Wemby Gets Revenge, Morey’s Out, and a Trade-Fueled Mega-Mailbag With Kirk Goldsberry and David Jacoby

22:22Bill Simmons:But I would have said that about Minnesota, too. Yeah. I like Minnesota's position a little bit more than you. I think they're hoping expansion happens and they move to the Eastern Conference because then all of a sudden their prognosis looks a little bit better, right? Yeah. Let me ask you this. I wrote this down. Of course, I'm going to ask you this. You're my only guest and it's just the two of us. If we do get OKC San Antonio next round, I think this is the best series in eight years. Okay. I like this. Yeah. I'm fired up. Yeah. Just, and now you can say, there's been a lot of good series.

22:59Bill Simmons:I'm not talking about entertainment value. I'm talking about talent, ceiling of the teams and the matchups that I went through all the, all the, we've had a lot of entertaining series. I think you have to go back to 2018 when the Rockets played the Warriors, the series Chris Paul ended up getting hurt in. And the Warriors were going from back to back. I think that's the last one with this kind of level of two teams that are basically mid-60s wins teams, maybe even better, that have a lot of guys at the peak of their powers or on their way up. And last eight years, we haven't had a series like that.

23:39Bill Simmons:We had the 2017 finals and we had 2016 Golden State versus OKC and then Golden State versus Cleveland. I think those were probably the three best series of the last, four best series of the last 10 years. And talent-wise, next round would be on the level of San Antonio finishes. And it also, for the old guys like us, it's like, this does start to feel like a power struggle that's more than a year long. It feels like it's going to be like this for a while, like a Pistons-Bulls situation or a Knicks-Bulls thing, where there's thousands of those examples. But yeah, if that happens, Bill, like Wemby and Shea, to me they're the two best players in the world right now uh and is that crazy right no it's it's i'm just i've finally given up no no no joker i think he had his run i think he's out of it now yeah just some of the defensive stats we're seeing from wemby the fact that the minnesota timberwolves are shooting like 37 when he's on the floor in five games um is is his defensive of impact is so incredible.

24:50But yeah, I think there's two of the best players in the world, best young cores in the league, great coaches, great organizations. I think you're right to look at it like that.

24:59Bill Simmons:Well, one other thing, malleability too with lineups. Teams that can throw different looks at you depending on what the situation is. Both teams can go smaller. They can play three guards. They can play three guards, a shooter, and a center. They can go bigger too, to some degree. OKC probably can do that a little bit better because, as we said, San Antonio feels like there may be one bigger guy short. And then there's this roughing up Wemby thing, which, you know, it's funny, like, I didn't get a chance to talk about the game when he elbowed Nas and, you know, it's slow-mo. Slow-mo makes everything look worse, but it did seem like he sized him up for a second.

25:41Bill Simmons:But it was also 15, not to defend Wemby, but it was 15 small to medium things that led to him being mad enough to whip an elbow at somebody. Because you could tell the whole series, Minnesota's like, let's keep banging on this guy. Let's keep fucking with him. Let's keep knocking him down. Just stay physical, stay physical. I'm old enough to remember when this was the strategy against Kareem. Kareem punched like five guys, including he broke his hand punching Ken Benson and breaking Ken Benson's job. But Kareem, you could go find him on YouTube. Kareem knocked down or knocked out multiple guys because he would just get fed up.

26:22Bill Simmons:Shaq was the other one we had. With Shaq, I think only maybe he tried to punch Brad Miller. There was a few others. But Shaq, they would always pull his shoulders. And you couldn't do the same stuff you did to Wemby. It was more like you tried to like kind of wear him down. Almost like a boxer when you keep clenching a boxer. And he would get frustrated too. Wemby's going to have to deal with this his whole career. Minnesota's testing him. OKC has guys that will do it too. This is why you have Lou Dort. And I remember when I worked at the Spurs, we used to complain about the contact allowances are so different for interior players than for guards, even back then, last decade.

27:03It was crazy to watch Draymond, double arm bar Lamarcus, for instance, or Tim, and just like, okay, that's cool. but I think it's really interesting to compare the whistles of guards who attack versus a Wemby. Like, you cannot lay a finger on an attacking guard in this league, but the things that they're doing, and Minnesota, by the way, this is great. This is very intelligent game plan. Do it until they call it. They did it tonight a couple times. Yeah. McDaniels shoved them out of bounds on the play, and they missed that. They teed up Nas for something they had been doing. And again, this isn't sour grapes.

27:44Do it until they call it. They hadn't been calling, especially in game four. But to me, it just really makes me think about how different the whistle is for different kinds of players. And Wimby gets fouled a lot more than get called. And that is as old as the history of the game to an extent. But it's really frustrating in a time where our guards are getting so many ticky-tack calls to watch Victor get pushed around like that.

28:09Bill Simmons:Yeah, I don't like it either. Shaq you talk to listen to a podcast with anyone who played against Shaq and there's like yeah we fouled the shit out of them we're they gonna call everything he's 380 pounds like what else are we gonna do or else he just would have dunked every time um I'll be interested to see a Friday night I think they dial up all that stuff with Wemby and you have the Minnesota crowd you have Ant on the three days rest. Yeah. You have a Timberwolves team. They're on the brink in a lot of different ways because it's not going to get any better next year, right? The West is going to be, Denver will load up in some way.

28:48Bill Simmons:Utah is going to be out of nowhere a contender. The Lakers are going to try to, you know, improve the team. Dallas is going to be better next year. The West is just going to be better all the way around. Yeah. And it's going to be hard to cement being the third best team. What happens if Houston gets better? You know, you just don't. What happens if Giannis gets traded to one of those teams? You just don't. The Clippers are getting the number five pick. Yeah. Well, we'll see. Impressive Wemby game. I'm just blown away by the Spurs. Like, to watch young guys play like this doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

29:18Bill Simmons:This is something that should be two years from now happening. And it's just like, it's sped out. It's like listening to a podcast at 1.5 speed or something. They're hitting these check marks. Yeah. Like, the Harper thing just breaks my brain. point guards don't do that at age 20. They're not supposed to have control of playoff games for eight, nine minutes. So anyway, before we go, Daryl Morey got fired today. Oh, our friend. The Philadelphia 76ers general manager, friend of mine for a long time. I've always tried to stay you know, always weird to talk about, but I always try to be neutral. If they did stuff I didn't like, I would say it.

29:56Bill Simmons:If they did stuff I liked, I'd say it. So you knew there was going to be a fall guy after a pretty embarrassing sweep to the Knicks where you had 70-80 % Knicks fans in the last two games. And there's a couple different things you could probably point to. The Embiid extension. The McCain trade seemed for some reason to be the catalyst for people to really turn on him. And a good example of like, Sam Presti has it right by never saying anything. Daryl talks, you know, sometimes to his own detriment and made the sell high comment with McCain. The irony is he traded McCain because they clearly told him to get under the luxury tax, right?

30:39Bill Simmons:So there's a couple moves you can make. Maybe trade Grimes. I don't know if Grimes had any value to trade Grimes without taking a contract back, which is hard. And in the McCain case, they got picks and other stuff and McCain was kind of buried behind two guards, but that became the catalyst. So when I look at the job that he did in Philly, which was really up and down, Like some really big hits and some misses too. I guess my question, are they in a better or worse place than when he took over? Because he was able to get them out of the Ben Simmons thing. He was able to trade Harden and get some pretty decent picks from the Clippers back.

31:17Bill Simmons:I mean, I think one of them's unprotected in 28 or 29. Vijay Edgecombe, they pulled that off where they now have Maxie and Edgecombe as like the centerpiece for what they're doing. So to me, this isn't like, oh, my God, this guy fucked our team up. But at the same time, I wasn't surprised at all. So why wasn't I surprised? Yeah, I think your worst contracts draft, which we'll talk about a little bit later, is the number one reason. When you look at what you guys had determined, the one and two worst contracts in the entire association right now, Daryl did those deals. He did it with Paul George and he did it with Joel Embiid.

31:55And what do they have in common? And these are guys on the wrong side of their prime. And he is committed to paying them ridiculous amounts of money in this second apron era. So that's what's, that's what's it. If they only had one of those deals, you'd be like, oh my God, they have a really good team building opportunity here to get over. But they're handcuffed. I mean, if Paul George is going to be healthy or Joel Embiid is going to be healthy, but you and I have seen this for too long to know. That's just not going to happen. And so that's ultimately what it is. I don't think it's like a disgraceful firing.

32:28I just think this thing, they needed to refresh it. I think Daryl will get another job. But ultimately, if I had to hang it on something, Bill, I would say those two contracts, the Paul George and Joel Embiid, that's what got it done.

32:41Bill Simmons:I would add a third one. And this would have been controversial, but I always used to joke that Daryl has no emotion in any of this stuff. Like he's just going to do what, what the analytic move is at all times. Like that's the McCain trade. There was no emotion tied to that trade. Like if, if you and I were his conciliaries and he was about to make that trade, we would say, yo man, Philly fans really liked this guy. Yeah. And if you do this and he goes and plays well in OKC, they're gonna be fucking pissed. And this is Philadelphia. Like, I don't know, like maybe figure out another way to get into the luxury tax.

33:19Bill Simmons:Right. But he's analytics. That's just the way he plows ahead. I said this at the time. The move was to trade Embiid when before the Knicks got Towns, when the Knicks were clearly desperately trying to, you know, make that all these picks that made an impact. And they had a real relationship with Embiid. They had World Wide West and they had Leon Rose who were like, those are Embiid's guys. Leon Rose was, that was his agency, you know? And I think out of anyone, and they valued him the most. And you just had Embiid coming off these two seasons where he played the most games he'd ever played, and it was like 66 and 63.

33:58Bill Simmons:His stock was never going to be higher. The history of centers and guys that size is usually going to start doing this. And I just think he could have gotten a fucking motherlode from Philly. Now, would the fans have been happy about it? I don't know. Yeah. But I think in retrospect, hard to say, But in retrospect, the move is like, I am selling high, not on Jared McCain, but on Joe Embiid right now. Yeah, that's probably right. And one more thing on the McCain thing. I always like to laugh at, like, if Sam Presti is very interested in one of your guys. Yeah, hang up. Yeah, go back and be like, oh, what are we doing?

34:37Like, that's our best player or whatever. Don't trade with that guy. Huge red flag. When Pat Riley was in his prime or R.C. Buford in his absolute prime and they were on the phone, people would be afraid to deal with them because they had such respect for these guys' basketball opinions. Why would they want that guy? Oh, yeah, hang up the phone, Bill.

34:59Bill Simmons:The Brewers are like this, too. The Red Sox have traded for him two years in a row with the Brewers. They basically have Sam Presti in the baseball and got fleeced each time. So, yeah. So for Daryl, this is a 20-year run for him, right? He got hired by the Rockets in 06, took over the team in 07, had the whole Rockets run, came really close, had some bad luck, especially Chris Paul getting hurt is a great injury what-if. Yeah. We have injury what-ifs every year. That's a really good one because they had Game 7 at home. They were toe-to-toe with the Warriors. The Warriors were a little run down at that point from 15, 16, 17, 18.

35:37Bill Simmons:they were vulnerable their team chemistry was going a little sideways and then they missed all those threes in game seven that was the closest he got there and then in Philly never really felt like that team was ever gonna actually make the finals I never felt like they were it felt like he sort of walked away from that Maury ball I'm gonna push the edge of the calculator over further than anybody else and it felt like this Philly era Maury was more conventional just signing the superstars and maybe even antithetical to some of the analytics movements, including like, hey, dude, have you ever seen an aging curve?

36:15Like, don't overpay guys in their 30s. That's not something we should be doing. So, you know, it never really felt like a Daryl culture had set up in Philadelphia. Like, you're alluding to these legendary teams with Harden and D 'Antoni in Houston that sort of changed the sport, Bill, forever. and people say Steph and I agree with that but it was Steph shooting them and it was Mike and Daryl building that whole team around the three point shot that changed this league forever also

36:46Bill Simmons:the spending isn't a small thing either right yeah you know the Knicks are spending right now that's one of the reasons they have a really good team they've been aggressive Golden State during the whole run spent a ton of money to try you know try to put together good teams the Celtics famously spent so much money that the dinner check came this season, they had to make all these trades or else they would have had to pay, you know, 300 million in luxury tax. Philly has not done that. They have not spent Philly and honestly, Philly and I don't think Denver really has either. They've been two teams that had, you know, two of the best players of this decade, but always were pretty responsible with how they spent.

37:24Bill Simmons:I don't know if that would have made a difference with Philly, but it did make a difference with little stuff like the McCain trade. My last thing is my first games were at spectrum in Philly in the 80s with Barkley and Dr. J when they overlapped. I was really stunned by the number of Knicks fans in the building in Philadelphia. I wonder if that played into it. Could you imagine that ever happening in Boston or Madison Square Garden? It was kind of crazy, right? Philly, I think, has a stronger backbone than that. What are your thoughts? I never... If you go back to the Dr. J era... Um, and even go back, you can go back on YouTube, watch some of their home games.

38:09Bill Simmons:Not like huge crowds. I always thought when I was growing up, I always felt like they were a flyers flyer city more than anything. Like that was like their team and, and Phillies, obviously the Eagles. And I always felt like the Sixers were fourth, even though they had Dr. J for this great run, felt like it started to flip a little bit in the eighties, especially after they won the title. and then when we got to the 90s you know they had a really bad run there they trade Barkley and I just think that's an Eagles town first and you know I don't know if the Philadelphia 76ers ever got there the process is pretty weird man like if we're gonna do like a deep dive on huh how do you end up with 80 % Knicks fans at a home playoff game maybe you got to look backwards at what did the process really accomplish because you're you're losing four years of fans you have a chance young fans trying to decide on a team that's like should I like the Sixers well they intentionally lose every year I'm gonna like the Golden State Warriors and Steph Curry instead so I don't know I'm sure there's a million different reasons for it but I always felt like they were not like never really the main team in Philadelphia I think that's safe to say.

39:26Yeah. Maybe that's what it is. And I was just surprised to see that. And again, you watch these environments in Minnesota or in San Antonio tonight. It's like, man, these crowds are electric. There's no way you're getting 30 % of the lower bowl for the visiting team in these arenas. But in Philadelphia, which I think is a pretty good sports town, it's just crazy.

39:47Bill Simmons:Yeah. It's a weird one. Well, we'll see what they're, I'm sure. It's going to be tough this year because I don't know how many jobs are available, but I'm sure he'll be lurking in some way. And I don't see him ever not being in basketball. He could be a great podcast host. Who knows? So as his friend, I would almost recommend he didn't do that because I feel like that would get him into even more trouble. But he would be amazing because he doesn't always have the self-edit button. No, he doesn't have the filter. No. He'll just... So I don't know if I'd want him to have a podcast. But anyway. And so end of an era with Philly.

40:23Bill Simmons:We'll see. We talk later in the mailbag about, is there, does Embiid even have trade value? How do you even handle that situation? A whole bunch of good stuff coming. Me, Kirk, Dave Jacoby doing a big ass mailbag next. Bill Simmons podcast brought to you by FanDuel. We are in full swing with the NBA playoffs. Every game, every possession, every swing, every zag, all of it matters. Hey, all customers on FanDuel get a profit boost tonight. So when the moment hits, your win hits bigger. Fando will give you better payouts. Same game, parlays, all NBA playoffs long. I'm going to take a swing on Twitter on the Cleveland-Detroit game.

41:02Bill Simmons:The last time I did it was Saturday, which I hit with the Cavs and with a bunch of Mitchell point overs. I had a bunch of different bets. I think all of them won except for the 36 points it up. I am going to do another one for game five. Leaning toward taking the Pistons at home just because I think this is really proven itself as a home team wins every game series. And until that doesn't happen, I like the Pistons. Lock in your bets, boost your odds, make the playoffs pay off with FanDuel, official sports betting partner in the NBA. I like Duren to have a comeback game in game five. Maybe that'll be in there.

41:38Bill Simmons:Head to FanDuel.com slash BS to get started. FanDuel, play your game. 21 plus select states are 18 plus DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.FanDuel.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER. call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. Uber Eats makes last minute gifting easy, whether it's Mother's Day, Father's Day, graduation, whatever, you blink, they're here. But just because it snuck up on you doesn't mean your gift has to feel like it. The Uber Eats gift hub has something for everyone, flowers, perfume, champagne, even their favorite takeout order.

42:15Bill Simmons:It can show up in as little as 25 minutes, even if you just remembered five minutes ago. The best part, You can add a video message and a personal note so it actually feels like you planned it all along. Order on Uber Eats today. Must be 21 or older to purchase alcohol. Product availability varies per region. See app for details. All right, we are moving back in time. It's Mailbag. Me, Kurt Goldsberry, Dave Jacoby, we're recording this late morning Pacific time. So if anything happens in the next eight hours before the Timberwolves Spurs game, we're not gonna apologize. we were all together in the 2014 finals in Austin Texas when the Spurs Tim Duncan it was the last gasp of the Duncan era trying to pull off one last title we were in barbecue we shot all kinds of stuff we went out it was great Jacobes did you ever think the Spurs would be this relevant again I felt like the last hurrah for them when we were there

43:14David Jacoby:I did think they would be this relevant again because it's just very Spursian of them to do this. There's only been a few dark Spurs years. And they're dark, but a lot of sunlight in San Antonio. I believe we also had Prince Jalene with us, if you remember correctly.

43:31Bill Simmons:We had Prince Jalene. We reunited some of the Fab Five. Jacko joined the Fab Five in the Chris Webber spot. It was emotional stuff. Kirk, did you think the Spurs... Granted, they nailed the lottery three years in a row with three pretty obvious picks that I don't think they should get that much credit for, but three top four picks in a row. Now they're back, but we worried that they were just going to become small market New Orleans for the next 30 years. I wouldn't go that far. I knew they'd be back, but you're exactly right. Going one, four, and two in consecutive drafts. If the Spurs get that opportunity, they deserve the respect here.

44:06They were going to get that right. And not only did they get those picks right, those were great one, four, and two, obviously Wemby. Castle's a great four pick. And man, Dylan Harper is a great two pick. So dude, I think that the bigger story is like, I think that one four to run the Spurs just got to get them back to relevance is one of the big reasons we have new lottery rules.

44:26Bill Simmons:Well, especially they were helped out that three teams passed on castle was the other thing that really helped them. Uh, I thought he should go first. Uh, I have a bunch of mailbag letter, uh, emails for us. We're going to start with the lottery and this is cause it just happened. I don't know if you guys saw it, but the lottery happened. Yeah, I did. Mike says, on Monday's pod, you correctly pointed out how awkward and weird the half-hour lottery telecast is. What about how lame the team representatives are when they're on camera? They just sit there stony-faced. They barely even seem happy and the results are good.

45:01Bill Simmons:I am a 49-year-old lifelong Wizards Bullets fan. I've been rooting for a team that has not won 50 games since I was two. My son and I felt like we were going to throw up during in the lottery. We got in the top four, bouncing up and down. We won. We screamed so loud, our dog left the room. What if instead of putting executives or former players in these seats, we get super fans? Wouldn't that be more entertaining? Jacoby, who would you put in the seats as representatives?

45:26David Jacoby:This is easy. You've come to the right place. Putting my producer hat on here. You treat it like a reality television show. So you cast the people that are best for television. Because the executives and the ex-players, They've all been there, done that. They're sort of like when you sit in the press seats at the game, you're not supposed to cheer or drink beer. It's boring. I'm going full reality television style, and we're getting the craziest, most boisterous fans. They're going to lose their minds when their team does something good or bad happens to them. We're auditioning it like it's like American Idol season three.

46:02Bill Simmons:You agree with that, Kirk? Yeah, dude. The gravity of that moment, the telecast just doesn't match it. The cadence happens too fast. It's like, oh my God, what just happened? Like total, total craziness can happen. And like you said on the other podcast, like there's 15 minutes of nothing. And then they don't, and it's not like I want the American idol pregnant pause after pregnant pause when somebody gets voted out or whatever. But dude, they don't, the gravity of the moment isn't respected on the broadcast. And I do think it would be fun to put Joe House and have Joe House with a six pack of beer and just let them get going and let's see what happens when, and they should have confetti fall.

46:41But ultimately my thesis is this, Bill, and you hit it on Sunday. The gravity of these moments is monumental. We just talked about the Spurs and the broadcast doesn't respect how important this is or how electrifying it is for these fan bases.

46:54Bill Simmons:Yeah, they seem very determined just to show us that everybody who's about to be picked has a parent and they're all excited to be there. And wherever I go, we've got like just the most generic, terrible interviews possible. And then we get, we meet all the representatives. I don't know why. It's not like we interview any of them. We just kind of see them for a second. I had no connection with them. Con Caniple's like, why am I here? I had, so Jacoby, I had three ways this could go. And the, the, the fan thing, which Mike mentioned as well. So you have super fans, you have a contest, you basically cast the fan.

47:31Bill Simmons:You could even turn that into some sort of reality show where it's like, here's how we landed on the Wizards fan. Because the thing is, we're all talking about who's going to win the lottery and tanking and all this shit for seven months. And then we just kind of rip through this lottery show in 10 minutes. It's like a walk of shame for the league. They're just trying to get away with it. So celebrities, I'm sorry, actual fans who won a contest, then celebrity super fans as a second model, where you do have your Joe house, you have you know, you go to the Atlanta Hawks, like pick anybody from the Atlantic music, Atlanta music scene, right?

48:06Bill Simmons:Gucci Mane could just be there as the Hawks representative and you just go through. And then it's like, we have an hour show and we talk to each representative. Here's my third idea. And I'm going back to the basics. And I think this is actually the best idea. I think the GM should have to be there as the reps. I think this should be part of the job. And the reason I mention this is you have Kevin Pritchard there who's just done this all-time hit or miss trade where now it's a 50-50 chance to either be in the top four or you lose the pick to the Clippers. What's better drama than that? The famous clip was Jerry West with the Grizzlies-LeBron one, where it's like if he gets the first pick, he gets LeBron.

48:50Bill Simmons:Second pick, nothing. It comes up, Grizzlies are second and it just cuts to him and it looks like he's the guy in scanners whose head's about to explode. So Jacob's, why can't it just be the GM? It's like, hey guys, if you're going to be a GM of a team, you're at the fucking lottery and you're going to be the representative and we get to see your reactions and this is just how it's going to go.

49:10David Jacoby:And you have the GMs and the super fans sit side by side. So like the Indiana super fan can just like turn his head and look at Pritchard and be like, look at what you've done. why you did this yeah yeah and just i think kirk hit something too is like the rhythm of it needs to dramatically change yeah because like let's let's every reveal let's discuss you know like let's discuss every reveal because it does like sometimes my brain isn't fast enough to like figure out all of the the machinations of what it means that that team is in that and the host

49:45Bill Simmons:the host always misses one i think malika missed in the moment that brooklyn lost their pick for like five seconds.

49:51David Jacoby:Well, Nagandhi, remember Nagandhi last year with the Sixers pick?

49:54Bill Simmons:Right. He was completely screwed. Well, that leads to the next question from Alex in Charlottesville. He said, now that we're going to have this new lottery system with the increased volatility, how would you redesign the 30-minute telecast? How do we space out the reveals? Could we draw 60-1 in front of the audience? So the NHL did this the last two years. My dad, probably the biggest fan of the NHL draft lottery, like really genuinely loves it. And this year, the Bruins, if the Maple Leafs fell from five to six, the Bruins got their pick. But they revealed the picks in the correct order from one down.

50:28Bill Simmons:And the Maple Leafs won the lottery. And he said, even though it sucked for the Bruins, it was amazing. So I think it could be an hour. I think you reveal the picks. You reveal the first pick first, and then you go backwards through the top four or whatever we have with these lotteries. And I think it's the actual GMs. And you just do it that way. And then you have like 20 minutes after where you can explain to the audience all the ramifications. Why not, Kirk? Why can't we do it this way? No, that's the way it should be. And it should be somebody like you and Zach and Bobby Marks reminding us what this means for the Dallas Mavericks or what this means for all of these.

51:05Bill Simmons:So would you stop after each pick for like two minutes? Okay. I mean, and Jacoby's the TV producer here. So I'd turn it to him. Jacoby, why can't we just have a full minute or two? Just be like, what does this mean for the Mavs? Let's reset where they are. What are the TV people thinking?

51:20David Jacoby:Yeah, I mean, that's exactly what I just said before. And another thing is I want to take it all in. I want to soak it in. It happens so fast. You need time. We pay such close attention to this league that even I am racing up to keep up with the pace of the thing. Why? Why are you doing that to me? Make it more dramatic and make me fully understand exactly what all of this means.

51:46Bill Simmons:It would be funny if the Oscars did it this way and they did like this three hour show. And then the last like two minutes, they just raced through the best five categories. Best picture, winner, one battle. No, that's right, dude. So last year when it was, it came down to the Spurs and the Mavs last year, right? And it was like, holy shit, are the Spurs going to get Cooper flagged? Right. You need to take like five minutes just to - That needed to be like five minutes, dude. Like, oh my God, this is incredible for the state of Texas, first of all. But man, if it's going to be Wemby and Cooper flag, yeah, let's have five minutes there.

52:20Bill Simmons:Yeah. All right. We all agree. Derek from Indianapolis wants to know, as a lifelong Pacers fan, I have to ask, did the Pacers sell their soul for all the insane playoff comebacks in 2025? Because since then, game four of the 2025 finals became the Scott Foster experience. Game seven ended with Hal Burton's Achilles. how burton became the only mba player to get shingles and put on weight and is on all that has to recover from that too and they lost their top four pick and it went number five to the clippers most fan bases lose the pacers specialize in cosmic level timing what was exchange exactly for those comeback wins jacoby do you do you believe in the sell your soul theory the how burton shot going up in the air like do you do you think the karmic forces have to like balance

53:11David Jacoby:each other out um i have good news and bad news for derek um the bad news is absolutely yes i mean like absolutely yes the shingles thing and the weight thing because of the medication and they this big trade for zubach who was like great two years ago but this year clipper zubach was not like tearing it up and then lose the pick but the good news for derek is he'll be the super fan representing the Pacers at next year's draft. You got your job. You're in.

53:41Bill Simmons:What do you think, Kirk? Do you believe in this stuff? No, that's not my job, but I think they need to be thankful. They have Tyrese Halliburton, guys. You have one of the best point guards in the league. This guy is offensive efficiency in a can. He had one of the more electric playoff runs we've seen last year. We just need to get that guy's foot and ankle right, and they'll be right back where I think they should be near the top of the East next year, Derek. so that's kind of near where I landed last year was an amazing ride for Pacer fans it didn't get better than that I can't think of a more fun playoff run where they became the most memorable thing about the playoffs even though they didn't win the finals which never happens you think about the 25 finals I think of the Pacers before I think about anything else that happened so it wasn't terrible they still have Tyrese and Siakam they have Zubats Nembhard Neesmith Toppin, TJ, Jairus Walker, Shepard.

54:39Bill Simmons:They have all of their firsts except one. And they were losing Miles Turner either way last year. The free agent centers this year weren't that good. Maybe Hartenstein's in there. Robert Williams, Nurkic, maybe DeAndre Ayton. So you could argue they needed Zubats. The counter, though, to that Zubats trade, and the part that never made sense to me would happen, is why did you have to do it in February? because if you get the fit, even if you get the fifth pick or the sixth pick, I still feel like the Clippers are going to be like, yeah, you're going to trade us that for Zubats? Let's do it. The risk didn't match the reward because I don't like making trades that are still going to be sitting there a few months later.

55:24Bill Simmons:They just could have traded Toppins contract and something smaller and the number five pick for Zubats and not giving up the other first rounder that was in there. so I just I never thought the risk matched the reward and I thought Jacob's I thought even they could have put like a like a thing like well if this becomes the fifth or sixth pick in this draft then we get our 29 first back or something because I like Zubats but it just doesn't match what the reward was I don't think

55:54David Jacoby:Well, I don't want to be too second-guessy after the coin flip went heads instead of tails, you know what I mean? But I do want to say that I do like Zubac as well. I thought that him and Harden were a great duo a couple years ago. But when I think about the Pacers team and that electric run that you're talking about, what do they do? They get out and run. They don't want you to set up your defense. They don't want to be in the half court. So I see a lot of Zubac getting the rebound, throwing it out, and then just kind of standing under his own basket. Go ahead, guys. Go ahead, guys. You guys take care of this.

56:22David Jacoby:I'll be here.

56:23Bill Simmons:Well, the other thing, Kirk, is you do a trade like this and it's 50-50 odds, right? If they get the pick, Pritchard's a hero. You don't get the pick. Now your fans are kind of looking side-eyed at you, but now you put Zubats in a tough spot, too, who's a really good player. I voted for him 13-mile NBA a year ago. But now you look at him and you just watch him during games and you're just thinking about if Keaton Wagler's awesome for the Clippers, right? you're just constantly thinking about that as you see Zubats. The other thing I didn't like about the trade was before the trade deadline, you do it.

56:57Bill Simmons:And we thought there was a top four. And then we still knew after that the draft was good, but we knew there were four guys. And that's probably how the Pacers assessed it. But where you're not factoring in is who's going to make a leap in February and March in college basketball. And what happened was Wagler and Acuff made a little bit of a leap. So they're not in the top four, but they're really good value at five or six. and that's why I just would have waited. I feel like this trade would have been there in May, Kirk. Yeah, I wouldn't have. As somebody who worked for a small market team, you're just taught don't trade your first round picks, especially when you're near the top.

57:32Just don't do it. We're not playing in the free agency game. Free agency is largely dead anyway for everybody. Yeah. So these draft picks, you have to be very, very protective of if you're in a market like Indiana, especially. you're not paying the luxury tax yeah right so when they made the deal guys it was like a russian roulette moment it was such an incredible moment like for that lottery again go back to the broadcast like that was a moment where the producers needed to be like we need to give this the gravity it deserves after it happens right either the clippers fans are going to go crazy or the pacers fans are going to go crazy um and it just again they blew through it but man i I would not have done the trade just as a small market guy.

58:15Don't give up a lottery pick. If you're the Indiana Pacers, Mike Rohr emails us about this.

58:22Bill Simmons:Um, he's, he said how in the podcast Sunday, I didn't see a conspiracy for the Pacers. Like the Pacers not getting a pick actually didn't conspiracy bill was not triggered by that. Mike Rohr says there was a conspiracy potentially, and he doesn't have a dog in the fight. He said the Knicks are set up to be good next few years. So are the Celtics, maybe even the Sixers three big markets. Okay. Do you think the NBA really wanted small market indie to get better and spoil the East party when they have small market juggernauts in Oklahoma City and San Antonio? Could they have had a third one? That's all I've got.

58:54Bill Simmons:That's the conspiracy. I don't know, Jacoby. I kind of like it. I'm not buying it. Okay. I appreciate the effort.

59:01David Jacoby:The part that the Sixers are set up to be good for the next three years is like, really? Like the John King and Paul George making$100 million each? Yeah, we'll be honest about that later.

59:10Bill Simmons:All right. I respected that he tried. But Dan from Tucson says, I'm sure you must feel conflicted with Jalen Dern after the playoffs so far. A beast of the regular season. Many voted for him for all NBA, including I voted second team. What'd you vote for him, Goldsberry? Jalen Dern, second team, clearly. Best team in the East, yeah. And then he says, on the other hand, he's been awful in the playoffs, getting punked by Wendell Carter and now the Cavaliers. Restricted free agent this summer. What would you do as the Pistons GM? would he get a max offer from other teams do you match it for your trade sign and trade please help podfather I'm a Pistons fan in crisis well I think you're going to make the conference finals so calm down a little Dan from Tucson but it's a really weird one game four that might have been his worst playoff game out of all the bad playoff games and what was interesting was Mobley really I thought Mobley was awesome in game four I thought he really you could feel him in the game which has always been my disappointment with Mobley it's like sometimes I'm not sure you're even out there and yet game four you felt him the whole game I guess the problem for the Pistons is Durin's such an obvious Lakers offer sheet guy Kirk if they're going to have cap space and you could keep Reeves obviously of Luka and then Durin and make that your three like I'm just doing that I'm overpaying him and then I can feel like I can do around the fringes I think he could also be a Clippers offer sheet guy too, but I think somebody's going to offer him at least 40 plus a year, regardless of how he looked in the playoffs, right?

1:00:48Yeah, and then they're going to match it because you're the Detroit Pistons. You don't get Jalen Dern. Jalen Dern's 22 years old. Yeah. It's his first real, I guess they had a deep playoff run last year, but it has been disappointing, Bill. 20 and 11 in the regular season, clearly all NBA caliber by my standards, but he's dropped down to essentially 11 point a game, eight-rebound-a-game guy. And in the Orlando series, looked like the second-best big man in the series behind Wendell Carter. That's not good. But, yeah, again, you're the Detroit Pistons. We're not getting cute. We are going to make the conference finals, I hope, if we finish the series out.

1:01:24And he's a big part of their success and their plan going forward. So you're just doing it. You don't even care. I'm doing it. Okay. What do you think, Jacob? What's the other play? You kind of have to do it.

1:01:34David Jacoby:I want to give credit to my mismatched co-host, Verno, because he flagged this like two months ago. He was like, you're in a spot where you're going to have to pay Jalen Duren and you're going to dedicate so much of your percentage of your salary cap to him and maybe he doesn't deserve it. And maybe him underperforming in these playoffs is actually helpful to the Pistons, but I would be concerned about this where I don't know if I'm ready to just sign Jalen Duren to the max and be like, I'm Caden Duren forever, especially after what I saw in the playoffs. Right.

1:02:08Bill Simmons:It's tough because we've seen teams get in just incredible trouble with this. I kind of feel like Memphis with Jaron Jackson was a little similar, right? I don't feel like he's a guy that should be making close to max money or max money. And it kind of bore out. The worst one ever was Bradley Beal. But we see with this max stuff, especially with the way they changed the caps, you know, the way the cap works, you basically only get two of these. So they're going to have to do it. And they're just going to have to hope that he had a bad playoffs. He's 22. And the pressure of the contract that was looming kind of scattered his brain a little bit.

1:02:46Bill Simmons:Cause I'm watching him and it's like, this is not the guy I watched in the regular season. The guy in the regular season was so confident, so physical, um, was so good around the basket. And this guy feels like he's second guessing everything he's doing. So, you know, I can, I can, it's understandable if you're 22 and you have$230,$40 million waiting for you, you're trying to win a title and you're just, you put too much pressure on yourself. So really tough one, Jacob's. I don't know.

1:03:12David Jacoby:Do you remember when Cade was out? Like he was, he stepped up, he was getting 30 point games and stuff. That's when I really believed in Jalen Dern, but I'm watching the game last night. I'm like, I kind of like B-ball Paul in that spot. You know what I mean? I'll take B-ball Paul. Seriously. Like watching the game, I was like, that guy jumps off the screen. Like if I can, if I can, if I'm watching a playoff game and I'm like, I'd rather have B-ball Paul out there than my max guy, that's concerning for me.

1:03:37Bill Simmons:We got an email. I didn't even put it in the document, but, uh, is B-ball Paul the best third string center of all time? Can you research this? And I was like, I'm definitely not researching that, but if anyone has any thoughts on the greatest third string centers of all time, please, please send them. Gabe from Orange County. I got this a few times. I'll give it credit to Gabe first. He was talking about how I suggested Oklahoma City FC as a Thunder nickname because they flop like a soccer team. And he doesn't understand why that's not just OK FC. And he's saying he'd even buy a hat. What do you think, Jacobes?

1:04:16Bill Simmons:OK FC?

1:04:17David Jacoby:Wait, hold on a second. Multiple people wrote you about this?

1:04:21Bill Simmons:Well, because they were saying I screwed up. They screwed it. They're saying you screwed it up. It's not Oklahoma City FC. It should just be OKFC.

1:04:29David Jacoby:OKCFC is like, there's a team here, NYCFC. It rolls off the tongue much better than OKFC. So you go OKCFC. Yes, OKCFC. Not just OKFC. We have an NYCFC here. Maxi Morales is my favorite player.

1:04:43Bill Simmons:OKCFC, Goldsberry or no? That's a lot, but it does not give the fried chicken that OKFC does. It gives a lot of fried chicken right there. Yeah, OKFC, that makes house hungry. It sounds like you want some lemon pepper. A lot of good benefits. All right. This is a good one from Andrew Ball. He said, I know you tend to avoid draft what ifs, but that the Warriors 2020 and 2021 drafts changed the trajectory of the league. There's not a lot of precedent for a team as good as the Warriors getting three lottery picks in a two-year span, and they pretty much whiffed on all three. What if they hit on multiple picks or traded them for real talent?

1:05:17Bill Simmons:So I've talked about some of this before, about Wiseman or Lomelo. It's COVID draft. They can't work out any of those guys. there's no March Madness. Understandable. They could have jumped back maybe and traded for Tyrese, but they claimed that nobody wanted to trade up. But even if you look back, could they have talked Detroit into trading up to two and they go back to seven and instead of Detroit taking Killian Hayes, they get LaMelo and then the Warriors take Halbern. Whatever. That's a lot of what if stuff. 2021 is more simple. It's basically they took Kamingo over Franz and they took Moody over Trey Murphy.

1:05:55Bill Simmons:it's pretty crazy A that they went 0 for 3 and then B that they won the 22 title anyway the part that I was interested in guys the trades that they missed out on with those picks that they had just done like the LeBron Cleveland thing and been like fuck it we're trading these picks let's get a player the best players traded from November 2020 because we were post COVID through March 2021 Drew Holiday six days after the draft so that Wiggins would have had to be in it, but maybe, maybe you could have said, we'll give you the number two pick and Wiggins for Drew Holiday. I don't know if that Portland would have, I'm not, I'm sorry, New Orleans would have thought that was a better one.

1:06:39Bill Simmons:Harden to the Nets in March, 2021. I don't think that would have been a fit. Vucevic, March, 2021. There's no way the Warriors were given as much as Chicago Stooply did. Here's the one that jumped out at me though, guys, Aaron Gordon, March 2021 pre-trade deadline, basically is like Gary Harris, another, you know, who is that guy, R.J. Hampton, and then a first. The Warriors could have traded like the number seven in Oubre for Aaron Gordon and had Aaron Gordon from heading into the 21 playoffs on versus, I don't know, France. That's, Jacob's, that's like not a small what if, right? Aaron Gordon turned out to be like this huge playoff guy.

1:07:21Bill Simmons:He would have been perfect for them.

1:07:24David Jacoby:It's a fun what if. But like, again, like, it's easy to say now. I know. That's what I put in the mailbag. At the time, I was like, James Wiseman is the perfect fit for the Warriors. And I was like, this is going to go great. He can shoot. He's big. He can defend. I was like, this is an absolute, exactly what they need at the time. You know what I mean?

1:07:45Bill Simmons:What if you traded the Kaminga pick for Aaron Gordon?

1:07:48David Jacoby:I mean, they would have obviously gone on a much better run. And also, the whole two timelines thing, Aaron Gordon fits perfectly with the timeline that was winning the championships. That would have been amazing. I think that was the mistake, Kurt.

1:08:04Bill Simmons:No, just because Curry's not a guy who's going to demand stuff. You were at the Spurs when Tim Duncan was there at the tail end. Same thing. When you have no pressure from your star to do anything, you can try to do that dumb two-two timelines thing. and meanwhile looking back it's like clearly the move would have been Aaron Gordon I think yeah and look at the 2020 draft and you alluded to this was a complete you know cluster F whatever like nobody could see anybody so you almost give a pass on Wiseman I do think the next one is the more interesting one to look at for what they did and what a team in their position should have done like put to doing Kaminga and Moody I appreciate what they tried to do there they missed on better players below Moody, especially.

1:08:45I think Shangoon is in there. He was. And yeah, you said Trey. I'm looking again. Jalen Johnson is in there. Cool. Like that team would have been much better if they drafted Jalen Johnson, but they didn't. And the draft is really hard. But yeah, I think it is probably in retrospect, you put a bunch of 30-year-olds next to Steph for one last run. I do.

1:09:08Bill Simmons:Yeah, it's a hard one. The bigger issue to me is, for whatever reason in that cluster of years, which is like a year and year plus there weren't like a bunch of amazing guys to go to get you

1:09:18David Jacoby:coach bill so if you're going to go back in time and change time i don't know you're familiar with the like the films of time travel films have you ever seen any of those you have to remember that that you know that there's if you put gordon on the warriors what does that do for your guy jokic

1:09:35Bill Simmons:right and what does that do for the 22 finals yeah it's it becomes a back to the future thing It screws up a lot of stuff. Gordon was a pretty polarizing. He was a pretty polarizing trade asset though, because people were like, what is he? Is he, is this somebody that would be happy being like a complimentary player? Does he want to be the guy? It was a little similar to what Iguodal was. All right, Jacobes, this one's specifically for you. It's from Jake, Jake in Illinois. This happened like three weeks ago. I noted it. Did you see the Laker playoff game with an approximately four month old baby sitting courtside next to Lakers bench on its mother's lap.

1:10:12Bill Simmons:What the fuck? What are these parents thinking? Do people not understand what a six foot eight, 240 pound person hitting you at full speed feels like in the damage it can do to a baby who intervenes here? Who's at fault? It's pure insanity. Should the sports are way in? I'm on the record always. I don't think anyone under like five should be courtside at a game. I've seen, you see it. I don't know. Once a week, You see somebody go flying to the stands. I think it's irresponsible. I would never, I brought my eight-year-old daughter to a WNBA game in 2013, I think. I felt a little safer on that one, but I just wouldn't, in a million years, bring a four-month-old baby anywhere near courtside, Jacoby.

1:10:55Bill Simmons:You have seven kids. How many kids do you have now?

1:10:58David Jacoby:I know it's not a new one. I have eight now. So that baby was essentially like an expensive handbag for that family. It's an accessory. Like that baby, one of my big things is like, if a baby's not going to remember it, we're not going to Disney World. If the baby's not going to remember it, we're not throwing you a one-year-old birthday party. Like until you can remember things, you don't experience things. Also, put that baby to bed. It's nighttime. Like, what are we doing? It's like they are just bringing the baby to be like, look at my baby like it was a$100 ,000 watch or something. It's like that's a fashion accessory, a look at me, I'm a Laker fan in the front row thing.

1:11:32David Jacoby:and like I don't the safety of the baby is whatever but for me it's more just like this is stupid well

1:11:38Bill Simmons:you're you obviously the other thing would be like oh I took the baby because we couldn't find a babysitter you're sitting courtside I'm pretty sure you could afford a babysitter Kirk I don't know where you stand on this one well I yeah it is dangerous down there I mean you watch this Wolves Spurs series like dude there will be at least drinks spilled if not human beings spilled over there during these games I think that is a it reminds me the exit row seating on an airplane. If you bring a kid on an airplane, you can't try to get to that Delta exit row. That's not happening. Right. Good point.

1:12:10It seems. Yeah. And baseball, too. It's like they have net everywhere. It's like maybe we should be thinking about this, especially with kids under like three or four years old. Right.

1:12:19Bill Simmons:Yeah. Because there's two different ways you could have the person just flying in full speed, like doing the Roman Reigns spear on you, basically trying to get a loose ball. You also get the person who tries to dive over the court side, but then they kick their leg and you get the whiplash kick in the head. Either one of them, not good for a four-month-old baby. I thought that was crazy. I think that should be an automatic loser seats.

1:12:44David Jacoby:Remember the Austin Reeves pass last night? I think it was a left-handed just threw the ball right in the front row and it hits this guy's drink and explodes the drink. If that's a baby instead of a drink, that's huge implications there. Yeah, that would be bad. Austin Reeves, would he go to jail if he did that to a baby, Jacoby? No, the parents go to jail. Oh, yeah.

1:13:02Bill Simmons:We're going to take a break and come back with some Joel Embiid questions. Oh, yeah. All playoffs long, I have been sifting through the slate and putting my favorite bets and parlays from FanDuel Sportsbook on my Twitter feed, tweeting them out, trying to get as close to the game as possible. I share my favorite parlay along with possible add-ons. We hit on Friday with the Cavaliers and a bunch of different Mitchell point totals, depending on how aggressive you wanted to get. For game five, Pistons, Cavs. The home team has won every game in this series. I think it continues. This is a prove-it game for Durin.

1:13:39Bill Simmons:I actually like the rebounds for him. I think this is the biggest game of his career, especially with restricted free agency coming. And I like the Pistons in that game. So I'll have some sort of bet for that. Futures, Knicks funder for the finals is even odds right now. it's probably the last time that will be the case for the rest of the playoffs. So if you're interested in that. Brunson, I think, for the finals MVP is 8-1, which if you like the Knicks, I think they're 6-1 to win the finals. Just take the Brunson finals MVP. Anyway, when I bet, I bet with FanDuel, a brand I trust. Easy to build NBA bets of all types on FanDuel, and I know I'm getting great odds, payouts in my parlays, boosts every day, and I'll get my winnings instantly.

1:14:22Bill Simmons:FanDuel, join me. Play your game. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Countless hours in the gym, a thousand shots before tip-off, day after day on the same court with the State Farm stanchion right there. That's right. The best players put in the work. And State Farm is the same way with insurance experts who put in the work as well. Whether you get a digital quote or reach out to a local agent, State Farm is there to get to know you and help you select the right coverage that fits your life and your budget. Putting in the work is what separates the good players from the great. And that's why you want State Farm on your team.

1:15:00Bill Simmons:So get the coverage that's right for you. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability and eligibility vary by state. This episode is brought to you by HubSpot. You know why elite point guards make everyone better? It isn't just the no luck times. It's because they know everything. Who's hot? Who's tired? what the defense is doing, which teammate needs a basket. Most businesses don't have that. Sales run one play, marketing runs another. Nobody told service. The game plan has now changed. HubSpot gives you that point guard vision, one platform, full customer context.

1:15:40Bill Simmons:And that context is everything you need to win. Visit HubSpot.com to learn more. All right, Joel Embiid email from Frank Farrell. He said, the Sixers unexpectedly beating the Celtics won Embiid enough goodwill that all my friend chats after the absolute Nick thrashing subtly shifted from the Sixers should swallow Embiid's money just to move on psychologically to the Sixers should trade Joel for peanuts to give him a shot somewhere else. What insane careers he has had. My question, does winning an MVP automatically get you an automatic place in your Hall of Fame pyramid? if so, who is the lowest MVP in the pyramid?

1:16:19Bill Simmons:It has to be between Embiid, Derrick Rose, and Westbrook. Well, I have Embiid and Russ in my pyramid. I have, they're level two guys. I have Embiid low 70s and I have Russ in the 60s. I do not have Derrick Rose in the pyramid and I don't even really think it's debatable. Like you go through his career, it's basically the 2011 season when he won the MVP and made first team all NBA. It was the only first team all NBA he won. and I just don't I don't think it's enough to be like one of the best 100 guys in the history of the league when I was researching this though in 2021 he finished 9th in the MVP voting are you guys aware of this?

1:17:00Bill Simmons:there was a fan there was a fan vote which he won and he got 10 points and finished 9th in the top 10 for MVP Jacobes is Rose a top 100 all time guy for you? How do you assess his career? It's a weird one.

1:17:15David Jacoby:This is much more your lane, Bill. I don't know if you know this. I don't keep up moving, running, because of the power ranking of top 100 players of all time. No, give me your peak Derek Rose. That's the thing is peak Derek Rose is top 100, but the peak just didn't last that long. It's a very sharp point at the top of the mountain, you know? That's how I feel. But for me, I look at it more or less like counting stats and stuff. It's just like how he, like, you know, we talk about like roll gravity and gravity on the court. just like fan gravity towards Chicago, just attention, you know, barbershop discussion.

1:17:47David Jacoby:Derrick Rose sort of conquered that and led that and had a little bit of like an Iverson coolness factor in a different way. Remember when he didn't dance at the All-Star game? Like he was just like, he was sort of like cool in a different way than Iverson was, but at the same, in a comparable level. Like he sort of had like a culture implications too.

1:18:07Bill Simmons:He was incredible in person. I just think to me, Kirk, he's in that group of just awesome guys with a career. They either had bad luck with injuries or bad luck with something else. And he's like first ballot for whatever that group is. But I don't think their career was there for. No, but it wasn't there for a reason. Like his body broke. And the NBA playing this way, these guards doing what they're doing now this often, they're going to break their knees. And it sucks. And I don't want to penalize guys like that who are clearly all NBA level players. MVP caliber players. And if I'm ever going to be in charge of MVP or a Hall of Fame consideration, like Derek Rose is going.

1:18:47Like, I love what Jacoby said. Culturally, he's important to the sport and its fans. You can point to its season in Chicago. Like, he is more significant than a lot of people that are currently honored in that museum.

1:18:59Bill Simmons:So that's a different combo. And I agree with that. I think if you win the MVP, you're in the Hall of Fame. Yeah. Which is a little different than the pyramid because there's a little higher, like the top hundred guys ever, but Hall of Fame, I think MVPs are in. You're the best player in the best league for one year. That's probably enough, I would say. Wait, can I ask you an Embiid question? Yeah. How did you react on the heels of the Celtics series watching Joel do what he did against the Knicks? I mean, I wasn't surprised. Were you guys? It felt like he had a good week in him. Right? I remember I was with you in LA and Chris Ryan was like, we should sit him out game one.

1:19:40No, before game one, CR was saying,

1:19:42Bill Simmons:we should maybe even sit him for both games. We all saw it coming, right? No, it's Jacob's, it's like a pitcher that maybe has an 85 pitch start every six days and you just have to kind of craft the rotation around it. But I thought, honestly, I thought the same thing happened with LeBron in the round two, like just going every other day when you're 41 years old. there's just, you know, there's certain things the schedule is unforgiving

1:20:10David Jacoby:I don't think Embiid was dramatically different between the Celtics and Knicks series, I thought the Knicks did a much better job of working him

1:20:17Bill Simmons:well that's also true, yeah, I agree with that you mean putting him in pick and pops all the time? Yeah, making him make him defend in space

1:20:26David Jacoby:sometimes if I have a fat guy covering me in pickup, I'll just run from one side of the court to the other he should have just done that, you know what I mean?

1:20:31Bill Simmons:yeah, and the Knicks had better guys to throw at him too than I think the Celtics did. And also the Knicks are just playing out of their runs. Like that seven-game run they had with all the blowouts was about as good as you're going to do in the playoffs. So, yeah.

1:20:46David Jacoby:Eight-game run. Eight-game run.

1:20:47Bill Simmons:You end up with the Celtics team that... Seven. Seven. You end up with the Celtics team that's trying to figure out what they are on the fly. And then you go into this Knicks team that kind of figured it out. And the Towns thing, did you... Jacobes, did you watch Towns and were like, why don't they use him at the top? he could be like bill walton because i don't ever remember you saying that to me no um no he has

1:21:11David Jacoby:like over his nick's tenure he has a ton of like really fun highlight passes sort of like behind the back out of the post stuff or like you know like some like sort of yokichi like someone makes a back cut and he threads the needle so he's shown that ability in flashes but not with this kind of quantity that i i did not say you know we should do make him the fulcrum of the offense at the nail Let's do that.

1:21:32Bill Simmons:They definitely, Kirk, wanted to be a little more or a little less Brunson-centric. I think it would have been the criticism. It was like, you know, kudos to them for figuring out 85 games into the season. But it was a really good wrinkle. Like once they figured out how to not be so reliant on Brunson, it was like the whole team took off. It helps when Kat stays on the floor. I'm going to say some really nice things about him. But man, some of these fouls, it's like, dude, don't be that stupid. You're too good for that. But yeah, I think Fred Katz on Zach Lowe's show yesterday had a great stat that the Towns' touches per 100 are way up in these playoffs compared to the regular season.

1:22:10Just another analytical piece of evidence that you guys are exactly right. They are relying on him to be a centerpiece of this offense and a passer in a way that we hadn't seen. And credit to Mike Brown here, too. Like, this guy took a high-stakes job, and this Knicks run is featuring a lot of depth and a new-look Towns. And to your point, Bill, yeah, a little bit less Brunson hero ball kind of stuff.

1:22:34Bill Simmons:You know what this reminds me of Jacob's? A guy by the name of Dave Jacobi. Pick up basketball days. Just keep him involved. Water the plan. If Jacobi's running the floor, reward him for running the floor. Give him the ball. If you go a little half court, run a little pick and pop with Jacob's every once in a mile. Gets a little pouty sometimes. Yeah, you know what? rebounding more just kind of water the plant

1:23:03David Jacoby:a couple things about cat is you're completely right um is the the the offensive involvement creates defensive involvement like they're related his defense has been much much better and also like you know you guys aren't on like nick's reddit and like all my next group chats and everything but like the whole story of the season it was like november he's like i don't know my role in the offense it's not clear yet and then it was like january he's like I just don't understand my role in the offense. It was like a month ago. I still don't really fully understand my role in the offense. And it's like, well, I'm glad we figured that out in game four of the first round of the playoffs.

1:23:38David Jacoby:You finally figured out your role in the offense.

1:23:40Bill Simmons:Hey, listen, some things take time. One more Embiid one. This one's a little more interesting. Just from Ted. That was all he gave. No town. The bear? Early rumors are that Daryl will be out in Philly. I'll believe it when I see it. Uh, can we do a deep drive and dive into possible trades for Embiid? My dream trade would be Embiid for KD. That's not happening. Does Embiid make sense for anyone? Jazz, Kings, Pelicans. Please tell me there's some option. All right. He's got three years, 200 million almost left. This is, these are the only four teams I could possibly come up with. The Pelicans straight up for Zion.

1:24:21Bill Simmons:Pelicans just roll the dice. hope he gets healthy. I don't see them doing that, especially they're not exactly a lavish organization. So I'm going to say no on that, Kirk. Yeah, it's a no for me, dog. Kirk's just shaking his head sadly. One context question. You guys do the worst contracts draft, you and Woes and House. Where did Embiid land this year? Do you remember? We, it was, I think Paul George won Embiid too. Or it might have been reverse. Yeah. Good context. And then they beat the Celtics. Next team. I know, they did. Next team I have the Sacramento Kings, just for Levine's expiring, just under the guise of it's the Kings, who knows what they're capable of.

1:25:04Bill Simmons:Vivek's like, we have Joel Embiid. Yeah. You can never rule out Stauskas. Can't be ruled out. It's a Jacobi masterpiece, Stauskas. Look at our team on paper. We traded up one spot to get Darius A. cuff. We have Joel Embiid. We're back, baby. Their fans should revolt if they do that. Golden State just for Jimmy Butler. So Jimmy Butler expiring coming off knee surgery. Golden State with the 11th pick. They convinced LeBron to come. They have Curry already and Draymond and they do the expendables thing that I've been joking about. I don't think Golden State should do that. I'm just going to mention it.

1:25:45Bill Simmons:Jacoby's making a small smile.

1:25:47David Jacoby:I'm just thinking, can we get Mike Conley involved somehow? Al Horford. All right.

1:25:55Bill Simmons:This last one, I kind of talked myself into the Brooklyn nets who don't have their first run pick next year. Could we just do Embiid for two years of Claxton and man who make 39 million and 36 million combined the next two years, just a straight salary dump, throw in a year of clowning to make the contracts work. and if you're Brooklyn, now I have an interesting guy. Instead of the Liberty just blowing away my team every year where there's way more Liberty fans, sold out crowds and people. It's really like Barclays is like a Liberty's arena, not a Nets arena. Now I have Embiid. I still have salary space, maybe to go get a free agent or maybe to make a Giannis trade with all my other picks or trade for whoever.

1:26:42Bill Simmons:And I'm at least more interesting and I just hope he stays healthy. Jacoby looks like he smelled a terrible fart.

1:26:48David Jacoby:no this is the only one that makes sort of any sense and um i don't really i don't know why philly would be motivated to do this like we're just gonna get off the salary a little bit but like yeah i was smiling a bit because the difference between nets and liberty games is it's absolutely wild it's like difference between it's like your birthday at like 25 and 55 seriously like it's so much fun it's so funny it's the same arena in the liberty game completely different

1:27:14Bill Simmons:If you're the Nets, you can't say basketball doesn't work in Brooklyn because the Liberty, it's as good as like half of the NBA games. It's awesome. So would you do that if you're the Nets, Kirk? No. No GM. And my friend Sean Marks from my time at the Spurs. No GM should be trading for Joel Embiid at this phase of his career with the amount of money that is owed. I anticipate if I had to put the over under on number of games Joel Embiid will suit up for next year, I would put it at 43 and a half, Bill. Are you taking the over or the under? Well, the question is, when does he play the 43 and a half?

1:27:48Bill Simmons:Because he came back for that Celtics series and had three good games in him, and that was enough to kill the Celtics. I don't know. If I was a team that had no hope and I had to spend the money anyway, if I'm the Nets, what else am I going to do? Right? I have salary. I'm completely irrelevant, and I don't have my pick. Like, I've got to take a swing at something. Okay, but I think that's a jaw move. You know?

1:28:17David Jacoby:If you're trying to sell tickets and put some energy inside your building, if you have Ja Morant or Joel Embiid, which direction do you have?

1:28:25Bill Simmons:How about both? Can I offer you both? Ja Morant and Joel Embiid.

1:28:30David Jacoby:What could go wrong? Why not?

1:28:33Bill Simmons:Next question from Danny. Another one namer. Simmons, did you ever explain why you thought Jalen Williams played in game two of the Lakers series when you didn't? please tell me, please don't tell me you're cutting corners, not watching sports and turning into Rick Riley. What happened? Rick Riley shot.

1:28:48David Jacoby:You want to talk about this. You put this, you put this in the rundown, you copied and pasted it. You want to address it. I'm happy to talk about it.

1:28:56Bill Simmons:Here's my thing. So we're, we're taping right after that game too. There's two games I'm putting together. I want to do, cause I have Letterman on the show after, and I'm trying to put together 25 minutes of thoughts as I'm doing it. I'm going full speed. And then we tape it live right after the game. and it's like speed chess, and I'm old. And I'm going around, I'm trying to figure out the minutes, and I'm doing everything, I'm trying to get to the next thing, and I look at the box score, and I'm like, and I just kind of brain farted. This is my second brain fart. Like, I'm telling you, it's like, obviously, Jacoby, you're on some of the text threads with me.

1:29:28Bill Simmons:I'm watching all the games. I wish I could bring my wife on to be like, hey, some people are wondering if you're watching playoff basketball, because she'd be like, yeah, I can tell you they are, because I fucking hate you during the first two rounds of the playoffs every year because all you do is watch basketball. The thing is, I think I'm allowed four of these a year. And then if I get to five, maybe a series, maybe I have to talk to the family. Yeah. Well, because my other one this year was Seattle thinking the Seahawks never won the Super Bowl, which I said, even though I know, not only do I know they won the Super Bowl, but then the next year they would try to go back to back against the Pats.

1:30:04Bill Simmons:I was there for that. So I think I'm allowed because I'm old now. I'm in my mid fifties. I think I'm allowed one just inexplicable brain fart a corner, a quarter, and everyone's just got to deal with it. And if I get, if I'm at 10 at the end of the year, let's have a real combo. But I think four is okay. Right, Kirk? Yeah. And dude, I blame our friend Jalen Rose. I mean, if it weren't for him, then we wouldn't have this crazy situation. And having two guys named Jalen Williams on the same basketball team, like, come on. This is a tricky situation for all of us. It was a double brain fart because I looked at the minutes.

1:30:39Bill Simmons:I forgot there were two Jalen Williams. And I forgot that the good Jalen Williams was scratched for game two.

1:30:46David Jacoby:He was wearing a pink leather jacket. You know what I mean? It doesn't really help your games. He's in a pink leather jacket that cut to him a lot. Like, I'm your friend and I love you. But it is. It was an old guy moment. I'll take it. It's like, yeah, it's that. But I literally, you know, I taped last night between 1.30 and 2.30 in the morning after watching five hours of basketball. I'm sure I messed up. I literally just interrupted you to say that the Knicks are on an eight game run. And I'm a Knicks fan instead of a seven game run. I was like, Bill, no, eight. Like that happened four minutes ago.

1:31:18David Jacoby:Like it's just sort of the way it is. But here, as someone who's been in this industry a long time, Bill, you're handling this wrong. Your talent, this is where you throw your producers under the bus. This is where you say - I've never did that. This is my fault. I've been doing this a long time. You're a talent now, Bill. You can't be level-headed. You have to have the big eagle. I'll own it. My producers are supposed to correct that. That's why they're there. We should have edited that out. Yeah. That's what you're supposed to do. That's the talent play.

1:31:44Bill Simmons:No. I'll fuck up. Listen, I'm going to have one a quarter, and that's it. The podcast is free.

1:31:48David Jacoby:This is just what we're dealing with now. Bill, as you're constantly hearing, I have to say this. I think four might be a little low. No, my goal is four. I think you want to set the bar a little bit lower for yourself there, buddy. Let's go 10. Yeah, let's go 10. You do a lot of potting.

1:32:07Bill Simmons:I think I can pull a fourth. This was my one for the quarter. Now I'm not going to have another one all quarter. Josh from DC says he's been a big fan of the podcast since the Picture Me Rolling days. What a classic year that was when Picture Me Rolling was the theme. Thanks to House's Mother Day karma, the Wizards are finally interesting. And we have two paths of contention. One is just draft AJ. Two is trade down the spot. Get some stuff for Utah. What would you do as the trade machine Picasso? So I already answered this on Sunday. I don't always feel this way with the draft. I feel like sometimes you got to like dig in.

1:32:47Bill Simmons:I like this guy the most. Kirk, this is such a weird draft. I'm honestly happy with any of these four guys. And I don't know if there's any real way to say one of them is going to be the most awesome. I think AJ is probably the safest. Peterson is the highest ceiling, but I'd also be happy with the other two. And if I could move back one spot and pick up real assets, I would just, in this draft, I would do it. So what would you do? Yeah. Yeah, I'm Peterson curious at the number one spot. I'm also like - Peterson curious. Yeah, I'm Peterson curious. I want to come out and just say that I love Darren Peterson.

1:33:20I think all of the analytics guys in the NBA that I like to represent here from time to time are cam boozer enthusiasts. And so the eye test is DeBonsa. There's Peterson. But so I think the Belichick move here is to go to three and just take, I'll take whoever's left.

1:33:40Bill Simmons:Oh, wow. Move down two spots. If I can get something, if, who's there, Memphis? Sorry, I haven't studied the draft. Memphis is three. Chicago's four. Yeah. If Memphis would give me anything valuable because they feel strongly or, yeah, I don't know if I'd go to four, Bill, but I do think there is some jockeying potential for people at one and two to think about just a little bit backward, like your buddy Danny Ainge did so famously to get to that Tatum over Fultz era. I think that's a good, that's a good parallel that that was another draft where I was like, I kind of like all of these guys and they moved back, got an extra pick that ended up not even turns out that was a big, big effing deal for the Boston Celtics to do that.

1:34:22So Washington has to be

1:34:23Bill Simmons:playing with that concept jacob so what would you do would you just be like i like this guy i'm taking one don't don't offer many trades or would you sniff around i think you can only as a gm you're

1:34:35David Jacoby:worried about your job and making the wrong move i think you can only make the wrong move by trading up in this draft because all four of me it feels a little bit like the mvp like if you have sga you can make a great case if you have yokich you can make a great case if you have wimby you can make a great case right so it's like all four of these guys are different players and but they have sort of like they're all equal to me as prospects so if i'm if i give up assets to move up and end up with the fourth best guy of the four yeah there's egg on my face yeah shane wants to know uh when

1:35:07Bill Simmons:you brought up the wizards in the lottery karma draft nick right immediately brought up joe house's name and it made me wonder if joe house is the most famous wizards fan at this point can we get a celebrity Wizards fan ranking. And then he asked, this was written last week, can House represent the Wiz at the draft lottery? So I asked the Washington fans I know, here's the list of famous Wizards fans. You tell me where House ranks. Wale, Dave Bautista, Wolf Blitzer, and Tiafoe, the tennis player. Maybe Scott Van Pelt. I don't know if he's a Wizards fan or not. I know he's a Maryland guy. I assume maybe he likes the Wizards.

1:35:41Bill Simmons:Honestly, that was all I could find. So I don't know. Andrew Sharp? injury sharps in there okay um would you have house fifth or would you bump him above any of

1:35:51David Jacoby:those i mentioned jacobes i mean i'm i'm biased here you know but um i will say that wale was the only one i actively knew was a wizards fan everyone else was news to me and not like tiafos out there, you know, like doing post-match interviews about Trey Johnson.

1:36:12Bill Simmons:Kirk? I feel like House is in the top five. I think he's number one. I'll take a strong stance here. I think Joe House, in part because of his platform here with us at The Ringer, is clearly the most famous Wizards fan. Like, when people think Wizards fan, they think Joe House. And I think... He tried to do the Dougie on the podcast Sunday. He got so excited the camera burned out. Like, he's He's a real fan. He's had some camera issues. We'll give him that. But I think the Wolf Blitzer one, screw Wolf Blitzer. That guy doesn't, get him off the list. Never seen him with Wizards once. No, he doesn't like basketball.

1:36:46I don't want to live in a world where that guy is a no worthy NBA fan.

1:36:49David Jacoby:Can we split the baby and have a house-Wale partnership? I think they would make a good couple duo.

1:36:53Bill Simmons:Maybe we'll give them a podcast. Zachary Gilbert in Westport, Connecticut writes in, he's 12 years old, and he says, I'm sending this on my dad's email with his permission. My father is a longtime listener of yours. put me on the podcast, which I love. I always get excited when new one comes out. How come whenever you talk about Kevin Durant and the Warriors, you don't mention that he played with the greatest shooter ever and a top five shooter ever that made life so much easier for him when on and on about Durant? So it's interesting. And Ethan Strauss actually wrote about this last week on his sub stack about longevity rot, which there's different versions of this when just when either somebody stays around too long.

1:37:34Bill Simmons:and I've talked about this a bunch and I haven't talked about in my book about how the memories of somebody near the end can somehow taint the actual memories of their peak um and then you could you see it with tv too with like Barkley being on tv all the time versus Carl Malone not being on tv and the other stuff that's happened with Carl Malone and now it feels like Barkley's career was more significant than Malone when that wasn't the case when it's happening I think KD the last 10 years really overshadowed how good those last seven OKC years were. When from 2010 to 16, he won the MVP, runner up three times, five straight first teams, made the 12 finals, won 10 playoff series.

1:38:15Bill Simmons:He's either the second or third best guy of the 2010s. I'd have him third behind Curry. I think it's LeBron Curry and KD. 2015 was hurt. 2013 playoffs, Russ got hurt. Harden trade in 2012 screwed things up for them too and then the only thing you can really ding them on is the last three games of the 16 playoffs against Golden State because I thought they had a better team that Golden State was dragging a little bit I thought they could have finished him Jacobes do you feel like all the Durant stuff from the last 10 years is now starting to kind of cloud people's memories of how fucking good Durant was

1:38:55David Jacoby:yes I believe it's a little unfair. Like, if you look at his former teammate, James Harden, who has famously sort of, like, underperformed in big spots, there's not a lot of those with Kevin Durant. There's injuries and, like, weird Kyrie Irving stuff that took down that team and, like, bad vibes in Phoenix. It just sort of seems like it is his fault, but simultaneously he's still performing. Yeah. Yeah.

1:39:22Bill Simmons:Well, it's... If his career just ends, With the Achilles injury, right? Let's just say it's over. He doesn't come back. We would still talk about him reverentially for what he did for those 13 years, Kirk. So I don't... I do think it has clouded how good he was in his peak. Yeah, let's not forget he tore his Achilles tendon. Yes. Like you just said. Like, holy crap. Dominique was my favorite player growing up. It ended him. He technically still played after that, but it was over. Kevin has done a marvelous job, I think, extending his relevance into, what is he, 37? Yeah. And he's the best scorer, in my opinion, the NBA has seen since Michael Jordan.

1:40:04You can tell me it's Kobe. I'm not going to get too mad at you, but it's like, this dude is by far one of the best scorers in the league's history. He's doing it at a high level at 37. That's a Houston team who had a disappointing run in the postseason. The vibes are not immaculate. But let's not forget Freddie Van Fleet was not there. Steven Adams is not there. Durant got hurt.

1:40:26Bill Simmons:Yeah. I'm sitting here on the 40 acres at the University of Texas. I'm not going to say anything negative about Kevin Durant, but I will say it is better to burn out than it is to fade away. And sometimes that long tail at the end of an artist or an athlete's career can sort of damage how you look back at the prime. Yeah, I would highly encourage... Who wrote that email? That was Young Zachary. I would highly encourage you to go on the YouTubes and go check out some Durant. Check out the USA basketball stuff in 2011 in Turkey. Check out the Rucker Park. Check out the 2012 playoffs, him running through, them beating the Clippers.

1:41:06Bill Simmons:Durant was unbelievable.

1:41:07David Jacoby:The day you were born, he probably had 40, Zach.

1:41:10Bill Simmons:Right. I mean, he's definitely second or third best player of the 90s. I would put him third, but I also have him ahead of Harden. Another career thing from Andrew B. He said one of the greatest takes in recent BS lore was that Harden was the guard Carl Malone. Just for record, that was Zach Lowe's take, not mine. I was jealous of it. After watching the Thunder finish off the Lakers, I watched the SGA Very Vanilla walk-off interview. And I thought, does anyone actually list SGA as their favorite player? Will he be remembered as guard Tim Duncan? Both dominant, but with no fans. I thought that was character assassination.

1:41:45Bill Simmons:People love Tim Duncan. I love Tim Duncan. I ride for Tim Duncan. it is it is interesting though jacobes like have you met a diehard sga guy well have you met anyone who's like my favorite guy's sga i'm wearing the sga jersey this is my

1:42:01David Jacoby:dude i well okay i'll answer that question in a second but first i want to address something like bill you're one of the biggest tim duncan fans in the world um uh kirk you are biased by the spurs he was boring like you know what i mean like let's just freeze over this like what do you mean Tim Duncan was awesome. He was boring. His personality didn't exist and his game was to turn around and hit it off the window. You know what I mean? He was a dominant basketball player, won a lot of championships, but it's not exactly like he was Anthony Edwards in the post-game interviews and whatever. One of the four

1:42:31Bill Simmons:greatest teammates of all time.

1:42:34David Jacoby:I do not know anyone who's like, I love SGA. I don't see any SGA jerseys anywhere like you see the other megastars in New York City. and I do want to say this though I am enjoying some of his personality flares outside of his outfits like we need that like I have the answers I just need to see the test like he started to have these sort of like they kind of feel pre-canned but some good post-game stuff that's kind of like this calm cool that I'm starting to dig he's not like personality-less like your guys' favorite guy Tim Duncan

1:43:08Bill Simmons:you mean pre-canned like Noah Eagle breaking out the Cavalanch it's a Cavalanch That was quite a while ago. It was a Cavalanch, though, to be fair to Noah. That was a crazy third quarter. Kirk, do you know any diehard SGA fans? No, I think that's the more interesting part of this question. I think the comp to Tim is just wildly unprofessional for a mailbag question. SGA, it is really interesting. And this is like Jacoby's wheelhouse and your wheelhouse, too. is like, yeah, his approval rating outside of his home market seems to be the lowest we've seen for a player who is that dominant since we've been doing this, right, guys?

1:43:49No question. If I'm in New York or if I'm in LA and I start talking about SGA, I kind of know what the person across the table is going to start to say. I think that is sort of the more interesting part here.

1:44:00Bill Simmons:I think it's actually great for him that he belongs to OKC and everybody else is kind of poking holes and it makes OKC want to love him more. and we're probably in an okay spot with it. And now it's time for Embracing the Era brought to you by New Era, the official cap of the NBA. Take a trip back through some of the most iconic court-defining moments with the New Era NBA Hardwood Classics Collection, which is awesome. Let's be honest. It's hard to top those legendary 90s logos. Perfect time. We had figured out that the 80s were a little over the top. We were getting a little more creative in the 90s.

1:44:35Bill Simmons:You can feel the influences of culture back then. And speaking of the 90s, so I think the most underrated star of the 90s, I'm biased here, but I think it was Reggie Lewis of the Boston Celtics who was really coming on as an asset, who was the only two guard of that generation really to go toe-to-toe with Jordan when they played and was awesome in the 92 playoffs. They lose to, the Celtics lose to the Cavs in seven, but it was a real breakout thing for them. He was just really good. And there were a lot of good players in the early nineties. So, you know, when you look at the all MBAs and stuff, um, really hard.

1:45:13Bill Simmons:Cause you're, you're getting bumped by guys who were hall of famers, but I feel like he was either the second or the, or the third best two guard of that generation. He tragically, he went down the 93 playoffs and, uh, and passed away that summer in the prime of his career. And you look at the guys, the two guards from that era, Mitch Richmond, um reggie miller drosyn petrovic who also tragically passed away um reggie was right up there with all of them and and i thought it was just better than reggie miller um so i always think about when the 90s there's a lot of guys that oh man kenny anderson derrick coleman like you go through and there's some guys that never reach their potential and then reggie is at a whole other level but um i really think he could have had a fun 90s if it had just kept going with him.

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1:47:31Bill Simmons:This episode is brought to you by Viore. When it comes to clothes that score high in both comfort and style, Viore is my MVP. Sunday performance joggers, oh yeah. They have the perfect, I could watch a game and then go out to dinner vibe. And the Meta pant, that's my number one I need to look like I tried option. Get 20 % off your first purchase at viore.com slash Simmons and discover the versatility of Viore clothing. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Zach from Chicago. He just says, I know you're really from the Celtics. I'm really from the Nuggets. What about Jamal Murray for Jalen Brown straight up?

1:48:09Bill Simmons:Kind of interesting.

1:48:11David Jacoby:No. You would do that if you're the Celtics? I'm not doing that if I'm the Celtics. Kirk? I like Jalen's defense. Jamal doesn't have the defense. I don't think they're going to mess with it. No. What do you think, though, Bill? Yeah, what happened to you, Bill? The guy goes on Twitch and all of a sudden, he was like your favorite player of all time like 10 minutes ago. Now you're like, oh, that Twitch stream makes me want to trade him for Jamal Murray.

1:48:38Bill Simmons:It's a no for me, but I did go down a 10-minute rabbit hole thinking about, oh, we could replace Jalen's minutes with Hugo and Shireman and Walsh. And now we'd have these three guards and Tatum and offensively, we'd be so much more interesting. I did entertain it for a second. That leads us to, this was your big assignment. Here's the email. Go on the record right now, predict four NBA trades, but do it like that. And the four would be separated as boring, but logical, conventional, major and somewhat surprising, and holy shit, I can't believe that guy got traded. And that email is from me. I wrote it.

1:49:20Bill Simmons:I would never fake a mailbag email. I could have just said it's from like Larry in Indiana, but I wrote that one because I want to do it. I'll give you the three ones I had and then I gave you the assignment for the holy shit trade. So boring but logical. The Warriors get Anthony Davis, the Wizards get Butlers expiring inspiring and like a lottery protected first and 27. And we just call it a day. That trade makes a lot of sense to me. Um, if the wizards can get one more asset, they're going to obviously take either to Bance or Peterson. They're not going to be good this year. I don't think they want to see what they have.

1:49:57Bill Simmons:Could they get one small asset for Davis? He's probably not going to be happy there. And then the golden state, if you can then get LeBron and now I have Davis, LeBron dream on Curry and kick tight. The boring but logical, Kirk, would you agree with that? Yeah, that's boring, but I don't think AD's very happy there. And I could see that trying to just get away from it. And there has been interest right from Golden State to sort of reestablish having a traditional big beyond just Draymond. So I could see that one. Boring but logical. Jacobs?

1:50:32David Jacoby:I don't really understand why Washington is doing this. We're just taking on Butler. And what asset are you getting back? Like, I think if you were... I don't want to drill down, but don't you think you'd get a better package for AD than Butler in some sort of pick?

1:50:47Bill Simmons:Well, he's unhappy and he keeps getting hurt and he's in his 30s now. And he makes a lot of money. So, those would be the things you worry about. All right, conventional. This would be the Giannis trade. I think the lottery, I talked about it on Sunday, Giannis and the Celtics, I think became way more realistic after how the lottery played out. So, there's a world where you can get Portland gets Jalen Brown. The Celtics get Giannis, and they also get Kuzma in their trade exception thing. And then Milwaukee gets Grant's contract, Scoot Henderson, and a slew of firsts, including all their Milwaukee stuff that they could get back.

1:51:27Bill Simmons:And that ends up being the trade. Seems pretty conventional. Out of those three, Kirk, who is like, I'm out. I don't want to do this. I'm worried about Portland. What do you think about Portland's just general? I don't know what they're doing. They're sort of an irrational player in the marketplace, right? What are your thoughts on what they're trying to accomplish? Well, if I'm Portland Jacobes and I have Denny and I have Jalen Brown and I have Klingon and I have Kamara and, you know, maybe I don't have to give up all the assets I have for Milwaukee. Dame Willard. I have Dame coming back. Shaden Sharp coming back.

1:52:06Bill Simmons:so that's probably the one if we're talking about three teamers that's the only way the other way with Giannis and Jalen would just be the two of them okay major and somewhat surprising this idea came from a listener Jack in Orlando I really like this one I was jealous of it Orlando gets Jamal Murray and Cam Johnson's expiring Denver gets Franz and Suggs it's a straight two for two Franz and Suggs for Murray and Cam Johnson

1:52:34David Jacoby:it's a pretty good trade for both teams I was like whoa I like that dude and Cam Johnson yeah put it in call silver

1:52:44Bill Simmons:cause Jokic could basically be the point guard for Denver anyway and Suggs could be the guard the other team's point guards and bring the ball up and then Franz with Gordon and Joker now my defense is better and then Franz unleashed without Paolo and then Orlando figures out the guard situation and splits up Franz and Murray. I don't know. I thought that was really good. Okay.

1:53:08David Jacoby:Let's not breeze past that. That's pretty good. That makes the NBA better right away. Somewhere there's an intern that works in the front office and is like, hey, do you listen to the BS pod?

1:53:20Bill Simmons:I was going to do a tweak and be like, well, Orlando's got to throw in Anthony Black or Denver probably. I was like, I don't see a tweak. I think that's a really fair two for two. And eventually, it also saves a little more land of money.

1:53:34David Jacoby:that Orlando has. There's a defense problem. I'm Franz. He's an exactly lockdown defender, but there's a defense problem in Denver. There's a shooting problem in Orlando. We both want to shake things up. That works. All right.

1:53:44Bill Simmons:I asked you for a holy shit trade. You go first, Jacoby. What is it? So the concept is not, we'll never have the Luka trade again, but a trade that would make people go, oh my God.

1:54:00David Jacoby:so what is it so i just want to say that this is i'm not saying this is going to happen i'm not predicting this okay but it's like all great things it starts with joe house right washington has the number one pick in a great draft that's a huge asset but they're open for business also our colleague and friend rich paul has been working the phones and he's been pulling some strings behind the scenes on behalf of his clients. Yeah. And Washington has found a dance partner. They send the number one pick and Anthony Davis and next year's number one pick. Because if you acquire Anthony Davis, because of some weird voodoo magic, you also get the next number one pick.

1:54:51David Jacoby:It follows. Yeah. That's in the trade. Okay. you trade that package, number one pick in Anthony Davis and the voodoo spell for Cooper Flagg, Kyrie Irving, and the number nine pick. And here's why it makes sense. There's a, Ujiri did not draft Flagg. He doesn't see the vision. He's going to have the number one pick. He can start with his guy. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's absolute chaos in the streets of Dallas, like rioting. Mark Cuban has got a face paint. He's got a flag. A helicopter has to land on top of the Mavs office for Richard Schmitz and Ujiri to get in, to get them away to safety. Jerry Jones is involved.

1:55:37David Jacoby:It's just chaos. The National Guard has to come in. And then somehow Mark Cuban just ends up negotiating a peace between the fans of the Mavericks and the city.

1:55:51Bill Simmons:That's a great one. Yeah, I mean, them trading Cooper flag, I think, could lead to a civil war in the United States. It would be like the Archduke Ferdinand of America. I don't know how Dallas would start rioting. God only knows what happens next. Kirk, what do you got? Well, this one hurts. And since we're back in time, this is tough. But I'm going to stick my neck out here and be like, the Spurs are going to trade Deere and Fox. And I think they are going to get another younger wing strong player. I haven't worked out the full details. I didn't do my homework as much as Jacoby did. But what I've seen in these playoffs and in this Minnesota series, and again, I might be speaking so stupidly now for those who have time traveled with me.

1:56:38But I really think what I've seen in these playoffs is like, why do we have Darren Fox on this team? We have Dylan Harper. We have Stephon Castle. We have Victor Wembenyama. We have a clear need to get stronger on the wings and in our front court. Can we find somebody like Toronto or Houston that can give us some depth and some strength to fight with these types of Minnesota guys? So I haven't done the full homework, but that's my holy shit. The Spurs are going all in with this young core moment.

1:57:11Bill Simmons:That would be interesting. Tough one for De 'Aaron Fox. Yeah. attaches himself to Wemby and it lasts a year and a half. I know it is, but I, I mean, I, I also love the, your idea. Like the other one I had runner up is, is the Jalen Williams, uh, the, the one who's currently hurt with his hamstring and Chet home where, and one of those guys for the similar reasons, like a lot of us, these young cores, they have to get ahead of the second apron. They have to do stuff like that. So, you know, J Donde says real trades travel in silence and we never saw the Luca thing coming. so I think there are the holy shit moments are like oh my god I couldn't believe that that could happen right like Jalen Williams just getting traded straight up for the third pick like oh I told you on that I told you on the text yeah like that like that that's a great one but I told you on the text Jacoby's gonna have a better one and I was right well I mean

1:58:03David Jacoby:I forgot the ending it ended up with Joe House in a bathtub full of Arby's roast beef

1:58:09Bill Simmons:with Cooper Flagg picture of Cooper Flagg

1:58:12David Jacoby:Yeah.

1:58:14Bill Simmons:I'm dialing it up a notch from your holy shits. What about Ant to Atlanta? Oh. T-Wolves get Jalen Johnson. They get 8-23-26. Atlanta has a Bucks New Orleans worst pick in 27, the worst one of those two. They have some other stuff, first swaps. what if Kirk have you how long do you think Ant's gonna actually last in Minnesota if you have to guess but where's Anthony from and like this is a team that is where's Anthony from Jacoby do you have any ideas on that where's he from

1:58:52David Jacoby:do you know how long people in the media have been trying to send basketball players back home it's like what we always do well he's from the KD's from the DMV put him on the list we always do this I'm just saying

1:59:04Bill Simmons:this point in time right now is when Atlanta has the best possible. We're going to overwhelm you with an Anthony Edwards offer moment. And, um, and I was trying to think of like every year there's a holy shit one. And usually we have some semblance of it. And then sometimes we don't. And if like the, the series ended badly, you know, the new owners in place, who knows? Um, and what if he's just like, send me to Atlanta. And then the other piece of it is. And in Atlanta, I can't even imagine what that would be. Like they'd never, not since Dominique had a guy in the, the brief Michael Vick moment, but putting in there would just be one of, I love their crowd.

1:59:47Bill Simmons:Like it would just be crazy. So that I think that's why he's a perfect Atlanta representative, right? Jacoby. Like the, because you go to a Hawks game, they are unique. They are fun, but they are sort of flat in a sense. Like they don't, I, it feels like he would be the perfect guy to change the vibes in Atlanta. And I know for a fact that that organization for years has circled him like a lot of teams do with certain players that they're suitors for years in advance. Being like, that's a guy. I think he might want to come to live here because he is from there. And I don't know. But I like it.

2:00:20And I could see it from Atlanta's perspective now. Will Tim Connolly agree with me? Probably not.

2:00:26David Jacoby:But also, if you're Anthony Edwards, you look at the starting five you're currently playing with and the starting five you would be playing with in Atlanta. of like your dramatic downgrade.

2:00:33Bill Simmons:Yeah. The only way that trade's happening is if Anthony Andrews says you're trading me. Yeah.

2:00:38David Jacoby:No, we don't want to. Chris Finch had a fist fight on the court.

2:00:41Bill Simmons:You're actually going to trade me. The other one I was thinking for a holy shit was if San Antonio just said, fuck it. We'll put Dylan Harper on the table. We'll put every pick we have and just make a run at trying to put Wimby and Ant on the same team, which would be, I don't know how the alpha piece of that would work because Wemby's definitely an alpha. But that's it. From holy shit ones, I went through everybody and it was the only holy shit guy that really jumped out at me.

2:01:09David Jacoby:Oh, no. There was one. For trades. There was one I was building that was...

2:01:13Bill Simmons:A holy shit guy?

2:01:15David Jacoby:LeBron convinces the Lakers to trade Luka.

2:01:19Bill Simmons:That's pretty... It seems like Luka's really embedded in there. Yeah. It's out there. I had that to Jacobi's point. I had Luka in my notes. It just feels too much. The other one is like, what if Denver's like, we're never getting over San Antonio and OKC? With Strayed Yogurt now? I guess that's the other holy shit guy. We couldn't get past Minnesota. Yeah, we couldn't get past Minnesota without Ant in this game six. So that'd be the one where it's like, well, this is the Herschel Walker play for the future of the Denver Nuggets organization. There's one more holy... I went through the Ringer 100 and I had my holy shit glasses on and my little detector and I was going through each guy.

2:01:59Bill Simmons:I was like... And the only other one was Tatum. Because I think that would elicit the proper holy shit where the Celtics are like, you know what? Jalen was right. This actually is his team. We're trading Jason Tatum. We'd be like, holy shit. They're trading Tatum? That's the other. I think Ant and Jason Tatum in that order are the two holy shit guys. Everybody else you could believe. Like Donovan Mitchell getting traded, I'd believe it. You go on through the league. Booker. shocking but not really.

2:02:31David Jacoby:The other bigger names, they're never going to move. You know what I mean? Like Luka, SGA, Wemby, Flagg. These guys aren't really going to move. But I could see the Celtics trading one of the Jays.

2:02:40Bill Simmons:And Joker getting traded, the risk would be he would just be like, alright, I'm going to go raise some horses now in Serbia. I'll see you guys later. And you never even get to play one game with them. That's it for the mailbag. I took you guys up too much, but that was fun. Holy shit stuff. Alright, so our holy shit trade rankings. Ant1, Tatum2, Luca three? No. Because Luca already got traded.

2:03:02David Jacoby:He already got traded, though. It's just never, ever going to happen. He's in Los Angeles. No.

2:03:07Bill Simmons:I don't know. Got hurt. Yeah. All right, Jacobes. We can hear in the mismatch. Goldsberry, thanks for being on two different segments of my pod today. That was great. My pleasure. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kirk and Jacoby. Thanks to Gihau and Eduardo as well. I'm going to be back here on Thursday. No game on Thursday night, actually. So I'm going to be back on Thursday. I'll have some sort of fun podcast for you. And don't forget, new rewatchables, Tropic Thunder is up. And you have six days to watch Borat just in case we do it on the rewatchables next Monday. So I will see you on Thursday.

2:03:58On the first time I know

2:04:27Bill Simmons:Thank you. gamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 877-8HOPENY or text HOPENY in New York for Louisiana. Call 877-770-7867.