Five NBA Playoff Takes, Plus David Letterman’s First-Ever BS Pod Appearance (We Did It!!!)

This episode is brought to you by Carhartt. We spend a lot of time talking about football, the players, the coaches, the big plays, but there's a whole other team we rarely think about, the people who make the game possible. The workers building stadiums, paving parking lots, growing the grass, welding the goalposts, even making the footballs. They're committed to their craft and they're doing the work long before kickoff. Carhartt is proud to outfit those crews. So next time you're watching a game, take a second to appreciate the people behind it. Learn more at carhartt.com slash join the trades. The Bill Simmons podcast brought to you by FanDuel. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I put up a new rewatchables on Monday. We did There's Something About Mary. And then this Monday, because we're doing comedies all month for Netflix is a joke month. I did Tropic Thunder with Chris Ryan and Van Lathan and Joel Anderson. First time for him on the pod. So that's coming at some point Monday after the Ringer podcast. Stay tuned for that one. For this podcast, I'm going to freelance a little bit at the top because we had two basketball games tonight. I had a lot of scattered thoughts, but I really wanted to get to our guest because David Letterman, after I've had this podcast since 2007. So this is the 20th year I've had the podcast. And he was always bucket list someday, maybe really number one for a long, long time. Ever since I had, I had Larry Bird in 2012. And then really after that, it was Letterman. My three guys growing up were Bird, Letterman, Eddie Murphy. So I guess now Eddie Murphy moves into the pole position of guy. I really need to get on my podcast, but having Letterman was incredible. He's coming up later. I'm going to do some basketball first. I thought about doing a viewer mail at the top, just as an homage to our listener mail in my case, just as an homage to the mailbags that he used to do, because I took the concept in 1997, the moment I had my own column, I just would, I was trying to figure out things I wanted to do. One of the things I want to do right away was have my own mailbag because I knew it worked because the Letterman had a huge impact on my life. And it was an absolute pleasure to sit down for him. We talked like it was like 75 minutes. So I want to get to that as fast as possible. We have a lot of basketball stuff to cover at the top. We do it in one segment, take a break, then Pearl jam, the Bill Simmons, podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. It's been a wild playoff run, not over yet. FanDuel wants to bring you closer to the court, to make all of that action come to life for you. The basketball fan, FanDuel, the best place to bet the teams players plays during NBA post season, build the same game parlay for a shot at a bigger pad, or try live betting and jump into the action right after tip off, whatever you want. That's the whole point of live betting. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app right now. And play your game 21 plus select States are 18 plus DC, Kentucky, Wyoming game problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat. Connecticut. All right. This top segment is brought to you by new era. I am recording right after thunder Lakers game two in Oklahoma city. And game two was the game for the Lakers. You got to stay one of the first two against the team. As good as okay. See, they gave it everything they had. They shot 50, 40, 90 from the field. You do that. You feel like you're going to be in the game. You're going to be in the game. You do that. Nope. They lost by 18. Okay. So you ripped off a 23 to five run in the third quarter. Suddenly it was over. They're just too deep. They're too scary. Look at their box score. Did they have anybody that even played 30 minutes tonight? Uh, let's see. Shit. 32 Mitchell played 30. Um, Wallace played 30, but you know, they played 10 guys. They really played more than that, but really they have this 10 minute rotation. Jalen Williams played 14 minutes tonight. He's was there. Second best guy during the title run last year. Now he's, I think their third best guy, because I think Chet has officially put on the Robin costume to Batman, to flopping Batman, SGA. I kid. I joke. Uh, this is why I couldn't really get there with the SGA MVP, even though I don't begrudge anybody who voted for him. I just think this OKC team is incredible with the depth, the shooting, the defense, all the different lineups. They have guys that can step up night after night. After night. And I'm looking at what the Lakers did. I thought JJ did an awesome job in these two games. They, the whole team was locked in. They were running good plays. Um, their defensive strategy to, you know, kind of really hound SGA, press them, force the ball to other guys. That's what you should have done. They were in these games in the second half where you look up and they, you know, it was like a six point game, four point game. And none of it matters because, okay, see, you can just do these runs. Um, you know, they, they, they, they, you know, they do their job. They just do these runs. Basically the Lakers cause Luca has been out since I think April 2nd, they're turning 35 Luca minutes into about 10 for La Arabia. Who's been a bust 10 extra for Canard 15 extra for Rui and Reeves. And then on top of that, you're relying on the Marcus smart. He was four for 13 today. I think he is for the, for the two games. Let's see. I have it down eight for 27 or eight for 28. It's one of those two numbers, but, uh, so you're relying on him. I actually really like how LeBron's playing. One of the things that I had flagged for this series was how old was LeBron going to look now that he's going against, like, you know, the Oklahoma city pit bulls. It's kind of holding his own. I mean, this is pretty incredible. What's happening here at age 41, LeBron. It's certainly something, you know, the Houston was disjointed. It was a weird team. They were poorly coached. Didn't have a point guard. LeBron, he stunk in game five, but for the most part had a really good series. And it was like, all right, well, let's see what happens. It's okay. See, he's been, uh, he's been really good and none of it matters. And they're going to get swept unless, okay. See, just has a game where they shoot like 30%, which I don't see it happening. They just have too many answers. So, uh, noble effort by the Lakers and they lasted longer than the Celtics. Although if they don't have a playoff win now, they still last longer than the Celtics. Fuck. Um, I think that, um, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know, but, but, been good enough that you could trade AJ Mitchell with the number 12 pick? Cause I assume they're going to land number 12 in the lottery and maybe other picks that they have. Cause they have some future ones down the road, maybe Lou Dort's in the trade. Could they get creative and do like 130 cents on the dollar type of trade and move up to the fourth pick and try to get Caleb Wilson, try to get another blue chipper because the foundation of this team, you know, during the Durant Westbrook Harden era, blue chippers during this era, you have SGA and you have Jalen Williams, you have Chet Holmgren, you have blue chippers and you got to replenish the blue chippers. And you also want guys on rookie deals. And I wonder like, is how much of an asset is AJ Miller, AJ Mitchell, because Legler was on here. I remember, I'm going to say he was either late November or December. And we were talking about how, how impressed we were with AJ Mitchell and, um, and he was getting big minutes. Cause I think SGA was out for a couple of games and we were just like, could this guy run his own team? Could you, could you look at this like a Jalen Brunson situation? Um, when Jalen Brunson was on Dallas and Luca got hurt and that Utah series and Jalen Brunson came in and he kind of ran the team in a way where like, huh, what's this is AJ Mitchell. If I'm a GM on another team and I'm thinking about, you know, could I make, could I, how could I elevate fast? Like let's say Atlanta gets the number four pick and Caleb Wilson is the guy left or Kim Boozer. I would personally take Caleb Wilson over Kim Boozer, but let's say Caleb Wilson is left and you're Atlanta. And you're like, well, we could take Caleb Wilson here, put them in with the nucleus. We have give it a couple of years. We'll see where it goes. Or we can get AJ Mitchell. We can get the 12th pick. We can get Lou Dorick cause they have cap space too. Like, could they do some sort of godfather move to try to be better right away and put the team in AJ Mitchell stands? I think he might be good enough to, to maybe be like a discount Jamal Murray or a discount Shay on the right team. He's certainly shown it in the leaps that he's made. This is why this lottery on Sunday, which we're going to be covering right afterwards on Netflix. This lottery has so many variables to it, starting with the Indiana Clippers pick, but then also who lands nobody's trading one. If you get one, you're taking to Banza. I think two, three, four, it's debatable teams moving back teams, maybe being overwhelmed. And then if you're okay, see like you're, you're stashing all this talent. Do you start thinking about now, of course I'm making trades for them and they're trying to win the title this year and go back to back. And this is the last thing they're thinking about, but I do think this is what Sam Presti. thinks about. So, um, just watch Mitchell. He's averaging, I think 17 a game in the playoffs. He's arguably been the best bench guy, even though he has not, you know, he started tonight, but you know what I mean? Um, so what, where does that go? Where does this lead? Maybe it leads to him being the focal point of a trade with the 12th pick and some other stuff. Keep an eye on that one. There's gonna be a lot of stuff that happens this, this, uh, next five weeks. The other thing is the review system has to be better. This game was almost three hours tonight and we had a couple of no brainers where it was like in the fourth quarter, there's an obvious clear path, pal, uh, foul. It seems like you just go over the monitor, you watch it once like, Oh yeah. And then you just do it. Um, there was a, a couple of flagrant possibilities and they just stare at it and they're watching replays like they're Christopher Nolan, you know, editing the odyssey. And it's like, just look at the replay. You should be able to know. And then 10 seconds, I don't understand why they haven't sped this up. And you have a sport like baseball that has added the shot clock, um, and all these little wrinkles to just increase the pace of the game. And the NBA just seems completely uninterested in it. So, uh, maybe instead of expansion, maybe try to improve the product before we start adding teams to the product would be my advice. Anyway, I think, okay, see, uh, I thought they were going to sweep. I still think they're going to sweep. And if you're the Lakers, you didn't have Luca. I don't know what else you could have done other than maybe trade a number one pick for Sunmu. I still don't think he changes the outcome of this series. Um, and, and you have a really good coach and you might, I LeBron's done enough. I think you have to think about trying to bring him back on a, on a, on a smaller deal and, and trying to pay Reeves and then trying to build around them. Unless Cleveland keeps doing what they're doing, which is what we're going to talk about next, because this Cleveland thing is going so bad that we are now moving into a scenario of LeBron as the savior over the summer. I didn't think it would happen during this season because I never thought Mitchell would allow it. But honestly, Mitchell doesn't have a lot of say. Um, he has never really had true playoff success. The stats are fine, but he has never made a run and you watch this series and Cade's the best guy in the series and Mitchell isn't Cade's controlling all aspects of it. Mitchell isn't. And I think Mitchell has probably lost the right to tell the team you can't get LeBron. This team's going to make some moves, but I want to talk about Detroit first. five straight playoff games, it's basically cage is being awesome. And then enough to bias. I think Tobias has been really strong, uh, the last week and a half. He always, they always know they can go to him with like eight seconds left in the shot clock. He'll get like a decent shot. He can get his turnaround. Their defense has been great. They've bullied the calves all over the place. What they did tonight was nuts. Um, and I think the only good sign for Cleveland, I don't even know if this is a good sign. Detroit went 14 for 28 from three. And this game was still close with two minutes left. So if you're Cleveland, you're thinking they shot the lights out. We played like crap. Um, we're going to be home. We can flip this. The difference is not only can they not get stops when it matters. Um, not only did they have trouble chasing the three point shooters around the line that Duncan Robinson stuff was terrible. Like literally he can do only one thing. And you're, you're letting him move around picks and getting wide open shots. The thing I was worried about with Cleveland and why I thought they had a, I thought last series would be tough just because their defense is so sketchy, especially, um, you know, I just feel like you can get good shots and three point shots on them. If you want Detroit's doing it, Detroit looks now the best they've looked all playoffs. But then you look at, you know, Harden's going to take all the shit tomorrow. Cause he's nine for 28, the series 11 turnovers today was three for 13. He was over four and three. He's four turnovers. It was a minus 15. The defense was worse than the offense. He looks slow. Um, for him, he always played like at a methodical picked his spots kind of, kind of way. And it just, he actually Detroit's making him look old. Um, and he's lost the ball multiple times on moves that he used to make in his sleep for the first 16 years of his career. So this trade so far, has been, um, a disaster unless you're just think of it as a salary dump, but maybe that's what it was. Cause Garland had that contract for a couple more years. The Clippers took, I don't know if they made a wink, wink deal with Harden, but if, if, if he thinks he's going to make $40 million next year or something like that would be, um, irresponsible for a team that's way over the luxury tax anyway. Um, he just hasn't been good. And, um, the crazy thing is there were no signs at all that James Harden might, stink in a playoff series over the course of his career. We had no evidence. Oh, oh, I guess we had a decade and a half evidence. Um, Mobley is the one that's more interesting to me. I assumed James Harden would be up and down in the playoffs and he'd probably forget to guard people and he'd have some bad games and I'm sure maybe he'll come back in game three and have 27 points and 10 assists and it'll look fine. That'll stink it. He'll do his whole James Harden rollercoaster at Mobley is the, the more egregious one to me. He's put up nine points and one rebound today. Not, not in the first quarter in the whole game. Um, it was a classic, I forgot you were out there game. And this is, you know, he's, he's 24 years old and Atkinson made excuses for Harden after the game. He's basically like, we can't have our hall of famer take two shots in the second half. I'll take that one. I would argue you probably could. And I know, I don't think he's playing like a hall of famer anymore. James Harden. What he really should have said is I'd love for Evan Mobley to show up in this series because Detroit's pushing us around and pounding us. I got this email. I was going to do a mailbag at the top, but I ended up having too many basketball thoughts. Um, Zach Connolly from Australia wrote, I'll keep it simple. Does Evan Mobley suck compared to what he should actually be? Interesting question. So it's not that he sucks. It's just the standard we have in our head. Does he suck for that? He now has multiple playoff appearances and nothing to really show for it. What are you doing? With your Evan Mobley stock, which I have a ton of from when he got drafted. Um, all right. So we're five years in, he's 24 years old. This is where you should start showing signs that you're rounding into the player. You're going to be, I think he's an 18 and nine guy. This is what he's been pretty consistently all the way through. He's been 18 and nine shot 30% from three this year. And he went backwards. Like last year, it felt like he was coming on as a three point shooter. It went the other way this season in the playoffs, every playoffs, he's dropped to basically being a 17 and eight. It's fine. He made second team all NBA last year. He was not in consideration this year. And the fear for me, is he noticeably better than he was three years ago? Or did we just kind of flatline it from year two on? Is he just doing this? Cause when you're 20, I think from 24 to 27 is when you should be going up and by 27, 26, 27. You should be at the, at the peak of your athletic powers and pretty close to the peak of who you're going to be as a player. The fear is he might be a, you are where you are guy at this point. And I don't really know, you know, there, you could say maybe if, if they didn't have Jared Allen, he was center. Maybe his stats would go up. Maybe he's almost like a smaller ball five. Sure. Um, here's the contract numbers. Cause it kicks in next year. Five years. 269 million, I'm getting a really good defensive player who I don't think got any all defense votes this year, but did last year and I'm getting 18 and nine and I'm getting situations where, um, I don't really feel him. I don't feel his impact in the game the way I should for a max guy. And I wonder like, will he be the fall guy? What's he worth? Like, let's say Brooklyn got the third pick in the draft. And they have a ton of cap space and they don't have their pick a year from now. So there it's actually in there. It's just to be better this year. And Cleveland really has to get away from luxury tax. And what if they offered mobile straight up for the third pick? Is he worth it? Would you rather have Kim Boozer on a rookie contract or Caleb Wilson or rookie contract, or would you rather play pay mobile 50 million a year? And if you're the calves, would you rather save 40 million, give half of that to LeBron? And that's your. New team. You have Caleb Wilson and LeBron instead of Evan mobile. I just think these are the questions that are going to be asked about the calves and the calves have now moved into pole position for I'm prepared for anything. I'm prepared for Mitchell asked for a trade. I'm prepared for them and just trade Mitchell. Um, I'm prepared for a mobile trade. Jared Allen would be easy cause he's making less money, but he's still, still making, you know, 30 million a year, which is a lot for our center. That's not an all-star and then Harden. Are they going to keep his contract or not? This team, everything's in play. Yannis is in play. Um, pick a Jamal Murray for Mitchell, like crazy shit like that. They're just going to be an all-time trade machine. If they continue to proceed in this series, like they are in the trade, I think is just more physical. I think they have the best player and I think they're going to win the series. And, uh, I, I find it hard to believe that Cleveland will come back and win four out of five, so that will open the door for a lot of stuff, including what do we have with Evan Mobley? Where are we going? Um, Nick Sixers. Really fun game too. A lot of lead changes. I never felt like Philly was going to win now and bead wasn't playing. but, um, I just kind of trusted the Knicks to finish it. And I don't really know why I trust it in the same way where last year with the Celtics, I didn't trust the Celtics to hold onto the lead as it was evaporating. Um, Embiid lasted a week and somehow knocked out the Celtics and then went out again. And, um, I can't tell you how many phone calls, emails, texts related to the Celtics I've been on as all the Celtics fans have spent the last five days, just kind of wondering what the F happened. Um, why did Tatum, why wasn't he on a minute's limit? Why did they run Tatum into the ground? Why did Ron Harper start game seven? Um, why did they get away from their style that worked for the whole regular season? Why did they play Vucevic at all? Why didn't they just put Jordan Walsh and Hugo on Maxie for the entire game and just try to slow him down and wear him down because he was the key to the entire series. Um, why didn't they put Embiid into the pick and roll stuff that the Knicks just immediately did in game one? Just the, the, the recipe that was sitting there for the entire series for the Celtics. Um, I need it. I need it. I need some, I need some honey water. Hold on. I want that on camera. That's how worked up I had had to get water from my voice. But, um, really one of the worst series losses I can remember for a Boston team, because I, as I've said now in three podcasts in a row, I don't think they ever thought they were losing to Philadelphia. I think they used the series as this testing ground. Let's fuck around. And then panicked when things started to not work out. Um, so the Sixers, it was great. They advanced the next round. They're going to lose the Knicks. And, uh, I think the best thing is they, they flipped those Celtics Sixers situation. They revived Paul George's trade value, which is huge because I think they can get off that contract. Now, if they want to, they might not want to the way he went at Brown and, and Tatum. And even in the, in Knicks game two, I thought, uh, he really went toe to toe with those guys. Their one chance of coming back is a Vanden Obie's not healthy. It seems like he's going to be a game time for game three. We'll see what they do with the refs in game three. Um, the thing with the Knicks is that they're deep enough that, you know, they'll just tell bridges to go in the end and Obie role. They'll play their, they'll play their bench. They have good bench guys, I think. And, uh, I would just be surprised if this went more than five games. Um, and I think the big mistake, Chris Ryan said it, we did, uh, we did rewatchables. We taped the Tropic Thunder rewatchables on Monday and Chris Ryan said it, we hadn't even seen a Sixers Knicks games yet. And he was just like, I don't know why we're playing a beat tonight. We're not going to win. Why are we putting the miles on them? Rest them, like make game two, the game. And, um, somehow Chris Ryan knew more than everyone on the Sixers because they played them in, they ended up getting banged up. We'll see if he plays. Um, I'm not really sure it's going to matter. And if the Knicks end up blowing this, um, it would really rank way, way up there, uh, because it's just feels like they're in complete control. Um, Knicks fans. I know a lot of them, a lot calmer than they were before game four of the Atlanta series. I got an email from Tony Showtime who said in the last few months, cat has improved his defense. He's fouling people less and has stepped into a playmaking leadership role. Technically true. I mean, he is averaging like six assists right now. He's also just kind of likable. I've been telling my friends. He's Rocky fouring me. Cat is Rocky and Rocky four. And I am the Russian crowd. I came into the experience, not as a fan, but his play and perseverance has won me over. Have you ever been Rocky Ford by an athlete? Take care of BS. Don't forget to feed house. That's from Tony Showtime. Um, I put some thought into that. I was trying to figure out how to do that. I was trying to think who my, who my greatest Rocky four guys were. And number one is JD drew who the Red Sox signed in the mid two thousands and was, I just really disliked them. Um, the, the patients at the plate. Oh, and I just never thought he was going to get a hit ever. Uh, he played passively. He didn't have the spirit of the Oh four Red Sox. And we paid him, I think 70 million for five years. And I never liked them. And then, um, he hit the $70 million grand slam. He was like, I'm grand slam against the Indians and ended up swinging the 2007 playoffs. And he totally Rocky Ford me. I have him. I have Derek Lowe rollercoaster ride with Derek Lowe and the Red Sox for, for years there. And then, um, he threw no hitter. Then he became, um, a playoff hero. I mean, with so many heroes in 2004, and he was one of the best ones. Um, I think I can't remember he pitched on like two days rest. Well, all those playoff games spun together without, but he was one of the heroes. So he's one Chris Hogan when the, uh, Patriots signed him. And it just seemed like we've pushed it one, one too many white guys too far. And then, uh, and then he came up big in the one playoffs and, and, uh, made a couple of big catches and gained my trust. He Rocky Ford me. And then Porzingis was my last one. I really was worried about Porzingis. What was that going to look like? Why couldn't you play with Luca? The trade made sense, but deep down I was never a guy. The time we finished the 2024 finals, I would have run through a while for him. So I think those are my four finishing last, uh, Nicola Vucevic. I think he's a Rocky five guy. Um, that's where I landed on him. Last series, wolves spurs. I thought the wolves were actually going to have the eye of the tiger, the rest of the playoffs. Um, and they played game two with, we got one already. The rest is gravy anytime that you can see it right away. And the spurs played great. They got Fox. I think it's going early. They tested out Carter Bryant, which I feel like is going to be really important for this series. Cause the way he guards Randall and Nas Reed gives them a little size with one be nice win all the way around. They killed them. The spurs are one of those teams where when they're up 20, they look unbelievable. Still a little worried about them in the last four minutes of tight games. We'll see what happens. Um, you know, when we get to Minnesota, I still feel like this is a 50, 50 series that game two did not scare me off. Nick Wright. And I talked a lot about it on, uh, on, on, uh, Tuesday's pod, um, and whatever you, you, they, it was a recipe for a blowout. I didn't see it. I thought Minnesota was going to show up, but they got the game. They need to get a couple of mailbag questions. Then we'll get to Letterman. This is from Frank. You did the lottery karma rankings and mentioned the heat, not having a top 10 picks. And so wait, you mentioned the BAM 83 point game, but the biggest karma coming Miami's way is Miami getting screwed on the Rogier trade, only getting a measly second round pick back the league, left them in limbo. For months and then ruled that Miami couldn't even get its own first back. Could that incentivize the basketball gods to sprinkle enough karma to grant them a top four pick this year? That's from Frank. You know what? When I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I should have thought of this. They really got screwed on that Rogier thing. They traded for a guy who is now under a federal felony investigation for point shaving and, um, for stuff that he did when he was on the Hornets. So, um, yeah, I, I, I have to adjust my rankings. I still have Indiana first Atlanta, second Washington third. I think Miami's fourth. Cause I forgot about the Rogier trade. I think that's a lot of lottery karma points. So thanks to Frank for, uh, pointing that one out. This comes from Morgan Taylor, who is a Toronto Raptors fan. And he says, uh, Messiah, you Harry Stan. And he says, my biggest fear now as a Raptors fan is that Giannis asked to go to Dallas. And in the opening press conference, Giannis comes out. And says, he's always wanted to play for Messiah. These guys have had a long time relationship. And, and when it, when we first thought Giannis might be available, Toronto was always a team. Morgan says, I really felt like Toronto had a solid chance of landing him up until they fired the best exec in the NBA to save a few bucks thoughts. I hadn't thought of this. I've been very focused on Giannis Jalen Brown trades, um, and whether it made sense to trade for Giannis and how many years he could have left here at an elite level with a lot of miles. him and a lot of injuries last year. And I didn't even realize Boston might not even be the main contender. The Dallas thing makes a ton of sense. Um, if I'm Dallas, I have that pick, which we'll see what happens in the lottery, but they're going to be somewhere between one and eight. Uh, I think they have like a 35, 36% chance of moving that top four, but let's, let's say it's going to be six, seven, eight range, which will still be a really good player in this draft. And I think a nice trade thing. Um, I was trying to figure out things they could do and things Milwaukee would want. And one thing that would really help, ironically, the Celtics had this giant $28 million trade exception. So they could take Daniel Gafford in the trade because they need another center and he's making almost 20 million a year, send Hauser back to Dallas into the trade exception they have. So, so Dallas would save 10 million there and then be able to add Giannis and then Milwaukee, they would get the Clay Thompson, Najee Marshall expiring. Max Christie, Dallas is 2026 first. Okay. C's 2026 first, because they have that end of the round, but still, and then, uh, they have the Lakers 29 first, and maybe you throw in a, a swap there. And the only reason I don't think they would do this trade Milwaukee is because, you know, they don't have control of their picks the next five years. So just doing a trade for picks, um, and say, and to save money, basically. Doesn't help the situation of, well, what happens if we have a top three worst team next year and we don't have our pick, but it is interesting. So I wonder. like what would be the tipping point of picks and stuff? Dallas would have to throw in there. If I'm Dallas, I'm doing everything I can to end up with Kyrie Cooper flag and Giannis, um, you know, within reason. And if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen, but really interested to see what Giannis is trade value is and how desperate teams are to go after him. And I, you know, we've been talking about it for nine, 10 months, but I think a lot of teams are looking at this the same way. Guy's been in the 2013 draft to now 13 years. Hasn't really been a hundred percent healthy through a season for a few years now. And what are you trading for? And how much do you want to trade for the risk of this could be Dwight Howard in the mid 2010s for all we know, thinking about that with my team. Um, I think the reason the Celtics would think about it is Jalen's got the three huge years left. Giannis has one huge year left. You add an extension to that. So the money would be around the same. And then, you know, you would hope you get lucky. If you saw Brad Stevens, his press conference, he was not happy with the playoff series, how the team played, um, being as three point happy as they are. He mentioned dunks multiple times and mentioned just being more physical. And it just, it felt like he was laying a lot of breadcrumbs to a Giannis trade. So we'll see this could end up being a Giannis. I think that teams will keep, we'll keep adding to the list as, as more and more teams have unhappy endings to their season. Tom from Toronto. This is the last one I'll do. Oh, I got two left. Tom from Toronto. I want to know, has there ever been more of a peak time for local sports radio content in Boston? Thank God I'm not there right now. Uh, from Vrabel to Jalen to the Red Sox, just hot topics all around. Has any other time beaten it? So right now for sports radio topics, and you have to understand Boston sports radio, which is notoriously horribly negative and always glass half full at all times. So this is like a gold mine. You have the Celtics choking in round one, Joe Maz, Rand Tatum. The Red Sox, just fired their manager. The GM's a robot. They have the curse of Mookie bats. They've won since 2018. Now they've been 20 dumb moves and everyone wants John Henry to sell fodder all the way around Bruins 15 year cup drought, wasting pasta's career. He's 30 years old now. Uh, they just got screwed over in the lottery where the Maple Leafs pick dropped one spot. They got the six pick in the draft and said the Maple Leafs won the lottery. Um, so you have that. And then you have the Patriots embarrassing Superbowl loss. You can do the, were they ever good all along fourth play fourth play schedule to first place schedule. Um, Drake may, did he rope a dope us? You have all that. You have the AJ Brown trade, and then you have Vrabel, the head coach in the Lincoln Patriots being involved in one of the two or three craziest Boston scandals ever for sports. Um, so there's that. So I went through all the years of my head. And I settled on a year. The only one I could think of that was as kind of loaded as this one, 1996. So I'm talking winter 96 into 1997, um, which was one of the worst winners to live in Boston. Just in general, I think we had like four blizzards that year, but we had the Patriots made the Superbowl and then parcels, um, decided he, um, was on his way out. He wasn't going to coach the team. So, um, breaking up with craft to make the Superbowl, find out that he was maybe even planning to do the jets. And, um, so we had that everyone, everyone's taking sides. People are playing the craft parcels, unbelievable talk radio topic and the Superbowl loss. You had the Celtics who were in full tank mode at that point for Tim Duncan and Tim Duncan's playing college basketball. You had the Bruins who were the worst team in the league that year. They ended up tanking as well. And then you had Clemens leaving the Red Sox. And drawing the ire of everybody. We were so mad. I, that was, I think my second or third piece ever for ESPN in 2001 was called is Roger Clemens, the antichrist also with the Yankees just won the world series. So if you're just talking about like a dark, dark, dark place for Boston fans, I think 96 was worse. You know, we've had a lot of good stuff happening with the Boston teams, but this is a lot of fodder, which leads to, um, my last email from Zach and Parkland, Florida is the big winner out of the Vrabi Vrabel. We're seeing these. Scandal actually, Drake may had a terrible playoff run cap to the Superbowl performance that would have followed them all off season. However, Vrabel, like a true leader has completely taken that burden off his young QB. Even if may starts off slow next year, it's almost a guarantee that Vrabel will still be shouldering the blame due to the chaos he has caused Zach from Parkland. Finally, a silver lining in the, in the Vrabel, we're seeing a scandal. Um, this story, what I did a whole thing, I think two, three weeks ago about how crazy the story was. And every time I think it's over, something else happens leading to what happened today, which was TMZ video of a seven months pregnant Diana Rossini going on a clandestine boat trip in Tennessee with Mike Vrabel. Um, while she was carrying her future, future son, Michael, and I were talking to my dad and I was like, this is the first time I talked to my dad today. Where we were like, can he still coach the team? Like, this is, is he going to take a leave of absence is more stuff going to come out there's video of them in a boat trip in 2001, 2021, I, I just, I, it feels like everything's going to happen. It feels like every day there's three social media clips of her on some podcast and Vrabel somehow on the show too, or she's talking about her husband. This is like, this story is a nightmare. I feel so bad for everybody, um, involved and yet you can't look away. It's like a car accident. Um, and honestly, I used to have this thing, the Tyson zone when any story, I think I started in the early two thousands where the, uh, Tyson zone got to the point where you would just believe any story about Mike Tyson, you'd be like Mike Tyson got in a fight with a zombie bat and bit the bat's head off. You're like, I believe it. Um, I'm hitting that point with this Racine variable story. I don't, I went from, I don't want to talk about this at all to being like, wow, we're, we might lose our coach. And I guess the only reason we wouldn't is, um, you know, our owner has an exactly, doesn't have a clean slate of things that's happened with him. Either maybe he'll be a little more forgiving, trying to be nice. Um, just a bonkers story. I don't have anything else to say. I just hope no more videos come out, please. I'm tapping out. I'm tapping out. I'm like, I'm like, uh, I need Arnold scaling to throw. I'm getting, I'm in the camel clutch with the iron cheek. I need our own scale and throw the white towel and then save me. I really need to tap out from this variable receiving story. Please. No more, please, please. Uh, we're going to take a break and we're gonna come back, uh, with my hero, David Letterman, the bill Simmons podcast is brought to by FanDuel. The NBA playoffs is going strong. Every possession matters. Every bucket swings, the game tonight, your shot to boost the bet because all customers get a profit boost tonight. So when the moment hits your win hits bigger and FanDuel has given you better paths on same game parlay is all NBA playoffs long. You can target, let's say you think Philly is going to come back and beat the Knicks. I would definitely put a maxi points over on that bet with the Philly money line. If you believe that, uh, San Antonio, Minnesota, if you think Minnesota is going to write the ship after getting blown out, a lot of good betting stats for that. Uh, you could, you could definitely maybe do the Randall points rebounds. The one I tried to game two at loss. He could give it another whirl and try that with, with a Minnesota win. Lock in your bets, boost your odds, make the playoffs payoff with FanDuel official sports, been part of the NBA head to FanDuel.com. Uh, dot com. Slash BS to get started FanDuel play your game 21 plus select states are 18 plus DC, Kentucky, Wyoming restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fan.com game problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLE or call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by state farm. Countless hours in the gym, a thousand shots before tip off day after day in the same court with the state farm stanchion right there. That's right. The best players put in the work and state farm is the same way with insurance experts who put in the work as well. Whether you get a digital quote or reach out to a local agent, state farm is there to get to know you and help you select the right coverage that fits your life and your budget. Putting in the work is what separates the good players from the great, and that's why you want state farm on your team. So get the coverage that's right for you like a good neighbor state farm is their coverage options are selected for you. by the customer. Availability and eligibility vary by state. David Letterman is here. I can't believe it. I can't believe it either, Bill. Thank you very much. We talked about this forever. Thanks for inviting me. I really appreciate this. I feel honored in some respect. Inviting you? Yeah. You needed to invite yourself because this was up to you. I'm just so glad you're here. Really? Yeah. Oh, well, now I feel less important if I invited myself in here. But thank you for having me. Thank you for tolerating me. And thank you for whatever we have ahead of us. So you were here for LA for. Well, Netflix is a joke. That's right. Oh, yeah. We talked to John Mulaney last night. I don't know. I just love the kid. He's tremendous. He's. He's so nice. He's so bright. He's so funny. He's so multi-talented. And I think he would make it difficult for other comedians in his group because he is the guy to chase, boy. Do you feel like he's somebody that in any era he would have been exactly as successful? I think you're right. I think you alluded to that earlier, and I think that does apply to him because he doesn't seem to be locked into the 2020s. He could have been in the 1990s and earlier, for heaven's sakes. So you have a son in college. I do have a son in college. Boy, this is like working with Kreskin. Well, I have a daughter in college, but I have the daughter in college and a son who's a senior in high school. Yeah. How much have you learned from comedy and content just through your son? Not much. He doesn't give you any tips? Very little. I don't know how to describe him. He's not forthcoming. He's not standoffish. He just would rather not share with his father. Interesting. Yeah. I'm always badgering my kids. What are you watching? Yeah. What do you care about? Yeah. Who are the people? Well, I badger my son as well, but the response is always, yeah, what do you care? So I will say he frightens me. From the time he was born, I've been afraid of him because in the beginning, I was fearful that I would do something that might damage him. Yeah. And I kept cautioning his mother. I said, "Don't drop him," because you hear these stories about infants being dropped. She said, "Oh, don't worry. I'm not going to drop him." So I'm at work one day and I get a call in the middle of the day, "Oh, I'm so sorry. I dropped the baby." I said, "Oh, well, good Christ. There you go. You've dropped the baby. Congratulations." Oh, my God. Yeah. Baby was out to stay okay. Yeah. The baby is okay, unless that's the reason he has that attitude toward his father. I'm not sure. Oh, he ought to be angry with his mother, for God's sake. Yeah. Like, I'm still angry with his mother. You had all this stuff. I mean, how old were you when your son was born? You're in your mid-50s, right? Later? I think I was 57. Yeah. Is that what it was? Oh, my God. It's just stupid. I'm trying to imagine what my life would be like now if I had a baby and I don't know. I'm so set in all of these different structural ways. Sure. Just introducing that. Well, that was my reluctance up until the time I realized we better do this now. Right. Yeah. That became the best thing I ever did in my life. I know every parent feels that way, but I certainly shared that and then great regret about not having done it earlier. Well, when you did your retirement show and you told that whole story about you were out looking at birds with your son and there was this bird. You couldn't figure out what the bird was and you came back and with the way you set up that story and I just was watching it when it was happening, like, oh my God, is he setting up the retirement? Yeah. It was like real thought put in behind. Yeah. I'm telling you this story because this is now becoming more important to me than this show. These little moments with my son. That's right. And I thought that was a pretty good device. Yeah. Um, I'm not sure if you took it to court, it would hold up, but at the time it served a purpose. Well, how difficult was that show for you? Cause that, I thought that was one of the four or five best shows you ever did because you knew the weight of it. Nobody else did. Yes. You're very kind. And here we go. But thank you. Thank you very much, Bill. Let's talk more about you. No, I want to, I want to hear about the show though. How hard was it to know you were going to do that? Um, there were so many other things tangential to that moment in my life. It was not difficult and I had been doing it for three decades, more or less every night. So the part of me, the internal mechanism felt like, oh, you don't worry, you're going to continue this without knowing it. It's like getting out of a car. That's still moving. I just assumed. There'll be more of these. Uh, so the, the real difficulty of it didn't set in for about, I dunno, a year or two, three years. Well, two years because everything had been programmed for me. I was taken care of and I didn't, I wanted for why nothing I, whatever that is, I didn't want for anything. So I didn't, I just assumed to keep going. So it wasn't difficult. Cause there's this moment when you actually said it, where it felt like. Yeah. There was like two seconds for like, oh my God, it's the words have left my mouth. Yes. I was more concerned with telling the story than I was with what those words meant. Right. The result, because it was television and there's a certain artifice about television as we all understand. So, um, it, there was nothing personal about it. It was a piece of business. Right. Yeah. Cause you grew up. I will not grew up, but when you were a young adult idolizing Carson, which I did as well. Yeah. I remember when I was a little kid. And I remember when I was a little kid. But I remember when I was a little kid. I was a little kid. I was a little kid. what i experienced and i think it's just what you described there yeah and some people people a lot of times will say like the people who keep going and keep going and keep going they end up living longer anyway oh is that right people that you know basically all right i'm done i'm just gonna play golf like that's when you get into trouble yeah that doesn't work does it yeah no you have to have interaction you have to be doing things and um you like to think of i i love i love having ideas and all my life i've had trouble taking them from being ideas to fruition and you can have a billion ideas and when they're ideas they're the same size so when they're that size of an idea everything is manageable and i have trouble getting it to the stage where well how do we do this how in fact do we change it from something you manage in your head to an actual occurrence i can identify with that well i don't think so no good at having ideas and sometimes not good at executing them i you look around your life and it seems to me like you've had very little trouble executing i've had some help yeah i had a lot of good people around yeah what you said about people retiring at 55 i feel like the curve is totally screwed up now you know because if you think about the way life was 50 years ago people didn't even really expect to live past 60 right all the ways things were different i even think about this with horse racing somebody i saw somebody had this great point about how much people used to care about horse racing because horses were part of our lives yeah oh that's right in the 2020s yes how many horses were people with horses do you even know that's right they were integral to existence in the world and then the sport that transformed them as a recreation for us yeah it never occurred to me that that's yeah now it's like been replaced by cars and people care more about f1 than horse racing because people identify with cars but yeah i have this thing i brought you i saw i saw a documentary with your name on it uh about uh yacht rock music yeah that was one of my one of my two years ago and uh i'll just tell you about the yacht rock this was the music when i went to california southern california it was NX FM. And that's all they played, the mellow sounds of Southern California. And it pretty much was all what we now know of as yacht rock. And I thought it was trifling and didn't have much interest in it as serious music. And then I saw how it was kind of dissected and discussed on that documentary. And I realized, no, wait a minute. These guys were really up to something pretty good. Yeah. High, high quality stuff. And I'll tell you what's been a problem for me. If you have the Sirius radio and you dial up yacht rock, they have some stooge, some cartoon character pretending he's some snobby, wealthy, superficial asshole enjoying yacht rock. And it's not for the people. It's only for the elite. I hate that guy. And is what poisoned yacht rock for me until I saw your documentary. Oh, thank you. And then I, once again, I had real respect for it. It was great. I enjoyed that. One of the things I love, thank you. One of the things I loved about that idea. It was an era as it was happening. And nobody realized it was an era until like 15 years later. Yeah. Those are the best ones. Cause we're actually telling a story of all these people didn't realize they were part of something. They felt marginalized in the bigger picture of rock. I just thought it was California when I got out there, that's all I listened to. And it was delightful. And, and then later when it was given this label and I understand how the label was applied. Yeah. Uh, these, these, uh, as I learned on your documentary, but then this moron on Sirius M with that bullshit accent about I'm upper crust, I'm East Hampton. Yeah. And, and this is what appeals to me. Can you do that? You can do that. You can make people disappear. My big passion is when they play the, when they play yacht rock music, that's not yacht rock on the yacht rock channel. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Bread is not yacht rock. Just stop air supplies, not yacht rock. Get them off. Yeah. And then, and then listen to this, but of course you'll listen to it. You're sitting right over there and the producer, didn't bother coming in. Um, when I had a morning show on NBC, yeah. Uh, they said, well, we can get Michael McDonald. If you want Michael McDonald to write your theme music. Oh my God. Yeah. Oh my God is right. And I said, you're kidding me. And they said, nope. And sure enough, Michael McDonald wrote the theme music to our morning show. And now having seen him as the integral iconic, the King of yacht rock King of yacht rock. Now I'm eager. We have this piece that he wrote for us a thousand years ago. And, and here's another idea. I would like to use that somehow. So if you have any ideas, yeah, we had, we couldn't get Steely Dan to be in the yacht rock thing because they hate the yacht rock label. They feel like they weren't yacht rock people like really genuinely hate it. Let's call it something else for the love of God. Yeah. I mean, the mellow sounds of Southern California is what I identified it as. Yeah. So we finally talked them into it, but only a few. He got to trash yacht rock as the interview he did for the Iraq. And then he cleared all the music for it because really they set up, they set up that Southern California sound that became yacht rock. So we had to have them documentary. So anyway, here, when I saw your name on producing things and I knew you were, uh, the, uh, genius behind 30 for 30, uh, and, and this came across my desk, uh, Jimmy Murphy, American icon. Take a look at that and see if you can do anything with that. Jimmy Murphy, American icon. Yeah. All right. I'm going to look at it. Okay. Give me the pitch though. Give me the, well, he's the, uh, only American to have ever won a grand prix race in an American built car. That's not true. He's one of two. The, the other one was Dan Gurney. He won the Belgian grand prix in a car that his company built. And this man, Jimmy Murphy won the French grand prix back in the teens, I believe in a Duesenberg, which was built in the United States. Two, two men have won race, races in the F1 system in American built cars. And, uh, this is in the era of board tracks when you would have oval courses, oval tracks, and they were all made of wood. The, the track surface was wooden, highly perilous because of guess what? Splinters. Who would have thought, uh, but he, but he was a true icon and, uh, went over to France and the French, uh, disliked him because he won so handily, even though his car. Was falling out from under him and they were going to disqualify him because, well, sure he won, but can he drive at home? And they said, well, no, he can't drive at home, but he still won the race and other, other drivers in the event protested on his behalf and said, good Lord, the man won the race. Who cares if he could drive it? Typical of the French. You feel that way? I do. I do as well. Because the NBA went Victor Rambignano Yamba is going to take over seven foot seven French guy. And I'm a little nervous because I, we've had a mixed checkered history. Is it, is it because he's seven, seven and French, but his skill set mostly because he's seven, seven, or he, he contains that other quality that makes him a great player. So being seven, seven helps because he's a huge obstacle. Anytime you're thinking about trying to score, but he also plays like a guard and there's never really been anybody who moves like him. And it's weird because he's, his whole life has, he's been conditioned to be successful in the NBA from when he was like 12 years old. Is he the new face of the NBA now? I think we're heading that way if he can stay healthy, but he's, he, he's learned how to fall because he knew he'd be falling a lot. Oh, learn how to actually fall or how to actually fall where he doesn't get hurt when he falls. He learned English when he was like 12, 13, like he's been ready for this for 10 years. Yeah. So I'm a little, I'm a little nervous. You mentioned Southern California in the seventies. I could never tell how much you like California. I loved it. Then I came from Indiana and moved out there. And, uh, it was troubling to first move to California from Indiana because you'd go days. Well, here we are in Southern California. You go days without seeing a cloud in the sky. And I thought that was odd. I just thought that was bad for you. I don't know if it was bad for me. I just thought it was odd because in Indiana, every two or three days you get a rip roar and thunder and lightning storm and maybe tornadoes and high winds and stuff and hail. And it was great. But in California, it was always that white, hot, silvery, sun in the egg, Robin's egg, blue sky, right? Like nothing was going to happen. And I can remember one time a surprise thunderstorm blew up in over Mexico somehow, and it rained unexpectedly and nobody had known it was going to happen. And Oh my God, hospitals quit scheduling surgery. They shut down the freeway. Uh, schools were closed. It rained for like eight minutes. I know. And I just thought, I, I, I can't, uh, I can't be friends. With this place. Yeah. We have floods sometimes. And the floods come from like an inch and a half of rain. Yeah. And then whenever the freeways get weight, uh, get, get wet, it's holiday on ice. Yeah. It just look out. So it took me a long time to get used to that. And then I began to love it for every reason. Everybody loves California. Yeah. You were here initially in the seventies and one of the greatest times. Yeah. That was like the, one of the best times ever to be here. Well, I always like to mention it was so good because Jerry Brown, the governor, was dating Linda Ronstadt. Oh, wow. And I just thought, well, this is heaven. Let's can this go on forever? Yes. Why, why not? One of the first great celebrity couples. And you're in that whole standup scene in the seventies. Oh yeah. The comedy story. It was great. And, and I think many people identify a creative circumstance period in their life as, Oh, it was like Paris before the war. Well, maybe, maybe not, but it was pretty good. It was a bunch of really funny, funny people. And you would go to work at night. And, uh, in return for your time on stage, you got to hang around these people and they would make you laugh because not only their material, but they were funny people and they would do funny things. And they were unusual folks, quite a, quite a great stimulating peer group. Yeah. So you're, you're right. You're doing this standup, but you're also like writing for these sitcoms because we had a million sitcoms back then. Yes, that's right. And that was so good too, because you would say, you'd get hired to write a TV show and, and the pre-production would be like six weeks. And in my case, I got to understand that I was only going to have that gig for six weeks and then I'd get fired and then they'd get another six week gig and then I'd get fired. And it was delightful because I never had the headache of actually having to work on some show day after day after day, week, month after month. And it would always be new people and new stuff. And you, you knew from the beginning that they sucked. Was there a show where you're like, how the hell am I picked to write this show? Why am I on this one? Yeah. Most of them. I was, uh, I was hired to write on something called the Paul and comedy hour. Oh God. And Paul Lynn was tremendously funny. He was, he was an actor, the Hollywood squares. He was always the center square on Hollywood squares and really funny and quick witted, but he was a neurotic and, uh, and, and I'll just say wacky. Uh, and, uh, and, uh, the, the, the, the Paul and comedy hour, it was Tony Randall. It was Paul Lynn and it was, uh, Gloria, uh, Doris Leachman, Laura Leachman, of course, yeah. And, uh, this one sketch that we were rehearsing, uh, Paul Lynn was the, uh, was marrying Cloris Leachman and the minister conducting the ceremony was Tony Randall. And Tony Randall was the ex-husband of Cloris, Leachman. So there's, there's comedic. stuff there that seems like a lot of things happening for that one it's probably not a wedding and the big business was chloris was so upset with somebody that she threw her bridal bouquet and it hit it hit to him in the right in the face and it was oh chloris and he went running out of the rehearsal uh it was a high drama oh my god yeah but he was very very funny and then you were on the mary tyler moore variety thing too i remember yeah that was a good experience because it confirmed everything i knew about myself which was uh i have a very low threshold of embarrassment very low yeah uh and every wednesday they would bring in the choreographer and that threshold would get lower and lower and lower and and there would be professional dancers and it would be the cast of which i was a member uh and we had to i can't even say it i would watch everybody in the room dance and you would just kind of sort of mimic that that move you just made there i couldn't even muster that i would have to be hooked up to a car battery to make that movement uh and so we did 10 shows and then i i just had to get out i i they changed the format the show was not successful and i just excused myself there's some things about like when i think about the stuff i watched growing up variety shows are one of those that i i just can't explain it and it really only worked for the 60s and 70s and then they would try to keep making work in the 80s 90s 2000 never worked but like we watched donny marie that that was a really important show ben vereen had one i watched a lot of those and i i don't know if it was just because we didn't have better choices they're the backbone of network television that and half hour situation comedies but boy you were in in for something with those uh one hour variety shows yeah flip wilson had a variety show martin had a variety show on and on and on now we just have shows where it's three straight hours set in chicago and it's like fire police hospital yeah you just wait you just get to go with different the worst parts of jobs in different cities and that's three hours of your life yeah it's interesting and back in the day that you're referring to you you couldn't even pretend the tv would ever go away no and now here it seems to be teetering well i talk i talk to my kids about this a lot because i'm really fascinated my generation we all watched a lot of the same tv shows a lot of the same sitcoms a lot of the same movies we watch you we watch saturday night live and then as we got older we had this foundation of things that we kind of got all the jokes that the other ones would make and i don't know what that is now if you're 20 because you have like a million kajillion social media people and i guess there's shows that cut through like euphoria or tell me lies every once in a while but for the most part it seems way more scattered and i don't know if it's good or bad uh yes i don't know if there's an answer to this uh but i i rarely watch television anymore and i don't know why it wasn't a decision i made but okay today is the last day i'm watching tv i just don't watch it i you want to know the show that i do watch and and i get a little edgy if i miss it or it's not preempted or something is it network or streaming it's on espn and it's pardon the interruption oh wow still i love it yeah those are my guys um i don't know i i don't know i find something pleasant and welcoming and uh they're both avuncular uh tony kornheiser looks like my new dog so i have that connection i i don't know but that's about the kid that was the sports writer at the washington post oh uh thomas boswell yeah were you you predated him or you came after him right i came after him yeah yeah yeah but that book life imitates the world series yeah that was great just great yeah pti it's like it's just nice knowing it's there yeah you can pop in and out sometimes i'll just watch the first you know first act of it which is like 10 minutes but just seeing those guys and um them weighing in on the biggest stories i talked to kornheiser a lot and he's just he's been doing the same thing for 12 years about i gotta get off yeah nobody wants to see me anymore i'm too old but i feel like he's just gonna die on the air during that show i talked to a friend of mine about what the appeal of that show is and he just uh abruptly said it's the clock that's it it's the clock that's not it is it it's those two guys it's the it's this is how we feel about it it's the clock that's it it's the clock that's not it is it it's those two guys about podcasts too it's the chemistry over the idea i think oh people want to people are there for the for the person every day not the guest not the gimmick i do think though the the show's the perfect amount of time because espn has multiple times tried to extend it to an hour no and tony has always thrown his body into it he's like i'll never do it if it's an hour this this is why it's good it's a half hour we leave people wanting more well it may be partly the clock because when you see where they are on that countdown column uh you get a little grumpy because oh they're just about to say good night right the other interesting thing is nobody else has been able to replicate it come up with their version of it and people have tried there's been all these different gimmicks and none of them have worked it's only been that but i really think it's so and i was lucky enough to host that show a bunch of times it's people are always going to want the two oh absolutely i figured out how to fit in and what my role was but those those two are always whenever there's a uh a guest host or somebody filling in for one of the two it's it's discouraging i mean i would perhaps that's too strong a word right i'm able to pull myself together yeah uh yeah anyway that's what i like watching on tv did you ever think how like carson used to have guests all the time you you never really dabbled in it that much oh no i was deadly scared that if i gave up the seat i'd lose the show right oh you were worried somebody was going to come in oh yeah because you're qualified funnier and better looking than me infinite and so no i wasn't going anywhere don't give up the damn chair i'll wait to talk about watching birds with my son but in the meantime don't send anybody in here yeah because carson would have at one point chevy chase was rumored to replace him oh yeah you were rumored to replace and then it was joan rivers and then she got her on show and then leno was the last one yep yeah and then you know that was it johnny was he'd be he knew just don't you yeah anything you want give it a try let's see how that works he was so good and now for a special part of the show called crunch time gifting it's brought to you by sephora where you'll find the best beauty gifts for the mother in your life you know i've always got my sports hat on but seeing as when we're gifting crunch time for mother's day it's sunday by the way uh right now i can't help but compare it to the final two minutes of a playoff game how are you going to come up clutch are you going to be like jalen brunson i think jalen brunson is the score jalen brunson in the east shay in the west the score is i probably trust the most in the last minute of the game um you're panicked you're down one um who's going to come through i would trust brunson i would trust shay so when it comes to last minute mother's day gifts only those who turn to sephora will make the buzzer beater like those guys might be making this round because the gift from sephora lets mom know she has loved and celebrated simplest play there is with their mother's day gift sets sephora has made it easier than ever shop mother's day gifts at sephora this episode is brought to you by state farm football has a play for just about everything and whether it's a flea flicker or a tush push you need a plan that fits your unique situation that's why state farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and for your budget now that's a solid game plan like a good neighbor state farm is there this episode is guessing is for game shows not your business especially when your margin for error is zero workday is the enterprise ai platform for hr finance and it with a deep understanding of your organization's context and guardrails so every ai action is permission aware giving you accuracy 24 7 and the ability to not just get work done but get it done right it's a new workday what is a late night show in 2026 as both of us are friends with uh the one and only jimmy kimmel well seth myers we have colbert leaving yeah does this can this format exist in 2035 you're asking me an impossible question to respond to i love jimmy kimmel uh it took me a long time to fall in love with that guy because i thought there was something stalking you well it just seemed peculiar he loves you the most it seemed wrong-headed um and and then i love seth myers yeah i think jimmy fallon uh is an outlier because it i'm not sure if he knows what decade we're in but he just comes out and does a show he can sing he can dance he can tell jokes he is rock solid right uh but he doesn't quite fit the mold of the other and then stephen colbert uh who had the show yanked out from under him yeah i i don't i don't know how to answer that because it used to be those shows were so cheap easy to produce and long running i mean carson was the proof of that and everybody tried to mount one like that but it's like pti without carson it was nearly impossible yeah i don't know what a new show would look like anymore i felt this way in the 2010s especially when you leaving, wondering what era we were going to move into. And what you couldn't really tell at the time was what was going to happen with podcasts and all these different interviews and the ability of people to respond immediately. Um, and late night shows, taping stuff and being on six hours later. And then people under 35, are they even watching? Like when, when you had your NBC show and Jimmy was the same way, I either watched it live or I VHS, you know, recorded it and watched in the morning. Yeah. And I don't, I didn't, I don't know. It seems primitive. Doesn't it? All of that was fun. I, when you went to LA, that was like that in WrestleMania, I think we're in the same three months and it was, it was a true highlight. I was like, I feel, I feel seen WrestleMania is now going to be a giant pay-per-view Letterman's going to be blessed by Carson. Like this is all happening. Yeah. I was in my basement. But then again, we're dumb. If we don't acknowledge that everything changes and you, you knowing that you can't hang on to things. Um, I I'm kind of getting a kick out of, I will see a category name the category. I don't care what it is of important current celebrities. So I'll think, all right, let me see who these people are. Number one. Nope. Yeah. I'll just run the list. I did not heard of two dozen people. Yeah. And, and it's people that, uh, are making healthy, good, happy livings. I have no idea who they are. Yeah, it's attention. You can get attention without talent. Well, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying. But it's just true. I've just turned into the old man who has no idea what these people are doing. Yeah. But I would say when you had your show, talent was usually the great differentiator, whether you're a great actor, a great musician, great comedian, whatever. Now you can skip all of those steps, it seems like. Yeah, I'm not sure if your position is that in the old days, those people were talented. Well, then it's the guy on the lawn telling the kids to go home. That's true. Yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to think. There were no influencer-type people in the 80s and 90s. There were more oddities. It was more like, whoa, what's going on with this person? Yeah, we used to subscribe to newspapers from all over the world, all over the country, in small towns. And we would find stories about, there was a woman who collected potato chips that looked like famous people. Yeah. There's a little local story about her. You'd try to get her. There was a guy who collected insects praying mantis. You'd try to get him. But now, that is the lifeblood of the internet. You were really good, especially in those first few years of the show, of tapping into normal people in a way that, like you had the mailbag, you did the pet tricks. It was like, oh, these are normal human beings on this show. This is cool. Right, but that was a bit of a constraint put on us by The Tonight Show. We couldn't duplicate celebrities. We couldn't have a lengthy monologue. We couldn't have a big orchestra. And so a lot of people just put people on TV. And the thing that was always satisfying to me is just regular people who aren't on TV, you put them on TV, they're just fine. You know, by and large, they're just fine. Yeah, it was interesting as the show, when it started to take off, you were always so self-deprecating about the show, joking about whether it would be on next week. And then people would come on and be like, this show's amazing. You're my favorite. And you could always see, you'd be like, ah. So I can only imagine what it's like to deal with people like me and Kimmel. We're telling you, like, we watch you every night. We grew up with you. You're the biggest reason I'm doing this. This is what I hear now. It will be a fellow, or a woman, in a certain age group, and I think, oh, because I keep forgetting how old I am, here's a peer of mine. We have the same influences in life. My great-grandfather used to watch you. Oh, Jesus. Oh, ladies. Okay, here we go. But it's very gratifying. I had these two women tell me the same story a year apart about the morning show. Now, nobody watched the morning show on NBC. Yeah, I'm not going to claim I watched it either. Yeah. And that's why I was afraid to give up the chair because that thing just came and went, you know, like a strong wind. And the story that I heard from these two women, I used to watch your morning show, and that snaps your head around because the response is, you're the one. Right. Yes. And it was right after little Jimmy, our first son, was born, and I would be up early in the morning, and I would be feeding little Jimmy and watch your show. I heard the identical story from another woman. And I, for some reason, those elements, it was a very pleasant reminder of, it's not really all about me. Yeah. It's supposed to be something for others. Right. And in these two cases, it had been. And I thought that was very sweet. So, I mean, that was your big, quote unquote, failure of the morning show, but it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to you. Yeah, and the worst year of my life, being out of work. It was just horrifying. How long were you out of work? I think it was a full year before I went back at 1230. And what were you doing? Just stand up and pitch and stuff? Not even, I was doing, you know, looking, sniffing around at what would be failed projects, but mostly I was drinking. And drinking to excess. And it was a dark year. Are you in LA or New York during this? I was in LA. Yeah. And I describe it as a dark year. I know of people who actually have had dark years. So, forgive me. I'm not pretending that being an out-of-work comic really rates as a dark year. But for me, you know, my own little self-centered world, yeah, things weren't going the way I wanted them to go. Yeah, sometimes I feel this way about me with a couple of things. Like, failing turned out to be the best thing that could have happened, but I didn't see it as it was happening. Right. You don't realize till after, like, you know what, that was actually pretty good because that led me to this, this, this, and this. And, yeah, I always tell people, when people ask me for advice, I always say, like, just keep taking chances and sometimes it's okay if it doesn't work out. Just move on to the next thing. Try to figure out what to learn. I never know what to say when people say, can you give me some advice? I don't know, I don't know what to say because it was so easy for me in the beginning. Yeah. I just had a plan. I saw it. It was all there. The blueprint was obvious. And I followed the blueprint perfectly and it worked for me. So, I don't know what to tell people. I wouldn't even know what you do. I know people that I just think are people and then they say, well, you know, you can contact me on my socials and then they give you whatever address you need. And they've got like 2 billion followers. And I do, I don't, how did that happen? How does that happen? You're one of those guys, right? Yeah, I don't have that many, but it's, you know, I came in with some of the social media stuff right at the right time when you could build audiences. Now it's like the TikTok. I don't do TikTok at all. I don't really understand it. I mean, I understand it. I don't understand it for me. Like, I'm, I'm in my mid fifties. I want you to, I want you to help me out with something. Yeah. And going back to our discussion of ideas. Yeah. I went to Finland and watched hockey games. I went to hockey games in Finland and was, What kind of hockey games? Professional hockey in Finland. Yeah. One in Helsinki and then another in a temporary. I think that's the name of the town. It was great by the way. It was delightful. Yeah. And then some of the kids, some of the kids on those teams showed up for the Finnish Olympic team. But I watched tie games, saw two tie games and then the shootout. So here's now what I want you to help me with. Yeah. The NFL. And I, I know that like Chris Russo hates the fact that there are guys kicking six yard field goals now. And he thinks that that should be banned. That should be limited. Get rid of it. It's not football. If a football game, pick two teams. Yeah. Patriots and jets. Okay. At the end of regulation, the score is seven, seven. What do we do? Okay. We have another full overtime period. Okay. Yeah. If at the end of the overtime period, the score is still tied. Then what do we do? Well, in the playoffs, it just keeps going for no, no, no. We have a kickout. Oh, that's what you want to, you want to add a kickout. Yeah. We start the kicker at the 50. He makes it. Then the other kicker opposing team has to duplicate that. If they both, if they both score, go to the 55 yard line. And if that works, you go to the 60 and the first one that can't convert a kick from that, then the game is over. What's wrong with that? It's pretty good. Now you've heard this before, haven't you? I can't be the first one to think of. No, I've heard variations of it. Some, but, but then other people would say, why would a kicker determine a winner or loss? Like some people hate that. Like I have people in my life who feel like we should just get rid of extra points and field goals. Completely. Just have touchdowns, touchdowns and two point conversions. Well, I, what's wrong with the, just a bit of variety in the goddamn game. Yeah. You know, I, I, the regular sees now at work, the kid, the kid for Dallas, the guy who kicks routinely 60. Yeah. Brandon Aubrey. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's, that's tremendous to see what a, what a great physical accomplishment that is. Nobody seems to understand why kicking has gotten so much better. Secretariat is still faster than horses. We have now pitchers can throw four or five more miles an hour than they used to. well Bob Feller comes to mind right well but I'm saying like the radar gun was usually 96 97 98 now there's guys throwing like 104 and then the three point shooting being so much better but yet like the marathon I always talk about this with Malcolm Gladwell we were always wondering when somebody would go under two hours and it actually just happened in London they did one hour 59 something but it's like how is there a point where you can't just run faster in a marathon well you just hit a wall basically perhaps but going back to kicking let's just see how far a guy can kick can he kick a hundred yard field goal so you love field goal kicking this is one of my big revelations and the fact that it ought to be determined by moving the football on the ground if you can't determine the outcome of the game in five quarters by moving the ball on the ground passing and running okay you're paying the price for that we're turning it over to the kicker and it's football for the love of crap why do we resist that and here's the other thing and you can do something about this because I know you know I'm a powerful man the quarterback ought to punt they used to have this thank you very much but that used to be part and parcel of the gig so punters are out we've just cost 30 punter jobs now I don't want to get in trouble by saying punters would be let go no keep the punters we'll have punters and they can do stuff they'll do other stuff what do you think of the theory that we should get rid of either they should get rid of three pointers completely in basketball or there should be a cap on how many you can make in a game okay here we go the thing that I'm having trouble with is the three point line isn't consistently the same distance what do you mean down toward the end of the court right and then it goes up so you get a shorter three pointer down in the corners correct yeah than you do at the top of the arc right so extend the court I don't know but you're never going to get rid of the three point can you imagine just going back to watching guys do layups and soft jump shots no we need the three pointer I wouldn't mind a cap though I wouldn't mind being like you can only make 20 in a game and that's once you get to 20 you just you it's removed here's what I want to do is you 10 foot the basket the rim is 10 feet yeah the first quarter it's 10 feet second quarter it's 12 feet it just keeps it just moves around so in the fourth quarter what is that 16 feet let's just do that one of the theories is that every team I don't think you're taking that seriously because you quickly quickly change this I think what do you mean they have to stop the game to the thing is it's an hydraulic deal and it's just okay the fans here it comes and maybe some lucky ticket holder gets to press the button it goes up to 12 feet one of the ideas that people do like is that every team can determine where the three point line is so you could build a team oh so it's like a baseball field in your hometown yes you could build a team and like you know what we're going big guys we're going bigger and you make the three point line it's like basically 30 feet because you're not going to shoot them yeah and you dare people to do them baseball I have a lot of faith I've always been a I've always had this thing where I've called myself the sports arc give me the job I would do all these things baseball's pitch clock is the single most successful new idea I think anyone's come up with but they're slowing it down slowing the game down now with the automatic ball and strike count oh you don't like that well I haven't I haven't actually seen it but doesn't that then slow the game down it's quick they just do this and it's like 10 seconds what it's done is they just do this they do this on their helmets I know they hit the helmet and then that solves everything well what's happened is they've completely undermined the confidence of the umpires because what we're realizing is the umpires are all terrible these guys got a union of their own yeah they gotta be raised in hell they're like what the F yeah how did we end up with this who was the umpire retired a couple of seasons ago who was known up and down throughout the league as being god awful pick one yeah yeah there's a couple of them and they just well here he is again and there would be highlights of him blowing calls but in terms of baseball there is an advantage if you're a left fielder a left field hitter a left handed hitter yeah you get a jump you get a step down to first if you're right handed you gotta cross the plate and get down to first true so it should be both of you gotta cross the plate if you're a left handed batter you gotta you run the bases the other way no you gotta run to third interesting if you're a right hander you can run to first that would be a controversial change and then here's where the fun gets really fun they meet on second what do you do then they cross pass well you'll figure it out yeah alright I'll work on that one what would you change about golf what's to change yeah you you like golf right or you like watching I enjoy watching golf I I'm so pleased that the live golf tournament seems to be having financial troubles oh yeah because in the in the beginning yeah you and you can wear shorts and we'll give you a billion dollars shorts yeah and now all of a sudden they're looking for other ways to finance it that one's done I did get a kick out of the the masters Rory McIlroy or whoever that was that was tremendous you root for him well how could you not trying to win two in a row that was pretty cool yeah I like him because I got this great mailbag email thank you for the mailbag idea by the way I stole that from the moment I started writing a column but I got a great mailbag idea somebody who was a Celtics fan and a Rory McIlroy fan who lived in Ireland was basically saying it's the same experience rooting for both where it's like a lot of talent but I always feel like they're going to fall apart at any time Celtics you missed threes Rory like will self combust and it's like did I is this just an accident or is this what I'm attracted to as a sports fan yeah but very similar yeah and then and then the masters and we call them patrons have you been you would love it they take your phone it's like going back to 1920s you have to like interact with people I'll tell you what appeals to me perhaps the single feature that appeals to me about the masters is the pimento cheese sandwich unbelievable because we used to I don't think they even make that anymore they have to make it at the course it's not legal to actually prepare that is it pimento cheese it's they have pimento cheese sandwiches but then the hack is you also buy the barbecue chicken sandwich and you mix them my buddy Joe House I think invented that I'm going to give him how drunk do you have to be to do that at least a couple drinks in yeah but they and the sandwiches are like a dollar fifty nobody has phones people just walk around right if we you and I get split up I might not see you again for four hours there's just no way for me to know where you are we're just gone and then you compare that to the waste management open in Phoenix well that yeah that's a social outing I mean that's a prison break isn't it yeah they just want everybody to be super drunk there yeah and that's okay with the golfs I think they kind of lean into it I'm interested to see what they do with the new commissioner because I think he wants to move more events to the west coast have it be prime time on the east coast stuff like that like to to try to speed it up I like when people come into leagues and want to change stuff yeah I don't I don't have a problem with that yeah but in golf you know the big tracer mark they have that you'll hit a tee shot and then they show you the tracer you like that where they show you where it went yeah and how high and how fast if they could generate that so it happens in real life not just on TV oh boy you'd have to beat people away with a stick they'd be right they'd be when the gates open that would be a really good oh man what a visual it'd be like fireworks did you get an F1 or are you just you're old school no I used to love Formula 1 back in the era of Ayrton Senna and Nigel Mansell oh yeah and those guys and went to a lot of Formula 1 races and just just really loved it and I think in those days for me to really love it it was because of like we're talking it's the personalities more than the content yeah and I just something about Ayrton Senna and Nigel Mansell and they were enemies on on the track and the personalities and the characteristics and I don't know I did love it and now it's IndyCar I'm part of an IndyCar team and it's I enjoy that I love that did you ever think about buying a minority stake in a sports franchise no never no no just buy a little piece a little taste I think for a while I was part owner I had some stock in the Seattle Mariners really yeah yeah when was that Jesus it would have been in the 80s mid to late 80s wow Jeff Smullyan for a time being the guy who owned MS Radio yeah sports radio and beyond I think had purchased the Seattle Mariners and I was a stockholder or board of directors or something you did you did like I think over 6,000 shows on NBC and CBS were athletes ever really good guests or were they or you were the one that had to do all the work can you remember guys coming in and actually being good other than like Charles Barkley that's something to reflect on I think I think they were pretty good because I always knew exactly what I was going to talk about right because this was the ending when Sports Illustrated was a thing yeah and it helped me live my early life getting the weekly sports illustrated magazine. So I had that kind of interest built up from. looking at the voluminous detail and data and personalities so i would attribute i would use that to talk to sports figures so they were always pretty good um because i remember michael jordan the first time he came michael jordan he was great you could tell he had it no he yeah you could tell he had it but he did he had a disliking for me oh really yeah he was on once and he was on to promote his the new air jordan yeah the air jordan i just saw that movie not so long ago air i liked it tremendous yeah i really liked it oh it's so good yeah very good uh yeah so uh yeah but we couldn't get him back he would never come back really yep and i finally called him because i i kept imagining and perhaps not imagining perhaps really that i had offended the guy and i didn't certainly didn't want that to have happened and i called him and i flat out asked him i said we really would like you to come back is there a problem and he said no not a problem but he never came back interesting yeah a real disappointment yeah because you had in the 80s that your show was how i found out about a bunch of people like seinfeld i he came on your show that's how i knew who he was you know and that was why when he got the nbc show was like oh no this is gonna be good he used to kill it on dave's yeah there was a bunch of those from that era i i get very little credit for the success of seinfeld you shouldn't get a percentage i was right there you were right there i was like uh what's his name kramer i could have been the could have been a kramer i saw him do stand-up twice in the 80s i made my parents take me just because of the letterman appearances really oh yeah i i thought he was one i thought your best guest during that stretch like the ones i was leno was the best one i mean you that was like every three four weeks but he would come in and just kill it jay was so good yeah and you were so delighted you guys were just great together so he was one seinfeld i just thought michael keaton was great oh i love michael keaton he would come on and just and crush but see those those guys now jerry was a class or two behind me but me and leno and michael keaton we were all there in the same room right at the same time so i always got a big kick out of we each knew something about one another that we weren't going to share right it was great well you had george miller too a bunch oh my good friend george miller oh my god what a fascinating interesting fellow uh just tremendous yeah so it went all the way through to when you were still doing the show and then it seemed like norm became your favorite norm became your new favorite connection george miller was the connection to norm yeah when i found out norm like george miller then i fell in love with norm we've never norm is one of those guys i think social media is one of those guys i think social media is one of those guys i think social media has weirdly really helped him because he was always really funny he had a good career but now like the snippets of him oh yeah nobody like him he's like growing in esteem now that's right you can't you can't get enough he was like an all-time one-on-one yeah and everything he does is still as funny as it was yep yep uh and a guy who kind of reveled in dead silence after a joke just like that wasn't his problem he loved that's your problem right he loved in the audience was a yeah yeah i feel this way when i read stuff i wrote and i don't remember when i wrote that i wrote it like i'll see some i'm like i think i wrote about this and i'll find some column in like 2004 and i'm like i honestly don't even remember writing this i'm reading it like i'm the reader like i didn't write it do you feel that way when you look back at 6 000 shows i don't remember i don't remember uh i don't remember how i got here um but uh i want to tell you one george miller story which i absolutely love yeah he he had a great time with george miller he had a great time with george miller he had a girlfriend uh and they were together for years and it was always george and uh her girlfriend his girlfriend her name was mj that's right mj initials for other names yeah but they were close and then she decided she had had enough of george and so she said george that's it you're done so george because he was george uh broke into her house when she was out she started dating an asshole and this drove george nuts right because he wasn't an architect he wasn't you know he was in the sweatshirt and the pants and his tennis shoes and he was telling jokes so he breaks into the house and uh she realizes that it's been broken into by george so she calls the police the police go to george's house and they say uh do you know and george's playing dumb no no that wasn't me what what happened over there well nothing was stolen but the thing was damaged and poked around and and there was a picture she had of jesus christ uh that had an obscenity written across the face of jesus christ and george says jesus christ i thought that was dan fogelberg and i just i mean how can you isn't that and here's how delightful that is at his memorial his girlfriend told that story wow i mean that that's other otherworldly i thought it was dan fogelberg so who who was he in your top five people who hit your funny bone the hardest he he became a good friend he was in that the same class with with me and and leno and michael keaton and uh robin uh williams came in a little bit later but still in that class yeah he counts uh and uh yeah he was just such a strange character he uh i never met anybody quite like him does kaufman count that or is he a little earlier kaufman was so uh no i think he'd gotten a head start and was way ahead of us at the time but he was you didn't buddy up with andy right you you you know stood aside when he would say he was on the show and you'd be like okay yeah well he was he was great for the show yeah because it was just you did you knew but you didn't know the dimensions of what you knew you know you had the idea but it could you knew it wasn't going to be this big you know it was going to be that big right and and you just sat back there and were entertained by it so who hit your funny bone the hardest out of anybody well jay made me laugh really really hard uh because he would come in and he'd come at you it was like he was like the road team and he would try to turn it on you yeah but he he was when we were working at the comedy store he was the funniest in the in the group you know he would go on you couldn't follow him he was so funny right yeah i you know i know i know you hate talking about this but i used to love leno and then when all this stuff happened with you and he got the tonight show i really felt betrayed it was like i was learning like the lessons of like business friendships versus actual friendships because my attitude was like i would just never do that like letterman was my friend he he's the whole reason i have a career i would never want to like go head to head but then you get older and you learn in life a lot of people are going to do what's best for them when they have the chance sure i you know i i wish i could say he was a dangerous criminal he's not right and that's that's what happened and that's what happened did you ever see the movie no i think i asked you this no i never i can't imagine anything you would hate more than the late shift movie and somebody i couldn't i couldn't watch my own show i'm not about to watch a movie about my own show that would be a fun if you ever got into social media the social media should just be you on camera watching the late shift steady camera on you as you start convulsing i think that i maybe i mentioned this to you but they um at some point uh a friend of mine who worked with us on the show named stewart smiley stewart smiley is that who it was stew smiley yeah had given me um some kind of trampoline thing where you would pitch a ball into and it would return back yeah and uh they they depicted me at my home on the weekend throwing i don't know something it toward this thing and it bouncing back and it was complete fabrication i don't i don't think i don't think i have it right i don't think i was ever even i know the scene yeah i know the scene you're talking about it's actually a really good movie but like always with these things it's based on a true story and once you say based on a true story you can basically do anything yeah you could just have you you know hitting three woods in your backyard well that would have been preferable this was this was something a a dope would be doing right here here i am depicted as a man in his 40s bouncing the i don't know what it was but it was humiliating i tell you for adults with crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms every choice matters trim fire offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start trim fire is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks if your doctor decides that you can self inject trim fire proper training is required trim fire is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis serious allergic reactions increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them and liver problems may occur before treatment get checked for infections and tuberculosis tell your doctor if you have an infection flu-like symptoms or need a vaccine explore what's possible ask your doctor about trim fire today call 1-800-526-7777 777-736 to learn more or visit Tramfiaradio.com. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Excitement is in the air. That's right. It's the start of NBA season. I can't wait to get together with friends, share some Michelob Ultras, and watch Tip-Off. Plus, as the official beer sponsor of the NBA, Michelob Ultra is getting you closer to the action with experiences that make you feel like you're courtside to actual courtside tickets. Enter now for a chance to win at MichelobUltra.com slash courtside. Michelob Ultra courtside 26 to 27. No purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents 21 plus. Begins on October 1st, 2026. Ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at MichelobUltra.com slash courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details. What has drawn you to this Netflix show and what makes you want to keep doing it? What's your favorite thing about it? Oh, it's been nothing but fun because the schedule is just about right going back to retirement. It's enough work to, keep you juiced. And if you don't have that, then you get sad. Right. Uh, so it's, it's, uh, we've done enough of those to be. And then here lately, we've done a string of stuff that's been pretty fun and you get to get to travel and you get to see people and you get to run into people that tell you about when their grandfather used to watch in the hospital when he was dying and they were all there around him and they were watching the top 10. His last wish was to watch your top 10 list before he died. Uh, so, uh, yeah, the people, and I would, I would love to just go nuts and tell you how awful I think they are because that's, that's the, I have that gene. Yeah. Just pick a place where I worked and I hate them. Um, but I can't do that with Netflix. They, they, we started, I don't know, years ago, four years ago. I don't know when we started. They've been nice. Uh, they've been friendly. They're pleasant. They invited me to their barbecue on Thursday. Right. Yeah. So it's been a great experience. And like I said, the schedule is great. I've had a lot of fun. The schedule has been enough to satisfy me being out of work. I feel like I learned that from you, the always turning it on your boss, the person who's employed when I was at ESPN. It's so easy. Well, I ended up getting suspended and I got suspended for three weeks. Well, what were you doing? I, uh, I was very critical of Roger Goodell and knowing that he was their biggest partner and, you know, in retrospect, probably pushed a little too far. Oh, that's because they're, they're the punching bag in the gym and you don't take the punching bag out of the gym. That's why they're there. There's nothing you can do to personally affect the bottom line or the stock price. Well, then they realize like, by the way, there's nothing you can do to affect the bottom. You're going to leave now and we'll be exactly the same, which is what you learned. I'm telling you, this is exactly what's wrong with this country. Is it really? I don't know. Maybe. Well, the thing, when I started, my column and they had all these media criticism rules. So I had to figure out all of these different ways to like make fun of announcers and Chris Berman and, and, you know, do these roundabout things. And it actually kind of was fun creatively. Like how do I get to the message across without hitting somebody up the head with a hammer? You know, which I think Howard Stern was probably like that a little bit too, when he was on the radio versus being on satellite satellite, you can just say anything. But is it, is it, you mentioned, uh, the NFL has, has a, a large share of ESPN. Is that correct? No. Well, the ESPN, their most important TV partner was the NFL, right? So they didn't really want people to be that critical in the NFL. And at the time there was a lot of things to be critical about, but I understand recently that there was a great, a steak. Yeah. So is that okay? That the, the, the single biggest topic of the sports broadcasting owns that outlet. It seems a little dubious. Yeah. It's it's they own it. They own a piece. They run the NFL network. I mean, they would say, and I, I would agree with them that they're still doing investigative journalism. They'll still write about the league. They try to be objective, but you always have that air of like, ah, is this objective? So you just gotta prove that it's objective. Yeah. And what is the line before you get the phone call? You know, right. That was my issue when that, when I had all this stuff with Goodell in 2014, cuz it was all about that Ray rice story that had happened. And I, you know, we did good ESPN, did good reporting on it. And I was expounding on the reporting. I felt like he changed his story and probably went too far. Hmm. You probably, I'm trying to think when you went too far, probably, probably late eighties, you started pushing it with NBC a little too much. Uh, the, the only real trouble I got in was, uh, making a joke about Sarah Gillan, the, the CBS. Yeah. Oh, and then I remember one time, um, what's his name from, uh, CBS, uh, Les Moonves. Yeah. He said, uh, he called me, he was in town for the upfront through some nonsense. I don't know. Yeah. I'd like to come over and have a chat with you, Dave. And I said, oh, okay. Yeah. So he comes over and, uh, I always try to make them uncomfortable somehow. Yeah. So I would sit where you're sitting and then they would have to sit behind my desk. So I knew that that was a bit of a, a head fuck, you know, like, wait, why am I sitting behind his desk? And, uh, he looks at me and it was like being back in, in high school. He said, what is your problem with me? So that I love that moment. Why did he think you had a problem? Because you were making fun of CBS. I was working him over on, on the air. And then of course, because I'm, I'm just, uh, uh, I guess that was your show for 30 years. I know it always made fun of her, but I fold, I folded right up and I said, oh, geez, nothing. It's all fine. We're just having fun here. We're just a bunch of kids. And it was like that. Whereas I could have just gone after him, but I didn't. Well, if people didn't play along with the joke with you, it would make me the viewer not like them. Yeah. Cause I remember you did the book, you did the bullhorn thing with Brian Gumbel when he was doing the today show and he didn't react great to it. I was like, that guy's a fucking asshole. Like, why doesn't he get that? This is a show. Yes. Brian Gumbel was 100% right to be upset because they're doing a prime time live today show. And I'm leaning out the window with a bullhorn. And then conversely, like on the opposite side, like when Vince was on your anniversary, Vince McMahon was on the anniversary show kind of having fun. It was like, oh, Vince McMahon didn't realize he had a sense of humor. Like it, you know, it could, it could definitely sway how you felt about people. Costas was another one. Yeah. Costas was always great. I mean, he was on the payroll in the beginning. He went, do anything. And he was great, uh, because he had the right sensibility and sure I'll play along. And it's not, not going to lean on my integrity as a sports broadcaster. He was great. Yeah. Kimmel and I have talked about that. You felt like, especially for us, like growing up, like idolizing the show, everybody who played along or, or could fit in, we just liked them. We were like, okay, they're in the club. Let's bring them in. It was like the Soho house. Wow. You're, uh, explaining power. I didn't realize I had you, you had it now, you know, you know, you have it. You just pretend. No, no, I know. Because in those days, I don't know how you feel about this, what you're doing right here. I didn't realize, was not aware. I didn't have time to consider that what we were doing in that studio was anything beyond the 300 people in the audience. If you've been there, you're doing it every day. You're doing it every day. And if it's like running a restaurant, if people are sending the soup back, you realize, Oh, we got bad soup. Right. And I think for a while we were the only TV show that served soup. Well, I remember, I think you were on the cover of Rolling Stone at some point and that felt validating because it still mattered to be in the cover SI and Rolling Stone. If you made the cover, like something was happening. So that was that you probably knew at that point. I, uh, I only knew of the Rolling Stone importance because of the song on the cover of the Rolling Stone. And I realized then, Oh shit, maybe this is something I would like to be on. And so I finally ended up on the cover of the Rolling Stone. And that was cool. I loved everything about it, but the photo shoot, you know, it was always something wacky. Can we do something wacky? Yeah. And that always made my skin grow. They'd talk Kimmel Kimmel had an ass crack shot. They did it for an hour and then he did like a fake plumber thing. And of course that was the one they use. Yeah. They just, they try to let your defenses down until you do something dumb. And then that's the one they use. Yeah. Yeah. You just, you can't trust those people. So what's, what's next for you? More Netflix shows? Well, no. When I leave here, I'm going to have lunch with a friend at a deli. That's what's next. What about rest of the year? Next? Any, any like chance we see you courtside for like a Knicks playoffs game or anything? You're never going to tell you something. It's like, we're connected psychically here Saturday. I will be in Indianapolis at the, uh, Herald square arena, whatever they're calling it now. Oh, for the Caitlin Clark. Yeah. Season opener. Wow. Fever. Tommy must have helped you Dallas, Dallas wings. I think I did this on my own. Did I do it on my own or you did it on your own? I didn't, you didn't need Tommy. I think Mary did this. Did he do it? Oh, he did it. I'm sorry. Oh, you did it. You know, Tom is like the string puller of the fever. I don't know. I just don't know about Tommy. Well, I don't, I don't know. He's a member. Did you ever see the Woody Allen movie, a movie zealot? Yeah, that's Tommy. It was, I'm being told now. Yeah, it was a Brian Tetta connection. And anyway, I'll be there. Speaking of courtside, not courtside. They tell me they can't put me at courtside, which is fine. huh might it change i'll be now you're gonna you're don't be putting your courts this is breaking news for you bill wow courtside i'll be courtside this is great i i just say a few things about caitlin clark uh i got to know her a bit yeah uh the same way you can tell people that you know me yeah and nothing beyond that please just say a bit if they ask i know they have a bit and i just fell in love with her because as a person it's that would be like the daughter who comes home for thanksgiving dinner from college and you just the house would light up when she pulled in the drive and was home for two or three days i had that feeling about the kid oh that's nice and uh and so we did this show with her on netflix and uh about a month afterward i thought let me let me call okay because i feel like i put in my time right i can get a call and then it was all of a sudden to begin well what do you want to talk about well i just want to see if she was happy with the show yeah okay well let me see what we can do i don't know that was two years ago never wow never got to call her it's a lot of what is that people but i don't know is it me is it just don't do whatever you do don't let asshole call now that i don't think it was she probably didn't even know you called would be my guess you're mistake was not going through tommy tommy did didn't we go through you no see tommy never happens well who the hell did we go through how often let's try and get her on the phone now how often do you go back to indianapolis well i go back every year for racing activities uh and then i go back to visit my family uh here and there which is the family's getting smaller and smaller you know death yeah yeah uh and i like going back indianapolis it's turned into a tremendous place for me to go back to indianapolis it's a tremendous place it's it's a great place to live uh you gotta overlook a few things you have to overlook a few things yeah you have to overlook some things a couple things but it's still a great place i went back for the finals for two of the home games for pacers okc oh yeah i spent like five days yeah it's i mean it's perfect for you it's a perfect like come in and out for four days didn't we know that that was not gonna last i mean uh therese halliburton and then all of a sudden the the yeah but here's the thing so we're taping this before the lottery on sunday and they have a really good chance to get a top four pick and the draft's awesome tyrese is coming back they traded for a center so i think they're gonna be really good next year well that'll be delightful i go back to the aba days and it was just i loved it oh that's right you were there for the uh the old pacers yeah yeah it was delightful who else was on that team uh freddie keller freddie lewis billy keller uh mel daniels uh roger brown mel daniels was a rick mount play they won the title they won i think they won three aba titles yeah yeah and it was delightful it was in the old indiana fairgrounds coliseum and we would tickets for 75 cents and you'd go and it would be like like an old black and white movie about fighting the you could just see the haze settling over the ring right and the only way you knew there was something because of the colored ball you could use oh they oh i see them they're down there playing basketball it's so funny like that there's like barely any footage of any of the games it was just this alternate league happening well there's a tremendous documentary that i just watched it was on amazon yeah yeah yeah yeah pretty good pretty good stuff yeah i hope uh hopefully indianapolis will come back so you won't go to a next game uh no i i i would you could be on celebrity row with chalamet larry david you could be right there with those guys good for the people yeah i'm i'm afraid that i would probably get beaten i don't know why i just have that fear wherever i go when you but i mean when you're in new york you're like new york royalty though aren't you really i think so uh i mean you did a show there for 33 years and that's what it takes to become royalty yeah i would say well people have been very very nice to me and and uh and colbert will go through this yeah is now i don't know i don't oh we miss you and you you get to the point where i know if you really miss me i'd still have a show you understand you see what i'm saying uh like that all right this is a true pleasure now don't tell me we're finished because i'm just kind of settling in to go tom's how long has this been running it's like yeah this is oh yeah i'll be at the deli yeah you got to go to the deli they ordered your reuben yeah comedy they ordered your reuben well this has been great pleasure i and i feel like i would like to come back and do a better job i thought you were great i had a great time i'll tell you what happened uh last night uh i feel like i was dragged out of a bar unbeaten uh because it was uh it was uh john mulaney yeah and it was a big big big deal yeah and so of course i didn't sleep and now today you're you're getting me at like 60 getting groggy letterman yeah i thought you did great thanks for coming what are you gonna say producer's not here i had a phenomenal time i wish it might in retrospect i would have invited the producer well now you're gonna look into this guy i'm gonna look into this guy for you thanks for coming on i appreciate it thank you bill i enjoyed myself as much as i'm able thank you for the for the viewer mail idea for the mail anything you i got it's all yours i got 18 years out of mailbags and now more on the podcast so thank you thank you all right that's it for the podcast thanks letterman thanks to gahal and eduardo as well don't forget to watch tropic thunder this weekend because that's the next rewatchables on monday so here's the schedule for this weekend sunday night there's two games new york philly the lottery and then san antonio minnesota which should end around 10 o'clock et i'm coming on live on netflix with a couple guests and we're going to break down the lottery and all the basketball for the weekend so enjoy the weekend i will see you on sunday must be 21 plus and president select states for kansas in affiliation with kansas star casino or 18 plus and president dc kentucky or wyoming opt-in required bonus issued as non-withdrawable profit boost tokens restrictions apply including any token expiration max wager amount see terms at sportsbook.family.com gave him a problem call 1-800-GAMBLE or 1-800-MY-RESET call 888-79-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in maryland hope is here visit gambling helpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in massachusetts or call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text hope ny in new york for louisiana call 877-770-7830 this episode is brought to you by seven up okay this one's a case for conspiracy bill let's bring them in ever notice lemon is everywhere from lemon recipes to lemon scented cleaning supplies and when it comes to lemon lime sodas why is lemon always first there's a reason a shadowy organization called the lemonade has been padding the stats keeping big lemon in the lead for decades but let me tell you something the sip is about to be flipped seven up is fighting back swapping lemon lime for their new lime lemon soda now lime comes first seven up flip the sip this episode is brought to you by core power protein shakes you know how we always talk about the little things that separate great athletes post-workout recovery is a big factor core power protein shakes help you keep going after your workout with high quality protein to build muscle and electrolytes to help hydrate it's all you need for your recovery one bottle available in 26 and 42 gram protein options to pick what works best for you visit corepower.com to learn more you