The Mailbag: Dangerous NBA Teams, Lottery Tweaks, the KD Files, The Oscars, and Cruise vs. Pacino | With Chris Ryan and Joe House

14:31Joe House:Yeah, I mean, I think that there's also aren't people basically lining up? There's like, allegedly, this was discovered by the Rockets a little while ago, and that's right around when the Rockets sort of fell off a cliff. So yeah.

14:44Bill Simmons:Which leads to next question from Gio in New York. Is Kevin Durant becoming the modern-day Rick Barry, accomplished player but difficult teammate? So, I'll take this one first. Rick Barry was really disliked when he played by teammates. And there's a lot of documented evidence that I covered in my book. He was just a very polarizing player in real time. The interesting thing about Durant, even though if you go back basically to the 2018 Warriors and most of the teams, really every team except maybe the 22 Nets felt like there was an unhappiness about them or something kind of sliding sideways, never really knew what was going on.

15:26Bill Simmons:But you never hear the guys bad mouth him. And that's the difference. Even like the Warriors thing, which went, got so weird in 2018 and 2019 and a whole bunch of different ways. And he had the famous blow up with Draymond in the Clipper game, but those guys don't talk. They didn't talk shit about him after they didn't throw him under the bus. Um, I can't really think of a lot of instance, even after he left Phoenix, people weren't afterwards. They were like, yeah, you know, we're just trying to change the identity of the team. They weren't like, and they basically just got rid of two guys. They're like, we're a completely different team now.

15:59Bill Simmons:This is the kind of Suns brand we want. And it's, but this also wasn't Durant and Beal's fault. So what are you trying to say about last year? I never added that up. But I do think people like him. So it's really complicated.

16:12Joe House:I've stopped thinking that I think about NBA players the same way NBA players think about each other. You know, like, Harden's a really good example where Harden is warmly greeted every team he goes to. Teams do love Harden. Yeah. Yeah. And so just because I have bad feelings about him because of Philly or because Rockets fans might not like him or Brooklyn fans might not like him. Ultimately, he's obviously very popular among his co-workers, which probably tells us more than we could ever write or say on a podcast. As far as Durant goes, I wanted to ask you, let's say this goes as bad as it possibly could, hypothetically.

16:48Joe House:Like Houston goes in the tank. Houston Craters. He has a hamstring and he's like, I'm done. Ime is like, fuck this guy. whatever happens how many more stops does this guy have on the world tour like at a certain point I would imagine like he's got to stick out a situation that doesn't go right and he's got to kind of be like this is where I've I've put down stakes and I'm here to fix this team and maybe I made mistakes but they made mistakes I don't see him washing up in Charlotte and playing somewhere else next season do you?

17:24Bill Simmons:I thought this Houston stop was going to be the stop. I loved how they were playing the first six weeks. And I really felt like it was the perfect team for him. And he was kind of a leader, but they also had a lot of different ways to go. But I don't, what you're describing basically is when do you hit the Chris Paul zone of people are just like, yeah, we're good. It's you're, you're not, you're not worth it basically. But, but with Chris Paul, that happened because he wasn't good enough anymore. You know, we're not talking about a guy that is allegedly, sitting there.

17:55Joe House:We're not talking about a guy who's like, I can give you 18 serviceable minutes and be a good leader. I mean, Kevin Durant's still an elite player, so it's sort of strange to be in this kind of situation where it's like, would you rather just get off of this to not make your whole locker room toxic?

18:13Bill Simmons:Let's say this was true, this burner thing. What's his move if we're his PR team? Just wait for it to go away? Pretend it never happened?

18:22Joe House:Uh... I would probably, if I were him, come clean about it just because it's like he's just too online. Yeah. Like he's not going to not see the entire internet talking about this. Like he already responds to people as Kevin Durant. Right. You know, like, so for him to be like, I haven't really been paying attention. I'm going zero dark 30 here. Like that's not going to fly with people. So I'd probably either just be like, look, it's bullshit. It's not me. If I want to say something on social media, I put my name on it. But yeah, this is just such a mystery to me. It would be weird if he went on the counterattack

19:02Bill Simmons:and did the... These were private text threads. I'm not going to apologize for them. Do you all... Would you all want your private text threads to come out? Yes. I bet you wouldn't. And he just like... And people are like, yeah. All right, let's move on. All right, here's from Jared Blank. He had an idea for the NBA lottery. there's a 15th ping pong ball. And if that ball is picked as one of the four balls, the team with the first pick now gets the 32nd pick. It's the ping pong ball of death. Would you tank if you knew there was a one in four chance that you'd basically lose your first round pick?

19:39Bill Simmons:Now, I wouldn't do one in four chance ball of death, but it would be interesting if there was a ball of death and it could move you from one to 14. You're just at the end of the ladder if you get it, or you just move to the 10th pick if you get it. it's certainly a more entertaining version

19:56Joe House:of when you're watching the lottery and you're like, oh my god, did we just lose our pick? Wait a second, maybe we just moved fully like 10 picks up. Which has happened a couple of times. Again, all of these lottery and tanking solutions kind of lose me on the third step of advanced chess. So I'm not sure. But Jared, I like the idea of Austin Ainge's head exploding. Oh no! find out. There's like a little skeleton

20:23Bill Simmons:logo on it. They got the ping pong ball of death. This is from Joel in Brisbane, Australia. I thought I'd do a couple Super Bowl emails for you. I'm here for you, man.

20:33Joe House:I feel about the Patriots.

20:35Bill Simmons:Here for me or here for you because you deserve it. Joel said, tough watch. Drake May looked over one by the moment. The Seattle defense reminds me of Draymond Green stealing Jalen Brown's heart in the 22 NBA Finals. We, I guess he's a Celtic fan, weren't ready to win just like Drake May. He knows he has what it takes to get there, but needs to learn how to win just like the Jays did. I've heard this take before. Do you think there, like you're a neutral observer, you hate the Celtics, you don't really care. Do you think there's some sort of positive legacy from that 22 finals where it's like, not quite ready yet, got your job punched a couple times, tasted your own blood, now you have to come back a couple years later?

21:19Bill Simmons:Is this a sports thing you would believe in? Because you've had the opposite way where like that happened to the Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid Sixers and they tasted their own blood. And guess what? They didn't like it.

21:29Joe House:I think a better example would probably be like Kurt's losing to Mahomes, the Eagles losing to the Chiefs. Oh. Taking out that L, finding out what like a sort of fine differences there are between winning and losing sometimes because of the penalty that happened at the end of that game and then coming back even stronger. So yeah, I believe in moral losses sometimes. I got to admit, I hadn't really considered what the Warriors' triumphant championship really meant to Jalen Brown recently.

21:59Bill Simmons:I think those guys, because game four, game five, game six, those guys were just, it was a heavyweight fight and they were just in the corner getting annihilated.

22:07Joe House:I never wished that you were back on ESPN more than right now and the idea of the Warriors win the title and you're like, I'm just thinking about Jalen Brown and what he's going to do.

22:17Bill Simmons:You know what's a great example of this? Magic in the 84 finals. Yeah. When he really falls apart and one of his nicknames that he got after the finals was Tragic Johnson. Oh, yeah. But it turned out to be the best thing for his career. Like, all of a sudden gave him the eye of the tiger. It was the Rocky III scenario. And that's happened a few times with the greats over the years where they get their teeth kicked in and all that does is make them figure out, like, how do I get better? I mean, there's some cases where the guys get the teeth kicked in and never get the chance to even get back there.

22:48Joe House:Yeah, I mean, I think that between the impatience of fans in front offices and also just like the churn of title contenders in any sport, but especially even in the NBA, it's like tough. It is kind of interesting that the Celtics have been this good for so long that they can go through that kind of narrative of ups and downs.

23:07Bill Simmons:Yeah. This one's really for you. I didn't give you this one either. It's from Markel. what do you think of Super Bowl 60 being known as the it follows Super Bowl Sam Darnold well known for seeing ghosts of the past it was obviously in the game they've been passed on to Drake May now we wait to see who May passes them on to in a big game I love this I thought

23:28Joe House:for a second you meant Sam Darnold and Drake May were both virgins maybe well they were maybe big

23:36Bill Simmons:game virgins.

23:37Joe House:Yeah. I like the

23:39Bill Simmons:In Follows concept though. Who does Drake

23:41Joe House:may pass the In Follows thing down to? God.

23:45Bill Simmons:Well, so now that would have to be like the Bengals are good again. I guess Joe Burrow has already been in the Super Bowl. He's already been. Maybe it's Bo Nix. Yeah, Bo Nix is good. Or Caleb Williams that Pats and the Bears play next year. Maybe a big game Caleb Williams just gets it. Goes into complete sky involves. Yeah, exactly. I like the In Follows thing's funny. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Imagine a game where you're on the court solo. No coach, no teammate, no one in the stands, no opponent. It's just you. Stressful, right? Well, sometimes life can feel like that too.

24:19Bill Simmons:That's when State Farm, that's when they come in. They're on the bench ready to help you find the right coverage when it matters most through an agent online or on the app. State Farm with the assist. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability and eligibility vary by state. This is from Edward. Is industry not enough of a big deal or just the right enough of a big deal? I look forward to this show like nothing since Breaking Bad, but have nobody to talk about it with other than The Watch and Katie Baker's recaps. Two ringer plugs. Thank you for listening. My girlfriend thinks the show is depraved and none of my friends care.

25:00Bill Simmons:That's from Redbird.

25:02Joe House:I think for industry fans, we're eating well. This is exactly where we want the show to be. And it actually is building out like a future for itself where it can be like anything it wants. Like when you think about where the show started about, you know, these probationary finance executives like in this training program. And now it's about international espionage. It's pretty incredible. But, you know, I totally understand if somebody is just like, there's just too many threesomes on this show and too much ketamine. So I think it's right where it needs to be. You know, it's like building towards the future, but it still weeds out the squares.

25:40Bill Simmons:Yeah, just when you think the show is going to calm down, all of a sudden there's a giant strap on dildo and you're like, oh, okay, we're doing this again in the first episode. I think this season and last season, I've watched every season. The first time I was fine with, I enjoyed. Didn't really, I wasn't going to tell my grandkids about them. I thought last season was superb and I think this season has been otherworldly like almost like to the point I'm starting to go Scientology on it with like trying getting mad when people in my life who I know would like it haven't watched it like we're hitting that point with it

26:12Joe House:do you what do you think is the resistance people have to it is it the raciness of it or is it like the British Britishness of it

26:19Bill Simmons:I think it's the people feel like it's not an American show so it's a strike against it right it's like oh yeah yeah it's hedge fund show set in England, no thanks.

26:28Joe House:Two of the main characters are American. Right. And it is pretty easy to access that way. It's not giant stars.

26:33Bill Simmons:Sure. But it's just exceptionally well acted. And I thought the storyline this year... Harrington is so good this season. Yeah, so Jon Snow from Thrones is in the show in a completely different... Like, just physically looks different. Everything's about him different. I wrote this down, CR. Well, first of all, is this a coastal elite bubble show? Probably. is the studio a costally bubble show definitely

26:56Joe House:I'm sure that both of those shows probably appeal to anyone anywhere studio is funny, studio has lots of fun manic gags and industry has sex and drugs and nail biting thrilling moments of corporate and international crime but I think largely the languages that they're spoken in and the concerns that they have are probably limited to a certain coastal elite if you think that that's a real thing i wrote this down just for you if you told me in 2011 15 years

27:35Bill Simmons:ago that in 2026 lebron would be playing in the all-star game trump would be in year two of his second term, you and I would be doing a video podcast on Spotify and Netflix or there would be a superb HBO show that featured Sally Draper blowing Jon Snow. What would have blown your mind the most out of those four things?

28:00Joe House:It would be the latter.

28:02Bill Simmons:I'd be like, you know what, LeBron takes care of himself. Trump, who knows? Yeah, who knows where this podcast is going to go, but wait, Sally Draper, what happened? I just can't get over it. Oh, wait. I have another tanking question for you. Okay. It was a sliding scale with rookies choice. I talked about this. This is from Imran in San Francisco. I talked about this with Zach a little bit about could rookies get autonomy with where they go, especially in the high picks. His idea was a scale that slides from like 20 million to three. And the athlete can actually just pick what number is the combo with the right team.

28:45Bill Simmons:I think and I this is what I said to Zach and I've refined a little bit but if the five worst teams whoever wins the lottery or you could just be the bottom five if it's just a ticket to be in the top five and then when the first pick comes up so it's like the five teams have decided that they would take Cooper Flagg in this spot

29:09Joe House:okay so like the Jazz they send their list they all send their list here's who we would take

29:14Bill Simmons:And it's like, by consensus, Cooper flag would be the pick here. Cooper, come on up. You could go here, here. You go the Sixers, Spurs, Mavericks, Hornets, or Jazz. Your call. Okay. And then he just gets to pick. So this is kind of like the voice? It has become love is blood and cross with the NBA draft.

29:35Joe House:It would be amazing if they made the number one pick, like Darren Peterson comes out from behind the wall and he's like waiting to see what GM meets him on the carpet. It's like, oh my God, it's Danny Ainge.

29:48Bill Simmons:Oh, it's Danny Ainge. Cool. I love Salt Lake City. It'll never happen, but I really like that idea. I got a few questions about this, but Mitchell Epner, who's been in a bunch of mailbags over the years, he called me the media personality who's done the most to dramatize the question of who gets the hammer during the In Memorial segment of the Oscars.

30:08Joe House:You really have. You know what?

30:09Bill Simmons:I'll take credit for that. It's something I've always cared about. I really feel like it's an important thing. And he mentioned, he sensed this before the tragic death of 95-year-old Big Shot Bob Duvall. Yeah. He said he sees three incredible choices in order of passing. He's not ranking them. Robert Redford, Diane Keaton, Rob Reiner. And now we have Duvall. And sent me a long thing of pros and cons, where we go. And I would have said Redford and I would have said before the Duvall thing. Now, now with that, these are like, I don't remember we've had four like this in the same Oscars thing. I don't know what they do, CR.

30:54Joe House:Yeah. I mean, you could make an argument for any of the people, the big names that you've mentioned could get like their own, their own little area on the show. Yeah. And I, I would argue that that would probably be quite meaningful. If every 10, 15, 20 minutes, Conan took a break and was just like, we just want to pay tribute to the work and life of Red Redford, Keaton, Duvall, and Reiner. And you could have somebody come talk. You could do a montage. It almost feels like the in-memoriam is not enough.

31:23Bill Simmons:That's where I landed as well. And if we're doing like maybe Redford's the last one of all the ones they do. But man, I can't remember four like that.

31:30Joe House:I just hope that Duvall gets the hammer and the last scene is just that guy going, let me tell you something, my Kraut McFriend.

31:38Bill Simmons:Jack Waltz, if you take the two godfathers out, what's your Duvall, Mount Rushmore?

31:45Joe House:I love him in Apocalypse now I love him in Network a later period one that I really enjoy him in is The Paper and I'm trying to think of like one that's kind of like a funky oh the TV film version of Wonsome Dove

32:03Bill Simmons:yeah so I somehow never saw that and my dad loves it I might actually bang it up

32:09Joe House:he's amazing in it him and Tommy Lee like five or six of the best hours you can spend is watching that. It's so good.

32:16Bill Simmons:So I have Apocalypse. Santini has to be on there. That's like a once in a decade crazy performance. I really love him in Days of Thunder. I just love that he did the movie. Plus there's that famous story of him just bitching Tony Scott out for 10 minutes, being furious at him. And then my last one would be Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which he's in for like 10 seconds on a swing in a priest outfit, just being fucking crazy, just for no reason at all. They just throw them in there. This is from Spencer. After listening to Bill and CR talk about Miami Vice, the show, for years, I finally bought the entire series on Blu-ray.

32:56Bill Simmons:I just finished a season one episode called Home Invaders about a group of robbers that left Chicago and continued their MO of breaking into homes in affluent neighborhoods, blah, blah, blah. Which is basically heat too.

33:07Joe House:Well, that's his point.

33:08Bill Simmons:He said, gathering info from one of their members who's a valet at a shopping complex, I thought it sounded familiar. The exact storyline is part of Heat 2. Michael Mann breaking out the old hits. I don't even care because it's so great. Do you care?

33:22Joe House:I don't care. To love Michael Mann is to love Michael Mann motifs. I was just watching Manhunter last night with my wife. And the great samurai man staring out over water. Even William Peterson's house in Captiva looks a lot like Neil's house in LA. where it's like all blue, very minimal. So like, I think that you go to man because he has these recurring themes and recurring bits of information and he shares them across films. I mean, I think that there's like, there's connective tissue from Thief to Manhunter to Heat to Collateral. Like, you know, you could just, it's actually one of the best parts about loving his movies.

34:04Bill Simmons:I think you could go through the first season and a half of Miami Vice and probably pull 10 movies out of there. Like the Bruce Willis episode, 100 % a movie. The Great McCarthy episode, 100 % a movie. Lombard, that Dennis Farina character, the mob boss, you could have easily turned that into a two-hour something. There are two two-hour movies in Miami Vice in the first season. That's right. You just keep going and going.

34:27Joe House:When are we just going to do it?

34:29Bill Simmons:Which one?

34:29Joe House:When are we just going to say, fuck it, and just do a rewatch of it?

34:33Bill Simmons:Of the entire first season? Yeah. Are you throwing this out at me? This summer, should we just say, fuck it? They just do 20 minutes an episode? Yeah. Well, we did call it our revenge on rewatchables. I do get the email from time to time, people wondering why we haven't done the pilot.

34:54Joe House:That would also be a rewatchable to me.

34:56Bill Simmons:Which peaks with... I mean, there's a couple of great moments, but it does peak with Tubbs dancing with his buttons open to Rockwell, somebody watching me in a strip joint. Is it streaming right now? I don't think it is. No, it is. It's on, I think it's on Pluto and Paramount. But you can, you can bang these out. Like they'll have sales on like Fandango and it's like$9.99 for the series. I know, I've started doing that. I did it. I banged it out. I just was like, I'm taking this down. I'm going to have to think about that. Just, just putting it out there. Maybe we'll have America vote on this and top five tanking.

35:36Bill Simmons:John S wants to know, is Taylor Sheridan basically white Tyler Perry. So I checked with Van and Van had some thoughts. What were Van's thoughts? I want to know those first. Van had some thoughts. Van was like, we've talked about this. And I was like, I don't know if we had. So here's the thing. I think both of them are creating content driven toward certain kind of bases slash pieces of turf that are available. And Sheridan, like we talked about earlier with the Coastal Loop bubble, Sheridan's like, there's like 45 states out here that are underserved. I'm just going to make shows for them. But I actually do think, I wouldn't say it's like, these aren't like all white shows.

36:18Bill Simmons:Like there's a lot of stuff going on. They've definitely veered toward conservative. Like I didn't watch Lioness, but Vance said Lioness got super conservative at one point. I think Landman season two had a couple moments. Yeah. But in general, I don't think Tyler Perry could have written Sicario. That's my answer. Okay.

36:37Joe House:I would just love to see a big dinner party with all the characters from Perry and Sheridan just hanging out. Maybe they should just do a movie

36:46Bill Simmons:where they just kind of merge worlds.

36:48Joe House:Yes. Medea's lioness.

36:52Bill Simmons:Speaking of rewatchables, this is from Garrett from Ohio. I am listening to the Son of a Woman rewatchable. Craig, producer Craig, asks, who is more important to the pod, meaning the rewatchables? Cruz or Pacino. This made me think, if the rewatchables is the NBA, Cruz is LeBron and Pacino is Steph Curry. He keeps going. It's mostly believed Steph influenced the league more, although LeBron went to him one more titles and is the better overall player. By the way, they won the same amount of titles. Cruz has made more appearances and probably won more movies, but Pacino has shaped the podcast more.

37:35Bill Simmons:Vincent Hanna is like Steph's long pull-up three in OKC in 2016. The League and the pod are in the spots they are today because of it. It's from Garrett from Ohio. I think he's right that Pacino probably means more to the pod, even though Cruise has been in more movies.

37:51Joe House:Yeah, I think that I get more out of bad Pacino movies than I get out of bad Cruise movies, of which there aren't that many. But for instance, I'd rather watch The Devil's Own than Oblivion. I just really think that Al Pacino represents what I love about taking a big swing on a piece of shit and trying something when you're playing the devil. And Cruz is just... He's just Tom Cruz every time. You know what I mean? And he fits himself into certain things. And you can watch him in Eyes Wide Shut and you can watch him in Mission Impossible. And it's consistency there. So I guess that is LeBron. I think this is a good metaphor.

38:29Bill Simmons:Yeah, the LeBron-Cruz thing is a pretty good combo. Yeah. Like when you think about like just reliable year after year, sometimes they'll get a little, they'll take a swing at something. Like Cruz will be like, fuck it, I'll do this Stanley Kubrick movie in London for a year and a half. LeBron is like, I'm going to try to go back to Cleveland and I'll get them to trade for Kevin Love. We'll see how this works. When's the last time you watched Eyes Wide Shut? Just out of curiosity. So you watched it last weekend, right? We did it for a rewatchable as a while ago. And now it is like this movie that it was like number 12 on iTunes.

39:02Bill Simmons:It's a Canary in the Coal Mine kind of movie now. Well, Tubi was running it. I saw too that it was most popular on Tubi. And people are revisiting it based on certain real-life things. Did you learn anything this time around?

39:16Joe House:I think that it just is one of those movies that it could be another hour longer and I would not blink. It just could go on forever. I think it's just also one of the great movies to read about after you get done in a watch is to go on and just go through every single symbol, every single frame that it's like, look, you put a pentagram behind him. And you're just like, holy shit, did he? So it's just one of the great texts, but obviously pretty relevant now.

39:44Bill Simmons:Yeah, my son watched, he'd already seen The Shining a million times, but then he watched 2001 and then he watched Full Metal Jacket and he was with his friends on, it was like a four-day weekend. And he's like, which Kubrick movie should we watch? and I was like, full metal jacket. And then the next day, he came back because they were all sleeping in somebody's house and he came back and he was like, yo! And I was like, you liked it? And he was just like, hey, Joker. I was like, you liked it, didn't you? And he was like, what an amazing movie. Was he doing D 'Onofrio? Yeah, okay. And he's like, I looked for the rewatchables.

40:22Bill Simmons:I couldn't find it. I'm in a world of shit. He was like, how have you not done rewatchables? on that yet. So he's really into it. So on Sunday, we watched Room 237, which I think is in the running for one of the best documentaries in the past 20 years for me. Amazing stuff.

40:40Joe House:It's just like the craziest

40:41Bill Simmons:documentary. But you don't want to do Eyes Wide with him? Too uncomfortable. With Ben? Yeah. My wife and I talked about it because he wanted to watch it with us and we were like, we're good. There's still some lines we don't want to cross with you. eyes wide shut might be one maybe solo that one or or watch with the uh with the with your girlfriend but uh we're gonna pass oh my god but yeah room 237 i don't know how they pulled it off where they just take all these people who's in and you can find it basically anywhere but all these different people who interpret different things about the shining yeah and i actually think this would be a good rewatchable.

41:24Bill Simmons:This is the Room 237. Or it would just be a good segment. Because there's a couple guys where I'm like, like the Calumet Cans guy. I'm like, this is pretty good. He does only put it behind the scene, in the background twice. This has to mean something.

41:40Joe House:The thing that everybody is obsessed with is the final scene of Eyes Wide Shut. Oh, yeah. And whether Helena looks back. Because they gave their girl their kid away. Or she's taken, yeah. We did a pretty close second spectrum watch of that the other night.

41:59Bill Simmons:Here's the thing with Kubrick. By all accounts, just an amazing preparation guy. Even in Room 237, they talked about how he went to the hotel that he was scouting for like three months and just checked out every part of it. So everything that's in The Shining, like the carpet. The fact that the guy, the boss that Nicholson goes to see about the job, he's got a window in his office when there's no way there would be a window in that part of the hotel. And it's like, everything happens for a reason. But then you could also go, maybe Kubrick was just old and he just didn't realize that that room should have a window.

42:40Bill Simmons:And it's like, I don't think so. I think he really did think about every aspect of this.

42:43Joe House:First of all, I fully think he thought about every single thing. But it's funny because when you're watching Eyes Wide Shut and you're like, this feels so otherworldly. It's because he rebuilt New York City on English downstage stages. And he did it detail perfect to where the newspaper boxes would be. And you're like, what was he trying to say? And it's like, well, he also hated flying, so he didn't want to shoot New York. I guess it can be both.

43:09Bill Simmons:Yeah, Eyes Wide Shut, you could say he's trying to tell us all the stuff that we're now finding out about in the Epstein files. Or he just wanted to make movie about a fucked up marriage and what would happen if something went sideways. Who knows? Somebody named CP didn't give his full name, asked if he's too late on the potential of a month-long theme month called The Rewackables and suggested Two Moon Junction and Tarzan. I thought with Bo Derek, I thought I'd leave you with that one. I rejected Rewackables. I don't... I think that could be the end of the podcast. No comment. Yeah, we're not going to do rewatchables.

43:51Bill Simmons:But yeah, that's it. That's all I have for you, CR. How are you feeling about the Sixers heading into the end of the All-Star break? Well, I'm glad we're not Houston. Good to see you. Oh, by the way, last thing before we go. I told you this yesterday. March is going to be CR month on the rewatchables. It really is.

44:12Joe House:What made you do this? just like it's time? Finally, you were worried about my wandering eyes?

44:17Bill Simmons:No, it's time. No, there's a couple movies that we were due and it's going to kick off on March 2nd on Netflix. We're going to do a live Sicario. I won't spoil the other movies, but we're going live Sicario Mew and Fantasy on March 2nd. It doesn't feel real.

44:33Joe House:I'm not going to believe until we're actually live.

44:35Bill Simmons:Are you going to be nervous for this? Is this going to be more nerve-wracking than a live show? I've been training for this my whole life. Live Sicario on March 2nd. Alright, Sierra, good to see you. Thanks. So we're going to keep going on the mailbag with Joe House, who's here. Hello, Joe House. Hey! Highlighting a huge opportunity on FanDuel through March 1st. We talked about our NBA futures at the beginning of the season. Had some good ones, had some bad ones. Right now, your futures pick could actually land you at the NBA Finals. Just use your profit boost on any eligible NBA futures selection.

45:05Bill Simmons:You're automatically entered for a chance to win a trip for two to the finals plus NBA store credit. So we're going to talk about a couple over-unders that we love. We also love the Charlotte Hornets for the division. They're a couple games behind Orlando, but that's still in like the four to one range house. And I don't really fully understand it.

45:29Chris Ryan:Well, they have a little bit of a difficult schedule. Sure. And, you know, they have to jump over the heat as well, don't they?

45:38Bill Simmons:Yeah, they have to jump over both of them. But right now it is Orlando's 28 and 25, Miami's 29 and 27, and Charlotte's 26 and 29. So 27 games left, they'd have to make up four losses basically. And I actually think that's four to one. I think that's relatively reasonable to me. Anyway, we're about to talk about a bunch of these in one second. It's a perfect time to lock in those predictions, potentially secure your seat at the NBA Finals. Head to FanDuel Sportsbook. Place your PBT wager before March 1st. FanDuel, play your game. All right, House, we're going to do a mailbag in a second. But I talked about over-unders.

46:14Bill Simmons:So the season comes back on Thursday. And you and me and Sal and Hench have spent a bunch of time trying to figure out bets we made. You guys do award stuff, which I'm not allowed to bet on. But we did wonder, like the Cooper flag rookie of the year odds did seem really high considering I don't trust if Dallas is going to shut them down. On FanDuel, there's some teams that have tanking potential. You can't even find the over-unders. I sent you eight and I want to go through the three honorable mention for me for over-unders just for win totals. And then the five I like. But these three stood out to me.

46:49Bill Simmons:Charlotte, who is 26 and 29. Their under is 42 and a half. So they basically have to go 16 and 11 or worse to basically go 42 and 40 or worse. 17 and 10 beats the over-under. My question for you, House, is 17 and 10, that seems high for Charlotte. Like I was looking at just like the last 25 games in the league. The only team that went 18 and seven was Detroit. Five teams had 17 wins or 16 wins. Like we just have more parity. And 17 and 10, I just think is going to be hard. But I also don't want to bet against Charlotte. So I think it's a stay away.

47:28Chris Ryan:Yeah, I like the idea of staying away. I think the number is fine at like 42. So the under makes sense to me. 41, 42 feels like the right number. But we don't want to bet the under. And right, that's the karma. And we already have cash in pocket with a beautiful over for Charlotte this season. So let's keep the karma headed in the right direction.

47:51Bill Simmons:Golden State is 29 and 26. Their over under is 43 and a half. If you go over, that means they only have to go 15 and 12 the rest of the way. And it looks like they might have Porzingis back. I think it's a stay away just because I don't trust them from a health standpoint. But I also, I don't think they're going to tank.

48:10Chris Ryan:I'm violently opposed to Golden State success. I'm heavily invested in them missing the playoffs. I don't think that they have any rational incentive to bust ass through the balance of this season. The mileage on Steph, you can't get it back. So the right thing to do is to get to the end of the season, try and over the course of the summer, figure out how you're going to be competitive next year. Is there something that can be done with Jimmy Butler over the course of the summer and go from there?

48:46Bill Simmons:I agree it's a stay away. And I also think this next one's a stay away, but I thought the number was intriguing. The Lakers right now are 33 and 21. The over-under for them was 48 and a half, which means they would have to go 16 and 11 down the stretch to go over. The only reason I mentioned that is because I think the Lakers are the hardest record team to figure out where you catch them on the wrong night and then they just suck. You're just like, what is this team? And it almost feels like two losses, but it's only one loss. And then they'll have other games where they suck for three quarters and then they just have Luka and LeBron on their team and they just figure it out down the stretch.

49:23Bill Simmons:I find it hard to believe they're not going to go 16-11, but I also don't want to bet on it.

49:28Chris Ryan:They're an under for me. Their schedule is backloaded to take advantage of the fact that they become a primetime team in these Saturday games, these Amazon Prime games, these NBC games. LeBron's not playing in any back-to-backs. Oh, that's a good point too. Yeah. Yeah. Their strength of schedule is inside the top 10 in terms of what they have to face over the balance of this season.

49:52Bill Simmons:15 and 12 would be under for them. Okay, here are the five I like. Cleveland, right now 34 and 21. The over is 52 and a half. They would have to go 19 and eight over their last 27 games. Last 25 games, House, they're 18 and seven, fifth and net. They added Harden. They added Schroeder. And I really like the Harden thing. They haven't been healthy all year. And I think to me, that's a 60 plus win team, especially with Harden, the fact that he's durable and they could have somebody take a night off and he could just run the offense. Everything could run through him. They'd have to go 19 and eight to beat that over and under.

50:26Bill Simmons:And I like it. I like the I'm over for them.

50:29Chris Ryan:I like it too. The crazy thing is with the 18 and seven over their last 25 and then us projecting them out to win basically another 19, 20 games, that's them playing at a 70 % win percentage north of that. Yeah. Which they just did over the last 25 games, 72 % win percentage for that. They have to hold in at that level. Now, I think the way that they reinforced their depth, obviously Harden and what that means in terms of taking off load for Mitchell. But more importantly, Schroeder backup, competent guy, guy that can consume minutes. And the Ellis piece of this is super underrated. We're barely scratched the surface of what Ellis is going to be for them.

51:18Chris Ryan:I think that they are loaded and their schedule is great. They get Brooklyn twice. They get Dallas twice. They have the Bucs twice. And then all of the bums, Chicago, the Pelicans, the Wiz, the Pacers, Utah. I really like the way that Cleveland's lined up here.

51:36Bill Simmons:All right. Cleveland over 52 and a half. That's first. Second one. CR and I talked about Houston and the KD burner scandal earlier. Burner gate. Burner files. Houston's 33 and 20. They're over under is 51 and a half. 18 and 11 or worse. hits the under. I love the under. I just think they're a different team with Adams out, and they haven't had Van Vliet all year, and Adams with Shangoon was their superpower. Talked about this with Zach on Sunday. That's gone. I don't know what kind of injury risk they can afford either at this point. They have some weird off-the-court stuff. They're in a harder conference.

52:12Bill Simmons:There's less teams throwing games away in that conference, and just in general, 18-11, 17-12, 16 and 13. I feel like they're in there and I'm under house.

52:23Chris Ryan:Yeah, it's a strong under for me. I said on this program, I think you said it. Yeah,

52:28Bill Simmons:you said it three weeks ago.

52:29Chris Ryan:Yeah, I love them under 53 and a half. That number ticked down to 52 and a half. And now it's sitting at 51 and a half. And it's still an under. In addition to the points that you just made, Kevin Durant is third in the NBA in minutes per game. That is not sustainable. That does not make any sense. That's not a path to success as you enter this playoff run. And the reason that he is in that position is because they can't score at the end of games. They have, they really, really miss Dylan Brooks. Think about that. But it's FBV and Dylan Brooks both missing. The perimeter scoring just isn't there.

53:12Chris Ryan:There's some

53:12Bill Simmons:tough Schengen stats. Thompson can't shoot at all. teams aren't even guarding him anymore. I don't want to cross them off because I still think they might be a bitch to play in the playoffs, but I think for a regular season, hard under. Next one, I'm a hard over for. Minnesota is 34-22. Their over is 49-1, which means 16-10 hits it. And notice, like Houston has 29 games left. Cleveland has 27. Everybody has 27, 28, or 29 left. Minnesota only has 26. Schedule's spread out. They got to soon knew. They, I think, have underachieved a little bit at 34 and 22 anyway. I like the team. I like the durability of the team.

53:55Bill Simmons:And 16 and 10, with also them trying to get into the top four, which is another piece with them, because you get top four, you get to host home court. So I have this marked down as Minnesota over.

54:07Chris Ryan:I am right there with you. They are jumping over Houston in my lineup there. I don't count the Lakers as a top 14, but for the reasons I just mentioned, So Minnesota into that top four makes sense. They're incented. And the thing that is the remains to be seen two pieces, Anthony Edwards reminding us on a national stage that he is that dude. And Minnesota does get a bunch of primetime games down through the balance of this schedule. And I think that AO acquisition is just going to be, we're going to really feel it. so much.

54:46Bill Simmons:And somehow they got Mike Conley back with the most obscure rule I've never heard of in my life, that if you trade a guy and then he gets traded to a second team and waived, you get him back. Who knew that was a rule? That's a rule? I thought if you traded a guy, we weren't able to get him back for the rest of the year. Now it's like, if you trade him and trade him again, I get him back? That was insane. Nobody wants him.

55:07Chris Ryan:Nobody wants him. He has a home in Minnesota.

55:10Bill Simmons:I mailed you and Sal and Hench this, that if you do a West Final Four right now, who are going to be the four West semifinal teams. If you win OKC, Denver, San Antonio, Minnesota, that's plus 652. And I think that's way too high. I think that's one of the best bets on the board because I think that's the top four. So somebody is going to have to beat them not having game seven at home. We've seen, you know, we've seen the higher seed. Somebody will blow it. We saw it last year with Cleveland. We saw Milwaukee a couple of years ago. It's not like it doesn't happen, but I just think that's going to be the final four.

55:43Chris Ryan:Those are the four best teams in the West.

55:45Bill Simmons:as we sit here today. The only thing would be, like Minnesota Lakers, if that's the 4-5, I think it's just a terrible outcome for the Lakers. They cook the Lakers. We just watched this last year.

55:57Chris Ryan:It's a 4-1 at best for the Lakers. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. They win one game. With the Lakers over under,

56:03Bill Simmons:I was almost wondering, would they try to tank to get to the 6 just to get away from Minnesota? All right, next one. Two more. Knicks, 35-20 right now. Over is 52-1⁄2. and they'd have to go 18-9 the rest of the way in 27 games. Some of the same stuff you have in the East with a bunch of shitty teams. I love the Alvarado thing when it happened. I thought he was one of the best stealth guys to get at the deadline. I wanted the Celtics to get him. You could already feel how different they look with him. They have a better bench. I just feel like they're going to take off. It's weird to say you would like the overs for both the Knicks and Cleveland, but I think by the end of the year, it's going to be a top three with those three.

56:45Bill Simmons:And I like the over.

56:47Chris Ryan:It makes sense. It's what their priors lined up. And we took overs for both Cleveland and the Knicks at the outset of the season. I had the Knicks getting the 53 or 54 wins this season, and I had Cleveland in like the 58-win category. And so the fact that they had the hiccups that they had regular season-wise, but now they're poised. They have the rosters lined up, especially Cleveland depth-wise. we just need OG to get more healthy than not. If we get OG if you tell me OG is going to play 75 % of these Knicks games down the stretch then I love it.

57:21Bill Simmons:So the last one I just had to look on Fando again to make sure the odds didn't change because I can't believe this one. It's an insane number. I just can't I'm stupefied by it. Orlando is 28-25 right now. Their over-under is 45.5 wins which means they would have to go 18 and 11 to be over. If you get 17 and 12 or worse and you win the under 16 and 13, 15 and 14 house, last 25 games, they had the 24th net rating. They have not passed the eye test all year. It is not once. It has looked like a team that has had something wrong with them for four months. I don't know what's going to change. And I have no idea why anyone would think they're going to go 18 and 11.

58:07Bill Simmons:I thought this was insane.

58:08Chris Ryan:I said not once. They did beat the Knicks in Masson Square Garden. Right, and we were like, oh, maybe here comes Orlando.

58:15Bill Simmons:And then they lost to somebody shitty like two days later.

58:18Chris Ryan:What's the Franz forecast? That's the most important thing for this. Like when does he come back? Yes. Will he come back? Put it this way.

58:27Bill Simmons:This number has it built in that he's coming back. So if he doesn't come back, that helps the number.

58:33Chris Ryan:But no, this is a huge under for me. This team, offensively, has been one of the most dysfunctional in the entire NBA, which is so weird to say because the Bain acquisition was successful. And the emergence of Black, he's really effing good. And Paolo has numbers, but they're empty calories for some reason. They still have two games against Cleveland, two games against Detroit, two games against Minnesota, Oklahoma City, and Boston. Give me the under, baby.

59:09Bill Simmons:I honestly, I keep checking it to understand, try to understand what's happening. So, all right. So we're over Cleveland, 52 and a half, under Houston, 51 and a half, over Minnesota, 49 and a half, over Knicks, 52 and a half, and under Orlando, 45 and a half. I think those are five good ones. We're gonna take one more break, come back and do the rest of the mailbag. And now it's time for the Paradox Playbook presented by Pepsi. Have you heard about the Pepsi Paradox? It's this idea that when labels and bias disappear in blind taste tests, 66 % of people in last year's Pepsi challenge preferred the taste of Pepsi zero sugar over Coca-Cola zero sugar.

59:48Bill Simmons:Well, if your favorite team had that winning percentage, they would almost always make the playoffs, right? Which got me thinking, sports is full of paradoxes like this. You see this every year, especially in the NBA. The NBA season is so long. we always see a team that we don't really take seriously around the 50 game mark i remember this happened with the with the 2022 celtics 25 and 25 you just kind of forget about them and yet every year there's that one late bloomer it happens in the nfl too and there was the celtics the mavericks the year luka made the finals with them and as you're looking at the nba season this year just kind of look around the landscape who hasn't peaked yet who might peak doesn't make a lot of sense, you would think the good teams would reveal themselves before Christmas, but sometimes that doesn't happen.

1:00:35Bill Simmons:That's the paradox. Well, let me ask you this question. Are you picking the zero sugar cola that you actually prefer? Or are you settling for the label that you think you prefer? Hmm. Go out and try Pepsi zero sugar today. Let your taste decide. All right, House, have some good mailbag questions. I tried to not give you any of the tanking ones. This is a long email from somebody named Marco P in British Columbia. Oh, Canada. It's one of the more interesting theories I've gotten in a while, and I can't wait to read it to you as a fellow lover of NBA history. He says, I don't think you can win a title with your best player resting.

1:01:17Bill Simmons:If your best player plays less than 60 games, you cannot win a ring. I pulled that number straight out of my ass. Then I went through the last 45 years of NBA history. Apparently my ass has great aim. Now he mentions the 21 Bucks Championship. Giannis played 61, but there was a post-COVID, it was a 72-game season. So cross that off. 2019 Raptors, Kawhi played 60 games. Then he writes, that's it. Since 1980, no other team won a ring if their best player played less than 60 games. Why do I bring this up? I have Wemby in the rookie draft by Fantasy League. He's a five-year keeper. I'm increasingly realizing I'll never win with him.

1:02:00Bill Simmons:My theory is you can't win a title with your best player playing under 60. Is that the team develops chemistry and identity without your star when he comes back, the action's halting and awkward, especially in the playoffs. And then he says, yes, I'm aware. Curry played 51 in the 2018 championship, but we all know who the best player was on that team. Shots fired, but also not wrong. Love that. So he says, unless you're a historical super team with 1A, 1B options like Curry and Durant, you cannot let your best player miss more than a quarter of his games. You cannot afford to rest them. That's what history says.

1:02:36Bill Simmons:So I went back further and I looked at everything basically since Bill Russell. The most anyone missed was Bill Walton in 1977. He played 65 games, missed 17. Is there something to this? we have basically the only outlier we've ever had is this completely insane 2019 Raptors title, which I want to go in with you in a second. Other than that, we've never seen it happen otherwise with resting in a title. Why is that?

1:03:08Chris Ryan:I'm shocked that you took the time to go investigate even further and really test this. It feels self-evident to me. I don't mean to be, you know, Captain Obvious here. Yeah. Yeah. Playing 70 % of the games feels pretty effing important to me with your best player for the reasons that the author of the email shares.

1:03:35Bill Simmons:But have you ever heard somebody mention this in the discourse? Like, if you don't play this guy enough, history says you actually won't win the title. I've never heard anyone say that before.

1:03:45Chris Ryan:here's what's annoying and depressing and disappointing we're only talking about it because of the last five years the effing NBA the arrival of load management and the arrival of the guys looking for opportunities the teams looking for opportunities to rest their players and then you can't have the combination of load management and injury which is basically the last five years of Kawhi Leonard I mean, this is why Kawhi with the Clippers is a complete bust.

1:04:18Bill Simmons:So I don't, the 2019 Raptors, legitimate title they won, and I actually ended up really liking that team. I respect the title. It's also an incredible outlier, right? Where you had LeBron goes to the West that year, Cleveland blows up. Celtics have all that talent. Gordon Hayward comes back, second year of Kyrie, Brown, Tatum, they blow up for whatever reason. Giannis is a year away, not quite there yet. Lakers are a year away from getting AD. Houston and Golden State are probably the two best teams. Houston can't get by Golden State, even though KD is hurt. And Golden State loses KD in the playoffs.

1:04:59Bill Simmons:Right. Then we get to the finals and KD comes back and blows out his Achilles in game five, followed by Clay Thompson blowing out his ACL during a hot streak in the third quarter of game six. Now you could say this was how five-year little NBA dynasties are supposed to end. It's too much wear and tear. It's all that. It was an iconic Kawhi playoffs. Fred VanVleet in the finals had a just insane heat check. Curry stunk in game six, but partly because he was the only guy they had to guard. They threw everything at him.

1:05:32Chris Ryan:He was exhausted. He was every other game, Curry, at that point.

1:05:35Bill Simmons:Yeah, this was, we've seen it with the 89 Lakers, the 87 Celtics, like the 04 Lakers. We've seen these great teams at the tail end. They can't sustain it. And the Raps had a great player. They had luck from injury. No injuries. Seven really good guys, all who could create their own shot. And a couple wildcard heat checks, and they deserve to win. With that said, I still can't believe what happened to the Warriors. and I almost think of them first when I think of that playoffs, right? It's like, what are the odds KD and Klay are going to go down in the playoffs? Like, that was fucking insane.

1:06:10Chris Ryan:Yes, yes. I mean, it's the only thing I can think of that's like in the neighborhood. I'm probably missing something obvious, but I think of Isaiah Thomas. Yeah, spray to the ankle. Yeah, against the Lakers. Yeah, that's a really good one. And what an impact that had.

1:06:25Bill Simmons:So that brings us, by the way, with Kawhi, they also had that game seven against Philly with the crazy shot in the corner. And that whole, that game is nuts when you go back and actually look at that game. Kawhi took 39 shots in that game. Van Vliet was like in an absolute shooting coma. Like kind of nobody else stepped up. I think maybe Ibaka stepped up and Kawhi just basically carried everybody. So that leads to our next question. What Boston sports moment would you compare the Game 7 Halliburton injury to? We were so close yet to quote Dan Campbell, it may have been our only shot. I am a fan of the 26-27 NBA champion, Indiana Pacers.

1:07:01Bill Simmons:Corbin H. wrote that. So there's no Boston sports moment. Like, the only one would be like if, you know, when Brady blew out his ACL, that happened in the Pats Giants Super Bowl. There's no way to compare it to Game 7, your best player gets hurt as you have the lead in the first half. I think the only one you can compare it to is that Isaiah again. Because same situation, that when he sprains his ankle in Game 6 against the Lakers, comes back, they almost win, and it gets pulled away from them at the end, and then he's too hurt to really do anything in Game 7. Detroit had never won the title before, like Indiana.

1:07:37Bill Simmons:That's the only one I can think of where it's like, wow, if that didn't happen, we might have won.

1:07:41Chris Ryan:I'm more disappointed in you taking the bait of picking one that asks about a Boston sports moment and relates it to... Well, that team is just trying to get in the mail bag. Come on. I understand that. He's smart. It was well played by him. The crass pandering. It's well played. and you bite down, you know, hook, line, and sinker on it.

1:08:00Bill Simmons:So I was trying to think, what would be the other game that was like this anywhere? You need the best part in the team going down. I think it would have to be a team that's never won. So that kind of rules out KD and Quay going down and back-to-back years. You kind of have to go to sports movies. You have to go to like Pele and Victory and getting hurt. And even he came back and tied the game. The Halliburton thing's like, what's like over here? It's not to make it seem like it's comedy, but it's like, it's so fucking crazy that that happened. I can't wrap my head around it. So, um, all right.

1:08:34Bill Simmons:I didn't want to throw a bunch of tanking things at you, but I really liked this idea from Nick in Nebraska. And I think you're the perfect guy to mention this.

1:08:40Chris Ryan:Nick in Nebraska. Nick in Nebraska.

1:08:42Bill Simmons:Not no relation. Nick Ida talks. He talked about college football playoff bracket and how committee gets in a room and proclaims the rankings, right? the committee says, here are the rankings from one through 12. There's a narrative. They buy into it. Good wins and good losses matter. He writes the draft lottery has been a breeding ground for conspiracies like Ken Loong and industry. You go straight to the problem, determine the draft order by a committee that makes the order based on who deserves what pick and incentivize the best behavior. Karma becomes a real thing. Think of the content. Now, I don't think they're going to do that, but it did inspire an idea that I want to throw at you.

1:09:22Bill Simmons:Okay. So I think we have 1 ,001 ping pong combos for the lottery. All right. I think that's what it is. Great. Whatever it is. I think it's 1 ,000. What if we had a karma rankings committee? I was doing the lottery karma rankings every year where I was like, who actually deserves the number one pick based on how they handled their business during the season? Did they have bad luck with injuries? Is it their fault they're in this situation? Did they conduct themselves with grace and competitiveness and sportsmanship. If we had a karma rankings committee and we put another 250 balls in the lottery and we had a committee and they actually voted 150 balls to first place, 75 for second and 25 for third place.

1:10:07Bill Simmons:And those balls just went in the lottery. Would you like that?

1:10:11Chris Ryan:Extra balls.

1:10:12Bill Simmons:Extra balls with committee and stuff to argue about and content for us.

1:10:17Chris Ryan:I mean, I really feel like you're baiting me right now because of what happened last year. Right. With the, with the, with, I won't curse the Dallas Mavericks, the least deserving team in, in the history of the NBA draft in the history of the NBA lottery. Right.

1:10:37Bill Simmons:So they would have, they would have had balls taken away. They would have lost a hundred balls. They should have had no balls. They should have been Unix. So my thought was 250 balls go in, 150 for first place, 75 second, 25 third. But we also vote on two teams that should lose balls.

1:10:55Chris Ryan:Yeah, now we're talking.

1:10:57Bill Simmons:We take away 150 balls. Takes them away. 100 from the first place and 50 for second place. So if we voted right now for the karma, for I want to give these guys more lottery balls, they deserve them. Indiana has to be the first choice. Why? Because... Why do they have to be first? They've had a ton of injuries. Have you watched them? Like, they still, like, give a shit.

1:11:19Chris Ryan:Like, they're trying to win some of these games. They went on a stretch there. As soon as Matherin went out, they went on an all-time, all-tank. I mean, it was McConnell was hurt, I know. But the Matherin thing...

1:11:33Bill Simmons:They lost their best guy in a game seven last year. Well, I would vote for them first. So who would you vote for first?

1:11:39Chris Ryan:Washington, obviously. I had them second. I'm just not saying. I'd have second.

1:11:42Bill Simmons:But Washington, I think, has handled the season with relative dignity.

1:11:46Chris Ryan:They've tried to compete within reason, and it's a super young team, and they've given some veterans an opportunity to go out and distinguish themselves. Maybe Marvin Bagley III will get another contract out of the fact that he showed decent for Washington, now got traded. Now he's at Dallas, like killing it for them.

1:12:08Bill Simmons:Right. So I'd have them second. I would actually have Milwaukee out and give 25 extra ping pong balls. None of this was their fault. They traded. Interesting. They amnestied. Whatever they did with Dame Lillard, they tried to get Miles Turner.

1:12:20Chris Ryan:You don't think that's their fault? Like the extraordinarily poor front office management? Yeah, but they won the title with what they did, though.

1:12:26Bill Simmons:Like they're in this position partly because they did that Drew Holiday trade and then did the Dame trade because they were constantly trying to actually compete.

1:12:33Chris Ryan:The Dame trade turned out to be an act of desperation that didn't pay off. but you want to reward them for taking the swing, the big swing.

1:12:42Bill Simmons:Listen, is there a guy available who can hoop, who might have some personal issues? They welcome him in Milwaukee. It's like, nobody wants Cam Thomas. We'll take him. They're going to win games. So I would go Indiana, Washington, Milwaukee. Your order would be Washington, Indiana, and who?

1:13:04Chris Ryan:I would have said Charlotte, but they're too good. Yeah, Charlotte's too good. They're not going to be in a lottery.

1:13:09Bill Simmons:All right, so you only have two boats. And then for the takeaway ping-pongs, Utah has to be number one.

1:13:14Chris Ryan:I honestly think that, I'm sorry, I would reward the Pelicans maybe.

1:13:19Bill Simmons:I don't think the Pelicans. Yeah, because it's almost like you feel bad because of Joe Dumas giving their pick away. Yes. But the thing is you reward them and then that pick just goes to somebody else. That's a great point. So you're rewarding Atlanta. Atlanta's like, please reward us. Atlanta gets even more. So if you're taking the balls away, Utah would be my number one pick to be penalized here.

1:13:40Chris Ryan:Well, they have to be because they did the most dishonorable thing at exactly the wrong time. The true mistake for Utah, they can compete. They can win on lots of nights. I loved your idea of this threshold wins, 27 wins. This Utah team is in the mix. They have enough talent to compete for mid-20s kind of wins all the way up.

1:14:04Bill Simmons:I think they could be in the 30s. I think they could do what Portland did, where at least they could go 32 and 50 if they really went for it.

1:14:12Chris Ryan:With Kessler out, I mean, you know, the West is tough and Kessler's out. So, I mean, I think 27 is secretly a great number. But their true mistake is like the whole sports world is about to shift its attention away from football. So you can't do the open and notorious tank right as we're all starting to pay attention. You go straight from a cousin's cell. You're crying in your hot water. This cousin is mostly kind to you about it. The cousin was terrible to me. A lot of people mentioning. People are asking him where he was. He was terrible. I think he was fine. But that was the Sunday pod. And then the Tuesday pod is you losing your mind with Nick Wright, entirely appropriate, entirely deserved.

1:15:05Chris Ryan:About Adam Silver, yeah. And the bum-ass Utah Jazz, because the bum-ass Utah Jazz did that thing right before the all, like, we're all, the whole league's going to be together for the All-Star break. Why would you do it right before the All-Star break? I like when they were like, the owner, who we actually like,

1:15:21Bill Simmons:but the owner was like, hey, we won the game. What did we do wrong? We're getting fined for winning a game? It's like, come on. I like the idea of taking ping pong balls away. And I would love the chance to vote on that. And I'd like to volunteer both of us to be in the voting committee. Oh, yeah.

1:15:36Chris Ryan:I volunteer.

1:15:37Bill Simmons:Honestly, out of all the taking ideas, I think this is my single favorite of karma ping pong balls one way or the other as a way to just ding people that don't behave properly. Like, there's no better way to do it. Just slap you on the hand.

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1:16:18Bill Simmons:Quinn G. from Denver. You're really the perfect person for this question. He stole this from Twitter. says, but was curious in your thoughts. He's calling it the Palo theory. The idea that drafting a good, not great player with a top pick is more detrimental than drafting a bust because said players are likely to be overcommitted by cap resources, especially on the second contract. It's almost a branch of the Ewing theory, right? Who's lived this more than you? Yeah. I mean, you had, you had John Wall and Bradley Beal.

1:16:52Chris Ryan:Yeah. Well, Bradley Beal wasn't the number one overall pick. He was a third pick.

1:16:57Bill Simmons:No, but I just like the idea of like a top pick, like a top... A top five pick. Bradley Beal is third pick. Yeah, that's what I mean. Like a top three, top five pick that then gets a giant contract. Second contract kind of because the team doesn't 100 % have a choice. Sorry. Sorry to bring up some bad memories.

1:17:19Chris Ryan:I don't... I mean, we've said this however many times on this pod, the single biggest sin you can commit in the previous iteration of the NBA and the current iteration is to play a superstar or a very good player like he's a super-duper star. That's the thing that hurts you more than anything. That's why we have a worst contracts draft on this program.

1:17:45Bill Simmons:I would name the theory after Zach Levine, personally. Sure. And I would kind of open it up so it's not just top pick, but it's that conundrum that these teams get into where it's like, well, and I've been, you can go through all the podcasts I've done and everything I've written. This has been one that I've been slamming my fist down every time. I would just never do it. I would never pay the non-superstar superstar money. There's no track record of this ever working. Find me the player where this was a good idea for. does not exist. It does not exist.

1:18:20Chris Ryan:Can't find one.

1:18:22Bill Simmons:Josh from Dallas writes, none of my four kids have ever been a big basketball fan. I'm a huge Mavs fan. Yesterday, my 10-year-old son came downstairs and said, hey, dad, can we watch the dunk contest? I was a little dumbfounded. Here are the highlights. My 10-year-old, who are these guys? Is LeBron in this? My 15-year-old, after Keyshawn Johnson, Keyshawn Johnson missed his attempts but danced. Why is he dancing? That was bad. My 10-year-old later, why aren't any of the Thunder doing this? My eight-year-old moaning after Carter Bryant missed his final dunk. This is so boring. They then asked me why none of the good players were in it, meaning players they know and hear about at school.

1:19:00Bill Simmons:I was mad at the NBA. The dunk contest offended me. Josh from Dallas. So you have a 15-year-old kid who is right in the dunk contest wheelhouse. I think was 15 when the dunk contest came. Maybe I was 14 in 1984, you were 15. And it was easily one of the most exciting things that happened that year for me. Not a lot of girls for either of us back then. No, not at that age. No. But it was just like, oh my God. And now all these years later, I think it comes down to how do you get kids to watch something where they don't know any of the players? So did James House watch the dunk contest?

1:19:39Chris Ryan:No, no. And I would not for one second suggest to him, like he's doing whatever he's doing online with his crew. Yeah. You know what would have gotten his attention and what we would have watched together is Max McClung. McClung would have been going for his fourth. Yeah. McClung is an internet sensation. His reputation preceded him. It was a stroke of genius for the league to leverage into a cult hero, an internet cult hero, and have him available for it. We have to find those guys. Find the interesting stories. Find the guy. I mean, with all due respect to the competitors that gave it a go this year, that was the least compelling, the least interesting.

1:20:22Chris Ryan:The only reason to watch it at all is to send the snarky-ass jokes that we sent back and forth to each other.

1:20:29Bill Simmons:Also, no more centers, please.

1:20:32Chris Ryan:There's a way to do it. Raise the rim.

1:20:35Bill Simmons:Make it the 12-foot rim.

1:20:37Chris Ryan:No, like if you got, if the guys are incented, a couple of times over the last couple of weeks, you guys, you and maybe Nick and maybe Zach, there are all the dunks have been done. I disagree with that. All the dunks have not been done. I mean, when we, when you get the real elevated competition, that Zach Levine, Aaron Gordon competition, those were, those, they're variations, right? But there was some genuine innovation, but passing it underneath the butt with the legs straight out, that Aaron Gordon did. I'll never forget that. That was like, that's up there for me in terms of a wow dunk that I don't feel like I'd seen before.

1:21:15Chris Ryan:And McClung because of his size and the way that the ferocity of that, those are unique dunks. Those belong to him and those withstand the test of time in my opinion.

1:21:27Bill Simmons:So you want like a wild card, a traditional dunker in there, even if it was somebody who's not in the NBA or the G League? that would be fine somebody that resonates with the culture

1:21:39Chris Ryan:I don't know who that is now I haven't been watching anyone isn't out there

1:21:44Bill Simmons:you only know what resonates with golf

1:21:49Bill Simmons:like your guy Anthony Kim

1:21:51Chris Ryan:when you were a live tour action that was amazing I stayed up till 145 in the morning east coast watching Anthony Kim

1:22:01Bill Simmons:a reader named Kyle proposes a new category for the trade value list. The missing piece overpay for borderline all-stars and elite role players who would theoretically be the missing piece for a title team. Some examples, Zubats of the Pacers, Bane of the Magic, Gobert of the Wolves, Holiday of the Bucks, and Mikael Bridges. I like this. This almost should be like its own category. It should, yes. For like four teams in the league, these guys are worth 40 % more than for everybody else. I got to figure out how to factor that in. Doug K from Brooklyn. wants to know why we count all-star selections, either for guys who got voted and didn't play or the guys that were replacements.

1:22:44Bill Simmons:He says, seriously, in 10 years, we're going to look back and say, wow, Brandon Ingram was an all-star in 2026. Wouldn't it be useful to know that he was the fourth fucking replacement? No, he wasn't better than Giannis that year. That's from Doug Kay in Brooklyn. I stand by this. I actually agree with Doug. When I look at the basketball references and you look at the all-star games who played, there's no context for replacement players.

1:23:08Chris Ryan:You can look that up. It's knowable. It's knowable, but hard to find out. This doesn't bother me as much. Okay. Because when you're evaluating, but you think about it in the context as the true NBA historian that you are, you're looking for benchmarks. And one of the benchmarks is all-star appearances. And it's okay. you're not looking singularly at one all-star appearance that has an asterisk next to it because that tells you what kind of a player that you would remember if Brandon Ingram only makes one all-star game then you're going to know that that was the context

1:23:49Bill Simmons:so you wouldn't give him an asterisk okay did you like my idea for at the end of the all-star game they vote for the top five guys who gave the most shits sponsored by State Farm?

1:24:04Chris Ryan:I don't know. It feels like we could get a little more on the nose with like Dude Wipes. I bet Dude Wipes could be a good sponsor for that.

1:24:12Bill Simmons:I was thinking because Zach and I went right after the All-Star game. I think what really worked was that the first three quarters, there was like a crunch time at the end of every quarter. And we might have said that during the pod, I don't remember. But that having like the dopamine of, oh shit, there's two minutes left. Oh, this is, and I felt like you could see it in the game. Like you could feel it. And like the guys kind of all of a sudden it felt like basketball. I know you enjoyed it as well.

1:24:39Chris Ryan:I did. And, you know, it reminded me of how well the all-star game, was it in the bubble or after the bubble when we had the Elam ending?

1:24:49Bill Simmons:Oh yeah.

1:24:50Chris Ryan:They played hard as fuck. That was like within the last, you know, half a decade. that game also shared the giving a shit attribute.

1:25:04Bill Simmons:Edmund Johnson said, I saw this on Reddit, so I can't take credit for it, but what are your thoughts? And I swear he uses your team here. If the Washington Wizards were able to have one normal person, a non-NBA player on their roster, who is able to wield a metal bat, could they win the championship this season? Please note the standard foul flagrant rules would apply, aka an attack by the bat to someone without the ball who would still result in shots after the bonus etc. Hope to hear your thoughts Go Wolves! That's from Evan Johnson Hope to hear your thoughts This is murder ball I don't know if we

1:25:42Chris Ryan:I mean this is Why do we have to do the Wizards? A normal person with a bat A normal person isn't going to be able to really wreak any havoc You need a The Washington Nationals are very available.

1:25:55Bill Simmons:So Cousin Sal has a bat and he's in a wizard's jersey. Cousin Sal is not a normal person. And he's just going around with the bat trying to like, what would you, you're trying to take out like legs, right? Knees. I feel like they would win the title. Knees. Knees. I would pick them to win the title. Knees.

1:26:08Chris Ryan:You got knees and ankles. The problem is that a normal person can't keep up. And who's to say, are the players prohibited from killing the normal person? You can't put a normal person on a basketball. He didn't have the rules. on a court, a regular person trying to move at the speed that those guys

1:26:27Bill Simmons:move at, they'd be dead. He said, please note the standard flagrant foul rules would still apply. Oh, good. It was a flagrant too. So if you hit somebody with the bat, you're out. And then would you get suspended? I think you would probably get suspended. Probably more than Isaiah Stewart got. So you really only get to do it once. You would save it.

1:26:49Chris Ryan:the percentage of success would be so low. The guys are such good athletes and a normal person is just a normal person. There's no way that a normal person could go out with a bat and hit a player in a way that to cause, it would be like just sheer dumb luck. You can't keep up. Also, the players would just beat the shit out of you and take the bat and beat you over the head with it. That's what I would expect. A normal person with a bat. Oh, guess what happens? Even a bum, Even Kalil Ware would take the bat and beat the dude over the head.

1:27:22Bill Simmons:So you tried in game one of the finals. You'd probably save Bat Guy so he wouldn't get suspended for the season. Yeah, you'd immediately go after the best player on the other team. Bat Guy gets suspended, but now you've removed the guy from the team.

1:27:34Chris Ryan:As soon as you took a step towards him, imagine if the Pistons were in the finals. What would B. Stu do? What would Duren do? What would Holland do? Let Holland. Holland would go murder this person.

1:27:45Bill Simmons:See, in this scenario, I think Bat Guy would probably be on the Pistons. I think he would fit in with that team. Bat Guy. Robert McNamara asks, Adrian Peterson, Big Ben, and Antonio Brown all become Hall of Fame eligible next year. That got me thinking. The Purge, Hall of Fame edition. Every 10 years, voters just ignore morality and vote in all the assholes. How to deal with baseball steroid era solved. Tell Gronk to wait a year and think about how pissed Belichick and Kraft would be getting into the purge class. So much spite. So in the seventh year of every decade, it's a purge hall of fame.

1:28:26Bill Simmons:And it's like, here, here we go. Bonds, Clemens, come on down. I really like this idea. It's one of the best ones in a while. Huge thumbs up. Tuvia writes in, thanks for bringing back the mailbag. Now my younger kids will know what's happening when they hear laughter from the bathroom. Peace and blessings. I was big in bathrooms once upon a time.

1:28:50Chris Ryan:Well, phones go into bathrooms.

1:28:52Bill Simmons:Yeah.

1:28:53Chris Ryan:All right. Somebody, I saw this on the internet, that if you go into the bathroom without your phone, it's like taking a 90s shit.

1:29:05Bill Simmons:All right, two more. We got to end with some goofy ones because that's how the mailbag usually goes. Kevin Dotson writes, if your penis was an NBA player, if your penis was an NBA player, who would you want it to be and who is it really? I think most of us want to be an undeniable force like Giannis when we're probably just Reed Shepard. I don't really have an answer for this one.

1:29:26Chris Ryan:It's rude.

1:29:28Bill Simmons:Thanks.

1:29:29Chris Ryan:I want to be Daryl Dawkins.

1:29:32Bill Simmons:Breaking backwards? You know it. Leo from Austin, Texas and France. writes in, Bill, I have two words from you. Minority divorce. Think minority report, but the precogs anticipate divorce. Think about how easy it would be if married couples could agree on separation and splitting stuff before it becomes a big mess. The cops and lawyers show up even as you're getting ready to get married and they say you should end the relationship amicably by February 9th. Otherwise, it'll be a mess. Picture the faces of the spouses being dumbfounded. It's a half-baked idea, of course, but you know how this pitch works.

1:30:09Bill Simmons:Minority divorce. The sequel to Minority Report. They just come in and just blow up relationships. Half-baked.

1:30:17Chris Ryan:Well, they wouldn't, but they know. The relationship has a ticking time bomb. Precogs. That's the element of it, right?

1:30:25Bill Simmons:Would the precogs be better to say crime or divorce? I don't know. It's a tough one. But the two are linked. Oh, good point. Anything else to cover before we go? You got to drive your son to a basketball game. The mailbag is back. It's really good.

1:30:43Chris Ryan:We got a guy in the Wizards hitting people with a metal bag. You didn't answer which player your penis would be. I got to think about it more.

1:30:51Bill Simmons:I like the Daryl Dawkins. Yeah, you'd want to be like, wouldn't you want to be Will Chamberlain, the Big Dipper?

1:30:57Chris Ryan:Yeah, well, that's a very, very strong one. Shaq feels good. Yeah. I mean, you know.

1:31:02Bill Simmons:All right. Any golf things for us to think about as we head toward what golf season right now?

1:31:07Chris Ryan:It's Riviera. We just went from Pebble Beach, an amazing weekend at Pebble Beach. Colin Morikawa wins for the first time on U.S. soil in four and a half years. To Riviera in your backyard, I gave out on the FanDuel Sportsbook on the Fairway Rollin' golf podcast program on Netflix as well. a parlay of Rory McIlroy and Scotty Scheffler to finish inside the top five. Available right now at plus 475 because the heart wants what the heart wants. I want to see Rory McIlroy and Scotty Scheffler going head-to-head down the stretch Sunday afternoon in your backyard. Let all of America watch it prime time in LA.

1:31:49Chris Ryan:It's going to be awesome.

1:31:50Bill Simmons:That sounds great. And as you mentioned, Fairway Rolling, available on Netflix now. You can watch it as a video on Netflix or Spotify. How else? Great to see you as always.

1:32:00Chris Ryan:Always my pleasure.

1:32:02Bill Simmons:All right. Thanks to CR and How else and Gahau and Eduardo. Don't forget new rewatchables went up on Monday night, GoldenEye. You can watch the movie on Netflix, then watch the rewatchables on Netflix or watch it wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify. Next week, crazy, stupid love that is also on Netflix. So stay tuned for that one as we kind of count the days down until CR month. I can't wait. Uh, I'm going to be back Thursday. I think pretty sure with one more podcast. If not, I'll see you Sunday.

1:32:50Bill Simmons:Must be 21 plus in president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. 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 seven support in Massachusetts or call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text HopeNY in New York for Louisiana. Call 877-770-7867.