. What? Here's Wilt jumping over a guy. Here's Wilt hitting a four hookshot corner threes for fun. Like, oh, I'm ready for the take of, you know, who's the best player of actually of all time? It was Wilt. that's that's going to come back because we're in the so-and-so was a problem era of social media where it's this is how I was thinking about Wilt last week because one of those accounts fed me game six Bucks Lakers 1972 Bucks are defending champs they have Kareem Kareem's like just killing everybody Wilt in the seventh in the last game is it the blocks he he's blocking Kareem's skyhook.

50:02This was fed to me. This was fed to me. It was riveting. It was riveting. I watched it. I was like, oh my. And then it was like, Wilt had 22 points, 24 rebounds and 10 blocks. I was like, he did? Why are we being fed the same stuff? I know. It was the for you. It's the for you tab. They know we like basketball. So this sent me on some deep dive rabbit hole. I went to basketball reference. When I did my book, they didn't have the box scores past like 1986. So I went to basketball reference and I was like, I got to find out more about this series. It was Oscar Robertson and Kareem on one side and West and Wilt Chamberlain on the other.

50:40So it's four of the best 12 players ever in a series. That seems like a big deal. The Lakers won 33 games that year. Milwaukee had won the title the year before. Kareem's killing everybody. So I went and looked at the stats and it made me even more confused. Wilt shooting like three times a game, four times a game. Like for real, you can go on the box scores. Even in this last game when he was awesome, he was like seven for 10. It was like, why did Wilt stop shooting? He scored 100 points in a game. That's odd. Why did he just turn into a rebound block shot guy? And then Kareem was like 35 and 20 the entire series.

51:14What year was that? 1972. Okay. So the 70, yeah, the 71, 72 Lakers. We just did a thing about the Thunder. winning percentage. And it was the Warriors team, obviously. Then it was Jordan Bulls, Thunder in the middle. Then that Lakers squad, it was like Jerry West was on it. And then I guess Elgin had a cup of coffee. I was looking at the thing. And Kyle Riley was there. And who else was there? The guy that no one talks about. Gail Goodrich. Gail Goodrich. I'm a blank slate when it comes to Gale Goodrich. But Gale Goodrich averaged like 26 points in the playoffs. Well, I read every Sports Illustrated story about it and it was 2-2 after four games and then the Lakers won the last two.

52:03And one of the keys to the series was Jim McMillan, who struggled with weight during the first part of his career. His teammates called him Pudge Ball, but then he lit it up in the series. And I was like, imagine this now. This would be two days of Jim McMillan arguments. I always knew he had a bit of got rid of the donuts and he's came to play but the the league back then like they just you know it was a pretty it was doing okay but you have this series that really if it happened now would be this incredible series where you have like some of the greatest players of all time battling like real stakes back-to-back versus a 33 game winning streak i didn't know anything about it so yeah well i have no idea why he stopped shooting i would watch like a 15 episode Will Chamberlain thing.

52:51If it was done correctly. Start working on it. Then he did, he just quit and started playing volleyball. He had that whole stretch. Very interesting. Was he playing professional volleyball? Yeah, played professional volleyball. Could you imagine lining up and seeing Will Chamberlain come in for the first day? The first day where it's like, you know, there's no social media. You don't even know who's going to show up. And all of a sudden it's like, is that will chamberlain right that is him right that's will chamberlain right yeah there was another thing that got fed to me with it was will chamberlain when he was 16 playing with pros and he's the same will chamberlain body but he's super skinny and just like completely dominating everybody and i think i think will it's underrated as a twitter because sometimes young shack will have a moment on social media too where he's just like going full court and dunking over guys and like oh jesus you know what the the young shack moment that gets a lot of play on social media all-star warm-ups is jordan guarding him i think it's just a war it's just they're like joking around and he has like some sort of crossover he looks like stan van gundy like a crossover spin layup on jordan like yep that will work like yes young shack yeah because i'll go to twitter and now it like defaults to the for you page but the for you page is getting better and it's just serving me basketball now constantly so like the other day i went on and it was kobe against rip hamilton in a 1996 mcdonald's all america practice and i was like watch kobe light up rip hamilton i'm like absolutely how many how many minutes is this can i watch this this looks great this is great content.

54:41Shout out to the algorithm. The algorithm is starting to work. Yeah, that's right. Instagram, it gets, they definitely, Instagram is a little gamier with the stuff they push. It's a little seedier. It's like two in the morning, kind of wandering around New York City, kind of seedy. Twitter, they'll push you most of the sports and then something horrible that you don't have any interest in, like some sort of hardcore political or whatever, but I like the basketball stuff. So what sports storyline right now are you the most fascinated in? What is it? Is it NBA related? Well, I'm a little bit obsessed with Will Campbell's arm length, but I'm gonna put that aside.

55:22That wave probably crested for me. How about that there were two different measurements? One was 32 and a half, and then the other was 33. And he's like, I'm actually a 33. Yeah, and his wingspan got, the longer his arms got, the shorter his wingspan got. Yeah, I didn't get that. It's just absurd. I talked to Jeff Schwartz about it. He's like, it's nothing. He'll just be able to go like that and he'll be fine. I guess it's, I guess it's the, it's not, I want to be positive. I guess the number one story, it's not super like out of the box, is can the Luka LeBron experiment, if you want to call it that, gel fast enough to get a championship.

56:07I still think that's the number one story. Yeah, and there's no answer, so you could just talk about it in circles forever and nobody knows until we see the playoff game. And the fact that they were the number one defense for a good stretch, how did that happen? Was that just a string of luck and hustle? And is that going to come down? And then I guess the other thing that we're trying to figure out is the thing about the Thunder that I just mentioned and if they are truly like on paper a historic team if they don't win did they underachieve no one seems to be saying like yeah they don't win the finals they underachieved that's the 2016 Warriors right yeah yeah but they ran into a they they lost because they ran into a legendary performer so are they gonna that's not but So they lost.

56:59They lost because they suspended Draymond for game five. No, that's fair. It's a tough suspension. It's funny because Adam Silver has been in the circles recently because there's this growing conspiracy thing that I don't know how this would be true, but it's been a fun one to monitor that the league pushed for the Luka trade to the Lakers. It's a great one, though. It's turning into this generation's version of the frozen envelope with the Ewing lottery. I just can't. It's because there's no other explanation for the trade. So now the conspiracy people have nudged that way to that one. And I can't wait to get aggregated incorrectly for it.

57:41Did the conspiracy community already move off of they were trying to purposely sour the fan base to move the team to Las Vegas? I thought that was the first conspiracy out of the box. Listen, did I hop on that tricycle and take it around for a little spin in my living room? I did. I did. I tested it out. It's pretty ludicrous. I like the league brokering a trade. It's pretty funny, especially because they killed the Chris Paul trade to the Lakers 15 years ago. So it's just conspiracies make. But that's the thing. When there's no explanation for something, that's when conspiracies start. When it's just like, this is the dumbest trade ever.

58:21There has to be a reason this happened. None of the reasons fit. that's when you have conspiracies just bad call just bad decision here's the thing i i was going to do a thing on it took me a long time because everybody had their uh everybody had their own lucatake yeah and and i didn't i know like what's my angle on this it's such a bad decision and i came up with it it's a little story okay one day uh i was working on we would do like uh commercial maintenance and like painting and stuff. We take care of like parking lots and stuff. And, um, my boss got a job power washing. We were power washing, ironically, a car wash, the outside of a car wash.

59:08And the first day I went, I had sneakers on and socks and again, soaked. It's a real, it's not even a power wash, which we're like stripping the cinder block with this high powered pressure washer and it's socks on and wet shoes. And it was the worst. I'm like stomping around. It's just, I had like trench foot. Next day I said, I can't do this again. I'm going to wear sandals because we're going to do a two day project. Next day I wear sandals, pressure washing, pressure washing. The only thing worse than having trench foot is having all these little paint chips in between my toes and I'm stepping in there sharp and it's bothering me and annoying me so much.

59:48I have this pressure washer and I looked down at my foot, I said, Ooh, this would feel so good if I take this pressure washer and get, and I just looked at it and I just did it. And I, it was, and there was no conspiracy to it. There was no, like maybe Wilds wanted to get off of work and maybe he was upset with the job and maybe he wanted to go back and work on a different project. No, you know what it was? Just an absolutely horrible decision on my part to blast my own foot and some skin off. Oh, you lack some skin off? Oh, of course. Of course. It's a blast in my own foot. That is the Luka trade.

1:00:33It's just a really bad decision that I think immediately you recognize. Whoa, bad call on my part. So skin's hanging off Nico Harrison's body as the trade's being called in? Oh, wow. I didn't realize that. I did realize now that I think about it, if I could go back, I would, I would not do that again. That was, I think the only move, the only move for him is just to resign because I, at some point you only have one life we think. And if your life just for the next two years is you've, you've committed this reviled transaction and the whole point of like being a GM or whatever for a team, other than running the team, picking the players, but you also want to go to the games and be like, yeah, that's my team.

1:01:21And now that's been, I just don't understand what the win is for him at this point. Can't he, no, he's pot committed. He's in. He's all, this is it. He has to be all in. You can't resign. And then all of a sudden you get Cooper flag and someone else is like, man, we did it. So wait until after the draft, make sure you didn't get in the top three. You have to be like, you have to come out with some messaging. Like, look, defense wins championships. I'll never waver from that. I'm resilient. That's right. Tell me Amaral. Next time this franchise wins a championship, it will be because of defense.

1:01:58And I hope it's with Anthony Davis. This is good. So the best case scenario for him is the Lakers suck in the playoffs. They underachieve in some way or it doesn't work out. And there's more questions about Luka, even though there shouldn't be questions. But a little like after the finals last year, like, huh, he wasn't that good in the finals. and the Celtics really attacked him on defense. Yeah, like, oh, wore down a little bit. Maybe this could be a James Harden of this generation kind of guy. He'd have that. And then you would have whoever wins the title. It's like, man, like OKC wins the title.

1:02:31Holy shit, their defense. Wow. That's right. Defense wins championships. Then Nico's like, see what I mean? I'm just trying to tell you guys. We're just, you know, a little bit unlucky with Kyrie. One draft pick. He can't move. He has to give it a shot. You know what's funny? I have probably a hot take off the trade. If they had gotten Reeves in it with how good Reeves is. Yes. And it was Reeves and Anthony Davis and two firsts. Like we're in the ballpark of like, now I can start to see it. You can at least talk me into it after two drinks. That's the other part of it that's bad. It was just also trading Luca on its face.

1:03:12I can't believe we're talking about this. It's so funny. on its face is bad. Yeah. But then you still didn't get enough. Yeah. It's not getting enough is to me, if we're doing a seesaw, it's 70 % you didn't get enough. And then 30%, I can't believe you traded Luka Doncic. But it's still the 70 % of you just didn't get enough. Mikael Bridges got, was it five first round picks? Yeah, two of them were kind of blah. But yeah. It's still. Davis is like a top 12 guy, but he's a little injury prone, but yeah, it's a, I don't know what you do because you've, you've hurt the sport in a city in a way that we've kind of timeout never, never seen.

1:03:54Just to bookmark, just to not to book it, just to bookend conspiracy bill didn't hurt the sport. Did not hurt. Well, that's what I mean. It's hurt the sport in one city, but it helped in the other really helped the sport the idea it really helped the sport but did hurt the team also not ruling out Anthony Davis Pelican's Anthony Davis can he come back when we were having real conversations his PR numbers are Wilt Chamberlain-esque it's like remember that I don't know how long ago that was but he was having those killer seasons and then kind of flame out in the playoffs but man, I don't know. I kind of believe in Anthony Davis.

1:04:39I have an announcement for you. I have an announcement.

1:05:12they traded Mookie Betts Was that the beginning of the end or the final straw that broke the camel's back? I think it was like five straws that broke the camel's back because I love Mookie Betts. The whole point of sports is you want Tom Brady for 20 years. You want Jason Tatum for 20 years. You get one of these guys. It's like Dallas of Luca. You get one of these guys. this is like one fourth or one fifth of your life potentially that you're disguised on your team. And Mookie was like everything I wanted from a good player. Yes. So they trade him. I'm never the same. And it really made me, but now with this, uh, with the Red Sox, with Christian Campbell and with Roman Anthony coming and hopefully mayor, but especially how much fun it's been to watch Christian Campbell, these first few games.

1:06:03Um, and it's very similar to Mookie's rookie season where he just like, he's swinging from the heels on everything, but his bats hitting everything. And you just, you don't want to miss his at bats the way he carries himself. He had this thing the other day, Cora talked about where he said, um, he doesn't call his teammates teammates. Did you hear this? No, he doesn't say teammate. He says friend. Love it. He's like, these are my friends, my friend, Raphael Devers. He doesn't use the word teammate. I was like, this guy's out of Central Castings, 22. He's the most exciting rookie they've had since Mookie Betts.

1:06:39But then Roman Anthony, who's coming at some point this year, who's the best prospect in baseball. And you know what? I'm like, I was on the Castaway Island with Tom Hanks. You're back. Yeah, I was, you know, I was doing some spear fishing. Yeah. Sleeping in a cave, talking to a volleyball, but I think I'm back. Okay, welcome back. Yeah. You got to start following the Woo Sox. that's where I'm getting my like Roman Anthony takes I was like oh another home run I'm just seeing highlights I never see the guy strike out or ground out everything looks great well welcome back it's the only sport where when somebody's just an awesome prospect it makes the most sense in baseball when you just see somebody you're like that guy's fucking awesome I guess that can happen in basketball too but not in the same way because they're a little younger and they're competing against like grown ass men in baseball sometimes you have these dudes come in and you're like wow.

1:07:33You see some of the Roman Anthony highlights. They're like, wow. Are you worried about Devers on the flip side? My dad is. It's a big conversation with my dad. He had a hit yesterday. He was like, he came in fat in camp. It's his fault. He was like, offset about it. I like it. I like all the stories. It's like, it's one part injury. It's one part, certain amount of bats. It's one part he opened up his batting stance. And then I forgot, was it Papelbon said it? Yeah. Now, too many carbs. I'm like, oh, too many carbs would actually be the best thing. I think baseball has become the new David Stern NBA where every first month of the season they have some sort of controversy now.

1:08:11Like this year it's the torpedo bats. I was all in. I read every torpedo bat thing. I've been watching the Yankees quips of them. I was like, wow, this is, why is this legal? How are they doing this? Why don't other teams, like it's really fascinating. Loved it. I'm surprised. I didn't even know that we didn't, I didn't know that was a thing, considering if you have a kid in Little League and there's new bats coming out every three months. Yeah. Bats are like it's iPhone updates. Like, new bat. This bat's no good anymore. This bat is hotter. Oh, you need this bat. This bat's out of hits. We'd have to get a different bat.

1:08:48There's three different bats. The bat technology in youth baseball is out of control. So it was about time it caught up with Major League Baseball. You kind of graduated out of baseball bat parenting. you save yourself hundreds of dollars i look back at uh some of the kid sports that i had to sit through and baseball's way up there is the worst really yeah like what was he any good no no he it wasn't about whether he was actually good and i think the covet thing kind of ended the baseball but it stinks um it was just it's it's the the seating like the worst possible seating situations the long drives everywhere, the games, um, nobody has control over the pitches, over the mound, the ball's going everywhere.

1:09:34Kids are crying. Like if you go 10, that sweet spot with the boys between eight and 11, anyone's a candidate to start crying during the game. Everyone's like, it's just a rollercoaster ride, but the sports I missed, um, thank God gymnastics. That sounds It's horrific. Swimming sounds awful. Just from the parent standpoint. And then track and field. Those are the big three of the ones you don't want your kid to do. Baseball. I'm a baseball guy. I like being a baseball parent. Good to be outside at least. Yeah. Well, the other thing is, I think you're a little spoiled in Southern California. Right.

1:10:12We can't appreciate it. I also just like sitting outside for two hours. I won't do it in my backyard, but I'm happy to just sit outside in the sunshine. Like, oh, this is delightful. Also, nowhere to hide in baseball, which is nice. Play a lot of sports, like soccer. Hey, how'd the soccer game go? Oh, it's this person did this. And this person's like, no, dude, like, you're at bat. You have to hit the ball. You know what was part of the baseball thing for me? I thought the parents were especially annoying. It's a tough parent crowd, but the guy who has to go right behind home plate and videotape all his kids' pitches and he's blocking everybody.

1:10:50And then the two parents would get a little chirpy with kids on the other team. You're like, dude, these kids are 10. Shut up. It's a pretty bad scene for that. Confession, although I like all - You're one of those parents? No, I'm a center field parent. Oh, that's really smart. By myself. That's great. That's really smart. See, you're always a thinker. I like watching the game. I like watching the game. I like watching my kids games. And like, if I could have a, like a man cave, it would be like a isolation chamber. It would be like something that, that would be against the, you know, Geneva conventions.

1:11:30It would be just me in a room all by myself with, with, I would like to have Twitter to follow along, but I don't need anyone. I just like to be all by myself consuming the game. I don't like to hear anything. It's funny you mention this because when Ben was playing third base, I would sit in left field and I really enjoyed it because nobody was out there. I was still close enough to see what was going on with him. He could occasionally get the foul ball hit toward me. And there were no parents. Yeah. I don't know. Oh, this. If you're talking too much about the game, I just want to watch. And if you're not talking about the game, I'm annoyed.

1:12:05So it's kind of a... When the parents don't understand baseball. Isn't that a strikeout? No, it's three. It's two strikes. I think most people, I mean, that's a really basic. Yeah. No, it's only two outs. We're not adding any. Actually, I haven't had three outs yet. Let's, we'll take a break. We'll do half-baked ideas. All right. So you've been doing half-baked ideas with me pretty much ever since I've had a podcast. For whatever reason, none of them have been sold for millions of dollars. They're happening though. Every once in a while, one of them happens. Well, one of them got turned into a movie.

1:12:41The Purge. We didn't get any credit. We did our Leap Year movie became The Purge. I'll always believe it. The watch TV in a surround sound like you're in first base. Like you're in a front row seat. Yeah, that happened. That just happened. I didn't get any credit for that one. Start ripping them off. I have three bonus ones too, but I'll interspersed mine later because this is your show and your gimmick. Wow, thank you. I have two odor-based ones. Great. First one coming off of what happened to me last night. Supposed to take the dog out for a walk. Midnight-ish. It's kind of cold. I'll just let the dog out.

1:13:28I just let him out. He goes out. I hear a bark that is reserved for cartoon dogs. It's like, yowzers. So what's going on here? Come back downstairs, open the door. The dog's making like, he's like making noises. He's like drooling kind of like, as soon as he gets close to me, he has already been sprayed by a skunk. I realized he's sprayed by a skunk. Now he's in the house and he's slobbering. It's almost like getting a concussion. Oh my, it's, it's now, and he's moving around and he's bringing this stink everywhere. So you brought him in the house. That's the worst thing you could do. He was making noise.

1:14:13I didn't realize he had gotten sprayed until he was in the house. And now he's like freaking out. And I'm like, I got to take care of you. I'm not just going to, you know, just communicate him to the garage. I'm like, all right, we got to get in the tub. I bring him upstairs. Now you stink of skunk. I stink of skunk. I bring him upstairs. My wife wakes up. What smells? else he got he got he got sprayed by a skunk now I've got the ragu in there I'm pouring it on him and he's like kind of likes it he's like ragu tomato sauce yeah that's a thing that's what you do with dog gets cut yeah it's some sort of something about so did you google this no I kind of knew that oh I didn't know I think it's like peeing on a jelly like a jellyfish thing I think it's just convention like common knowledge okay I don't think you're supposed to use marinara sauce.

1:15:05I think you're supposed to use like tomato. I don't know. In any event, now I'm covering the dog up with tomato, with marinara sauce. My wife's like, it smells like skunk and garlic in here. I'm like, I know I'm making pasta in the tub, covering him up. He stinks. The place is a disaster. Moral of the story. I wanted, I needed someone to call and I had nobody. Like the wolf from Pulp Fiction for skunks. Nailed it. Oh. Wolf of skunks. That's exactly what I want. Some sort of wolf skunk thing. Call a guy, comes in, because now I'm going home and everybody else who went to work today is going home and is going to say, oh, I'm so happy I'm home.

1:15:53Home is where the heart is. And my entire house smells like something that God created to get animals away. And I'm just living in it. Also, I smell a little bit right now. It's like days. Isn't it like seven, eight, nine days? It's like burning popcorn multiplied by a hundred. And he moved all around and it was on his mouth so as he was drooling like the skunk smells in the rugs. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Call the wolf. I feel like that can't be the only job for the animal wolf. There's got to be a couple other things like bit by a rattlesnake. He knows what to do with that. Oh yeah, he can do all.

1:16:38He's got like five specialties. Yes, that's sure. I would just like to call him take care of the skunk smell, but also if you coincidentally got bit by a rattlesnake that would also work. So that's just a one that happened last night. Here's the real one that I actually thought of. Tough one for the dog, man. Getting sprayed close by a skunk. It's honestly a concussion. He actually started to like it. He liked the attention. Okay. He's going to court skunks now. Okay. This one is called Home Odors Association. This is just a coincidence from the skunk thing. Okay. Okay. This is going to upend the real estate market.

1:17:23All right. real estate is usually based on visuals, right? Curb appeal of the home. What type of view do you have? You have a view of the water, a view of the, you know, nice forest perhaps. And if it's, so it's one part, visuals are probably the top dog. Sometimes real estate's based on sounds. Oh, it's a quiet neighborhood. Or if you're too close to the highway, it's loud and that will hurt the value. Yeah. It's never based on smells. So I came home the other day, someone was cooking up several cheeseburgers and I was like, wow. I was just walking home like, this smells. What a great smell. Develop a property and maybe you got to figure out the wind patterns or you have a little pop-up barbecue places.

1:18:15Yeah. And they don't even have to make money because the money is within the smell. So it's like a grilling a cheeseburger smell, just a lot of the time. A bakery. We have a bakery in Portchester. There's a bakery. It smells wonderful. Ride my bike around. I was like, wow, should I go get some fresh bread? Was there another level of this where it's almost like you have a surround sound system in your house, but instead it's a surround smell system? And you're like, today I'm going to pass out the smell of burgers being grilled. And they just go through your house? I love it. Yeah, I mean, that's just diffuser.

1:18:50Can't AI come up with that? AI can do everything. AI is overrated. Pizza, pizza burning on a wood grill smell. Here's another one. This is not, this is not artificial. I'm doing the real thing, you know, not just like a fake, I'm not a Yankee candle out here. An old man with a pipe. He comes to your house. Cause I don't, I don't want the nicotine. I don't want, you know, the chance of diseases. And I don't want the secondhand smoke. But while you're at work, an old man with a pipe will come and sit down in a chair. Just for two hours? Yes. And then leaves. And then leaves. But you go in there like, wow, it smells like folk music here.

1:19:32It smells great. You made me think of LA Live walking to where we both used to do TV and do TV shows and Grantland was there. That there was that restaurant and it would spew out the hot air from the air conditioning that smelled like food, like burgers and dogs. but it was like this hot, humid, disgusting version of the smell. And when you walk through it, you got hit by it every time and you would always forget it was there. You know what I'm talking about? Was it good or no? Bad, bad smell. It was like a hot heat, hot heat, like kind of food that was already made, gross smell. I don't remember that.

1:20:07And I got hit by it last week. And you didn't like it? In the garage, did not like it. All of your odors sound much better. Yeah, it has to be positive odors. That's what it's called. One part Winston Wolfe of Skunks, one part Home Odors Association. Really great. Great start. You want to go on another one? Yeah. Combine. I'll start here. One of the legendary Pro Days story, Kobe's Pro Day, where Jerry West brings in Michael Cooper. Yeah. And Michael Cooper was 40 years old. Kobe cooked him up. Jerry West realizes that Kobe is a superstar. He knew it, but that is a legendary pro day story. I'm seeing Cam Ward.

1:20:59Nobody's there. He's just throwing to no one. There's no opposition. Ashton Gentry, we had his pro day. He took his shirt off. Looks great. But he's running against literal garbage cans and jumping over little cones. So here's the idea. Remember Iron Mike Sharp? Yeah. That he would just come in and get beaten up and you're like, ah, that's entertaining. Iron Mike Sharp-esque former players. You're talking about wrestling jobbers. Yes. For your pro day. Come in like, hey. So football jobbers. Yes, but stars. Like Michael Cooper-esque. Like Aaron Donald, look. Yeah, he's not working out lately. Any interest in suiting up and trying to get past Will Campbell?

1:21:47Worst case scenario for Will Campbell, you hold your own against Aaron Donald. And I know you're thinking the pushback is going to be, pushback's going to be like, ah, Aaron Donald's been out of the league. Like, oh, so what? You tackled Barry Sanders. He's 45. I get it. But I forget which, Jake Paul Tyson. Jason, there is a glitch in sports fans' minds, and it's happening right now with Aaron Rodgers, that sports fans, and maybe this is because of Tom Brady's longevity and LeBron's longevity, that the glitch is we cannot process aging of our heroes, aging of superstars. We just can't quite get it.

1:22:35I talked about this two weeks ago. Brady screwed it up in football. Now we just assume Aaron Rodgers shouldn't be washed up. Of course he's going to be good. Because Tom Brady was good. We're not like, no, he was one of one. It's really only Brady and LeBron. That's right. They're the only two that made it into their 40s and stayed good. But if you are, you know, if you are a little bit younger than me, that was, they were the main figures of your entire sports universe. So of course the great players can go. Same with Mike Tyson. When I saw Mike, I'm like, oh, I don't know. Mike Tyson's got a chance.

1:23:08Even now it's like, no, Mike Tyson was pulling punches. Mike Tyson is older than I am. Yeah. Of course you can't absorb a punch. So that's why, wow. Look at Travis Hunter tracking down. Look at him lighting up Darrell Revis. Be great. Wow. Tackling Barry Sanders. Get Calvin Johnson out there. Can you lock up Calvin Johnson? Yeah. I think it would be great. So I also a good way for the old guys to stick around, make some money. And next thing you know, like maybe you guys get another shot at it. Right. Like Terrell Owens trying to cook Will Johnson. Yes. That would be tremendous. You shut down, shut down to you.

1:23:49That would work. Do you want, do you want my worst one, a decent one or one that I'm actually afraid to give out? Cause I feel like it's an actual idea. The, I like the, the one that you're afraid to give out. Your worst ones are usually pretty bad. Okay.

1:24:07Remember Masterclass when all the, would be like, Malcolm Gladwell teaches you how to write a book. Is that still a thing? Dave Chang, I don't know if it's still a thing or not. And you would watch these tutorials, but it was like, they would just get all these awesome people. Yeah. What is the biggest question couples ask one another every week? The number one thing, couples who are married, who are somewhere between my age group and your age group, even though we're pretty close to each other. The number one question we ask week after week. I mean, this sounds so lame, but like, what is our schedule this week?

1:24:47That's a good one. Yeah, that's probably, I had that number two. Number one, should we watch this?

1:24:58It's like, hey, Netflix, Go check Netflix. What's on there? Temptation Island. Should we watch this? Watch one episode? What's this new show, Adolescence? Celtic City on Max. Sports documentary at a team. I don't know. Is this a good one? Should we watch this? There's so much content. You never know what to watch, what not to watch, what's good, what's not good. Okay. And then you end up like you're on Google. you're checking out like oh did vulture write a recap of this they did oh wait the ringer wrote a piece that said they said this was good oh i heard on the white like there's this extra step well not with master critic okay let go ahead we're doing all ai for movies tv um reality so reality it's like should i watch temptation island dave jacoby hasn't watched it either he's are of reality.

1:25:56What we do have is AI Dave Jacoby, who's taken all of his takes on reality ever. And then take Temptation Island, the synopsis, what they've heard of the show, synthesize, and then you click AI Dave Jacoby and AI Dave Jacoby says, I think Temptation Island is going to be pretty good. I was a big fan of the one in 03 and just talks to you like Dave Jacoby, but it's AI. Same thing for AI Roger Ebert. Roger Ebert's back. he's reviewing movies again. We're going, we're calling, and by the way, his estate gets a share of masterclass, but we're calling 40 years of Roger Ebert reviews and AI can figure out would he have liked the movie that's about to come out.

1:26:36Me, there's a new heist movie. AI Bill Simmons, I'm dead. AI Bill Simmons. You don't need to, oh, maybe I can be alive. You don't need to be dead for this. It can just be a time-saving thing. You don't need to be dead. So it's Chris Evans and Denzel Washington are in Argentina and they have to commit a heist. And then I come in and I just say, yeah, you should watch this. That's all I got, Master Critic. All right, so this was - It's all AI. This is a, I hate to say, because you've done this before in our history of half-baked ideas. You don't totally grasp the concept. You think this is too fully baked.

1:27:15That's just called a business idea that you should have saved for some important meeting. That's why I was hesitant to give it out. That was, that's what you call a real good idea. AI Dave Jacoby? Yeah, that's a real idea. What about dive bars with Kyle? Like it's AI Kyle, Nephew Kyle, where it's just the AI can look at the dive bar and the sign and find out how many bars on tap and would Kyle go in there and spend four hours there? See, that's better. I feel like Master Critic has options for everybody. But the AI can go and look at the background and figure out exactly what people like. Yeah, it's basically you reverse engineering, like supposedly what Netflix was doing, like picking all of these characteristics.

1:28:02Yeah. Yeah. And then you're just reversing it. The thing I do like that I think you stumbled upon with Roger Ebert, like sometimes, or Cisco and Ebert, I will try to figure out if I want to watch something. Let's read this review. And it's this interesting review that the writer is writing all of these things. I'm like, all right. Here's what I like. Old school. Yeah. Thumbs up or thumbs down. Right. It's worth seeing or it's not. That's it. I don't need any vagueness. Thumbs up. Watch it. Thumbs down. Oh, it's Rotten Tomatoes. You ever get like a 77 % Rotten Tomatoes by the fans? But the other one is 62%.

1:28:46Like, huh? Am I supposed to? What? Thumbs up or thumbs down. That's all I want. I agree. That's good. That's a real idea though. Oh, thanks. Maybe I shouldn't give it away. No, that was. Well, at least I got it on the record. Now somebody has that. Now I have trademark. Did I, if I did this one already, Kyle edited out, but I don't think I have. Did some caroling over the holidays. I don't remember this one. Okay, good. I did some caroling. Well, we haven't talked to you since the holidays, so we definitely haven't heard this one. This is fresh. It'd be funny if you did do this and neither of us remembered it, though.

1:29:27No, I do think I have one of those, but I'll try. This one's fresh. So I did some caroling. Exactly what you think. Some strong eggnog. We got some songbooks. Walking around in the freezing cold. Singing. loved it, loved it. To the point where I stopped, I said, you know what, Lib? We should carol. Like, this should be our thing, too. Maybe we go to their house to carol one week, we go another week. And I was upset that I was going to have to wait 365 days to go caroling. There's no law against non-Christmas caroling. It's basically year-round caroling. Cesar's Chavez day. Let's get out there.

1:30:15Do some carols any day, any day, any day you want. Like it's what people talk about. I don't golf, but like, I'm like, I don't know. It's a golf. Like, look, you're out here with your buddies. It's a nice walk. You're having some drinks. You're spending some time together. And you know, it's a great time. You want to call it mobile karaoke? Sure. Let's all get together. What are we doing tonight? Oh, we're going to have a few drinks. And by the way, if you're singing, you're allowed to drink in public. That's just a little carve out of the law. I don't think. Bring caroling back. But I don't even know, is caroling holiday specific or am I just a door to door?

1:30:59I always felt it did. I feel like there needs to be a specific reason for caroling. Like in the holidays, it's because everybody's in cheerful mood and they're in the giving spirit. But what does that mean? But if I showed up on your doorstep up on July 4th to sing the Star Spangled Banner, you wouldn't turn me away. I got a cocktail. That's why this is half fake. I'd probably be like, why is that guy at our door? I have lots of friends. I give you a Budweiser. Let's go. We got, and we're just going down. We're just singing patriotic songs. It feels like this could be co-opted by bad people who would be like, let's do the thing where we pretend we're caroling and then we rob some houses.

1:31:36Oh, gee whiz. I mean, yeah. So I don't know if you look at that lens. The cynical guy. My goodness. All right. This one is more basic. All right. I'll do the other one that I think I don't think I've done. Have I done the anti-scout? No, I don't think so. This is a little bit like baseball because, you know, use sports right now. Yeah. Spending a lot of money, a lot of camps, traveling around multiple sports, people gunning for scholarships, a lot of pressure on the kids, a lot of pressure on the parents to keep up. Yeah. Oh, then you get to high school. Oh, oh, there's a scout here. Oh, oh my goodness.

1:32:22A scout from college or a scout from the big leagues. Yeah. Guess what I got? Anti-scout. The parents get excited. What a scout does, looking around for all the measurables, looking around to see if your kid's got what it takes to make it at the next level. The anti-scout comes to, basically the parents have to hire the anti-scout. Anti-scout goes, watches the games, does the same exact thing, then has a meeting with the parents, says, I want to tell you about a little Johnny. Congratulations. He doesn't have what it takes. Yes, let's go. We've saved$48 ,000 in expenses. Good news. Travel, camp.

1:33:16Great news. And he's got like an arsenal. Like, you know, when there's ever like, like it's always like denzel washington is always like out on you know denzel washington's trying to to put his life back on the you know the straight and narrow but then he has to meet up with his old cia partners like i can't believe i have to do this and they have the one scene where he has all the guns and he's got to choose that's what the anti-scout has like a table he's like come on over here and he opens it up and it's just like a chess board there's like a clarinet there it's just like there's just like several books on like engineering and the coding and stuff like that.

1:33:53The anti-scout, like you can, there's a, there's a recycling bin for all your baseball stuff, your cleats and stuff. Like, Oh, you're just out. Cause you're out that day. You can be out that day. That's probably too aggressive. That might, there might be a little more emotional. So anti-scout comes in and he meets with Johnny's parents. He's like, that's it. And they're like, what do you think? And he's like, Like, honestly, I watched him run to first base when he hit that line drive single. Heavy legs. And I don't think it ever changes. He's slow. But he's not upset. It's like, it's the way it is.

1:34:27Yeah, no, you're happy about it. It's like getting an offer. Like you're saving thousands. Like if you get a scholarship, you're saving thousands of dollars and everyone's thrilled. If you get a positive review, which is negative. You're still saving the money. You're saving those thousands of dollars. You're like, I've got great news for you. Yeah. This guy should pick up, you know, I think he's great with drum. Maybe that's it. Maybe we just head somewhere else. Like, I think he's going to be a great windsurfer. Like, really? Like, yes. The anti-scout. And parents, like, text chains are always calling the anti-scout to come in.

1:35:03Hey, he better play his best. I love the anti-scout. Also, it would be a fun sports movie. That's a good take, too. Write that one up.

1:35:39I got, alright, I got another one for you. Well. This is probably my worst one, but I feel strongly about it. This means it'll be the best. Baby names. Yeah. When you're having a baby, we just had a couple of our friends have babies. And there's like this whole thing where you don't really want to ask what they're thinking about a name. Yeah. Because they usually like some name. And then if you weigh in and you're like, ah, then, you know, and you have some sort of take, it actually could get a little awkward. So now we've hit this world where people kind of hoard the name and they're like, ah, we don't know.

1:36:11But they always know. You always know around month eight, you got like your three finalists. But I'm always amazed by, and I just thought of this because my dad just got a puppy because he's a psycho. He's 77. He just got a golden retriever puppy who, by the way, is a maniac. But he was going to name the dog Sophie because they always have these IE names for their dogs. I was like, I don't know. They're getting like this dog out of, they got the litter. They got the first pick of the girls. I was like, this dog's going to be a little bit alpha-y. Like Sophie sounds that, and more importantly, there's a ton of Sophies right now.

1:36:49It's like, there is? It's like, yeah, don't do Sophie. So, and we talked her into the name and the dog Ruby. So we call her Rubes and you get all these nicknames out of it. But it got me thinking, he didn't realize that Sophie was such a popular name right now. And what happens over and over again, when people have the names, they don't do all the work to find out like, oh, don't, don't name your kid Olivia. There's like a million Olivias right now. You're just going to be like, your kid's going to be Olivia W or Olivia S. Yeah, because you're out of the mix. If you're, if you don't, yes. So when we named our daughter Zoe, we were all excited about it because we didn't know any Zoes, but we didn't realize is there had been a slow stealth Zoe renaissance right before.

1:37:33So Zoe gets into, whatever. She's in pre-K. There's another Zoe. One of her best friends right now is also named Zoe. And there was all of a sudden Zoe's, Olivia's, Emma's, Ava. So I looked up the top five names right now for girls are still Olivia, Amelia, Emma, Charlotte, and Sophia. And then there's Mia, Isabella, Ava, Evelyn, Luna. You have two relatively young kids. So The boys are Noah, Liam, Oliver, James, and Elijah. Oh, no. Trending. Charlie, we got a lot of Charlies. Charlie's a big one. We got a lot of Charlies. Liam's a big one. Henry is in there. Henry. And nobody zags the other way.

1:38:20So that, this is my half-baked idea. Baby name consultant. So you go in and, does this exist? I think it straight up exists. Shut up. I think it straight up exists. like it's like a service yeah i think there's people that do that maybe i read about this that it was oh so rudy says 100 exists wow i have a big idea that's i guess fully baked both of you you have you have hit two fully baked ideas you're one well i had a whole other thing where you could go into the baby name consultant and be like we're thinking of something in like in 1977. Yeah, I think they do that. And then they go back and they look, and the biggest name in 1977 was Jennifer, followed by Melissa, Amy, Jessica, Heather, and Angela.

1:39:06By the way, names that no longer exist. Those kids are not... Oh, Saruti says it's infiltrated in his IG algorithm. Saruti's about to have a kid. Oh, nice. Saruti, what's the name? Saruti, just come on the Zoom. So this 100 % exists. Yep, yep. I'll get like three or four different women that come up and they basically, like you email them like, hey, I like Sophia, but I don't want Sophia. And they'll give you like a list of names that are like kind of similar vibes, come from the same origin, start with the same letter. So there you go. You know, it's very bougie. I don't do that. I just read lists all day.

1:39:42We don't have a name. Has this ever happened in Half-Baked Ideas where there's been a Half-Baked Idea? Like, is this a sign that we're getting old? Here's the thing. No, I think that you just need, you carve out your niche, Bill, of like sports names. Oh. That's the only sports... A sports specific name because I think, I don't know if the baby consultants are huge sports fans. So you could be like, hey, what about Gale? Gale Goodrich. Gale for a... Gale Sayers. Elgin. Yeah, go all like 70s. Yeah, Elgin. You could be like, that I think works. It's like how Jalen Rose. Jalen's name took off. Yeah, but now you shouldn't be Jalen.

1:40:26Saruti, don't name your kid Jalen if you're having a boy. But Jalen's one of the founders of the new business. It's like Jalen Rose, like, trust me, like, I'm the godfather of all of this. See, the reason I thought this was a half-baked idea, because the move is just don't do anything that everybody else is doing in the last 10 years. Go back, like, there's no Jennys anymore. Jenny was the most popular name when we were growing up. And there's like, nobody wants to name their kid Jenny, because all the adults all know people named Jenny and they want to zag. But really the move is to zag the other way and go with Jenny.

1:40:57I know, but everyone is zagging. That's the problem. Everyone's doing the opposite. It feels like it's a big like grandma name phase right now. Like names that were popular in like the 20s, 30s coming back. If you go back to like Rachel, you know, just like a name from the 90s. Kathleen. Yeah, I looked at the trending names right now, Wilds. Rachel was in the Bible. I don't know what 90s were. But like Rachel was a pot, you know, friends, that whole popularity. Do you know any babies named Rachel anymore? I don't know. Do you know any babies named Rachel? Arthur, Birdie, Celeste, Daphne, and Dorothy.

1:41:33So like the 1920s and 30s names are coming back. We'll probably have a Marge and a Madge, all that stuff. I like those. So Rudy, you just have to avoid having the name that your kid just has to have the last name initial next to their name for eight years. Yeah, that sounds like severance. yeah I was Zoe was in one class where there were three Zoe's and we were like we thought like there were maybe we were just naive anyway Saruti alright that one's fully baked thanks Saruti good job Saruti what's your next one Wiles um I've got moms no that one's no good I can't believe they're baby name consultants that this is a job I'm just stunned by this this is a quick one I just want to give you a quick take on it we went to Duke, Alabama.

1:42:22We sat on the baseline. It was in New Jersey, Prudential Center, I think. And I hadn't been to a, I don't know when the last time I went to a, I went to the UConn game at the Garden, but this was the first time I sat baseline. And we're sitting near the Alabama band, trombones, the whole nine. And it made me realize, and I think I'm right, but I hold out a chance that I'm just not, I'm misremembering it because the band was so, we were next to the band. That there was no music playing during the game. Like there is in an NBA game. There was no like, do, do, shh. Oh, yeah, yeah. It was just in timeouts, the band going crazy.

1:43:11So I'm just putting it out there. Bands at NBA games. Bring them back. Yeah, like you're Charlotte. You're playing out the string. put a band in there and it's happier. And it's great. It's just livelier. Like college games are like bands are underrated at this point. I think bands are underrated at weddings. I think they're underrated at sporting events. You're like, no, no, it's the DJ. They can do it. I know the DJ should be better, but just do the Pepsi challenge. Have, you know, a DJ on a street corner playing a popular song and have a full-on band the band is tremendous it's so an actual wedding band yeah yeah full-on kick-ass brass band playing in timeouts getting you fired up cymbals like it's just great it feels like you're there's something to it where yeah, they're not hit songs, perhaps.

1:44:14Perhaps they're just big cymbal crashes. But there's something about the liveness of it that they're performing, the game is happening. There's something special that college sports captures with a band that gets lost in the NBA with a reliance on DJs and playing sound during the games, which I am not a fan of. Nobody likes it. And they do it because if you don't do it, it gets too quiet in the arena and then people can yell stuff and then people get upset. The band thing, I would say one of the reasons is it's taking up space somewhere. Oh, boo-hoo. Well, that's, I'm just saying, these guys are all greedy.

1:44:52That's why we have 82 games instead of 70 because these guys are grabbing every dollar they can. That does make sense. Ballmer could have done it. There's a lot of seats. Yes. Ballmer could have done it. Ballmer could have been like, I'm building the best arena ever. And by the way, we're going to have a band and not like a college band. It's going to be like a big ensemble Doobie Brothers kind of band that during timeouts, it's like when a late night TV show goes to commercial and all of a sudden the band kicks in. That's what we're doing, folks. I think Steve Ballmer should do that. Maybe he's listening.

1:45:26It's a great idea. 100 % he should do that. I think it's good for everybody. Everyone loves a band. No one dislikes a band. Great one. What's your next one? This one's too stupid. but I'm reluctant. Oh, this is another quick one. Then I have an insane one. What do you think about the jumping three-pointer? This is a little bit of like the torpedo bat. The one-legged three-pointer, like what Tatum does? Jumping from the three-point line to the foul line. Like when this happens, there's a few things happening in sports that are so obvious. Oh, so you jump, but you don't shoot until you're like near the foul line?

1:46:06Yes. so i'll give you just the background the tush push hey i'm a quarterback sneak no how about we get everybody and just push the guy forward obvious unstoppable seems like a flaw i don't know why it didn't work before number two hey a torpedo bats hey how about with a barrel the sweet spot we make that a little bit bigger and make a smaller part where no one ever hits the ball wow that works no brainer old school hey how about we shoot more threes yeah that sounds good they're better than twos. Yep. Great. The running three pointer is such an obvious idea. I don't know why it's not happening.

1:46:45I'm trying to think of the situations. So you need, it would need to be like a three on two. Every situation, every fast break, Giannis comes down and there's no standing. You take off at the three point line, bare minimum, you're getting to the free throw line for a little mid range jumper. so you think this is the new euro step it's so obvious and it's pretty good popped up on instagram and reddit and people have put like duane wade did it to win a game and he landed near the free throw line there's no it's it's something i remember that game that was awesome when that happened you won the game yes some team is going to do it everyone's going to be like is this allowed are you sure it's like yeah it's where you take off it's always been that way but no one's doing it for God knows why.

1:47:32I like it. There's no reason not. Is there any reason not? There's videos on the internet. It's a college three guys doing basically long range finger rolls for three points. Tatum's been messing around with this one legged thing. That's the Wendy thing. It's like a, yeah, I kind of enjoy it. What's your last one? This is my buddies. I would told, I told them I would do it. I think it's insane, but. Oh, Oh, you're performing other people's half-baked ideas? I didn't know. Would Bill Byrne do this in his Hulu special? It's like, hey, guys, while you're still here, my buddy has a whole bit I'm going to do.

1:48:07Well, you know, sometimes I don't really take requests. I'm not a DJ, but this one is perfectly half-baked, and I thought you would like it. I will read you the text that he wrote me. I have a joke premise that's looking for an audience, and I'm not sure my friends who like sports nor my friends who like comedy will get it. Good start. That's what I said. I'm intrigued already. This is what he writes. Yeah. Transfer portal for families.

1:48:39So, I mean, it's a lot of, it can go a lot of ways. I'm going to try to keep it above board. But this is just like if my son has been doing well in sports, handsome kids. You know, he comes up to me one night. He's like, dad, can I talk to you for a minute? I'm like, yeah, what's up? I'm going to hop in the portal. I'm like, wow, really? I've invested so much in you, like my time. And I thought we had something. He's like, no, you've been great. You've been great. But I'm just, I think I can, I'm going to move up to kind of a better dad. Want to get to the West Coast? Just a nicer dad. I got more opportunities out there.

1:49:19Bigger room would be nice. Just like transfer portal. for people having marital problems. I would say for the spouses, that's probably a better thing. No, no, I'm not getting divorced. My wife just hopped in the portal.

1:49:38See, I like the idea of the transfer portal in general because it works for NBA coaches. It works for sports media people. Yeah, hop it in the portal. It's just that. Uh-oh, somebody's in the portal again. Hey, we're looking in the portal. See what's going on. Lose your job? I'm like, I don't know about you. I hopped in the portal. Could you put dogs in the portal? Like, where do you draw the line? Houses? Houses go in the portal? Does everything go in the portal? The portal is just like a nebulous concept. The portal. Everything's in the portal. All right, here's my last one. Okay. You know, NBA fantasy has just been destroyed.

1:50:14It's the worst. It's been the worst for 15 years. There's too many injuries. I played and I was like, this is the worst. It sucks. It is like the opposite of fantasy football. and I think it's really hurt basketball because fantasy basketball was fun in the 90s. That's a good take. And then as the years went along, you know, whereas football, you care all the way through, partly through the prism of your fantasy guys. And then you think about the end of the season, guys getting shut down, teams tanking. Well, how do you make that more fun? That's impossible. Well, that's why I have NBA Injury Fantasy League.

1:50:45Okay. So there's all-star break happens. We have our draft. and you can draft players that are going to get prematurely shut down, but you could also draft injuries. And you could draft either as the rounds go along. So maybe end up with six players and six injuries. And then if the player you drafted gets the injury you drafted, you get triple points. These are fake injuries? No, these are the injuries they use. I'll read you some of the injuries that they use to shut down players this year. Yeah, but fake injuries. They're not real injuries. Tyrese Maxson, finger tendon. I saw that. Zion Williamson, lower back contusion.

1:51:29CJ McCollum, bone contusion in his foot. Paul George, some issues with his left abductor muscle. This is my favorite, Laurie Markkinen, who's missed some time, with patellofemoral nychondriosis with associated subchondral edema. I didn't know. That could be a first round pick. Yeah. Non-kondriosis. Darren Fox, extender tendon surgery. So you just, you have like 25 things, 25 kind of fake injuries that you couldn't really, the league couldn't really crack down on. Right. Like, Oh, lower back stiffness. I guess take, I'll take your word for it. Yeah. Neck issues. A lot of those. You draft all those.

1:52:14Then you draft all the players in the tanking team. And then you try to mix and match. try to, oh, I have Paul George and I had a left abductor muscle. 30 points. And then you go. Half-faked idea.

1:52:29But you can't drop bad injuries. You can't be like torn ACL. No, you can't drop real ones. It's all like the fake ones. Pretend ones. Like corneal irritation. Oh, that's a great pick. I thought I was going to get corneal irritation in the fourth round. Your half-fake ideas in this round have been all over the map. I think you evened out from two 100 % ideas and one 10 % idea. Yeah, it may even be a 5 % idea. But you evened out to a half-faked idea, so you got it. Thank you. I nailed it. What's your closer? Do you have a closer? No, I think that was it. Family portal, offensive lineman Santa. No one cares about that.

1:53:11Selling phone numbers, that's boring. That's a real idea. Wilds, I had a great time. You can hear Wilds and watch him on First Things First on FS1. Thank you. Are you traveling for the playoffs? You doing anything? No. Oh, maybe Indy 500. We got Indy 500 on Fox. So we can go out to Indianapolis. I'm excited about that. I don't know if that's happening, but I'm into the Indianapolis 500 all of a sudden. All right. Say hi to the fans. Hi to the crew. Great to see you as always. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Mahoney. Thanks to Kevin Wilds. Thanks to Kyle and Saruti and Gahal for producing as always.

1:53:45Don't forget, you can watch this podcast as a video podcast on Spotify, and you can watch videos on Bill Simmons YouTube channel. You can watch me and Joanna and Valerie do the season finale White Lotus Instant Reaction, our prestige TV podcast. We're doing it live on YouTube on the Ringer Dash TV YouTube channel. And then also this weekend, putting up the Saint, the rewatchables that Kyle Brandt and I did after Val Kilmer passed away. We are just putting that up early because it felt like we could jump ahead three days. So get ready for that as well. And then Monday night, Celtic City. Catch up on the first five episodes of Celtic City on Max.

1:54:28Episode five was my favorite episode. So we'll see if you dig it. Enjoy the weekend and I will see you two times on Sunday.

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