NBA Power Poll 1.0, Plus a ‘You Can See Everything’ Breakdown With Wesley Morris

I'm pro-football Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, and I lived for a long time with something I did not know the name of, major depressive disorder. I carried sadness and anger because I thought I could handle it alone, but I couldn't. Now I want to make sure others know that that support is out there. If you're experiencing similar symptoms, talk to a healthcare professional. Visit mddallies.com to watch my story. Paid partnership with Johnson & Johnson. Brian Dawkins is not prescribed Caplida Lumateperone. I needed more from my antidepressant, so my doctor added Caplida Lumateperone, proven to provide greater relief from depression symptoms than an antidepressant alone, building on my progress without starting over. Caplida is for adults with major depressive disorder when used with an antidepressant and is available by prescription only. Individual results may vary. In clinical trials, weight gain was not common. Caplida is not approved for dementia-related psychosis. Call your doctor about new or sudden mood changes, behaviors, or suicidal thoughts right away. Antidepressants may increase these risks. Report fever, confusion, stiff muscles, which may be life-threatening, or uncontrolled muscle movements, which may be permanent. High cholesterol and weight gain may occur, as can high blood sugar, which may be fatal. Monitoring is recommended. Common side effects are sleepiness, dizziness, nausea, dry mouth, feeling tired, and diarrhea. These aren't all the side effects. Ask your doctor about Caplida. Learn more at Caplida.com or call 888-788-8888. The Bill Simmons Podcast, brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where we put up a new Rewatchables. Yesterday, we did it live on Netflix. We did A Nightmare on Elm Street, one of the best horror movies of all time. It was me and Ben Lathan and Chris Ryan. We argued about whether it was the best horror movie of the 80s, had an interesting result to that argument. Ben tried to do a hottest take where he defended Freddy Krueger. That was interesting. Really fun podcast all around the world. We'll see you next time. That wraps up Horror Movie Month. We did It Follows, Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. I was going to wait until after Brewers Rays World Series Game 4 and then realize that not one person in my life has texted me about this World Series except for my buddy Chip Cain, who's a diehard Brewers fan. The Rays had a chance to make people care about this series, and then they shit the bed over the weekend. We are where we are, probably going to be one of the least remembered World Series in a long time. At least we have the WNBA to make fun of because the WNBA announced this week that Game 6 is going to be at 1230 Eastern Time in Atlanta because they couldn't figure out all the stadium stuff. The Hawks had games. The Warriors had games. It's not like they had time to figure this out because they just found out what the finals was two weeks ago. Oh, wait. They're supposed to have a bunch of contingencies. Atlanta was the four seed? And they were completely blindsided that they were going to make the finals. This is the dumbest thing that's probably. Even for a league that has gone out of its way to seem stupid this entire year and has, I think, made 12 or 13 major decisions this year, and I've disagreed with all of the decisions, literally all of them, this is a new low for them. They can't even simulcast Game 6. It's on USA, which is bad enough that they are showing any finals games on USA, but it's on USA. And then. It's being simulcast. It used to be on CNBC for the primetime games, but the market's going on during the day. So now it's on, I think, SyFy, Spike TV, the Playboy channel. I don't know where it's being simulcast, but this is just a massive embarrassment. And the commissioner's already announced she's stepping down. Commissioner Cathy, who is singularly terrible down the stretch here. I think she should step down a second time. And I don't know who is going to be the next commissioner, but I promise they'll be better than Cathy Engelbert was. I just can't believe how dumb this league is. People want to like this league. I don't even care about the finals anymore, and I've cared about this entire season. I've moved on. There's college football, there's NFL, there's NBA. They delayed it with the FIBA. They delayed this final. It started eight days after both teams had clinched, and we're still going, and they're just driving away their audience. Good luck to everybody. I just can't. I just can't understand how everybody can be this incompetent. But anyway, good luck to Atlanta, Golden State, game six at 930 a.m. Pacific time. Coming up, I am going to do a power poll for the first week of the NBA season, and then we're going to talk to Wesley Morris about You Can See Everything, the new Nathan Fielder movie about Elizabeth Holmes. That is next. We're going to take a break, Pearl Jam, and then power poll next. This is the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Make every NFL week more rewarding with FanDuel. Rewards Club. You heard me. Just bet like you normally would. Earn points in eligible settled bets, win or lose. Keep collecting points, level up, and unlock bigger rewards. So keep an eye on your Rewards Club progress and see what you can unlock. This is your most rewarding season ever, and it's with FanDuel. All right. My first power poll of the NBA season. We've only had a week. I'm going to try not to overreact. We're recording this before Tuesday's games. And the only one that really matters to me for the purposes of the poll is Pistons-Knicks, because I think there would have been lessons from that game, but just going to have to work on what we had. Going from 30 to one, separated in categories, and I'm going to try to zip through this as fast as I possibly can and come up with like one or two takes on each team. First group is called the Dregs. It's always called the Dregs. And guess what? Nobody's surprised. Sacramento is there as the 30th ranked team. They're 0-3. I, of course, went to King's Reddit this morning because it's one of the funniest places on the internet. And the top, if you do the hot, and that gives you like the hottest posts of the moment, the top post, it was somebody posting, Amen, just those four letters, to an embedded tweet. And the tweet read, When I die, bury me in my Sacramento Kings jersey so God knows I've already done my time in hell. 789 likes. So there's your Kings season so far. My favorite Kings fact, they're paying $49 million this year to Keegan Murray and DeAndre Hunter. $49 million combined. If you combine them and called them Keandre Murder, I guess you could just call it Keandre Murder at this point. Keandre Murder, I think that's the worst contract in the league. Two swing guys. I don't think either guy would play for the Celtics. And the Celtics aren't even one of the top five teams in the league. Kings. Acuff, kind of fun to watch from a league pass standpoint, but this is as grim as we thought it was going to be. So they're 30. 29 is Brooklyn. 0-3 playing Boston tonight. I'm going to flag this now. Michael Porter plays really well against the Celtics. Kind of worried about this game, but Brooklyn's where we thought they were going to be. They'll trade Porter at some point. They'll start playing rookies. And the good news for them is Houston gets to swap picks with them. Oh no, that's terrible news. So they don't even have the first round pick technically. So we'll see what happens with them. This feels like a trade machine team to me. 28, Milwaukee. 1-3, won last night against Indiana without Zubats. I watched it. I watched basketball. It was great last night. There was the, I got to say the multi-view, NBA.com or whatever the league pass thing is called. They fixed the multi-view. So now it's just the four games, all just the four squares like in NFL. It's wonderful. It's really great. We appreciated NBA. It made up for all of your terrible co-running of the WNBA that you gave us a full multi-view, but I was watching all the games. There were some really good ones last night and Milwaukee did beat Indiana. So Milwaukee has Miami's pick, which I guess is the good news here with the way Miami's looked so far. The bad news, Gary Trent's just getting zero minute games here. This is somebody who stopped playing over the course of last season, who did not look like a road rotation player just in general. And then they gave him the $64 million deal that clearly was about as fishy as that place they always show in Seattle before Seahawks games. When they show the people throwing the fish, it was about as, that's where the contract should live. They're going to get punished. They're going to lose a pick in this. I think everybody in the league is expecting them to lose a first round pick. So we'll see if it has anything to do with this year's pick because I don't think they would take the Miami pick away, but they might take something away. So anyway, guess what? Nobody in Milwaukee cares. Like literally nobody. The Brewers are about to win the world series. The Packers look like a playoff team. The Bucks traded Giannis. They got back a bunch of whatevers and some picks from a team that probably isn't that good. And nobody cares. And if you looked at the beginning last night, there was a great screenshot picture, a wide shot of them announcing the starting lineup. Tyler Harrow with the hammer, unclear if he's the worst hammer hammer guy of all the 30 home teams when they announced it's between probably between him and Brooklyn. I didn't see who got the hammer with Brooklyn, but whatever it was probably not the greatest choice ever. They showed the wide shot and there's just nobody at this game and that's just going to be the bucks. So congratulations to them. They won the title in 2021 and it's been really, really grim ever since. Number 27, Chicago watched them last night. Caleb looks like he's going to be an easy 22 and seven guy this season, uh, probably on bad teams. That's really all that matters for them this year. I will say there was one thing I liked. Of course I watched the Celtic game to the bitter end. The Celtics were up by like 40 the entire game with like a minute to go. They got a steal and they threw it at a Hugo and Hugo, sorry, sorry, Hugo. They threw it ahead to my guy, Hugo, who was about to go up for a dunk. Caleb Wilson with the hard foul behind. And it was like 45 seconds left. And then he angrily stalked off to the bench and I liked it. You know what? He's trying to set the tone and a 40 point blowout. But I appreciated that. Uh, I appreciated the competitiveness. I think they're in good shape with that dude. Number 26, Phoenix one and two. This was the only other team Reddit I went to son's Reddit. The top post was, this is going to be a very long season was the written thing. And it was a meme of sad Ben Affleck, sadly smoking. It was a meme of sad Ben Affleck, sadly smoking. But wearing different sons jerseys. So that's where the son's mindset is. Eddie Johnson heard some of the announcing for this one last night. And, um, he was pretty appalled by the defense by, uh, by Booker's. I don't know what Booker was doing that game. He Booker had a, I don't care if I'm traded kind of performance where he just really didn't shoot. And, uh, the center situation's bad. Miles Bridges, Jalen Green, you just have two guys you can attack all the time. Now, last, last year, there was, they were much better. I thought defensively than what we're looking at this year and Booker, not shooting is weird. And the vibes are weird. And guess what? They don't have their pick. It's going to Houston. So this is grim. We knew it was going to be grim because there should be a traded basically all their first runners, but did make me wonder is I know Booker's contract is appalling and just gets worse, but it did make me wonder if there's something there with Booker and bam. Trade machine bill did kick it around and study it, but that is a really a classic good trade for both teams. Now you have bam who would never ever leave Miami. Allegedly you Booker who would never ever leave Phoenix allegedly, but are both teams better? If you make a trade like that, I would argue. Yes. Number 25 last team in the dregs is the Utah mustard juice. They are one in three and you're not going to do this, but Jared Jackson's heard already. He has played 13,000 career minutes. This is season number nine for him. He has played 1800 plus minutes three times. And if you're a jazz fan, you are now entering the, the think zone here of we traded some stuff away for Jared Jackson jr. And then we got some stuff back for, for Kessler. Would I rather have just kept Kessler and not traded anything for Jared Jackson jr. That's where my head would be at as a Utah fan. Peterson looks okay. He doesn't look busty. He's not jumping out of my TV there. He looks fine. He's a playable starting guard. Doesn't look as good as boozer has didn't look even close to as good as Yaxa looked last night against Denver. Um, you might take Wilson over him too. I wouldn't say he's the top, one of the top three rookies I've watched, but again, and I'm going to say this only four times during this. Segment. It's only been a week. I am not overreacting. I am just pointing out what I've watched for the first four, for the first seven days. And he has not jumped out of the TV to me yet, but I'm going to give it some time. Okay. Next category, panic time. Only one team here. Number 24, Miami, their own four and every single possible heat fear that you would have had heading into this season has happened already. You have the, the honest bam fit has looked horrible. Bam looks like he has no idea what to do on offense. They're playing too fast for what their talent is. They bet on clay who has looked washed. He looked washed, even though the percentages were okay for him last year. I thought he looked kind of washed last year. It looks worse this year. Three point shooting in general for Miami, 30.6, not where you want to be in a team with the honest, who is not the easiest guy to play with. Let's be honest. Um, you have to build the right kind of team. around him. He needs a head of steam. He needs the ball all the time. And we have not seen this work now for five years, which was one of many reasons why I was worried about the Celtics training for him. They paid Wiggins who hasn't looked good this year either. I've watched a ton of heat this year for some reason. Wiggins might be a, we should only paid him year by year guy. They gave him an extension, but he has not looked good. The Jovich extension from last year was one of the dumbest extensions anyone's given in the last five years. It's been a disaster. He's unplayable. They traded too much of depth in the honest deal. They don't really have any moves now. And I think the bigger issue, forget about how they started. Cause they easily could have been two and two. They had some crunch time luck. I just wonder 10 years ago, you could get away with Yanis with Yanis and bam as your two guys. And you could put around some league average guys around them and probably win 50 games. I think the league's too deep now. I don't think you can do it. I don't think you do. With Booker and Phoenix either. I think everybody, the regular season, you need depth. You need a team that's almost built like how the Celtics or even the thunder who's just lost four guys with the two massive injuries that we'll talk about in a second. Um, but still have enough talent to at least be able to put basketball players out there. I don't know a team like this. I went over on them before the season. Cause I thought defensively, I thought they'd be really good and they haven't been. And maybe that's how they're going to be. I don't know. I don't know. They get back in this. I think they're gonna have to play bigger. I think they're gonna have to play Portis more. And in general, maybe bully ball this a little bit versus play the style that they used last year. And I wouldn't bet against them figuring out, figuring this out with that said, this is as bad as it could get. They are minus one 10 to make the playoffs on FanDuel. So basically even odds. And when you think about how deep the East is and how Charlotte started out better than we thought, I think they're behind the eight ball already. So we'll see how this next two or three weeks goes, but this might be one of those things by, by December, they might just decide this didn't work and their first round picks go into Milwaukee. So, um, this, this is, this team's about as on the clock as we get for the non-playoff teams right now. Okay. Next category, hot messes. I don't necessarily hate what I'm watching, but I also feel like it's a little messy. Number 23, the Clippers, not a disaster. So that's a bonus. And Kawhi's already hurt. So if you're a Clipper fan, you feel good about that too. You got a Toronto swap that you got in that trade. Garland looks great. Garland looks great. Now we'll see if he stays healthy the whole year, but he looks great. They're hitting a bunch of threes, which can go up and down. There's been a lot of Brooke Lopez so far. That would be a red flag for me. And Rui hasn't really shot the ball well, but in general, this, when you watch them, especially though when Niederhazer will come back at some point, but it's a team that, doesn't not make sense. So maybe they're not going to be as bad as, as, as we thought. Now they don't have their own first round pick, but they do have that Toronto pick. So in a weird way, they can, I don't know what the plate is with this team. The energy around the team, not great. The fact that Kawhi is not kicking ass on Toronto probably makes us feel a little bit better, but I have them in the hot mess category. I have New Orleans in there as well. Number 22, 0-3 in the season. They lost three games in the clutch. They blew an incredible game to Denver on Saturday night where they had the game, blew it nine times. Their 0-3 in the clutch this year, headed probably for 0-70. They had the dopiest roster situation in the league. Just this, just threw some talent together with no rhyme or reason for how it might work. And then they hired Jamal Mosley to, to try to figure it out. I wrote down, it's like when the inventor of the bagel, egg and cheese sandwich, was like, what could make this better? What if I put some bacon in this? And then they took a bite and I was like, this is delicious. This is the opposite with Jamal Mosley trying to figure out this New Orleans roster. He's buried Herb Jones already, which I don't understand at all because it's not like this team's getting stops defensively. The funniest thing to me though, Zion Williamson, who looks pretty explosive offensively, looks skinnier. I can't say he looks like a guy in the team, except he has nine total rebounds this year. And Jeremiah Fears, who I think is like 6'1", who plays point guard, also has nine rebounds. And I think this is going to be a subplot for the season. Zion rebounds versus Fears rebounds. Nine to nine right now. Not a good sign for the Pelicans. They are not a playoff team. Golden State, I was convinced before last night, I have them number 21, they're one and three. I was convinced before last night that this was one of the five worst leagues and maybe one of the three worst. And the moment Steph got hurt, this was going to be beyond grim. That leads me to my first overreaction. after one week. Overreaction number one. Yaxo might have single-handedly saved the Steph era. Like, for real. And I can't tell you how good he was in this Denver game last night. I watched the entire game. Now, I was watching three games at once, but I watched the entire game. Yaxo looked like mid-2010s LeBron in this game. I don't say that lightly, because mid-2010s LeBron was awesome. He was doing it. They were running the offensive room. He was all over the place on defense. He was rebounding. He was initiating stuff. He was getting in the basket whenever. It was unbelievable. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe how good he was. I don't know what this team does long-term, because they have Draymond, $27 million expiring. They have whatever's going on with Porzingis at $20 million. And could put those two together for something if they wanted. And I keep looking at Sabonis and Sacramento and wondering if they flipped those two for Sabonis and threw in some conditional pick and Sacramento got out of the last year of Sabonis' deal. Could this team get really interesting when Butler comes back? I was done with them. Yaxo sucked me back in. So, there you go. I have them 21. And then 20 is Orlando. They're 1-2. Suggs is out. Palo is out. I didn't feel great about this team to begin with from the way they started this season. And really, the big takeaway is this team will not look the same in February. Something will happen. There will be some trade. I don't know who it is. I don't know if it's going to be Palo. I don't know if it's going to be Suggs when he comes back. Franz. Something's going to happen with this team. Okay. Next category. Possible panic time. Only one team in here. Denver. 1-2. Obviously, my favorite Western Conference team, as you know. And they need Cam Johnson back. They can't shoot right now. They're 30% on three all season. If they're not making threes, they're not going to be a 50-win team. They have two realities here that are happening. And if you watch the first three games, they got killed in at least one half of all three games and really should have lost all three. They should have lost the New Orleans game. They won the New Orleans game because Brazil had an out-of-control game off the bench and because New Orleans is a stupid basketball team. That's why they won. There's two realities, though. Post-prime Aaron Gordon is here. 2023, great career. I think he's moving into a different phase, which is fine. The bigger concern is post-prime Joker might be here. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of chatter and, you know, there's social media stuff and all kinds of things about, is this guy 100% anymore physically? Is he the same since he had that injury last year? The game doesn't look, it doesn't look as easy for him this season. And I don't know if he's nursing some sort of injury that he's not telling us about or if this is just wear and tear from having to do everything for basically a decade. It doesn't look as easy for him. It's, it seems like it's harder to get his position. It seems like it's, it's harder for him to get the plays and shots that he either wants for himself or somebody else. Everything is just a little bit more of a chore. It feels closer. Now, the worst version of Joker was always those, those Minnesota playoff series where they would just wear him down, but doesn't have his legs on his threes. And just in general, seems like he's laboring a little bit. And I'm concerned, but again, it's week one and he might be fine a week from now. I'm just pointing out what I've watched this first week. Next category, proof of life. I got Washington at two and two as the 18th best team. Yeah, I have my head at Denver. No AJ yet. They've still been pretty fun. Trey Young just can't really shoot anymore. It doesn't matter. He gets his points. He gets to the free throw line. He gets assists. Um, he, any, any, uh, remember that there was that stretch where it was like, this guy's going to be the next step. Steph actually made threes, but he has been putting up stats. He's competitive. Um, he gets hunted on defense and it's fine. AD has looked, I think, really good. And as long as he stays healthy, I think this is a 35 to 37 win team. I would trade him literally tomorrow. I would, I would trade him right now. I would be offering him to Golden State every day because as long as he's healthy and you watch how he's running around, how he's moving, how he's looking, you trade him now before he gets hurt. They have two future playoff guys, in my opinion. And I haven't seen, uh, AJ yet because he hasn't played. But I think Kaishan George could absolutely be a wing on a really good playoff team. And I think Trey Johnson, you could see it. He could be a heat check score on the right kind of contender. So they have those two spots, whatever would Trey, I guess they keep AD. I don't know about SAR. SAR doesn't shoot or make threes anymore. So we don't know what's going on. And then we see what happens with AJ. But at least, at least we're moving in a positive direction. Congratulations, Joe House. Portland 2-0. They've only have two game sample size. They beat Sacramento and Phoenix. So hard to say. They're playing the Lakers later tonight. Two short takeaways. Dame looks great. He really looks good offensively. He's shooting again. He has his lift. And, you know, once again, it goes back to Milwaukee doing that crazy Miles Turner move last year where they just could have had Dame as an expiring quarterback. On a big deal this year and a lot more flexibility with that than how paying him 22 million a year for the rest of the tournament. John Moran also looks fine. He's not John Moran anymore. He's not 2021 John Moran, but he's at least competitive. He's talking shit. He's got a little swagger to him. 42 million this year. Expiring next year. They didn't give up anything. It's fine. But need to see them more. But it's as weird of a team as we expected. All kinds of, Drew Holliday's still playing 23, 24 minutes a game for this team. Scoots in there. You never kind of, it's like a hockey team. You never kind of know who's out there, but I'm intrigued by them. Number 17. Number 16. Dallas. Two and two. It's time for overreaction number two of my one week of watching basketball. Cooper Flag looks absolutely spectacular. Absolutely spectacular. This is holy shit. Shit level. And my overreaction would be, I'm not sure it's possible for him to be on an under 500 team anymore. I actually think you have to recalibrate. Dallas, I think their over-under was 33 wins, something like that. I can't remember if I went over-under, but it was a hard one. He's a top 15 to 20 guy in the league now. He does whatever he wants offensively. He can go full speed left or full speed right already, get to the rim and finish at age 19. Which basically LeBron is the only other guy I've ever seen be able to do that at that age. He's unstoppable. He's competitive. He does everything you'd want. And it feels like he went up a level from last year. So you have that. If Kyrie looks okay and you have this weird crunch time swing group of they got to figure out somebody from Max Christie, Reese DeShay, Morris Johnson, one of these guys. They need one of those guys to be able to make threes. But there's pieces here. And if they're in a game in the last five minutes and they have Kyrie and Flag, they have to figure out they have two guys who can get whatever shot they want. Kyrie, again, hasn't looked totally like Kyrie yet, but let's see what it looks like a month from now. But this team's better than I thought it was going to be and it's because of Flag. Number 15, Charlotte. Three and one. You know who's really good? Nas Reed. Yeah. You know who else is really good? Brandon Miller had the best game of his probably NBA career yesterday and looked like a Paul Pierce, Jason, Tatum, Jalen Brown level. Like, this is going to be an all-NBA guy. I don't know if that's going to last, but that's how we looked last night. They're only shooting 30% from three. They're three and one. They've had no Khan, no Kobe. Those guys don't come back for, I think, at least one more week. It's been a lot of Dennis Schroeder. Like a lot. Like a lot of Dennis Schroeder, especially at the end of these games. And yet, my biggest fear with them and the reason I thought there were 11 possible playoff teams in the East, I thought they were going to be the one to drop out because I thought they were going to get hammered in this little stretch here. And they're three and one. If they can stay 500 until White and Khan are playing normal minutes again, combined with what Grayson Allen's been giving them, Schroeder in there, and, you know, Nas Reed, Steinbach. I think it's a playoff team. They're plus 155 to make the playoffs on FanDuel. And from what I've seen, they look like a playoff team. So, they're holding the fort. Last team on this list is Memphis. They're 4-0. This was one of the ones I felt the most passionate about in the month leading up to the season that I thought they were going to be better than people thought. And nothing has surprised me here. I'm not victory laughing because I was wrong on some stuff too, but this was the one I really felt good about because you knew Boozer was going to be good right away. You knew Beef Stew was going to be fun for them. You knew Coward was going to be good. You knew in ED plays that it's going to be good. Nobody understood what was going to happen when Ty Jerome hit the first week of the season. So, we'll see if it lasts with them. But just not surprised by this one. This team had the right look and vibe. And I thought one of my biggest bets was them to be a play-in team. They might even be a whiff better than that if they can get a full season from ED. And Boozer, getting him third was a miracle. It really was. Like, you shouldn't be able to get a guy like that third. And the reason they did was because the top four in this draft was so good. But that's just incredible to get that guy third. That guy is a real, he's an interesting guy. appreciating stuff, he's rebounding, He's competitive. He's got it all. I love Cam Boozer. So there you go. That's the top 14. We're gonna take a break and then I'm gonna rip through the top 13 teams right after this. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA action just got even better with FanDuel because this Wednesday with early win, a fast start could be all you need to win big. Pick an eligible NBA game, apply the token, bet the money line. If your team jumps out to a seven point lead at any point, you win instantly. That's right. You don't have to wait till the final buzzer. Check out early win on eligible NBA games in the FanDuel app. Just another reason why this is your most rewarding season ever on FanDuel. 21 plus select states are 18 plus DC or Wyoming. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLE or call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. This week, buy a four piece signature chicken from Popeye's, Joe House's favorite. Get another one free. On Uber Eats, when your watch party gets hungry, order and keep everyone's attention where it matters on the game. Order a four piece signature chicken from Popeye's. My Sunday football one, I always try to go a little healthier on Sunday. I don't try to do this all the time because I got the podcast on Sunday night. I don't want to be live. I want my brain to be working. So I'm a big salad and soup. I was trying to get, maybe I'll get a little chicken nuggets or something. But for the most part, that's my Sunday. Other people are different. Other people get wings, pizza, whatever. But that's the thing about Uber Eats. You can get whatever you want. Basically, whatever game day calls for, you can get almost, almost anything on Uber Eats with deals every week. Uber Eats, official on-demand food delivery partner of the NFL. Order now. For alcohol, you must be of legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. All right, 13 teams left in the power poll. We are going to move to the next category, which is the contender crock pot. These teams aren't contenders. But they're on the crock pot. Like when you're making a beef stew. Sorry to bundo. And the stew is just percolating. And you don't know how good it's going to be yet. And you keep tasting it. It's like, no, it doesn't tell. But it's just going to, it has to simmer for a lot longer. 13 is Atlanta, two and two. I just need to watch them more. The rebounding seems to be the big question mark where they, you know, they have Jack Landau and obviously Okongu is the centers. Are they going to be able to rebound against good teams? What's somebody like Dern going to do against them? But athletically, you know, they look like they did last year. They're able to hang with all these different teams. The Houston game was interesting last night because Houston just had a little too much for them. And it felt like there was a talent disparity between the two teams. The what if with this team is that they had taken Yaxel instead of Fleming's, what this team would have looked like and how he would have fit in with this. I was fine with the Fleming's pick. I'm not, I'm not second guessing it. It's just, when you see how good Yaxel is, especially at age 24, that would have been a fun run. Number 12, Indiana. Two and two. Feeling it out. Crunch time five. Hasn't had enough reps yet. And Zubat's got hurt in the first quarter of the third game against, I think it was Brooklyn. So this is a classic. Make no assumptions. Have no takes on this team for a month. Just wait. Let's see the crunch time five. Let's see them. Get some reps. The one thing I will say, Ty looks great. Ty and Siakam, their pick and roll is still, I think one of the six or seven best plays in the league. And this team, I still think is a 50 win team. Number 11, Toronto. Two and one. And Kawhi's already hurt with the knee swelling. He's made it 52 minutes. Will he get to 1200 this year? 1500? What would you get to bet your life? What would you bet? I don't think I would bet. I bet my life on any number of minutes with Kawhi's knee. I wish I could play Karma Police by Radiohead right now because it just seems a little bit fitting that he destroyed the Clippers and went to Toronto and made it two games. But for them, the reason I have them 11 still, even with Kawhi out is because I think this allows them to unleash Murray Boyles and Graves. And I mentioned Graves before the year. I just really like him. And I like Murray Boyles even more. And I do feel like they can establish some sort of identity. Then it would be young guys while Kawhi's out. So we'll see what happens. Number 10, the Dennis Green division for they were who we thought they were. This is where I had the Lakers 3-0 playing tonight. We'll see if this is the best it ever gets for Laker fans because they have Kessler who's healthy. They have Luka and Reeves averaging 61 a game combined, which is even higher than like your highest Shaq and Kobe season. They have Luka with a 42.3% usage rate through three games, which would bring them to the top. So I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. would break the record the record was 2017 russ at 41.65 which was the biggest ball hog season of my lifetime other than maybe 2006 kobe 2006 kobe was more justified but 42.3 and uh all the overs for luca look great he was 34 points a game i think was around even 36 points a game was like almost three to one i i think he'd get to 36 points a game if this is how they're going to use them number nine i have the knicks of new york who i saw in person on friday night sal and i talked about this a little on sunday i'm not going to overreact if they get killed by detroit later tonight then maybe it's time to start overreacting wondering what's going on but this is you knew this was going to happen everybody was so selfless last year they win the title they climb the mountain now it's the next year now guy it's the disease of more uh combined with the fact that the bullseye is on them night after night even when they played in boston the game i went to on friday night it was a close game down the stretch i waited for brunson to take over boston was able to take them out the knicks took a couple bad shots tatum made a couple really really tough shots boston wins i didn't think less of the knicks it's just kind of what happens it was a way more important win for boston because they need to get over the hump of that team the only thing i would say with the knicks that i think you have to flag i do wonder about the dolan stuff with this team the behind the scenes stuff with the organization uh the phishing email that came out last week some of the stuff with the rings just the uh the fact that he actually got the title how is he going to behave what's what's the environment going to be like how long do leon rose and and worldwide west how long do they want to stay do they have extensions are you locking them down longer and if this team shifts more to the dolan side is there going to be collateral damage with that so i'm just i'm just just watching that one okay the contenders i have five and i'm putting them in alphabetical order because i couldn't decide what the order is so alphabetical order boston two and one i'm going to give you one note on each of these five contenders boston paul george 30 minutes a game 50 from three and they're playing brooklyn tonight so those numbers will probably be even better if he plays can they get a full year of what i've watched in the preseason in the regular season from him because what i've seen is somebody who fits in absolutely perfect with the missoula style with tatum he doesn't care if he has the ball that much he's just there to help out he's at the perfect point in his career uh defensively he is way better than i was expecting at age 36 watching some of the stuff he did in the next game in person um his ability to guard different guys different uh guys and guys that are going to be playing in the next game different heights he could guard brunson you know it was defending towns at one point like if you if you're gonna just basically take last year's team put tatum in the jalen spot and then add somebody who is just a selfless i don't care i'm just here to help type of guy this is the type of guy you'd want and it seems like he loves it there the team loves him the franchise loves him so the trade's been a home run and uh i keep thinking back to when i came out of the colonel's office and i was like i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this and i was like i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this and found out they got paul george and how bummed out i was i really enjoyed watching him can they get 65 games out of him would be my question can they get he's playing basically 30 minutes a game can they get 1800 minutes from him and can those 1800 minutes look like what they've looked like in the preseason in this first week would be my question uh fyi the the tatum brown stuff is ridiculous and i hate it and i just wish it would go away i think it's stupid i think it's beneath both of those guys they want a title together just stop talking cleveland is my next team they're two and one i watched them play minnesota last night which was about as entertaining as you're going to get in october for a basketball game on league pass it was just an absolute delight to watch it was really really fun my big question for them can peyton watson actually be their fifth guy they paid him like it they traded stuff for him um they're taking the tax hit for him offensively he looks lost so far and this is my fair i mentioned this before this season i'm not going to say anything about it but i'm going to say that it's a really good season so you get somebody basically off this 19 game sample when yokage wasn't out there when he had the ball all the time for denver and the offense is running through him and he looked really good okay now i'm on cleveland mitchell and harden have the ball all the time how do i fit in over on the side in this situation was my big question and right now he looks lost he's two for 14 from three and uh the defense has been good the energy all that stuff from what i've seen but that's the thing to watch again it's not an overreaction it's just we've watched a week and this is not what they paid for so far. Detroit, 3-0, playing the Knicks tonight. 15.7 made threes a game, 42%. Is that real? Duncan Robinson's averaging almost 20 points a game. He's never come close to that his entire career. Javante Green's making threes. John Collins is shooting 50% from threes. Is any of this real or is this just a hot week? We'll keep watching. It turns out for two weeks. I think I said this on the pod. Did the overrunners with Zach and House, and like a week later, I think the ones I would have flipped were Detroit and Miami. And I didn't. I'm going to live with my picks. But the home court advantage they have plus Cade, plus how hard they play every night, I think it's really hard for them not to be in the high 40s. Unless they have major injuries. So there's the trait, Minnesota, 3-1. Big question for me, is this Ant's MVP season? Are we looking at it? He's right now at 33.3 a game. He's shooting 26 times a game, 37.6 usage, all kinds of swagger, going toe to toe with everybody. And you could say it's partly because they made some chemistry moves and he's having fun playing with LaMelo. LaMelo, LaMelo's playing 25 minutes a game. He has 25 turnovers and 25 assists. He's taken 32 threes and 17 twos. I can't say LaMelo's been even good for Minnesota so far, but Ant's been great and obviously loves playing with LaMelo. So maybe that's the win in that. But I thought LaMelo against the Cavs last night was really unimpressive. And he's just too sloppy with the ball soon, but that's kind of the vibe that they want. And Ant feeds into it. He's plus 650 forever. He's MVP right now, and I think he's the best bet if his knee holds up, which seems fine so far. But he's on a mission, and this team's going to be probably a four or five seed, so he's in the range. I would say him and Luka would probably be the two bet. Luka's like plus 450 on Fando. I'm not allowed to bet on this, but from what I've seen in the first week, I feel like Ant went up a slight level, and it feels like we're headed for a career year with him. So more shots for him, too. It's a team that makes more sense. It was interesting down the stretch. Against Cleveland, especially in the OT, they basically played the four guards and swings with Gobert, which we were wondering, is that going to be their destiny in these crunch time games? And that's what they did. Gobert didn't end up getting the big rebound down the stretch and whatever. Philadelphia 3-1. There's only one question. Well, there's two questions, because one would be, can LeBron at age 42 hold up? But the bigger question, what happens to this team when Embiid goes down? Because he will go down because he goes down every year. They have Adam Bohn at center, and they have LeBron at center, and that's basically what they're going with. So if Embiid's gone for a month, what happens to this team? How do they play? How small can they go? How much can they put on LeBron? How much can Maxine Brown and Vijay Edgecombe kind of carry with Embiid not playing for a month or more, and then LeBron being unable to play four times in a week because he's 42 years old in December? That would be my question. But we have so much time to talk about Philly. When Philly dials it up and plays their fast, fun lineup, when they're just like, we're running on everything, it's about as fun of a team to watch in the league. So there you go. Last group, the contenders. I put San Antonio third. They're one and two. I did not like how they started this season. I thought the three-guard lineup is the kind of thing that makes me sad. It makes me not trust their coach. It's just stupid. Like the whole thing you had to do this year was get Harper to buy in for one more year to be in the six-man, and instead they did this. But we're only going to play this three-guard lineup for nine minutes a game. We're not really doing it, but it just looks like you caved because you wanted all three guys to start, and you didn't want the locker room issues, and I didn't like it. Bring Harper off the bench. He's 20 years old. He'll be fine. It's been good for Fox. It's looked good this year, and they don't have Tobias Harris yet, so you could say when Tobias comes back, maybe now you do the two guards with Tobias and bring Harper off the bench. It's fine. 32% from three, predictable. Wemby, 37% field goal. Not ideal, but we've only played three games. The big question for me, the scrutiny over the course of the next couple months here, the spotlight, they're not the young and fun Spurs anymore. They're not coming. They're not coming out of nowhere. They're not on that rollercoaster ride up. Now we're going down a little bit. Now we have some twists and turns. Now you're the lead segment on different ESPN shows and different basketball podcasts, and you have just people picking you apart and wondering what's going on with you all the time. How are they going to handle that? They're being treated like they won the finals last year, even though they didn't, but with that kind of scrutiny, which they just never had until February, March last year, and in February, March last year, it was all about, oh, my God, they're so much fun. Wow. This is the other side of it. How you deal with the backlash. And it's not just basketball. It's any other aspect of being a public figure. How you deal with the backlash after you've had some success determines the next phase of your success. And that's what I want to see from this team. Thompson blocking Wemby at the, at the buzzer on Friday night was a moment. It really was. It was a moment for Houston, which we'll get to in a second. And it was also an interesting moment for San Antonio. It was people were. Rooting for Thompson to stuff, Wemby in that moment last year, they would have rooted for Wemby to stuff it on Thompson. And this is the kind of shit that happens when you've had real scrutiny and you've had some failure. So how are they going to deal with it? And is Mitch Johnson the right guy to deal with it? That would be my overreaction. Number two, after one week and three games is Mitch Johnson, the right guy for everything that's about to happen with this team and the scrutiny that they're going to be under for the next eight months. Number two, Oklahoma city, they're four now. And on Saturday. I was looking at the odds for them for 65 wins, 70 wins, 70 wins was down to, I think like plus one 30 on Fando at one point. That's how good they look. They were just killing everybody and they had the look. It looked like everything that happened to them last year, which was bad culminating in them, not winning game seven was the best thing that could happen to them. This season, J Dub looked incredible. The team Mara looked like so much better. Better than you ever could have expected from the 12th pick in the draft. And then they had the most devastating, I think 24 hours in, in recent NBA history where they have, not only did they lose J Dub to just a brutal, awful Gordon Hayward type injury, but then we learned that they lose Wallace too. And Wallace, this torn labrum happened early enough in the season that maybe you could see him in April, May, but this was somebody that with, with J Dub out, you would have assumed, Oh, we'll case and Wallace and play more. So he's gone too. So you lose two of your best five. They're not going to win 70 games now. Um, and it's the kind of adversity that you just feel the whole season. It just changes. Watch it happen with the Hayward season with Boston. It just changes the complexion this season. It adds like this sadness to it. That just, it's like this little black cloud that follows you everywhere you go. Um, not to mention this is now two straight. Major injuries for, for Williams. Um, this one's way more major than last year, but you know, now he's basically lost two years of his career here. Uh, he's only 25 years old. At least like there's some fibula tibia stuff that he has the better version of that leg fracture. Hayward had the worst version. Maybe he could come back in April, May. I don't know. It was about as fluky of an injury as you can get. And for this team, this is. The bigger, the bigger point here, something I wrote about in my book, something we talked about on this podcast, a bunch of times, it's just really hard to win the title. And I say this as simplistically as I could possibly say it. You need so many things to go, right? You really do look at the Knicks last year. Everybody stayed healthy, the whole stretch when they had to stay healthy, right? Everything came together. And that's part of winning, winning the title is things come together. Guys lift each other up. You need good luck with injuries. You need guys at the right points of their career. And it felt like OKC had that this year. And now it's flipped the other way where this is now a what-if team. I don't think they have enough now. And what's harder for them is there's not really a trade. You know, when Sal and I talked about this on Sunday night right after it happened, and I mentioned how it was hard because they have big salaries and small salaries, nothing in between. There's tax stuff with them. They have a trade exception. You know, could they give up one of the. They still have a trade exception. They still have some good picks left. Could they give up one of them for somebody like Herb Jones? Sure. Could they get a little more aggressive and maybe use the Hartenstein contract and some other stuff to go get a bigger one? Maybe. But my guess is they're probably going to bet on their young guys and bet on all these guys, all these picks they've stockpiled, guys who barely played. Let's throw them out once and for all. Let's give everybody minutes. Let's try to tread water and still be a top three team in the West. and see where we are. early february right before trade deadline and then make a decision then and not before then but maybe they just decide we're gonna get at least wallace back in april may and um nobody's probably gonna pull away from us and that's how they handle it presti is not a panic guy the only time i ever remember him really kind of panicking was that last kd season before kd went to the warriors when they made that it was like a dion waiters trade and they they went over the tax for the first time and um they just seem like oh shit we got we got to do stuff what how can we add to this and that was the only time he wasn't patient and careful and calculated so i think he's going to be patient careful calculated big question for me with this team hey chet holmgren you you're on a max on your second contract you've made an omba team and right now you are clearly the second best guy in this team you are going to have to go up a level sj i'm not worried about but um we're gonna need chet to be i think like a at least a 20 and 20 and 8 or 20 and 9 guy right to take up some of this but really a bummer i loved watching okay see that first week this is this was really sucked and then everybody comes on the pods and the tv shows like oh man prayers up for j-dub like i just hate all of it i hate injuries fuck injuries i don't understand why we're having more of them the j-dub was more of a fluke i do feel like there's stuff to look at with the sneakers for some of these other injuries we're having and the fact that we have all these low tops and now we're having all these injuries below the knee and i something's fishy about all of it i it can't just be the wear and tear and basketball being harder i wonder if the technology because guys love the ability to do euro steps and do all these other things i wonder if the technology is actually working against them in some cases i'd love to read a huge study on this anyway i've okay see number two and then houston a team that i tweeted about during the weekend saying they had the look it was an old mike lombardi phrase about when uh when teams have the look when he's just like man that team looks like they could they they think they can win the title houston has the look shangoon went up a tiny level he's basically 25 9 and 7. the team chemistry seems way better i don't think we can overstate the weird burner scandal with kd last year combined with the fact that they lost van vliet and it just seemed like a rudderless team like you look at van vliet and smart it's not even like they're playing that well like they're certainly not shooting well they're shooting 27 combined from three but the vibe when you watch it this seems like a connected team thompson went up a level jabari smith definitely went up a level um and it's a team that's played with each other for a while they've had a little adversity van vliet's hugely important to them and it feels like a team to me that thinks they can win the title that's what i've seen so far so what's their move would be my big question because they have they can swap a first with brooklyn after this season so that's gonna be a really good pick they have the phoenix first in 2027 next year if you know phoenix has been bad those are two pretty juicy assets so what would the move be and what does this team need because if you're trading either of those things i want somebody who can play at the end of games right so right now i'm looking at van vliet i'm looking at jabari kd shangoon and either eason or smart as my five so if i'm trading one of those assets i want somebody basically who's either a better point guard than van vliet who i think is the leader of this team and i wouldn't trade him or somebody who could be in that eason smart spot and maybe eason is the answer maybe it's eason at the end of the game but i think it's the leader of this team but i think eason would be a better pick but what they do with that um that'll be what determines their destiny they are 19 to 1 to win the title they had the eighth best odds on fanduel and i think they're absolutely i have this group i called this group the contenders too but i guess this is the uh the favorites i should have said san antonio okay seeing houston i think right now these are the three best bets to win the title now this could change in a week in a month i'm not at all i think this this team is as good as anybody else in the league and it's a really interesting moment for kd you know who comes in the league in 07 who really hasn't had a relevant playoff moment since the 2019 playoffs when he was i thought the best player in the world until he got hurt he went to that was apex kd he went to another level really that down the stretch and then that first playoff series and then that first playoff series and then that first playoff series before he got hurt and really hasn't gotten back there since and now he's you know headed toward his 20th season this is 20th season jesus and still looks really good and still can get shots you know in the spot gets his shots in the spots that he wants them and uh i don't know this team has the look i don't know what to tell you but this is what we get after after only watching a week of basketball this is the team that's jumped out to me the most i think they're a legitimate contender so there you go that's my power poll 30 through one it'll be interesting to see when we do this in a couple weeks how different some of these uh some of these rankings will be so that's it for the power poll we're going to take a break and come back and talk to wesley morris about you can see everything after this fando has a new nba promo called hardwood hero this friday i like these goofy names they're giving out all you have to do is opt in use a 50 pbt that's a profit boost token on any nba bet minus 200 or longer if anyone that evening scores 40 plus points you win your pbt we've had edwards ty jerome luca jaylen brown scored 40 lucas playing golden state that night that is the easy one just do luca go luca against any not elite defensive team i would go 40 frame remember you don't have to bet a 40 piece i threw his place a minus 200 or longer wager on the nba slate and any player who scores 40 plus everyone wins check it out this friday fando your most rewarding season ever i'm pro football hall of famer brian dawkins and i lived for a long time with something i did not know the name of major depressive disorder i carried sadness and anger because i thought i could handle it alone but i couldn't now i want to make sure others know that that support is out there if you're experiencing similar symptoms talk to a health care professional visit mddallies.com to watch my story paid partnership with johnson and johnson brian dawkins and i will see you next week is not prescribed capybara luma teperone i needed more from my antidepressant so my doctor added capybara luma teperone proven to provide greater relief from depression symptoms than an antidepressant alone building on my progress without starting over capybara is for adults with major depressive disorder when used with an antidepressant and is available by prescription only individual results may vary in clinical trials weight gain was not common elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke capybara is not approved for dementia related psychosis call your doctor about new or sudden mood changes behaviors or suicidal thoughts right away antidepressants may increase these risks report fever confusion stiff muscles which may be life-threatening or uncontrolled muscle movements which may be permanent high cholesterol and weight gain may occur as can high blood sugar which may be fatal monitoring is recommended common side effects are sleepiness dizziness nausea dry mouth feeling tired and diarrhea these aren't all the side effects ask your doctor about capybara learn more at capybara.com or call 888-252-4824 this episode is brought to you by pnc bank in today's sports everyone is constantly trying to outdo each other trick formations infield shifts constant rotation changes yet it's proven time and time again that strong fundamentals are the thing that will lead you to victory banking no different while everyone else tries to outdo each other pnc bank just keeps going right down the middle with steady calculated money moves and the financial wins just keep coming pnc bank brilliantly boring since 1865 brilliantly boring since 1865 as a registered mark of the pnc financial services group incorporated pnc bank national association member ftse i think october november 1994 i saw hoop dreams at the coolidge corner theater in brookline massachusetts and it was the best documentary i'd ever seen in person last friday took the tea because i was visiting my but my daughter what took the tea to the coolidge corner theater and saw at 11 30 a.m you can see everything uh first time i deliberately avoided everything written and said about the movie i didn't know what was going to happen i had a great time so i've seen two of the best documentaries of my life in the same theater i'll just start there i knew you would enjoy that oh my god you did double coolidge for the great documentary experiences of your life i i'm very touched by that i'm sure the coolidge people are very touched by that great theater it's a non-profit theater they rely on funds from everybody uh wesley morris is here he used to work for the boston globe and probably saw some movies in that theater now he's at the new york times any a movie at the cool you know what i saw at the coolidge corner like like memorably unmemorably um i believe that is where i got shown um the human centipede oh oh no now the coolidge is probably going to send me an email saying there was no way you saw that there but i feel like that's where i saw it like they it was it was just like a critic screening like i think i was only person in the theater well listen i'm there friday 11 30 and it's it's pretty nice out you know for boston it's 60 in october the sun's out and the the place was half full i was impressed for for this documentary that got very little promotion it's become a phenomenon it's become for a documentary to hit the point where everybody in my life has been like have you seen it yet what are your thoughts i want to talk i'm sure it's been the same for you it's pretty rare to get these it's the only thing anybody wants to talk about in my i mean you know it's funny there's the midterms right and you know it's funny the other thing if you live in new york i mean this is a pretty national thing and i'm going to try to figure out a way to make it relate to so you can see everything but you know in new york the big thing you know the big thing is that you can see everything but you know in new york the big thing is that you can see everything but you know in new york the big thing is that you can see everything you know did you read this wise was this piece that nicole hannah jones written about sending her daughter like her daughter asking her why she sent her to the schools that she went to that was like a that was the felt like a national firestorm jesus and then uh but then this documentary opens and i just feel like this is a very interesting moment for reading reading and reading i just feel like this is a very interesting moment for reading reading and reading and reading Let's start there. Wow, Bill. She is. No, I mean, I'm not arguing. I'm amazed that people fell for her act in this movie because we have all this evidence from the past that this is an act. This is great. And she is clearly trying to steer the narrative a different way so people feel bad for her and use words like neurodivergent to explain how she processes stuff. And she's a pathological liar. And this is how she got the Theranos thing. I watched the Amanda Seyfried show. I saw the Gibney documentary. I followed all this stuff when it happens because I thought it was really interesting. And I thought she was so manipulative and so good at lying that she was one of the great liars we've ever had. And now you have Nathan Fielder, who is a performance guy, first and foremost, who just wants weirdos with a canvas that he can just paint on, basically on his weirdo canvas. And he obviously becomes fascinated by this lady. It's like, how can somebody to the bitter end be this much of a liar? I wonder if I could just spend time with her and see if she's actually lying or if there's more there. And then it becomes this cat and mouse game and turns into heat. This is Pacino and De Niro. They're at the fucking diner table for three hours. Two hours. Months at a time. She's like, I was having coffee with Elizabeth Holmes half an hour ago. This becomes heat. He's just trying to figure out what her next score is. What her next score is going to be. And she's trying to figure out, oh shit, this guy's on every move I have. It was like watching two boxers circle each other in the ring. And Holmes is like, oh God, he knows my jab's coming. Oh, he's ready for my hook. I'm just going to be dumber and dumber in this movie and hope maybe that's my move. And then by the way, it didn't work. It just didn't work. I love this read of this movie. I love the impossible to get around and she has all the control and obviously Lance Oppenheim, the director and Nathan Fielder, the co-director and ostensible subject, co-subject. There is this sort of fight for control and what I have been made to understand is that the way that she controls is to pretend that she doesn't have it. Yeah. Oh, my controlling, domineering boyfriend slash husband, whatever. He's doing everything. Come on. Are people really buying this? I did. I bought it. I fell for that. I've been, but you know, I mean, I think this movie is operating in stages, right? I think that, you know, you see it a couple times and your mind begins to change. I mean, I feel like, well, you know why? Because she has, she has a very trusting face and she keeps eye contact for abnormally long times and usually when people do that, you assume that they're truthful. Her human cues match somebody who is truthful and it's like this complete fucking magician act. Mm-hmm. I think that, you know, as a, you know, bringing somebody in, so, you know, there's a world in which, like, she knows everything about Nathan Fielder, right? You know, she and, you know, Billy, Evans, Herb. It's funny that you don't want to say husband either because I don't feel comfortable with that word. I think legally, I think they're married. But he just is, like, perpetually, he seems like a boyfriend. Right. He's like the guy in a TV show that it's like the rich sister in the Dynasty family ends up with the Billy Evans. They're like, ah, I don't trust this guy. What's he up to? He's the Kardashians the Kardashians don't trust. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Like, he's that, he's that boyfriend. Anyway, I, there's a world in which, like, she knows everything about Nathan's project. Oh, no, I'm worried you got sucked in by her. No! I, I, I think that I'm, well, I mean, I did. Okay, here's the thing. Because my wife got sucked in. That's why I'm concerned. My wife was like, I feel bad for her. And I'm like, you gotta, you gotta read some of the 2014, 15, 16 stuff. This is a person who knows what she's doing. And, you know, it's funny because, because at some point, Nathan does present to her, like, a partial list of the things that she has said and done over the course of the life of this, of this, um, Right. this Theranos project. And you're like, oh, yeah, that's right. She did do, she is reported to have done and has been convicted of doing several of these things. Um, I think what I got tricked by is good filmmaking. Right? I, I think that one of the, one of the exciting, one of the excitements of this movie is a person that I, I, Wesley, had no feelings about at all. Like, I didn't care about this case. I did not care about this woman. She was yet another one of these Silicon Valley fraudsters. Yeah. She arrives at the same time as the WeWork guy, um, Sam Bankman Freed. Uh, there's another guy that I'm not even remembering. And like, you could throw in Zuckerberg too, as, as people who, who twist the truth. Yes. But, there, with those other three people, there is a legal dimension, right? These were three guys, these were three people who wound up being revolted against. Yeah. Um, because of their, because of the fraud that they tried to perpetuate. And, I just kind of got a little sickened by the cultural interest in these people as main characters. And, I think, you know, I listened to the podcast, uh, the, um, and I list, I, I did not watch the Alex Gibney documentary. Um, because I just was full at that point. But then, this movie shows up and my, my feelings about it, I don't know, they don't change, but I'm like, okay, Nathan Fielder has found this woman. There'll be something, something interesting is going to happen here because somehow he managed to get into her life. So you cared less about the Theranos stuff than, um, the cat and mouse game of the documentary was the thing that got you. Oh, yeah, for sure. For sure. But I mean, I think I went in knowing how important the, I mean, she's going to prison already. We know this. For 11 years. Right. This is not, this is not an attempt to like exonerate her. But, what's interesting is, and this is the, this is the sort of tug of war of the, I don't know, the sort of ethical tension in this movie is, you find out at some point that she and Billy are at it again. Like, they're going to do Theranos 2, Electric Boogaloo. Yeah. And so, I'm like, wait, so what lesson got learned here? It's going to work though. Well, I mean, okay, so this is what I'm really dying to ask you. Like, like related to, to what I'm thinking about and the journey that I've been on and the thing that I was interested in, which is, you know, the thing that, that this, that we're all kind of sitting with, is like, how much are we thinking about what's true and what's real? Who's sitting with that? What do you mean? How does somebody know anything about the past and then go into this going, I don't know, maybe, like to me, here, here's my take. To me, this is Nathan Fielder whose whole career is built to some, has been building to something like this, right? Yes. This is somebody that, first he took a real interest in weirdo people that he threw himself into and created weird business things with. Then he does the rehearsal. The first episode of the rehearsal, which was unbelievable. unbelievable where he just completely goes over the top to throw into this whole teaching somebody how to be like part of this bar tribute thing right yeah it's all leading for him to try to figure out is this person a liar or not i think she is but i want to dive into it dives into it she has already decided to the bitter end i'm gonna pretend i'm a dope who doesn't know any better and i'm being controlled by whoever i was with and i just don't know how this happened and i'm just not that smart of a person and i don't get what who's on first is i don't what was funny about that i don't get and she's committed to the bit to the bitter end nathan fielder's whole comedy bit is i commit to the bit to the bitter end so now it's just it's a fucking death match between these two to see who can win until she goes away and by the time she goes away i feel like she won like i felt like he was kind of i don't know how much she played up for the documentary or not but i felt like he was kind of in love with her that she was a victim okay that there might have been there might have been she might have been taken advantage of that she might not be a liar and then he in the second part of documentary when amanda seyfried comes in and he starts fixating on did she know or not that they were getting paid when the answer is clearly obviously yes yes she knew she was getting paid and that becomes and then he slowly eventually realizes that she's a liar at the end and that's the end of the movie but then he shows them at the end in the beach when he's we never know if he's in the beach with her it's mentioned he's like i can't do that and then at the end he shows he shows them in the beach which i think is his way of saying even i got a little duped by this lady i went in the water with her but now i know what she's about but again like i think that the genius of this movie is that it works on the level that you're coming at it from right it works as a it works as a comedy a comp well also but but a kind of um i'm gonna use this term and i'm sorry that i'm doing it but it's the thing that came to mind first it's almost like a dialectic between in people who's special like a person who specializes in lying and another person who specializes in the performance of life right yeah and what happens when these two people come together to spend time trying to he's trying to figure her out and she is kind of enjoying the game that he's trying to play with her and she knows that there's no way that she's gonna crack i don't even know what cracking looks like for her at this point she knows the whole time i will never ever admit anything i am going to play dumb until i go to jail but this movie is also it's a movie right and it's a movie that like the way we're talking about it just describing her not cracking you know who i thought of katherine trammell and i mean honestly that's the perfect analogy we still don't know if she was gonna murder michael douglas at the end of the movie we don't know we don't know would i be dumb enough to if i was gonna kill my boyfriend to write about it in a book and say i was gonna kill him before i killed him nobody would be that crazy katherine so i think that that's what came up and i think that you know you think about hitchcock with this movie you think about you know an entire history of a verite movie making you think about the priorities of improv comedy here i mean there's just so much to think about but then there is just the fact that the thing works as a movie well so that's my question big picture is this a movie or a documentary and this is something that is a movie you mean like a feature is it like like how do we think about but this is where to put this on the video i'm gonna sidetrack us so mark where you are and we'll come back to it because this is gonna be a sidetrack to me the more fascinating the most fascinating thing out of all this with this movie to me was that it flipped what has happened with documentaries for the last 15 years which i've made a few in my day um something that was happening behind the scenes with documentaries that i don't even think the average person realized what was happening which is they weren't authentic anymore and most of the people especially like in the sports ones or movies or if you had sliced alone stock on netflix whatever it is the subjects are getting paid to be in them or they're getting an ep fee or they're production companies their name is somewhere in the credits they are somehow getting a check from it and it forever changed how we made documentaries because once these became things that could establish production companies and give them value once they became things that could make money and get awards this wasn't hoop dreams anymore you know if you did hoop dreams down 2026 those guys arthur agee and henry gates so what was the no henry not henry william gates yeah william gates arthur agee they would have probably gotten 10 of the profits each right there's the only way they're participating so when my wife is talking like i saw this documentary and like do you think she got paid or not and i'm like the way people do documentaries now she absolutely should have been paid so 824 is just going to make all the money from this the only reason they were able to make the movie was because these people give them the time and it was interesting that this became one of the cruxes of the movie it's like oh my god they wanted money out of this like look the fuck around this is the documentary business now this is the world everyone has chosen people get paid to be in these things and i don't think they're documentaries anymore i think that we need a new name for them they're like docu films or something they're not documentaries they're selfies i mean they're selfies they're selfie selfies i think but you know that well i love that you're you're identifying this and i don't know if we're going to get back to wherever i was trying to go no we will i'm going to steer you back but but i but what i i love and sit here for a second because i think that what you've got here is a kind of serious old school relationship to non-fiction filmmaking which is gone new industrial model which is fuck you pay me and i want control over the depiction of myself i want to be a stakeholder financially and editorially um in in the direction of this project or you don't get to make it i remember when this changed for 30 for 30 and i think i've talked about this before i had this orlando magic idea i want to do about how shack and penny fell apart in orlando had this huge pitch the nba didn't want to do it because you know and they had to greenlight all the nba stuff they didn't want to do it because it was basically a small market team that blew up and the star went to a big market they didn't want to do it i was pushing for it i was like this is a great idea we got to do this this is the best what-if team of the 90s finally convinced them to do it and what happens shack and penny don't want to be in it unless they're eps and we're going well we don't these are documentaries that's not normally how we do stuff like this it wasn't going to happen guess what happens shack and penny become eps the first shot of the documentary is them getting together with this inauthentic oh we're still buddies and it's like i don't know if they're still buddies but they're playing in the camera and i remember thinking to myself this is feels like a moment i feel like documentaries are shifting right now into something different where i'm not sure what we're capturing is actually what's what is the right thing to be capturing and it's it's been the case of documentaries ever since well i think it's the thing that makes i mean what you're identifying is what i mean i've been calling this movie a culturally destabilizing event and part part of its cultural part of what's destabilizing about it is that you there was a before and everything it feels like so much that is happening in the wake of this movie is going to change because of it um i think it's going to feel strange for subjects to even broach the conversation that that that billy is kind of um performing happening like having with nathan and in the in the a24 team yeah um behind elizabeth like out of the earshot of elizabeth holmes who clearly went away and it was planned and she went upstairs and the way they reenacted it was absolutely what happened yes and i think that the movie's cynicism about the selfie occasion the selfification of of you know non-fiction portrait filmmaking is kind of i mean it's a little bit what what killed what got ezra edelman's prince documentary killed a little bit it's what got ezra edelman's prince documentary killed point blank i think that there's a real fear of complicated storytelling about people and i think when you ask whether or not i like like how could i fall for this or like did i fall for this i fell for it because what i'm really interested in here is the questions that it's that it raises about and i think this is true for all of us i think there's a real desperation to kind of understand each other and no matter where on the video store shelf you wind up putting this movie, what you are watching is one of the great works I've ever seen about relationships. And. Well, and one of the great, whether we call it a documentary or whatever it is, it's on the short list of all time now, I think. Yeah, yeah. Because what's really great about it, I knew, again, I knew nothing. The movie just could have ended when she went to jail. I agree. And it would have been awesome. I agree. I've been like, wow. So wait, sorry, you. She goes to prison and you're like, what? You know there's 90 more minutes? Yeah, I'm like. I honestly didn't know. When I say that I avoided everything, I avoided everything. So she goes to prison and I'm like, where are we going? And then. I was like, wow, this movie doesn't get out for another hour and 20 minutes. What's happening? And then Amanda shows up and it becomes a completely different movie and it's one of the most riveting. First of all, when does somebody just come into a movie with more than half of the movie done and completely take it over? It's like the all-time Dion Waiters in the history of mankind. I was going to say, this is the key check of all time. It's unbelievable. And by the end of the movie, I'm like, I have. Like every other guy I watch this movie, I have a huge crush on her. I have to completely reevaluate every movie she's ever been in that I've seen. This is one of the most fascinating celebrities we have. That is a really interesting phenomenon that's going to happen as a result of this movie. And she fits into the rest of the movie. It's like, she's another one. I don't know what's real and what's not real. Because we have Nathan talking about, I just went through a breakup and is clearly. Like he's putting himself into this and he doesn't really put himself into a lot of stuff that way. But he's putting like his stuff in the movie and then she comes in and it's like, is she. Is she acting? Is she really that interested in this? Does she feel bad about being in the TV movie? Then when she gets mad at Billy Evans, which is the best scene in the movie, when all of a sudden it just starts escalating and it's like an actual real argument that you never get. I just could not have been more compelled. Yeah. I mean, I will say I knew this was going to happen going into it the first time I saw it. And I still. Like nothing can prepare you for the depths because I thought she just was in it to reenact some stuff, right? I just assumed she'd be doing some cute Nathan Fielder-oriented things. But this is much. You know, she's a therapist. She is a BFF. She is like the best friend of the person in a romantic comedy who is like, this girl is bad news. But then you're also rooting for them maybe. It's like maybe these two have a chance. Right. Maybe Nathan's a little sweet on Amanda. Maybe this is how it's going to end with them together. I was prepared for anything at the two-hour mark. And Amanda Seyfried is also the best example of what acting is good for. And I don't mean because her acting is so great. But I mean, I just. You rarely get to watch a movie about an actor, a good actor, where you're thinking, thinking about, like, what the value of the art form even. Like, what the value of the art form. Why we love acting. Why we love going to the movies. What it is that an actor is doing for us when they play these real-life people. Well, but beyond that, the skill of sliding into a person. Yes! And becoming a different person. And this is somebody who is a child actress who is just clearly good at it. And she's, like, sliding in between. Oh, I think that's. I think that's what the real Amanda's like. And then she's acting. And then she becomes Elizabeth Holmes in the reenactment. And then she's back to being Amanda again. I'm like, this is fucking incredible. This is like watching what Meryl Streep's process is or something. But I mean, again, like, the process of acting, but also the sort of morality of playing a living person. Of playing, like, a problematic living person. A living person who's been convicted of crimes. Which she didn't. She didn't feel like she had really 100% come to grips with. It was like, yeah, you. You took advantage of this situation like everybody else did. You were able to get an Emmy out of playing this disgraced character. And don't act like there's not a little blood on your hands. I mean, and I think that she was willing to be punished for that. Right? I think that, you know, I think that, you know, we don't know where the truth begins and ends in so many areas. In so many areas of this film. But at some point, I think Amanda. Amanda Seyfried shows up to. Agrees because I think that she feels. I think she might feel like there was both more to say and something to atone for somehow. I don't know. I don't know. Well, by the way, she's an actress and she realizes it's smart for her to be in this. Does she? I mean. I think she does. I think she obviously knew what Nathan's work was and she was like, this is going to be good. Did you think that she knew that this was going to be the movie of the year? She got to watch the first half of it. That's fair. That's how they got her to do it. I mean, we watch the first half. We see her watching the footage. So she's like, I'm in. How can I help? Because she's smart enough to realize like, holy shit, this story is still going. I mean. I love the cynics on this movie. I mean, this is the most cynicism proof but cynicism absorbent movie I've ever seen. It can handle all your skepticism and like just real, real industry, your industrial real talk. I don't know. I just love how indestructible and elastic and absorbent this thing is. Well, and also the tricks that it plays on you and I and every other person who's watching this where you're on the rollercoaster ride of understanding how people could have gotten snookered by this. lady. It makes after two and a half hours of it, it makes sense to me. It's like, I get it. I get it. She, she just, she bats her eyelashes. She seems super smart. Oh yeah. No, she, she does the opposite of batting her eyelashes. Just stares you down, has that low voice. There's something that you want to protect about her as you spend time with her. You're like, oh man, I feel bad. You don't even know why you feel bad for her. And you know, she can cry on command and make it seem like it's the first time something's gotten to her, but she can basically do it whenever she wants. She's the actor. She's as good an actor as Amanda Seyfried. A hundred percent, you know, a hundred percent. And then she has this Billy Evans who she knows is, you know, kind of a scumbag. We got to talk about Billy. Well, I, I, I, the one thing I did know was that I was going to see his crank at some point in the movie. Cause my wife came home. It was like, there's a penis in this movie. I was like, what's going on? Uh, don't tell me more. Uh, but yeah, but he's, there's a very important penis in this movie. It's important. So I read, uh, I read, I read a lot of the news kind of stuff about this after, and, and they, somebody wrote a whole piece about the penis and how he's like, I, they kept coming home from the gym, him and Lance, the director. And he's like, I had a shower. He's like, you can film me showering and leaves the door open. And you're like, you'd like film you naked shower. He's like, yeah, I don't care. Like for some reason he wanted to do it, which is fits into the premise of you can see everything, I guess. But just to do that is so bizarre. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, but you know, in the world of the movie, it really works because what we see, what we're, we're not looking at Lance Oppenheim, officially looking at Billy Evan showering. We're, we're seeing Nathan see Billy shower. Right. And so there is this, there is the creation of a tension of a, of a, of a jealousy from Nathan to Billy. The throuple dynamic is looming. Yeah. But I mean, I also think that there's a world in which we're watching a blank from hell movie, right? Well, it starts out that one shot early on when Nathan's just watching through the window with that crazy look, it does seem like Rebecca D Mornay and hand that rocks the cradle state standing outside the house. Deciding whether she wants to go in. I do think that like the part, like he clearly, I think that it's interesting to me that you are, I mean, you can correct me if I'm wrong. You're sincerely wondering if Nathan got took by Elizabeth Holmes. No, because that's the point of Nathan. I am wondering, but with Nathan, everything's on the table at all times. You'll never know. He's, he's basically a magician with this shit. So he's, he's putting in there stuff that he wants me to either think or question at all times. This is what he does. This is why he's the best. But the whole time I'm like, is he falling in love with this lady? And they have that long scene near the end when they're on the couch and they're just staring at each other about as long as you can possibly stare at somebody without starting to make out. And same thing at the end, when they say goodbye in the car, when they're standing like this. And at that point, like if I had to bet, Oh, they're, they're, they're almost there. I mean, that's like two Yeah. So if I had to bet was Nathan sweet on this woman by the end of the first half of the filming. yes or no i would bet yes i think he got taken by her and you knew the whole time that she was a liar yeah but like is it like you're my people but this is but this is basic instinct this goes back to your basic instinct thing yeah this is like michael douglas's character going i should fucking run the opposite direction this lady but i i think there's a fucking magic to this i i'm alive my blood's boiling i'm ready for this you know in basic instinct she knows right katherine trammell understands what does she say you you you you like the heat nikki you like the fire or something like that yeah yeah yeah i mean it's it's well she says at the end i'm almost done with my book that means that means you have to go which is basically what elizabeth holmes i'm almost about to go to jail which means you have to go it's not like she's gonna see this guy again but she but but you know he does he does not give up no and i feel like this is i mean you know bill this is like a film noir you know the the femme fatale goes to prison and the dupe is trying to like if not get her out then at least body heat yeah oh there we go yeah yeah this is like this is this is like just film noir territory there is but there's also something about him as a character that i think is really compelling because he wants he wants to get to the bottom of her but he also he kind of can't believe that what is happening is happening right like he knows every single thing that she did he is fully prepared uh with the legal case against this woman the moral case against this woman and yet i think that the that the effectiveness of the project for us as viewers who had our questions about this woman and i think that the effectiveness of this woman and i think that the effectiveness of this woman and i think that the effectiveness about whether it was possible that elizabeth holmes really seduced all these like old white men to give her you know all this money um and to help this company what he does you know the performance art dimension of this is he becomes one of those guys right and the money the potential for money here because if you think of what how many days till prison when this money conversation comes up like not many like we're talking days right because they start filming 34 days 34 days left when did the money conversation happen because i think that's the point at which uh before she goes well it's definitely before she goes to prison yeah but i mean how many more days i don't remember but it's like such a clear like his value and the value of of the proposition i think changes when the money goes out of the picture like so i i guess my question with that they make that like the big fulcrum of the last part of the movie right this is this becomes the big litmus test of whether you you think she was a liar all along or not and he has some real hesitation to well it's a documentary you can't pay somebody for documentary if she knew this is all a lie and i i think they this is the one thing i'm pretty convinced they played up for the movie sure oh you mean wait the the filmmakers i feel they're his character in the movie being this discombobulated about the possibility that she might have been in on asking for money to be in the movie i just feel like any rational person is going to assume that they're going to want to get paid this is billy evans who's making an ai elizabeth holmes thing that people can jerk off to i'm pretty sure he's going to ask for a documentary about that this guy will try to make money from anything he's not going to try to get paid to be in the documentary these people care about the ethics of old school documentaries the way we did them in the 1970s like no fucking way but i think that playing it up is really brilliant because 100 yeah yeah yeah i mean because it makes it makes it makes the documentary a kind of theranos it does but it also it also plays on people that don't really know how documentaries actually work like my mom was my oh no that's my wife was like oh my god i can't believe if she really wanted to get paid for that and i was like i hate to break it to you but this is what happens in documentaries yeah it's like if you see like fleetwood mac which they're finally doing the fleetwood mac documentary which has been the best music documentary idea out there for 20 years right um it's gonna be an apple i'm pretty sure probably some checks were cut to get stevie and lindsey buckingham and all these people you know to talk now i don't know that for a fact but this is just how it goes now if you're watching you know an adele documentary billy eilish whoever they're getting paid so does that change how you watch it when you know that going in to me it does like when i watch stuff like quarterbacks or you know whatever lebron's documentary is going to be this is it's not going to be like this authentic slice of whatever like when we were kings which is probably the best sports documentary of all time that's a documentary that's just footage and you know some interviews and and this guy is just embedded in this crazy circumstance of a fight and it's awesome that's a documentary i also think that it's i like the you a useful thing and i really and one of the things that i think that is going to make this movie infinitely teachable yeah is that you know one of the things you learn when you start studying non-fiction filmmaking and really any kind of like non-fiction endeavor is that you're really still as much as as much journalism goes into you know the making of of you know the nuts and bolts and skeleton of of the story being told and you know the arguments being made uh in a documentary or a piece of you know non-fiction writing it's still an art form and the thing that you learn you know i agree with that right the thing that you're one of the hardest things to do you you're basically writing a magazine feature as a video and you're doing you're putting everything together it has to be edited perfectly you have to walk the viewer through stuff you have to decide what you're leaving in cutting out they're really fucking hard to make and so much of what we're talking about is the choice our choices but also the the sort of the sort of existential question or like maybe it's more than existential like it's just the it's not inherently true because it's not scripted you know quote scripted unquote it's there are there are there are forms of truth and there are ways of performing in a documentary i mean you know errol morris's thin blue line is you know a classic example of of of where these questions are are thriving um with respect to reenactments um and the way in which errol morris is kind of bending the truth bending one truth to get to this larger truth um i think that's i think this movie is doing a version of that um no matter what happens in terms of who knew what and agreed to do what and maybe even like took something over again whatever that operates the larger truths here and the larger questions here about the relationship of this woman to this man and billy you know this this this marriage yeah the filmmaker the subject to his to to to the filmmakers i mean these are still questions that are still being asked and i think that's something that's still being talked about and i think that's something that's still being talked about because in many ways they're unanswerable and they're classic non-fiction filmmaking non-fiction art questions well there's two things with the documentary there's two questions fundamentally it doesn't matter what the documentary is first question is what am i trying to answer with this documentary okay yeah yeah the second question is if i'm a viewer how much of this do i believe how much of this is 100 authentic and if it's less than authentic now it's on my brain to figure out how to decipher how authentic this is or not which brings me to my favorite music documentary ever the eagles history of the eagles part one which i wrote about for grantland which i just watched one of my favorite bills one of my favorite bills i just love it so much and one of the reasons i love it well it answers the basic question is why do the eagles break up this was the biggest band in the world why did they break up all right so that's the premise of part one but then the underlying premise is are they telling us everything here because the eagles are being run at that time by don henley and glenn fry they're coming up with all these different reasons why the band didn't break up but they're ignoring the elephant in the room which is like they clearly broke up because these two guys couldn't coexist in a band anymore because henley had ascended a little higher than glenn fry right so they're kind of singing around about ways but they're not singing around about ways but they're singing around about ways but nobody's saying it and it's like it's don felder's vote he was at the alan alan cranston speech and he made a face and so we stopped the band it's like i don't think that's what happened i think you guys flew too close to the sun and you had two alphas that wanted to run the band and bands flame out after seven years but nobody will say it so it's on me as the viewer to be like all right i'm a smart person i can i'm gonna take all the stuff you give me but i'm also gonna draw my own conclusions and i'm gonna take all the stuff you give me but i'm also gonna draw my own conclusions this documentary the fielder one the big question is is this person a liar or not yeah and then the sub is where it gets really interesting because the Eagles one is like, what was going on with Brian Henley? What was actually happening there? This documentary, there's five things I'm wondering about. Yeah. Did Nathan fall in love with her? How big of a scumbag is the husband? Was the father afraid of Billy? Because it seemed like he kind of was. And he definitely doesn't like Billy. That's clear. And was the father the only actual sympathetic character in this whole thing? Because he clearly loved his daughter and felt like she was led astray by a couple people and that she had some trauma in her past. And it seemed authentic to me as I watched it. Bill, you're leaving out a major character detail here. What is it? About the dad. Yeah. And, you know, like daughter like daddy. This guy worked for Enron. Right. I don't know what he did at Enron, but like, I mean, I don't know. I mean, Elizabeth can read. Right, right, right. She could read as a little girl. Wasn't, wasn't great. So then you have on the other sub questions, this whole paying them for the documentary and how real was this? What actually happened when he went to visit her at the end? Because the, the thing, the reenactment we're seeing is just his memory of being in a room where he couldn't have notes or a recorder, which is really hard, especially as you get older to remember every detail. And then you have the whole Amanda Seyfried thing. I said it right that time. Um, of how authentic is she in this or not? Is she an actress or is this really her? So you walk out of the theater and you're like, my fucking head is doing 360s. I have 40 questions and I can't really answer any of them. It's time for a new segment. Greatest plays of all time. It is brought to you by State Farm. We've witnessed some truly legendary plays throughout football history, plays that can never be recreated because they're designed for that precise moment on the field. It's the same reason why State Farm helps personalize coverage. You need a plan designed to suit your unique situation. But back to those iconic plays. 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Contact limits for who can contact them and time management tools like daily time, bedtime limits, and sleep mode. Teens are automatically placed in the teen accounts. Teens under 16 will need a parent's permission to change any of these settings to be less strict. Instagram will continue adding built-in safety features to help create age-appropriate experiences. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at Instagram.com slash teen accounts. I have other questions. Yeah, I'm sure I left some out. And I mean, but I don't think you're going to like my questions. Because they're about they're about the like the world of the movie itself. Okay. And I really did think a lot about what it must have been like to be Elizabeth Holmes in a relationship with a man. I mean, at the end of the day, no matter what kind of liar she is, I don't think liars are born. I think liars, like certain liars, pathologists, anthropological liars. Circumstances create those people. And I think that the thing that you're, I actually, I tried to watch it the way you were watching it. And I think for the most part I did. But at the end of the day, I'm still aware. And I think the movie, one of the movie's achievements is that it's still aware that we are watching a person, like a human being. And the thing that I love about that moment, that disturbing moment with the dad where he's like, just blurts out that she was raped and that explains everything. I think there's a world where it does kind of explain everything. We know nothing about this incident, including whether it's true. It's by far her most sympathetic as a viewer where you actually like, oh shit. Yeah, yeah. But I think it's a thing that you keep thinking about because we learn that before who's on first. And I mean, do we have to explain who's on first? I mean, not as a comedy routine, but as a moment in the movie. So I thought that was her biggest mistake in the entire film. How do you mean? Because that's when it became clear that she was committed to the bit, to the bitter end. Because I have two kids now that are older. Either of my kids at age five would have understood who's on first. Like you're talking, you need an IQ like 80 and above to understand who's on first. And she's like, I don't get it. I don't understand. I don't understand why it was funny. It's like to not be, for her to claim that she didn't have any opinion on why somebody would have thought that was funny, to me, it was disingenuous. Because you could be like, even if she's committing to the bit and being like, I don't get it. She could at least have asked him, is it funny because of the delivery that they have back and forth or their chemistry? Like, help me understand. But she's just like, I'm stupid. I don't understand. I don't get it. I don't know. How does somebody not understand who's on first? Who's on first? Come on. God, no, no, no. I'm with you. Except, she's, this conversation is, this moment is happening with Nathan on one side of her on this sofa and Billy on the other, at the other end of the sofa. Who's like rubbing her head to keep contact with her as it's happening to keep her little control on her. on the one hand, Nathan's explaining comedy to her, right? Like she says, I don't get it. And it's interesting what she doesn't get, right? What she doesn't get is that this is like, this is a form of human relationship. These are two guys who love each other and the way Abbott and Costello express love is by fighting, right? Like it's by arguing with each other. Right. I think that, you know, Nathan's explaining comedy to her and Billy is explaining her to her. And I think to the extent that like you feel sympathy for this, this, if you don't feel sympathy for this one woman, I think, there's been many a woman who's been in this situation where you're being double mansplained and just the paralysis of being accused of being humorless, not understanding a major form of communication in comedy, and then having your entire personality kind of reframed as being too special to be normal to even dance to get the joke of who's on first. It's like, well, shit, what am I supposed to do? I just don't believe it. You don't believe it. This was the only scene I didn't believe it. I thought she was like, I got to keep the ruse to the bitter end. We have decided before these documentary crews came here that I'm just going to play dumb and defer to Billy at all times and I'm never going to admit, ever, in any way that I tried to deceive these people with Theranos. I'm never going to admit I don't know why people, it did work. She's just committed to the bit forever. It's like watching somebody, you know, it's like one of those Twitter videos where somebody walks in on, you know, their wife with another guy and she's like, I don't know what you mean. And it's like, but we just saw the guy climb out the window. Why are you still lying about this? That's what she's doing for three hours. Well, I mean, this is interesting because, but the other, the other, there are a few things the movie gets hung, a few very important and interesting things that we don't know that the movie gets hung up on. One, the sort of ethical questions about whether or not to pay Elizabeth and Billy. Yeah. But the other thing is that New York Times profile that Amy Chozik wrote of Elizabeth Holmes in which she is quoted as saying that that's not me, that's a character that I created. Right. And then they have the big battle about, by the way, did that Times reporter ever come up with the quote? No. I mean, we just ran a, piece where, you know, they, the time calls Amy Chozik to like explain what happened. And I mean, her explanation was perfectly logical. She had the notebook and then she tossed it. Like not because, I mean, we throw out notebooks all the time. It's just not, you can't keep all the notebooks. Although I do keep all my notebooks and I'm not even a reporter, but her explanation to me made sense. It did not seem strange at all. Right. Um, what's strange is that they claim they recorded every conversation that happened and couldn't find it, but can't produce the conversation in which this alleged not quote took place. Right. Um, but that's the point is I think she was playing characters really this whole time dating back to, she played the Theranos character. Now she's playing the, I don't know how all this happened to me. I'm sympathetic. And they thought, so the bigger question to me, tying into what you just said, why would they want to do this film? A, why would they want to do this film with Nathan Fielder B? Well, this is the part where, and I have not heard an adequate explanation. It takes five minutes to Google Nathan Fielder. Billy Evans, clearly online. It's not like he's, I don't know if they know what it means. Like, I don't, I actually don't know. I mean, maybe Lance Oppenheim was the way that this, this movie got started. Right. And Nathan came attached. So Lance, but this is where they've been very tight lipped about how much did they know about Nathan and did Lance do the documentary and be like, I'm going to use Nathan as like my host for the documentary and somehow convinced them this was a good idea. I, I do think that Nathan was probably just kind of around and I don't know. I mean, I don't even want to venture a guess about like the, the, the sort of the, the, how the form of the documentary came to came, but this is the classic, but I'm going to let the coyote and into my, my chicken cage. Yeah. What could go wrong? He seems nice. But I also think that that is how blind to hubris they are. Right. I actually think that the Theranos two electric boogaloo part is huge to this movie. Like it isn't just for a different idea for why they did it. Okay. I think he's a really well-liked respected award-winning comic. Who's good at making stuff. I think they felt like if we can convince this guy. Oh, interesting. Oh, no, you're actually a victim. Oh God. We went for D. Okay. If we can win this guy over, everyone will think that you're the victim that you didn't realize what you did and you're going to be a sympathetic figure. So they basically, they were like, let's go to the NBA finals of this. It's we're not just doing a documentary. We're going to try to win over Nathan Fielder to make it seem like he believes in us. And guess what? It backfired. Well, I think that last shot is, is extraordinary. I think that last shot or the shot of them in the prison. I think the, the, the ocean shot. Yeah. I think that having Amanda Seyfried, you know, like her not having this person, you know, Amanda Seyfried, who like really it's just so game to do all the exploratory sidekicking co-hosting, you know, passenger seat ruminating that you just want in a homie. She's out of an eighties movie. It's like Alice in war games. Like, Hey, do you want to go to the island to see where the war games guy is? Yeah. I'll go with you. Yeah. Yeah. She's Mary Stewart Masterson and Martha Plimpton. And, you know, like, like, yeah, so many other, like the Mathis and pump up the volume Halle Berry and boomerang like this. She's just ready for, I'm going to help our hero for the last half of the movie. Let me just figure out how I can be of service. Yeah. I want to be of service. I also, but I do think that her, the stake that she holds in this film has everything to do with the fact that she was a previous interpreter of the same information, the same story. And I think she's as curious as we are about what Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim have learned in the years since we last saw a fictional Elizabeth Holmes, by the way, it goes by Amanda Seyfried. He goes, Billy Evans saying, yeah, we should have it up and running in a year. And then the next thing is two years later. Uh, there's some really great editing in this movie like that, that are really funny. They did such a good job. I had a bigger question with you about Amanda. Okay. I know what your question is. Can she be best supporting actress for this? I think she can. I mean, if the actors want to go there, let them go there. Cause she does reenact stuff for, you know, she's on, she's on screen reenacting Elizabeth Holmes for at least 10 minutes, but this bleeds into this weird, we've never had this for an Oscars category, where she's real her, but also pretending to be Elizabeth Holmes, her, I think she should be eligible. And I also think this is going to be eligible for best movie. I don't think there's any question. I think it's, I, it can be Nathan. Nathan can't be best actor. I don't think. Well, he does. I mean, if, if, if Amanda Seyfried is acting in those prison sequences, isn't Nathan also, you know, I mean, doesn't it then sort of isn't that the mouse hole spots, right. But he wins, he wins. So they get, if the film gets nominated and the directors get nominated, I don't, nobody that we're not talking about Nathan Fielder. We're talking about Amanda Seyfried here because that is the revelation. And I think that the, the thing that you say that that's a revelation. Cause I think we feel the same way on this. Is this like when an athlete, when you're like, wow, there was a little more in there than I thought. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like Jalen Brown carrying the Celtics to 56 wins last year, I was like, wow, didn't know he had that in him. And it was the same thing with her in this movie where I'm like, I didn't know. I, you know, I think a really important part of this whole Amanda Seyfried journey is the Testament of Anne. Um, that shaker movie that came out last year. Did you ever see that? No, I don't like it. I don't, I don't think it works. Um, Mona Fastfold, who is also co- responsible for the brutalist, um, that Brady Corbett movie that came out two years ago with Adrian Brody won him his second Oscar. I, Amanda Seyfried plays, um, she stars in that film. Okay. And I think the, it's a, it's a strange movie. A lot of it is just, a lot of it is her character being, it's about the sort of creation of the shaker of, of shakerism, um, as a, as a religion. And a lot of what Amanda Seyfried is doing is singing like a kind of like a rhythmic, um, choral songs, um, that the shaker sang and doing a lot of, um, Holy spirit caught the spirit dancing. And I think that it's the boldest performance she's ever tried to give. And I think she put it over the housemaid. Yeah. Uh, but, oh, but Bill, those two films happened at the same time. Yeah. Those two films came out within like weeks of each other. And I think that she, you know, you and I talk a lot about what happens when actors ripen, you know, when they get a certain bloomers. Yeah. Yeah. They just, I mean, she's always been good. I've, I mean, I've always loved her, but I think that now there's like, um, and a wisdom and a down-for-anything aspect to her that makes her as a performer really exciting. And so the thing that's the other revelation here is not just the kind of actor she is, but the way that her acting is used here is almost philosophical. Like she herself is making a case for the importance of acting. And it isn't in like a James Lipton sort of way. It is by doing. Her mere presence isn't. She's not hitting you over the head with it. Right. Yeah, she's just doing it and showing it. And in that sense, I don't know. Does an actor playing themselves, playing someone else, playing that they've already played, I don't know what kind of bylaws this is going to run up against, but I think she should be eligible. And to the extent that it matters, I think she should be nominated. We agree. Well, then you add this other piece of Nathan Fielder who by the end of the first part of the movie, you feel like he might be in love with Elizabeth Holmes. But then you also feel like he's falling for Amanda Seyfried a little bit in the second part, culminating in the rehearsing of the things where she's now basically the two people we might think he might be sweet on have now blended into this super person that he just seems so delighted. So for him, as somebody who followed him for 13 years, basically. This is. This is vertigo, baby. This is it, man. He climbed the mountain with this one. This is everything his career was leading to. I did the first podcast with him, I think, at Grantland in 2013. Yeah, he came in because Lewis sent me like the first six Nathan For Yous. And even before it came out, I had him on. I was like, I just love this show. He was a Canadian guy. You know, he was probably a little nervous to even do media for something he did. And now 13 years later is, you know, has a chance to win the Oscar. And I think this is one of the best documentaries, for lack of a better word, we've ever had. Like this to me goes into all the greats that I've seen in my lifetime. This has to be mentioned on the shortlist with any of them, I think. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think that, I mean, just in terms of it's being a meta text, right? Like I love a documentary that is also about itself in some way. Well, it's also really well framed and well edited. Like, could it be 15 minutes shorter? Like, sure. I don't know. What would you say? What would you cut? I was never, there's never a dull moment. I mean, I'm sure a professional could find ways to do it, but I didn't have that feeling where it was too long. But, you know, you're, you, you cut. It's like almost three hours. But no, I mean, I certainly didn't get bored. It wasn't like, I was like, oh man, an hour to go. As soon as Amanda Seyfried showed up, it was like, it was like, it was like a trade deadline trade. It's like, oh, they have Rasheed Wallace now. Oh my God, here come the Pistons. But, but yeah, I wonder, is this going to rejuvenate the form itself, which I think has desperately, desperately needed rejuvenation for a whole bunch of different reasons. Are we going to get back to our roots of, yeah, these are big swings, you know, or, or is this just a one-on-one? I don't know. I don't, well, nobody else, who else could do this? Nobody else could do this. I mean, I think that every time I try to draw some conclusion from some major culture, cultural creator that gets like left in the earth. I mean, I can conclude, I can talk about its meaning like culturally, but industrially, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, you know, it's funny. This same director made Primetime, the, the To Catch a Predator movie with Robert Pattinson that came out and was, did pretty well earlier this year. And I feel like there's a project here, right? There is a project, about that has something to do with the confusion of what's real and what's fictional and the sort of moral stakes of reenactment, right? The, the idea that somebody else is going to take this cause up seems rare. I think you just let, I don't, I don't think it's that. To me, it's more, you mean you're just, you're talking about young filmmakers being like, oh, wow. I'm going to start thinking outside the box. Maybe this is a way I could have my own version of this. Well, I will say then to that, to your, to your like larger point, sorry to get myopic there. This is a really interesting year for young white filmmakers because no Negroes have come up yet. Or women for that matter. But I, I, I feel like this is a like, you know, the Curry Barker story, the, the backrooms guy, Lance Oppenheim, um, yeah, these are all people 30 and under. There's, there's an easy to understand reason though. You're going to say what? The internet? The, what were you? I think people under 30 have been filming stuff for most of their lives. I think that is a huge part. I think they, they see things through a camera really from the time they're in sixth grade on. Like my daughter can do social media editing that I don't understand how she, she never went to a class. And I, I look at the stuff she can do and it's like, she's just a different human being than me. She's grown up with all of these tools that I don't really understand how to use. But I think you have now everyone under 30 looking through something, which is basically filmmaking. So they're seeing things differently. And also like you can, you can film when I was 40 years ago, I'm lugging around, you know, I had the video camera that had the side pack on it and I'm lugging around and we're filming stuff and making fake movies in high school. And it was a fucking pain in the ass. You had to come home, you know, the VHS out, you'd have to like have two VHSs just to edit anything. And now you can, you know, anybody can make anything now. And I think we're starting to see it. I really do. I think, I think you can see it drifting into the under 30 generation. I also think to your point about, um, I mean, the way we're thinking about like generations and what you're asking about what happens to nonfiction filmmaking now, I think. I think that like at the same time, because of the flattening of the way we are, the, you know, the diversification, but also the flattening of the way we experience a lot of television movies. I think people don't think about documentary versus, you know, some other form, right? No, it's, it's an hour and a half or two hours of content to kill time on a Tuesday. People watch documentaries all the time. You know what's telling? You know what happened to Netflix this year? When you look at those top 10 trends and you look at like top 10 movies, what we're over and over again, the top 10 movies, they were these fucking lifetime movies that they were licensing. And it was like the podcaster who killed his boyfriend. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was like, what's that quick. You start watching. It's like, this is a fucking lifetime movie they made in Canada. And it's number two over the Affleck movie. They just paid a hundred million dollars for it. Like that's, that means something that people are clicking on titles and thumbnails. Over filmmakers and stars and ideas to me is, is something and probably a little bit alarming. I just learned over the weekend that Mr. Beast employs about 15 people, possibly more to just do thumbnails for Mr. Beast. Just the thumbnails. Listen, I know from my son, like he, the Mr. Beast games or a beast game. It's whatever he called it. My son, like that's for his generation is survivor, which is funny because beast games did a collaboration with survivor where Jeff probes came in. It was like, it was like a passing in the torch. Almost. I just think that the way that we think about them, I mean, clearly the models have changed, right? The, the old models are broken. The new models are here with us and they are active. Well, then you have those other weird models, like the micro dramas and the stuff like that, that. I'm not a personal believer in, but we'll see. But I don't think, but that's like an, that's like a bad version of an old model, right? It's, it's basically a new wave quibble. Yeah. I think that Mr. Beast is like, like, you know, a show like Mr. Bird experience, like Mr. Beast, that's a new expression of something. I mean, it might have some tendrils that, that reach, that connect to the past, obviously, but the way that show is put out into the world and, and assembled and, you know, a bunch of shows like it. I think that, there's a real understanding that streaming platforms are just a completely different medium and, and, and they need a language that makes sense there. Or I could be super cynical and say, it's all about what's in the thumbnail and that's really all that matters. But maybe that is, Bill, that's part of the news. I've watched four episodes of war. First of all, great thumbnail and McNulty's in it, right? I don't really like it. I was going to say, is it good? Not really. It's just dressed up British people kind of arguing in, in, uh, like discipline settings, like big group settings of people being just British and nothing's really happened yet. And I've watched all four episodes, but I, I always joke about the iPad test where I'm looking down, up, down, up. I'm probably at like 37% for war where I'm just going through basketball box scores. I'm like, Oh, somebody, somebody's yelling at somebody back down. And I think that's just a lot of shows now. And it's really tough to cut through with something where it's like, Oh, and I think that's a real conundrum for these streamers. It's it. Yeah. But that's why you can't really game it. And it's also probably why you don't need to spend 150 or $250 million on something when you just don't know what's going to happen. Yeah. When you can spend $3 million on, Oh, this, this dude went in and, and, uh, killed this, killed this mailman outside his house. Did he do it or not? Next, the mailman murders. I'm clicking on that. What is that? I'm going to, I just made that up right now. You would watch the mailman. You just made that up? I made that up. Oh my God. Well, you just, somebody needs to mail you a check because mailman murders. You need to like, like copy that real quick. November 3rd on Netflix. Before we go, uh, I want to tell you, cause I don't know if I emailed this to you, but my favorite radio station, WXPN in Philadelphia, you know, they do this annual poll every year of the, you know, 885, 88.5 is their number. They do like these countdowns. And this year, the countdown is the 885 greatest songs from television in the movies. And, you know, you go to the, you know, WXPN.org and you just go, you can go and vote in this poll. I just feel like this is the newest thing of all time. So is it like theme songs or anything you want? It could be jaws. it could be you know don't you forget about me you know my number one on my list is Fight the Power from Do the Right Thing I mean I just I don't know I just feel like this is a very fun thing it's a great idea and I don't know this is such a I'm going to check that out when are you coming to LA I don't know soon got to do a rewatch at some point soon sometime in the next year or so sometime in the next year or so no I mean before the end of the year sorry that came out wrong I couldn't think of anybody I wanted to talk about this movie with more than you great to see you as always my friend nice to see you too pleasure talk to you soon alright that's it for the podcast thanks to Wesley Morris thanks to Gahal and Eduardo and Jack and Chris from the Spotify side as well don't forget new rewatchables went up we did A Nightmare on Elm Street Horror Movie Month is officially over so go check that out I'm going to be back on Thursday with a bunch of NFL stuff hopefully there are more trades we had a trade today maybe some World Series stuff if it's still going and I'm going to try not to record during Game 6 of the WNBA Finals which will be happening at 9.30 Pacific Time hilarious great job WNBA you killed it I'll see you on Thursday I'm a pro so I'll never lose I'm a pro so I'll never lose I'm a pro so I'll never lose must be 21 plus and president in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and president in D.C. or Wyoming opt-in required bonus issued as non-withdrawable profit boost tokens restrictions apply including any token expiration max wage or amount see terms at sportsbook.fandler.com game 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 gamblinghelpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York for Louisiana call 877-770-7867 this episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures Wild Horse 9 John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell I like those guys star in the sharp-witted comedy thriller from Academy Awards award winner Martin McDonough writer-director of The Banshees of Minnesharan and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri set in the 1970s filmed on location on Easter Island Malkovich and Rockwell play CIA agents Chris and Lee who are caught in a dangerous game of secrets and survival also starring Steve Buscemi another one of my guys Parker Posey and Tom Waits Wild Horse 9 is being hailed by critics as a revitalizing shot of pure entertainment and easily one of the best films of the year don't miss Wild Horse 9 only in theaters November 6 get tickets now are you looking for support in your weight management journey? 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