Steph in Purgatory, a LeBron Mini-Mailbag, Jaylen Trade What-Ifs, and the Revived Red Sox With Joe House and Bill’s Dad

23:36Bill Simmons:No KD, but... It's funny. I didn't see any of those games being replayed on NBA TV. It's like, oh, it's game three, Houston Lakers. Oh, sit down. Yeah, I mean, it's just rock fight. Did you watch the WNBA All-Star game last night? Ooh, I saw the video. That was a rock fight. Speaking of. I do wonder if there's a what if with that, though, if the Rockets just win that series. Does LeBron even say that's it? Maybe I don't have it in left to offer. I do think that gave him the idea that he could maybe be a bigger part of a championship team. It felt like to me, no matter what, he was going east. As he taking in all the circumstances of the way that these playoffs played out.

24:22I forgot to give you your victory lap.

24:24Bill Simmons:On what? You said on the podcast last week, you said he was going to Philadelphia and I mocked you and made fun of you. And we bet dinner. Well, the victory lap is dinner. And this is the funniest thing. I didn't get a chance to text our good buddies, Chang and Nathan. But you know where we're going. No. We're going back to Capo. That's the dinner, motherfucker. Capo! Oh, my God. I'm going to have to increase my credit card limit. That's hilarious. A lot of rigor NBA people, by the way. J. Kyle Mann had it in early July even Raheem the Dream Raheem the Dream had a dream Raheem the Dream was driving his car and had a vision both of those preceded me coming on your show and saying that I thought I was going to go to Philly but I'm the only one that bet with you so we're going to have a great dinner I wish I had thought of the whole he could live not in Philly and play in Philly piece that would have at least because I was just no way Philly get the fuck out of here but He's clearly going to live in New York and then have some, I don't know, some nice condo in the Philly Ritz or wherever.

25:38Bill Simmons:And he can stay there some nights or live in New York. But yeah. The other element of that, super short flight down to West Palm. So there is magnificent golf in Philly, New Jersey, and New York. Of course, it gets to be cold and then there isn't golf. But jumping in the PGA and going down to West Palm and then knocking out all the bangers that are down there. Or you go to Charlotte. Grove. He could go to Charlotte. Right. Anyway, he'd go to Georgia. Yeah. Tremendous golf. Short PJ ride away, straight down the East Coast. I have a mailbag. There's a lot of LeBron questions, so I want to take a break.

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27:13Bill Simmons:All right, mailbag time. Thanks to everybody who sends in questions. I truly appreciate it. It is bspodcast33 at gmail.com. First one comes from Martin. He asks, like you, I want to see LeBron in Golden State. but it seems like he realized he couldn't win a ring there without staying tied with Steph. Any chance that was a disincentive to go there. This is something I heard for the last month about LeBron, not wanting to go to Steph's team, Steph's city. And that anytime I mentioned the expendables, people always poo pooed it because of that. I think he was going to go any, the more we learned about this, he was going to the team that gave him his best chance to win the NBA title.

27:54Bill Simmons:And there was no other reason. I agree with that. I don't think that this notion of going to Steph's team was a disincentive. I think the idea of him coming, those two guys joining forces, what a magnificent story. I don't think that he thinks about, you know, that it would be a coattails kind of situation. Yeah. So the three best teams in the league didn't want him. Oklahoma City, San Antonio, and New York, right? So those three are out. He's never going to Boston. He hates Boston. He's not going to Detroit. So there's five teams. He decided he couldn't win in Miami. They're out. That leaves Cleveland, Minnesota, Philly, Golden State.

28:33Bill Simmons:Minnesota's too cold. He's not going there. They're out. Cleveland can't trade Harden. He's not playing a minimum for Dan Gilbert. They're out. Golden State won't trade for AD and didn't trade for Jalen Brown. So from a pure, I want to win the title, Philly was the move. Agree. Of course, I realize that now. I could have realized that five days ago. The fifth title, he took some ring chase abuse. I don't think it was fair because I think he loves playing basketball. I think a ring chase would have been going to San Antonio. Sure. Agreed. That's a ring chase. Or Oklahoma City. Those are the two ring chase teams.

29:11Or the Knicks. he could have gone to the Knicks at the price he agreed to go to Philly that Knicks fans would be like dude we won't without you

29:18Bill Simmons:you could have come here 10 times no it is a different Knicks team and we'll have the opportunity to talk this through the impact of Mitchell Robinson not being on that team is it's not immaterial it is material and they don't have an answer yet I sort of trust I implicitly did they get Drummond? They got Drummond right? okay I mean, they have a live body is my point. He doesn't lead the NBA in offensive rebounding rate. This happened with the Celtics when we lost Posey. And even though it was probably the right move, he signed like a five-year deal with New Orleans and I think was good for maybe another year and a half and then his career kind of died.

30:03Bill Simmons:But we would have a much better chance in 09 if we had Posey, right? You have to make these decisions money-wise. Yeah. Second apron or not. Next question's from Rob. It's a Steph-related one. He asked for a conspiracy bill. Conspiracy bill has had a great summer. A lot of people checking in with him. What if LeBron was secretly being a double agent to the Warriors to keep Steph stuck at four rings while he chases his fifth?

30:31Bill Simmons:Conspiracy bill looked at this one. I don't think LeBron's measuring himself against Steph with rings or any of that stuff. I don't think so either. I'm going to... I'm going to, I'm going to pass on that one. Um, I got another email. Oh, I accidentally deleted. I'm sorry. I deleted the person who sent this was asking if LeBron could win the assist title on Philly. So my bad for not giving you credit. It's a great question. Um, I forgot this cause I forgot everything that happened in 2020. Cause I don't remember one thing that happened that year. He won the assist title in 2020. Do you remember this?

31:12I did not remember that.

31:13Bill Simmons:10.2 assists a game on the Lakers team that won the title. Phenomenal. Won the assist title. And it wasn't by like, you know, an inch. He won by like the next guy was like 9.3. So our leaders that year, this sent me down a rabbit hole. The 2020 leaders, James Harden, 34.3 points a game was the points leader. Andre Drummond, 15.2 rebounds a game, rebounds. Believable. LeBron in assists. Hassan Whiteside in blocks, 2.9. George Hill, 46 percentage for threes, 46.0. Can you guess who led the league in steals in 2020? You're not going to be able to, so I'll give you the answer. No. Jimmy Butler. Ben Simmons.

32:07Bill Simmons:Oh, amazing. So I tried to figure out that was the weirdest combination of people that ever led the league in the major categories. Don't ask why, but I went through basketball reference. I went through everybody and I landed on 1978. Does that count? I knew you would like this. Yeah, there's some bullets involved. The only normal one was George Girvin, 27.2 points a game, won the scoring title. Made sense. He won like five or six scoring titles. Our rebounding leader was Truck Robinson at 15.2. Wow. Leonard Truck Robinson. Good job, Truck. Assists. Kevin Porter, former bullet, 10.2. Ron Lee led the league in steals, 2.7.

32:49Bill Simmons:And George Johnson was our block leader at 3.4. So if you're going to make a starting five of points, steals, rebounds, assists, and blocks, and you make the weirdest starting five possible, it's 1978. George Girvin, Truck Robinson, Kevin Porter, Ron Lee, and George Johnson. Is that even like a 35-win team? What was that? Yeah. What was that 82-0 game or whatever? The 82-0 game. Yeah, that had a fun run. Put those guys in that thing. Let's see how many games they win. Who wins a series with them or Drummond, Ben Simmons, LeBron, Whiteside, and James Harden? They win in four. Yeah, sure. That's a sweep.

33:24Bill Simmons:Yeah, nobody's beating 1978. 20-20 sweeps it. Yeah. All right. This is one of the best questions I've got all year from Leo in Seattle. I hope you get a basketball team soon, Leo. Who do you think will play more games for the 76ers franchise from this point today going forward, LeBron James or Joel Embiid. So from right now going forward, he says, let's say LeBron plays 100 regular season games and 16 playoff games over the next two years. Will Embiid surpass 116, not just for the next two years, but for the rest of his Sixers career? This is amazing. So Embiid's last three years, 39 regular season six playoffs in 24, 19 total in 25, 38 and seven last year, put 109 total last three.

34:15Bill Simmons:So let's be generous and say 45 regular season. They'd play the same amount of playoff games. LeBron's going to be 57 to 60. Yeah. That's why he can't win the assist title, by the way. He's not going to play enough games. Isn't it 55 for the assist title? Oh, Well, even if it's 55, I don't think LeBron's playing 55. So who do you have? That's amazing. Rest of their career on the Sixers. Also includes one of the guys can get traded. Joel can get traded to your team tomorrow. Yeah. Yes. I think I'll take LeBron. I'm going to take LeBron. I am going to take LeBron. It makes a lot of sense for Philly to have eyes and ears open to Embiid trade deals.

35:01It really hurts me to say, but I listened to you with Zach. And then I listened to Zach with Washington and CR. Huh? With the Washington? There is a type of logic to it. Again, it will not be before Christmas of this upcoming season because Washington wants Anthony Davis to play.

35:23Bill Simmons:See, I disagree. I think if it happens, it has to happen now because if Embiid's playing and playing well, they're not going to trade him. and if Embiid gets hurt again, they won't be able to trade him. But right now, we're in this kind of no man's land with it where it's like, well, you look pretty good in the playoffs for a week. Well, then it's not going to be Washington. That's all. Okay. It'll have to be for somebody else. So you wouldn't take Embiid and all the rest of their picks and Phylon, whatever they have left for picks and Phylon and some swaps and for Davis, it's not enough? It's not up to me, first of all, because I might countenance that.

36:00But really, I have my head around the idea of AD as mentor.

36:05Bill Simmons:I love it. Him flying out to Vegas, I believe. I love that you have talked yourself into AD, somebody you've made fun of over and over again for not being able to stay healthy.

36:16Bill Simmons:Or Joel Embiid. I just forgot. Or Joel Embiid, which one? You sent me a picture once, and I probably still have it, of when they announced the NBA 75 and Anthony Davis made it. and you were so upset. You ate like five Reese's Pieces bars and you sent me a picture of all the rappers and you said, I'm so upset. I just ate all these chocolate bars. And now he's on your team. Well, those are two different deals. He could be a great mentor to Alexander Sarr not being in the top 75. He's going to be a mentor for ice packs. Oscar from Kansas City had an LeBron question. He said, LeBron joining the Sixers feels a lot like Tom Brady going to Tampa, an all-time legend signing with a completely new team.

37:02Bill Simmons:2020 bucks were loaded, ready to contend. Brady brought them the leadership experience, made them champs. Do you think this is a valid comp? I've seen this online. A bunch of people mentioned it. I completely disagree, and I think it's insulting to Brady. Wow, okay. Brady, so I went back and I looked at my 2020 NFL prep for that year. Brady had the third best MVP odds for that year. he had just been the best guy on a Super Bowl team two years before they're over under people weren't a believer in the supporting cast they're over under for wins it was a 16 game season was eight and a half they're plus 160 for their division 10 to 1 conference 12 to 1 Super Bowl minus 210 to make the playoffs they went 11 and 5 they were underdogs in the last three playoff games he won Super Bowl MVP he won the MVP of the entire fucking league the following season LeBron's not doing any of that Yeah, yeah.

37:56So that's why it's not a perfect call. I have a better one. Okay, I'm listening.

38:03Bill Simmons:Well, another one I thought of was Brett Favre on the 2009 Vikes. Okay. But they went 12-4 with him. Yes. And he throws the interception in the Saints, the bounty gate. He's probably got nine concussions in the same game. He was fourth MVP last year. That's not happening with LeBron either. So that's not a good one. Let me give you Montana and the Chiefs. Oh, wow. Way back machine. Goes there in 93. They have Marcus Allen, who ends up sixth MVP that year. They have Neil Smith and Derek Thomas, who were two of the best defensive players in the league. They had a really good team. And he was like the last piece.

38:43Bill Simmons:10-1 Super Bowl odds that year. They go 8-3 with them and he gets hurt. They make the AFC title game anyway with Dave Craig. And they lose to Buffalo. and then the next year they go 9-7 lose to Miami in a wild card game but to me it feels like Montana Chiefs that's pretty good, I like that one he's like the last piece he's not the piece you know what I mean Rob from Perth, Australia love Perth, Australia I like the Australian emails are the Sixers now an overbooked Wrestlemania match down by 10 in the third, hit LeBron's music he comes running down Sharon Hand to whack Brunson in the back. Oh, the Knicks are back in it.

39:24Bill Simmons:He gouges JB's eyes. Hidden Beads music. It is funny. They do have an embarrassment of guys who can take over a game and make something fun happen. I like that. Me too. I like the concept of that. Alright, this is a multi-part question. This first one's from Nate from Richmond. Listen to the Fight Club Rewatchables featuring me and CR and realize that the Tyler Durden and split personality is reminiscent of how you talk about conspiracy bill. When someone invokes conspiracy bill in a mailbag, you act like he's a completely different person with his own agency and beliefs. He acts on his own accord and proposes ideas.

40:03Bill Simmons:Regular bill would not. I wanted to find that you and conspiracy bill are the same person before he enacts his own version of project mayhem. That is true. When I become conspiracy bill, I move. It's like Mr. Miyagi. And Mr. Miyagi would talk about himself in third person. Yes. He becomes a different person. Different person. Well, Tim asks for conspiracy bills, take winning the vote in Ohio, Florida, California, and Pennsylvania would net LeBron 120 of the 270 electoral votes. Is LeBron gearing up for a presidential run in 28? I mean, Pennsylvania would get him there. 120 still feels like he needs some work.

40:41Well, now Governor Shapiro is taking some credit, by the way. Governor Shapiro said he was lobbying to get LeBron there. Governor Shapiro wants a victory lap.

40:51Bill Simmons:Should we pour him a little settle down juice? You think he was the one swinging this one? He tipped it. He called his buddy Rich Paul. They were like, hey, Governor Shapiro had an amazing idea that we should go after LeBron James with our free agent buddy. All right. Now we really need conspiracy bill for this next one from Mike from New Orleans. Can I get conspiracy bills take on this new Blazers owner? The league wants to get back to Seattle. the expansion buy-in can be that much greater if the new owner knows they don't have to share the Pacific Northwest market with the Portland Trailblazers.

41:28Bill Simmons:This new Blazers owner seems to be following the playbook owners take when they want to make their teams, take their teams out of town and then blame the fans for making them do it. Cutting costs, going to war with the community, saying he needs taxpayers to give him a new arena. Where have we seen this before? Oklahoma City. We did the Sonic Boom podcast about that. Maybe he takes the team to Vegas. Maybe we get one expansion team instead of two and Seattle rejoins the NBA. This did get conspiracy bills attention. I've been on this Portland thing. I had a guest scheduled in mid June. I was going to, I was immediately fascinated by what was going on and then had to bump because there was so much basketball going on.

42:10Bill Simmons:So maybe I'll have that person on, um, on the next pod. But there's been a lot of like, huh, where it just feels very familiar to the OKC situation and antagonistic unnecessarily. That's the word. That's literally the word. Like he arrives. The paperwork is the ink is barely dry. And it is one fuck you after another. From the moment he got there. To the good people of Portland. like disrespect after disrespect after disrespect do you blame Adam in the league for you bring because this is very similar if I'm going to criticize Stern 20 years ago which I did over and over again I have to criticize Adam for this they bring in the OKC group to buy the team from Howard Schultz and they were like no we want to keep the team here and the moment they got it they're trying to get it out of there and Stern was complicit it's hard not to think Silver had no idea this was a possibility when the team didn't have a lease.

43:16Bill Simmons:You know, they didn't have a lease in three years. Yeah, I think that the league was fully aware of the circumstances of Portland and the relationship with that state and the city and the community. And it sure does feel expendable because we haven't seen one thing come down from the league. this feels like it's beyond posturing and gamesmanship and feels very fuck you ish now. I really agree with this. And also I've said this, I said this on the last pod. I'll continue to say this. I don't think the city should have to pay for Jack's shit. You, you know, I agree with that as well. It's bullshit.

43:55Bill Simmons:These guys are all fucking rich. Build your own stadium. What are you doing? Why are you making Portland's, by the way, that I can't say the city of Portland's been doing great, that great the last 10 years. Like the last thing they need to do is send money toward a basketball arena. The people of Portland agree with you. This is where if I was sports are, one of my rules would be if you win a title, you can never leave the city. So you'd be protected forever with Washington. You win, you're there for life unless the people vote you out. But yeah. So conspiracy bill, this would be this would raise the price of the seattle team if portland was moving out and we only had one team in this whole corner of the world because i think they've had an easier time getting the vegas money than the seattle money well it's what do you mean raise the price he's not paying expansion i'm not talking about for him i'm talking about for the seattle expansion if I'm buying the Seattle team and I know I'm the only game in town now in Pacific Northwest because this guy's blowtorching his Portland relationship.

45:05Bill Simmons:Right. I like the Blazers fans. This is brutal. It's happening. I agree. And I don't know why Adam's not saying anything about it either. It is such a breach of that social contract between the franchise. When you're the only franchise in town and the civic pride that comes from that. Right. And when you let somebody walk in and just take a shit on decades of that that commitment by that community to that team, that's a bad look, bro. And I, I mean, look at the track record here of, of what the league has done in admitting new owners, these fucking people down in Dallas, what they did. Uh, and, and right, we're right on the heels of that.

45:42And this guy's going to come in and light Portland on fire. Fuck off. I really appreciate you not bringing the Celtics owner up there.

45:49Bill Simmons:Um, cause I like him, but he could have in the wrong hands. He could have been thrown into that, conversation. Just trade to Jalen Brown. Let's give it some time. They won 56 games last year, at least. They didn't. This guy... It's funny, because some of the stuff he's doing... I said this to Zach on Friday. Some of the stuff he's doing, I actually... Do we need 20 assistant coaches? Do we need to... Do we need the overboard stuff? He's cutting costs and where it's like, all right, I can see his point there, but this is... He's like, he just gutted all the broadcast teams. He, I think he gutted the head coach.

46:31Bill Simmons:He is a coach on a one-year deal. Nobody's ever done that before. I think that's shameful. I think what he did to Mike and Norrie was shameful. Now, I mean, a million times out of a million times, Micah should say, yes, I do want to be the head coach. It's one, it's, there's 30 jobs. And now his, his opportunity. Why, like, why is that a one-year deal? It's a disgrace. There's some line between whatever happened with Mike Budenholzer in Phoenix, right? Where he's one year and out and he's just gone, but gets paid for four. And this Mike Nori only being, I don't know. I am going to, my pledge to the people of Portland.

47:09Bill Simmons:I was, I tried to be an asset for Seattle and it didn't work in the team moves in 07 and 08. I, I promised to use this podcast to shine a bigger spotlight on this situation. over the course of the summer. Yeah, this is bullshit. They won the 77 title and the 50th anniversary is coming up. And that's all that city should be talking about. They shouldn't be worried about this fucking guy. Okay. Mitchell Sherwood from Indianapolis. Oh, this is a good question. Actually, let's take a break. This is such a good question. Class it up with Crocs. You know back to school is coming in fast. So why wait to find your new Fave footwear?

47:50Bill Simmons:Step into a local croc store and step into your new look. Try it. Style it. Make it yours. Because the right pair doesn't just show up. It shows off. First day fits, handled. Walk out ready for whatever's next. Visit your nearest croc store today. Legally, we can't say drinking storm makes you smarter and more focused. But with zero sugar, 200 milligrams of caffeine, and immunity support, you're smarter and more focused for drinking storm storm good energy in good energy out energy for life god damn this is a good question from mitchell sherwood in indianapolis indiana what would be the best lebron sixers comp in 1999 if michael jordan's bulls imploded like they did but he decided he didn't want to stop playing and he wanted to find basketball happiness somewhere else.

48:48Bill Simmons:Would it have been the 1999 Spurs with Duncan as Maxie and Robinson as Embiid? The answer is no. Oh, okay. I did do the research. There's a really obvious pick. Any guesses? No, I'm not gonna. The Knicks, that would be my guess. Knicks would have been a good guess. The 1999 Lakers. Okay, remind me. Shaq in year six, Kobe in year three they had on the roster to start the year Robert Horry, Eddie Jones, Rick Fox and young Derek Fisher it's a pretty good team it was the strike season, they rolled the dice with Dennis Rodman complete disaster midseason they traded Eddie Jones, Eldon Campbell for Glenn Rice and J.R.

49:33Bill Simmons:Reid they also fired Del Harris after 12 games that's right they did do that really not a great coach they end up with Kurt Rambis an even worse coach they make the playoffs they beat an old Houston team that had Pippen and Barkley and Hakeem on it they beat them in round one round two swept sent home packing by the San Antonio Spurs dunking 29-11 so that team could have been Shaq, MJ, Kobe, Rice and Robert Horry as your starting five and MJ ring chasing for a seven that's pretty good they need a coach though because well jim Jackson comes back if MJ is back in right okay there we go he's like I'm thinking about signing with the Lakers and Phil Jackson's like I'm in speaking of ring chasing yeah would you have held that against Jordan I mean the Bulls are basically like we don't want we don't want you anymore no no no no he he more than anybody in in you know modern basketball had the perfect out to go to a different team and try and compete I mean I did a piece about this shameful The first summer of the ringer, which was 10 years ago, I wrote a whole piece about how Michael Jordan didn't necessarily want to retire when he retired.

50:47Bill Simmons:It's a great point. And I agree. Part of it was the bulls imploded. They didn't want him back and he didn't really know what to do. Pippin wanted money. So he left immediately. He didn't really have a team to go to. But then the other thing was he sliced his finger on the cigar cutter. So he would have been out till March and it was a lockout. And it just, it just ended up not happening. Yeah. that Lakers team would have beaten the Spurs. That would have been something. Can you imagine? All of a sudden, that would have been the best series of all time. Oh my God. He was still, I mean, the whole thing ended up with him in Washington.

51:25Two years later. He took two years off. I know, exactly.

51:29Bill Simmons:So yeah, I think it's the 99 Lakers is your answer. That's cool. Another LeBron question from Malik's in Cincinnati was looking back at the rewatchables. We did those rewatchables. I'm going to put those on the Book of Basketball podcast feed. But we did one about the 95 Bulls Magic Series. And one of my big points was everyone misremembers that series. The Bulls was actually, they were pretty good that year. They were better than I think people remember now. His case for LeBron was that 2018, when he was at his absolute peak, 34-99 in the playoffs, then has 51-8-8, game one of the finals. and people remember the J.R.

52:07Bill Simmons:Smith. He called it the J.R. Smith lobotomy play, which I think is a good one for it. But his question is, if they win that game, could they have won the series? Which is something we've talked about. Oh, that sucked. That would have been a much better finals. Could that play have actually changed LeBron's legacy? Because if he beats the 18 Warriors by himself, he probably takes the goat thing from NJ. all that would have done is turn that series into a 4-1. I was thinking it goes 6. I think they win one in Cleveland, but I think it's a 2-3-2. I still think they lose in 6, but I do think it makes the Warriors go.

52:49Bill Simmons:And that Warriors wasn't, they weren't the happiest team near the down the stretch that year. Could that have unraveled them a whiff? Maybe. That was an incredible team. Great playoff run. So Eamon from New York wants to know, what exactly will it take for Sixers LeBron to avoid becoming memeable like Celtics, Shaq, or Wizards Jordan, where the jersey looks weird and we don't remember it that fondly? And then Joseph sent an email, how far away is LeBron from his, okay, maybe I played one season too long season? So I'd like to combine those two together. I don't think it's this season. we are moving a little closer to the finish line.

53:37I was looking at his per 36 and the numbers like if you,

53:42Bill Simmons:as both of us have done, we look at these basketball references and once it starts really going down near the end, it just keeps going. There's no like bounce back. Um, in 22 per 36, he was 29, eight and six. Last year he was 23. The three point was 32%. All the other numbers, like his, you know, some of the advanced stuff, not quite as good, but it wasn't bad. Like it was in the ballpark where it should be. But if it goes lower than it did last year, then we'll be, we'll be off. My point is, I don't think it's, I don't think we're in 2011 Shaq Celtics. We're not even, we're two years away from that.

54:22Bill Simmons:I think. I agree. The most important element to, to answer this question is tell me how many games he's going to play. Because I thought last year was masterful. Yeah. The sciatica for the first, however many games that was, was, was literally brilliant. And so they need to come up with the functional equivalent of that because it just, he needs cover to not play. His version of the Paul George suspension? Yes. Like he just goes away for 25 games from February and March and comes back ramping up. That actually is kind of fun. That would be if like, what could we invent for LeBron? What would LeBron's transgression be?

54:59Well, he's old. How about a back problem? Well, he just, that's what was the sciatica last year. Nobody blinks.

55:04Bill Simmons:If anyone over 40 tells me they have sciatica, I'm just not, I don't, I trust it. And then, but the problem with that is he can't play golf. Does he really want to take three months off from playing golf? How do you figure out the golf thing? That's a tough one. That's a tough one. You know what? He could wait until it's freezing cold on the East Coast and then just quietly sleep, like go to play simulators. he loves the simulators and that could be it you might be the world's preeminent expert on LeBron's golf career oh no I mean I'm telling you there's the simulator thing it's coming wait till you see it's going to be amazing but yeah that would be one way he can't be seen down at Apogee down in West Palm or at Grove 23 with MJ right you can't be faking the injury but then you're also playing 27 I can't do it.

55:58Can't do it.

55:59Bill Simmons:So Joseph's question, he talked about that maybe I played one season too long and he had examples of Shaq at the end, Duncan at the end, Dirk at the end, the last three KG, the last two Paul Pierce, last six Vince Carter seasons, et cetera, et cetera. I want to step further. I did my one season too long team. Okay. All time. Thought you'd enjoy this. Didn't prep you at all. So it wasn't just about I hung on too long and I played too many. This was like a specific. It had to be like the actual season itself made them realize, oh, shit, maybe I shouldn't have done this. Hakeem going to Toronto in 2001 has to be the center.

56:38Yeah.

56:39Bill Simmons:He could have played his whole career with Houston. Oh, I wouldn't have preferred that. And just had that one last year. Like Ewing did it too, but Ewing bounced around. He was in Seattle, and they hit him multiple ones. So that's my center. Pippen ended up on the 03 Bulls after the Portland run, which I forgot. Yeah. I kind of wish that didn't happen. I wish he had just ended with Portland. This is a good one. Elvin Hayes for the 1984 Houston. Your guy, the big E. He came home. He came home. And he's having his last season where he's washed up. But then they're trying to tank. And he has the famous game where he plays all 48 minutes because they're trying to tank and they run him into the ground.

57:18Bill Simmons:So with that, he has to be on the team. I want a video of that. I want to watch that. I forgot. The 48 minutes is legendary. He plays the whole game. Never comes out. They're like, oh, but stay out there. He's like having a heart attack. Allen Iverson, Grizzlies. Oh, yeah, for sure. An all-timer. That made everyone just sad. Yeah. So that's one of my guards. And then I'll give you a choice for the other guard. I could give you Magic Johnson on the 96 Lakers when he came back, and it was fun for a second. But then when we got to the playoffs, and it just the team was unhappy, and it just was like, ah, why did this have to happen?

57:53Bill Simmons:Or I could give you Chris Paul this year. Playing for the Clippers and having the birthday party and only having two Clippers show up. It's Chris Paul. Okay. By a long shot. I still let it. It is. That's a worse misstep by the Clippers organization than circumventing the salary cap to pay Kawhi. Allegedly. Allegedly. Still going on. I like the stuff about they're mad now that this has taken too long. I have one more for the. They have a right to be bad. Go ahead. The best one season too long guy ever. I only did guys people have heard of. But the number one was George Mikan on the 1956 Lakers.

58:36Bill Simmons:Mikan retires. He's like the best basketball player of all time. He wins four titles. He retires when the shot clock comes. Takes a year off and then comes back with the shot clock. And now we're playing faster. And by all accounts was a complete disaster. So I'm going to add him on there too. Okay. A couple more. Paul Peters was listening to me and CR talking about World Cup and England's baggage and teams in baggage, teams coming in and basically fixing the baggage. And Paul says, we should call these guys baggage handlers. Oh. The baggage handlers, the whole thing is say, fuck this baggage and kick it away as far as you can.

59:16Bill Simmons:And he said, who are some of the first class baggage handlers? So I had, for Boston, we had three. We had Big Poppy, obviously. We had Tim Thomas, the goaltender for the Bruins in 2011, who just went on absolute all-time heater. And then Bill Belichick. Some people would say Brady, but it was Bill Belichick was our baggage handler. Sure. This is awesome. I love this concept. So all-time baggage handlers across sports. I had Big Poppy, LeBron, 2016. Yeah. Jalen Brunson, a couple months ago. Mark Messier with the Rangers. And Johnny Padres on the 55 Dodgers. Two wins. Game seven shutout. Flips it.

1:00:02Bill Simmons:They're just getting their ass kicked by the Yankees forever. And then finally flip it and he wins. So I had five. Who is your number one Washington baggage handler? Obechkin? Wow. Probably Joe Gibbs. It took Obechkin a long time. Now, you know, the Washington Capitals came into existence in 1974 and they won the Stanley Cup in 2018 with Ovechkin, you know, sort of three quarters of the way through his career. But, you know, he keeps playing. I think that the arrival of Joe Gibbs with that Washington, because that Washington franchise as it was a, you know, it was a little brother to the bully Dallas Cowboys.

1:00:39And that rivalry between Washington and Dallas, Joe Gibbs arrived and really changed that whole arc. Washington was dominant. How about on the Nats? You didn't really have a lot of baggage with the Nats.

1:00:54Bill Simmons:No, I mean, 2005. 15 years old. Joe Gibbs is a good one. I have franchise cities most in need of a baggage handler. Buffalo Bills, Josh Allen. They've been throwing him in central casting for that for 10 years. Please be our baggage handler. Could it be Joe Brady? Joe Brady taking over as the baggage handler. and ushering Josh Allen through. Vikings. We're doing our research now. I'm quietly bullish on the Bills. I know we're doing our football research now. You're bullish on the Bills? I'm bullish on the Bills. Because of the schedule? That's one element of it. Vikings, Lions. The number one team is weirdly the Maple Leafs.

1:01:39Bill Simmons:Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. They really need a baggage handler. They need a baggage handler. The Canadians are getting close and the Canucks have been there forever because they've never won. But really, pick a Canadian NHL team. They all need a baggage handler. That's true. Canadian hockey needs a baggage handler. KWT sent in, is Bill calling Telemachus from the Odyssey Temeculous for my entire MVP pal draft? First pick in the pop culture speech dyslexia redraft. I did call him Temeculous the entire thing. I knew I was doing it. I couldn't remember what his name was. I wasn't going to look it up, but it was Telemachus.

1:02:18Bill Simmons:Listen, it's the Odyssey. We're going to have some mess ups. Okay. Jeremy said, Butler over Clay in the 2011 redraft. I know it was Zach's pick at number three, but you signed off on it. You're the guy who wrote an entire book about the secret. You're taking the poor man's version of Terrell Owens over the poor man's version of Bill Russell? Question mark. Bill Russell's a little strong. Poor man's Bill Russell? Clay Thompson? I would go Sam Jones, maybe. There. Bill Russell. So I had, when I did my rankings, when we were about to do it, because we do, you've done the redrafts, you rank your guys and then you hope you get them in the order.

1:02:54Bill Simmons:I did have Clay ahead of Butler and I, I kind of let Zach bully me on it. And now I feel like I kind of had my pants pulled down a little bit. I regret it. I I'm going to stick with having Clay above Butler. I'd rather have Clay. I mean, better teammate can fit in with anything. And Jimmy Butler flamed out in four franchises. He didn't flame out. He quit on a couple. Yeah. I don't know what I was thinking. Giant middle fingers. Zach's very intimidating. Would you see him throw out the first pitch at the Mets game? Zach? When did that happen? Yeah. Yesterday. Zach Lowe. How did it? Was it a strike?

1:03:30The Saturday game. Looked like a strike. A little high, but it was down the middle. Nice. I was proud. Okay, great. It was a good one.

1:03:36Bill Simmons:It goes straight how much online I've been.

1:03:41Bill Simmons:Tim Lane wants to know, he sent me a long text, but basically like, why wouldn't they do a sign and trade with Detroit and Bede for Durin? And Philly throws in a pick. I will say this. He said there'd have to be some other stuff. They'd have to cut somebody, but I will say this. Celtic fan bill got terrified by this. I understand. Celtic fan bill did not like this trade. there is something fan bill is counting on joe lmb to uh to do the same kind of up and down injury plague season that he always has durin is a is a beast i mean you know part of the allure i've been talking about uh jalen brown's magic elixir the secret sauce is how much playing time he can consume high level 2400 minutes oh durin could do that now obviously the ceiling and what he's capable of and what we saw out of the playoffs, but under the tutelage and supervision of LeBron James, maybe that could be rehabilitated a little bit.

1:04:42I hope that doesn't happen. That's an interesting one.

1:04:45Bill Simmons:Rob said, I'm a fan of LeBron's decision to go to Philly. I was listening to your podcast with Zach about it. You mentioned Kawhi was the best player in the world in 2019. I think that's disingenuous. One summer before you said 2018 LeBron played the best game you've ever seen in person, so how could Kawhi pass LeBron? The answer is he did. I don't know how to tell you. LeBron went to the Lakers and basically took the year off. Kawhi went to the Raptors and kicked everybody's ass and won the title. And was the best player in the league at the end of the year. So that was... LeBron was in year 16 at that point.

1:05:17Bill Simmons:LeBron had been the best player in the league from basically the 08-09 season all the way through to the 17-18 season. He had been the best player for 10 years in a row. Even when Curry won the MVP, everybody was like, LeBron's still the best player. Curse. Yeah. Yeah. Um, 2011 redraft. Colin from Connecticut wants to point out, we, we missed this. Corey Joseph went 29th to the Spurs, one pick ahead of Jimmy Butler. The Spurs had just won 61 games. They could add Kawhi Leonard and Jimmy Butler. Wow. That's a wow. Spurs culture and Jimmy Butler are not positive about this one, but yeah, But maybe they could have gotten him in early and gotten some good habits.

1:06:04Bill Simmons:I bet they could have. I bet they could have. That completely changes the next three playoffs. I mean, maybe he doesn't play in 2012 playoffs, but 13 and 14, he's playing. That team was an absolute no-fuck-around team. He would have been—I think he would have been fine. He would have walked in and like, oh, I'm surrounded by all these winners. This is how winning—this is what it looks like to be a winner. The discipline, the commitment. Mattias sent in the question. I've been a fan of your content since the Anthony Bennett pick. I don't get that a lot. He saw you on television. My question, is this officially Chris Ryan's year?

1:06:44Bill Simmons:Is he the big winner of 2026? Can anyone beat him in the next five months or is this over? This is great. What a great question. CR. I'm going to give you four choices for the next thing that could happen for CR. Eagles start out 12 and 0 Michael Mann casts him in Heat 2 like just calls him up and says you're going to be in Heat 2 I have good news Netflix just hires him to run TV or we do an Aliens Rewatchables episode for September 7th for that episode most likely out of those four I mean the most likely is the Aliens Rewatchables you control that that's the easiest one of them all Aliens is happening on September 7th that's not Eagles 12 and 0 the other three aren't happening but yeah that'll be the next for the year of CR the next year of CR moment will be the Aliens rewatchables Jeff M said he's been listening and reading and watching me since the early 2000s and he thinks my apex for Homerism content occurred during my Damon versus Leo conversation with CR The categories for that comparison favoring Damon so dramatically reminded me of a ranking of best U.S.

1:08:02Bill Simmons:presidents using criteria like most use of the word huge, best nicknames for political opponents, and most orange. I have no counter. The fix was in. Question for House from Greg in D.C. Are you following this weird story about Brandon Iyuk basically stalking the commanders trying to get them to sign him? He just bought a house in Virginia near the practice facility. Should they make a movie called Single Black Receiver about Iyuk trying to befriend Terry McLaurin and then take his job? There could be a Tanya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan angle. That's effing hilarious and wonderful. I am almost to the point where I don't want to make fun of this guy.

1:08:42I think he's seriously mentally... Not all there? Yeah, he's got mental health issues. Did he really move to Virginia? Who the fuck knows? he's like an insane person going on to social media and basically every time he does it takes his wallet and sets it on he has to buy a new wallet every time he goes on because it diminishes the interest of the rest of the league in him playing any football whatsoever with anybody like the best he's going to get from any team and I don't think it's going to be Washington is a tryout and his ass they'll cut him at the first sign of any nonsense. I don't understand it.

1:09:24And I honestly think there's something going on that's not funny.

1:09:29Bill Simmons:What did you think of the Kyle Shanahan car accident which seemed terrible, not getting reported for 14 days? I thought that was weird. That seems like that's... How is that not going to affect their season? I thought that was a terrible story. That was the other weird NFL story. I hope every... That was in a legitimate car accident. was not hurt, right? That's the thing. What I don't like about the story, the concussion, it's a severe concussion. That takes a long time. I felt bad for him. I don't like it. I feel bad for him too. Matt from North Hollywood is upset that I applauded Matt Damon's beard.

1:10:11Bill Simmons:He said, this is an associated Damon. Let's stop giving credit to men who grow shit beards. Clooney and Siriana, great beard. James Harden, bizarre, but a strong example. Christian Bale and DiCaprio, great actors with shit beards. Our society needs to stop giving every man with three hairs on his chin a fucking participation trophy. A plus. Agreed. I don't have a lot of notes. I thought Damon's beard was good. Brian W. wants to know the one name Athlete Hall of Fame, Nomar, Messi, LeBron, Madonna, name anybody. um what about the two name hall of fame oh he said the charter member is harry kane i don't think i've ever heard him referred to as anything other than harry kane in a any broadcast this reminds me of our friend nick aida hey that's great you're right we always had a joke about nick aida which just became one name and he was just nick aida and i was trying to think of other athletes who are one name guys and i came up with bo nicks has anyone ever called him bo or nicks he's just Bo Nix he is Bo Nix it works too Grant Hill did you ever call Grant Grant or Hill no never Kevin Love yes there's some K Love with him I guess but nobody ever called him Kevin Chris Paul was either CP3 or Chris Paul but never Chris or Paul pretty strong pretty strong and then my favorite one Isaiah Joe oh he's just Isaiah Joe nobody's ever called him anything other than Isaiah Joe.

1:11:43Bill Simmons:But it's like Nick Aida. It sounds like a nickname. It's an amazing name. It sounds like a nickname. Any I missed though?

1:11:53Well, it's two words, but it's not a name. Which one is it? Big Poppy. Oh, that's a nickname.

1:11:58Bill Simmons:Two words. Okay. This is an incredible... I've been saving this email from you. It's from A from Paris. Oh, I like Paris.

1:12:10he said

1:12:11Bill Simmons:everybody thinks the Spurs and Thunders are playing in the 27 West Finals correct we would certainly bet on this left hand up yeah

1:12:24Bill Simmons:he said there's been a bunch of East Finals rematches over the years 22-23 Boston-Miami 17-18 Cleveland-Boston there was Miami-Indiana Miami-Detroit Indy in the Knicks in the 90s Detroit, Chicago, Boston, Detroit, 87, 88, Philly and Boston, 80, 81, 82. We've had in the last 45 years, seven finals rematches, Golden State, Cleveland, Spurs, Miami, Chicago, Utah, Detroit Lakers, Boston Lakers, Philly Lakers. Okay. Can you guess the last time we've had a Western Conference Finals rematch? Oh, this is outstanding. Western Conference Finals. because for a lot of that Golden State era, they were rotating.

1:13:13It wasn't just Golden State.

1:13:15Bill Simmons:Give me this. What decade do you think this happened in? Well, when you put it that way, it makes me think we're going all the way back. We're like going back to the 70s. It's like Portland against somebody. We are. We're going back to the 80s because the last time this happened was 1982 and 83, the Lakers and the Spurs. Wow. Somehow this has never happened since. How did the Spurs over their run not encounter anybody a second time? Because it was always, there was a couple times with Spurs Suns or Spurs Lakers where they would meet in like round two instead of round three. Portland was in there.

1:13:49Bill Simmons:There was Minnesota, Sacramento. Somehow when the Lakers and Spurs, I think they played five times, but it was always in different rounds or staggered in some way. Yeah. 44 years. That's insane. So if it's not one of those two teams, who is it? In the West? Yeah. The odds right now are, it's funny, San Antonio is plus 145, OKC is plus 140 to win the West. The next three are Denver 12-1, Minnesota 13-1, Houston and the Lakers 20-1 and 22-1. I'll book either of those bets. Golden State 27-1, Portland 30-1. Yeah, the West is like, the East is so much better than the West, it's like staggering. The answer is Denver.

1:14:33Yeah, I think so too. I feel sadness in my heart for them. I don't... They have to move Jamal Murray. Sadness in your heart. Because speaking of losing years of Steph, we're on a run here of losing years with the Joker.

1:14:51Bill Simmons:How many teams conceivably could you see in the Western Finals? Because for me, it's four. Because I would throw Minnesota in there. I don't think it's... They've done it twice. But is there any other team you would even give a conceivably to in the West? Not me. OKC, San Antonio, Denver, Minnesota. You wouldn't say Lakers? Definitely not. Luke on a heater, Kessler? No. No way? No. Nope. Nope. Have you seen how many white guys are on that team? Clippers? They're over under. It's like 29 or something. They have the fourth worst odds in the West right now. What do you mean? at the bottom of the entire thing.

1:15:32Yeah. Well, that's deserved. If you looked at their roster, they stink.

1:15:36Bill Simmons:On Fando, the worst is Sacramento. And then Clippers, Memphis, New Orleans, basically. I thought that was weird. Okay. Wait. I think I have two more questions for you. I just lost my track. Are you hungry? I am hungry. It's dinner time here on the East Coast. I want to shout out Justin from Dallas. I guess we have one question left. As a Mavs fan, the Luka trade felt like in Game of Thrones when Ramsay Bolton cut off three on Greyjoy's dick and balls and then mailed them to his family.

1:16:17Bill Simmons:I'm guessing for you that the Jalen trade wasn't quite castration bad because you still have Tatum, but what is it? Is it Lieutenant Dan getting his legs blown off, Luke Skywalker getting his hand cut off by his dad, Or the British guy and madman getting his foot run over by a lawnmower and in the office. It was none of those things. We won the title two years ago. I'm fine. But he compared the Luka trade to Theon having his Franks and Beans get cut off and mailed to his family. The Dallas fans are never going to get over this. Why would they? Why should they? They have Cooper flagged. Move on.

1:16:56You have Cooper flagged now. Start moving on. move forward start healing how can you the team went to the finals and then the the leadership was like fuck that team we're gonna be god-awful for a handful of times put them in the right headspace i mean i i appreciate your um encouragement your your gentle psychological ploy here but they they've that ownership and leadership that they that is that they did a bad thing. Good bag of mailbag questions. Phenomenal. How's the summer going? It's great. I'm so happy to get LeBron settled because now I can. What should I watch? Today, tonight, this Sunday night, July the whatever, July the 26th, I can start watching TV again.

1:17:45What am I going to watch?

1:17:46Bill Simmons:LeBron was putting on hold or it was because the majors ended? There's golf. Yeah. The golf majors finally ended. But yeah. First of all, thanks for thinking of me with this question. I obviously watch a ton of TV. Cape Fear is the worst well-done show I've ever seen. Okay. I think it's almost worth watching, but it's really, really reprehensibly, like you can't believe how bad it is, but it's incredibly well done. Okay. I've never seen a show like it where it's like really well done and awful. Like awful. I don't think I can do it. Okay. That's not going to be at the top. Some people like that Widow's Bay show, which I gave.

1:18:26My wife and son watched the whole thing all the way through. So I'm not going to watch that.

1:18:30Bill Simmons:My wife and I were in Hawaii. We watched Five Star Weekend on Peacock. And it's really awful. But you get to go to Nantucket for eight episodes. That's pretty good. And watch all these women who hate each other just get mad at each other and do different events. Here's what I'd recommend to you, though, because I've been watching this. I've been watching Homeland Season 1 on Netflix oh wow you went back I went back it was 14 years ago barely remembered anything that happened and my wife and I we were just at a loss for anything but wanted a TV show and we're like we need something to like and so we just ended up stumbling into the pilot house the pilot is so good I was actually I saw Fantasy and CR and Greenwald a bunch of people last night I was talking about this last night it's so good and it actually made me nostalgic to when tv was more normal where they were just like they have three ideas it's brody comes back and did they turn him when he was over in afghanistan claire danes is nuts and brody's wife is banging his best friend and those are like the three things and they're just like we're not gonna give you 50 characters we're not gonna be 40 plots We're not going backwards and forwards.

1:19:50Bill Simmons:We're just going to have a TV show that you can follow. That's really good. And I got to say, I've really enjoyed it. We watched five episodes over the last couple of days, and I would highly recommend diving back in. I didn't remember anything. I have the fondest remembrances of the quality of Homeland for several series, for several, I mean, several seasons. So, wow, maybe that's what I'll do. Really, really great Claire Danes. I feel like I'm behind, though, like the cultural, you know, zeitgeist. To not be caught up on the shows. You're not behind anything. You're not missing much. I'm trying to think.

1:20:24So I watch a movie?

1:20:25Bill Simmons:You told me that I should watch Obsession. We're doing that for rewatchables tomorrow, live on Netflix. Oh, how about that? There you go. You should definitely watch Obsession. It's on Peacock. Okay. Yeah, that's a good one. I'm trying to think of other movies. And you got to see The Odyssey at some point, right? But I'm going to do that with the 70mm and the IMAX and the whole thing. yeah that's i i would i would give homeland up the pilot a whirl i think you'll be shocked and i would encourage the rest of america to follow suit there we go really really good i was i was just like wow we really knew how to do it back then anyway all right house good to see you maybe i'll see you on the west coast at some point looking forward to that all right thanks for coming on we're gonna take a break come back with uh my dad in one second all right my dad is here It is Sunday afternoon after yet another Red Sox winning series.

1:21:17Bill Simmons:They have won six straight series. They have turned their entire season around. They have won the attention of Boston. I've been watching a ton. It's suddenly a very likable team. And it all happens starting really the day after the Jalen Brown trade. The Celtics acquire Paul George and the Red Sox season flips immediately. And you have refused to come on the podcast since the Jalen Brown trade. You're not upset anymore. You're ready to rationally discuss it. No, I'm still upset, but I guess I'm ready to discuss it. Wow, that's a dramatic pause. But, you know, I've been really excited about the Red Sox last month, as you mentioned.

1:22:04And I went to the game where they won number 15 in a row with nephew Brian. That was a lot of fun. I'm really down on the trade they made last night. Oh, the Curtis Vee trade? Yeah. You have a starting pitcher who you pitched in the playoffs last year. Yeah. 24 years old. Lefty. Our favorite kind of pitcher. Yeah. And they have about 12 guys who play second or third. They all hit about 250. They're all the same guy. 250? I don't think we needed another guy. I don't get it.

1:22:39Bill Simmons:I never get it. They needed righty pop. And they had a glut of starting pitching, I think. And early, he's on my AL keeper team too. His elbow was hurt. There was a minute where it looked like he was going to be out. Oh, good. His elbow was hurt. Well, I mean, his elbow was hurt. And for a second, it seemed like he might be out for like 12 months. And then like, no, no, no, no. We need rest. I'm talking about early. Oh, you're talking about early. Yeah. Early, yeah. Yeah, he was hurt. So he's coming back. And that, I don't know. I wonder if that was a piece of it too, but I thought they needed another bat though from watching them really for the last four weeks, every game, like, but you texted me that he's a terrible defensive player.

1:23:20So, so where are we playing this guy? Another DH?

1:23:24Bill Simmons:He's 225 pounds, which is not ideal for an infielder, but I didn't know he's that heavy. Yeah. He bounces. Well, he's strong. He's a, I think he's Australian too, but I think he's going to bounce around and, and be DH and they need another ready with. I don't know if you saw the globe today, but Durbin said he'd be willing to move to second base. I saw that. Yeah. But if this guy is not a good defensive third baseman, that's no good. Well, Durbin's played a good third. I've been waiting to have you on. I didn't want to jinx the Red Sox winning streak. And they won 15 straight, but they had the game that night.

1:24:00Bill Simmons:That would have been, you coming back from that game would have been good to have on. But I didn't want to jinx anything that was happening. But they lost a couple now. So it's going to talk about Durbin. There's a few Red Sox things to talk about. We'll talk about the Celtics straight after this, but Durbin. Okay. So I'm in that Boston sports thread with a couple LA friends out here. And Durbin was so bad the first month of the season that we named, you know, you can name the text threads. We named the text thread, Caleb Durbin, 600 OPS watch, right? He was so bad. We changed the title to 500 OPS watch, which is like, if you have a 500 OPS, you shouldn't even be in baseball.

1:24:38Bill Simmons:The first two months, he was the worst batter I've ever watched on the Red Sox since Jack Clark. And then all of a sudden, he flipped it. And now we keep changing the thread. And now it's like 700 OPS watch. He might get to 750 by the end of the year. He's had all these clutch hits. He's a great teammate. Seems like his teammates love him. And it's been this unbelievable turn of events. Well, I think I read that he has the best defensive third baseman rating. He does. And, you know, last time I was on the pod, we talked about him, not very positively. He was terrible. He was an automatic out. Yeah, he was.

1:25:17You know, they said that he brought his feet closer together. And I don't know what makes a difference for the hitter, but suddenly he has a lot of confidence.

1:25:26Bill Simmons:Well, he dropped the driveline stuff and then got his own hitting coach, which was a big story. I thought that was fun. Oh, I didn't know that. He got different hitting help than whatever the instruction was and just started popping it. Well, the key driveling guy they had on the roster left the Red Sox. Maybe that made a difference too. So it turns around because of him. All of a sudden, every starting pitcher they have seems like they're throwing six or seven innings. Chapman, this Guerrero comes out of nowhere. He's 35 years old, throws over 100, and has been this lights-out setup guy. And then the heart of the lineup, although Abreu got cold lately.

1:26:02Bill Simmons:but uh but a brown contreras but i was saying quickly on the wednesday pod about contreras has been in my opinion the key to everything he's just a maniac he's our kind of guy he's a lunatic he's been a lunatic from day one he just really gives a shit every game yeah he does he i think he heard i watched the game yesterday and he heard his finger sliding at second yeah so he probably shouldn't have been playing he should be resting but it's kind of affected his swing a little bit but he's one of those guys though yeah the camaraderie on the team is terrific but who would have nobody could have guessed this turnaround I gotta say I was not watching you were watching way more than me and I was making fun of you because it just felt like it hit rock bottom everyone was going to get fired they already fired Cora Breslau was going to be next the Roman Anthony.

1:26:57Bill Simmons:I mean, they don't have Roman Anthony, who is going to be the next Ted Williams. They don't have Crochet, who got hurt. And Trevor Story, who I think is the most expensive guy in the team. And he goes out and somehow that made everything better. I don't understand it. I don't understand it. And Meyer, who was supposed to be good too. And it's just stiff, I guess. A month ago, the crowd was chanting, sell the team, sell the team. Right. And I think Breslau's job was on the line, you know, just my personal opinion, but too many mistakes have been made and all of a sudden they're winning, playing.

1:27:32You know, this manager, he's very even keeled. Yeah. He's making a lot of decisions that Cora never made. I like Cora, but Cora never liked to bunt. We had three sacrifice bunts today and they all meant something in this game. He might've run his course.

1:27:48Bill Simmons:I think he's a good manager. He might have just worn out his welcome. Well, we've talked about coaches and managers that eventually the players get tired of hearing the same voice. It happened with Francona. And honestly, it happened with Brad Stevens. I thought they wore out with him that last year, remember? You mean as a general manager? No, I meant as a coach. Oh, as a coach. Okay, sorry. I meant as a coach. Okay. But yeah, Francona felt like he wore out his welcome. them well they're 54 and 50 for the wild card they're right behind the yankees now and uh i don't know they're seven back from tampa they're going on a road trip right now they're still getting pitching i don't know if jake bennett can continue to throw like this but ranger pitched today and was great that's i think that's the other thing that concerned me about the early trade it's like they feel they have too much pitching but the game they lost after So they won number 15.

1:28:48They threw that guy out there. It didn't even last an inning.

1:28:51Bill Simmons:The doubleheader guy, yeah. Well, they were trying because they have this Baio who can't pitch in the first inning for some, this unique situation where if he, as long as he doesn't start, he's great. I would have liked to have seen Baio in that trade last night. Instead of early? Sure. I don't know. I don't think he has a lot of, trade value right now. I don't think so. Well, I didn't like the trade. So I decided I'm wearing my Patriot hat today, which I don't use in there. It's a protest. I was going to wear the Red Sox hat when you asked yesterday about coming on the pod, but didn't like the trade.

1:29:29And I obviously can't wear my Celtic hat.

1:29:33Bill Simmons:You should have brought your younger dog and held the dog during the podcast like Mike Vrabel. That was a classic. That was a classic. It looked like he was holding for protection. So do you think this Red Sox thing is sustainable? Because I know you've watched the entire season because you don't have a job. Well, it's not that I don't have a job. I'm retired. Well, you're retired. Yeah, okay. Don't have a job. It's a little different. Not having a job kind of denotes that maybe you never had a job. It is true. You did work for a long time. Yeah, okay. All right, so you're retired. You watched a lot of Red Sox, even when they were bad.

1:30:10I think it's sustainable because two things. I do think the pitching is deep. And they had that Ierson, the guy they drafted last year, and he's lights out down in the minors. You don't think we're going to see him this year, do you? I think we're going to see him. Oh, wow.

1:30:28Bill Simmons:Because sometimes the Mariners are in the same boat with Kate Anderson, who's the best prospect in baseball now, and they've been really careful about whether they want to bring him up or not. These guys have all these innings limits. I didn't know if Ianson would potentially come up. You know what they're doing with Ianson? They pitched him three innings last night. They're not letting him go the full nine innings yet. See, this is one of the many things I respect about you is your devotion to minor league baseball stats with the Red Sox. Whatever's going on in Worcester or wherever else here.

1:30:59Bill Simmons:What is it? Greenville? Portland? This is in... Whatever. He's in double A. Greenville, maybe. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. So I think they have one more trade in them. And it's interesting because the A's catcher, who I thought made a ton of sense for them, got hurt. I think he's out for the year. He tore his Minescus. Yeah, I thought that was a possible trade. I wanted them to get him or the Colorado catcher, like just really take a swing and go after somebody. I don't know. The question is whether they would put Arias in a trade, who's their best prospect, this 20-year-old shortstop.

1:31:35Bill Simmons:I hope they don't. He's our shortstop of the future. Yeah, he could be the next Marcelo Meyer. Yeah. Catching is their weak point in terms of batting average for sure. So are there people that roam the streets every day looking for Roman Anthony? Or what happens with it? Is this like a Netflix true crime series? What happened to him? I think that if they're roaming the streets in Florida, they're going to look for him. But a finger injury is going to be out for 12 months? it's really strange and uh it's like the reporters the journalists are staying away from it uh there's not any reporting about him or criticism or what what's taking this finger injury so long i was in the world baseball classic in march yeah with big at bats except And Meyer and both of them have been injury prone every single year.

1:32:35Bill Simmons:Well, Meyer gets hurt every year. In our AL Keeper League, we had him. We traded him before the season this year. We didn't want to go through it anymore with our real team and our fake team at the same time. Even his injury is weird. The finger injury nobody's ever had in the history of some tendon or something that nobody's heard of. Yeah. And the Roman Anthony injury, it's not a hundred percent clearly explained to me exactly what that injury is. I was talking about that one. Yeah. It was some sort of finger thing, but that, I mean, for what the hype was with him and how important he was, and plus they gave him a hundred million bucks already.

1:33:13Bill Simmons:Um, it's the equivalent of like, if Tatum played his rookie year and then just didn't play in 2018 or 2019. Or if, I don't know, Drake May didn't play in year two. Like that was, this was supposed to be the guy. This was supposed to be the meal ticket of the team. And now Contreras is the guy. I just, the odds were like a hundred to one. The Contreras thing was, oh man, they didn't get Pete Alonso. This is so disappointing. I mean, Anthony was going to be the guy. He was going to be our outfielder that everybody talked about. Now, Raffaella's having a good season. Really good season. Duran, he had a good game today, three hits.

1:33:55Maybe he'll get hot again. I think he would have been probably traded. Well, I think he probably would have been traded earlier if Anthony was around. There are too many outfielders.

1:34:05Bill Simmons:I think he would have been traded if he could hit or play defense or throw a ball. Those are the three things. I'm not giving up on him. Well, he did it two years ago. Yeah. And then not any of the other years, but. Yeah. Ray was, what is he, 0 for 20? It's very weird because he carried them for a little bit, won some games, and now he can't hit. Yeah. It's a strange game anyway. Well, regardless, they say the World Cup comes, and you watched, I loved how much World Cup you watch for somebody who doesn't follow soccer at all, but you somehow really threw yourself in every four years. I think I watched as many games as I could possibly watch.

1:34:50Bill Simmons:Yeah, so that starts in second week of June, right as the Red Sox season has never looked bleaker. And then all the Scots came to Boston and they had games at Foxborough. And it felt like the World Cup just kind of moved attention away from the Red Sox for like three weeks. And then they got their shit together. And then the Jalen Brown trade and nobody really even put serious thought into them until July 4th range. And then they started winning. You know, maybe that was part of it. They didn't feel the pressure of this is a city with a lot of pressure on sports teams, obviously. And they didn't feel it.

1:35:27I mean, I told you the World Cup story. I walked the two dogs. I was on Beacon Street near the Cheers around noontime. And about 40 guys came out of the Cheers with kilts on. and took over Beacon Street singing and dancing. And it energized the city for the whole time. It was great. Great to be here then.

1:35:50Bill Simmons:It was, my daughter said it was her favorite night she's ever had in Boston, was one of the NBA Finals games at the same time was Scotland's World Cup game. And they were at a bar with 200 Scotland people there. I mean, to drink Boston, where Boston has no beer left at some of the bars is pretty unprecedented. Yeah. And I never heard of or read of any altercations. Boston can be pretty cruel when there's 40 to 60 men walking around with kilts. And I never heard any problems. Yeah. The stereotype, and we should mention we're part Scottish. We have some Scottish in us, but the stereotype was always like the Irish were like the sadder drunks and the Scots were like the angrier drunks.

1:36:36Bill Simmons:And that wasn't, didn't seem like that was the case at all in Boston. And if anything, like they're arranging these Scotland, Boston, like these joint things they're going to do. The mayors were talking to each other. It's an unexpected love fest. Well, and right after that, the Norwegians showed up and they have video of them on the trolley car, like 30 of them on the floor of the trolley car doing their rowing thing. You can't make this stuff up in this city. But it seemed like it was a huge success though. Oh, it was huge. Huge success. Even the travel out to Foxborough went well, I guess. Yeah.

1:37:17They sold well with tickets. Yeah.

1:37:20Bill Simmons:Speaking of Foxborough, how are you feeling about the Pats? Well, I have my Patriot hat on. I'm feeling pretty good. But you were excited for A.J. Brown. You always like having a stud receiver. I feel like we have a stud one and two. And I can't remember the last time. I felt we had good receivers, but we didn't have a one. You know, Diggs had a good year, except he played half the game every game. And he was a step slower than I think in his heyday. Didn't seem like Seattle had to defend him in the Super Bowl the way these two guys are going to be treated, especially AJ. If they have to double AJ Brown, we're going to have guys open for Drake May.

1:38:06Of course, you and I keep talking about, I don't think the key is that part. I think the key is the offensive line because that's what let them down in the Super Bowl.

1:38:16Bill Simmons:To say the least. Well, it seems like it's a little better. And the variable thing has calmed down, I guess. hopefully there's not another story but that was super weird super yeah negative not no recent stories in the paper we'll see if there's one more coming but yeah it's just there was such good vibes from the Vrabel era and family, leadership it's not good it's not I wouldn't say it's 100 % the same anymore. Yeah. It's tough to, uh, we'll see though. They'll just, they'll be, they'll be, I've been doing all my, um, my prep stuff and the schedule wasn't as horrible as I thought it was going to be.

1:39:05Bill Simmons:Like obviously they start in Seattle week one, first game, not ideal. And then they go home Steelers at Jags at Bills. So it could be a one in three or two and two, two and two would be ideal. But then after that, it gets a little easier. They got the Jets twice. They got the Dolphins twice. They played the Lions, but it's away. It's in Munich. They have a Chargers game that's going to have a million Boston fans at it. So I don't know. They do these stats on strength of schedule based on how the teams did last year. Every team is different this year. Teams lost players. They're not going to be as strong as they were last year.

1:39:48Bill Simmons:yeah and they have like they have the Chiefs at Kansas City on Monday night week 15 who knows the Chiefs might not even be good they have the Broncos week 17 but that's home would you be satisfied with 11 and 6 oh yeah yeah yeah I think some of it they play the AFC West and the NFC North but they're lucky they play the Raiders early they play the Raiders week 5 so that they'll still have cousins at that point they won't have Mendoza in there yet but that hurt us last year by playing the Raiders early. I know, but I'm saying that they're cousins-ing it. I really don't think Mendoza will be ready by then.

1:40:23Bill Simmons:And then the Dolphins and Jets both project to be pretty awful. And I also the Bills are like one of the AFC favorites and I don't totally see it. I don't know why they're ahead of us. I don't see that as a Homer fan. I honestly don't see it. I don't see it with the Bills at all. All around the quarterback. Right, but that's the case last year. Yeah. And he doesn't have the receiving core that we have. Well, he doesn't have the defense. Yeah. You know, so I don't know. There were a lot of signs before the schedule came out and everything that it would be a big regression team, Super Bowl hangover, but I don't know.

1:41:01Bill Simmons:They got A.J. Brown. I think they had a really good draft. I think that should be all right. This is a really fun time of sports in Boston because the training camp is this week for the Patriots. Red Sox are on a roll. They go on the road now. Hockey is just gearing up in terms of training camp. There's no hockey combo yet. No, come on. Now you're pushing it. Oh, come on. July 26th? What are the hockey conversations? Except hockey starts in September now. The Bruins said something you like, though.

1:41:34Well, they made a couple moves I liked. I liked the goalie they're going to go with. Yeah, you liked the goalie.

1:41:40Bill Simmons:Yeah. I liked their draft the last three years. Hopefully those guys can contribute, but it's a crapshoot. All right. That was enough foreplay. Celtics trade Jalen Brown. Is that it? Celtics trade Jalen Brown for Paul George in two firsts, and he goes to Philly, which then intrigues LeBron James enough to go actually sign with Philly for$4 million a year. And this is the team my entire life we've hated the most. The biggest win we ever had together was the 1981 Eastern Finals, the comeback. I remember we went to the 1977 playoff games when Philly beat Cowens and Havlicek, that team. Dr. J's first year beat us in the playoffs.

1:42:29Havlicek, you remember why we lost the 77 win, right? Well, because we didn't sign Paul Silas. Exactly. maybe one of the only mistakes red our back made so then actually two one of two mistakes he made

1:42:44Bill Simmons:we beat them and they beat us in 80 and 82 we beat them in 81 and i think 84 85 i don't think they play in the 90s we beat iverson with the paul pierre santuan team we beat them um in round two after Derrick Rose got hurt in 2012, Game 7, which was Rondo's greatest game. Then we have a bunch of stuff against the Embiid Sixers, which we win every time. That huge comeback game in the playoffs against them. Against them. And then it felt like we had their number, and then they come back and beat us last year in 7 and then get trounced by the Knicks, which kind of made it worse. I'm still shaking my head.

1:43:28we're up 3-1 in how we lost that series.

1:43:31Bill Simmons:And you went to all the games. Game 2 and Game 5 were the ones that lost the series. Yes. Game 7, we didn't show up. And Embiid, let's face it, Embiid played really well. He did. He had three good games in Embiid. And then the Knicks did something to Embiid that seemed to knock him out for a loop. I think it was somebody elbowed him in the stomach oh in an obie yeah he had the appendicitis surgery and I'm not saying that we should have done that but it certainly made a difference yeah they're more physical than we should have been so the season couldn't have ended worse no and then they lose game 7 on my daughter's 21st birthday well every other podcast I've done with you I had myself the cat on yeah well you weren't happy with the coaching strategy too many minutes for tatum all the same stuff i said on the pod yeah you we've talked about it doesn't play game seven whole thing go to we go into the draft free agency they're trying to figure out this jalen brown thing did you want the honest trade or you didn't i would i would have i would have uh been looking forward to watching yannis yep so you would have put because they only made one offer.

1:44:53Bill Simmons:I mean, there's been so much written and talked about this. They made one offer. They never made a second offer. They never tried to up it. Miami upped their offer like five times. I would have kept upping our offer. So you would have put Hugo in the trade. Well, I don't know what the trade would have been, but some of it is looking back now. By not doing everything they could to make that trade, we made one of the two worst trades that I've seen in my lifetime. So what was the other one? The Donchick trade. I put Jalen Brown's trade in the same category. So would I rather seen them put more assets into a Giannis trade?

1:45:34Sure. For what happened when we didn't get Giannis. Yeah. Or don't trade Brown right now. Hold on to him for a while. There's no urgency.

1:45:44Bill Simmons:Well, they could have waited to see where LeBron landed before. I feel like Philly is doing that trade regardless. I don't think so. I don't think Philly, if Brown wasn't on Philly, I really don't think LeBron goes there. But I'm saying wait till he goes somewhere else and then do the Philly trade. But I don't even think it was on their radar. Exactly. Certainly wasn't on my radar. I never expect him to go there. But I just, we've always talked about when you make trades that the other team not only eagerly says yes to, but we'll also do four months from now, then why are you doing the trade? And that's the part I'll never get a good answer on.

1:46:21No, me neither. You know, and the whole philosophy in Boston has been in Brad we trust. And I think he's been a terrific general manager. I'll never understand this trade. And the other unfortunate part, I really like Chisholm coming in as the new owner.

1:46:40Bill Simmons:Yeah. As a fan, because he talks about himself as a fan, I don't know why he would have ever approved this trade as a fan. Forget being the owner. Yeah. But it made no sense. I read an article, they're going to save money. They're not saving money. Maybe they'll save money down the line. Right. Year three, they'll save money. Okay. Year three. So it's two more years of Tatum in his prime playing with an injury prone Paul George next to him. Makes no sense. And you like Simons too. And then he ended up on Philly too. I was shocked when he ended up because we had room to bring him back. Yeah. And you and I talked about the playoffs.

1:47:27We missed the third guard in that playoffs. I know Pritchett played, but we missed Simons minutes. And we got nothing out of the guy we got at center in that trade. So I guess that was another flood by Stevens too.

1:47:42Bill Simmons:My fear is that they treated this Tatum, his Achilles injury, as almost like a two-year window to reboot everything and then go all in a year from now is my fear. We said that a year ago when they let go of four of our starters. Well, but that was year one of year two. this year too now is all right we do with paul george and then he's an expiring next year we've reset all the tax stuff and now we'll go back in and try to compete but he's not an expiring he has two years in the country he has a player option i know he's he's he's gonna he's gonna do the player option nobody's gonna sign him i know but next year he'll opt in and then he'll be an expiring contract they'll have all their tax stuff reset and then they can do that's the only thing I can think of.

1:48:28And I don't agree with it, but I don't, well, again, I don't agree with it for the reason I just said. So you're talking three years from now, Tatum's three years older,

1:48:38Bill Simmons:two years from now. If, if Paul George isn't expiring and you have these picks, I listen, you, you took a long time to come around on Jalen Brown. He was probably the most frustrating Celtic of the last 10 years for you. I need to be clear on something. I thought Jalen Brown carried us last year in many ways. The eye test, I know they keep talking about the stats versus the eye test. And I went to all the games, most of the games at home. He carried us. His numbers weren't always that great. His efficiency wasn't that great. But we won 56 games. I probably had had enough for watching Jalen Brown.

1:49:25After 10 years? Yeah, I'm not opposed to the fact they thought it was time to trade him. Yeah. I thought the trade was horrendous. And I'll never understand why they accepted that trade.

1:49:38Bill Simmons:Well, you said on the streets of Boston, as you roam around, people are really... I roam around because I don't have a job. And you walk the dogs. but people and people you know they talk to the celtics about you but but across the board people are pissed there's no there's no other side on this trade it doesn't seem like yeah people obviously talk to me they recognize from the documentary and podcasts and uh i haven't met one person who was in favor of that trade as a matter of fact it's not just in favor or not in favor people are really upset about it yeah uh well also he did he did a lot of stuff in this city too which we always talked about i don't know i felt like that has to account for something as you're factoring in all this stuff that somebody actually cared somebody actually cared about your city and trying to get back to it and put real time into it and And, you know, I don't know.

1:50:40I mean, you and I talked about once, it seemed like once his name was out there in the honest trade, it was inevitable probably that they'd have to move him. But they didn't have to move him so quickly. They didn't have to move him for that package.

1:50:55Bill Simmons:Well, I wonder, it seemed a little dicier behind the scenes that maybe were lead to lead on because there's stuff that pops out after where it's like, you know, there was a couple, I don't want to name people who talked about this stuff, but there were a couple of people who mentioned like it bothered him. Who knows that this is true. It bothered him when Tatum came back and then Tatum was announced last and Jalen had been announced last, but then he was announced first. I did notice that at the game. Yeah. It bothered him that they hired a couple of Tatum's friends to work for the team, which is true, but none of Jalen's friends.

1:51:30Bill Simmons:And And once we start going into that, maybe they saw a lot more little stuff than that that you and I don't get to see. Well, fine. That's no excuse for horrendous trading. It's no excuse. It'll never convince me, ever, that that was the best they could have gotten if they waited. Yeah, even when the Red Sox traded Nomar in 04, both of us were pretty, even though Nomar on paper was Nomar and he was one of the most famous, biggest Red Sox stars, I think, of the past 35 years. He really got to like a really high level. He did. But he was unhappy that whole year. I remember writing a column about it in the middle of the year.

1:52:15Bill Simmons:Like he just looked miserable because they tried to trade him already. His defense was going sideways. And they kind of sold high on him. And I do wonder if the Celtics part of this was they feel like they're selling high on Jalen coming off, like him being sixth MVP, second team all-NBA, carrying a team to 56. Selling high? How do you sell high? Well, that was the irony. They didn't sell high. They didn't sell high. It's almost like they wanted to get out of this before they had to attach Pitt. I don't understand it. I still don't understand it. People have been asking me all summer why they do this.

1:52:53Bill Simmons:You must know there must be an inside story. And there's really not. It just feels like they felt like he was going to, if he didn't get an extension in July, it just was going to start to feel like the 2019 Celtics, which was the unhappiest Celtic team of the last 10 years. I think they wanted to avoid it. I know you weren't a fan of just keep loading and loading a deal to get Giannis. you, you like Gonzalez a lot. If he was ever in the, in the trade, to me, it was more, I don't, I just don't think Giannis was a good bet. If you were, if you're telling me this was 2021 Giannis, of course I would have done four picks.

1:53:33Bill Simmons:I would have put in Hugo, all that stuff. But I just don't think Giannis is a good bet. I've done 10, 10 podcast segments about this, like the history you're betting on this history being the complete opposite of what we've seen from big guys as they get older and start playing less games and having more injuries. I just wouldn't have done it. And I thought their offer was pretty fair. Like I look at this stuff Milwaukee got back. I don't know. They, they, they just got back a, a, a poo poo platter. I would rather have Jalen. I agree. Yeah. So like, to me, it's like Jalen and two firsts for a guy who hasn't really been healthy for, you know, reliably healthy for a long time.

1:54:15Bill Simmons:And I really, I don't know if he would have been a great fit with Tatum either. That was the other thing. So I didn't think it was a slam dunk, but I did, but I just would have waited. Um, even if they went into the season with Jalen, I mean, the crowd liked them, Boston liked them. As you mentioned, he did an awful lot of charitable work in the community. And we won with them. We won a title with them. And we won with them. Yep. Yeah. Um, I would have waited, uh, until a fair offer, you know, people I talked to, 40 cents on the dollar we got back. That's the opinion. And it makes no sense with all the good moves that Brad Stevens has made.

1:54:55It just made no sense.

1:54:57Bill Simmons:Well, the zag take would be Paul George was the best of the three forwards in that playoff series. In our series. In our series, he was the best of those three guys. He was. Yeah. He did play the best. Okay. And then the next series against the Knicks. Not as good. Yeah. It wasn't bad though. He was, he was okay in the Knicks series, but not. So we'll get four good games out of him this year, I guess. You know, it's not sustainable. He's always hurt. You had him in with the Clippers. I don't think he was your favorite player. He, you just never knew when he was going to show up. Yeah. Now he's going to have way less pressure on the Celtics team, but.

1:55:39Yeah. Again, not to be the dead horse, but the then LeBron James decision on top of Jalen Brown going to Philly, I'm sure he never considered Philly until Jalen Brown was there. Philly's going to be, if they stay healthy, they're a monster. And we hate Philly. We've hated Philly for 40 years.

1:56:09Bill Simmons:yeah I do the funny thing about even if they get 50 games from LeBron and 48 games from Embiid those other three guys can carry them during the regular season we just watched it with Jalen Jalen and Max and Edgecombe are all going to play big minutes for them so you know and then they have a bench they already got Caldwell Pope who you know he's an 11th man at this point but you're already seeing these veterans trying to jump on the team and they already had Simons and they have Phylon to trade if they want to flip him for somebody. I thought that was a great draft pick by them. He dropped. Well, can you set the record straight for America because you actually went to the games?

1:56:49Bill Simmons:Hugo, who's not, I think he's 20 now. And it was the wrong narrative because it was like, oh my God, Hugo became the deal breaker in the Celtic. That wasn't actually what was true. They made one offer, then never made a second one. And then somehow he became the linchpin for why they didn't get Giannis. putting that on the side. You loved, you loved Hugo. Like you, you thought he had a chance to be a really special player, right? Yeah. I thought Missoula underutilized him all season, especially in the playoffs. Well, I thought, you know, we, we won 56 games because we went 11 or 12 deep all season long.

1:57:29Bill Simmons:Yeah. And then we get to the playoffs against Philly and Missoula shortens the bench to like eight players and played your guy Vucevic. which... Oh, terrible. He didn't even play game seven. He was so awful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the coaching, you know, that's another issue, but he got so outcoached in that playoff series against Philly. I mean, Nurse took him to the shed. He really did. The game two and game five, those two games specifically, where the Celtics had big leads at home, I think, in both games. Yeah. And in game two, the Sixers increased the pace on them. It's a tough one. I don't know.

1:58:15Bill Simmons:It feels like our window closed, but we kind of knew it after 24 when they loaded up and they got Porzingis and Holiday and we'd made the finals in 22. And it felt like that 22 to 25 probably was going to be the real window for us. And then Tatum gets hurt and the Knicks, the two big comebacks, Tatum gets hurt. 23 to lose game seven. Tatum gets hurt at the beginning of game seven. You know, when I look back, we never should have lost the Golden State Series. We were the better team. Curry just beat us. That was a championship we let go. And I thought they ran out of gas in that. The four straight rounds, they weren't ready for it the way.

1:58:59Bill Simmons:Yeah. You know, there is something to that. Like you could see with Wemby this year, when you haven't been through that before, are playing 11 straight weeks and just having these high-level playoff games over and over and over again and teams like honing in on what your weaknesses are. Remember how good Tatum was at the beginning of those playoffs? Yeah. He killed Durant. Remember? He like really took Durant to the woodshed. By the end of the finals, he was a corpse. Like he just ran out of gas. He did run out of gas. You know, that's the other question nobody wants to talk about. Do we have 100 % healthy Tatum?

1:59:35Yeah, and what happened in Game 7? I don't know.

1:59:38Bill Simmons:We still don't know. Did he get injured? Why didn't he play? That one was swept under the rug, too. It's with the Roman Anthony finger situation. Yeah. You see him. All right, so rank your optimism for the four franchises right now. That's a good one. Patriots 1? Patriots 1. Red Sox 2. Red Sox 2? Bruins 3. Oh, man. Celtics 4? My favorite Celtics 4. I think the Knicks and Philly are much better than we are. Vegas does not agree. I know. I saw the odds. Yeah, and there's a flip side of this coin case where you could say Tatum has all the brown minutes from last year. Hugo and everybody's a year older.

2:00:34Bill Simmons:They have more depth. Mitchell Robinson. Paul George being able to do a facsimile of something. I'll tell you, though, what worries me is these Achilles injuries, players come back. They're 85%, maybe 90%. It's tough to be 100%. And it's going to be interesting to see if Tatum goes to the basket or what his lateral movement looks like. Will he always be thinking of the, you know, he didn't, why didn't he play game seven? I mean, we've both read the same things. But to sit out of game seven, I'm sure Jalen Brown is thinking, he sat out game seven. I was in there playing. I carried the team all year.

2:01:20Yeah. And I got no respect. I can, I can understand that part of it.

2:01:25Bill Simmons:You know, if they win that game seven and Jalen has like a, like a heroic game seven to beat Philly, the trade doesn't happen. True. Probably. What we never could have expected is him getting traded to Philly. Like just the heading into Souths are up three, in round one against Philly. And if I said to you, they're going to lose the last three and then Jalen's going to get traded to Philly and play with LeBron, the odds would have been like a million to one. Well, that's putting aside that we got Paul George back. If you're going to trade Jalen Brown and you think it's time, trade him out West.

2:02:05Nobody wanted him. When we see him once at home every year. There wasn't a market for him. That's the other thing. Then wait for the market to develop. These teams needed to hire you as a consultant. Teams are going to have injuries. Wait for the market to develop. Can you imagine him coming into Boston two or three times in the regular season? Yeah.

2:02:25Bill Simmons:Well, he's in... I don't know if this is the best situation for him in Philly, but I guess we'll find out. But he went from, it's time for me to have my own team to him being the fourth most important person on this team. It's a valid point about how they're all going to mesh. They all want the ball. he's basically going to have to be their Derek White yeah and I hadn't thought of that part how are they all going to mesh but I'm thinking about our team and our starting lineup and Paul George getting injured 19 games into the season and you know wow did you send your check in for the season tickets yet?

2:03:08Bill Simmons:I did

2:03:12you know and maybe the celtics are going to be unhappy with our conversation today but believe me i thought it was fair i've talked to a lot of other season ticket holders who are irate not that they traded brown necessarily but the package that came back

2:03:29Bill Simmons:yeah well i guess the best thing we can say is brad stevens has done right by us over and over again. And if he believes this was the right trade, he knows more about basketball than we do. I didn't realize you work for the Celtics now. No, I'm saying that's the only thing. If you're saying, all right, how is this going to work out? You'd be like, eh, Brad Stevens has been really good at this. Maybe he knows more than we do. It's the only thing I can grab onto. Cause I wouldn't have made this trade in a million years. I just would have waited. I would have waited until September. I feel like the trade's still there.

2:04:04Bill Simmons:and then like who knows like like maybe detroit's in a contract feud with with durin and they need to do something they say fuck it we don't want to be bad this year all right here are five first rounders and you know who knows i agree yeah that's what i mean there's still free agents that haven't signed restricted free agents there's still injuries that haven't occurred yet on other teams. Brown could have been very attractive to another team in October. All right, dad. I'm glad the Red Sox have revived your summer. I'm glad you enjoyed the World Cup. I'm glad we were able to talk rationally about the Celtics trade.

2:04:42Bill Simmons:I'm glad we could text about Pat's training camp. I thought it was rational. Go see the Odyssey. It's only three hours. Okay. All right. Good to see you. Good to see you. Thanks. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to house. Thanks to my dad. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. Uh, new rewatchables. Remember we're doing it live on Netflix. If you want to hear us talk about obsession, me and Chris Ryan and Joanna Robinson, it's going to be 7 PM Eastern time, 4 PM Pacific. Uh, we are doing a bunch of bangers in a row for rewatchables. I'm just, I'm just warning you now, um, buckle up, put your seatbelt on because we're, uh, we're going to tear through some because we're in the dog days, the dead times of, uh, of the summer.

2:05:26Bill Simmons:Um, we're basically looking at SummerSlam. Um, what's the FedEx, the golf, whatever the playoff is for that, uh, preseason football, WNBA. I like the links. I've been, I'm really into the links. I already have a wager on the links, uh, to win the title. I've been into them, but, uh, yeah, not a lot going on. So, uh, it's going to be an erratic schedule for us on this podcast, but maybe one more this week. You might not see me again until Sunday. Enjoy the first part of the week.

2:06:17Bill Simmons:Must be 21 plus and president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas star casino or 18 plus and president DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBL or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 888-79-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York for Louisiana. Call 877-770-7867.