Luka’s Strange L.A. Ride, a New York Sports Drought, Lost NBA Nicknames, and a Big Mailbag With Max Kellerman

14:11Max Kellerman:Right? Yeah. So, yeah. Both those phenomena combined to play the hits for Kobe.

14:19Bill Simmons:And, you know. Well, and Luca will be like this 20 years from now because they'll see some of the montages. I always call them the That Guy Was a Problem video because it started with Jason White, Choco Williams. You could cut these three-minute clips of him and he looks like he's like Bob Cousy for the 2000s. You're like, oh my God. How many All-NBA teams did this guy make? It's like zero.

14:39Max Kellerman:He was like incredibly great to watch. And the league was pushing him and Vince Carter because they look different than everyone else.

14:48Bill Simmons:The thing with Luka, I've been thinking about him a lot because we talked about it after the Celtic Laker game on my pod with Zach. And it was the first time they really, the Laker fans are really getting the other side of the Luka package with the whining after every call with the just not getting back on defense, all the little stuff. The stuff that Dallas got fed up with, ironically. I don't think they should trade him, but stuff that they were getting fed up with. The counter to all of this is Dallas almost won the finals in 24 with him.

15:17Max Kellerman:Got to the conference.

15:18Bill Simmons:With a team that was built around him that I still feel like game four of the Mavs Celtics series, which I went to, and Luka fouled out with five minutes left after. And I thought all the fouls he had in that game were legitimate. it. He was bitching about it. He was doing the, let's go, let's do a review. They review it. It was still a foul. And then there was this moment where Kyrie had a chance to stick it to the Celtics and win the game. And sometimes with the finals, it could be game four, it could be game three, it could be game five. You're always like, this is the game that's going to decide the finals.

15:52Bill Simmons:You just kind of feel it. I still think if Dallas wins that game, they might have stolen the series. So when I think about Luka in a big picture context, we saw they almost won the finals with a team built around him which means you could do it again the irony of this lakers team it's the exact team you wouldn't want to build around him right three guys who kind of need the ball to any two of them don't really know what to do if they don't have the ball um combined with some of the stuff the stage of lebron's career yeah you got

16:20Max Kellerman:to look at palinka i mean like that's who put together the team let's be honest and and it is not ideally designed for sure. And what you say about Luca is true.

16:28Bill Simmons:But he made the best trade probably the decade, but still has done a bad job with the team. We have to see how that all pans out. Now, they sold the highest high out of Davis. Yes. Davis was a car with 190 ,000 miles on it

16:42Max Kellerman:that they were like, no, no, it's running great. The warranty is like four years, 11 months, and 364 days. But yes, their return for Luca, they didn't shop it, it didn't look like, right? But the fact that they moved him, I kind of understand. What you're bringing up is a really good point. In those playoffs, he looked so much more valuable than, say, Kawhi Leonard. Kawhi Leonard looked like a one, not one-dimensional in the sense he doesn't play either offense or defense, but very much a scoring wing who can play defense also and maybe can get you into your offense even if that's not ideal. and Luka looked like a multi-dimensional.

17:25Max Kellerman:No, this was Mahomes' chief stuff. Yeah, exactly. And it looked like Luka had separated himself from the Kawhis of the world. Yeah. I mean, that's when I was like, oh, shit, Luka is that much more valuable than Kawhi Leonard?

17:41Bill Simmons:Well, remember the Mavericks? They weren't favorites in the finals. They were probably like plus 160. Everyone was picking Dallas. Boston had home court advantage. They were statistically one of the best teams. and it was just like yeah but Dallas has Luka now he's two years older than that they're not going to do anything this year LeBron's going to leave it looks like

18:00Max Kellerman:so this is what I mean about so can you deepen my understanding of something right this is the best argument to me that Luka is in a position not dissimilar to Kobe when Kobe would take all the shots the 05, 06, 07 Kobe you look around and you go this ain't it right okay this ain't it this is the best thing for me to do is to score on this possession because these guys can't do it if if deandre ayton doesn't want to play the way he ought to

18:33Bill Simmons:play on the team we knew he was gonna stink though i did anybody who followed basketball bill i thought it was a pretty good pickup like fool's gold it was like when people were believing in uh anthony joshua with joshua but wait a minute joshua won some good fights

18:48Max Kellerman:Sure. DeAndre made the conference finals. He did. He did. Doesn't mean you want him as your center. But who do you get? Who was available on the market? What, did they get him for$7,$8 million? Like, it was, I don't know. I remember thinking, pretty good pickup. It's not the ideal guy, but like, who was better on the market at that time? They didn't have a big.

19:05Bill Simmons:It was a default center. Right. I mean, the move is they should have traded. They should have worked with LeBron to try to trade him over the summer last year and try to get a whole bunch of stuff for him. Put him in a different situation. You could kind of see where this was going from day one. The other move could have been to trade Reeves. But the part I don't understand, I talked to Laker fans about this, and it's really fun to tease them, where they're like, no, no, man, this wasn't the year. This is a transition year. We're looking at when we have cap space and 27, and it's down the road.

19:39Bill Simmons:I just like, if I have one of the six best guys in the league, I'm never wasting a year. I'm on record. If I ran a team, I'm just never throwing away. He's 27. I'm never throwing away a same case with Milwaukee where I thought the only defensible thing with them like I didn't like Dame trade at all. But it was defensible because it's like we don't want to squander a Giannis here. Like we have one of the top 20 guys of all time. I think you have to ask yourself a year.

20:04Max Kellerman:I think you have to ask yourself. Are we giving ourselves a puncher's chance or are we really one of the best teams if we make this move?

20:10Bill Simmons:But if you have one of the guys, you always think you have a chance. Right. A puncher's chance. But a punch.

20:16Max Kellerman:but I don't know if I'm willing to mortgage the future for a puncher's chance if I have one of those guys.

20:21Bill Simmons:Well, if I'm in the same conference with OKC and I'm the Lakers, and it's so hard to put together, I need eight guys to beat OKC. I can't beat them with three. I'm not even thinking about OKC. Well, now we didn't know about San Antonio last summer. But now I'm in the conference with OKC and San Antonio and Jokic. That's a lot. And I have no chance with the team I have, so I'm selling pieces at this point.

20:42Max Kellerman:Luka is supposed to be a centerpiece on the level of Jokic and Wemby and SGA. He's not. He's not. He's definitely not this year. He's a half step below those guys. And he's 27 years old. But even if you have bad teammates, you should be able to be doing enough to convince people that, yeah, we still have one of those guys.

21:03Bill Simmons:I don't think his teammates are that bad. Like we do the Ringer 100, where we just rank them every month. Reeves is in the top 50. LeBron was in the top 50 guys. But there's only one guy

21:12Max Kellerman:who plays the right way on that team.

21:14Bill Simmons:I know, but I'm just saying. It's not like they don't have assets.

21:17Max Kellerman:Reeves is like, Austin Reeves plays basketball the right way.

21:21Bill Simmons:Well, Windhorst said that on TV this week about just when it's Reeves and Luka.

21:26Max Kellerman:Oh, yeah, yeah. I saw that.

21:27Bill Simmons:It's a good point. I've said it to people that I talked to about the Lakers with. It's like, when it's the two of them, there's chemistry. When you put LeBron in, it just starts to feel like...

21:38Max Kellerman:But I'll include Luka in the who doesn't play the right way. I don't think LeBron has been playing exactly the right way. He knows how, but he's old. I don't think Luka does almost ever

21:47Bill Simmons:LeBron's like Hopkins now he knows exactly what he can and can't do I like when you're here because I can do boxing jokes I'm going to basically make this a six round fight I'm going to throw away the first six rounds and then do the bow constrictor thing and LeBron's like I can do these three things that's all I can do I can do head of steam, fast break I can do step back threes and I can post up

22:10Max Kellerman:Rich loves the idea of LeBron playing as the roller like as being Carl Malone. I love that idea too. Right. A smarter Carl Malone, right? He's the same size. Right. He's like, you know, he's 6 '8", 9", 260 and he can shoot from the outside.

22:26Bill Simmons:I think it's so tough. I know you've talked to Rich about this and we've, the three of us have talked about it. It's so tough to take somebody who is one of the best of all time at what they did and then tell them, now you're this.

22:37Max Kellerman:But this is not like, I'm saying Carl Malone. Right. This is like, at one point, is he the best power forward? who ever lived. Like, can you be that guy? Yeah. That guy would be, and DeAndre Ayton had a quote recently about Clint Capella. He doesn't want to be that. Yeah, but, and Rich, Paul talks all the time on our pod about starring in your role. Yeah. If DeAndre Ayton was willing to star in his role and LeBron was willing to star in his, but all that said, Bill, when you look at this entire roster, Reeves is the guy. Watch him on every possession, both ends of the floor. Yeah. He's not a great defender, but he's playing defense.

23:14Max Kellerman:he's smart he's looking to make the right play and he's just good he's just not like you know six eight and not like he can't jump out of the gym you know but like he's a really good player

23:25Bill Simmons:yeah i was wondering if they're going to put him on the table for janice and i'm just wondering what's happening with la in general because they the dodgers owner bought the team they brought lon rosen over as president of business lon rosen uh his lifetime guy is magic johnson magic johnson had that thing with polenka where he left and it doesn't seem like magic's involved but there's no love lost with that and in general it just feels like we're moving toward some sort of post polenka universe we'll be like thanks for the luka trade um andrew andrew friedman's involved somehow yeah and he's like the suit that's the real reason the

24:03Max Kellerman:dodgers are in this position right it's the first thing they did when when um the red socks hired Bill James back in 2002 or whatever. Remember I was doing Around the Horn and I said, they're going to win three of the next 10 World Series. I wish I could have believed that. In year 10, they won the third one. I wish you had told me that because I never thought they were going to win one. Ruined my life because they were just out. If you get the smartest guy and you have money and you're playing money ball with money, it's hard for everyone else.

24:31Bill Simmons:That could be the Lakers though.

24:32Max Kellerman:That's why everybody is so scared right now. Yes, because that's what the Dodgers are. And as soon as they hired Friedman, who, by the way, just put a system in place and then didn't even have to run it really, right? So when I see him involved with the Lakers, I'm like, uh-oh.

24:46Bill Simmons:Well, it's resources behind the scenes of just intelligence and analytics. And, you know, like, who knows who they're going to bring in, but it's clearly there's going to be some sort of shift. And they were famously, I don't want to say cheap, but I don't think they were extravagant behind the scenes. They were run by Jerry Buss's kids. It's a family business. Yeah. And for better and worse. And it was, I think, if LeBron just doesn't decide, I want to live in LA, they just sort of had all these weird lottery picks assembled. Lonzo Ball, Julius Randle, Brandon Ingram.

25:21Max Kellerman:Yeah, they kept, they kept fratting second in every draft.

25:25Bill Simmons:Yeah, and probably would have added some stuff. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. What makes basketball so exciting? All the superior skill on the court. This has been the case my whole life. The craziest thing, I mean, Wemby, stuff he's doing every game. There's two, three Wemby moments a game where you're like, I don't know if I've ever seen that. The number one thing for me is when he does the screen and roll. He's going to the basket. Somebody throws him an alley-oop and he just catches it and dunks it without jumping. It's an alley-oop, but it's not an oop. It's just kind of an alley.

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26:37Bill Simmons:Multiple entry periods. See official rules at makelobaltra.com slash courtside for free entry, entry deadlines and prizes and details. I want to talk New York sports quick with you. Good. 15 years without a title, unless you count the Liberty, which I guess you can.

26:55Max Kellerman:Yeah, sure.

26:56Bill Simmons:But no, let's just be honest. When you're talking about the

26:59Max Kellerman:two teams in every major sport. We're not talking about hockey. I'm sorry. Like, NHL, people got really mad at me a bunch of years ago because I said there are three major sports in the country. And like, by the way, I'm big in boxing, right? I'm not pretending that boxing is more popular than it is at the moment. Reason I'm with Zufa is because I want it to be more popular. Hockey is a popular sport in certain circles. It is not one of, there's not a big four. There's a big three. It's baseball, basketball, and football. And I think. Yeah, I would even say the fourth one would be college football.

27:33Max Kellerman:Yeah, and in New York, I think you're right. In New York, the fourth one... No, the Rangers are pretty big. The Rangers, yeah, I would say so.

27:44Bill Simmons:Because the Rangers, they lost the cup finals in 14 to the Kings. They've been in three conference finals ever since. That's the most success you've had in New York.

27:51Max Kellerman:But Dolan used to hang his hat on when the Knicks sucked.

27:53Bill Simmons:So you have Jets and Giants. Giants won the last title, but no conference finals for either football team. since 11. Knicks have made the finals since 94. They made the Eastern Conference Finals last year. Nets 2003. Mets 2015 World Series. They made the NLCS in 24. And the Yankees have won title since 09. Islanders 2010 in Conference Finals. If I had told you, so what were we doing in 2010? You were in Sports Nation? What was your job? You're at ESPN. You're doing something. I was doing, I may have been at

28:28Max Kellerman:CNN and ESPN Radio.

28:30Bill Simmons:So Yankees win the World Series in 09. And I say to you in 09, there's only gonna be one more New York title for the next 16 years and it won't be the Yankees. What would your reaction have been to that? God damn it.

28:42Max Kellerman:I wouldn't have even necessarily not believed you. There are lots of things working against New York in the modern age in sports. Number one, the city's big enough to support two teams. Yeah. Right, like that's the, when people talk about salary caps and resources, New York is such a megalopolis, right? That it's, you know, it supports two teams in every sport, basically. So you've diluted the resources. Boston, which is a much smaller city, has the entire market from northern Connecticut up to Maine and doesn't share it with anyone. They have comparable resources.

29:17Bill Simmons:This is the Padres argument. It's the only team in San Diego. They do like over$500 million in revenue. They're not competing against anyone.

29:25Max Kellerman:Not competing. And New York is, so take Los Angeles, right? In Los Angeles, one of the tough things about doing radio in Los Angeles, sports radio, is when the team sucks on the East Coast, sports radio is as hot as ever. People are pissed. They want to talk about it.

29:44Bill Simmons:They like angry, it's angry sports radio. It's angry sports radio. Boston sports radio, the best thing that ever happened was Drake May sucking in the playoffs. Right. It was like the best thing that ever happened to every show. That sounds crazy, yeah. Is he good? Does he have it? That's their, like,

29:57Max Kellerman:you think Doug Flutie's tall enough to succeed in the NFL, right? Like, that can carry you from...

30:02Bill Simmons:Tatum versus Brown is Boston sports nirvana. Oh, my God. That's all they talk about. It's upright.

30:06Max Kellerman:So, on the West Coast, in LA, if you suck, they'll go to the beach. They don't need you anymore, right?

30:12Bill Simmons:It's really just Dodgers-Lakers here. Yeah, that's right. And then the USA UCLA football, a little bit. When they're good. A little bit.

30:19Max Kellerman:But what I mean is, but in Boston, but New York has a bit of LA in it. Not in the sense that they don't care a lot about sports, but New York is Wall Street and Broadway and there's a lot of stuff going on. I get the sense that in Boston, sports, they're one sports team. They're not divided by anything. It's not the Red Sox and the, is more important to them relative to everything else in their lives than the one sports team is in New York. I think Philly's like that too. I think those are the two. Chicago with the Bears I think is Bears Cubs probably yeah probably even though they they're large enough to support two teams in certain sports

31:00Bill Simmons:my theory with this was always the worse the weather the more the teams matter right which is then you go to Canada where it's like hockey is like life or death for everything that's it like we won the gold medal and within a day turned into a political thing yeah no one cares in Canada they lost the gold medal they're gonna be talking about it five months from now right like oh my god so why didn't we keep mcdavid out for the first why did we take him out after 33 seconds in the

31:26Max Kellerman:ot it's so funny being in canada and watching sports centra right oh yeah and then and it's it's bizarro land the rb and the e are reversed and in that little bizarro universe hockey leads and the nfl is buried right it's nhl nhl nhl little nfl little mlb tiny bit of basketball It's exactly, it's, you know, bizarro land. But so that's one thing about New York sports. The other is there is enormous pressure in New York to try to make the playoffs every year because there's a lot of money to be made. And a lot of times, if that's the incentive, you know, the Patrick Ewing years, if the Knicks made the second round of the playoffs, they made a ton of money.

32:07Max Kellerman:Just stay competitive. Yeah, but, and this ties into tanking, but is it ever in your strategic best interest to maybe wait this year. Don't trade for that veteran where you're mortgaging the future. And that veteran's not even that good to begin with. Mikael Bridges? Yeah, I mean, Mikael Bridges, if he was 10%, like the Knicks are interesting. They've created a team where if everyone does their job just right, and you get a little lucky with injuries on the other team, you could win a championship. But that's the only way. They're not, like, you know. That's what happened last year. Josh Hart has to shoot it better than he does.

32:43Max Kellerman:Mikael Bridges has to be a little more physical than he is. Carl Anthony Towns has to maintain his best play on both sides of the ball for two months without stop. You know, like, you're just asking. They have no margin for error, and maybe not even that. So what's the Yankees' excuse? Well, okay, so this goes for all the teams. Think about when Prokhorov bought the Nets. It was the first thing he did. He jammed in enough talent to be, he built your dynasty, or if you have one, in Boston, right? Right. He immediately acquired enough talent. They ought to make the second round of the playoffs. That's about it.

33:18Max Kellerman:Ain't going to win a championship, but they'll make the second round of the playoffs. There's this enormous pressure in that neck of the woods to just be competitive. And in the Yankees case, same thing. They can't ever take a year off without making the playoffs. Not intentionally. Right. They have to be competitive every year. They have to sell the boxes and they have to they have this, you know, the TV. They care about their TV ratings and they are competing with the Mets, but their owner's kind of poor by the standards of a sports owner. And the percentage of revenue he spends on the team is not top 10.

33:50Max Kellerman:I wouldn't say they're business savvy.

33:53Bill Simmons:The Yankees. I think the Dodgers looked at the Far East and they had it because they had some other stars in the 90s and 2000s, so they had a sense. But they now looked at this as like, this is our second revenue stream in our second city, right? that now we're selling everything overseas and we're selling all this stuff here with a dominant baseball team in California. And money's no object. Like, Otani leads to Yamamoto. Of course. Now they're just like, they're the first stop for any Japanese baseball star who might be coming over. They're going to want to play for the Dodgers. The kids are going to grow up dreaming to play for the, like they figured out something the Yankees probably should have figured out.

34:34Max Kellerman:And they tried.

34:35Bill Simmons:You had Matsui and people like that.

34:37Max Kellerman:Not for the first time. The Dodgers, I mean, this is very different circumstances, but the Dodgers, once upon a time, there was an untapped pool of talent that no one understood, hey, if we just get the all-star team from this pool of talent, we'll just be really good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The Negro Leagues. Yeah. Half the good players in baseball were excluded from the major leagues. And the Dodgers basically, imagine if you had a time machine and you're like, you know then i just go to the negro leagues i tell everyone to you know go fuck themselves i'm gonna i'm gonna put together a negro league all-star team and we're gonna beat everybody because you idiots like because none of the talents that's how racist everyone was back then because they were like

35:19Bill Simmons:people won't come out and it's like you know what people like winning i don't care what decade this is of course so they went out and got they they put together like a negro league all-star team

35:29Max Kellerman:before anyone knew what was going on yeah they got campy and nukem and robinson just you got You got a second baseman and a catcher who are in the conversation for the greatest of all time at their position to this day. Yeah. And you didn't have to have a shortstop. You had a Hall of Famer there. You didn't need a first baseman. You had a Hall of Famer there or a center fielder. You had a Hall of Famer. So wherever you needed help, you went out and got a guy who is in the conversation for best ever. It's crazy.

35:58Bill Simmons:And then you have the Red Sox kicking the guys off the field, which led to...

36:03Max Kellerman:Yeah. good going Boston and New York yeah that's great

36:07Bill Simmons:tough one so the Yankees are retiring CC's number my buddy Jacko lifelong diehard Yankee fan he said the only Yankee numbers that should be retired are 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 15, 16, 32, and 42 so that would be Derek Jeter

36:22Max Kellerman:Babe Ruth Lou Gehrig Joe DiMaggio who else did he say?

36:26Bill Simmons:Mantle

36:26Max Kellerman:Mantle

36:27Bill Simmons:the Dickie Barra combo at number 8 sure at 8 Thurman Munson Whitey Ford Elston Howard and Rivera and he's done So that means who he thinks doesn't, shouldn't be retired. Billy Martin, one. Joe Torrey, six.

36:40Max Kellerman:I disagree with that.

36:41Bill Simmons:Maris, Rizzuto, Posada, O 'Neal, Mattingly, Stengel, Jackson, Pettit, Guidry, Bernie, and CeCe. It's the question of how many numbers are too many. And some of it gets tied into in baseball. If the guy makes the Hall of Fame, usually retire his number.

36:56Max Kellerman:This is what I would say about some of that. You could argue Posada, right? I would say the others are good arguments to retire the number. the late 90s Yankees. The 1998 Yankees are easily the greatest baseball team of all time. I think Bernie's, I was surprised he didn't have Bernie. I'm going there. That's exactly where I'm going. Bernie has to be on there. Bernie Williams, like everyone knows the legend of Mickey Mantle, everyone. We're old as fuck. Like, I don't know. But like in our generation, everyone knew Mickey Mantle. Bernie Williams was the switch. Okay, don't spare me the defensive metric arguments, everything.

37:30Max Kellerman:I'm just stating facts. He was the switch hitting gold glove winning batting champion who used to hit between 20 and 30 home runs probably the best hitter in baseball the best contact hitter in baseball with plus power yeah who played an up the middle position for years right certainly in that conversation we realized how valuable

37:53Bill Simmons:it was to spend actually your money in the middle of the field instead of the sides

37:57Max Kellerman:bernie williams if you when he was coming up it was night like i see if you understand in new york public enemy number one for the Yankees. This may have changed for some reason after, well, not for some reason, when the Red Sox started winning the World Series, has probably changed. But when I was a kid, public enemy number one for a Yankees fan were the Mets. Yeah. Red Sox were two. There was a really beat us every year. Like, why would we even be the enemy? Because the Mets got good.

38:28Bill Simmons:Yeah.

38:29Max Kellerman:Right.

38:29Bill Simmons:And it was the good and strawberry run where it was like, oh shit, they were bigger than the Yankees. New York's town now.

38:35Max Kellerman:They sold more tickets. They had more interest. The kids in school wearing Mets caps. It was miserable as a Yankees fan. I was in Connecticut for high school during that. The Mets took over. Miserable for a Yankees fan. We hated it. By the way, there was a chant, the bleachers. I was a bleacher creature growing up. I was up in there all the time. And, and it was at the end of this chant where it was always, you know, a very insulting thing toward the right fielder. And at the, at the end of the chant, you would start with Mets suck, Red Sox suck. Then you would say, uh, whoever they were playing.

39:10Max Kellerman:So let's say it was the Rangers, the Rangers suck. Let's say Ruben Sierra was in right field for the Rangers. You'd say Root Sierra sucks. Yeah. Then you would say box seats suck. Then you would say that side, in other words, the other side of the aisle of the bleachers suck. Yeah. And then anyone who's watching this who happened to be in Yankee Stadium, those years would be like, oh my God, I can't believe someone remembers this. And then you would turn around, spin around with your hand like this and say, you all suck. Okay. But what came first was the Mets before anything. Mets suck. Yankees fans hated the Mets.

39:44Max Kellerman:So Bill, by 1987, there's no pitching. They're just miserable. and the Mets are, they didn't win in 87, but they won in 86. They had one of the great pitching staffs of all time in 88. It looked like they were going to be good for like 10 years. And I would read in like Yankees magazine, Yankees signed this Puerto Rican kid who's like, he was like 16 or 17. And he's supposed to be, he's going to be a great leadoff hitter. He's going to hit like 300. He's going to steal 50 bases. Bernie Williams. But it turned out better than that. he was the switch hitting monster who who hit 300 every year and led the league in hitting and hit for power and hit dramatic he was the best postseason player we had and like well you left out the part the red sox thought they had him oh my god and it was miserable for me that

40:34Bill Simmons:whole time it was more miserable for us because it was like this is how we're going to finally stick with the yankees we're going to take one of their guys and he dick teased them dick teased

40:42Max Kellerman:them in the 11th hour yeah that's right back to the yankees so he got booed every time at fenway

40:47Bill Simmons:after that. But he was so, and like to have that guy hit and clean up like Mickey Mantle once did

40:51Max Kellerman:and win four world series, his number should be retired. Gator, as much as I love the Gator, I can't see it.

40:59Bill Simmons:Pettit.

41:00Max Kellerman:Well, I could, I could argue. Pettit with 200 plus wins for you. There was a really good article. I can't remember who wrote it on ESPN.com five years ago, maybe more, maybe 10 years ago at this point, making a hall of fame argument for Pettit that is so convincing. It is, it's very persuasive. He's saying, if you look at everyone born between this year and this year who pitched in the major leagues, right. Okay. He's pitching through a steroid era. Durability wins, playoff stuff. Yeah. All that stuff. But if you look at it, he was one of the top two or three pitchers of like a sizable number of years.

41:39Max Kellerman:This is my Garvey case.

41:42Bill Simmons:Right. Well, Garvey's still not in, but it's like, well, if I wanted a first baseman from 1973 to 1986.

41:49Max Kellerman:No, that's the problem. It didn't go to 86. It didn't even really go to... Not really. Padres was 84?

41:55Bill Simmons:Yeah, but the Padres,

41:57Max Kellerman:he had fallen off by the Padres. Like, he stopped being great, I want to say off the top of my head, like 82. Like, Garvey may not have had a long enough prime. Guidry came up late. Well, Guidry definitely didn't have a long enough prime. He didn't, but he won. Guidry, if you look at his Cy Young finishes, yeah he was and he was never a bad pitcher like even at the end he was still inning for inning a

42:20Bill Simmons:good guy just was a good like whip kind of case guy yeah he was one of the original ones mattingly was same thing like probably not long enough no but but but the celtics have this issue with all the retired numbers we have where there's some some flimsy ones and sometimes the owners they just want to get some goodwill and it's like we're gonna retire this guy it's gonna be a great

42:39Max Kellerman:day you have to you have to retire mattingly's number he was the most popular new york athlete between i'm trying to think post mickey mantle was there a guy more beloved in new york than don mattingly pre-jeter certainly like a baseball player he definitely was more beloved than ewing was or let's if you just keep it to baseball yeah i don't think there was a more beloved yankee Thurman Munson but I think actually Mattingly maybe was a little even though he didn't win the World Series was a little even bigger than Munson Mattingly was unbelievable too

43:18Bill Simmons:he's one of those when I think about like the Curry era versus like the Mattingly Larry Bird era where Curry if he's in the 70s and 80s he just has ankle problems and he probably plays seven years and we're like oh remember that one game he had 60 points but now we have all this technology and he fixed his ankle stuff and fixed his lower legs the perfect place for him. Man, they just had a bad back and we didn't kind of know what to do with that in 1984. Same thing with Bird. Bird's body just started to break down. We had no idea how to take care of it.

43:47Max Kellerman:We had all these guys from Indiana with bad backs.

43:49Bill Simmons:Probably like shoveling during the winters. That's the problem. So what New York team are you the most optimistic for before we head to the mailbag?

43:56Max Kellerman:I think the Giants right now because of Harbaugh. You know, they have, I love Jackson Dart. I think, like, I'm out, I'm one of these guys, I'm outraged when you'll see a real, where they'll be like, stop me when you get to a better quarterback than so-and-so. And they won't even mention his name. And I think Jackson Dart is 100 % an elite talent quarterback. And the question is, will he be in the right situation? And more, can he stay in the field? That's the whole thing. This was the Drake May thing last year.

44:27Bill Simmons:They were so determined to not have him take hits. I actually thought he changed the way he played a little bit. Maybe mostly for the better. but you can't be reckless as a quarterback in the NFL because you're just going to no he's got the heads bouncing against the he's got to slide he's got to just slide dude slide you can't do it yeah I'm with you in the Giants because you could argue terrible injury luck last year fourth place schedule new coach we've just seen it too many times every year there's one or two teams that fit the recipe whereas like NBA you can't turn it around like it's a miracle if you're even the Charlotte Hornets where you went from like sucking to being like We might be a dangerous eight seed.

45:07Bill Simmons:That's like the arc you can have.

45:09Max Kellerman:And part of it's also just the number of games. It's like, you know, in the end, imagine an NBA team who was hot through the first 15 games of the season. Or like through 18 games, you're hot, right? Well, that's it. Season's over. You just won the first game of your playoff schedule, right? Right. Like that's football, just not a lot of inventory.

45:26Bill Simmons:All right, we're gonna take a break and do some mailbag questions. Sometimes the greatest financial victories aren't the huge flashy contracts in sports, but the mid-level moves that maximize your cap space. Just like Tax Act helps you get a great return by finding every deduction, even the small ones, to maximize your refund. And we are in the zone right now for this. In great returns presented by Tax Act, we look back at the best decisions GMs have made to land an inexpensive player who paid huge dividends down the stretch and owners that have seen their team valuation skyrocket. Well, Kevin Durant was not inexpensive, but you remember in 2016, the Warriors had just won 73 games.

46:07Bill Simmons:They lost game seven in the finals. And at the same time, there's this crazy salary cap spike that their front office is planning for because they think maybe they have a chance to get Kevin Durant. Well, what happens? They cleared enough salary cap space. They somehow got Kevin Durant. The 2017 Warriors become, I think the best team in the 21st century. They win again in 2018. They make the finals in 2019. It was all because they planned ahead and made great financial decisions. Great returns. That was presented by TaxAct. This tax season, simplify your moves, maximize your refund. Visit taxact.com to learn more.

46:44Bill Simmons:Conditions apply. See taxact.com for details. All right, mailbag questions. Questions from actual listeners who sent in to bspodcast33 at gmail.com. As always, I'm going to remind everybody, please no more tanking emails. I'm at my capacity. It's a nightclub. We've closed the doors. We've blocked the front door. No more tanking. This is from Alex in Charlottesville. Okay. Is Beef Stew the best nickname in the NBA? It's not in the same category of how the ants are nice men or cool nicknames or how Big Aristotle or Time Lord are funny. Off-Night.

47:19Max Kellerman:Off-Night's the best nickname in the NBA. What's Off-Night? Off-Night. What's his name? Mitchell.

47:25Bill Simmons:That hasn't caught on, though.

47:27Max Kellerman:Beef Stew. Everyone calls Isaiah Stewart Beef Stew. I know, but Off-Night is his nickname. it's pretty good it's a pretty good nick so off night's your favorite but beef stew is the best one where it's become the guy's name and where the guy is is featured you know is like is like a kind

47:42Bill Simmons:of a deal yeah so this leads me to a deeper question of what happened to basketball nicknames i wrote down something that i love from over the years okay earl the pearl yep jelly bean Kobe Bryant's dad. Magic, obviously, was amazing. Bad News. We had two Bad News. We had Jim Bad News Barnes, then Marvin Bad News Barnes. World. Lloyd Free just became World B Free. That's right. And then he changed his name. The Iceman, George Garvin, probably the best one ever.

48:13Max Kellerman:I agree.

48:14Bill Simmons:Leonard Truck Robinson, who just became Truck.

48:19Max Kellerman:By the way, even something simple like the X-Man.

48:21Bill Simmons:That was cool. X-Man's a good one. Mountain Man, Bill Walton. Pistol Pete Maravich. He just could have been Pete Maravich. He became Pistol Pete. Clyde the Glide. Boo. There were a couple boos over the years. What was the guy's name? There was a Boo in the 1990s. I'm blanking. Cornbread. Cedric Cornbread Maxwell. Never Nervous Purvis. Big Game James. And then we even had World Wide West, who's not technically a player, but he had a nickname.

48:53Max Kellerman:Big Game James is such a great one. It should have been... I never understood. Big Games James. Big Games James. It should have been pluralized. Big Games James, easier to say. Big Games James, to me, it should have been, but it's not. It's Big Game James.

49:08Bill Simmons:So the best two recent ones we've had, PG-13, which I was single-handedly responsible for. I was ready to be proud. Boogie Cousins was amazing. Boogie Cousins. DeMarcus Boogie Cousins. You know what? Boogie Cousins?

49:24Max Kellerman:that might be the one.

49:25Bill Simmons:It's a great one. Best one of the last 15 years.

49:28Max Kellerman:Boogie Cousins might be the one. No, no. Boogie Cousins might be the one. It's a great one. Pistol Pete is great, I agree. And the Iceman

49:35Bill Simmons:is just so cool. Truck's great. What would a Truck Robinson do? You know what he's going to do? He's going to grab rebounds. That's right. He's like a truck just clearing people out.

49:44Max Kellerman:But Boogie Cousins, I think Boogie Cousins is my winner.

49:48Bill Simmons:Well, so in this era we've moved to...

49:50Max Kellerman:You know, I don't think of it as a nickname because I think of him as Boogie Cousins. Right.

49:54Bill Simmons:We moved to first names and initials. All right. SGA, JW, Luca, JT, Kat. JB. Wemby. That's just kind of where we landed. Joker, it's kind of a nickname, but it's also his name. I have five guys that I think could really use a nickname. All right. Jalen Duren.

50:16Max Kellerman:Something rebound-y, something.

50:18Bill Simmons:Big, strong, intimidating, menacing guy.

50:20Max Kellerman:Do you have a nickname for him?

50:22Bill Simmons:Well, I had some available ones that we haven't had in a while. And one of the ones I was looking at was Night Train. We haven't had a good Night Train in a while. That's true. Boogieman is another one. Nobody's really done. We've had it in boxing. There's good boxing nicknames. Yeah, there are. And UFC will have some good ones, but not basketball. But I feel like he needs one. I think Austin Reeves would be a game changer for him. If we called him Slick, he was just like Slick Reeves.

50:48Max Kellerman:Well, he had the white mamba, didn't he? Didn't they try that? They trotted that out. Something quick.

50:53Bill Simmons:Khan can nipple. Khan might be good enough because Clay became good enough for Clay.

50:59Max Kellerman:What he's doing as a rookie is...

51:01Bill Simmons:Khan man has a negative connotation, so you can't really use that. The initials get tough with the KK that can go in bad directions. Yes. But Khan might be fine, but I also think he could use one. Jalen Johnson, Rich Paul client. like we have triple j for jaron jackson jr yeah something with j or j square or i don't know and then here's the one that i really want us to work on and i will i no more tanking emails but i will accept nickname emails stefan castle that's somebody that needs a nickname where it's just his name's like velcro or you know one of those names where he's just with you wherever you go Crazy glue.

51:44Max Kellerman:That's why I love Off Night. Off Night's good. I love Off Night. I was like, oh my God, that's the best name I've heard in so long.

51:51Bill Simmons:The biggest name that's sitting there for somebody is Sniper. We haven't had a Sniper yet. Could be Knipple. Sniper Johnson, Sniper Jackson. Sniper Knipple, I don't like how it sounds. No. But Sniper, I think, could really... And Shooter's another one. Because there was a Mark Wahlberg movie, Shooter. So it's just like, if we just started calling Clay Thompson Shooter, I think that could have worked. but I really need the people to send me some good possible names.

52:15Max Kellerman:I think your observation is correct that we have gone from nicknames to initials.

52:20Bill Simmons:We just got lazy.

52:21Max Kellerman:Yeah.

52:22Bill Simmons:And boxing has still, like what are the best boxing nicknames though? Of all time? Like the Executioner was a classic. The Hitman.

52:31Max Kellerman:Hitman Tommy Hearns is an all-timer. The Motor City Cobra. Marvelous Marvin Hagler. I mean, he changed his name to Marvelous, but originally that was his nickname.

52:42Bill Simmons:the Italian Stallion Rocky Balboa I'm trying to think

52:47Max Kellerman:was the best you know Adrian Bronner had a good one the problem

52:52Bill Simmons:oh that's good so the truth was one of the organic think names we've had this century Paul Pierce Carl Williams in the 80s the heavyweight

52:59Max Kellerman:Carl he was the initial truth but we also

53:01Bill Simmons:had Walter the truth Barry which was a huge one but then Shaq said about Paul Pierce after a game that guy's the truth and they're calling him the truth and it's stuck so maybe if

53:11Max Kellerman:By the way, Black Mamba started in boxing. Before Kobe was the Black Mamba, Floyd's uncle, Roger Mayweather, who had a junior lightweight belt and a junior welterweight belt, was the Black Mamba.

53:22Bill Simmons:Well, Kobe gave himself the nickname, which I don't know what your ruling is on that. It always makes me... Well, I just read on a reel.

53:29Max Kellerman:The self-nicknames. Yeah, I read it on a reel. I saw it popped up on my IG. It was originally, there was some campaign they wanted to do for Michael Jordan, and he passed. on the nickname. So the other thing,

53:43Bill Simmons:I think that's, I think that is true, but the one, I remember Kobe test drove a couple gimmicks because he was into Apex Predator for a while. And that was the other one then kind of settled on Black Mambo, but that was like his reinvention in the mid-2000s. Right. The crazy stuff about Kobe all these years later is as this was happening in real time, we were kind of like, what's this guy doing? This is weird. Now it's fucking cool. Mambo mentality. Yeah, it fucking worked. He was way ahead of us. Gahal reminds us that AR-15 is the Reeves name. I've never really called that.

54:18Max Kellerman:AR-15 was used much more last year than it has been this year.

54:22Bill Simmons:Gahal's excited because he thinks Matheran can fill the hardened void for the Clippers. He's a big Clipper fan over there. He's very excited for the Matheran minutes. Sorry for your troubles. Alistar from Sydney. We get emails from all over the globe. He said, on your last pod, the debate about the merits of Darren, Darren Peterson versus AJ DeBansa. DeBansa, DeBansa. DeBansa is what I'm hearing.

54:45Max Kellerman:I'm hearing DeBansa.

54:47Bill Simmons:It's going back and forth. We're going to need a ruling. Okay, what do you want to do? Maybe Trump should have said something on Tuesday.

54:53Max Kellerman:I'll say the opposite, whatever.

54:55Bill Simmons:He said DeBansa calls himself DeBansa, but now it's DeBansa. I don't know. We'll figure it out. But anyway, during that podcast, Kyle Mann, one of my guests, casually mentioned that Peterson has a Michael Myers tattoo. And Alistair was disappointed I wasn't more excited about it because I love Michael Myers. Sure. If he'd had a Neil Macaulay tattoo from Heat, I probably would have had a reaction. I knew about this, which is why I didn't react. Does this make you like Peterson more or less that he has a Michael Myers tattoo? More.

55:31Max Kellerman:I think it's a little more too

55:32Bill Simmons:because it fits into his personality of the quiet, kawaii type, quiet killer.

55:36Max Kellerman:Well, what it makes you think is he's coming to get you. So like, if that's going to be his mentality, he's coming to get you. I like that a lot. But I saw your reel on DeBansa. Yeah. And I agree. I think like when you're really looking at it, even if Peterson wasn't taking himself out of games, one guy is 6 '6 and the other 6 '9. And the 6 '9 guy is super athletic. and could play either forward spot, et cetera, et cetera. Like, I heard you say that, like, what's the downside for him? Andrew Wiggins is a pretty good player. Like, better Andrew Wiggins. Or maybe it's more like a more athletic Paul George.

56:18Max Kellerman:Yeah. You know, and that's a hell of a player.

56:22Bill Simmons:What's really great about this draft, and we talked about it a lot in the last pod, is just when you're talking about guys with real all-NBA potential, it's not just like, oh, who should we take? Odin Durant was like this, where it's like, fuck, on one side, this could be the greatest scoring forward we've ever had. On the other side, this could be Patrick Ewing. And that's when the stakes change. I always gravitate toward more of the short thing. I was in the Durant. Okay, that was one of my, I was in the minority, but I was like, Durant's going to be one of the best scoring forwards of all time.

56:52Bill Simmons:I know this is going to happen. I just watched it at Texas. This is who he's going to be. I'd rather have that than the guy who's had multiple injuries already.

57:00Max Kellerman:Not to bring up tanking, but I, I, like, as I said, I said this on game over with Rich. I was telling him, you know, if I'm a Utah Jazz fan, like, this is a special set of circumstances this year. I understand tanking is generally an issue. There's no denying that. However, this year, it's less of an issue than people think because if I'm a Jazz fan, I'm not mad that my team is tanking. I've been in this spot a couple times with the Celtics. I was not mad as it was happening. Right. It depends. It depends on the situation.

57:34Bill Simmons:It's two months of your life. We just went through this with the Patriots, with the Drake May draft.

57:38Max Kellerman:is that, you know, there's a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, right? Like here it is right now. If you're the Utah Jazz, you're not a destination for free agents or guys clamoring to be traded. You have a couple of really good forwards whose games should complement each other right now. But you're spending some money on one of them. And there's considered generational talents in the draft. And it's two months of your life,

58:03Bill Simmons:which is the most important piece of it.

58:05Max Kellerman:If you are, as long as you're the one of the worst four records in the league, you will be able to draft a hell of a player. So your job is for any fan of the jazz, make sure to have, I don't care what happens. You better have one of the worst four records in the league, right? If you don't do that, you screwed up so royally. So I get it. If I'm a jazz fan, I would get it. If I'm a wizards fan, I would get it. If I'm like, if I'm a Nets, definitely. Yeah. Nets pacers.

58:32Bill Simmons:Like I understand maybe Mavericks. we might not see Cooper flag again Kyrie's already said I'm out I understand it

58:40Max Kellerman:so if you have a league where there are 10 teams tanking but a half a dozen of them the fan base is like yeah this is not the Sixers who did it for 5 straight years and weren't any good

58:51Bill Simmons:their fans had Stockholm Syndrome with it they talked themselves into it

58:55Max Kellerman:they're like we're out thinking everybody with this strategy if you've set up a system of incentives again and you're telling everyone and there are generational players in this draft, and there are a handful of them, right? Like you don't have to draft one overall. And you got teams with good nucleuses where you're looking at them, and you're going, oh, actually, that's nice. Indiana is the best example.

59:14Bill Simmons:Yeah. Indiana, you put one of these guys on their team, they're immediately scary. Yeah, I'm fast-forwarding to another email because you were talking about Utah. This is from Eric. He says, and I haven't heard this point before, Danny Ainge is doing it again, and nobody has noticed yet. He's following his 07 Celtics blueprint. Start with the star who can't win alone. Laurie Markkinen slash Paul Pierce, acquire the second tier star who's a specialist, Ray Allen, Triple J. And now the third step would be trade for a megastar because you have the other two guys, plus the lottery pick. Could that be Giannis?

59:48Bill Simmons:The problem with this theory is there's really the KG in this scenario is Giannis and there's no other KG. But Giannis is - The only other one I can think of is Devin Booker and I don't know why Phoenix would trade him.

59:59Max Kellerman:Giannis might, like he has the kind of personality where maybe Utah is not a deal. Like he might like a nice, small, quiet situation.

1:00:08Bill Simmons:Yeah.

1:00:08Max Kellerman:Better than LA or New York. I honestly have no feel for... Me neither. Whether what he really wants. But according to the Disney movie that I saw, it seems he likes a small town.

1:00:21Bill Simmons:Right. But it's like with LeBron, I thought at some point, I remember before the decision, I was just convinced it was going to be the Knicks because I was like... Me too. I think this guy wants to be the greatest basketball player of all time. And the move is to go to the Knicks. And Dolan screwed it up. And that story has been.

1:00:38Max Kellerman:Did I ever tell you that? I don't remember if I told you this on the pod. Did last time. But I ran into Clyde Frazier, day of the decision. On that little breakfast spot right across the street from Madison Square Garden. And we had lunch together. And just were like, you know, commiserating over what had just happened. Like, but I thought it was super cool that I had lunch with Clive Frazier that day.

1:01:03Bill Simmons:Because you could have had LeBron and Wade on the Knicks. Come on. And you could have been talking about that that day.

1:01:06Max Kellerman:Well, I mean, really, the issue there was not LeBron. The issue was... That was the people that worked for the Knicks. When Pat Riley said, I want a piece of the team, and the Dolans wouldn't give it to him, but Aaronson would, that's it. If the Dolans just say, okay, here's a taste. Stay here. We'll give you control of operations. Obviously, LeBron would have been a Knick.

1:01:28Bill Simmons:They didn't think of GMs as that important back then, I don't think, in the same way. Because I remember Red Arbac almost left for the Knicks once when I was a kid. And then they just basically like, here's another 75 grand or whatever. It's like, it wasn't like now.

1:01:43Max Kellerman:You will throw money away. Franchises will. They still will. Mid-level exception guy or a baseball veteran. All right, we'll take a roll of the dice. It's 8, 10, 12 million a year. It didn't work out. We'll eat some money and move him. but a GM, right? Like if you have Masai Ujiri or something like that and you could see, oh wow, he did it in Denver. He did it in Toronto.

1:02:04Bill Simmons:Yeah, like what's Brad Stevens worth to the Celtics? He just got them under the luxury tax somehow. He saved them$300 million a share.

1:02:11Max Kellerman:And it doesn't count against your cap or anything? Like so if I'm running a franchise, that's where the money goes. It's best used to an actually great executive.

1:02:21Bill Simmons:But that's what scares me about the Lakers.

1:02:24Max Kellerman:Exactly. Because they know this. So I always thought it's like Leo Mazzoni in the 80s, right? Ever, Jared, right? Didn't matter who they took, had a career year in Atlanta. Or the Spurs shooting coach.

1:02:35Bill Simmons:Or the - Fix Kawhi. Kawhi fell to 15 because nobody thought he could shoot.

1:02:39Max Kellerman:Stoutland, the offensive line coach in Philadelphia, right? Right. So if you have that guy, and if I ran a franchise and I wanted him, well, they're giving him $2 million a year already. Okay, here's$10 million a year. Yeah. Here's five times. Put a zero on it. You're paying$8 million a year for D.M. right go get go it now not just because by by reputation or he appears that way but if a guy has a track record if it's pretty clear that it's him yeah what is that worth that people are like well you know coordinators only get that he'd be making more than a lot of head coaches so so much

1:03:17Bill Simmons:next question from jay johnson Which team, given their history, is most likely to win the draft lottery, take Peterson, and have him become a complete bust? The obvious candidates are the Kings or Wizards. Portland jumping up and taking the wrong guys in play, given their history. On the flip side, which team could Peterson land on most likely to have the right infrastructure to help him succeed? So I wrote down for worst. I mean, Kings is always the worst case scenario. Kings, 100%. But can't sleep on the Pelicans in the history of New Orleans basketball and them taking seemingly perfect assets and them going sideways.

1:03:52Bill Simmons:That's true. I think Memphis is in there. And then the Wizards, just because of their history.

1:03:57Max Kellerman:But Sacramento's lapping the field.

1:04:00Bill Simmons:Kings, they're like minus 500 in that argument. Nets, I'm not sure. Because the Nets, young team where they could just let him do his thing.

1:04:11Max Kellerman:They're the Clippers. They're jinxed. You know, like they're a jinxed franchise. Might be jinxed.

1:04:15Bill Simmons:Yeah. Best teams, I think, would be the Mavericks, Pacers, Hawks.

1:04:18Max Kellerman:Yeah. Pacers would be interesting because Halbert has the ball a lot.

1:04:23Bill Simmons:Nembhard has the ball a lot. Peterson, we're not sure about what's going on with him, just in general.

1:04:29Max Kellerman:Right, but one of the things we're not sure about, other than the injury stuff, is he a point guard? Maybe not. 6 '6". Not ideally. I don't think ideally. I think ideally, he's like, okay, ideally. when you think of the triangle and Michael and Kobe, they weren't exactly point guards, but they weren't exactly not point guards either. Maybe they didn't dribble the ball up the floor, but the offense really did run through them.

1:04:54Bill Simmons:But that's where the league is starting to go. Like you can even see the Celtics this year when they had White and they had Pritchard and they had Simons. Yeah, combo guards. Combo guards who can kind of run offense and they can run off ball action.

1:05:04Max Kellerman:But I kind of love that if your off guard is a combo guard, in fact, and then you already have a primary ball handler, like a point guard.

1:05:14Bill Simmons:Well, and Halliburton doesn't need the ball all the time either. Right. Yeah. I mean, anyone with the Pacers. The ceiling team is the Mavs.

1:05:22Max Kellerman:Yeah.

1:05:22Bill Simmons:If you put him, that's exactly what they need. He's basically with Kyrie, and then eventually they get rid of Kyrie or trade him, and he takes over.

1:05:29Max Kellerman:By the way, Kyrie has such an opportunity here. Kyrie can elevate his historical standing by so much on this Mavs team because you do want some veterans on a team. Oh, you want everyone at the same, not exactly the same age. You'd like some veteran presence, right? And Kyrie could rehabilitate this image as at times immature or too focused on other stuff or somehow causing a distraction. if he became the vet, like the good influence veteran leader on this Mavs team, if this Mavs team won two of the next four chips and Kyrie was a big part of it, where would he rate all time?

1:06:10Bill Simmons:The problem for him is you're in the same conference with OKC in San Antonio. And that shit's got to happen fast. But this thing about Cooper Flagg,

1:06:20Max Kellerman:I think there's a tendency, if there's like a long non-center white guy that he gets, like, you know, people talk about Luka with Larry Bird. They're not very much alike, actually. They're really, their games are not that similar, right? But they're white guys who are about the same height. And talked a lot of shit. And talk a lot of shit. But Larry Bird made every team he was ever on so much better.

1:06:44Bill Simmons:I don't think there's really any similarities with them, but I think people think that.

1:06:48Max Kellerman:Bird shot it a lot better, too.

1:06:50Bill Simmons:Bird could fit into any scenario. Like what we were talking about earlier.

1:06:54Max Kellerman:Yeah. So here's the thing about Cooper Flagg. I think there's a tendency to look at, and by the way, it's not even like people are twirling their mustaches. We're racist, right? It's that, you know. Is that what racists do? Yeah, right. In the back room, they tie the girl to the tracks and everything. Yeah, the bad guys, right? But I do think that we're human beings. We typecast, right? We make, we generalize. That's how we think about things. Cooper Flagg is athletic. He is a really good defensive player. He's an elite defensive player. Cooper Flagg is the guy I want on my team. You could argue more than anyone in the NBA going forward.

1:07:38Max Kellerman:For assets. Yes. I think Wemby. Sure, but given Wemby's physiology at seven foot million.

1:07:45Bill Simmons:What Wemby did in the Pistons game the other day, I'm still thinking about.

1:07:48Max Kellerman:If Wemby stays healthy, forget it.

1:07:50Bill Simmons:Because the thing with Wemby, this to me is the last level of being a great player. He cannot have a good game and still be the best guy in the game. Right. Pistons game, he kind of sucked. But he changed 20 shots of defense. And then he's the guy. It looked like a mess. And then he's the guy who is saying, I'm playing hard in this all-star game. And as Rich Paul points out, that actually had an influence on the other guys. And he's... Well, it was him. it was Ant and it was the two Detroit guys. And those four guys lifted the game. Lifted the game. Everybody else caught up in it.

1:08:26Max Kellerman:I'm not, there's no argument. You want Wemby, but I'm factoring in everything, including height and how that may affect their physical decline later on. Cooper Flagg is so good. I don't think people, and he's not even shooting it well yet, but he probably will. And he's not 20 yet. And he's not 20 yet. That Kyrie gets healthy and now you're doing Cooper Flagg next year already. And a top 7-8 pick. That's what I'm saying. That might be the spot where it's impossible. So when you say, hey, but these guys and those guys are in the conference, right? So are the Mavs if they get a guy like...

1:09:04Bill Simmons:And don't forget Joker. No question. Don't forget Ian Edwards. He's in there too. It's funny. You talked about the cross-racial comparisons, which I've always loved, where we just compare white people to white people.

1:09:15Max Kellerman:Yeah.

1:09:16Bill Simmons:Knipple. Knipple. And he's getting better. He's like flag. He's actually been adding stuff as he ever went along.

1:09:24Max Kellerman:He also plays defense, by the way.

1:09:27Bill Simmons:He's way closer to Klay Thompson than I think people would see because the instinct is just to compare him to every white shooter that's ever existed.

1:09:36Max Kellerman:I think Klay's a great comparison.

1:09:37Bill Simmons:But there's a little Havlicek, too. A little shorter. There's Havlicek stuff in there, too. Havlicek played 50 years ago. I never saw Havlicek.

1:09:44Max Kellerman:Just on, you know.

1:09:45Bill Simmons:Moving without the ball, constant movement. Just kind of knows how to play basketball. can play their position, rebounds, can affect games when he's not really shooting that well. No, if you think of Knipple as just a shooter,

1:09:58Max Kellerman:that's disservice to him.

1:09:59Bill Simmons:Like he's, honestly, I love Clay and I think Clay's a Hall of Famer. I think he's a better version of Clay because he can do more stuff and he rebounds.

1:10:06Max Kellerman:Clay, of course, was capable of getting hotter than anyone who ever lived.

1:10:10Bill Simmons:And Knipple might have that. We'll see. He's had, I mean, he's made 203s already as a rookie. So Jay Johnson sends this in. keep referencing tanking solutions. You overlooked that the MLB has solved some of this already. Any team participating in MLB revenue sharing can't participate in the lottery for three straight years. This happened to the White Sox in the 2025 draft. They were one of the worst teams, but they picked 10th outside of the lotteries because of the penalties. Do they need to start thinking about financial stuff when they think about tanking? Like that could be one of them. You can't be in revenue sharing anymore if you're in the top eight of the lottery three straight years.

1:10:47Bill Simmons:I've been pushing for 75 % off all tickets if you fall like 25 games under 500 from that moment on it's 75 % off

1:10:55Max Kellerman:and season ticket holders are getting money back if you just want to stop

1:11:00Bill Simmons:we're penalizing and then other people are saying oh this is another one he had a 5-2 format for the first round with like the one and the two seeds the 7-8 you win the play in but you don't get the three home games you get two Hold on, hold on. Say that again. 5-2. So you get five home games, two in the road. Oh, okay, okay. For the one and two seeds. So that there's real incentive to finish in the top six so you can get the extra home game.

1:11:25Max Kellerman:Yeah, but I don't think that's where the tanking becomes the issue, right?

1:11:27Bill Simmons:But it's just all general, all trying to reward teams.

1:11:31Max Kellerman:Rich had an interesting point about this. What if the lottery was for the players? So, so, um, DeBansa is the first pick. that means he gets the first one. So he has his choice what team he wants to talk to.

1:11:48Bill Simmons:See, I really like this idea. Me too. I had a separate version of the same idea about the top five put in their pick who their first choice is. And it's like the top five agree. It is Darren Peterson is the number one pick. Darren, come on up here. Here are the five teams. You get to choose. It almost becomes like a reality dating show. And he goes up and he's like, I pick the Indiana Pacers. He's like, oh!

1:12:16Max Kellerman:That also does a thing where like, you know, the draft in the NFL is such an event. And the NBA draft is not the same kind of event, but it could be if you played with it a little bit. That would be amazing if they did it that way.

1:12:29Bill Simmons:John McGrady, this is off our Luka conversation. He said, why is the Luka versus Shea argument not at the top of first take in every debate show all the time? Since 2018, Luka was the undisputed best player of that class. Shea took his place overnight. Two years ago, Luka beat Shea and OKC on his way to the finals. Now it's Shea's league. We talked about Luka like he was the next face of the league for six years, and we have abruptly stopped. Is this Nico's fault, or did the trade flip this?

1:12:56Max Kellerman:Can you imagine saying, you know what's going to end the run for Luka, at least temporarily, as even being considered the next face of the league or the potential best player of the league? A trade to the Lakers. Right. But it feels like that's what's happened. 100 % feels like that's bad.

1:13:12Bill Simmons:And I felt like when he showed up last year, that the Laker fans loved him. And they were like, this is amazing. And you could feel it. You could feel it shipped away from LeBron, even in the stands. Jerseys were popping up. Now we're out of the honeymoon phase, and the Laker fans seem way more like what we talked about earlier. Like, is this fucking guy going to play defense? Is this guy going to bitch after every call?

1:13:34Max Kellerman:Magic Johnson was not a great defender. But Magic did not play. But it's Luka's style of play and the personality that goes along with it is becoming hard to root for. Yeah. And that's a tough situation to be in.

1:13:50Bill Simmons:That was the next question I got was from Josh from Statesboro, Georgia, which asked if there'd ever been a greater group of whiners than this year's Lakers, mentioning not just Luka, not just LeBron, Marcus Smart, who's in that old guy, I'm not even good anymore, but I'm going to whine about everything, Reeves, and he suggests that they go after Draymond to really cement it. Well, I mean, I think a lot of what's happening

1:14:11Max Kellerman:in the NBA now is actually soccer culture affecting stuff because, you know, it's been going on for years at the highest levels of soccer, selling calls and faking injury and faking fat, you know, like really, that's, and that's as the - I just want to point out, guys have been bitching about calls for a long time. Not like this. Not like this, but it's - Every single, it's unbelievable. And also, here's the easiest solution. Foul hunting, I could get rid of that. make me commissioner for not even a day for one minute and i'll fix that stuff if the ref thinks you're hunting for a foul don't call it if if you think the player's intention was to was to make a move in order to create contact technically because technically he was able to make the move quick enough or fake the guy into position so then he could create contact that was the defender's fault don't call it swallow the whistle done that's the end of that's the end of the james harden luka Donchick style of play, which is not fun to watch.

1:15:09Max Kellerman:Like ultimately it's a consumer product. Just legislate out the shit you don't like.

1:15:15Bill Simmons:And they've tried to get rid of some of it and it's worked, but there's ways to go. One more break and then we're going to finish this. All right. Next question from Robert Hill doing an NCAA tournament for TV shows. What would be the four one seeds for TV shows all time? I think he's talking dramas because he said consensus would probably have Game of Thrones, Sopranos, Wire, Breaking Bad. I wrote down, I think the one seeds would be Sopranos, Thrones, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad. And I think the two seeds would be Succession, West Wing, The Wire, probably The Americans or The Shield, stuff like that.

1:15:54Bill Simmons:And then everyone would get mad that The Wire wasn't a one seed is how this would play out.

1:15:57Max Kellerman:To me, you can't even mention other shows with The Wire. I watched The Sopranos and I thought, boy, this is like the best drama I've ever seen on TV. Yeah. And I didn't watch The Wire when it came out because every single person I knew from every walk of life said it was the greatest thing ever. And it somehow turned me off to it. Right. So I didn't watch it till like 10 years later. The Wire is not just the best TV ever made. It's the best TV by so far ever made. I don't think you can include it in the tournament because there's it like takes the drama out. So other shows are not comparable to The Wire.

1:16:31Bill Simmons:I would have, for my actual 1C, if it was me, I would have Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, and Thrones. Okay, I never watched Mad Men. It's one that I just didn't watch. Those would be my four. But I don't think enough people would have The Wire in there because I don't think it was as watched as people realized. No, it wasn't. So either people loved it or didn't know about it.

1:16:51Max Kellerman:Game of Thrones can't be in there, Bill, because once they got away from the books, which I didn't read.

1:16:55Bill Simmons:That wasn't their fault, though.

1:16:56Max Kellerman:Nevertheless, it's part of the TV show. It became awful.

1:16:59Bill Simmons:I've been watching The Sauna for a half hour every day. first two seasons are unbelievable I think people forget how incredible the show was and how they have 60 characters and 97 plots by the way I got two shows that

1:17:12Max Kellerman:I would put above a lot of

1:17:14Bill Simmons:so you don't like my theory that The Wire would be the two seed caused by a 72 hour controversy people just flipping out that's a great idea if you want to create controversy

1:17:24Max Kellerman:for sure Breaking Bad there's no denying its quality it's like excellently made I found it tedious because I thought it was super predictable and because I've been conditioned to watch shows with five different storylines going on at once, 90 seconds, 90 seconds and it was like just an up close look at really one storyline and you knew how it was going

1:17:51Bill Simmons:I watch The Sopranos every two, three years now I think I've gone all the way through it four times I've gone through The Wire three I wouldn't do Breaking Bad a second time

1:18:00Max Kellerman:I'll give you two shows that I've seen in recent years, I think, that are, I think, better than a lot of those shows. Yeah. Dark, which is, I want to say it's on Netflix. It's a German show on Netflix. Wow, from German shows to me. Okay. Dark, but, like, Dark is like, oh, wow, it's going there. Okay. Yeah. It's nothing to do with Nazis, right? But, like, and actually, that might be one of the criticism I have of it for a reason I won't, like, reveal because it'll ruin the show for everyone. Okay. But it's a mind-blowing show. And the other that I had so much fun watching was The Last Kingdom. The Last Kingdom was the most fun I've had watching a show in a long time.

1:18:41Bill Simmons:Bailey from Lynchburg, Virginia, wants to know, what NBA player past or present would have benefited most from using the Limitless drug? I love Limitless. I've talked about this a lot. Me too. Limitless.

1:18:52Max Kellerman:Limitless is...

1:18:52Bill Simmons:I had it as number 16 on my 50 most rewatchable movies of the 21st century. It caused a riot. 15 it's higher than that 16 i watch it every time it's on limitless is limitless is what are people's beef so you're a limitless head come in 100 it's fucking amazing what are you kidding

1:19:08Max Kellerman:it's the fantasy right you take the pill and now you have fun um well so for the email question

1:19:13Bill Simmons:an nba player that could have used it to clear a big mental hurdle fix a competitive mindset problem or fix a glaring hole and he said some examples would be vince carter shack Ben Simmons. So I was thinking, guys who had it all, but something was missing up here. And I still think Ben Simmons was the greatest athlete I've seen on a basketball court who never put it together. And Vince Carter, who is going to be a Hall of Famer if he isn't already, I can't remember. He is. And at his peak was a 25-point-a-scorer. I also think he probably could have been one of the 15 best players of all time and wasn't.

1:19:48Bill Simmons:So I think he has to be mentioned.

1:19:49Max Kellerman:I don't know about that with Vince Carter. I think Vince did really well for himself. He was not, Vince Carter was a little bit, and I love Vince, and he was, I credit him for, when Rich Paul says, star in your role, like he understood, unlike someone like Carmelo Anthony, who was an incredible ISO scorer, and as the league changed, maybe couldn't accept that maybe there was a different role for him now.

1:20:11Bill Simmons:You're talking about near the end of the career.

1:20:13Max Kellerman:Yeah, as their career, but like Vince played 20 years, half of it almost.

1:20:16Bill Simmons:but I just feel like the ceiling for Vince was so fucking high. He had a lot of Zach Levine in him

1:20:24Max Kellerman:in the sense that he's not going to create with the ball in his hand the way someone like Kobe could. So you don't think the Limitless... So the Limitless drug for you would be Ben Simmons? No, because Ben Simmons was an emotional issue, I think, more than anything. I think he was a very smart basketball player. Well, with the guy in Limitless,

1:20:44Bill Simmons:his emotional issue is he couldn't finish his book. That's right. That's true. and it kind of unblocked him. Ben Simmons needed an unblocking.

1:20:53Max Kellerman:He was afraid to get fouled.

1:20:55Bill Simmons:I think of Limitless,

1:20:56Max Kellerman:a guy with all the tools, if he were a smarter player. James Wiseman? Well, there's a good one. Could James Wiseman have been

1:21:05Bill Simmons:the best version ever of Jalen Duren if he had the Limitless drug?

1:21:08Max Kellerman:Right, if he had the Limitless drug. But he's 25-20s? Who's the player you're like, man, if that dude was just smarter or faster processor.

1:21:15Bill Simmons:Can I offer you Lamar Odom? Oof. instead of him taking other drugs that he brags about now, he just took the limitless drug.

1:21:22Max Kellerman:But Lamar wasn't a stupid player. You know, like he just, you know.

1:21:26Bill Simmons:Chase Budinger? One of the great athletes who never made it? Like Hall of Fame volleyball player and a great basketball player? I'm trying to think of like...

1:21:35Max Kellerman:Just never put it together. No, I'm thinking of a guy like, and it's not that he doesn't know the game, but like someone, Kyrie Irving, who skill for skill... Oh, Kyrie Irving on the limitless drug. If you gave Kyrie Irving the kind of, but the thing that's tough about Kyrie is he doesn't have a low basketball, he has a high one, but it's more like he's not at times judicious enough about when to deploy his different, his bag is so deep that he needs to know, he needs to be, it's not an IQ thing, it's a what wisdom thing. He needs the wisdom to know which tool to take out of the bag when. I think that's really the thing that's stopping him from, and partly because the bag is so deep, right?

1:22:17Max Kellerman:Like he can do so many things. That's one of the things that's stopping him from being in the conversation among the greatest who ever lived.

1:22:24Bill Simmons:So we've seen this in baseball with Barry Buds, who actually had his version of Limits' drug. What happens? His eyesight gets so good, you can't throw him a ball. He just won't swing at it. He always swings at strikes. He puts up stats that are like hilarious to look at at the baseball reference now. And he was already really talented to begin with. He would have been a Hall of Fame left fielder without the 98 and after.

1:22:49Max Kellerman:Hall of Fame? He would have been, it would have been Ted Williams. Yeah, he would have been known as one of the best left fielders. It would have been, is it Ted Williams, Stan Musial, or Barry Bonds?

1:22:56Bill Simmons:Right. It would have been that had he never touched PEDs. So the PEDs became the limitless drug, pushed him up. So if that happened for Kyrie.

1:23:04Max Kellerman:Well, the PED, you know what the PEDs were for Barry Bonds? So let me take it to superheroes, okay? um uh captain america it was captain america was a 98 pound weakling right who took super soldier serum and what that did was it optimized the human possibilities like the limitless drug but physically right it's kind of like if instead of a 98 pound weakling took super soldier serum what if you gave batman super soldier serum right he's already like physically better than everyone else and now you're putting him on the stuff that makes him the best possible version of himself so it'd be like like Giannis in 2020 we just gave him a little list right Barry Bonds was putting up mid four on bases and high six sluggings which is like some of the best 42 no no in his prime which is some of the best numbers anyone's ever put up and then in his late 30s suddenly he woke up same external factors, ballpark, everything same, everything the same.

1:24:07Max Kellerman:He woke up one day at like 36 or 37 and he was on his on base percentage was in the sixes. He was slugging in the eights.

1:24:18Bill Simmons:It's like, you're making a mockery of the game. I think there should be a baseball hall of fame. And I don't know how many people would be in this part of the hall of fame. It's maybe In my basketball book, I had the Pantheon, and it was the top. It was a pyramid. The top level was the best guys ever. In baseball, there's this whole different version of just guys that you will always remember seeing in person.

1:24:42Max Kellerman:Yeah.

1:24:43Bill Simmons:And I saw Bonds when he was just before all the PD stuff. So great. I saw him as a left fielder on the Giants just when he was great. And it was just different to watch him play left field and then come to bat. and you knew he could steal second base and it was just memorable. I felt like Ricky Henderson was like that.

1:25:02Max Kellerman:Oh, in 1985?

1:25:04Bill Simmons:Ricky Henderson in the 80s was like amazing to see. Dwight Gooden was like this. Oh, as a rookie. Pedro was like this. There's certain guys that I just think stand out.

1:25:12Max Kellerman:Like people talk about Koufax and the previous generation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. Like Aaron Judge, right? Or Shohei, obviously, both of them.

1:25:19Bill Simmons:Honestly, Judge is like that.

1:25:21Max Kellerman:Yeah.

1:25:21Bill Simmons:He's so fucking big. When you're in person at the games and he comes in, it's like seeing like fucking Paul Bunyan.

1:25:26Max Kellerman:Yeah, it is Paul Bunyan.

1:25:27Bill Simmons:Yeah, you're like, oh my God.

1:25:29Max Kellerman:He's in the Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle kind of lineage of physically different than ever, like bigger somehow, hitting the ball farther than everybody.

1:25:38Bill Simmons:I think Betts is like that. Because he's such a great player. He's such a great base runner. He's such a great defender. Just everything he does is so different than any other player.

1:25:50Max Kellerman:Our kids went to school together when they were in preschool, right? and um so esther who was i think in the same year as ben i took her to an angels game because the yankees were in town and i pointed out to her she's little i don't know three or maybe five or something and i said that is derrick jeter and that is mariana rivera because rivera came in the game and i was like see mariana rivera just remember that you saw him in person right because Rivera, Rivera is like, I have, I think I don't stop me if I've said this to you before, but this is from greatest hits volume two. Uh, I have levels of clutch like Dante's Inferno.

1:26:35Max Kellerman:Right. And the highest level of clutch is, you know, and then down to like, you're down to like, you are maybe the best who ever did it. And under pressure, you're the worst who ever did it. Like, like you're, you're in that, like a rod was there for a while. Peyton Manning was there for a while, right? There are guys like that. The highest level of clutch is the Michael Jordan, Mariano Rivera level. Mariano Rivera has the lowest adjusted ERA in baseball history. What did he do in the postseason? His ERA is one third of his normal ERA, which was the best ever in the postseason. It's a 0.7 in 142.

1:27:13Max Kellerman:He was so great.

1:27:14Bill Simmons:The fans who went against him and got a run on him in the ninth, remember all the parts of the inning. Right. And it's usually like a dink hit and a steal and another dink hit. And it's an error.

1:27:26Max Kellerman:So, you know, and so like there are people like that. I'm so glad I told Esther like that is Mariano Rivera.

1:27:32Bill Simmons:One thing that Mariano had, so he would be on my list too of the guys you just remember seeing. He could come into Fenway and the crowd would be going nuts and he would come out and he would just walk and have that Mariano kind of vibe. And he would kind of psych out the crowd before the inning started. You're like, oh, fuck, we're not going to get hit on this guy.

1:27:53Max Kellerman:He had something about him. Look, he's the only unanimous selection to the Baseball Hall of Fame and his first ballot, right? He had something about him that was like, if you took the old man in the sea and took the passage about DiMaggio, and just you could put Rivera instead of DiMaggio. What about the great Rivera? I heard his father was a fisherman, right? Like it's the exact, so you could do, you could just substitute DiMaggio with Mariano Rivera and, and the book reads exactly the same.

1:28:22Bill Simmons:There's two other good things with that. One is you mentioned Jordan. When he hits the shot, there's that awesome photo of all the Utah fans. Yeah. There's the blown up photo of all the Utah fans' faces just knowing they're fucked. The ball's in the air. They're all like, it's Jordan. You think it's going to not go in? Yeah. But we weren't old enough to see Russell in person. Right. But this has been told to me many times. And it's been in documentaries and stuff. When they would introduce the players in the other team, they would all come out and stand next to each other. Now they run out and they do the jumps into each other.

1:28:55Bill Simmons:And sometimes they don't even come out. But they would come out and they would stand all next to each other. And they would announce Russell and he would come out and just stand there with his hands behind his back. And the crowd would get psyched out. Because he never lost. And they would just see him and be like, fuck.

1:29:10Max Kellerman:In high school, what's the stat? In high school? college and the pros he played in what was it 21 game sevens and won every one it's something he won every game seven he lost in 58 not game seven deciding games deciding games in his life i want to say maybe he had one loss or he's undefeated come on that like especially when you get to a deciding game the teams are pretty evenly matched usually yeah and normally it does come down to who has the best like who's the guy you want on your team who has that guy that's the

1:29:41Bill Simmons:case for him in the pantheon. Greg from Chicago. The love for the AD hockey team over the last couple of weeks and Do You Believe in Miracles got me thinking of the great sports calls of all time. He wanted me to do a whole podcast about this or do a bracket or something, but it did get me thinking just off the top of my head, no research, what my favorite ones were other than Do You Believe in Miracles? And I think Down Goes Frazier is second.

1:30:08Max Kellerman:Down Goes Frazier.

1:30:09Bill Simmons:Down Goes Frazier is unbelievable. It's Cosell's greatest work.

1:30:13Max Kellerman:And he just keeps saying it. He keeps screaming. He's so shocked.

1:30:15Bill Simmons:Down goes Frazier. Down goes Frazier. Down goes.

1:30:18Max Kellerman:By the way, what's crazy is he did that for one knockdown. Frazier was knocked down six times. Oh my God. In that fight, right? Poor Frazier. Yeah. The all-time bad matchup fight. All time. It's the rock, paper, scissors, 100%. It is, it is.

1:30:32Bill Simmons:Then he went back for seconds. He's like, maybe this time I'll beat him. Yeah, right, yeah.

1:30:35Max Kellerman:This time it won't. But like, it is the, you study it when you talk rock, paper, scissors. in boxing. When you talk styles make fights. Frazier Foreman. That's like the number one thing. I don't believe what I just saw I wrote down. I don't believe what I just saw. By the way, Lampley has a great one with Foreman when he knocked out Michael Moore. It happened. It happened.

1:30:59Bill Simmons:That was a great one. Great one. We'll see you tomorrow night was a good one. And then Joe Buck after game four ALCS or game five. I can't remember which one, but he says we'll see you later tonight. because it was past midnight. That's right. And it was like an homage to his dad, but also awesome.

1:31:15Max Kellerman:Yeah, that was awesome.

1:31:16Bill Simmons:Lundqvist. Yes, sir! For Nicholas. And then Havlicek stole the ball and Giants win the pennant were the two we grew up with. Havlicek stole the ball, Giants win the pennant were the two.

1:31:27Max Kellerman:It's so interesting to me, the Giants win the pennant, because there's one of the great American novels, Underground, right? Yep. DeLilo. it's about kind of like the loss of American innocence. It's a thousand something pages. And the moment he uses to show like innocent America is Bobby Thompson's home run.

1:31:55Bill Simmons:Hmm.

1:31:56Max Kellerman:Which it later came out that they were stealing signs. I found that so interesting that like you're trying to get the perfect moment in American history, pre-Watergate, pre a lot of the cynicism or so it's told. and here it is, Bobby Thompson's home run. This is pure Americana and kind of an innocent time. And it turns out it's total bullshit. It's, everything was just, oh, like nothing ever changes. It's the same shit all the time. And they were stealing signs. There was no innocence. There was no purity. There was, you, like the irony of DeLillo choosing Thompson's home run as the moment to make that point makes the novel even better for me.

1:32:41Bill Simmons:You just saw that with the Olympic gold medal.

1:32:44Max Kellerman:And hockey.

1:32:46Bill Simmons:Yeah. When we won in 1980, it was all anyone talked about for like a month and a half after.

1:32:51Max Kellerman:We were big underdogs, though.

1:32:52Bill Simmons:No, but I'm saying after it happened, we were just living on a high forever. And it was like, Jim Craig's going to sign with the Atlanta Flames. I'm like, great! I'm now a Flames fan. And then Ken Mora was on the Islanders. It's like, I hope they win the cup. I love Ken Moore. It was like unity somehow. Yeah, I was still rooting for those guys. Here, we won them. Within 24 hours, it became a political controversy. Right. Because that's just how everything has to go, apparently. Derek from Bloomington, Indiana. What current NBA player do you think would represent the USA the best in curling if they practiced?

1:33:24Bill Simmons:In curling? Curling. Okay, hold on. So we take a great athlete. Yeah. And we're just like, for a year, you're just going to learn how to curl. Steph? So that's where I had Curry. Hand eye, attention to detail. I would pick Steph. I think he could figure it out in a year. However, pre-2020.

1:33:45Max Kellerman:He's called, though, which would be. Pre-2022, fate of the universe on the line. Iguodala. No, no.

1:33:54Bill Simmons:Yes, Steph, Steph, yeah. Well, I wonder, like, is there a size thing? Like, maybe it's somebody's shorter.

1:33:59Max Kellerman:That's a good point, too.

1:34:00Bill Simmons:Maybe it's like a Dame Lillard three years ago type thing.

1:34:03Max Kellerman:Yeah. He's 6 '3". I mean, he's tall, but he's not, like,

1:34:05Bill Simmons:I wonder if it has to be like 5 '9", 5 '8". Is it like Jose Alvarado?

1:34:09Max Kellerman:Is Curry actually 6 '3", or is he an NBA 6 '3"?

1:34:12Bill Simmons:No, he's taller than me. I'm 6 '1 1⁄2", and Curry was... And Curry's 6 '3". I thought Curry had an inch on me. These guys are all taller than you think. Like Nash, you assume, is like, you know, Mighty Mouse. When you meet him, he's like a good 6 '2 1⁄2". Yeah, yeah. He's taller than I am. Yeah, right. Kyrie's another one. Kyrie's not... Six feet tall, something like that? A little more? No, he's higher. I think he's like 6'. Yeah, maybe 6 '1", 6 '2". Yeah. I wrote, this is the only question I made up. Okay, Max, top four boxers right now because nobody knew you were going to be on my mailbag.

1:34:43Bill Simmons:What's your Max? Are we including Terrence Crawford or no?

1:34:46Max Kellerman:Because he's technically retired right now.

1:34:49Bill Simmons:Don't include him because he's technically retired even though we know he's coming back.

1:34:53Max Kellerman:Oleksandr Usyk is the heavyweight champion. My guy.

1:34:56Bill Simmons:You know what he does? He just wins parlays. Just put him in with any other anything. Pick a sport,

1:35:01Max Kellerman:anything. First of all, he's cruiserweight champion, undisputed, beat everybody. Um, he, he and Evander Holyfield, two greatest cruiserweights ever division's been around about 50 years. Yeah. Um, he moves up to heavyweight, but in an era of super heavyweights, right? Like these aren't your, your father's heavyweights. These are soup. These are 250 and 60 and 80 pound guys. And not only does he beat three of the top guys in consecutive fights, he does it twice. He beats them each twice.

1:35:30Bill Simmons:Never like really favored by that much in any of the

1:35:33Max Kellerman:fights because of the size difference and that well certainly not against dubois maybe but not against uh fury and joshua yeah and against tyson fury was really interesting very great fighter and fury who's six eight two eight seventy two eighty by the middle of that fight starts to look like he's playing with usick yeah he's winning the fight and he's kind of playing with them and having fun it's like this is maybe a mismatch and usick comes back and fit because talk about a deep bag. Usyk's bag, no matter what adjustment you make, he makes a better adjustment. He has a, he's Kobe if you're trying to defend him.

1:36:08Max Kellerman:He has a counter for every single thing you do.

1:36:10Bill Simmons:These are my favorite boxers, the problem solvers. The problem, right, every sport. This is what I love about. This was Leonard's underrated quality. No question.

1:36:17Max Kellerman:It was shit. I got to solve this over the next half hour. Cooper flag. That's why I think he's going to be so good. Whatever you throw at him, he figures it out, right? And so that's Usyk. Then, Shakur Stevenson. who just put on a clinic against Teofimo Lopez, Madison Square Garden.

1:36:33Bill Simmons:Silence the doubters. I was never a giant, I wasn't a go out of my way to watch him guy for Stevenson.

1:36:39Max Kellerman:But that was a masterpiece. Like, you know, he's like a Pernell Whitaker, Floyd Mayweather, any one of these incredible boxers who you just can't hit. So good luck beating them. So there's a guy named, there's a guy named, remember this if you're into boxing or you want to be, Nao Inoue, who is called the monster in Japan, who keeps going up weight classes. He was tiny, but he keeps going up. Now he's up to junior featherweight, right? So he's getting to be more, still small, but not as tiny, right? And he keeps just dominating everybody in every weight class. Can really box, make adjustments, very fast twitchy, big puncher.

1:37:20Max Kellerman:What do you think the lowest weight

1:37:22Bill Simmons:for the casual American boxing fan to get invested in?

1:37:27Max Kellerman:you got to feel like I could, this guy, I can take, you can't feel like I can take this guy because he's too small, right? If your average American sitting in his, sitting on his couch, watching a fight.

1:37:37Bill Simmons:Junior lightweight, how low can we go?

1:37:38Max Kellerman:I think we can go down to featherweight. I think we go to 126 pounds. 126 pounder walks around 145 pounds and can kick your ass, right?

1:37:48Bill Simmons:Like. Well, when did Pacquiao really become, when did he cross over? What weight class was he in when So he started at flyweight. I know. But he also like,

1:37:57Max Kellerman:he was the lineal champ at flyweight. It's not like he just turned pro and then started moving. And then he skipped certain divisions. But I would say when he got to 100 and featherweight, 126 pounds is when he crossed over because he obliterated Barrera. I think people check out under that weight. You might be right about that.

1:38:17Bill Simmons:The guys are just, the punches are flying. It's just hard to get a, it almost seems like a different sport.

1:38:23Max Kellerman:Zufa boxing. That's where we go down to is featherweight. Smart. Yeah. By the way, Zufa Boxing, speaking of cruiserweights, I said Holyfield and Usyk are the two greatest cruiserweights ever. The guy who's in the conversation for number three is Jai Opataya, who's an undefeated Australian cruiserweight. He is universally recognized as the champ. He's the Ring Magazine champ, right? But Ring Magazine does not, they're not, what they do is they recognize who is the champ. They're not sanctioning fights and stuff like that. They're just like, oh, that guy beat everyone, he gets our belt. So what boxing has been missing is a mechanism by which the best actually fight the best.

1:39:06Max Kellerman:Jai Opatia just signed with Zufa Boxing, who I work for, and Jai Opatia is defending his Ring Magazine, which means you're the champ, cruiserweight title, but importantly, fighting for the first ever Zufa championship belt against this American Brandon Glanton, who is like a Joe Frazier, Dwight Braxton, come forward and try to kill you every round type guy. And it's going to be a sensational action fight. And that's March 8th, I'll be calling it.

1:39:35Bill Simmons:That's thanks week. Yep. So who's your number four in the, in the top four?

1:39:40Max Kellerman:So four, if I had to go beyond in a way, probably Bam Rodriguez. Bam Rodriguez is a little smaller than in a way, but is a southpaw boxer puncher who can fight his ever loving ass off. And like in any sport, Bill, what's the first thing you look for? Like it's not impossible to be a world class, like elite, elite guy without this, but the fast twitchies, right? Is this guy like electrically fast? And then is he skilled and all that. Bam has that stuff, plus he's tough, plus he hits hard, the whole package. What's our best division right now? Best division in boxing?

1:40:20Bill Simmons:I'm still nostalgic for the super middleweight run we had in the, what was that, early 2010s? With who? Just all those dudes we had all in a row, the Kalsagi, all those guys. And

1:40:31Max Kellerman:Kessler and Andre Ward, like the Super 6 tournament. All of a sudden we had like nine guys who could just beat the shit out of each other. Because this is like, this is why, this is why I was so hopeful. And this is why I went with Zufa boxing, right? Like I didn't not have opportunities in boxing is boxing has always lacked the they who's like, you know what they should do in football? You mean the NFL. You don't mean these other leagues. You know what they should do in basketball? You need the NBA. There's never been a they in boxing. And when you look at MMA, there's a they there. It's the UFC.

1:41:05Max Kellerman:Right. And so like, I get a call from Dana White and talk to Nick Khan. And it's like, yeah, we want to do this. Like, let's, I think, oh, wait a minute. For the first time, there might be a they in boxing. I want to be a part of that.

1:41:19Bill Simmons:Right. It's usually a they, but it's like they were crooks.

1:41:23Max Kellerman:Right, right. They did something illegal. The closest thing that boxing's ever had to an actual they was Frankie Carbo, who was literally a mobster. When the mob controlled boxing, that's the closest thing that boxing ever had to a, to a day. Right. So, so when you talk about this, the reason you remember the super middleweights is because they organized a tournament and it was called the super six and it took place over a couple of years where they took the six best super middleweights in the world.

1:41:52Bill Simmons:We also had six best too. That's the other thing.

1:41:54Max Kellerman:We did, but we, but like the fact that they all fought each other elevates them in your own mind. Cause you're like, you cause, So that's what we're doing here, right? Like you want to turn boxing. Every other sport is a super six every year. Every year in football, basketball, baseball, there's a tournament. And you find out who's the best and that's what it should be in boxing.

1:42:14Bill Simmons:This is a mailbag question I got, but it's perfect for you. It's from Justin R. in Ann Arbor. Lifelong Pistons fan, he says. I was trying to explain the Pistons to a friend of mine. Made the connection who Ron Holland reminds me of. Old dirty bastard. In the Wu-Tang of the Pistons, he's definitely ODB not on every song but who's in the track you always feel him but then what's beef stew um I'm not sure there's actually ever been a hip-hop artist quite like beef stew just

1:42:42Max Kellerman:think about that one I just knew you'd have some thoughts uh old dirty I have more first of all Detroit people who said including Rich Paul to me when I was like they might be ahead of schedule I once they beat the next the way they did I'm like could they win the championship he's like they don't have a second banana they don't and and so and that's been too hard for them it's too hard old dirty was first of all his first album was is one of the most underrated of all time it is an absolute classic a classic there's so many great songs on the album it's insane and dirty is if someone says hey he's my favorite hip-hop artist of all time i understand because he kind of his mind too like if old dirty any song that was on brown is not good enough for the right dirty comparison right exactly old dirty is like if you want to who is he he's like a sixth man but it but your sixth man is this is the all-time team and your sixth man is kobe bryant you know like it he's a he's a a relief a setup man but it's rivera in 96 it's like bill And it's like, that's not even fair.

1:43:54Max Kellerman:Yeah. Yeah. Old Dirty was just pure adrenaline. Okay.

1:43:59Bill Simmons:Anthony in Pittsburgh wants to know if I have any concerns about Drake May being a victim of the Merino curse.

1:44:04Max Kellerman:Never getting back.

1:44:06Bill Simmons:Losing a Super Bowl second year, can't make it back. The only other definite victim is Kaepernick. Joe Burrow is in play. Brock Purdy, maybe. But he says, on the flip side, the Brady blessing, if you win a Super Bowl in year two, you're destined to be a Hall of Famer. Kurt Warner, Roethlisberger, Mahomes. I don't believe in any of this stuff. And I think Drake May will be back. But we didn't talk about Drake May. So I wanted your take. People have certainly heard mine.

1:44:38Max Kellerman:I was very high on Drake May. He's kind of the guy you want. I'm high on my guy, Jackson Dart, by the way. I think there's some great young quarterbacks in the league. The way he lost that game, there are some games like like the when the giants played the ravens in the super bowl i would have much preferred to not have been in the super bowl that year that's how i felt about this super bowl with the pets that's just easier losing in denver but like in this case kerry collins was not the future of the giants right that how drake may responds to this is going to be the whole shooting match because he got the the whole uh what was it it was sam Darnold who was like, I'm seeing ghosts against the Patriots.

1:45:22Max Kellerman:Right. Yeah. That's how he was playing. He was playing like, I'm seeing ghosts.

1:45:26Bill Simmons:I just want to know if he was hurt or not. And at some point we're going to find out, but we may never find out because it was illegal if he was hurt and they didn't tell us. Right. They'll get fined. They'll lose like a third round pick. The thing about like a torn rotator, like a tear in his cuff or something.

1:45:40Max Kellerman:But, but like the Seattle defense all year, it didn't jump out to me as much as the Rams did. Cause the Rams were like clutch third down defense or like the Texans because the Texans pass rush was insane and it made their secondary which was good look even better but when you think about the overall balance of the Seattle defense and then the fact that the head coach is a great defensive play everyone wants that offensive play caller as head coach but the Seattle has that just on the defensive side of the ball yeah and then they also have an offensive coordinator who's good enough that he's now going to be a head coach.

1:46:16Bill Simmons:And the Pats had things you could pick at, like a scab. Which they did. We notice when you do this, you're passing. They said after the game they would tip off, run, or pass. Well, that's not good. We noticed we could attack your right side and you wouldn't have enough blockers. We noticed your left tackle was moving right because he's a torn MCL. They were just picking it apart.

1:46:39Max Kellerman:Let me tell you what it reminded me of. the way Belichick would coach against young quarterbacks back in the day. Like in the Rams Super Bowl, even. Exactly. And you're like, oof, that's what it was like McDonald. It was really, that was the game was really McDonald.

1:46:53Bill Simmons:So you're on the fence with Drake May, it sounds like.

1:46:55Max Kellerman:No, no, no. I really like him as a player. But now comes the part where we find out, like it's like a fighter who gets knocked out early in his career, right? Like in his first title shot, he gets knocked out. Does that mean, well, okay, he's hit his ceiling or does that mean that he learns from that and comes back better, right? Manny Pacquiao lost early in his career. It's okay, you can lose early in your career. Leonard Duran won in Montreal. That's right. But yeah, that's right. And Leonard lost. But Drake May suffered a different kind of loss than Leonard did. He was dominated. He was out of his league, right?

1:47:30Max Kellerman:And so I want to see how he responds to that. If he responds to it well, the Pats are in great shape. but like you got to respond to that one that's like that's the kind of game i wish if i was a pats fan i wish he had not played that game i like i i think there's enough damage from a game like that i don't i don't know if you learn from that or if you are demoralized by it i'd like to see

1:47:53Bill Simmons:the more i think about it the four games in a row is probably the cumulative effect of combined him not being healthy right but just getting the shit kicked out of him for eight straight halves

1:48:04Max Kellerman:what was shocking to me and there's some people you just get a sense that they're going to come through under pressure I thought that about CJ Stroud I thought CJ Stroud when the chips are on the line I like the cut of his jib I think he was the opposite he was awful

1:48:18Bill Simmons:I know but the weird thing with May is they weren't even using him the way they used him during the season which is what makes me think he was hurt they used to roll him out and he was so good at throwing the run and throwing deep on the run they didn't do it once

1:48:30Max Kellerman:no and you saw that throughout the playoffs actually where when he would make a big play, not just with his legs, but it could be like a kind of hidden big play. It's second and nine, and you need to keep the chains moving. And he escapes pressure and hits the receiver, and you go, man, that's just a Super Bowl-type play, right? He made those, even when he was having bad playoff games, I saw those late in games. And I did not see that against Seattle.

1:49:00Bill Simmons:Will W. writes, I think the WWE ESPN mix is weird. They haven't figured out how to put wrestling promos and news next to sports, like the NBA NFL wrestler interviews on SportsCenter. It always seems uncomfortable with the ESPN hosts and the kayfabe. They oddly try to toe a line of not acknowledging it, not participating in it. Do you find it weird? I do. I think it's very strange to watch wrestling on, and I'm a lifelong wrestling guy. it's weird to see it on ESPN. I can't get used to it. I know what you mean. Like Cody Rhodes was on there two days ago. It's like, let's talk about Cody Rhodes.

1:49:40Bill Simmons:Big pay-per-view coming up. I'm like, what the fuck are we doing?

1:49:43Max Kellerman:It would almost be better if it was like it was in the old days where it was presented without acknowledging. The premise was this is really happening. Pretending it was like the whole thing's real. Then it makes more sense. on ESPN. But, you know, ESPN is entertainment is the first, is the first letter. It's entertainment at sports, right? That's, that's the, uh...

1:50:09Bill Simmons:I think it's in a weird spot. And I, look, we both work there, so it's always weird to talk about it. But I think the company in general with the content, it's in a strange spot right now.

1:50:17Max Kellerman:But look, you know why they, they take the WWE because, or they want it because it's, does a great number. Like, and, and it also hits youth culture.

1:50:25Bill Simmons:Yeah. Well, same reason when I was there, They never, they thought UFC was cockfighting, human cockfighting. They never were going to go near it.

1:50:34Max Kellerman:Okay, I was once in a meeting and I was friendly with Dana since Zufa bought the UFC because I was the only guy in boxing, basically, not hostile to it. Because my basic feeling, first of all, I love knowing who wins in a fight. Yeah. Right? Show me any two, like animals fight, whatever. I want to know who wins in a fight, right? Turns out killer whales destroy great whites, by the way. Not even a fight. Don't even, they prey on great whites. That was a big one for me when I found that out, right? So, so I loved UFC, you know, and originally it was high concept. It was who wins, the karate guy or the kung fu guy, the boxer or the wrestler.

1:51:10Bill Simmons:Have you ever watched those first five, six years of UFC? Of course, I watched them live. Sometimes they would, not even the guys wouldn't even be the same weight. No, they weren't.

1:51:17Max Kellerman:There's no weight classes, no rules, the whole thing. It was amazing. And then. It was honestly like blood sport with Van Damme. It was, it was amazing. And then it really, what it was, was real wrestling. professional real professional wrestling like any like anything goes yeah and then um when Zufa bought it because and I also thought like hey this is catching on with young people hey boxing crowd instead of being hostile to it let's use this as an entry point to our hey you like combat sports kids maybe you like to watch us too but instead everyone in boxing was hostile I wasn't Dana liked me on boxing's a big boxing fan so I went to dinner with with all the UFC roster, like Couture and all those guys at Il Molino in New York in the year Zufa bought it.

1:52:00Max Kellerman:So what was that? 2000, 2001 or something like that. And was, was like, you know, always really way into it. Um, and I - ESPN, no, they'd never - ESPN, I was in a boxing meeting once in Bristol and we were getting a whole corporate thing, which sometimes it feels like just meant to demoralize. He was like, we need to figure out a way to do like a really big number but not spend any money. That was kind of like the message. So I thought, Dana White and the UFC, they'll just, they'll buy the time for me. Like, forget about giving the money. They just want access to the airwaves now. And I tried to broker something.

1:52:45Max Kellerman:And it was no.

1:52:46Bill Simmons:they were on spike yeah that was huge for them yeah that was like a that was the breakthrough when spike had a channel but of course espn should have embraced it way funny because when i look back i thought especially like i thought 09 through 13 was like i i've said this over it was an awesome time to be there they really took chances they spent money they were really committed to creative stuff is when i i did my favorite stuff there and in some ways they were really ahead of the game Like soccer, I thought they were really ahead of the game. They felt like, let's get in on this and we'll try to build it.

1:53:22Bill Simmons:This could be the next global sport. And they were right. And then they ended up ironically losing it to Fox after they had helped build it up. UFC was the big miss, I think, for them. Because they could have got in really, really early ground floor and it wouldn't be enough innings. Instead, they were always fixated on baseball, making sure they had the baseball. We got to do another baseball deal. oh, we need this Sunday night baseball. And it wasn't matching what the habits were. Like young people weren't watching baseball the same way and people are gravitating toward their own teams. And the concept of national baseball over the 2010s was dying and UFC was where young people were going and they just, they missed it.

1:54:02Max Kellerman:Yeah, I mean, you have to figure out if you're ESPN, what are the shared experiences that people kind of all across the country want to watch at the same time? Yeah. And a fight of one kind or another, whether that's WWE or UFC or boxing, if they know the characters involved, they'll be interested. Baseball is an extremely local product.

1:54:25Bill Simmons:And baseball's now screwed up how you think about it because the playoffs really do matter as much as they ever have. Of course. In the last 20 years. It feels like that's back. We're seeing NBC's pushing opening night, NBC, the Dodgers against the Giants. And it's like, I'm still not sure people want to watch other teams unless it's the playoffs.

1:54:47Max Kellerman:I was going to do this as a five-minute max on the pod. Yeah. I'll turn it into a two-minute max if you want to hear it. Yeah, let's hear it. The NFL, because of the nature of the sport, a lot of times the NFL is praised for everything. They do everything like the NFL. They do it so great. But really, the number one thing they have going for them is back to my long-term, short-term incentive thing, right? Yeah. The short-term incentives in baseball is grab this money from these local deals. Of course, why wouldn't we want to take this money, right? But it turns it into a very local sport. The NFL, because the inventory is so low, can't be as local, must be a national sport, partly because the nature of the sport is so brutal, you can't play that many games.

1:55:29Max Kellerman:And since there are fewer games, it's easier to build up, tell the story, watch the game, break it down afterwards. And because there's so little inventory compared to the other sports, everyone in the country can follow every team. Well, plus you had the fantasy and the gambling. And for sure, but that exists in basketball too. Fantasy's dead in basketball. There's no reason for that really.

1:55:49Bill Simmons:The load management and the injuries have killed fantasy basketball. I don't know anyone who plays fantasy basketball anymore. I don't know people who play fantasy baseball anymore either. Tell you the truth. I'm still an ale keeper. But like, tell me about that guy in the Yankees who throws 103. I'm looking at him for the minor league draft.

1:56:11Max Kellerman:That's a real hardcore sports degenerate. Yeah. I think what killed fantasy for a lot of people was daily. Like once I started playing daily fantasy, like football, fantasy football, I can't, I don't have the patience for that anymore. Daily fantasy. I have multiple teams on the same game. Like I can, I get all different permutations of teams. I like, I can play for 50 cents.

1:56:32Bill Simmons:Have you done guillotine? No. Guillotine is good because it's just a giant league and one team gets cut every week and their players go back in the pool. Oh, that's pretty good. You can be out right away. I actually won the league we had last year and I was really into it. And it had a natural ending. It's so time consuming. Yeah, that's the thing. To play daily fantasy is just... It's not acceptable.

1:56:54Max Kellerman:No.

1:56:55Bill Simmons:I'm not proud of it.

1:56:56Max Kellerman:No.

1:56:56Bill Simmons:I think of the AL Keeper, like our drafts at the end of March, I got to start studying who the changes were in rosters.

1:57:03Max Kellerman:You ever see those TED Talk type things where the guy's like, this is how many he'll graphically show people, this is your life. each one of these and this is how much you're awake and you got to take half of that and this is and and so here's actually the the amount of time you have in your life to do everything you want to do now subtract fantasy sports oh my god i have a friend who quit fantasy football 20 years

1:57:24Bill Simmons:ago and he said it was he feels the same way it's like when he hears people talk about quitting smoking or heroin he's like i've just added all these hours i'm not like stressing out because Odell Beckham got hurt in the second quarter.

1:57:39Max Kellerman:But that's the other thing. It went from freebasing to crack. Like daily fantasy. It's quick, cheap dopamine. It's amazing.

1:57:54Bill Simmons:Some of that's moved to the gambling and the props. These are all phases that eventually... The same game parlays, that will move into something else.

1:58:03Max Kellerman:Yeah, actually, it's the same amount of time spent on it. It's just like...

1:58:06Bill Simmons:Yeah, it's just moving it around. Shift it a little. I had so many more mailbag questions, but we're at the two-hour mark. We've been sitting here for two hours? Yeah. Jesus Christ. I know. Every time we do a pod, it flies by. So we didn't talk about game over. Okay. Rich is on there in the beginning. And Rich was always like, I'm going to shoot from the hip. I'm going to say my... So you guys start the pod. Every time you do an episode, news comes out of it. And people are going nuts that Rich is saying this stuff. And I think he mostly loved it. right? For the most part.

1:58:40Bill Simmons:I mean, I'm sure there was some professional pieces.

1:58:42Max Kellerman:He stands by what he says. A lot of times he's being tarred by what I say. Yeah. Right? Like people are attributing the stuff I say to him because he's sitting next to me. Right. Like the Austin Reeves thing. I suggested that they should think about trading Austin Reeves because what other commodity do they have other than Luca that's worth something on the trade market, right? The discourse about

1:59:02Bill Simmons:the pod has been fascinating. Other podcasts weighing in on whether this should be a podcast. But it seems like we do this every time there's some sort of new genre that moves into podcasting because it's like when Draymond had a podcast. Right. And it's like, wait a second, instead of a press conference, this guy's just going to talk directly to the whatever? Why not? In this case, I think because he reps all these different players and has all this extra intelligence, obviously, part of the game seems for people listening, like what's he trying to say? Is he carrying the agenda as somebody else?

1:59:35Bill Simmons:And it's been fascinating to watch from afar.

1:59:37Max Kellerman:When Rich called me a year, almost two years ago at this point and was like, hey, what do you think of this? And I was already working on something at that point. I thought, I thought he was kidding at first. Yeah. Right. And then I realized he was serious and I stopped and thought about it for a second. And I would think, I thought as a consumer, I would, I would consume that. I would need to know. I'd have to watch that. I'd have to listen to it. So yeah, for that reason.

2:00:02Bill Simmons:He gets the rhythm of it now. And like I talked about on my pod on Sunday, he had that Ann Edwards is the best porn in the week take, which I thought I disagreed with it violently. Of course. But I thought it was a great take. Yeah. Because it's like, you could at least defend it. You're not saying it. I think where we've gotten in problems with take culture over the years is people saying a take for the reaction and not because there's DNA strands of believing in it. And his case was like, I think the best player in the league should be able to play both ends, period.

2:00:32Max Kellerman:I agree. And it's like, all right, that's what you think. Jokic is the best player in the league if Wemby is not, right? I think Jokic is the best player in the league. But it's either Jokic or Wemby. And by the way, when was the last time the two best bigs were the two best players in the league?

2:00:48Bill Simmons:See, I don't think this is fair to SGA because he's been out for two weeks and everybody just forgets how good and dominant he is. I think the difference with Wemby is what I said earlier about, can you have a shitty game and still be the most impactful player in the game? And him and Jokic are the only two. Jokic could go six for 21 and still be the best guy in the game. Is SGA much better than Jalen Brown or Cade Cunningham or Ant Edwards?

2:01:17Max Kellerman:Or is he much better than those guys? I think he's better. I think he's a little better.

2:01:20Bill Simmons:But he's what we talked about earlier. At this moment. you build the team around Luka that accentuates all the stuff he's good at which is what OKC did with them

2:01:27Max Kellerman:which is what they did but I do think he could fit into different situations if you said I need to try to win a championship this year and I could take if Jokic, Wemby and SGA are available I don't have to think about that very hard I can only I could take I could name two that I could have

2:01:44Bill Simmons:I'd have the easiest chance with Jokic to build a team around him if you're giving me like the concept is I'm going to have really good players on this team. Who am I starting with? And he'll have really good teammates. I'd go with Jokic and Wemby. And then who?

2:01:59Max Kellerman:I think Wemby is second. Right. That's what I'm saying. So when you say, well, it's not fair to SGA, it kind of is fair to SGA. We would both take Jokic first, Wemby second. I think I want to see by the end of this postseason, by the end of the playoffs, let me see who I have first in Jokic and Wemby.

2:02:16Bill Simmons:This is why it's recency bias with Wemby, though. We can't do a three-hour podcast, by the way. No, no. This would be the last topic.

2:02:22Max Kellerman:I mean, I can. I don't have to pick my daughter up until like, you know, five o 'clock today.

2:02:26Bill Simmons:I saw this in the Pistons game. I was thinking because they were just so clearly trying to beat the living shit out of them. Right. That's the question we don't have. That's the answer we don't have is over 10 weeks with teams doing this as a strategy. Like Drake May in the playoffs. We're just going to beat the hell out of you and wear you down. What's he going to look like in June?

2:02:45Max Kellerman:We're on the same page. the question remains when was the last time two bigs were the top two players in the game Obviously, Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain count.

2:02:59Bill Simmons:I would say Duncan Shaq, if you count Duncan as a big guy, which I would.

2:03:02Max Kellerman:I would also...

2:03:03Bill Simmons:Duncan Shaq were the two most important guys in the early 2000s.

2:03:05Max Kellerman:I would also, but I don't think it's clear... Well, that's not clear cut now, anyway. Like, I could say Duncan or Kobe, you know, but...

2:03:13Bill Simmons:No, it was Duncan and Shaq were the best two guys from 0-0 to 0-4. They were. Oh, from 0-0 to 0-4. Yeah.

2:03:20Max Kellerman:Yeah, okay, fine.

2:03:21Bill Simmons:And you can even say 99, because Duncan won in 99, and he was the best guy. So that's, that's 20, five year stretch.

2:03:27Max Kellerman:So that's 22 years ago. It's been a generation. Yeah. Since two bigs were the best in the league. And what about before then? Well, Jordan. Yeah. Right. No, it was, it goes back to Kareem. And then magic is Kareem and Kareem and Moses. Kareem and Moses at one point. Kareem and Walton, 77. I would say, but the last, I'd say like Kareem and Moses in the early 80s. 81. Yeah. And then the next time it was 20 years later. Yeah. And now it's 20 years later again. And here we are like, That means stuff just changed. They're going to test Wimby a lot.

2:03:58Bill Simmons:A lot. Detroit was like, this is what we're all going to do now against this guy. We're going to elbow him and chip him and push him. And they have a guy who's Duren.

2:04:06Max Kellerman:Yeah.

2:04:07Bill Simmons:We're going to take... If he's getting a dunk around the basket, we're going to hit him as he's dunking. But that's just the offense, Bill. You said it earlier.

2:04:15Max Kellerman:That's just the offense. He has an enormous impact on the other side of the floor.

2:04:19Bill Simmons:And it's not just against big guys. I said this the other night. Like just look at what he did to Cade and SGA. It's impossible. These guys that are around, they live on the 12 footer, 10 footer, and it's just gone. And you can watch their brain break in real time.

2:04:33Max Kellerman:You're not floating anything over this guy.

2:04:34Bill Simmons:Yeah, it's like, fuck, that's, so that's, I'm crossing that off. Okay. It's honestly like, it's a little like boxing where you see like when somebody fights, like you talked about Stevenson. It's like, all right, here's my plan. I'm going to go into Stevenson. I'm going to start. And then it's like, I can't hit him.

2:04:50Max Kellerman:Right. Now what do I do? By round four, you're like, fuck. Or Wemby, this is going back to Belichick again, right? He'll take away your best two things that you can do. Your two best receivers, he better beat you on the third receiver, right? Wemby takes away more than one thing that you can do. He takes away multiple things you can do. It's not good.

2:05:12Bill Simmons:You know what teams, guys are doing to him now? This must be in the book. Because teams have figured out, over the course of the season, they figure out stupid little things. Like with the Celtics. We always have the bigs. I say we lick them on the team. The bigs at the picks, 25 feet from the basket, and they do these little handoff screens. So what teams have been doing lately is they go around the big and they try to crash before it's the handoff and try to screw up the play, make the shot clock, right? So the Celtics are now adjusting on that. With Wemby, he's got these athletic guys like the Castle types, Ron Holland.

2:05:45Bill Simmons:They're just going right at him into his body and double clutching and making him go vertical, but kind of bouncing off him and then just trying to get a foul on him, basically. And this is like a new strategy.

2:05:57Max Kellerman:What you just mentioned, a couple guys. The thing about Wemby is, if he wins the title this year as clearly the best player on the team. Well, it's like Hakeem 86 type level stuff. Even if it's like he was off offensively because they had a defensive game plan for him. He averaged, you know, 18 points and 13 rebounds, which is off for him, right? and like, you know, four blocks or whatever it's going to be. His team can still easily win. He has so, like, the opposite of the Cade Cunningham problem. You don't, you have five different guys who are the second best player, like, you know, like, who can do it offensively.

2:06:32Max Kellerman:So, like, it is, I think, much more likely than people realize that the Spurs win the championship this year. Well, you know that 40-20 rule, right?

2:06:42Bill Simmons:40. Teams that get to 40 wins before 20 losses. Before 20 losses, yeah. I think you told me that. Only four teams ever? and so saying there's only three this year the Celtics lost to Denver last night so they're

2:06:52Max Kellerman:not going to be in there right and there's obviously strong positive correlation there like they beat Detroit at Detroit they beat Denver at Denver they've dominated OKC their

2:07:02Bill Simmons:ceiling yeah it's like you got to factor in how high the ceiling is when they look good and their ceiling's as high as anybody and then you then I think you get knocked down

2:07:10Max Kellerman:a peg because they lost the in-season tournament to the Knicks like right come on this one stop.

2:07:17Bill Simmons:Zach and I talked about it on Sunday a little, just like the when you have young guys who've never been in there you just never know.

2:07:22Max Kellerman:You don't, but I'm that is just to say that you could figure out exactly how to play Wemby. It could really screw up his offensive game. The Spurs could still beat you and he could still kill you on the defensive end. Like they got a lot.

2:07:34Bill Simmons:Max Kellerman, game over Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And then the boxing, so where's the next one? Give us the promo.

2:07:40Max Kellerman:Zufa Boxing, March 8th, the cruiserweight champion of the world. Jai Opatia is defending in a, who's an action fighter, by the way, who was, when he won the title, it was from one of the best in the history of the cruiserweight division. He got his jaw fractured. He couldn't close it. I think on both sides, Opatia in the third round and fought the next nine rounds with a fractured jaw against one of the best who ever did it in the division. Won the title. He's a southpaw. He can box. He can punch. He has a ton of heart. Australian, 200 pounds. That's cruiserweight division. He's the best 200 pounder in the world.

2:08:13Bill Simmons:It's basically like the new heavyweights. Right.

2:08:14Max Kellerman:Right, the regular size heavyweight. Yeah, and he's fighting a pressure fighter, action fighter, very determined, Brandon Glanton puncher. It's gonna be an explosive fight. The winner gets the first ever Zufa championship belt. Ah, big Z on it? So, you know, what happened with these sanctioning bodies through the years is... IBF, WBF. This is the reason there's 17 weight classes, right? And there's 17 weight classes because they want more sanctioning fees. Every time you fight for a sanctioning body belt, they charge you a sanctioning fee, right? So there's 17 of them, but that wasn't, and there are four different sanctioning bodies.

2:08:52Max Kellerman:It's four times 17. There's 68 different titles, but it gets worse because each sanctioning body now, or several of them, have multiple champions in each division. They say, here's our regular championship belt. If you get injured and you can't defend, you'll be our champion. but then we have an interim champion. I was like, yeah, we should do that in the NBA. Then they have a, like a super duper championship belt. They call it the diamond or this or that, where if you unify the title with another organization, you're now their diamond. So they have so many belts because they want all those sanctioning fees that not only is it all diluted, but the belts themselves are trinkets.

2:09:30Max Kellerman:They're not like the Zufa belt is like diamond studded, right? And it's, you know how it's like a notch in the belt. Every title defense you make, They add a black diamond. They etch the win into the belt and then a black diamond as added to the belt, like a notch in your belt. That's your title defense. So what's amazing about it is, because Ring Magazine, that championship belt is lit. Whoever holds that's the champ. But it is awarded to someone who has done that. It's as a recognition. It's not like we're forcing you to do X, Y, and Z. So there's no real mechanism for the best to fight the best.

2:10:09Max Kellerman:The difference is the Zufa belt will attempt to, will, if you fight for Zufa, you're going to have to fight the best guys in the division. And so here is the first one, the Ring Magazine, the real guy, cruiserweight champ, Jai Opatia, in a sensational, it should be a sensational action fight against Brandon Glanton, first ever Zufa championship belt. Okay. Yeah. Good? Is that pretty good? That was good, yeah.

2:10:35Bill Simmons:That got me excited. March 8th. I like the cruisers. Yeah, the cruisers. Max Kellerman, great to see you. Thanks. You too, always. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Max Kellerman. Thanks to Gahal. Thanks to everybody at The Ringer. Thanks to Eduardo. Rewatchables, don't forget, Monday, 6 p.m., ET, live on Netflix, Sicario as the start of CR Month. And then this Sunday, we're going to wait until after the Celtics-Sixers game. Me and Zach Lowe, Sunday night, maybe Jason Tatum's going to be in this game. We're going to find out, but we're going to go live on Netflix right after that game.

2:11:10Bill Simmons:So it'll be around 1030 ET on Sunday night. Have a great weekend. See you on Sunday.

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