A Clips-Nuggets Slugfest, Brunson’s Heroics, Best 2025 TV Shows and NBA Then and Now With Rob Mahoney, Joanna Robinson and Bob Ryan

You're listening and watching the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel, our friends, America's number one sportsbook.

And they've made it easier than ever to get in on the action during an NBA playoff game, even after a tip-off.

Just look for the live SGP tab on the FanDuel Sportsbook app and build your own bet slip.

Then sit back, relax, track the outcome of your parlay right in the app.

And if you don't already have it, download the FanDuel app today to make every moment more.

If the ringer is committed to responsible gaming, Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode.

For additional details, it must be 21 plus on President Select States.

Gaming problem, call 1800 Gambler, visit rg-help.com.

Coming up, we're going to talk NBA playoffs, television, and historical NBA.

It's all next.

This episode is brought to you by Yahoo Fantasy.

It's my favorite time of the year, the NFL season, almost here.

Fantasy football, full swing.

It's happening.

This season, Yahoo Fantasy is taking up a notch and giving you a fantasy football experience like never before.

This year, I'm playing on Yahoo Fantasy, and you should too, because we have a big ringer league that we're doing.

We're going to do a live draft.

We're going to have bragging rights and all kinds of things that are going to be happening.

You should join us.

You should have your own league.

Yahoo Fantasy dropping 28 big new features over 28 days through August.

They just dropped Yahoo Fantasy guillotine leagues.

where the lowest scoring team gets eliminated weekly until one is left standing.

Give give this new mode a try or stick with the classics in private head-to-head leagues or public leagues stay tuned for more killer announcements start playing yahoo fantasy football now at yahoo fantasy.com slash simmons we're also brought to you by the ringer podcast network put up a new rewatchables on monday night we did someone to watch over me it was a one for us for me and chris ryan we have a massive movie coming on monday stay tuned for that readjust your schedules you can watch the rewatchables on the ringer movies youtube channel or as a video podcast on spotify you can watch this podcast as a video podcast on spotify and go to the bill simmons youtube channel as well where we have all the videos stuff from the last six seven years this podcast so uh i'm taping this before i went to clippers nuggets game six which we're going to talk about with rob mahoney we're going to talk about nick's pistons as well joanna robinson his podcast partner on Prestige TV.

She came on with me to talk about the year in TV so far because it's been awesome.

We tried to do as unspoilery a conversation as we possibly could.

And then, last but not least, the great Bob Ryan.

I wanted to talk about a whole bunch of historical NBA stuff, 2025 versus guys from the past.

So he graciously came on.

We talked hoops.

So it's a big, big podcast.

First, our friends from Pro Jam.

All right, recording the top part of the pod.

It's a little after 10 o'clock Pacific time.

I just drove back from the Coopers Nuggets Game 6, which was quite an affair.

Rob Mahoney is here.

Clippers dominated the entire game.

James Harden was magnificent for three quarters.

He was.

It looked like they were about to put the game away seven times, and it was just going to go into the 17, 18, 19 range.

I was going to be able to drive home with six minutes left and start recording the pod with you.

And then all of a sudden, the Nuggets were within nine and they were within six.

And the PTSD kicked in.

New arena, new energy,

really good team.

It didn't matter.

The crowd got fucking nervous and you could feel it.

And I was getting flashbacks to 10 years ago, that Rockets game when they uh when they blew that 19-point lead and they survived it mostly thanks to like a crazy russell westbrook play

a couple of them how many excruciating layups is russell westbrook gonna miss this season we just i went with my friend uh mike who i shared tickets with and we decided he was the mvp of the game because he did good stuff for both teams

everybody had a positive interaction with him it's true our our guy balances the ledger you know he knows what he's doing out there so i i'll tell you what i saw in person but what'd you see on TV?

What jumped out to you?

I think the hardened elements for sure, but also like this felt very much like the Nick Batum game, a game in which Batum completely changed the energy, completely changed the strategy.

Tylu finally pulled the plug on some of Chris Dunn's minutes in the second half, which the series had been kind of building to that point over the last three games or so, to be honest with you.

It felt a little inevitable.

But once it happened, you could just...

You could feel everything the Nuggets were trying to accomplish.

It seemed uphill from that point, just from having Nick Batum on the floor.

It it was crazy.

I don't think Chris Dunn played in the second half.

A lot of the people in my section had been calling for this for a while.

Just basically go bigger, longer.

But the thing I wasn't expecting was Batum had a bunch of reps on Jokic defending him.

Now,

we were playing Bloodsport Rules tonight.

I don't know if you noticed.

I think there were less than 30 fouls total, and it was the same both ways.

So that was how it was going.

True.

I went to the Laker game yesterday.

I think there was close to 50 fouls in that game and everything was a foul.

This game, nothing was a foul and everyone knew it.

And Jokic, who was getting mauled every time he had the ball, but he was also mauling other people.

There was a couple plays where he was just shoving batoon backwards.

He was shoving guys in the back to get rebounds.

Like every, it was just full-on warfare, which I would think would benefit the Nuggets, but I thought the Clippers with their size and their, and, you know, their physicality kept up with it.

Yeah, you would think so.

But honestly, I think when you allow them to be that handsy and that physical, this is the kind of series where if the Clippers can control the glass and specifically keep the Nuggets off the offensive glass for long stretches, it feels like they're in control of these games.

Like they're going to win the turnover battle so handily just by the nature of how they play and how Denver plays.

If you can keep the Nuggets from clawing back possessions through any other means, you're going to be in pretty good shape to win the game.

And so that's one area where the physicality really pays off, not just, you know, battling Jokic to keep him off the offensive glass, but bumping and holding Aaron Gordon, bumping and and holding Christian Brown, like bumping and holding Russell Westbrook, frankly.

Yeah.

So

Hardin comes out and you see it immediately where game five, he was terrible.

Game six, he's doing that accelerator thing that he has.

Yeah.

Where it's the herky jerky, I'm going, I'm stopping.

Now I'm going again.

And he just had, he was yo-yoing a bunch of the Nuggets defenders.

And so he's playing well and Kawhi is playing well.

And I think they both ended up with almost 60 points combined.

Usually they're pretty hard to beat if both of those guys are going.

But you're watching Harden just toasting everybody in the nuggets.

And it's like,

just why don't you do this more often?

And then what you realize is he had about 90 minutes of him.

And by the fourth quarter, that acceleration thing, it wasn't there anymore.

And Denver had him figured out.

A lot of slow possessions, reminiscent of my Celtics.

Just a lot of like killing the shot clock so you can get a terrible shot with three seconds left, like a corner three with a hand in the face, and the nuggets kind of clawed back.

I'm trying to think what to take away big picture, especially after going to two of these games.

And I really do think the Clippers are slightly better, and I don't think that's going to mean they're going to win the series.

It does not.

But I would say if it's three to three right now, but it's like 3.3 to 2.7.

I think the Nuggets have to be super pumped that they have a game seven at home because I don't think they've played that well as a team.

They've certainly had their moments and they've had stretches where they felt really good and felt like they were clicking and playing their style.

This game ultimately did not feel that way.

Like, they're still walking the line in so many respects between Jokic being as aggressive as he needs to be to dominate some of these matchups, and particularly when the zone is out there, when Batum is guarding him, ordinarily when Ben Simmons is guarding him, although now he's kind of out of the series.

He's gone.

R.I.P.

R.I.P.

Ben Simmons, Chris Dunn, R.I.P.

He had a good run.

But those are possessions Jokic just has to bulldoze his way and brute force his way into baskets because ultimately the Clippers are going to play off Russ if he's out there on the floor.

They're going to shrink the floor around him, but take away the passing lanes.

And so Jokic is going to have to create tough baskets in crowds in a lot of these situations.

And he has to do that against Zoo too.

And for all due credit, Zoo came up with some monster stops down the stretch of this game.

Game saving play is on the defensive end with all of that contact we've talked about.

But he knew the prescription.

Like he knew what this game allowed and he played it to a T.

Well, it was interesting.

It seemed like they were going to bench him down the stretch.

I mean, and we were watching.

But he was that good, honestly.

It was crazy to think about it.

And we were watching on the bench.

It was five, it was like five minutes left.

There's a timeout

and Zoo wasn't coming back in.

And

we were like, wow, he's pissed.

Like, he can't believe he's not coming back in.

And then I think the Nuggets scored once and Tylu was like, all right, get back in.

And then he made some big plays down the stretch.

But I think this platoon piece is a really nice wrinkle for them on the road in a game seven because a couple of things in their favor.

One, Denver lost a game seven at home last year, right?

It was a year ago.

Two,

they're a six-man team, maybe six and a half.

I've actually kind of enjoyed the DeAndre Jordan just couple coffee minutes.

I think I've actually been pretty effective, but it's a six and a half man team.

And the six man is Westbrook, who giveth and taketh every single game.

And I do think if Harden and Kawhi play really well, if they stumbled into something or this platoon thing, this is a team that could win on the road.

And then you think the other hand,

you're trusting James Harden in an elimination game seven.

That's the catch, right?

And this is where I struggle to determine down the stretch of this game in the fourth quarter, as you mentioned, the acceleration wasn't there for Hardin, the pace he was playing with, just the downhill determination to blow by whoever was in front of him was not there.

Is that because he's James Harden at this age, at this point in his career, and he doesn't always have it all the time through every game?

Or was that them

playing the clock, basically, and trying to coast out a marginal lead against, you know, a run that

specifically Jokic was pushing the ball up court and they were starting to create some pressure?

And were they just trying to drain too much clock?

I couldn't quite tell which one was going on, to be honest with you.

My take would be he's like a pitcher who could get about six innings, maybe six and two-thirds.

But I thought the fourth quarter, I thought he wore down a little bit.

He's making some weird decisions.

Like they, you know, they, the Nuggets had gotten a stop.

I think there was like a minute and a half left

and they inbound the ball and Harden dribbles right into a double team and Tylu has to burn a timeout.

It was like you could see the double team coming seven miles away and he just kind of fog-headedly went into it.

Right across half court too, like literally the worst place to be weird.

And he had a couple of those down the stretch where you're thinking like, is this just an old guy who's feeling the miles of the game?

Or is this the James Harden stuff we've been watching for his whole career in big spots?

Now, Kawhi, on the other hand, has come through in a ton of big spots.

And I think he had a couple, I got this moments.

But really, the Coopers, that corner three, which Dunn couldn't make, I think it was 0 for 3.

And then Batum and Derrick Jones together, I don't know what they finished with, but I looked at one of the timeouts and they were, I think, 4 for 10.

And those four threes they hit were the difference basically in the game, right?

If they're two for 10 or 1 for 10, I think the Nuggets probably pulled this up.

The other thing,

it was a Michael Porter Jr.

Milk Carton game.

It was like, is he out there?

Oh, no, there he is.

It was one of those.

And they finally yanked him and Russ got all his crunch time minutes.

It felt like they were trying to get him going in the second half.

And you just could see, like, it was one of his classic no-show games, like a game one.

He was probably due for one at this point in the series, to be honest with you.

But the threes, like, yeah, Derrick Jones is not going to hit every night in the same way that Chris Dunn won't hit every night and may not even be in the rotation anymore.

But Tooma would expect to.

But more importantly, I I think the possessions that led to those threes and led to so many, I would say, kind of like random clippers baskets where these like chaotic offensive rebound tipped by Zoo bounces off three guys' hands, goes through a crowd, and ends up with a random clipper.

Those plays can seem really fluky, but when you're the team playing with as much effort as the clippers are playing with and you're as engaged and you're flying around the court, like it felt like they were quicker to those balls in part because they didn't have to push it the other way.

So they can fight for it in a different way than the Nuggets can.

But I thought they just turned up every every single one of those plays that they needed to.

And then when you look at the total sum of all of them, that's like a 15-point swing in this game, ultimately, right?

Like the Russ missed layup coming down on the other end and ending up in a Norm Powell three, what should have been a four-point game as a nine-point game.

That's it right there.

Like the chaos of these games decides them.

And there's a real home, I said this Sunday, too.

There's a real home court with the Clippers that I just can't believe exists.

I know.

You know, and it's not going to swing a game.

Like they lost game four at home.

It's not like it was deciding the game, but there's a real energy.

And when, you know, the crowd really likes Norm Powell.

I think that's what he says.

And when he gets going,

as they should, but when he hits a couple, it's like an electric shock for the crowd.

Like they're really, really, and you, and that's probably when they get the most excited.

And then the other one is Kawhi will have a couple moments.

Here's those stretches where he just like.

He'll hit like three shots in a row or he'll hit like two shots and get a steal and block it.

And he'll just take over the game for like three minutes.

And I think the crowd now has a sense for when that's happening.

And on the flip side, you know, I think Jokic had maybe 18 in the first half and finished with 25, but it's just continually terrifying.

At top of the key, whatever sort of, and they're sending one guy, they're sending two guys, but Toom's just standing behind him, just whacking him on the side.

I always felt like he was going to score.

So when every time he didn't score, they turned the ball over or blocked it, felt like almost a miracle.

I think in Denver,

I don't know if they're getting some of those, uh, some of those mauling calls on Jokic, but.

And maybe that's where you don't get some of the Clipper role players delivering in quite the same way.

Like when you were saying, you know, the Clippers are so hard to beat when Kawhi and Harden are both clicking at a high level.

Obviously true, clearly true.

Part of the reason it's true is because then it relieves the pressure.

So only one of, say, Norm Powell and Zubats have to be a big time scorer, right?

It's taking some of the edge off those guys where they can just kind of fill a role.

You go on the road, let's say Harden and Kawhi play well again, but now all of a sudden all of the role player shots are tougher.

Maybe the threes aren't coming quite so frequently.

Like that's that's one of the trade-offs that just is really, really tough with roadplay, especially in a game seven.

And we're about to get a game seven with two of the best postseason performers in modern playoff history, in Kawhi and Jokic in particular.

So whatever reservations we may have about Hardin or Michael Porter Jr.

or whoever else is involved in the series, I'm fucking psyched for it.

I can't wait.

Well, this was the dream for a bunch of different reasons, especially we would not have had basketball on Saturday.

It's true.

Group chat depends on that game seven.

How did that shake out that way?

There are no contingency plans there where we're just not going to have games on Saturday, May 3rd, or whatever day that is.

That was a thing that was going to happen.

So, the over-under on that game on FanDuel, I always love game sevens, and I think this is going to keep going down.

I think the over today was 213.

The over for game seven is 204.5, and I bet that goes under 200.

Yeah, because game

game sevens rock fights, tense, slows down.

People don't really take chances in the same way.

Every single thing is careful.

Careful, ugly.

You're not getting Derek Jones hitting four threes in the corner.

You're not getting any of that stuff.

And, you know, a lot of it will depend on how much they're letting both teams get away with.

I think the more they officiate the game, the better that probably is for Denver because of the way Jokic plays.

Do you think either of these teams is better than Minnesota from what we've seen for two weeks?

Great question.

Now, the Minnesota thing is interesting because the Lakers just might be this like incredibly flawed team that made Minnesota look really good.

They have no center.

They don't really have a point guard.

They had Luca gets hurt halfway through game five and just can't guard anybody or bounce off anybody.

I really thought he was a little compromised.

LeBron wore out, I think, after four games.

And Minnesota might not be as good as they looked last night.

Who do you, if you had to rank the three, how would you rank them?

I think I might put the Clippers as the best of the three, even still.

I would too.

Yeah.

But it's, it's very, very close.

And then there's also the question of like, are we talking about head-to-head in a series versus sort of in a more abstract universal sense?

Ceiling upside, yeah.

Ceiling upside, I think the Clippers are the most versatile of these teams.

I think their defense can be as good as Minnesota's defense can be, but they have some qualities in terms of their half-court offense that feel even a little bit more stable to me and a little less matchup dependent, right?

So I think there's just some things with the Clippers that I really, really like.

And I love Ty Lou pulling the levers behind all of those things.

Like I trust the flexibility of that roster and I trust the people making the decisions, even though one of them is James Harden in a game seven.

Right.

Well, and they, I like how they adjust in a game and in a series, right?

They'll try four, five, six things.

They'll change rotations, not in a panicky way.

Like, all right, we gave Ben Simmons a whirl and he shot an airball that went sideways and we're not going to see him anymore now.

Yeah.

Chris Dunn, they're just begging, they're leaving him open by 10 feet.

Like, when it's 10 feet, maybe it's time to get somebody else.

But I do think they have two lineups that I think really work in a muck it up game seven.

One was that one we saw tonight where they just went long, right, with Batum.

The shortest guy was Harden out of everybody that was out there.

And then that other one was that one they played near the end of game four with the shooters when they did the zone.

And it was just the all-offense lineup with Bogdanovich.

Yeah.

and i think they have their typical lineup but i think they have two levers to pull if the game gets weird whereas the nuggets it's basically like let's throw in westbrook and just kind of see what happens it's like watching somebody light fireworks in their backyard it's like just just don't try not to hit the house please don't shoot the tree

please don't just please shoot this up in the air um and he's their fireworks guy there in that they don't have a lot of moves it's like is jamal murray gonna have it is michael porter going to show up are we going to get good michael porter they don't really know what they're getting.

Can I talk out of both sides of my mouth about this a little bit?

Yeah.

I think the Clippers are the better team, and I think they're going to lose in game seven.

So

things working against them.

Road team, game seven.

James Harden in a huge game.

Yep.

Jokic is the best player in the series.

Although Kawhi, maybe he has something to say about that.

The fact that Porter was so bad today makes me think he's going to be good in game seven because that's basically what we saw in the game four that I went to on Saturday, where he was awesome and rebounding and playing with a ton of athleticism.

So I bet they were going to subtly call him out and challenge him.

And I really like the way Murray is moving and just looks in general.

Like,

if he had played this way

in the summer Olympics, I think Canada would have won the gold medal.

He did the opposite.

They've been trying to get him to play that way in the Olympics for a long time.

Right.

The ship's probably so.

I don't think that's going to happen.

But I will say this Clippers win is particularly impressive in that way because Jamal came out hot.

He was scorching right from the jump.

And it's hard in those Jamal Murray games to then put him back in the box, to kind of tamp down

his sort of fire starter scoring.

And I thought they really got a handle on him.

They made him into more of a passer in a way that, yeah, opened up some shots for other people, but ultimately took some of the momentum out of the Nuggets offense.

So big picture legacy, Steph.

Let's do a little legacy.

Pre-game seven legacy?

Yeah, a whiff of a legacy here.

Jokic losing two game sevens at home in back-to-back years when he's the best player in the world would not be great.

Not awesome.

The Nuggets blowing two game sevens at home in a row is a pulsating sign that something now needs to happen.

Right?

If they lose this, it's like now something, now we have to do something.

Somebody has to go.

That sign has already been lit, I think.

It's already been pulsating.

You know, we've, we've, I think we've been there for a little while.

It's pulsating, but I'm not sure it's on 24 hours a day.

I don't think it's like a diner sign, no, a fluorescent diner sign, but I think it does pop on.

But yeah, there's multiple guys, I would wonder.

Yes.

And if you, even if you work back for keepers, it's basically just Jokic, Murray, and Brown.

And then you could tell me.

anyone else on the team who knows.

And I think Gordon's a keeper, but I think he would be the trade piece if you're going to blow it up.

You know what I mean?

That is fair.

I think that was kind of my hesitation point as you were saying that is like Aaron Gordon, Mr.

Nugget, like he is part of the DNA of that team.

He's also, you know, per the conversation you were having with Zach the other day about like Draymond as an amplifier.

I think Aaron Gordon is a terrific amplifier.

Like he turns the Murray Jokic pick and roll into a three-man action, like really triangulates some interesting stuff out of it.

His ability to work the baseline, work out of the dunker spot, but also out of the corners, also kind of turning around like random junk offense is really really one of the only reasons the Nuggets are alive in this series at this point.

And so, like, I think they would be very hesitant to trade that away, to say nothing of the world that he gives you on defense in terms of his effort and versatility on that end.

So, pretty important.

They have four keepers.

That's a pretty tough, tough team to change because now we are just in the pure Michael Porter Jr.

trade machine era and no, really, no other lovers.

Zeke Najee.

I don't think the market for Zeke is robust,

and all due respect to him.

Let's take a break and we'll talk Nick's Pistons really quick.

Our friends at Feyandu are getting you in on the NBA action during these playoffs, right from the first tip.

Right now, all customers get a no-sweat same-game parlay every single weekend when you bet the NBA playoffs.

Just use your token on three-plus legs, same-game parlay, or same-game parlay plus on any NBA playoff game, and you'll get bonus bets back

if you don't win.

Golden State game six, I'm in.

I'm just in.

I would go over on Butler rebounds.

I would go over on Steph Points.

I would go on Golden State Money Line.

That's an example of a same game parlay you can do.

There's no better place to bet all the action than America's number one sports book.

Visit fandle.com slash BS and get a no-sweat same-game parlay every weekend of the NBA playoffs.

That's fando.com slash BS.

Fandle, an official sports betting partner.

of the NBA.

You must be 21 plus in president select states or 18 plus in president in DC.

Optum required, minimum three-leg parlay required, refund issued as non-retribable bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt.

Max refund, $5 unless otherwise specified restrictions apply, including token expiration.

See terms at sportsbook.fanda.com.

Gambling problem, call 100 gambler, or visit rg-help.com.

This episode is brought to you by Degree Original Cool Rush Deodorant.

Remember last year, people got really mad when Degree changed their Cool Rush formula.

One dude even started a petition.

What was up with that guy?

Well, guess what?

Degree listened.

They admitted they messed up.

They are bringing back the original Cool Rush scent.

And thank God.

You've got to love what a brand can own its mistakes.

And it's in Walmart, Target, and other stores right now for under $4.

Grab some.

Find out why it's been the number one men's antiperspirant.

for the last decade.

By the way, you should put that on, especially we're about to hit the summer.

It's getting sweaty in the summers.

The original degree cool rush is back, and it smells like victory for all of us.

Coming back, Nick's Pistons.

So, I was in the car not realizing that Beyonce was playing at SoFi tonight, right next to the Clipper game, and it took an hour and a half to get to a Clipper game.

And my plan was to watch the fourth quarter on my phone at the Clipper game, and I could not do that.

But I was listening on

Sirius and just kind of playing off the announcers.

And it was the Detroit Pistons announcers who were very, very excited.

And

Jalen Brunson did it again.

So, what did you see?

Because I unfortunately could not watch the game with my eyes.

I could hear it.

I couldn't watch it.

What did you see?

Do you feel better or worse about the Knicks after tonight?

I mean, better because they won by the skin of their teeth.

Better because Jalen Brunson is an amazing crunch time performer.

The fact that.

So, have you seen that play?

I assume you've seen the highlight.

Yeah, I saw the highlight.

I watched it halftime.

Genuinely unbelievable how much space Jalen Brunson creates off of pure torque and crossover against one of the best perimeter defenders in the league and Assar Thompson, a guy who had been giving him trouble even in a high-scoring night, basically throughout the game when he was allowed to play by J.B.

Pickerstaff.

And we can talk about that if you want.

I'm just like in awe of the space that Brunson creates.

And I think this is what fuels some of the conversation we have about him sometimes, about the free throw baiting, is when he doesn't do it.

And he didn't, there's no pushoff on this play at all.

Like he creates all of that space on his own, no illegal contact, cans it because he's Jalen Brunson, one of the most clutch players that we have in the league right now.

I love watching that guy play.

I love watching that guy hoop.

And when he's doing it in this way, like he's, he's such an undeniable charismatic basketball force.

And yet, heading into that next round, the Celtics are minus 700 favorites.

Now, if I told you before the year, The Celtics and Knicks are going to play in round two and the Celtics are going to be 701 favorites.

I think we would have thought somebody was hurt on the Knicks.

Yeah.

We would have assumed Towns, Brunson, or

Inanobi, one of those three, or maybe even Bridges.

But that was not a healthy five, but it is a healthy five.

I mean, I know Brunson's slipping around, but he had 40 tonight.

Or the other assumption would be that the cat trade had gone really poorly for some reason, which it hasn't.

It's gone mostly quite well.

Not so well in this game.

I thought this was a game in which it was very much Josh Hart and OG and Mikhail completely delivered in all of their kind of peripheral capacities, in addition to Jalen Brunson just going balls out as far as like shot creation goes.

And then Kat

is doing a thing we've seen him do before, where sort of floating around and he's weirdly passive and he's not involved in the offense.

And then when the ball finally comes his way, he's shooting shots five feet behind the three-point line.

And then he fouls out and misses a crucial free throw.

It's just like a

not a great display of Carl Anthony Towns as a basketball experience, especially going into a series against the Celtics Celtics where he has to be one of the Knicks' most important players to actually leverage that matchup.

And I really like Cat.

I find myself as a Cat defender in a lot of debates and conversations.

I don't have a lot of faith in his ability to successfully bully and score on and be everything defensively that he needs to be against the Celtics.

It's just not, it's not,

that matchup does not position him for any kind of success.

Yeah, it's a weird one with all the Knicks fans I know, and I'm sure you know a lot of them too.

Last year they were just so delighted by that gritty underdog team that they had, and they just really responded to those guys.

And this year, it's a lot of complaining, a lot of complaining about Tibbs, a lot of wondering, but but then also a real love for Brunson, yeah, and the fact that at least they got to round two with those five guys healthy, which was, I think, was the number one goal, a team that was built to try to beat Boston, even though Boston spanked them all season.

Um, I do not have any Knicks fans in my life who are like, watch out for us.

The vibes are real weird right now.

Yeah, don't you think?

I mean, they, again, barely survived this series.

The Pistons had several chances to potentially win it, several chances to, you know, lead and protect the lead.

Malik Beasley almost had a look to tie this game at the very end, but kind of like Gary Trent Jr., the ball away at the final second.

Yeah.

Like it was right

now.

Gary Trent Jr.

did?

Wow.

After that implosion the other day against the Pacers.

Unfortunately, it's wrong place, wrong time, but such as life.

But I would say, as far as the reason that that Celtics optimism and Knicks' pessimism exists, in addition to just, you know, not disputing the heart of a champion and kind of the general funkiness that's been going on with New York all year, you could see in this series, it's so clear that the Knicks just do not trust basically anything other than a Jalen Brunson ISO.

Like they, they don't run them consistently enough.

Maybe a pick and roll if you're lucky, but so much of their offense is geared around Jalen having to create every inch of space against defenders.

And now

that's a weird one to me, though.

I don't get it.

I understand that as a

strategy.

I get it in the sense that Jalen Brunson's an unbelievable ISO scorer.

I don't get it in the sense that you just traded for Carl Anthony Towns in the offseason.

You just traded for Mikael Bridges in the offseason.

And some of those guys are good at kind of creating movement within stale sets, but it really doesn't take much of a nudge from the defense.

to push the Knicks into just ISO, ISO, ISO, ISO repeatedly in a way that is frankly self-destructive.

Well, you know, who eats that up for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?

It's the Celtics.

If you're just going to do the same thing over and over again, they couldn't be more delighted.

I mean, Brunson had 33 shots tonight and eight free throws.

33 shots is for a non-overtime game is kind of bonkers.

And I just don't feel like they've, I felt it the whole year.

I've never felt like they've, it feels like somebody's always losing when somebody else is winning on this team.

Yeah.

You know, it's like almost like a zero-sum game.

Brunson gets 33 shots so that means talents has to have a game basically um

and again i need to watch the second half and study what was going on but i just 33 shots is

that's a crazy number i know we made 15 of them but that not sustainable against celtics celtics have so many guys to throw at him um they're gonna be sending two guys at him they're gonna be putting taller guys on him this is one of the tatum superpowers is he's actually really good at guarding guy i wouldn't be surprised if they threw tatum at him You should.

I mean, based on Asar Thompson's success in this game, to the extent that there is a Jalen Brunson blueprint, and this guy just went for 40, like it's not a wildly successful blueprint.

I thought Asar Thompson did a great job with the minutes that he was given and the assignment he was given.

And that's kind of the Jalen Brunson story is you try to put as much length as you can get away with.

It's just usually wings and bigs have a much harder time hanging with Brunson's footwork.

Not so for the Celtics.

Like they have enough bigger ranger defenders and even the guys who are quote unquote small, if Drew Holiday is healthy enough to play consistently in that series, that's a tough matchup.

Derek White's a tough matchup.

They're all tough matchups.

Well, the other thing is, though, Tatum's been just playing so great.

And the Knicks built this team together partly to go toe-to-toe with Tatum and Brown.

Brown hasn't been as great and I don't think he's 100% healthy, but Tatum

is at the complete command of his powers at this point.

You know, there's going to be this Ananobi versus Tatum piece, and then Bridges will be the second guy.

I'm sure they're going to stagger stagger him so that

there's going to be stretches.

Maybe he'll come out earlier in the first quarter and then come back where he's trying to go against some Knicks bench guys.

What is your level of satisfaction with the Tatum rise?

As I would say, the preeminent author of the Does Tatum Have Another Gear ongoing conversation?

I feel vindicated and delighted.

I just think he's been awesome.

And there was somebody who wrote a piece about Angry Tatum in that Orlando series, and I totally agree.

He had developed this little sneer that he has now.

It's like, where'd that come from?

You're like the nicest guy.

Now you have like a playoff sneer, but the sneer is worth like three percentage points in terms of field goal percentage easily.

At least a couple free throw attempts.

It's worth its weight in gold.

I love his

the bully stuff that he does, which is going to be harder to do against this Knicks team.

But they're going to be, I just think they're going to hunt Brunson.

This is what the smarter teams who have a lot of options, they're just going to be like, where is he?

Let's try to wear him down on this end.

They're probably not going to defend him full court, which I think if like Indiana played them, I think Indiana would try to wear him down that way and just basically make them work to dribble the ball up.

Detroit did some of that too.

But you'll get some of that with OG just like denying at various points.

Or sorry, I think in terms of more Tatum, like I think there's just so many ways that on both sides they can deny the stars and force you to go to your second option.

And for the Celtics, there's many avenues from that point.

For the Knicks, like you deny Jalen Brunson, you chase him full court, even if that's what they decide to do.

There should theoretically be many entry points for this offense.

Realistically, and in terms of the way these games play out, they just kind of wait for Jalen Brunson to get open, and sometimes he doesn't.

Yeah, that's not, if the Celtics are healthy, that's not going to work.

The question would be the fear for the Celtic fans is, how healthy are we?

What's going on with Drew Holiday?

Are they playing it super safe?

Or is this a guy who's in his mid-30s now who has a hamstring issue, and this is going to bug him the whole time?

How bad is Jalen's knee?

When's the next poor Zingas injury?

Like there's, you know,

getting the rest and not having to play a game six against Orlando, I think was pretty good.

If I'm a Knicks fan, I'm really concerned that it was that much of a slugfest knockdown, drag out, back and forth series with Detroit.

You know, and I know that we talked about them a bunch on your pod, on my pod.

Like we all respected Detroit.

The advanced metrics are very favorable.

They turned into be a good regular season season team, but they're so limited in a series like that.

Like the guys that they had versus the guys the Knicks had, I just don't feel like the series should have been this nail biter for six games.

And I don't think they should have been able to go in there and win a game five at MSG.

I don't think this game tonight should have come down to Brunson having to be like heroic.

Like the Knicks should just be better than that team.

So that's.

Yes.

And I think some of it is coach related, which we've talked about on all of our ringer pods.

Like, I just don't think Tibbs has a feel for this team.

This doesn't feel like a Thibodeau team, in my opinion.

I think all of that's true about the Knicks.

I just don't want to diminish the fact that the Pistons grabbed those games, like grabbed those wins and nearly grabbed this one.

And I think that that's a team that has a lot to be proud of in terms of the way they acclimated themselves to this series, to this dynamic.

You're right.

They don't have all of the options that the Knicks do.

They don't even have, I would say, you know, the highest end experienced playoff shot creation yet.

I thought Cade was really, really solid in this series overall.

But you can see a bit of a distance between him and Jalen Brunson, right?

You can see where Cade still has to go as a young creator, and that's really exciting.

And you can see, you know, what Asar Thompson can be.

You can see overall for a team that was missing

two crucial rotation players, right?

Isaiah Stewart barely played in this series.

Jaden Ivey did not play in this series.

Like, that's a huge deal.

And I think saps the pistons ultimately of their hopes of being more dynamic.

And then you get into a position where it's like, when

push comes to shove, like, I don't know, Tim Hardaway Jr., like Malik malik beasley these guys are your are your kind of security blankets tim hardaway didn't play in the finals last year he was on a team that made the finals and did not play and for good and fair reason and yet in this game it's like he's essential personnel because of who the pistons have on their roster and so that's the will gradually improve over time as they sort of like start to replace some of the archetypes of these supporting players and and and maybe replace them with you know jayden ivy coming back and having another great season you know like there's there's young talent ron holland who kind of got i would say kind of filtered out of the rotation by the end.

Maybe he starts to pop in a different way.

These are all different in terms of what they're bringing to the table, but I like where the Pistons are headed.

Kind of like a stealth Durant team.

I wouldn't say he was the favorite, but it's a really interesting one.

If you're going to try to figure out a Durant destination and the price gets a little lower, but you just kind of put him in the Tobias Harris spot.

I mean, they're not close to winning a title, but you think Tobias Harris for Kevin Durant's a pretty solid upgrade?

Well, I'm

with like about how many picks would have to be in this.

but if they're trying to get picks, I, you know, if I were the Pistons, I would probably try to do what some of these other teams in that position have done in years past is,

hey, it was great.

We got our playoff taste.

Let's try not to get crazy.

Let's do this again.

And then maybe two years from now, you know, they're probably hoping the story is already starting to come out about how the Celtics, this is kind of a last run with the roster they have and expect some trades.

You know, I'm not surprised that came out.

I'm not surprised people did the math and was like, yeah, this is probably not sustainable.

The timing of it was a little weird.

I was wondering why it became a story when it was, it's been a story all year for anybody who follows the self-texting capacity.

The roster is going to cost like 250 million extra if they like trade some salary.

I don't know who it's going to be.

So there's a little bit of this last dance run just with this specific group.

And it might just be one guy.

But I, I, I, Bob Ryan's coming on this pod later, and we're talking about like, just what a popular Celtics team this is with the, with the fans, like just a bunch of like dudes.

There's no like the one guy.

We're like, oh man, that guy drives me crazy.

It's like, it doesn't really exist.

So one last thing with Celtics Knicks.

Yeah.

You would think there would be all these great storied battles over the years and there just hasn't been.

You know, I was too young to remember when they played in the 70s.

I do remember the 84 series, which was Bernard versus Larry, which was just awesome.

Bernard basically beat this awesome Celtics team by himself for three games.

They beat them in 1990.

I think they played maybe in 2013.

Yeah, I want to say we got a, didn't we get a mellow tail end of, it was the tail end of the KG Pierce era.

Yeah.

But for two teams that have been in the NBA since it began.

That's pretty crazy.

It's fucking nuts that they have no playout because like, oh, what a rivalry.

It's like, this really isn't a rivalry, but this, this is probably the closest the two teams have been

from a talent standpoint, I would say.

Maybe 84.

I thought the Celtics were way more talented, but Bernard was maybe the second best player in the league that year.

So that this, it'll be fun to see it.

I think it's going to be a really hard ticket to get in New York.

Sure.

There'll be some energy behind it.

And from an ESPN standpoint, they lost the Lakers.

But they get

we just moved right to the Knicks, right?

We move right to Knicks content.

What happens?

I don't know what they do.

You don't think Clippers and Nuggets are moving the needle in that way?

I don't.

Well, they'll probably, they'll get five more days of LeBron.

Yeah.

I'm fully expecting from somebody from the Lakers, LeBron is open to re-signing, but wants to make sure Luca is committed to being shaped next year.

I'm waiting for that story.

I'm on pins and needles.

Just sneak that one out.

Yeah.

I am waiting for the Austin Reeves.

If they have to trade Austin Reeves to get a big guy, you know, you saw what happened with Rudy Gobert.

We got to do it.

I'm waiting for that one.

Maybe it'll be trading for Rudy Gobert.

Who knows?

You just laid out like four different news cycles.

I think we're good through June, to be honest with you.

We're good at least through round two with all the site.

I forgot the will LeBron retire or not.

We're going to get that one.

He might, he might not.

Now he's thinking about it.

Now he might.

It'll just, he'll be in the news over and over again.

Or we'll get the, will LeBron accept a minimum salary to go play for a contender?

That'll be two days.

So yeah, ESPN will be fine for

probably another two weeks because what they're not going to do is talk about can OKC go 16-0 in the playoffs?

Sure.

Well, and meanwhile, here on the ringer, here's another segment about the Boston Celtics.

You know, we all have counterpoints.

It's a great point.

But out of all these four series,

what's the best one?

Like, we don't know who's coming out of OKC Denver.

It's probably Gold State, Minnesota, right?

If that's, if that becomes the series, just from a star power intrigue standpoint.

I mean, that would be a juicy one.

I honestly, like, this is maybe an unpopular pick, but I'm actually really excited about Cavs Pacers.

I think that's going to be a really fun, really competitive series.

Are you with me on don't count the pacers out for a massive upset corner or no?

I'm basically always on don't count the pacers out corner.

So, yeah, I think that has to be taken into account, but I like there has not been a bigger buzzsaw in these playoffs than the Cavs in the first round.

So I'm eager to see what they get against better competition.

Of course, I'm eager to see what OKC's got when they have to play someone who's actually going to put up some resistance.

So

honestly, it's been a pretty fun, if a little bit turbulent, of a first round.

Second round is going to have some real juice to it, though.

Indiana's plus 4-10 in that series.

And

for the series spread,

yeah, Cleveland, Cleveland will win in

a sweep one

4-1 or 4-2.

That's minus 188.

I think the Pacers are going to hang in this series.

I've been saying it for weeks.

I really think they have,

I think they're really hard to play.

And I think they really know who they are and they have an identity and they're going to be dangerous.

Can I get, I know you already got your Minnesota Lakers thoughts out.

Can I just tell you how weird it was to go to that game last night?

To experience Rudy Gobert in person, who was awesome.

Certainly the best game he's ever had.

But just to watch the Lakers

not try to solve the problem,

this is like a, we win, if we lose this game, we go home.

Yeah.

And they're just getting annihilated on the boards.

And they were just like, even the guys on the court, like they weren't playing a center, but it's, you know, Luca, Luca, it seemed like Luca was 100% healthy, but Rui and LeBron is basically if they weren't getting rebounds, guess what?

Nobody else is getting a rebound.

Yeah.

And they're 15 feet from the basket.

It was one of the weirdest games I've ever been to.

I've never seen a team in a must-win situation just let the same thing happen over and over and over again.

Well, there was the refusal on J.J.

Reddick's part to put, say, Jackson Hayes, whatever big you would prefer on their roster back in the game.

Put the corpse of Alex Lennon in there.

At least like he's taking up space.

I'm not going to advocate for putting any of those guys in in particular.

I'm just saying he refused to do it.

And yeah, the fact that the players on the court, specifically the forwards, were just like not putting a body on anybody, including Rudy Gobert, but really anybody at all, just standing there as rebounds came down.

Like both of those things can't be true.

Like one of the sides has to budge.

Either you put in bigger players or the kind of bigger wings you have have to rebound.

But this is trouble to game two.

They were scrambling and gang rebounding and really being wary of it.

In this game, they weren't.

I thought that when Maxie Kleber came in, I was with my friend Chen.

First of all, I honestly didn't know he was on the team.

I didn't know like he was dressed for games.

And he came in and I was like, is that

Jackson Kleber?

Kleba?

And then he came off the medical table, cleared to play.

And they're like, yeah, okay, here you go.

Here's five minutes.

See if you can get away from it.

You can knock down the corner.

Minnesota was like, that's great.

You knock yourself out over there.

We were just like, wow.

And he was out there in the second half of the game.

Very, very strange.

Obviously going back to that Mark Williams trade, not going through, but I don't know.

It makes a difference.

I just feel like that's a bad matchup for them all the way around.

Mark Williams thought he made a difference.

I don't know if you saw him rashing against the action, which I appreciate, but I don't think he's changing that game.

I don't think anybody on their roster, if they had subbed in Alex Lenn or subbed in Jackson Hayes, I don't think it's materially changing the fact that Rudy Gobert was putting just about everybody who would get close to him in the rim, and nobody would really get close to him by maybe the third quarter at best.

Well, it was also like such a massive rollover because Minnesota should have won that game by 35 points.

They couldn't make a three.

Yeah.

All the threes were wide open, all of them.

And guys weren't like scrambling.

They weren't like, you know, road.

It was just, it was such a weird one.

And then the way JJ acted

in that 48-hour stretch, it's like, wow, that feels like he's unraveling.

I thought the whole thing, now you go into this offseason, it's like LeBron's going to be now officially in his 40s.

Yeah.

You know,

really, the only move is Reeves.

That was weird.

But for Minnesota,

Minnesota Golden State, Minnesota probably has

the punchers' chance against OKC because of the Edwards piece and the defense.

But

I'm still on Clippers have the best chance to beat OKC Island, and they're probably going to lose game seven.

It's weird like that.

I think the trouble with Minnesota, too, and I'm a believer in the Wolves.

How could you not be after the display they just put on?

Julius Randle played Unreal.

Rudy Gobert obviously showed up in the way he did, and Ant has just been developing as a playmaker right before our eyes.

There's also some stuff happening on the periphery.

You mentioned the three-point shooting where like Nikhil Alexander Walker, Loki cannot hit a shot.

Dante DiFincenzo cannot hit a shot.

He was awful yesterday.

Yeah.

Like that stuff, it either will come home to roost all playoffs long or it's going to swing back hard the other way.

And I think that's the question if you're picking the Wolves as one of the definitive best teams left in the bracket is, are you betting on those guys to hit?

And I think it's realistic given both of their pedigrees to say that they will, but there's a lot riding on them.

And Jaden McDaniels also, we should say, being dared to shoot yet again.

And he will be again, just by nature of the way that team is built.

And he's going to have to knock down some shots in addition to everything else he's doing.

Yeah.

The one thing I feel like with Minnesota is when McDaniels is good, they feel almost unbeatable.

Yeah.

And he's finding more ways to be good.

Like he's finding more ways to leverage his size to get inside, to make plays for other people.

It's been an awesome Jaden McDaniels.

Yesterday

they hung him on a foul with a minute into the game.

Yeah.

I was like, okay, here we go.

Then he had a second foul.

I was like, all right.

Good job.

You got him out of the game.

He had 40 of the 50 fouls that you mentioned.

They were calling him on hand checks, which is so funny.

Like, if he had played in the game, he would have loved playing in the game.

I just went to.

He would have been clubbing people.

I think the last point I'll make on Minnesota, driving home, I was listening to Gobert being interviewed, and he was, they asked him, like, hey, Edwards was 0 for 10, 0 for 11.

What did you think of his game?

Because he still had an impact on the game.

And he was like, I don't care if he was 0 for 60.

He made all the right plays.

And that's all we want him to do: he made the right decisions.

The ball didn't go in, but he was still making the right decisions.

I thought that was a really good point because I thought last year in the Dallas series, when he got a little discombobulated, then he stopped making the right plays.

I always felt like he was doing the right thing or had the right idea most of the time yesterday.

He just couldn't make a shot.

And that, I think, is the difference to him last year and this year.

I think there was a stretch of maybe three or four possessions where he he settled on threes consecutively when the Wolves really needed baskets.

And it was like, he's rocking a little bit off the axis here, but then he stabilized, then they stabilized, then he's, you know, he's getting Julius Randle involved.

He's making this crucial setup to Mike Conley in the corner for a game-securing basket.

And also, there's also the thing where it's like, when your game plan is so clearly to work the offensive glass like hell, the shots he was taking are not necessarily bad shots.

Like sometimes his role is to force things so that he doesn't have to call Rudy Gobert up for a high screen so Gobert can stay low and get those rebounds.

Like, there's some trade-offs involved in that, obviously.

And you would love, you know, when he gets Luca, an injured Luca one-on-one, to see him blow by him.

But the Lakers were doing kind of soft doubles all night.

They were trying to throw things at him to throw him off balance.

And I thought,

I thought he mostly aced every test.

Some occasional blips, but really, really impressive stuff from Ant.

Yeah, when you think he's

not even in his mid-20s yet, it's pretty good well a lot of good uh a lot of good setups plus we got a game seven rob so group chats going right after like sunday morning right right after the game i assume on saturday we'll see we'll get it up as soon as we can

i'm excited to hear it rob mahoney thanks for uh thanks for popping on appreciate it thanks bill all right joanne robinson is here from the ringer we uh we were like basically married to white lotus for eight weeks together eight weeks yeah me you and mallory then we did a couple re-watchables we did can't Hardly Wait.

We had our first fight.

A lot of good stuff happened.

Right.

And then, and then divorce, I guess.

Yeah, it was like a trial separation.

Yeah.

So last year was rough for us with television because we had the writer's strike.

They were moving stuff to 2025.

And this year has been a pretty great run, especially for like the ringer and for our pods, where we had like white lotus and severance and a bunch of different things.

Now we're in Last of Us.

We have this John Ham show.

We have the studio.

We have, we found out, I don't know if this is common knowledge or not, but the bear is going to be mid-June now.

So there's shit's going down.

What's the biggest TV storyline of 2025 to you?

The biggest TV storyline of 2025, I think, is that

the good IP is actually delivering.

Because I know you didn't mention Andor, and I'm not going to try to make you talk about Star Wars on this podcast, but Andor is firing on all cylinders, the Star Wars show.

Yeah.

And

The Last of Us is incredible.

And so I think, and Severance delivered on its second season.

So I think all the ways in which we're used to watching this stuff drop off in second seasons after like a big first season hasn't really been the case this year so far.

And that's been really exciting to know.

Well, it also feels like the whole infrastructure of an episode happens.

We talk about it.

We go backwards.

We go forward to the next one.

What's going to happen?

Oh, new episode.

This happened.

Yeah.

It still feels, I was really worried the binge binge model was going to ruin it and i think it has ruined it in some cases it has like your friends and neighbors could easily just you could have put those all up at once and just had me binge them but for the most part that week to week structure still works i know for us with white lotus like we got so much content out of it it was great it's apple and hbo and fx are really like holding it down on the week to week front in that way and paramount as well um But yeah, and the binge model, I say this all the time, but yeah, if White Lotus had been a binge drop or if your friends and neighbors, the show that you texted me the other day was making you giddy was a binge drop, then we wouldn't get to talk about it for as long as we do and didn't dig into it as deeply as we do.

The bear is still a binge drop.

That's always confusing to me.

I don't know why that's not a week-to-week.

And Andor, once again, to come back to this, but Andor is dropping on three episode chunks every week.

So it's going to be over in two weeks.

And that's wild to me for our 12-episode season.

So

it's mixed bag, but I do think that people are finding more and more that if you want your show to

really take root in the conversation with something like White Lotus, when we're all watching together, when we're speculating together, that's the way you really permeate pop culture and the larger conversation

without even the help of IP, White Lotus being sort of like an original concept from Mike White.

Well, so there's three versions of these shows, right?

The first version is like what we went through with White Lotus, what you're doing now, Last of Us.

You watch it, you probably watch it a second time, you prepare all your thoughts and takes, and you really got to dive in.

Then you wait for the next week, try to anticipate.

That's one.

The second version of that is probably the same thing, except maybe you don't need to watch it twice, three times.

Like for me, Landman was like that, where I really looked forward to it every week and knew what it was.

Then there's that third version that's a real sweet spot this day and age, which I think your friends and neighbors fit into.

Okay, tell me about it.

Tell me why this is a third.

This is not

this is deeper than Landman for you.

What is it?

No, no, no.

Landman was good at this too.

I don't have to completely pay attention the entire time.

Okay.

I can kind of do something else.

Somebody might call, I missed five minutes.

I'm probably not missing that much.

It's a show that knows what it is.

I like hanging out for an hour.

I wouldn't watch it twice.

Probably would never watch the season again.

I like, I'm enjoying the hang.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like this new version, like a hang show.

You know what I mean?

A good hang show.

I love to know that you're somewhat second screening it.

I think what's so telling about your friends and neighbors is like we are covering it on the Prestige TV feed, but we're probably only going to drop like 30-minute episodes about it because there isn't like, we're not going to go deep into the metaphors of your friends and neighbors.

It doesn't have that mean on the bone, but it is fun to talk about.

There are great performances in there.

It's fun to look at.

And it's fun to think about it.

It's a real like throwback show.

We've been comparing it to stuff like weeds, you know, or breaking bad and stuff like that.

And And so it's this, it feels like a really vintage kind of show dropping surprisingly in 2025.

Apple's doing all kinds of surprising things.

The studio is really, really hitting for me as well.

Well, I want to talk about the studio, but that, yeah, you're right.

Your Friends and Neighbors was probably like a 2012 Showtime show.

Yeah, exactly.

It was definitely a Showtime show.

Like packaged with the affair.

It's like the affair at nine o'clock and then your friends and neighbors at 10.

Telecommunication sort of

era.

Yeah.

It's got the model of a lot of those type of shows where Ham is the star.

It's then you have like the second star who's like, oh, I've always liked them.

In this case, Amanda Pete.

It's like, oh, great to see her again.

Yeah.

I'm glad she's still in stuff.

But for the most part, not, it's a cast of, you know, that guy's and that ladies and people are like, I know I know this person, but from where I can't even remember.

A huge roster of side characters.

I did have a question for you about your friends and neighbors.

I was curious about when we were talking about it as this kind of throwback show, I was remembering that when shows like Homeland or The Good Wife came out, there was all this conversation about the teen characters and how annoying people found the teen characters.

How do you think, what do you think about the kids on this show on Your Friends and Neighbors?

It's so funny you asked this.

I just was talking to somebody about this who works in TV and

who had kids around the same age as my kids.

And we're just like, it's just amazing how TV gets this wrong.

Because you would figure some of the people that write or run shows have teenage kids or just had them or are in the middle of having them.

And they're,

I, they just don't get it.

They're all kind of that like anytime you have like a female daughter, like a 15-year-old daughter character, they're always like super snarky and angry.

They, they have no other dimensions other than that.

The boys are always like crazy awkward.

And that's just kind of what they've decided all the teen characters at all these shows should be.

And I don't really fully understand it.

What do you think they should be like?

More people that I could see.

Like, you know, I judge it by the kids that pass through my house, right?

Yeah.

Like my son, I'll just have four people over randomly.

And I'm like, hey, what's happening?

You know, or the same thing when my daughter was living with us in high school.

And I don't know.

They're just kids.

I think teens are way more interesting than we see on TV.

And maybe they don't know how to write it.

I mean, I really miss when, as you and I both enjoy, I miss when teens were played by 30-year-olds like on 90210 or the OC.

Now they're casting actual teenagers.

And it highlights even more how they're getting it wrong.

Because when they cast 30-year-olds, we're all like, we know we're not watching actual teenagers, we're watching like an invented fantasy version of a teenager.

But when you cast an actual teen, I'm like, this doesn't bear any resemblance to any teen I know in real life.

Does any show get it right?

Is anyone getting it right?

Well, the funniest is Landman, because I think the lady who plays the teenager is like 29 in real life.

She's also in 1923 in a completely different role.

But

no one's getting it right.

You guys

are the college girls.

I feel like the youngest, the youngest son on White Lotus,

I thought Lockheed was a pretty interesting character that had some dimensions.

Now he's probably, he was heading to college, right?

He was like a senior.

Yeah, it's like 19.

Yeah, 18, 19.

Well, we were talking about when we did Can't Hardly Wait, like how many of those archetypes they either got wrong or there was way more there or stuff they missed.

I just think Hollywood's always had issues with this.

Yeah, it's true.

Well, I'm glad that, I'm glad to know that you think that Locky, a character who gave his own brother a hand job on the White Lotus, spoilers White Lotus, isn't an accurate depiction.

Yeah, but just like a sense of like, I think when, you know, it really depends on the year, but kids are, when they're 15, they're trying to be 17, right?

Yeah.

When they're 17, they can kind of see 19 and 20 in college and they want to be adults, but they're not there yet and it's super awkward.

And then when they're 19, which is another age that's in these shows a lot, that's when they become irrational confidence adults, like my daughter now, who thinks she knows everything.

And, you know, she's like, I know, I dad, I know.

And it's like, you don't know anything.

But it's just, it's weird.

They can never nail it.

And I think a big part of it is they have tried to zag and cast the people that are more age-appropriate.

And then you're heading into a whole other thing where you don't know if you're getting good actors or not.

Yeah, that's true.

My favorite thing that TV writers now and probably always have done is, yeah, they did they did this with like Dylan on 902 and oh is they give the teen characters their own the pop culture interests of their generation you know so like if you watch euphoria and all those kids go to a Halloween costume party and they're all like dressed as you know Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet or you know like just pop culture references that are not of their time no matter how much teens are like obsessed with the 90s right now it's just clear that the writers room are like this is what we think is cool and the way we code our coolest characters is to give them interest in pop culture from the past.

And that's, those are the cool characters on your show, like Dylan, et cetera.

And I just think, I just think that's really funny.

They're not over trying.

The Homeland Daughter was really when

that's the fork in the road for how we did this.

But I mean, your friends and neighbors, the best thing is it's basically a John Hamm show.

And if you like John Hamm, you're going to like the show.

And I like John Hamm and I support all John Hamm projects.

But this is like, john ham just cook you're you're gonna you you ran out of all your money your wife's sleeping with this other guy you're paying you're paying alimony to her you just got fired for no reason

just start stealing from people you know i i love a heist personally i have a question for you um as you know i'm covering this with with rob mahoney on the prestige feed uh nba um you know expert what do you think of the of the basketball player on this show i have some questions i have some thoughts.

There was a pretty strange party basketball scene they had in one of the episodes that I was like, well, this will never ever in a million years happen.

But

I do think some of the dynamics they have are pretty fun about the country club dynamics, the paying, paying some sort of private coach.

How much should we spend?

Do we need to get another guy?

We've got to get our daughter into college to play this sport.

Like some of that's pretty good.

And then the dynamics of when you have this big extended circle of friends, which I'm certainly have had different versions of that as I get older.

Yeah.

One divorce or separation can be such like a catalyst for conversation, whether they're in the room or not, for people, how do you bring it up or not?

How do you talk about it?

Do you take sides?

So they've hit some pretty good stuff.

But this to me is like a typical Apple show.

It's like the morning show.

It's just these kind of fun shows that you have to watch kind of one episode of and you get it.

Yeah, I was thinking about Bad Monkey, similar, like in that vein, and that it's like it's such a showcase for Vince Vaughan and then everything else that's happening around him.

But like, if you love Vince Vaughn, you're going to love Bad Monkey.

And if you love John Hamm, you're going to love your friends and neighbors.

And that's kind of the Apple model, right?

The person to put in the square picture with the title of the show, and you always know who it is, right?

It's like, oh, Vince Vaughn.

Okay, what's he up to?

And sometimes it doesn't work where it's like, Billy Crystal.

He's a psychiatrist and he looks sad.

I don't, I'm going to stay away.

I don't, no thanks.

But yeah, but then like you, I mean, yeah, the studio is writing a lot on, you know, do you like Seth Rogan?

Here's the studio.

But I think the studio has much, much more on its mind to say about the world it's existing in.

Are you, I, you and Sean and I talked about the studio early the season.

How are you enjoying as you now that you've seen more?

Yeah, we did the prestige.

We did the first, like, think, I think three.

And

I think we were all really interested in it.

You guys liked it a little more than I did.

I thought the energy was definitely a choice.

And they've kept that energy every episode.

It's really interesting.

It's

you know, to me, it's like the rehearsal or some of these other things where people decide creatively, we're going for it.

And you're either going to be for the ride or you're against it.

And they have a lot to say about the studio system, why things are made, why choices are made.

They're trying to.

satirize and parody everybody at the expense of where sometimes you watch and you're like, oh, come on, that wouldn't happen.

But I don't think they care.

Right.

So it's a fun hang.

I think it seems like the younger generation, like Craig Korobeck loves it.

Yeah.

Right.

So for, there's a certain generation that isn't familiar with the player and some of the other times that people have made shows like this.

So for the first time, they're seeing a show like this.

And they're like,

do you feel like, oh, you don't even know the player?

You don't know, you don't know what you're doing.

Yeah, like Larry Sanders or a lot of these.

It's dipping and pulling from a lot of things I've already seen.

So I kind of know, like, I'm not, I don't find it that surprising, but I'm still glad that exists.

So, what do you think?

What's been your take through seven episodes?

I love it.

And there's been moments that I've been really surprised by.

Like, I think the biggest moment that surprised me was, it's not an episode that I loved overall, but the fact that they got Olivia Munn, I'm sorry, Olivia Wilde, I'm Olivia Munn's, obviously, on your friends and neighbors.

Olivia Wilde to sort of parody herself

after having been under such scrutiny for her work as a director.

I thought that was pretty interesting that they had that conversation with her and was like, Look, it'll be great for everyone.

You'll show that you have a sense of humor about yourself, and we'll just go ahead and do it.

I think, I think that's always really fun when you can imagine the conversations that they had with the person who's playing themselves and say, Look, everyone's going to really love that you did this, that you, that you know, that you let them know that you know what they're all talking about, uh, and and you showed an even more extreme version of it on screen.

Um, and that's been the blueprint for all of these things where they were always able to get good cameos that are smartly thought out where it's like, here's this public perception of you.

We're going to twist this a certain way and try to use this.

So, and this will be a win for you.

And then usually it is.

Ron Howard man

works.

But the rest.

And

I think it's really interesting to think about.

To your point about like the rehearsal or the studio,

I complain all the time.

All of us who cover TV complain all the time that there's too much television.

and there is there are tons of shows that go unwatched unnoticed by people.

But the advantage of having so much television is that people will studios will green light something that seems really niche or really odd or really experimental like the rehearsal and just say go for it.

We have the space, we have the time, we have we think we have the money.

Now they're realizing they don't have all the money in the world, but we think we have the money to try this.

Let's try it.

And when it hits, it's extraordinary that something like the rehearsal exists, you know, and you don't get that in the sort of TV landscape that you and I grew up in.

That's a great point.

Well, I feel like,

you know, I think about the

studio and what's missing for me because I've watched every episode.

I look forward to it.

I don't always love it, but I'm glad it exists.

Yeah.

I don't like Seth Rogen's character.

I'm not rooting for him.

Yeah.

I like how he's drawn out.

Like, I get it.

Like, I totally get the character, but you're making him the hero of a show, but he's not a hero, which I think is the point.

But it's like,

so I'm seven episodes in, it's like, am I rooting for this guy to flame out or figure out, like, oh, I can actually use my powers to save Hollywood?

And maybe the show hasn't figured that out, but we're on this journey with him.

And I don't know what the journey is, and I'm not sure what my role is.

Am I rooting for him or against him?

I don't know if the show's figured it out.

It's funny to hear you describe that because I am rooting for him, but I hear what you're saying.

And that he's a doofus, he's a, he's like a fuck up, like all this sort of stuff like that.

So, um,

but that's the exact same journey I'm on with your friends and neighbors where I'm watching John Hamm's character, Coop, and I'm like, am I supposed to like this guy?

Am I supposed to be rooting for him?

I don't mind the crime.

I don't mind the B ⁇ E.

I love a heist, but like, he seems like he was a

bad husband and a bad dad and, you know, like kind of a callous dude.

Am I supposed to be wanting him to succeed or wanting him to get busted?

What am I, what am I looking for inside of this show?

And that doesn't like, it doesn't have to be someone,

a character doesn't have to be someone I'm rooting for.

They just have to be someone I'm interested in.

You know what I mean?

And so like, if you're interested in what Seth Rogan is doing in the studio, for me, that can carry me beyond whether or not I want him to succeed or not.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, I know what you mean.

I think.

It's weird.

Both shows, even though I think the studio probably put a little more thought into everything it's trying to do than your friends and neighbors, but I think both of them are trying to say something that's not about the main star, right?

The studio is

pretty obviously trying to make all of these points about this is why we all complain about Hollywood all the time.

This is the thought process.

These are the people that are responsible for the choices of the shows and movies that make you mad when you don't understand why there's not more good stuff.

This is why you're seeing all of it right now.

So I get that.

These are the people who don't know how to write teenagers on your favorite TV shows.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Your friends and neighbors, I think, is way less interested in the John Hamm piece and more interested in this whole culture of wealthy people,

their relationship with one another, their possessions, and the fact that they have stuff and they don't even realize stuff's gone when they're just collecting things.

They don't even know what it is.

They have a basketball court.

They don't use it.

They want their daughter to play tennis because it'll get her into college and it'll be a good thing for them, not for the daughter.

And so it's, it's, it's hitting this like, why are the choices that all these wealthy people are making?

What's the point of them?

That I actually think is a really interesting concept.

Well, I think it's interesting to watch your friends and neighbors right off the heels of White Lotus, which is also a show that tries to

look at rich people and, hey, man, they also have problems.

They're not happy, even though they're surrounded by all this luxury.

But I think it's.

Except for Greg Gary, he didn't have problems.

He figured it out.

He has a great house and he knows what he likes sexually.

He's good.

But I think both those shows are trying to have it both way, both ways where they're critiquing that class of person while also

inviting you to luxuriate in this world and just have this sort of escapist fantasy that you too can have a watch that costs this much money or, you know, a swimming pool that looks like this or a catered birthday party that looks like that.

You know, like that.

Or a shelve of watches.

Yes.

Just like, here are all my luxury watches one by one.

Do you have a watch shelf, Bill?

I'm definitely 100% no.

Um, I don't know, man.

Is there, is there anything on your friends and neighbors that you saw that you're like, Yeah, I should, I should do that.

That's something I should do.

I mean, when they went to the guy's little private basketball court, I was like, Oh, that's that's pretty impressive.

A little indoor court out of nowhere.

Uh, the some of the uh, the

part they maybe don't hit hard enough especially with older parents is how drunk people get i think they've gotten in a little bit but it's definitely something you see when when people have like the kids go to college and it's just like the couple left like people getting like hammered uh

it's like this whole that's what i've never seen in these shows in the right way where it's like whoa

They can't even walk and they're 54.

The more you talk about this, Bill, the more I want you to make this show.

I want you to make the show.

Yeah, I want you to make the show where you get the teenage characters right and show what the empty, the like, the well-to-do empty nesters do once their kids are.

It doesn't even have to be well-to-do.

I think it's everybody.

If you're building like your whole life around work and your kids, and then the kids just go, some people just like that.

First of all, you better really like who you're married to, which I'm fortunate enough.

I really enjoyed my wife's company still, but you better really like whoever you're married to.

Yeah.

And you better be prepared for like, guess what?

There's going to be a moment when your kids don't really want to hang out with you and they're just going to leave and they're going to go and it's just going to be you guys.

And some people are like,

that's how it goes.

All right.

Wait, can we talk about Last of Us?

Sure.

What do you want to say?

I don't watch that show.

I know you don't.

I know.

Are you having any FOMO given that The Last of Us and Andor is are dominating at least a lot of the conversations we're having at the ringer?

Is that something like, do you, does it bum bum you out to not be watching these shows or how do you feel?

I don't, I think I'm going to watch Last of Us at some point.

Really?

Yeah.

I do.

And then, by the way, I watched the first five episodes.

Yeah.

I just wasn't, for me, those bleak end of the world type things, like you really kind of have to be in the mood and the, and, you know, post

post-COVID, I wasn't really that interested to explore the end of the world, but maybe I'll get there in the late 2020s.

I don't know.

Um, and or is something like that's one where I think you really have to buy into the Star Wars universe, and I think it becomes more meaningful, right?

I just couldn't step into Andor unless I had some background, right?

To a certain degree, but I think you know, when you listen to Chris and Andy talk about it on the watch, you know, uh, they have been so disillusioned with Star Wars.

Uh, they might have grown up on Star Wars, but they've been so disillusioned with like what's going on in that

world.

And what Tony Gilroy is doing with Andor is just like making a really complex show about politics and spycraft and all this other stuff.

And with like this barely visible veneer of Star Wars on top of it.

So I actually think you could watch and enjoy it.

Interesting.

I should just watch the first one and see what I think.

Yeah, yeah, see what you think.

I mean, the problem is I'm just on.

these terrible channels like Tubi and Pluto and just like, oh, Deathwish is on.

And I'm just watching some movie from 50 years ago.

Do you pull up Pluto because it is comforting to see the old like grid of what's happening?

I love the grid.

Yeah, I love the grid.

I still have cable too.

Same thing.

I'll zip through the movie channels and

just what's on.

Yeah.

The Tubi main screens, great.

I like what Amazon will get frisky sometimes with like 90s classics or 2000s movies you haven't seen.

I like, yeah, I like having my hand held.

So you're happy with The Last of Us.

I know you're covering it all over the place.

Yeah.

I mean, can we spoil the big thing that has happened this season that everyone already knows about?

I feel like at this point, everybody knows, right?

How would you hide from that one?

Yeah.

Right.

So they kill off the main character.

So Peter Pascal is not on the show anymore.

Looking at it from the outside in,

like, what is, are you, do you have any reactions to that?

Yeah, I was, I was startled.

Yeah.

Because they did one of those things that we've gotten used to during the social media era of

huge surprise, you know, and you see those moments on The Last of Us.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So, you know, something happened, but then it just was persistent.

And then the next day, of course, it's on like Apple News on my phone, like, why Pedro Pascal left The Last of Us.

And they stayed true to the video game.

And so obviously, even me, who doesn't, didn't watch the show, knew that he wasn't on.

So, but so it stayed true to the video game, right?

Or no?

Yeah, that happens in the, there's, the, there was like a first edition of the video game and then a sequel to the video game.

And in the sequel, they kill off that character right at the beginning of the game.

So they killed him off.

And we were all wondering if they would string it along just to keep their star, the Peter Pascal, on the show a little longer, but they killed him in the second episode of the season.

But I was just curious if

that kind of move is something that makes you want to watch the show more.

If you're like, oh, they're doing something as bold as that.

That's interesting.

I kind of want to check that kind of storytelling out.

Or if you're like, because we've heard

well, there's been this interesting,

there's been a reaction of if Pedro Pascal is not on on the show, I don't want to watch this show anymore.

And

I have to say, I got a little

like bored with that because I've just heard it before.

And those people don't ever wind up quitting the shows.

I've just heard it for too often that people are like, I'm quitting.

I'm never going to watch this show again.

We heard on Game of Thrones every other season.

People would say that in reaction to something.

And then more and more people watched it every season.

The Dad was the best example of that.

The first couple of years when it was really a water cooler show, and they would kill off a couple of people and and be like,

What?

How

I'm now, I'm quitting.

I'm never coming back.

And then they always do.

So I'm just like, It's not, I can't.

What's the number one?

What's the number one?

I can't believe they killed that off, that person off characters.

It's got to be the guy in Game of Thrones, right?

Sean Bean,

Sean Bean, yeah, that just like that.

They did that, and everyone who read the books knew it was coming.

But for somebody like me, it was like,

I thought that was the star of the show.

It was like, wait, what?

How do you do that?

Given your allergy to genre storytelling, Bill, how did you wind up watching Game of Thrones in its very first season?

Because it wasn't.

I didn't watch it very, I didn't.

I came in late.

Okay.

And

a couple people in, it was the then Grantland Universe

just hammering me.

But it got to the point where it was clearly such a great show and such a phenomenon.

that it was like, if I like TV, how do I not watch this?

It was one of those.

Yeah.

And I'm trying to decide which, like, between The Last of Us and Andor, which one I want to sort of

steer me toward.

Yeah, bug you about for the next five years to see if I can get you to watch it.

Probably.

My biggest hole, my worst one that I'm, your worst one is Sopranos.

Clearly.

My worst one is probably Six Feet Under.

I've never seen it.

Yeah, I've never watched it.

That is wild to me not.

That's terrible.

It's a bad job at me.

No, it's just such a Bill show.

I know.

It's like a show you literally like.

can't explain it okay that's okay we all have those things yeah that's one that i know i have in my back pocket i never watched the shield

which has enraged a couple people in my life but now i feel like that's probably too dated no i mean and then uh and the leftovers is the other one that i that's amiss for me yeah but i like the leftovers isn't a bill show but like shield and 6100's in it though Well, yeah, Carrie's in it, but you can see her in other things, right?

I know, but I feel like I have to support the Carrie-Coon franchise.

I was watching, I was watching flipping channels.

An Eagle Eye was on with Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan.

Michelle Monaghan, yeah.

Much younger because it came out 20 years ago.

And I was like, wow,

there's our girl.

She's back.

I still feel like attachments to all the

characters.

Although it seems like our guy Walton Goggins is kind of unraveling a little bit.

I have a lot of questions, Bill, and no answers for you.

Just only people go on White Lotus and weird shit happens after.

They lose their marbles.

It's a lot.

I don't know.

We support Walton Goggins always on this podcast and all podcasts but i just have some questions about what's happening i do have some intel i don't think they're going cold in season four what

yeah i tried to warn you with this i don't think mike white likes cold okay cold do you know where we're going I don't know where we're going and I don't think they know where they're going, but I don't think it's going to be cold.

Somewhere sunny.

Okay.

You're not going to get the Swiss

Swiss Alps.

We're not getting Aspen.

We're not getting anything with snow, I don't think.

What's the next show this year that you're excited about?

What's coming up that you bear?

The bear.

Yeah.

And how do you

know the bear?

I can't.

So here's the thing with the bear.

I can't do more than two.

I think that's how you have to treat it.

And I think people who binge, who try to watch like five in one night, that's not the show.

You can't do it.

You're doing the show a disservice.

That's not how it was meant to be.

written, perceived, consumed, anything.

But would you do two over the course of a week, like Monday through Friday, every night we're watching two, or do you do two and space it out a couple days and two more?

So I'm saying I would watch two in a row.

Right, but I'm saying like Monday night, two episodes, Tuesday night, the next two episodes, Wednesday night, sort of like that.

Or the problem with binge shows like that, though, is you don't want to be too far behind what everyone's talking about in case you get spoiled or something like that.

You know, if I was in charge of FX, I would run one on Sunday night and run and one on Wednesday night.

And I would do a Sunday, Wednesday staggered schedule so people could talk about each one, but then the next one's coming.

And that's, I just think that would work better.

I told you why they started binge, like the bears, a binge watch, right?

It was to ignite Hulu, wasn't it?

No, well, I was told that it was because John Landgraf thought it was like too bleak and that people wouldn't stick with it if it were week to week.

So I understand why they dropped the first season as a binge, but once they saw what a hit it was, I will never understand why they keep dropping it as a binge.

I think it's just because they think people expect it at this point.

But I don't know why you wouldn't just reverse course and own the summer with the bear, which you could easily do.

So

I could tell you this, it would have been great for Grantland and it would have been great for the ringer and it would have been great for any content

Cook Del ever be involved with.

Yeah, think of the content.

On the watch,

a great podcast on your network.

Chris and Andy interviewed Tony Gilroy about Andor and he was talking about the released schedule and he was saying, dropping three episodes a week.

He's like, I kind of like it.

It's like a little movie every week.

Right.

You know, so people can watch it.

He was like, I do worry about the podcasters.

And he sounded actually genuine.

He was like, it's a lot for the podcasters to try to cover.

And I was like, thanks, Tony Gilroy, for thinking about us.

Well, Stranger Things was the other one that just doesn't care.

And that's coming too, I think, this summer, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think like midsummer, July, something like that.

Yeah.

The one I'm the most excited about, and God knows it'll ever, when it'll ever finish, and it probably won't won't be 25, is

when they figure out euphoria, especially if they do the moving the characters forward by five years gimmick, which it sounds like they did.

Yeah.

I just, I've always wanted somebody to do that.

I think, what, did like Dawson's Creek do that or some Wintry Hill, one of those shows,

advanced the characters got old and they just said fuck it and moved everybody forward.

Yeah, that sounds like a Wantry Hill move.

Dawson's never did that.

We had to suffer through all the years of college.

Well, at the,

the finale, the finale of Dawson's, they did a time hump.

Well, the best time hump of all time is Mallory's favorite moment in the history of television, which was the end of the affair with old Dominic West

with the old age makeup.

She's never been more delighted about anything that's ever happened.

I genuinely think you two think the affair is one of the greatest things that's ever happened on television.

It's one of our bonds.

The first season, I would stand by the the lore of everything behind the show, behind the scenes of the show.

Yeah.

That just became, that would be the greatest oral history, no pun intended, I think,

that's ever been written about a TV show.

I still don't really know what happened.

Euphoria would be a pretty good one, too.

But I love that Mallory's not here and you're just sort of like filling in for her.

I appreciate you.

I'm just

taking some of her takes.

I know she's

what show are you the most excited about in 25 that hasn't come out yet?

Well, we got another throne show coming up, a night of the Seven Kingdoms.

We just don't know when it's coming.

We thought it was coming after The Last of Us, but they haven't even announced a date yet.

So I don't know when that's going to happen.

But I'm really, really excited for that one to podcast about it with Mallory and Chris.

I think is going to be really fun.

So that one should be good.

There is a there's a new show from the creator of Mary Beast Town.

That's going to kill.

Yeah, that's going to be a really good one, I think.

So,

you know,

there's, there's a lot to to think about in terms of what we want from television going forward because television is radically changing in terms of how they're making it and what exactly they're making.

And so I think, you know, the more that people can make it clear in terms of conversation or engaging, what actually hits and what they're not actually watching.

I mean, your friends and neighbors, you're saying you're watching like 80% of it.

Is that what you said to me?

Something like that?

Yeah, I wish they were some way to keep like how they have aurings and apple watches.

Wait, where your eyeballs go during a TV show?

It's like, is it like a 72%?

I'm looking at the TV during it.

Yeah.

Is it an 80%?

Are we at 30?

Where are we?

So that's a hang show for you.

That's just sort of like a background watching show for you.

But with White Lotus, you were, you were sat and you were taking notes and you were ready for it.

In 1923, which I really, really, really enjoyed.

Yeah.

And is a big show for me and my wife.

I think we, there's very few shows we equally like, like the same percentage.

And that White Lotus was another one, but 1923 seems like it's a hang show, but you actually like are, you're popping your head up a lot on that one.

It's a lot going on.

And I thought the actors were really good on this season.

I thought the wife character who

is trying to get back with her husband.

Oh, yeah.

That guy's

great.

She was excellent.

I thought she was an excellent actress.

She's great.

What do you think of the rumors that the guy who plays her husband, Brendan Sleener, that he might be Batman?

What do you think of that rumor?

Would you like it?

Interesting.

I know he has some Sidney Sweeney movie coming, right?

Like, he and he has he's in a movie with the lady from White Lotus that I think already might have come out.

The girl from season two.

Um, that one I think already came out, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, I think they're trying to make him a thing.

Him is Batman, though.

I don't know.

I mean, the one thing with him is I do feel like he's winning fights on 1923.

It's like, don't fuck with it.

Like, he has that kind of

energy to him that I i think works he threw that one guy overboard like you know so i i mean i i think that would be really interesting oh one two other shows we didn't mention before we go paradise was totally watchable i thought that was probably a 72 on maybe a 67 on my eyeball scale yeah definitely could like could like go on ebay and look for stuff and just pop up and then i didn't watch it i'm going to but the pit i think was the unexpected surprise hit of the year right yeah but the pit is not

a

paradise background watchable.

No, you're locked into the pit.

Yeah.

It.

Yeah.

I think the pit is definitely,

I think and or just for what I like is the number one show of the year for me.

Yeah.

And it's just operating on a different level altogether.

But the pit, in terms of similar to your friends and neighbors, it feels like a show from a different era.

We feel like we're just watching ER and elevated ER.

And

that's great.

Elevated ER is a great idea.

I would have bought that one in the room.

Oh, we're doing Elevated ER.

Done.

The best part about the PIT, not just that it ran longer than your normal HBO show runs.

So you're just like really with the characters week to week for a while, but it's coming back at the top of next year.

Like we don't have to wait three years for another season.

They're bringing it back at the same time next year.

And so, you know, that's how we used to watch television.

But yeah, the pit is, I mean, absolutely killer.

I can't wait for you to watch the pit.

I can't wait to hear your picture.

Yeah, I'll be banging.

Once we get through NBA playoffs, when we hit like

mid-June, I'm just, that's it.

I will be all caught up on all TV by probably mid, mid-late July.

So what I'm hearing, though, is that you want to podcast about Euphoria season three with me.

That's what, that's what our plan is for.

Am I?

I think I'm too old to be on that podcast.

But no, we're, we're, well, first of all, I don't want to jinx it because God only knows with all the people involved in that show if we ever get to the end of a season three filming, but they are filming it.

Yeah.

So that's a win.

I believe.

I just want to see.

The one I'd want to do with you is

like the five-year anniversary of The Idol.

Oh.

Diving back in and trying to figure out exactly what happened.

Is that my punishment for not having seen The Sopranos?

You're going to make me watch The Idol five years later.

What happened?

I actually don't feel like enough's been made out of them postponing the biggest phenomenon show that they had since basically a non-Game of Thrones, like just an absolute phenomenon that's peaking on TikTok.

And instead of doing season three, the guy's like, can I do this other idea first?

And then it just becomes this two and a half year shit show, however long it took.

Yeah.

And then it was so bad they had to basically combine episodes to get out of the season.

Like, what are the odds?

That was a brush fire.

That was terrible.

That was.

It couldn't have been worse.

Yeah.

Okay.

Five years later, The Idol, what happened?

What happened and why?

A deep dive.

Yeah, coming back.

All right, so you can hear Joanna on House of R with Mallory,

as well as Prestige TV podcast, which was a feed.

We were basically like, we were holding on to the side of the cliff, hoping for good shows.

And then, boom, we're having a really good year.

There's a lot going on.

Yeah.

All right.

Good to see you, Joanna.

Good to see you.

Thanks, Krimno.

Thanks.

This episode is brought to you by Michelo Boltra.

Cracking open a cold one on a hot summer day is one of the best feelings, but it's even better when it feels like you earned it, like in a friendly little competition.

It's always better when there's something worth playing for.

And Michelob Ultra, a superior light beer, is a pretty great prize.

Hmm.

I would, I mean, I would be all tennis for Miklob Ultra's because that's what I do all summer because

tennis is an actual sport, unlike pickleball.

So, tennis, doubles, singles, whatever.

Let's play for an ultra.

Fill your fridge with Michelo Beltra this summer at DoorDash.com.

Enjoy responsibly copyright 2025.

Anheuser-Busch, Michelo Boltra Light Beer, St.

Louis, Missouri.

This episode is brought to you by Workday.

There are two kinds of people in the world: backward thinkers and forward thinkers.

Forward thinkers have plans 15 minutes from now and 15 years from now.

They're not just one step ahead, they're 1,000 steps ahead.

And when you're a forward thinker, you need a platform that thinks like you do.

Workday's AI illuminates decision-making and reimagines how you manage your people and money for long-term success.

Workday, moving business forever forward.

Find out more at workday.com.

We are taping this.

It is Thursday morning.

There's so many storylines in play, big picture, that I had to bring the guy who's seen it all, Bob Ryan, who is the best ever at comparing Claire's different eras.

He's seen everything.

What guy do you want to start with?

Because I really want your big picture context on some of this stuff.

You want to go Anthony Edwards, age 23, taking it to the Lakers, taking down Durant last year, taking down Luke and LeBron this year.

What do you see with him?

Interesting.

There was a point in the middle of the season when I,

in fact, I don't even know if Twitter had turned to X yet, but I either tweeted or X'd that he's got some Michael Jordan in him.

And then next thing you know, I saw that somebody of, you know, in real consequence saying the same thing, made me feel very good.

He does have Michael Jordan in him.

There's Michael Jordan-esque qualities in his game.

Same size, body type, range of skill,

swagger.

He's got swagger, God knows.

And, you know, we took, he got everyone's attention last year in the World Games, though we lost.

He was the best player on the team.

And that was news to a lot of us that he would be the best player on that team.

And he's built on that.

And he's a growth stock.

My God, you know, they've got something very special there.

So yeah, he's gotten my attention.

Wait, hold on.

Can I say on Edwards?

So World Games was two years ago, and then last year was the big playoff run.

Olympics.

No, I'm just getting the chronology right.

When he's just there, but that's where he got my first, first got my, now I was aware of him in Georgia, and I knew people that thought he was very talented, but there was something missing.

But whatever was missing, doesn't, he appears to have found it well you think last year versus this year last year was the whoa Anthony Edwards he's here I can't believe it I didn't realize he was whoa there's a little Michael Jordan here this year even though he sucked in the he sucked in the closeout game last night he couldn't make a three but um Rudy Gobert said something interesting after that I agreed with because I went to the game he made all the right plays like he wasn't making the threes but they were the right threes to take he they kept sending these doubles staggered doubles at him he usually was making the right decisions.

And the truth is, if they had made some threes, they would have won by 30.

But I'm with you.

Like, I didn't go to the famous game.

I know you did, the 63-point game that MJ had.

And I hate comparing anyone to MJ.

He's the best player I've ever seen.

But there are pieces, and it's undeniable when you see it in person, where you're like, ah, that kind of.

Just the way he's carrying himself, the way he's easily going by people, the way he easily seems like he's the best athlete in this game, it does bring back some memories.

I got to be honest.

It's fair.

Bill, it's always

fair to

say, guys, remind you of great players and this qualities about them without going overboard and saying that they are that guy or

is better than that guy.

I mean, absolutely.

And then he did people,

there's types.

We all know that.

There's all kinds of types.

There's guys that remind you of the, and then there are certain people that I don't,

they stand apart.

And I always say that one of the things that the truly great players have something special that

is uniquely theirs.

There's something about their style.

Maybe it's a quirk of some kind.

But, you know, and they don't have to be the top of the line player, but I'm talking about just a Hall of Fame level excellent player could be very special.

in a way that nobody else reminds you of him.

For example, and you'll like this, I think.

I'm not saying he's the greatest player or the greatest guard of all time, right like that, but I've never seen another Dennis Johnson.

There's something about his package.

That's the word we want to use.

The packaging.

His package was

special and different

and worked for him.

And I haven't seen anybody that reminds me.

I've never seen anybody reminds me of him.

And yet there were plenty of other great players that somebody would, you know, reminds you of them.

Yeah, Dennis Johnson's a good one because he had size.

He could kind of jump, but he would pick his spots.

We got him with the Celtics.

It was like a slightly different part of his career because he was so good on Seattle and they, you know, was a big part of those two finals teams.

But

the way he would pick his spots, the only person that kind of reminds me of him is Drew

with the way Drew has gears during the season and then gears in games.

And then in a fourth quarter, he can elevate a level where he goes from being a role player to being, you could really feel it in the Celtics Orlando series, where it's just like,

I feel like Drew, and sometimes I feel like he's the second most important guy in the Celtics for the late game stuff.

He's always in the right spots, can always count him, get the right rebound.

I always feel like he's going to make a three.

He can guard anybody in the other team.

And that part reminds me of DJ, I think.

But I think you're right.

DJ was a one-on-one.

But of course, part of that is when we knew him and we knew, we saw him night in and night out and understood the

overall approach that he took, which was that he didn't play 100%

all the time.

He took nights off.

And at least in 85, 86, he's absolutely positively, but he pre-announced them to the team, to Danny specifically.

I love this.

Danny, tonight you're getting the shots.

And he always picked a team that they were going to kick their ass at home.

It wasn't a game, the way the game was going to be won.

And

you can see, I've got the logging game by game.

And oh, minutes played 28, FGA, 4.

You know, Danny, Minutes played, you know,

FGA 17

because

DJ was taking the night off.

And yet the converse is

when the big games came, you wanted that guy.

And Larry Bird would be the first one to tell you.

And

as he famously anointed him as the best player he ever played with and

never backed down from that.

Right.

Well, you know, another 101, this is a fun combo.

Just because I always think about this stuff and you're one of the fit.

I probably learned it from you.

I've never seen anyone rebound like Moses.

Like Moses at his peak.

I've never seen anybody, whatever he was doing, I remember writing about in my book where he would go, he'd almost go to the baseline, almost out of bounds, and then he would just back into people.

And I've never seen anyone do that before or since.

Like he would just use his ass as this like weapon.

And all of a sudden, guys were flying backwards and he was right next to the rim.

I've just never seen it.

No, he was special

in that regard.

But

to me, the number one rule of rebounding, do you want the damn ball or don't you?

And

he wanted every rebound.

I mean, and there's two types of

statistically good rebounders.

There's guys that get what comes to them, and they're big and they're strong or they're athletic.

And there's guys that get rebounds that, quote, don't belong to them, unquote.

And Moses was the champion of getting rebounds that didn't belong to him.

And that's what he lived for.

Rebounding was his raison, was his identity.

And I know that mattered, that was the part of the game that mattered the most to him.

There wasn't any question about that.

He was an okay offensive player.

He didn't have a great repertoire.

You know, he had a big man post, you know,

power stuff, but he wasn't a finesse, any way, shape, or form, a finesse offensive player.

But he sure was a phenomenal rebounder.

Yeah, that's what I love, though.

Game four of the Golden State Series, Draymond made that big stop, and then Butler came flying in.

for this crazy rebound in traffic.

And he's just like, I'm getting this rebound.

That was, I went to the Laker game last night and they're just getting killed on the boards and everybody's just kind of looking around at each other like, I don't know, are you good?

But nobody was like, shit, I better get some rebounds.

You know, like, I think about 2010, game seven, Gasal was, you know, really taking it to KG, but Kobe, because he wasn't making shots, and Kobe's like, I'm just going to have to go get, try to get as many rebounds as I can and came flying in.

And that's what swung that game.

Nobody in the Lakers did that last night.

Everybody was like, ah, Rudy Gobert, I wish we had a center.

And you could watch them rolling over in real time.

It was kind of crazy.

Interesting.

Yeah, well, I think the whole thing, they,

I'm guessing I wasn't a nervous indigenous person as you did, but the Lakers, I guess, recognized the futility of their circumstance some point during the middle of this series

inherently.

And I mean, you know, and they just weren't, they didn't have a deep enough roster.

They could, you're lucky they had two guys, let alone three.

And anyway, we all know you saw it.

And, you know, so now we'll see what that offseason brings um all right more guys now and and where you see them what who is brunson to you brunson almost seems like he's at a 1974 like he could have been easily on the on the knicks with walt frasier yeah very very true you could um brunson's one of those guys that you could easily see playing in in a 1968 all-star game as well as playing today uh there's i i had two guys in a previous generation that i said were complete throwbacks games that they were in combinations of the 1950s, the combination of Dauph Shays in the 21st century.

Paul Pierce and Manu Ginobly, those two guys had old games

spiced up with a three-pointer.

You know, they added the little extra sauce, which was the three-pointer.

But other than that, their game could have translated very well in previous generations.

Brunson, he just, he makes,

he shows you what you have to do if you're going to excel at his size.

And he's figured out, you know, angles, he's figured out deception timing, and he's strong.

He's strong.

He can take a bump and keep the shot when he goes to hoop.

And he just, he's got a basketball mind, a PhD.

You know, he's a player's son and this coach's son who really had obviously absorbed all the lessons.

And he's got, and people talk about the flopping.

It doesn't even bother me at all.

I think he's just smart.

That's all.

I don't mind it with him.

I buy it with some people over the years, but it doesn't bother me at all with him.

You go, guy.

I love him.

I just think

he's a special.

And here's the thing, Bill.

When they got him, I always had my eye on him back to Villanova.

And now, of course, I didn't see him play much in Dallas, you know,

but I knew he was there.

But when they got him, I said, oh, that's the good move, very good move.

But they've overpaid.

He's not a star.

He's a wonderful auxiliary player.

That's what I thought.

Oh, boy, as he turned out to be worth every every penny for them yes do you make anything

do you make anything of the fact that only one team built around a small guy in the history of the league has ever won a title

yes i think it's i think it's a good historical lesson in fact i've had this discussion and uh this year uh with people about uh you go back over the history of the nba and uh i i'm only can think of one in my time anyway.

And I'm thinking about what I know about the 50s and koozy never won until he got russell and and and so uh and he was the preeminent guy and then and the other guys the other little guards of his near near him were seder martin and he did win he had mic and yeah and bobby davies and they won one in 51.

but anyway Isaiah Thomas arguably was the best player on the bed, Boy Pistons, and they won back to back and could have won three in a row because they were jobbed in 88 on a terrible call.

Don't get me started.

Lambert.

You know, when they put put lamber they put karim on the line and that was a terrible call but anyway isaia i think we're on the same page here only exit only stockton everyone you know um chris paul uh

nah nash no you know so it's hard it's hard when your best player is a point guard and and the next best player is a point guard.

And so

we'll see how far they can go not just this year, but in the future,

with their best player being Jalen Brunson.

Yeah, because there was a great book about the Pistons in the late 80s, how they put together that title team with McCloskey called the franchise.

And it was all about them with this conundrum of the league had been around for four decades at that point.

Isaiah was their best player as one of the best players in the league, but nobody had ever won with a small guy.

So what do you have to do?

And basically the answer was Isaiah had to give up a lot of his offense, lead the team.

he could have had 30 a game.

Instead, he scored like 22 a game, 23, whatever it was.

And he was trying to get everyone else involved.

And sometimes I wonder, like when I watch Brunson, how much he has the ball, if he's not, like, are they better off with him scoring seven less points a game, you know?

That issue was raised earlier in this series, in at least in the New York Post anyway.

I didn't read, I read that every day and I didn't see it.

And they raised that issue that

he's got to be less ball dominant for this team.

And the next came out, he was.

And

in fact, so yeah, that's a very, it's a fine line.

It's like so many things in basketball.

That's why I love the among the reasons I love the game, I love, but the

what goes into winning, you know, and

the need to calibrate guys' skills.

That's what I always said about

Jordan and the difference.

When Jordan, people think

he didn't win a championship.

Yeah, he needed to win a championship when he finally got Scotty Pippen as a tremendous sidekick.

But until he learned how to calibrate his skills with the other guys and not, you know, and balance it out and know when to take over, when not to take over, know who to go to, when not.

I mean, it's all very, very important stuff.

You just don't throw together talent.

You've got to play the game in a quote unquote right way.

And that's a universal truth.

And

you got to figure out how I'm going to blend with the other guys.

There's one ball and five guys and right i know i mean uh

mr pete currill used to talk about that bradley grew up thinking that way and and you gotta you gotta be able to think that way burn understood that and and god knows magic understood that and michael didn't originally do even though it came out of north carolina and dean but he finally figured it out and once he did the championship started to flow how about luko

first of all is he one-on-one and second do you think he'll ever understand that balance of i have to to make everybody else better?

Maybe I don't need to score 35 a game.

Where does he, where do you see for him from a title standpoint?

First of all, before we get to that, I was thinking that I know one person sitting back having an extra

late tidy night last year was Nico Harrison.

He must have been smiling as the Lakers out the window.

Anyway,

yeah, Luca, interesting there because

he does have the ball, you know, all the time.

And

it's hard.

I think he's still, he's still only 25.

He's still got lessons he can learn.

And I think he's smart enough to feel, we recognize

that he's got to think in these terms that we're talking about.

But

the Lakers still, unfortunately for them,

their roster is shy.

And Neil and Allen, who knows where they go from here with LeBron.

aiming and we played 40 years 41 years old in December of this year.

Is he going going to play again and blah, blah, blah?

No, Luke is interesting, you know, in that regard.

He's so skilled, but that's the thing that when you have all that skill, you have to learn how to utilize it properly.

There's no question, you know.

And

some nights it seems like that he does, and other nights he's got the ball too much.

So I don't think he's fully gotten there yet.

Yeah, I wonder.

I'm sure they're going to be talking all summer.

Is he going to get in shape?

How seriously he's going to take this?

Yeah.

There's the whole defense thing, too, with him.

And I wondered, my big question about the series before they started was will people, will the other guys be able to take advantage?

You know, how much can you exploit him on defense?

You know, and

it happened.

And that's something that the Lakers have to be, you know, realistic about.

Yeah, the Lakers' case hinged on can Luca not get torched on defense?

Can we get any rebounds?

And how much can we ask from LeBron?

And as the series went along, LeBron started to die, especially in these fourth quarters.

So you said he's going to be 41 next year during the playoffs.

I think that's right.

Yeah.

December 30th is his birthday.

So I know that.

Yeah.

So Havilchek.

Havilch played 16 years

and it seemed like 40 when Havelchek was like, oh my God, somebody played 16 years in the NBA.

This is impossible.

But then probably could have played a couple years more.

Like you were going to.

By the way, I've got a column in the hopper.

It's either going to come out Sunday or the week after.

They didn't tell me which one they want to run.

It's on Havelchek, by the way, for reasons that you'll see.

And you'll like.

But I know you will like it.

But John did not quit because he couldn't play anymore.

His game had diminished, sure.

To me, he averaged 16 points a game that year,

but he could still play.

And

he said he would have hung around if he had any idea how good Bird was going to be,

and he would have hung around.

Anyway, no, John played 16 years.

He was ended at 38, went out with a 29-point game, and he quit because he didn't like the circumstance anymore.

He wasn't having fun with the way that the Celtics had deteriorated in the locker room, quite frankly.

And it was a down period.

And

so, anyway, but he still had skill.

He went out.

He went out to being able to play.

But he was 38

that year.

He ended.

In fact, he ended

the day,

his last game was a the day after his 38th birthday, by the way.

And that just so happened.

He had turned 38 the day.

He was born April 8th, 1940, and his last game was April 9, 1978.

Wow.

Yeah, because there was always stories about how he would come and just play with them and scrimmages and stuff when like three, four years later and was still pretty good.

And they couldn't believe how good he was, these guys, these young guys, you know, that this.

Yeah, that was his birthday present to himself to come to practice and suit up.

That was fun.

Well, so, I mean, this is the question with LeBron because we saw it with Brady, where he just kept playing and, you know, in the 2017, 18 range, and they had Garoppolo, and it's like, how long can this go?

They need a succession plan.

Quarterbacks don't play this long.

And then he just kept going and going and going.

Like, I do feel like there can be generational freaks.

I really wonder how long LeBron can go.

I think he could still keep playing, but if he's going to be making $50 million a year as one of your two expensive guys,

that's where it becomes problematic, right?

Because you're just asking like you're asking for

nine months a year, potentially, if you're going to win the finals from this guy that you need to rely on for all these different things because he's in your $50 million spot.

And that's where I don't know what the, it almost seems like the answer might be maybe he needs to take less and try to boost up the team and think about it that way.

But I don't know if he would do that.

I don't know.

That's obviously would be a very

rational solution that,

you know, we know along the way, supposedly Brady was able to do that in his time

with the contracts.

And it's always wonderful.

And, you know,

with the money that we're talking about, these people make it shouldn't be that hard a decision if you really want to win.

You know, that you don't have to.

But somebody make it off the court, too, right?

Like, they can still make up money all these different ways.

But the issue about whether how long he's occasionally he's has he not

at times over the years or recent years when somebody would kiddingly say about playing the year 45 not dismiss the possibility that he would keep want to keep playing until he's 45 uh you know i mean if you deteriorate i used to look at wait i i remember thinking about brady this way if you were to deteriorate take a percentage five ten percent you know with how much would you still like to have him and the answer was always i'll still take him if the five deteriorates 10 next year okay yeah um that's still a pretty good player uh based on what he was able to produce this year, right?

And so

you know that he certainly could still play in this game.

He is in phenomenal shape.

We learned that he spends literally a million dollars a year on conditioning

and more.

Yeah.

And

we see the benefit of it.

And we've never been, we've had old guys.

We've got, they've always been.

The two oldest guys I can think of that played long this long were Kevin Willison and Robert Parrish, who still holds the record for most games, which I guess LeBron is eventually going to eclipse.

But

then

the old washed up Kareem, I think, got to 42, didn't he?

Wasn't he like 41 or 42?

But those guys got into their 42 and 3 range,

particularly Pottish.

LeBron,

but

they weren't doing the work.

you know, the up and down work that LeBron does.

They were doing the down low work.

But anyway, we haven't seen anything like this, what I'm babbling is say, we haven't seen anything like this before.

Anybody that could play the game, the way he plays it at this time, at this level,

at this age, we haven't seen that before.

He's, he's, you know, it's a whole new territory that we're exploring.

Yeah, I voted for him second team on NBA and I stand by it.

Right?

It's just that he was one of the, I mean, there were a lot of injuries, but

Jason Tatum, what do you see when you see him?

Who do you see pieces of with Jason Tatum?

Jason Tatum at six feet 10

is

the most all-around skilled player the Celtics have ever had at 6 feet 10.

You know, Larry didn't possess that kind of ball handling ability.

Larry didn't possess that kind of get your own shot at your will against almost anybody at any time.

You know, most people, but there were people, you know, we know that could give him, irritate him.

This guy,

it's funny because he's like Pierce on steroids because, you know, I declared 20 years ago that Paul Pierce was the best scoring machine in Celtic history.

You know, not the best player, still Larry, but the best scoring machine, that he had every aspect of scoring, you know, and though they say now all three levels, right?

Well, the fact is that

his mid-range gains were superb and he can get a shot off anytime he wanted.

And he could, and he had a three-point range, and he's the best, Bill, I think he's the best finisher on a break the Celtics have ever had, was Paul Pierce.

And

he had that, and don't foul him because he's an 80-plus 80-plus percent way up there, mid-80s percent Homer free throw shooter.

This is the best all-round consummate individual offensive player that they've ever had.

Jason Tatum is making a bid for this honor.

And as a matter of fact, I'm sure a lot of people now think he's already earned it.

And it's funny you mentioned, not funny, but I'm glad you mentioned this because I've already been on local public record as saying he just came off yet another yawn, routine 35-point X rebound, ecstasy game in a playoff, and it's not getting enough credit for it here in Boston.

He's not

this is part of the curse of the history of the franchise.

He's up against

the Havicheks and the Larrys and the Piercers.

That's what happens when you come to Boston.

And there's good in that and there's bad in that, you know.

And this guy is,

I hope he's going to be totally appreciated for what he's done and how much he's improved this game and then broadened his game.

Last year, the big thing I took away from the playoffs with him was improved defensive rebounding, traffic rebounding.

I thought he became a terrific traffic rebounder last year, which to the likes I hadn't seen before, we know he's broadened his passing game, you know, and

then his individual offense.

I mean, some of these step backs,

you know, of course, all over the league, we're getting used to it.

Curry has set a template, you know, for distance that you've got to match now.

And because I used to call it Curry land, now I call it Caitlin Clark land, but that's a story for another name.

But, you know, look at the shot that, how about the shot that Carl Anthony Towns made, that last jumper the other night?

Yeah, after we had the one, we were going out of bounds, which was a

that was a bird-like shot going out of bounds on this on the baseline, making that from almost behind the backboard.

The next shot, that was five feet behind the arc, minimal.

Yeah.

He's seven feet tall.

But Pierce has, I'm here, excuse me, Tatum has this ability to make step backs almost in that range.

And people, I think people here, I'm take him for granted.

I really do.

And I don't know what more they want out of him, frankly.

I agree with you.

I've been talking about it all year, and then people get mad at me that I'm talking about Tatum too much.

And I just feel like he's made such a leap from two years ago to last year, but then last year to this year, where there was, I thought Tatum and Brown last year were 1A, 1B in a lot of ways.

Brown was awesome last year.

And the distance between them, you know, was you never knew who was going to be the best guy in a given game.

Now Tatum is clearly the best guy in the team.

I think he's clearly either the third or fourth best guy in the league.

And you didn't even talk about like how good his defense is and his ability to guard all these different positions.

But the rebounding is the thing I love the most.

He's their best rebounder by far.

You take a game like that Minnesota Lakers game last night.

He just would have gone under there and battled Gobert and gotten like 14 rebounds because he's like, this is, we're going to lose unless I do this.

I think I appreciate that piece of it the most.

I just think he's turned into such a, I don't want to say bully, but there's, there's, there's a toughness to him this year.

There's a confidence.

I mean, he's a, I mean, obviously, he's, he's, he's smart and and and he's he's smart and uh confident but humble too.

He's, yeah, you know, there's nothing not to like with this in you know, the whole package.

I don't see anything.

There's no yeah, buts.

You know, I don't have a yeah, but and uh on him, and and we, and we know off the court his personal life with his wonderful kids, and you know, the whole thing is he's he's entirely rootable.

That's where I'm trying to spit out here.

Yeah, I think this year,

people will appreciate him more, I think, if this goes a couple more rounds.

I think he's gonna get

if they win, you know, if they don't win, you know, that there'll be all this.

And I get, don't get me, you know, I'm not a championship or bust guy, okay?

I've never have been and never will be because too many variables go into winning any championship, including in this, you know, game seven and things are going great and then somebody goes down.

It can happen.

And we know that.

So

I don't take anything for granted there.

I'll say this.

I'm going off teeth here a little bit.

If anybody other than OKC, Cleveland, or Boston wins, I'll be stunned.

One of those three is going to win.

You got to draw a line after those three teams in this league.

You have to.

And that's that.

And one of them is going to win.

And I don't know which one.

I'm anxious to see.

So I had the, and we're taping this for game six of Clippers Denver.

I had the Clippers in that conversation and just, I must have had amnesia with James Harden.

I just, I just, I think I just forgot.

I don't know.

Maybe I blocked it out of my mind or whatever.

And it's like, what am I doing?

Of course, of course, they're not making the finals with

James Harden.

I should have known.

Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back.

I want to talk about Jokic.

This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp.

There's a lot of misconceptions around mental health, especially if you're a guy, but you shouldn't be ashamed to seek help when you need it.

Trust me, everyone needs help sometimes.

A great way to get the support you need is BetterHelp.

They can match you with the right therapist in an easy, comfortable, judgment-free way.

We're all better with help.

Visit betterhelp.com slash Bill Simmons to get 10% off your first month.

That is betterhelp.com slash Bill Simmons.

This episode is brought to you by Verizon.

Rookie debuts, underdog stories, bold trades.

Talk about refreshing.

You know what else is refreshing?

A brand new phone with Verizon.

Get a new phone on any plan with select phone trade in and my plan and lock down a low price for three years.

It's a deal for everyone, whether you're a new or existing customer, swing by Verizon today.

Three-year price guarantee applies to then current base monthly rate only.

Additional terms and conditions apply for all offers.

All right, we're talking history, current NBA, got to talk Jokic.

I went to the game Saturday

when he just would not let them lose against the Clippers and basically played the whole game and just did everything and was a man absolutely possessed.

And it was,

you know, it was up there for me with LeBron in game six and 2012 and some of the Jordan stuff I'd seen in person.

Just when I'm thinking about the best players I've ever seen in person, this now moved, this moved him just being at that game and just being like, oh my, I can't believe how good this guy is.

Where do you put him?

I never thought we'd see another Bill Walton.

I never thought we'd see another bird.

And yet there's pieces of both of those guys and a lot of the stuff he's doing.

And he's also doing way more than that.

But when you watch him, like, did you ever think we'd see anything like this ever?

Let's go back early in his career here.

And I remember a local writer

out there

came and talked to me and asked about his passing.

And how did I think his passing rated with

Walton?

And I hadn't seen enough of him to have, I couldn't believe I was having this discussion that anyone would be so sacrilegious as to suggest that there was a center who would come along to pass anywhere near as well as Bill Walton.

And guess what?

He's it.

That was a fair, he is right.

I mean, he's there.

And

we can have the argument.

He's so.

And so that's the thing.

Not only is he as good a passer as Walton, but he's far superior scorer.

Oh, my God, you know,

not even even questioned.

And

so,

my position on centers, as you probably well know, I mean,

you start with the three all-timers, and whichever one you want to make the devil's advocate argument for, go right ahead, Russell, Kareem, and Wilt, you know.

And I could, you know, fine.

I mean, I'm a Russell guy, but I mean, I totally respect the other two for what they were.

And

then I said, that's then you draw a line.

Now we start with who's number four.

Well, now we got a guy firmly entrenched in

the discussion.

We'll see how it all plays out, how many championships he'll win or whatever it is.

But in terms of wanting to watch somebody play,

I'll tell you what, he's at the top of the list.

I mean, it's extraordinary.

You don't know what he's going to do next.

You don't know what incredible past he's going to conjure up.

You don't know

how many threes he's going to make.

You don't know what great rebound he's going to get.

No, he's a treasure.

I mean, my God,

it's a total delight to watch.

And he isn't,

you know, he's still got a long way to go, you know, depending on how long he wants to play.

We don't know.

We know he might want to go become a jockey, you know, a seven-foot jockey someday.

Who knows about that?

But anyway,

count me among the admirers, the idolaters of Nicola Djokic.

Yeah, Russell and I had talked about this a little on Sunday, that this whole theory that he's just going to retire when he's 34 and be done with it.

After going to that game on Saturday, I don't believe it.

The guy's too competitive.

You don't shut that off.

Like, he was an absolute full-fledged maniac in that game.

And just in general, like,

you know, there's pieces, like, obviously there's some Walton.

There's a lot of Bird.

One of the things that him on defense reminds me a lot.

Bird always had the

reputation of being not a good defensive player.

Meanwhile, he made all defenses and was always up there in steals.

But his ability, Jokic's ability to read what the other team's going to do on offense and know what they're doing in advance and then fuck it up basically before as they're doing it, jumping in these spots where they're like, oh, I didn't know somebody was going to be there.

He's just, his brain's always moving.

It's in person, it's unbelievable.

I never thought after Bird of Magic, I never thought I would see somebody that processed a game like that.

To me, that's the standard.

There's always a danger of...

allowing yourself to think that way.

I've done it myself.

I'm not going to, you're never going to see anything.

I mean, when Halichek retired, you know, I mean, of course, and we haven't seen, and we were talking earlier about styles and individualistic people and people that John, there hasn't been another Havelchek, but the point is in effectiveness, Bird comes along, you know, and there's John as the one A in self-pantheon now instead of one.

Yeah,

you got to prepare yourself for

the evolution of the game.

This guy.

uh is really

ultra special and you know the thing that made bird so special ultimately was the mind game and playing playing thinking two steps ahead and now we got a big guy taller than him that uh you know uh that can uh do

that as well no it's it's it's it's he he understands that the game the game uh in a way that uh so many other guys never never never will no no so you have

you have like there's that hakeem moses shack kind of area Right.

And maybe Giannis is like right underneath it.

And you already have Jokic in that area potentially looking at that spot right under Wilt and Kareem.

Oh, he's at a bridge right now.

You're kidding?

First of all, my number four is Hakeem.

Okay.

He's not number four.

Okay.

So, oh, so we're in between.

He's closer to the big three than he is to the four.

I mean, he's going to be in that.

He's going to have to be in that discussion.

You know, and Tim are going to Harkabon championships.

All right, Wilt won two, you know, and

the other guys won multiple.

And Russell, of of course, won 11, and Kareem won what, six, whatever, five or six.

She had four, Moses had one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, you know,

Moses, you know, wasn't pretty, but he was effective.

But anyway, Robert Parrish got three, by the way, because he got one with the Bulls, by the way, although he wasn't, you know, prominent.

Right.

Anyway,

anyway, I got him

in between.

We're at four.

He's at three and a half right now on his way up.

All right.

So we go.

we're your your whole premise that i loved we're playing the aliens and we can grab anybody

and yokage yokage bird and magic agree to come and now we need to find two more guys to put with those three where we're just like we're just going to have the aliens backpedaling not knowing what's happening just amazing passing who are the other two people playing with jokic bird and magic

Well, I still want Michael.

Okay.

And you know who I'll take now?

Because it gives me a weapon.

You know, Since I got magic, I got the ball handling.

I got the orchestration.

I got the fast break.

I got everything settled.

You know, who's to run it?

I got special qualities that he had.

Stefan Kerr.

Why not?

Wow.

See, but for the spaces.

The greatest shooter of all time.

You know, and I'm coming.

I mean, the greatest shooter of all time.

I don't need LeBron, you know, multi-skilled.

I don't need LeBron.

I'll bring him off the bench.

He could be my sixth man.

He won't like it.

He'd be an amazing sixth man.

What a wonderful sixth man that would be.

Why would we dismiss the greatest shooter of all time?

Who's a team guy?

Oh, by the way, who can also pass?

By the way, he's people.

He's not a point guard.

He's a two-guard who can pass, period.

He's not a point guard.

He doesn't think that's not his role.

But he can pass and will.

And by the way, the other thing is under how well he goes to the hoop with either hand,

you know, to set up things for himself and other people in the long run, Curry.

So Andrew, and I'm just, this is on the fly question that you ask, and I'm my friend, why not?

That with the guys you name,

he'd fit in perfectly.

If Maravich had a three-point line, are we talking about him in the 60s and 70s like we talk about Curry?

Yeah, well, remember, the league, the game came, the shot came in in his last year.

Yeah.

1979, 80.

When he joined the Celtics in the mid-season.

And he did make a three.

He did make.

He's a guy that scored 68 points in Madison Square Garden without a three, averaged 44 points a game.

And 44 people, young'ins, the guy averaged 44 points a game in three years of college basketball with LSU without a three.

And he had that.

You know, he would have done what so many of them who didn't would have done, go home and work on it.

And he would have gotten, you know, certain guys that occasionally took shots in that range when it was considered to be a bad shot.

And sometimes they went in you know uh he

he he would have worked on that shot he would but uh he made some threes i remember some games where he had effective threes for the selfix yeah yeah oh my god it's just because you know they've done these estimates you know which i've at lsu going over the game films and trying to project what his average would have been had

he made had well he has to have taken more of them though because if he knew there were three instead of two he's taken 20 a game it's like larry it's like larry people that anybody my god you imagine how we flourish today if you tell him oh you can take 10 or 12 a game you know larry would embarrassingly would take four or five because it was you know you know there and part of you know he famously didn't want the three didn't like it and well he's used them more as the weapon it was like a either to get the crowd going or to demoralize people yeah Yes, he did as a psychological weapon more often than not and saved the spots.

But he would have, hey, if you said, okay, if that's the game, I can play that game.

And he would have gone, he'd gotten better.

A lot of guys that can, you know, by the way, you know, who would have been ready-made for the game?

I can still see him

with Jerry Lucas.

Jerry Lucas was going threes before there were threes from at six

with that shot put thing he had.

You know, I can still see him with legs extended and he shot it from here, not here.

He shot it from here.

Anyway, Lucas would have been a phenomenal three-point shooter.

Stretch four, getting 15 rebounds a game, jerry lucas

and then computing his season's average in his head as he worked back down on defense famously computing his recomputing his shooting percentage as he would go back down on defense where do you put yannis in all of this

because he just got knocked out of the first round again

he's spectacular um he's yeah he's not you know now we were talking centers earlier but oh yeah i think the question now is going to be the rearrangement of the all-time 10 you know the all-time 10.

How can you not include him in any current discussion about all-time top 10 players?

I can't.

I can't ignore him.

I'm sometimes in awe of him.

I am a little annoyed that he has legalized not just a Euro step, but in his case, a Euro gallop.

And

it's,

you know, that's this whole thing, this whole traveling thing.

I used to laugh it off, but it is epidemic.

It is bad.

And the league doesn't seem to care about it.

And he's an exhibit A, you know,

and how devastating it is when he can do it because he can go from mid-court to basket, no more than two dribbles, you know, with ways that, oh, he's phenomenal, I think.

And

this whole issue with the buck, that's a whole, you know, that's worth

lots of discussion.

And listen, they gave up a lot of assets for Drew Holiday and then Dave Lillard.

And that's it.

I know.

And what could they possibly get?

And who could afford them?

And what can they possibly get back that would make it even remotely worthwhile?

Not that in my head, I don't have the scope of

the vision of or knowledge of all the team's individual circumstances to know who could possibly make anything remotely, a deal that the Milwaukee would ever want.

But they have to start thinking about it whether from here now.

Clearly, it's over.

And where's Doc going to go from here?

So I don't know whether that either.

Well, I'm hoping Doc comes back on my podcast.

Milwaukee has no first-round picks that they control of their own over the next five years, which makes the tanking a little bit harder.

I got one more guy for you.

SGA is another guy who feels like he easily could have existed in 1974,

right?

He's

a ton, he's a tremendous guard and he's tremendous.

And,

you know, he's,

I'm trying to think of, I can't think of,

you know, among all the great two guards,

doesn't he remind me of anybody?

No, I just see him as a wonderful all-around shooting guard, period.

But I love the idea, by the way, that that team has an all-Canadian backcourt.

Right.

And, you know, Dort's community, he's from Montreal, Deutsch.

And so I love that.

I'm still waiting for Canada to make a splash in the world and the Olympics sometime soon.

You know, I mean, but they choke every time.

Yeah, they fall apart at some point.

They don't, I know it.

They're massive underachievers, Canada.

But,

you know, we know.

Anyway,

oh, yeah,

I could see FGA, you know,

in the 1974 floor championship series.

You know, I can see him.

Yeah, oh, absolutely, positively.

Yeah, he's he's he's not so you have no

that I can come up with.

You have OKC still as the favorite, because Vegas would agree with you.

I think that, no, honest to God, I know it sounds parochial.

I'm sorry.

I still think that if everybody is fortunate enough to be healthy and able to bring their A game, that the Celtics

can win and will win if they're fortunate enough.

But right now, the variables there, starting with holiday, starting with Nen Brown, and will somebody mess around with Tatum's wrist?

And poor Zingas, you never know when he's going to take a misstep.

Never know.

You can't count on too many what-ifs there for me to be totally confident.

But I'm saying, if they show up in the finals healthy, you know, then, and I don't care how, and I want everybody to be healthy,

I still like their chances.

OK, she's interesting, though, there's no question about it.

And I'll tell you, who's, I'm, I've read about, you know, I was prepared for him, but having read about him before he ever set foot in college, but my God, Holmgren is good.

Holmgren's good.

He's a very, very useful player.

And Hartenstein, he's not a star, but he knows who he is, and he knows what his job is.

And he does it well.

And of course, then

the rest of the team, fine, and well coached, of course.

So, yeah, I like that.

And Cleveland, don't dismiss Cleveland, but again, right now, they're doing it without Garland, as well as speak.

And, you know, I think they would, they're not going to go all the way without their full compliment, but

you know, they're good.

It's salute nobody, defensive player of the year.

No,

they're good too.

But I still honestly believe that the Celtics

have more assets ultimately than anybody.

I still think if they're healthy.

Is this Celtics team, where is it creeping up on the popularity rankings in Boston?

It just seems like people love, you know, they have a real history now with Tademan Brown because those guys grew up on the team.

Porzingis is a cult hero.

Horford is among the most popular

role player plus guys they've ever had.

Holiday and White are impossible not to like.

Pritchard's a fan and favorite.

Yeah, it's just you go on and on.

It's like everybody loves everybody on this team.

I don't remember many teams like this on the Celtics.

And the vastly underrated Luke Cornette, who's been a nice adjunct to this team.

Okay, you're right.

Well, this is a new generation.

You know, this is their team.

This is

the Celtics have had, you know, four or five incarnations.

Well, you got the 50s, then you got the

50s and 60s team, that's one.

You got the Havoczek Cowan's team, that's two.

You got the big three team, that's three.

You got the second big three team, that's four.

This is the fifth Celtic incarnation, you know, of greatness and

a new fandom.

I see so many young people in the stands, you know, and it's terrific.

And

it is what a likable bunch.

You know, I mean,

it is.

It's It's just, there's no polarizing players.

Marcus Smart, who I loved, but acknowledged his foibles.

To me, he and Jackie Bradley Jr.

were like Siamese twins of sports.

Yeah.

Okay.

And, you know, I love Jackie Bradley Jr.

to the, you know, I don't care if he's 180, but

there's no polarized, who's a polarizing player?

Unless people want to manufacture something about, you know, like, oh, Brown, he dribbles in the traffic.

He still doesn't have a left hand.

All right.

You know,

That's as close as I can come

to any kind of

a negative.

You're right.

It's a beloved team and very well worth rooting for.

Yeah, and it's something that, I mean, I certainly grew up with where everybody stayed on the same teams.

And then in the last 15 years, that kind of got blown up and people move around more.

And you have something like Jokic in Denver, you have Curry and Golden State, or you have Brown and Tatum together in Boston with Horford.

And I do think it's more meaningful to the fan base and to the people at the games.

They have real history with these guys, you know.

And like, we tried to capture some of that in the Celtic City about these generations, how they overlap, and how people buy in, and people overlap with the stars from the previous generation.

And does this stuff actually exist?

And I do think those guys care about that.

I think Missoula cares about it.

You know, I think the organization cares about it.

That came across clearly.

Well, it sure came across clearly how Garnett and Pierce felt about it in their time.

How about Ray Allen?

Ray Allen was like, I'm a Celtic.

He only played five years.

He's like, I am a Celtic.

I consider myself a Celtic.

That did surprise me.

He was always kind of a little bit unscrutable as far as I'm concerned.

And

that was good to know.

Yeah, that was really good to know.

No, it's all true.

Oh, by the way, I'm going to give it, I can't leave you without filling out.

I've decided Peyton Peyton Pritchard is a cross between Larry Siegfried and Eddie House.

Wow.

I'm probably one of the only ones that's going to get that one.

What's the Larry Siegfried?

Well, he's the same rough size.

Yeah.

Close and

feisty, tough.

He's a scrapper.

Sigmund was, oh, I can look at Johnny most.

Siggy's in his shirt.

Siggy's in his shirt.

Well, I can see that Peyton's in his shirt.

He said, and he's good for one sneaky offensive rebound a night, right?

And

he's tough.

He's not just a three-point machine, he's a good basketball player.

And I love it when he takes himself inside and finds a way to get the shot off, you know.

And sometimes they block it.

Okay, fine.

But he can, I love him.

That's the secret.

And of course, you know, the Eddie House part is self-evident, you know, the

three-point.

But that's really the cross between

Eddie House.

Before we go, you were a big part of Celtic City.

So we did nine episodes.

We tried to cover 80 years of the team.

When you saw all of it laid out episode by episode,

what were you expecting?

And then how did you feel as you watched it?

Well, first of all,

you can't do everything, as you well know.

There are a couple of things I would have liked to have seen addressed at the time, maybe either more thoroughly or at all.

But I'm not remotely going to nitpick.

I thought it was a spectacular job.

I thought that they got the essence of it.

You've accomplished your mission.

That's what I thought.

I could say they've accomplished their mission.

And then tied it up with a wonderful bow with the 95-year-old Bob Koozi saying how much he wanted the 18th championship to keep the continuum that he could relate to and feel a part of going.

That was exactly what you were trying to portray, I think, and the spirit of that.

And oh, no, I thought it was terrific.

I'll tell you, it was a hard episode,

was eight.

It was eight, that was, you know,

five.

That was hard.

You know, they're lived when you live through it, you know.

And I'm sure a lot of us, I know how I felt watching it.

But, you know, it was real.

It's part of the deal.

You know,

those things happened.

And there was a down period.

And it was, you know, those things were just frightening, but it was just awful.

But Biason, who we didn't know, you know, I had seen, I was so excited about him because I happened to have stumbled.

I don't know what I was doing, Bill.

I have no idea why I was in Durham, North Carolina that particular evening, and why I was because I don't know what kind of feature or whatever I was doing.

I was there at Cameron News Stadium the night as a Maryland player, he dropped 40 on Duke.

He got my attention.

I could see you went to that game.

I was at the game when he got 40 at Duke.

Oh my god.

And then twice, twice, Mike Schaszewski has said to me that the greatest two opponents he ever faced in college were Michael Jordan and Lynn Bias.

And, you know, and I'm, and I know how excited Larry was.

Larry was going to come to Curly early and work with him and play with him.

And, you know, Larry was, Larry was up to on him.

He knew he knew he was really excited about it.

And to think all this happened in a flash in, you know, 36 hours and 40, it was just astonishing.

Yeah,

we tried to hit that.

I mean, that episode, not exactly a feel-good episode, but that 90s Boston, how dark it got.

Like the garden got knocked down, Bias and Reggie, the Red Sox.

If I said eight, I meant whichever one encompassed the burden.

Yeah, yeah, episode.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

But, oh, no, that, that group,

and, and I loved it.

Wick was, you got Wick there saying, Danny, how do you put together a big three?

You know, and, or, or, and, well, here's how you do it.

You know,

you take your fifth round,

your number five pick and trade it for Ray Allen.

And now you persuade Kevin or Garnett to come, and now you got a big three.

I'll tell you what I remember, though, about me, and I'm on record.

I mean, I can't deny it.

I printed it that when they put the big three together originally, that second big three, I said, yeah, well, guess what?

You need a lot more than that.

I wouldn't trade.

There's no team in the league would trade their next, their final other nine for the next Celtic nine, that they got the worst support.

Upon which they went out and got Eddie House, James Posey, and then ultimately, of course, PJ,

which was a great story about being recruited, literally being recruited by the big three or parts thereof.

And so I was, you know, I was a skeptic.

I didn't think it was going to be enough, but never dreamed it would just come together as quickly as it did.

Those guys were so ready to do it, you know, to to get it, to have a, they recognized what the possibility was and they were so ready to do it and and it was going to require the word sacrifice it's going to require a a a a balance of of skills that they're going to have to calibrate and i love that word calibrate their skills to get the most out of it but ultimately um there was no there's nobody like kevin guynette there's never that you can't he he's special in terms of the the you know the the approach that he was as good as all-around scale players pierce was and great shooter allen was You know, we all know that the ultimate key person on that whole thing that made it work was Kevin Guinette.

Yeah, the sad thing, you talked about earlier how you don't judge players by championships.

You look at KG like just this completely misused asset in Minnesota forever.

Like, gets drafted in 95.

We had to 2007.

He's won two playoff series.

And meanwhile, everybody's like, I think he might be the best player in the league.

Like, nobody even knew how to put him in context because he just had such bad luck.

His owner gets penalized for the Joe Smith signing, and they lose like three first-round picks in a low.

Like, like, Stephon Marbury just decides he wants to go to New Jersey, and that happens.

Like, it's just there's 30 different things that prevented him from ever succeeding in the NBA in the way he should have, which sometimes that's how it plays out.

I mean, I don't want to hold that against them unless I have a certain

you know, antipathy for somebody in a sense.

You know, I

like to hold it against them, but

if I don't care about them personally

and their game, then, you know, fine.

And it's like, you know, who I think I got tired of people dumping on because he's never won a championship and obviously never will.

Chris Paul, it's not his fault.

And once again, we get back to the little guy thing.

You know,

Chris Paul's great player, great point guard, a clear, a technically pure point guard, perfect guy, you know, in that job.

It's in the worthy Hall of Famer.

So I'm sorry, I don't judge him for not having won a championship anymore than I judge Stockton for not having won.

They could, I hold Carl Malone accountable, though.

I think they could have beaten the Bulls in 97 for sure and should have.

Mrs.

Freak goes, he's not a guy you want in a big moment.

I'm telling you, Carl Malone was not, was not, I think he's the most overrated great player, supposed great player in NBA history.

I do.

He's not on my list of top 10 forwards at all.

He's one of the main reasons I decided to write a basketball book because I didn't want people 50 years from now to be putting him in the top 10 because of his stats.

It's like we got to fix this.

Somebody's got to go on the record.

You'll love this.

I don't know.

There was a period of time when I carried in my wallet a little list of

10 forwards better than Carl Malone.

I swear to God,

it was such a topic for me.

And he's not a bad human being or anything like that.

You know, no, that's not it.

But I just,

all those thousands and hundreds of millions of points and and i i i'm sorry i didn't um he he wasn't a guy you want you i'm going your other guy like that was elvin hays

oh

who ends up winning the title but he's wasn't he like benched in the fourth quarter when they actually won the title i forget the story yeah he was in a game seven he went out of the game for whatever reason and mitch kupchak came in and made the big play of the game and his that he wouldn't have been in the game if if uh if elvin hadn't come out so they wouldn't have won if Elvin hadn't been watching from the bench.

Yeah, that's for sure.

And I loved it.

I'll tell you what, I relished.

1975,

when the

Warriors swept them, and the rookie

Keith Wilkes, 6'6, 1,

God knows what, 80, 90, outplayed Elvin Hayes, you know, four inches taller, 50 pounds heavier, you know, and he outplayed Elvin Hayes.

I loved every second of that.

Do you think Harden is this generation's version of those guys?

Harden?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I can't stand watching him play.

And so to a degree, I am

vindicated that he doesn't come up in the playoffs the way

people think he should.

I just can't stand watching that dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble game.

And I always say, he must have bribed every scorekeeper in the league.

I don't know how those assists, I don't remember any of these assists, but they're there to the point led the league, right?

I guess.

I still can't believe it.

I don't know how.

But I mean, that's just my personal, you know, preference.

And I don't, I'm not, I'm not a big hardened guy.

Where do you stand on Embiid?

On Joel Embiid.

Oh, Embiid.

M's not there said the beast.

I want to like him very much.

I love his game.

You know, I mean, I love his range of skill on offense is tremendous.

And I've seen him in games where I just love to watch him play.

But there's something,

and he, you know, and he's an engaging online presence, that's for sure.

But he's on another level.

He's not, you know, he's not, even though he did get an MVP, and I think I

would have voted for him.

But, you know, he's not Jokic and he's not Giannis.

He's next, there's another level down where he belongs.

But he's on the way to the Hall of Fame.

There's no, I have no problem with that.

All right.

All right.

This was a good hour.

The thing is, stay healthy.

You know, he's he has a hard time staying healthy.

Well, you've, I mean, you've been watching this forever.

These centers, once the injuries start, it's not like it gets better.

Once, you know, they're like buildings with like real structural foundation problems.

And then at some point, it becomes a problem.

And it feels like, it's like once you've had a few of those surgeries, injuries, whatever.

I don't know.

I just don't, when you're seven foot two, I don't know how you like, oh, no, I'm fine.

You know, I don't see it yeah big guys yeah you're right you're right it's a good point so like i saw kyrie irving at the laker game yesterday right and he tore his acl

I feel like he can come back he's 6'2 like you know he's a guard he can I feel like he can bring back his movement and get back in a year but when you you know you've had a bunch of these anyway all right with that was a really fun hour I'm glad we caught up I needed your take on a bunch of stuff Bob Ryan Thanks for being Celtic City, by the way, but great to see you as always.

Hope all is well.

Thanks for having me there, and I appreciate it very much.

Shalom.

All right.

Thanks to Mahoney and Joanna and Bob.

Thanks to Gahau and Eduardo as well.

You can watch this on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel.

You can also watch this as a video podcast on Spotify going forward.

We are going to be live on Sunday at some point.

We don't really know the basketball schedule yet, but it's going to be me and Marcillo at some point on Sunday.

And we'll be going live on YouTube.

For that, enjoy the weekend.

I will see you on Sunday.

Must be 21 plus in president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in president, D.C.

Gambling problem?

Call 100 gambler or visit rg-help.com.

Call 1-88-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland.

Hope is here.

Visit gambling helpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-8778-HOPENY or text HopeNY in New York.