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One team looked like they kind of knew what they were doing, and the other team looked like the playoff experience, youth stuff, was starting to creep in. I didn't like the shots I got, I just didn't like anything, and the Knicks just went into Knicks mode. Yeah, I don't know the Bill Bill was used as far as at the end of the game. I would say at the end of the game, if you told anyone, at least me, before the game, it's going to come down to a single possession game, you're going to favor the Knicks, because the Knicks know exactly what they're doing. They're giving them all to Brunson, and they're going to play off Brunson, San Antonio, in any game down the stretch, you're not sure yet, because that's where they are young, they haven't. The two-man game with Fox and Wimby is usually the play. They have to sleep, ran it, Fox got a wide open shot that would have tied the game if you remember, and he missed that shot, and then he followed up with a foul on, I think, Bridges, where Bridges had nothing, so the back-to-back plays, there were three plays that changed the game to me. The offensive rebound, that Brunson got it, and then got to three. The missed shot by Fox, where he would have tied the game up, then Fox followed that up, where he billed Bridges out with a foul. That's a seven-point swing in a game, and San Antonio couldn't recover, and then the turnover by Wimby was the final nail. And then Brunson with the Moonball. Yeah, so San Antonio takes the lead, 95-94, and the two Wimby free throws, and then that whole sequence happens. Fox made that shot, and game seven against OKC. In this game, I think him and Wimby combined were seven for 27? Not great. Yeah, well, Fox is one of the most clutch players in the NBA over the last three years down the stretch of the game. He really has it been other than game seven Oklahoma. That's their go-to play, and we know what the Knicks are going to do, and we pretty much know what San Antonio is going to do. They're going to go to the two-man game. And remember, they lost that game, though, Oklahoma, where Fox went there. They didn't have anything down the stretch to go to, and they went to it. Fox got his shot, like in the paint, perfect look for him, misses it, and then, you know, the Knicks is going to play Brunson Ball from there on. So I just think it came down to a little things. A couple of things I was surprised by, and I was wrong by it. I was really surprised by Wimby guarding Towns, the start of the game. I was shocked by that. I was positive that Wimby would be on heart. Champion, or anyone else would be on Towns. And the reason is, that allows Wimby to stay in the paint more. If you look at the beginning of the third quarter, the spurs did that, and I actually turned to my son Spencer, and I said, "Huh, maybe the spurs of playing Cat Miles, maybe that's what they wanted to do all along," but instead, they waited until the second half. And it had some impact, they got out to a quick lead to begin to go to the third. They really never went back to that comrade, you know, and hard didn't play just normal big minutes. I think he played 26, 27 minutes. So my brown, I got to tell you coaches, but off tonight, he really did that. I never also thought that Wimby would be guarded by Karanthony Towns. >> Successfully. Yeah, there you thought there'd be a foul machine. Well, I thought it'd be fouls, and I thought it'd be an anobie, and anobie, I think this year has the best plus minus in the NBA versus Wimby defensively. So I thought they would go to that, and they never even went to it. So when you look at the mix, they still have that in their back to go to. I thought Karanthony Towns played the game of his life. He was amazing. You know what, my son just turned to me and said, wow, Minnesota traded Karanthony Towns. And you know, last year no one was actually saying that, you know, because Karan was up and down. But I'll tell you, man, second half of this season, he's been absolutely unbelievable. And again, my brown is Twitterman and Rice Fought to be successful and you got to give Mike a lot of credit. Yeah, I had three heroes, Brunson, obviously, I think he had 19 in the second half. Heart had 15 rebounds in six assists in 26 minutes. And then I thought Towns took it to Wimby. I thought it was a stalemate at worst between them, not just statistically, but didn't seem afraid of them. Went by him a bunch of times. That was the big thing. I had the numbers wrong on Wimby and Fox. They were nine for 34 combined and San Antonio only hit two threes in the second half. But they didn't shoot. Well, we'll go into some of the stuff they can do. We can't lose sight of the biggest moment of this game that happened in the second quarter when somebody, I forget who it was, crashed into Brunson's knee. And look bad. Yeah, I look bad, you know, I didn't think it was bad, honestly, when I saw it, I thought it hurt. And you know what I mean by that? I thought that was a scare because it's needing to go all the way in. So, I honestly, I was sitting here, I said, he's okay, he just scared the hell out of him. Then he didn't seem okay. Everything expand in my life is like, are you serious? We just want to live in a row. We're in the finals. This is our guy. He's going to get hurt in the first half of a game. He goes into the tunnel and it's just pure panic. And then in an hour and a half, it flips and he's the hero of the game. And then he'll get stepped on. I mean, this way, he's just so tough. The movie made late where he took the hit, got bumped, Gifts and Antonio Credit. They did it all, the entire Oklahoma series where they stay down, they take the bump. And then you have to try to play through that and Brunson makes that shot. It just was a perfect moment for Brunson. Well, explain this to me with Brunson. SGA looks so uncomfortable against the Spurs team and all the guards. And Brunson looked like within a half, he had solved it in the second half and he was scared. I actually thought he could add more points. He missed a couple shots that he usually made. Is it because that the next half better three point shooting or better space? Like, what is it? What was the difference to them in OK? Well, you just hit on one day and they have way better spacing, all right? So and they do a great job with their cuts and their spacing. That's number one. Number two, there was one time where he got in the paint and you could see Winby wanted to help. But Carlton is how kind of, it's kind of floats out to the corner to the three. Well, in the Oklahoma series, Winby got to stay in the paint. He really never left the paint. It's almost like they decided if Cruso and those guys could make enough threes, we'll lose again. Right. We don't think they can and they were right at the end of the day. So barely because Cruso and Wallace made like half the corner three, ultimately it didn't matter because Chet didn't make anything. Yeah, and Cruso was amazing in that series. So, you know, New York, first of all, then one thing you got to give heart, he knows before the game that that's who they are going to put them on or they're going to try to help off of him. He is a great cutter. He's always in a dunker spot. And that's why you remind me of Rando and rebound me. You know, yeah, yeah, when we put Rando in the dunker spot at time, why? Because when he didn't have the ball, if you didn't guard him, he rebounded the ball. And it allowed Rando to have a free run at the glass. If you watch hard, there's no one blocking him out. He's just going to rebound. He has a free lane right to go rebound because no one's guarding him and he takes advantage of it. He's one of the great rebounds in our league at his size. Well, and then on the flip side, Vaselle, Champagne, Harper and Castle, I think they had like 30 rebounds combined with six minutes left in the game. They were crashed on the board. San Antonio had 14 offensive rebounds. And really it came down. They just couldn't make shots. And if I'm, I actually, they had two time outs with like three minutes left and we both had the same thought of like, they don't look right. Feels like this is maybe like reset this. When we looked tired, I don't know if he shot his bottom in first half or what happened. But I don't know what the answer is.
You're taking the first half when do you look sped up tonight? It looks like there's speed them up tonight. I think he had six or seven turnovers bill. A lot of them were putting the ball on the floor. I would know, you know, we have all kinds of stats and our little stats by the team. And one of the things I would look at first is how many dribbles did he have? I know that sounds crazy, but it felt like he dribbled the ball way more than usual. The other thing is time of possession. How often did he hold the ball and have the ball in his hands? It looked like way more than usual. And so I think that play right into the next hands. I think they would take that. Harper was phenomenal to me. He played great, played normal. It's funny. He just knows how to play. And nothing kind of affects him. The two other guards, the three guards from San Antonio didn't have their best game. That's going to happen. That could be first game jitters. That could be all kinds of things. They'll play better. But the nix will play better too. I thought I had an obi down the stretch. You start playing well, but I thought he was struggling most of the game. You know, save the bench. The game with the nix on the bench. That little sucker, Avarado, playing the first half. Yeah, he had really big minutes for that. He played great. And Sam, you know, I'm just, I mean, I coach Sam and I'm just so proud of him. And by the way, he plays it out. Like you couldn't keep Sam on the floor. Five years ago, three years ago, defensively, he couldn't guard anybody. And that kid has worked his tail off. And he can eat defensively. And the other thing now is he's always been a great shooter. But if he missed a couple, he would never keep shooting. And now he does. That's maturity. That's growing up. That's going through all the stuff. And he's doing that. I thought their bitch gave them a huge lift tonight. He was out there with like four minutes left. And the bridges spot. And then they brought bridges back in. But I was surprised how late he was in the game. Yeah. So bridges will play better. He didn't have a great game, obviously. But I thought bridges had a phenomenal game defensively. You know, it's so funny. The bridges get so much criticism. But he does so many things. And it, you know, everyone just equates scoring to if you play well. And we all know there's so many other things you can do. And bridges does those things every night. Yeah. If I'm Wembee, what am I learning from that game? Patients, you know, to me, he simple thought he went too quick and times. I think they're going to put him on a post a little bit more, but not much more. The two men game with him and Fox, there's something there. They just didn't get anything out of it. The 45 set, which we, I think we started it when I was with the Clippers, with Chris Fallview. Remember, that's what the 45 set actually came from. They are the best that I've ever seen in it. Explain what the 45 set is. The 45 set is the four and the five and user that use a guard way up top that double flat screen where a guard goes downhill, Wembee rows, shooter in the backside, shooter in the corner. They run it as well as anybody I've ever seen. And they ran it three or four times early in the game. And it was successful. And they got out of weight from it. So you're going to see that way more in game two on Friday. I wonder what they do about Harper because I thought, I actually thought he was their best player in that game. They took about a little over four minutes left when it was close. And then they lost the lead. And I didn't really like, you know, any of the offense they had except for that Fox, nine footer that he missed. But I wonder if Harper, I wonder if he has reached a point where he can't take him off. Well, he just has to finish the games for you because he can create his own shot. He can. But the other guards can as well. I have to say that I think there's going to be gain for us going to come down between him and championing. You know, the other guards because of their defense, their rebounding, their athleticism. You keep them on the floor, but that makes them really small. That's one of the things I kept saying, Bill, I told you this, the nicks are big. The nicks, they're big. They're big at every spot. I guess Brunson is considered small, but we call him big body Brunson. Heart plays like a five. And an only a huge bridge is as long. Towns is long. They're a big basketball team. And so even though those first guards did way better than I thought they would on the offensive glass, I think size matters. It does when victors around, but it also does because of all the nick players with size. And I thought it mattered tonight. I wonder, what do you think the next strategy was going into that game? Because it felt like they want to turn into a track meet early and kind of discombobulate the spurs and knock them out of whatever rhythm they were in the last game. And then I thought down the stretch, you could see it, it wore down the spurs. And it felt like the nicks were like gaining strength almost. And do you think that was the strategy? I do. I think it's funny. I heard people say halftime slow it down. I said, don't slow this game down. This is great for the nicks. The one thing they were doing, they're trying to get up the floor before women could get there. They're they're they're trying to do the same thing Oklahoma tried, except for Oklahoma kept losing their ball handlers. All they have was Shay left, you know. But the nicks, they pass the ball forward. They attack early. They spread the floor. And it also didn't allow women to get into a spot. Women loves being in the dunker spot defensively. But when they go in transition early and early attack, you saw a winby out by the three point line a lot tonight. Uh, San Antonio cannot like that. So that absolutely was part of their gameplay. I had a bunch of nicks fans in my life who were texting me during the game being like, I liked one being till tonight. Now I hate his guts. I'm tired of this. He's flopping around like he gets every call. It's so it's so funny how you root against a guy for an hour. And you're like, I'm out. I hate this guy. Yeah. Well, everyone plops around now. Yeah. Yeah. It's just so funny. That's I think it was castle. They asked him and they're trying to get him to say something about Shay. He looked at the guy says, uh, everyone flops. That's just, you know, it's funny. It's not taught. It's players work on it. But it's not taught really. Players just work on it. Uh, I have a lot of Bronson flopped and and took quarantine towns flop every bit as much as as Winby did. Yeah. But that's just part of the game. I like it. We're getting a lot of animosity. Um, I love that. Yeah. With, with the town thing, you said that at the top about how Minnesota traded him. With that said, I'd never, ever in a million years thought that he had this in him. And he's been doing it now for a month, right? The way he played today, there was almost like, like a cerebralness about what he's doing offensively. He's kind of staying away from the dump house for the most part. Like some of this stuff, like the quick attacks on Winby is exactly what he had to do. Like before Winby gets sad. He was just trying to beat him and he was physical. He's playing. I just loved how he played. He's playing, he's playing smart. He's not losing his composure. Those are things that he always would do in the past. Uh, he's staying out of foul trouble. Uh, he may be their best passer at times. And the biggest thing he's doing that no one talks about is rebounding. He is a great rebounder, a great rebound, great offensive rebounder. So he's done a lot of things that we didn't know he can ever do. And the other thing is, and I've said, I've said, I've said this since we wanted 2008, Bill, when you hear about teams and they all say it, you improve each round. And teams that don't go deep, never understand that players who have never gone deep, they never understand. It's not necessarily individual improvement. It's team improvement. And the nicks in the first round may have been, you could say, maybe gettable, you know, in the second round, you know, they got it going that that after that Atlanta meeting on whatever they had, they they have come together. Like when you watch them play, uh, there was a time out in this game where you heard current any towns talking. I saw that. That was a believer. That wasn't a six weeks ago. He wouldn't have said it and no one would have listened, you know, uh, but that's part of the growth that teams go through each round. You get better. You get closer. You trust more. You let go of all the individual crap, you know, all the numbers chasing and you just start playing. Yeah, and you played it right away. Everado, think about I always love Everado in this example. He comes from New Orleans where he played a ton of minutes and now he played two minutes, five minutes, six minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes. He doesn't care. He just wants to help the team win and you can see that throughout the Nick team. You can see that throughout the Spurs team. These are two teams that have grown each round and they have they both have come to this like team unity thing and it's really helped the next because we never thought the nicks could get there, but they're there. They are absolutely there. I forgot to say that the segment is brought to you by a new era, which makes a bunch of great caps, all kinds of things. So that what you just mentioned about the selflessness, I remember we did a podcast during the 24 finals. We were talking about the Celtics when they were, uh, I think they won game three against Dallas and you were excited about it because you were like, I see it. They get it. So it's like they understand what this last level is about. It's not about the stats anymore. It's about looking out for each other. Just just trying to win whatever it takes. You don't care about your minutes. You don't look at the stat sheet. It feels like the nicks have gotten there and I thought I thought San Antonio was going to win this series and maybe they just suck tonight and maybe they will, but
The fact that the Nick's were able to carry that three rounds in fear of competition to now this stage tonight, and it's the same thing, and it gives you hope if you're next fan, I would say. Well, I, this is, I've been asked because I'm always asked, who's going to win the series? And today I was golfing. I bet I was asked at 50 times bill, and my same answer is I don't know. Yeah. Usually, you kind of have a, this one is too close to call, and, you know, if you're in Nick's van, you feel great, obviously, the big thing is if they do lose another game, what they come back with the next game, you know, and, you know, now game two is the biggest game on the finals for San Antonio. They can't go down to, they just can't, I guess they can. We've seen teams come back, but, you know, it's just so interesting. Yeah, this, they're not going to play. It's the guard play. That's the key for San Antonio. They did not have great guard play, and their guards have been dominant in the playoffs. They've been dominant. They didn't, they usually have the guard played by one or two, and then maybe two know all their guards didn't play well, other than Harper. Harper was the only guard that played great tonight. I thought one of the things they weren't really 100% doing tonight was just attacking the rim all the time, which is what they learn to do against OKC. Scott, go. Don't, don't even think twice, just go, go, go, go attack. Bigger guys, I bet if you sit back and count the drives that they were bumped off on, like it was amazing. Even Brunson had one. I think Fox had him beat, but he bumped them off half, and nobody does it as better as that as good as anyone. Bridges does. Heart is phenomenal at it. Yeah. They took a lot of the hits from San Antonio and kind of veered them outside to the paint. I thought that was really affected by me. I thought the New York's penetration defense was phenomenal. I thought they guarded the ball and took hits, held their ground, didn't back up, didn't flop defensively. They held their ground tonight, and their size matter again. When you played them this season, did you see this in them? No. I did say, early, they're the best team in the East when you go in a vigilance. Right. If you just counted 10. Yeah. If you just counted the numbers, you thought, best team in the East. And going into the playoffs, I did pick them to win the East before the playoffs started. But I just thought they would out-talent people. They're out-teaming people now. And when you put that talent together, and now the way they're playing, they're a really good basketball team, and they're hard to beat. Yeah. Because I remember when this happened with the O8 Celtics, now granted they won way more regular season games, but then the first two rounds were choppy, two seven game series, and then it really wasn't until near the end of the Detroit series. And then you could see something shifted. Yeah. Do you remember that? Like, what game was that when it just, like, just something was different? Well, I thought it was a game in Detroit, after we lost, you remember we lost, our first home game was against the Pistons, and I think it was game two, and we went right back in Detroit and won. I thought, from that point on, we were, we had, you know, made, you know, I love using that term, like, and, you know, Godfather, we were made, finally, like, this team is, I thought that team played together all the time, but you remember going into playoffs and made that comment? I'm really worried. We have not been tested. We had lost two games in a row all year. Yeah. We hadn't gone through anything, and it just felt too easy. And that really concerned me. And so those two games and Atlanta game seven went much of a game, but that Cleveland game seven. Yeah. That kind of made us and didn't turn around and then Detroit defending champs come in and they pop us right away and we have to respond. I thought those are the things and the mix had been going through stuff all year. So they're different. They've gone through all of stuff all year, turmoil, chemistry problems, role problems, guys were unhappy. They get to the first round, a lot of that is still going on and Atlanta takes it to them. They have their meeting and it all goes away. Since then, they've been playing right throughout and it's been amazing to watch. So is that the first recorded meeting and NBA history that actually worked? Yeah, actually worked. Yeah. Because I don't think it was a call of meeting, like, you know, it just, I, from what I hear, the meeting just kind of happened. It wasn't one of those things like we're going to have a player meeting, which every coach is like, oh, God, a coach, we want to have a team meeting where every coach says, oh, God. Yeah. I gotta tell you, Bill, I've been a player in these meetings and I've been a coach in these meetings and a lot of them go haywire. I was in San Antonio as a player and some of the, we were down to the Houston Rockets, right, way back in the, in the western finals. And I think it was David Robinson or someone or Moses Malone, I'm going to use him because there's all kinds of stuff in this meeting. The first part of the meeting, Greg Poppovich is talking about Bob Hills, our coach. And Dennis Rodman, when Pop finishes, Dennis Rodman says, well, who's listening to you? You're not the coach, this is, this is the meeting. You're right. So when you had those babies, most of the time it's guys screaming at each other and very rarely does it turn into a very productive group therapy session, like in an Apple TV show or something. Well, sometimes, sometimes you have phenomenal meetings. I will say there's been some good ones, but they're usually at some point a player you didn't expect to say something, say something that pisses off the entire lot of them or another player. Now those two guys got a beef and it's all falling apart. That's usually what happens. It happens a lot. Yeah. And when they were trying to put together, I talked about this a few pods ago, like Wes and Leon trying to put this team together and the motto is the O4 Pistons, where it's like, we don't, we're not going to look into a top three lottery pick, but we can kind of smartly, we can build around Brunson. He can be like our billups basically and we could just kind of patch together different guys and love wings that can play defense and towns will be our big guy. Do you see that when you watch them? Do you see the comparison? I mean they're completely different teams, but two different teams because that Pistons team, anyone could have a big night, if you remember that where, yeah, well, for the most part, Brunson is their go-to guy, you know, 31 shots tonight. Yeah, he's the guy and Detroit played more team ball, more movement. So a different team, Detroit was probably was a way better defensive team. Yeah. I think New York's a better offensive team in some ways, but listen, when you look at the two teams, two teams couldn't be built any differently, the spurs have done it basically through the draft. Fox is the only guy that you can make a case that they traded for. They they signed some some low budget free agencies that have turned out great for you. But other than that, it's been Fox, right? Yeah. Next, I asked my son, Spencer, who on the next team was drafted by the next dead place? There's only one. It's Mitchell Robinson, right? That's it. Yeah. That's it. Everybody else they traded for. They signed in free agency. So you got to give Leon those guys a lot of credit, they got the right pieces. They they did. I thought the villain over thing was smart because they want to knock it because it did create a team and did create unity and that was good. No one and I don't care if Leon or anyone, no one thought Brushing would be this good. And I really liked him, you know, because people forget what he did to Phoenix. Yeah. In that series. Yeah. It was it wasn't just the Lucas show, it was a Luca Brunson show. He did it to you tattoo for a couple of games, he did that moments. Well, the Utah series. And remember, I think Luca misses the game. He does. And he just takes over. So he showed that he could do it. No one thought he could do it full time every night and be this clutch. Yeah. So give me your credit, they signed him. What I think they did better is once they realized what they had, they built around it. And I don't want to take shots at anybody, but I will say this. They are a lot of front office guys that can go out and get the stars. There's very few of them to continue to team into a championship team. That's what you have to do. You can go out and get these names. But can you make the other moves, you know. Be looking at Danny, he's done it a ton, Brad Stevenson's done it, you know, Sam Prestey. You know, it took him a while. You think about all the talent that Sam Prestey had, and he finally kind of figured it out. Like, all right, we got the stars, all right, now we got to go get Hardin's sign. I got to do a good crew. So I got to go get some of these role players because that's what's going to win the games for us. Senate, Tony, we don't even know who that was.
players are yet because they're so young, all their guards are so good. We don't even know who could be the next star, could be Harper, could be Castle. I mean, there's so many guys, but the next give them credit. Hart is a role player. That's who he is. He actually knows who he is. Bridges is a role player. That's who he is. He actually knows he is Robinson's a role player. And then the Carl Anthony Townes straight was Hume Mungus. And at the time, one thing anyone knew if it was a good trade or not, but it's turned out to be the game changer for them. Yeah, that was one of those, it was really hard to have a hard opinion on that trade. Yeah. You know, you can see it from both sides being a disaster or I just, I remember being like, I understand why they did it. I don't know if I like it. I don't understand the logic. The logic was perfect. One of them was because the way he shoots the to take a big outside of the paint and let Brunson work and then give Brunson more space. So that absolutely is happening. It happened tonight. And they needed a center because the league barely has any centers. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you talk about the team building part and you just came from Milwaukee. They went the opposite way where they had Yannis and they were like, we we got to get another star for Yannis and they traded basically all their future stuff for Dame and tried to put them together as as the combo, which I think is the old school model. Do you think like with the way that this new CBA and the second apron penalties and it feels like it feels like the depth and having a bunch of guys in that like seven to 15 million dollar range is going to be more important than that second star. Yeah, I think it depends on who the first star is. You know, if you have a shave, you have a Brunson, you know, you get away with having a lot of other players and you know, Williams is better than just a lot of other players is injured, but yeah, maybe maybe the two guys. Yeah, just two and a half. Yeah. No, what happened to Milwaukee is they got old quick and their star wasn't, you know, he was a young one. Everyone else got old really quickly. You know, I think if they could redo that trade, they still do it, but they would probably keep Drew. I thought from what I heard they didn't think Drew and Dan could play together and what they didn't realize later is no, they needed Drew to protect him defensively from everybody else. So the thought I actually thought was right. The execution of the rest of the part probably didn't work out. Now moving forward, all these teams have to be very careful. Like if you, if you, your number one guy is your number one guy, but your number two, three, four, five, you better with the cap and the apron. It's so much harder to build the three, the three star thing is gone. Like we know that just contractly. You can't do it. The two star thing is still alive, but you can make a case having a superstar, you know, a shape and four really good players, maybe better. Yeah, because the results are in that situation. Now with Tatum of Brown, I think Tatum has the, the key has the third biggest contract per year, next year. And Brown has seven, so two top seven. I don't know, I don't know how sustainable that is for the rest of the decade. How do you put a team around that, especially when you're watching a series like this where both teams go nine deep, you know, Cornette who we didn't talk about. He came in at one point. I think Cornette's a good backup center. But now it's part of the point. As soon as when B comes out of the game, all the players in the other team are like just, you can see the happen there step that he's gone for four minutes. Yeah, but there's no play in the history. Maybe we'll back in the day, you know, and I'm being honest and shackled a little bit, but I mean, listen, when Wimby walks off the floor, I don't care who you are. I think there's high school kids running, right? When Wimby walks off the floor and they're yelling, drive the ball now, right? You know, do it because it was, it was so obvious. As first I think they get the nine-point lead. They sub him out and it was like the next just attack the basket immediately. And so, you know, it was 63-50. Yeah. He goes out and by the time he comes back in at 67-61, the next are back in the game. They're back in the game and Brunson got it going. Brunson got it. Yeah, so you need to, you had two things going at the same time. You know, what else was going, by the way, but I had multiple Nick fans friends there. They said it was like 15% Nick's fans. It was more than I thought it could be. I was surprised. Yeah, that's for game one. Centennial, you know, people don't sell tickets. Well, clearly they do. But the Nick fans have been impressive. They really happened. You got to, like, Joel and B makes that ridiculous speech, you know, after they beat the Celtics about, you know, I'll pay for the tickets. And it was almost like the Nick fans to that personal. Right. What? We're going to buy the whole arena. I mean, yeah. Apparently, with the Nick fans in Philadelphia, it was unbelievable. Yeah, that was crazy. You played for them a long time ago. Got injured, but you were involved with that team that came the closest they've ever been. And that was 32 years ago. Yeah. But yeah, you told that story. I don't know how that we did about how they should have activated you for the last two rounds. Now, this is 53 years. I've been saying, I think this is the biggest title that anybody can have right now, unless maybe the bills, but the problem is the Nick's have, you know, six generations of fans, and they're the biggest city. It's not even close. I know that sounds funny because we're comparing football and basketball. It's like the Cubs winning. Yeah. You know, it really is in a lot of ways. If the Nick's can win this, they've been through, first of all, they went through a lot of bad basketball. It's not like they've been knocking on the door. 20 years ago. Yeah. I mean, they went through a lot of bad basketball. And then they've kind of built this team. Leon, and you got to just give them all the credit in the world. It kind of MM West, they put this team together piece by piece, and now they're in it. And they're going to be in it for a long time. This is not a flute. This team's going to be good. They're going to be good for a long time. Contractually, they're set up really well overall. So yeah, I can't think of another team with size of city and haven't won it, that this would be any bigger. This is as big as this. This century Red Sox and Cubs were the two big ones. Right. That's exactly right. Red Sox and the Cubs were the two that they had to remove it from and then they got them. So now it's the Nick's. Well, we talked about the chess match of the series. So the Nick's come out and do two things. Maybe San Antonio wasn't expecting. Having towns guard Wembee and just playing super fast and seeing if they could discombobulate them. I think they knew that. I think San Antonio, you think they're ready for a pace. Okay. All right. So now we go to game two in San Antonio. It's like, okay, they're going to have Wembee. Do you zag now if you're the Nick's? I'm like, no, actually, I'm not going to have Wembee at towns on Wembee this game. I'm going to put OG on them right away. Sometimes you overthink things. That's in their back pocket. They still have that. If towns that had gotten a quick file, I guarantee you they would have switched in and they'll be on them right away. They didn't have to do it. All right. That was one. Two, I would be very surprised to see Wembee guard and current in the towns. I just think it puts Wembee out of health. Without the health, I think it really hurts San Antonio. It also takes Wembee away from the glass. Even though towns will have free run to the glass, you still got a 7-6 alien standing there, just wiping every rebound. So I think those are the two biggest changes that you'll see. I had two male back questions for you quickly. First one is from Jeremy in Portland. Is the NBA experience in the greatest parody era in the history of the league? This year will be eight champions and eight years. Half the league will have made the finals in the last 10 years. Do you think this is a fluke COVID's part of that? Or do you think this is just what the league is now? I think this is what the league. I think this is what's collecting the bargaining and what they want. It doesn't allow the big marks to just outspend like the Dodgers. It doesn't allow for that. Now it's going to come down to, in my opinion, gyms didn't know how to build real teams. I really do. I think coaches get fired all the time. I think this is the era of gyms. You better do your job. You all got the same type of money. You got a draft right. You have to trade right. And more importantly, you have to sign right. I think this is also the era that most stars stay home. You're not going to see a whole bunch of movement anymore. It's not going to be a bunch of guys just leaving their team. I think you'll see more of the stars staying at home. Number one, they can make more money. And number two teams can build around them. So it's going to come down to, yeah, we know you can get us kem in the ramp. Well, we know you can get James Harden. But how do you build around that? How do you put enough pieces around that? And so I think that's going to be the biggest change. Now we'll say this. Mid-season build.
Everyone said there's a dynasty, and it's an Oklahoma, and we've been proving once again. Right. There are no datasties. Winning is, people, when I hear people talk, well, they've just got to win the title. People have no idea how hard it is to win. Everything has to go right for you. You got to get lucky at times, you got to stay healthy. You got to make big shots. Someone you don't know on your team has to make, and they all have to get away. It takes so much to win, and that's where I mean by, you better build the right guys on that team, and it's got to be one through 15. And I think that's the biggest difference. Can you talk about how different it is now with all the two-way guys, and how many-- But having a bigger roster, how do you manage that? I think that's hurt in some ways. I think the smart teams, San Antonio, or give them a great example, okay, yeah, they still have all their two-way guys, but they thought it was smart enough to get some vets, some older vets on their team, Kronet and Harrison Barnes. Oh, Lenny. Oh, Lenny. Like, that's a smart move. Now, those could be two ways. And I think a lot of the teams wouldn't sign those guys, Bill, and those are the teams that aren't winning. I'm telling you, you need a couple of those guys at the back of your bench, always son Boston. We had the stars, and then we had the older guys, and it kind of boxed in the young guys. They had nowhere to go but to listen, you know, and I think that's really important on teams. But it's harder now. You have these two-way guys. It's making them to lead younger and younger and younger. It's what it's doing. I do like it, but if you are one of those teams that have a chance to win, you may have to give up one of those two ways to sign a veteran on your team, a good veteran. Not a guy that just wants to talk and then can't play and can't do anything, though these guys are important. And all the teams have all the good teams do. Right. That's how the guys like Pat Connerton, Olinick, these guys end up hanging, Joe Ingalls, these guys end up hanging around for two extra years because they're not going to be talking in a teammate, one, two, and three about, I should be playing. Yeah, I know why I'm not in. Think about what Charlotte did. Charlotte has had a chemistry culture problem for ever, right? You remember they cut Pat Connerton for one day and went back and resigned him because they knew he's not going to play, but he's good. Now that doesn't last. That probably won't even last next year, they'll probably have to go get someone else. But those type of guys are invaluable coaches in the old days, you know, when I first started coaching, you would always put someone into your bench that you knew had your back. I mean, we're mounting Williams when I was in Orlando, I just assigned my needs, you know, you know, laid to his career, but I knew my name was going to be loyal. That's what teams coaches did that all the time, not as much anymore. You actually need guys that are just great team guys now. I got a lot of emails wondering if the Chet Hongren series against Wembee had parallels to Ben Simmons and the infamous Atlanta Hawkshire. No, no, no, no, completely. He thinks that's fine. Okay. I try to make sure. Yeah. There is a thing that he did not want to look at the rim anymore in game seven. I was getting flashbacks. Yeah, well, first of all, he didn't get it a lot either. Yeah. You're right. You're right. Like, he was out. He just was out playing. It was clear. Like, this is why like Wembee, it was so funny. I love Chet too, but this is why I love Wembee. Wembee for whatever reason, he takes Chet personal, like yeah, Chet's the greatest guy. And so is Wembee, but you know, Wembee will never, he can't stand him. Wembee sees him and he goes right after him and it's so obvious. Well, you had that was Zach Randolph and Blake Griffin, remember? Yeah. Yeah. Same thing. Zach Randolph for some reason hated Blake Griffin and every time he saw him, he just wanted to go out of it. Yeah. And it's so interesting because all they did, somebody compared them. Yeah. And for whatever reason, Wendy has Michael Jordan, that's what I call, he's Michael Jordan guys. Like, you know, if you can burn anything to Michael, you have to deal with Michael. And that's what it is. But Wembee, and listen, Chet's still on the top four or five best defenders at his side in the league. He's still an all-deafest guy. He's going to be a better off as a team, a player. Oklahoma had two guys out in this series and they should not overreact nor will they, unless they got a great deal. That was the last question I had for you from Eli and Chicago, talking about the check, the check game seven. Yeah. And he said, can you imagine what your podcast would have been like after Scottie Pippen's migraine game in the 90s for conference finals when the Bulls lost to the bad boys? You would have had topics like Ken MJ, we're in with that a real number two. Who can they get for Pippen, can fill five guys to trust. And I do wonder like this culture we're in now, you know, we, when we were, when you were in the league in the beginning, like magic sucked in the 84 finals, right? Yeah. Pippen had the migraine game. Like, people would, were they had the 84 finals when he threw the pass to Henderson for the steal and teams would lose and they would just move on that. Isaiah. Turns the ball over. Begames over. Turns the ball over. Flip the series. You know, when we were in with the Clippers, Chris fall had two of the worst minutes in the history of the game, right? Against Oklahoma City. Yeah. Yeah. That game's over with, you know, can you imagine if it was a podcast doing those times? I mean, that's all we would talk about. And all those players for the most part recovered and had great careers. You know, Vincent would be the, the exception to the rule. Yeah. Because they only have one champion every year of 30 teams. There's going to be some ups and downs. Sometimes it's not going to be a year. You're going to a bad luck. You're going to have Jay LeWam's get hurt. You're going to have check at Psyched Out in the series. It's a tough one though, because they're not going to be a year. Right. If you really thought about it, like if Trebuchet was the only thing, then most of the time it's not going to be a year here. And a lot of times you're going to the season knowing if that's the bar, this is not our year. Right. If you're honest, now when you have a shot at it, then you go after it. I've been fortunate. I've had some teams that, you know, me can make a case, had a chance, maybe not when you look back on them, but at least we were trying to get it. But even that, you know, it goes to 20, what, five years with five times, six times, seven times. You know, it's not that many chances that you get, unless you're on one of those teams that you win young and everybody stays and you get a chance to coach a star over and over and over again. Phil Jackson has had that, Steve Kerz had that pop, has done it really in three iterations, really too. I mean, because you got to combine the David Robinson, Tim Duncan, but then Genobli and Tim Duncan, they're all with Duncan, no, you can make a case, they're all with Duncan related. And now, you know, this is where, I got love pop, right? This is where, where bothers me the most, that bothers me because I love Mitch is that, how probably was thinking about retirement, right? And then he's like, oh my gosh, I got this guy, I got the jackpot, yeah, the jackpot again. And then it kind of gets taken away from him. That's really sad to me for whatever reason, I don't know why it's sad to me. Well, you mentioned Steve Kerz and how lucky you are to be able to get to coach somebody for most of their career, their entire career. He's just never leaving Steph. It's become clear. I think he might just move in to Steph's, Steph's gastronomy or something. He never wants to leave that guy. Well, listen, but you think about the multiple winning guys, Michael, Stoneman, blooded killer, great guy, kind of great blue guy, team wise, in a tough way. Tim Duncan, come on, you can't have like a better guy, a better leader of a team and Steph, you can't have a better leader, you know, as much as, you know, I love LeBron, Katie, and all these guys, that part of it, they really did not have, you know, or I don't know they didn't have it. But Steph is just, he's so coachable. All those guys are coachable. Michael Jordan is crazy and tough as he was. The one thing you always heard about him, he respect coaching, like he really did. I think he came from Dean. I think Dean kind of embedded that in him, Tim Duncan clearly did and Steph clearly does. And it's easy to build around guys like that, you know, and none of those teams have he ever heard Tim Duncan. Have you ever heard Tim Duncan say, this is my team? Have you ever heard Steph? This is my team. Think about Steph, when it got Katie, they care less. He never heard him say, I want my team, this is my team, you know, and Michael didn't have to say it. But I do think that kind of stuff matters. Well, it's, you talk about Michael, Curry and Duncan and then I think Wembee and Brunson are both like this too, which is, they're playing the finals, but they're like.
I'm here. I'm with you guys to the bitter end, build around me. I'll be the leader. I'm going to stick up for everybody else, but I'm not going to leverage anything. I'm not going to go to the papers and I'm just, I trust you to build the right team around here. Never going to hear them whispers, you know, rumours. They're just not going to do that. And that's part of what I mean about character. I mean, yeah. That's so important on tapes, especially wedding tapes. Yeah. All right, Doc Rivers. Well, I'm going to make you come back at least one more time during the finals. How's our guy Larry David doing? Is he all right? He's making it through game one. Okay. Maybe two game one. He's actually going to the garden, which I'm shocked by, but he's going to do it. But we do know if things aren't going well, but we'll just leave quarter. Yeah. Absolutely. All right. Thanks, Doc. We're going to take a break. Come back with a little mail back. Thank you. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Fandall. It's all come down to this. Who do you think we'll be wearing the ring at the end of the NBA finals? Make your call with Fandall right now. New customers can hit the court with $350 bonus bets guaranteed after betting five dollars for seven straight days. Fandall, the best place to bet all your favorite players during the finals that on their baskets and boards, but the same game parlay for a chance at a bigger pay up at futures. Do whatever you want to do. Visit Fandall.com/BS to get started. 21 plus select states are 18 plus DC. Duck your Wyoming restrictions. Why see terms at sportsbook.fandall.com. Game problem called win, Andrew Gambler call 188 797777 or visit ccpg.org/chat and Connecticut. All right. I'm going to do a little solo mail back. Got a lot of good mail back questions. You can email us as always at
[email protected]. The most emails I got two subjects. One was Steven Spielberg coming on and doing 2001 a space out of sea and the rewatchables. Just a lot of questions, surprise that that was a surprise guest that we did not tip off and also think everybody thought it was a pretty amazing podcast. Myself included. The biggest question was what was he like? What was it like to sit there for two hours with him? Here's what I would say. One thing I've learned over the years, when you're with or in the presence of somebody who's really great at what they do, no matter what it is, there's going to be a joy and a passion and a love for whatever their expertise is that they can't hide. It really is one of the reasons that they're so good at what they do. You can see with Spielberg, greatest living director, probably the greatest director we've ever had. Just loves movies. Just loves talking about them, loves the whole process of them. The stories he was telling about the set, how he interacts with different actors depending on what their methods are. Just a huge student of it and I don't know, after spending two hours with them and just seeing how much fun he was having with us and with the format and just discussing the movie, just the whole thing made sense. Of course, he's the best director. This is how much he loves movies. This is his life. This is what he's devoted it to. That's the thing. That would be the big takeaway for me, especially somebody comes in. They haven't been over at the studio in my house. They don't really know what's going to happen. He just completely bought in and was so excited to talk about the movie with us. That was really cool. The other subject, people are wondering why I didn't see more excited about the AJ Brown trade when I did the podcast with Max Colourman on Tuesday. He's definitely one of the five or six best receivers in the league and he's going to be 29 when the season starts. You figure they'll get three, four seasons out of him ideally when he'll be awesome. Two would be a worst case there. It's a little like trading for Yannis where you know you're probably going to get two really good seasons after that. You don't know. The salary stuff is pretty easy. He's in the high 20s. You don't have all these crazy bonuses that you get if you're just signing a guy. The reason I didn't see more excited about it is I'm not positive why his production dipped the last couple years and there's been a lot of good dialogue and a lot of good stats about this about when he was at Tennessee. He was over the middle a lot more at Philly. He wasn't. They basically just used them on the sides and yet all the stuff with the man to man stats with him. He's either he's the best receiver or one of the best receivers are just getting open and just being able to catch balls and traffic everything. So the question for me is like did he just kind of lose the world to live as a receiver by like 5% especially last year after they won the Super Bowl because he wasn't being used in the way that he would have loved and ultimately these guys have to be inherently selfish to be greater receiver and he's just like I'm here. I'm a race car. I'm in the driveway. Please use me. Take me on the highway. You're not taking me on the highway enough. My engine needs to rev and he's just going to come to the Patriots and the Patriots are going to use him that way and it'll be Moss in 2007 all over again. Or do you get a little worried that the Eagles who have always been a step ahead everybody really for the last nine, 10 years who seem like they're selling high and a guy that they traded a first run pick for road for a few years got a Super Bowl out and traded him for another first run pick. How much did they know? Did they think he was heading toward a different phase of his career? I'm old enough to remember a lot of different receiver trades of guys in their late 20s or early 30s who were awesome might be awesome again and you just don't know. I think the Patriots had to do it. I wish they would have had to been able to put a protection on that 2020 pick but ultimately the reason they didn't win the Super Bowl last year and got kind of killed in the big game wasn't just because they didn't have an awesome receiver because they couldn't block and to me with the tougher schedule and all the things that are happening this season with the Super Bowl hangover and not knowing if Drake may is 100 percent. I'm glad we're going to have guys who can get open and we're going to have big play guys and we might have a guy who's going to have 150 targets and 1500 yards receiving and 15 touchdowns and he's just going to be awesome. But if they can't block none of it's going to matter. So I'm a little more worried about that. Anyway, I was I'm probably like 70 30 70 70 optimistic 30 little suspicious why we were able to just grab one of the five or six best receivers in the league for a pick two years from now. That's why I was a little tempered. Anyway, some mail-back questions got a lot of questions or a lot of answers from different readers about Zach and I wondering what to call the Wembee box and one and everyone was saying just called area 51 Adam from Toronto said call what's in the box after seven but the bet Kyle T wanted to call it the French press but that was fun. But the one Dan from Seattle was the first one that sent it and there were a couple more after this is the best one. Vick in a box. Dan Dan from Seattle wrote Vick in a box and boom goes the dynamite. Perfect. Vick in a box is great. It's an homage to I think dick in the box was 20 years ago that SNL thing but I love Vick in a box and I'm going to be calling that from now on. So if they do it against the next you could you could just say look oh, they're playing Vick in a box. Steven got this email a few times too and I should have and I'm about to apologize. Steven from San Francisco listening to the Color Man pod wants to make sure he's not taking crazy pills because we talked about the best crowd killers and never mentioned a guy named Steph Curry the greatest shooter ever the second that got brought up I like many others immediately thought of the OKC game winner in 16 or the 2022 finals game four game six what am I missing with the definition of crowd killer and how is he omitted well obviously Steph would have been there we kind of stumbled into that conversation there was not a lot of thought put into the post 2010 guys obviously because we didn't include Steph Curry. That conversation started just to remind you it was what I wrote about Wall Frazier my basketball book in 2009 and I wrote I'm too young to remember watching Clyde Live but he was a legendary crowd killer by all accounts in my basketball watching lifetime only seven guys were crowd killers Jordan bird Kobe Bernard Isaiah Andrew Tony and strangely enough Vinnie Johnson. So those are my seven all right so I actually went in I looked through basketball reference I looked through all the scores I really wanted to make sure I didn't miss anybody and I also want to explain the definition of a crowd killer because there's been a bunch of guys we've had in the last 15 years that have had moments that would have been added to that list like most famously LeBron game six 2012 in the in the east LeBron Durant Kyrie Kauai Dame even James Harden they've all had crowd killer moments but I think the crowd killer thing is it's a little different because it's a recognizable heat check but there's an inevitability to it and that's what we're talking about with Brunson in like in that Cleveland game they're down 22 and he makes a couple and the inevitability kicks in like oh boy I've been here before I think Edwards can get here he's not there yet on this list I think he can get there I would he would be a draft pick for me and I think SGA is like 95% there and the thing that probably kills him with this is the the fouls and the flopping and sometimes the crowd is so mad at some of the calls that they're not being killed because they're actually engaged because they're mad at SGA so he doesn't really 100% fit but maybe he'll get in there so for the last 15 years
I had initially Jordan Bird, Kobe Bernard, Isaiah Tony, Vinnie Johnson. From the last 15 years, you have to add stuff, and you have to add Brunson. There's one other guy though. I think Wembee has to be added, even though he's 22, and even though his whole career is ahead of him, and who knows, this might be the peak. But the combo of him on defense, and then him when he gets going on offense, and his ability to make 30 foot three is like he did in game one of the, okay, C series. I think Wembee might be the 10th. He might be the only center. It's funny, and B did had a couple of crowd killer moments, but we've never seen him do it. It really mattered. But Wembee, I think when Wembee is kind of starting to levitate above the game, the crowd gets psyched out in a real noticeable way that you could feel. So that would be the 10th. Jonathan C writes, is there any country that had a worst eight sports months than Canada? Blue Jays, one out from World Series champs. The bills flame out. I like that Canada claims the bills. They should. They lose to their biggest rival and OT, and men's and women's Olympic hockey. Toronto Vancouver Calgary, Winnipeg, all missed the playoffs. Montreal makes the Eastern Finals and loses to the former Hartford Whalers. SGA becomes one of the most malign players in the league and loses in game seven. He's still going. We have no Canadians in golf or tennis making impact and no MMA guys. He's still going. Breadheart came off awful in the Hogan documentary, and then he said, Sami Zayn seems lost lately. Help us out, Bill. Jamal Murray just said he wasn't playing for the 2020 Canadian team. That was another thing that came out. The Maple Leafs won the lottery. That's all I got. SGA won the title last year. He's going to be he's already probably one of the best 30 yards, 30 ports of all time. I don't know. It could be worse. You got to figure out the hockey thing though. Not not winning a cup since 93 when it's your national sport is pretty embarrassing. There's got to be a lot of soul searching going there. I got a lot of emails about this. I'll just read three. Alistar and the Blue Mountains of Australia. That's how far this this theory has trickled. What if game seven was the Ben Simmons game of Chet's career and he put in parentheses professional fisherman Ben Simmons, not my son Ben Simmons. Chris from Philadelphia said Chris is spur series or Chet's spur series reminds me of when Ben Simmons's career ended against the 2011 Hawks and how he completely imploded. I look back at the box bar from game seven and Simmons went two for four from the field. He did have 13 assists, but still maybe this ends with a Chet versus Simmons bass master classic in 2,035 on here thoughts. And then the last one I got on this was from MJ from Milwaukee. My comp from Chet is Rocky and Rocky three facing Wembee is club or laying. I think I made that joke. He was scared. He didn't want any part of them too fast. He has to say anything like this. Wembee basically said, "Don't get this Succano statue, give him guts." My question who's going to be Chet's Apollo, who's going to take him to the gym and find his quickness. Who's going to race them on the beach hug him uncomfortably. There is no tomorrow. It's from MJ from Milwaukee. I don't think that person exists. Here's the thing. This is, you know, a couple of OKC fans emailed about this tape and I hadn't thought of it about the when OKC lost a Dallas the first time they made a playoff run in 2024 when Dallas made the finals. And Dallas guarded Chet a little bit similarly where he's a slow release three point guy. So you can kind of play off him and then dive back at him, which is what the spurs were doing. And I think his real Achilles tailer, other than he's in the same league as a 7 foot 6 UFO, is that he's got to figure out how to have a quick release on those corner threes because he's a good three point shooter. I still like Chet. I'm not going to get psyched out by that series. We talked about this in the one of the pods recently. There's been a lot of great players that have sucked in a playoffs and he's at his age and what we've seen from him so far and the fact that they've already won a title with him. I'm not quitting on shit with that said. I still want to know who says no to a Chet to the clippers for the fifth pick trade because the clippers do have cap space. And that would give them the foundation of Chet in Garland and Kawaii Leonard and then they could kind of patch around the sides. They've been really good at finding like mid level free agents and veteran guys. One trade I thought of Quippers get Chet in a future King's first so they move back two spots. Kings get the fifth pick so they can take a cuff who I think is going to go fifth. Okay, so he gets the seventh pick from the Quippers and then they take Mara the Michigan center and that's their Chet replacement along with Heart and Stein. They save a bunch of they would save 30 plus million dollars with Chet versus a seventh pick Heart and Stein all things. So I kind of like that one plus the Quippers could pick up a future King's asset and still get Chet. That's around the range. I don't think top four is a Chet range, but I think five to seven could be a Chet range. But as I said, multiple times already it is not Presti's history or it's just never something we've seen. He's not a panic trade guy and he's not a oh god, we got to do something guy. He's a continuity guy. Andrew, speaking of fake trades, Andrew said it's not just the finals. It's fake trade season. You should come up with at least one fake trade for every podcast episode until for H.C. starts. Well, we are doing a lot of episodes this month. Or rank your favorite five fake trades every Sunday night with Zach. More fake trades. Exclamation point. I don't have a question. We ranked our favorite fake trades every Sunday night with Zach. He would spend way too much time on that probably have to be hospitalized, but I'm not against it. Okay. June 3rd, 2016. My favorite fake trades right now. One of them is a Celtics one that I've kind of been hinting at for the last couple weeks on this podcast. I keep mentioning Murphy on the Pelicans as a possible Celtics piece. And the reason is because if the Celtics decide we already want to title with the Jays, we don't want to pay both of these guys right. Right now, they are two of the top seven contracts in the league. And not just by length of the deal, by what their price tag is just for the 2006, 26, 27 season. If they decide that's not sustainable in this current era, we have to figure out how to turn J.L.M. Brown into multiple pieces and a cheaper guy. Trade Murphy makes 25 million, which is 30 million less than J.L.M. Brown. Here's the trade. The Celtics would get trade Murphy, Missy, the young center who I like, Herb Jones and Cam Johnson from the Nuggets. Stay with me. Plus a 2030 Pelican swap and pick 26 from Denver, which they would have to do after the draft because Denver is not allowed to trade their first one pick. New Orleans gets J.L.M. Brown. Denver gets Sam Hauser and pick 40 in the trade. So then the Celtics would have too many swingmen and then they could flip Herb Jones for something else. The other thing about Cam Johnson, they could put him in their giant trade exception they get. But I think if the Celtics trade J.L.M., I don't think it's going to be for Janice. I think it's going to be a trade like this. Multiple pieces, more flexibility, guys that would lead to one extra move after this. And I think that's what they're thinking. I also think they could separately just trade Sam Hauser for Cam Johnson and put him in that trade exception and get pick 26 and try to have pick 26 and 27 in the draft. Then see if you can move up into the teams with those two picks. I mentioned Denver the other day and a bunch of Nuggets fans, Nuggets media members are mad. Bring it on. I stand by what I said. Hey, Denver, you're rich. I know about the second apron tax. I know about that. All that shit. But they could just not pick up the balance units contract for this year and then figure out how to trade Cam Johnson for less and sign Peyton Watson. And by the way, I don't think Peyton Watson's getting as much money as everybody thinks. I don't know where his 20 million a year is coming from. We saw the guy play well for like five weeks and he got hurt six weeks, eight weeks. I can't remember what it was. But I don't think, I don't, I think that's the range of guys that everybody's scared of right now. 17 to 22 million where you're overpaying like basically exactly what happened to the Nuggets last year with Christian Brown, who I think was her last year. But if I'm Denver, I'm not picking on balance units and I'm trying to downgrade with Cam Johnson. And if I'm in the Celtics and I can turn Sam Hauser and it came Johnson. And then if it is time to trade Jalen Brown, who knows? My instinct is still that they're going to keep these guys. But if you could turn Sam Hauser and it came Johnson, do it, especially because he's an expiring at 23 million, that gives you flexibility or February. I think everything in the Celtics are going to do this summer is going to be about flexibility. They have a lot of young players that they like. They have two giant contracts. They don't have really any of the in-between stuff that the portrait extension coming. Anyway, that's my first trade. Second one, Portland gets Yannis and all his brothers. I think there's only two. Milwaukee gets Jeremy Grant's scoot. All of their pick swaps back, Portland has, I think, two firsts and a swap, something like that. Plus another first and another swap. And Portland gets Yannis. Listen, we've talked about this trade before. I'm not breaking new ground here. And I don't know if Yannis wants to go to Portland. I had heard he wants to be in these coasts. That's too far for him.
and who knows if he wants to play for El Chico, the blazer's odor, who's already on a media tour trying to claim that he's not El Chico plus Carolina, it's in the Stanley Cup finals. So he's like, look, my El Chico stuff works. It Portland can figure out how to get Yannis without really giving up anything in their core and being able to put him with Drew Holiday and Klingon and Kamara and most importantly, and I just think that's a better situation for him than Miami trading basically, everything they have except BAM out of bio and all their picks and just sending up with BAM and Yannis and trying to figure it out. That's the most fun, I'd love to see Yannis on that team, reunited with Dane, reunited with Drew Holiday, the other one would be Palo Free Yannis straight up. And I don't know who has to throw in more for that, but as we mentioned a few pods ago Orlando hired Yannis's old assistant in Milwaukee, Sean Sweeney, who is the all-time I can't believe you're not from Massachusetts, Massachusetts guy in the NBA, Sean Sweeney. But Palo Free Yannis makes a ton of sense for everybody. The last one, Washington gets Jimmy Butler in a Golden State 27 first, unprotected, Golden State gets Anthony Davis followed, followed by the Warriors signing LeBron James. And we officially have the expendables again. We have Anthony Davis, we have LeBron, we have Dremon, we have Steph Curry, by the way, they can get Jimmy Butler back thanks to this stupid Mike Conley role that we nobody ever knew about or Mike Conley got traded by Minnesota to I think Washington or Chicago somewhere then got traded again and weaved and also Minnesota was going to was able to pick them up. So maybe they could end up picking them back up in February. But I'm all in, I listen, I've been driving this Golden State bandwagon. I also think there's real smoke. And I think there's some fire with LeBron going to Golden State. I think it's his best option, especially when you look at San Antonio and you look at OKC, the young chorus they have, how good their players are and what the kind of the ceiling of those teams are compared to any other situation LeBron could be in. You're better off doing the all-star team and the tour with Steph and the puncher's chance of maybe all these old guys together could could do some magic in the playoffs one last time. They'd sell out every arena. Everybody would be in on it. I still love that idea. Nat Nockland says, "Hey Bill, I know you like a good title defense. Would you make it the thunders on or level in their title defense?" And how does it make their 25 title look? I think the parallels, the 2015 and 16 Warriors, the 16 run proved the 2015 team was legit. I completely agree. I've talked about this a lot. Title defenses are really important to me. I wrote about it in my book. It's the biggest thing you can dignity 83 sixers on. They lost in five to a really weird nets team in 1984 and I just, I feel like when you win the title, you got to defend it in some way. You have to have a little bit of pride, 87 Celtics being the best example of this. The team's just breaking down like an army platoon and there's still somehow made the finals. I would give OKC's defense in 8.5. The Jalen Williams thing, the further we get away from it, losing your second best guy, I was trying to think, is there another example of anyone in the century who lost their second best guy and won the title? No. They went 75 and 22 this year, eight of their losses came against the spurs. They went 71 and 14 against everyone who was in the spurs this year. And they went 155 and 35 and two years. So I thought that was an awesome title defense, plus they turned into villains. What else do you want? And now they have the eye of the tiger for next year. We have a great chat subplot. Maybe he goes to Australia, hikes the outback, grows a beard, grows a bigger beard. He has a beard, big busher beard. Noah from Conway, South Carolina said massive spurs fan here. My question is when be the first true non-USA face of the league? A shea or Yokeh ever truly been the face has the meteor in the fans truly ever accepted them. Man, he mentions a keem. He mentions dirt, Nash. Even as USA has fallen behind in the best of the league conversation, it feels like Yokeh Giannis and Shay have not got asked in their seats like when be thoughts. I hate the face of the league. I said multiple times. I don't like it. It's stupid. People act like we always have to have one. It's kind of, it's the mountain in the league. They have to climb if you want to win the title that people are just thinking about it all times. This is how I would think about it. And in football, you know, it's Brady forever. And then it just became my homes. And it was like, if you get by my homes, that was almost as big of an achievement as winning the title. So I think that's a piece of it combined with the mom test of, um, does my mom know who this player is? Does your mom know who this player is? Does anyone who doesn't follow sports know who the player is? Are they bringing in casual fans and is just there a general recognition of the person? And we have just not had this since LeBron and Curry and we definitely have an out one bee. And this is what I said all along. You know, when you see it, you can't force it. You can't say, oh, it's Grant Hill, it's SGA. You just can't. You know, when you see it, Yokeh, she was 90% there, but never totally got there. It isn't resonate like when we did. LeBron was that guy from 2011 to 16, Curry and the Warriors collectively from the second part of that decade, Kobe and Shaq together, MJ, Bird and Magic simultaneously, Kareem. You know, when you see it, and when he has it right now, no matter what happens in this finals, next year when we go into the next season, we'll be talking about when being this spurs who can beat them and also Wembe, Wembe, Wembe, Wembe, and he will sell out every arena he's in. He will get the biggest ratings, and that's what happens. Josh S wants to know if the mix won the title this year is just the most improbable NBA championship when compared to where everything stood at the start of the playoffs. They completely revamped their offense halfway through a playoff series. Their best player is four foot seven, but I think he's taller than that. And it's the fucking New York Knicks. Even where we were six weeks ago, this would be the most improbable championship if they pulled it out. So they were six to one in the East before the playoffs. I gave, I tweeted out some picks before the playoffs and one of the long shot picks was Brunson to be the Eastern conference MVP was plus 650. And I think they were six to one in the East, that obviously flipped. So for improbable championships, 22 warriors, the 2011 Dallas, 1977 Blazers, the 1978 Sonics making the finals, they didn't win, but that was incredibly improbable. As was the 20 and 23 heats, but they didn't, neither of those teams won either. The 75 warriors was pretty improbable. And then the 69th Celtics are the big ones. But this, I think the parallels to this one would be the 2011 Mavericks, where very similar to the Mavericks, where it felt like they hit rock bottom in the first series, and the Mavericks had Portland. And then there was multiple times when it just felt like they didn't have a chance, then they even get to the finals, they're two to 100 dogs. So I would say the 2011 Dallas, the 22 warriors, it was always felt like if they could just stay healthy and figure out their shit, futons with Boston and Milwaukee, Milwaukee had Middleton banged up. Boston never been there before. And there was always a sense like if golds, they could just get there, that they could sneak it out. Dallas, especially when they're down 15 in game two after having lost game one. That was improbable, as the finals was happening, it seemed to be a problem. Zach Hogue said, he mentioned how I've always had a theory that championships and success come in bunches for cities. His friends have in that moment right now, France, who's already won a World Cup Final or made the World Cup Final last two years and they've won one, PSG's now won back to back champion league. French swimmer Marshawn, not very familiar with his work, but he's apparently shattering Michael Phelps' world records. The French rugby team is won a couple championships, big deal in Europe, sure. Wembe's down in the NBA finals, you could make the cases the best part in the NBA. So Zach asked why not hammer France to win the World Cup with the Spurs to win the NBA finals and just bet on the summer of France. Now, you're seeing this after game one of the finals. That was plus 770 before the finals, I already had Spurs money, I threw some more on that. I like that one. The year of France. So this is something I didn't realize until after I did the podcast with Max. Game six of the finals is on Tuesday, June 16. And that same day France is playing in New Jersey at the giant football stadium. They have a World Cup game at 12, and then potentially game six with the next would be that night and people could be like, could you try to go to both? It's so crazy that France would be playing in the same night that Wembe could potentially be clenching his first NBA championship that I almost feel like it's destined to happen. I really do. I was thinking about when I, in 1994, my buddy Jim Grady was living in Portchester with my friend, Camp. And I went up there and we were supposed to watch game five of Nick's Rockets. That was the night of the OJ car chase. And it just was like this crazy night that has been immortalized in multiple TV shows, documentaries, and they're doing split screens. And it was definitely one of those, I remember where I was when I watched this game in this whole car chase thing.
I do wonder if that June 16th is going to be kind of a crazy day like that with the double France thing, just something, some sort of signature French moment plus 770. We'll see if that one hits. We're going to come back and we're going to talk about TV shows and TV versus movies and a little seesaw that's starting to shift. And also we're going to talk about euphoria in the season finale, that show, series finale, now. We're going to talk with Joanna Robinson and Chris Ryan and that is Dex right after the break. This episode is brought to you by Duluth Trading Company, whether it's the 19th inning, the 12th quarter or the 5th and a half shift over time, not going anywhere, which is why Duluth builds hardworking gear for folks who work their butts off. They're surefire arsenal work shirts are built for function and comfort, giving a big foam middle finger to all that is futile. And the new, no-quit utility shirt is equipped with cooling and wicking tech, oh boy, to keep you comfortable, all while being tough enough to take down your most daunting tasks. When it's marathon work session versus you, give no quits. Shop at a Duluth store near you or at Duluth Trading dot-- Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new groupie setting mist from Mabelie, New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible all-day comfy grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue, just plump, dewy hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new groupie setting mist from Mabelie, New York. Maybe it's Mabelie. All right, I'm here with Joanna Robinson, Chris Reim. We just did a rewatchable staping. So I kept them around to talk a little pop culture. Euphoria was last night. Serious for now, it sounds like it is this year's phone. They confirmed it. One of my least-like seasons of television I've had-- I've never gotten so many all cap sticks from you. I was furious. Filled with hatred. I really hated it. Yeah. And I hate shitting on tea. These things are hard to make. There's a million actors and expectations, but there's certain seasons. There was a dexter season, I remember, that I was just like, "I'm never fucking watching this show again." Did you keep watching it? No. You were out before the end of Dexter? Oh, yeah. Did you do that on-lost? Did you ever freak out on-lost? I didn't like the last season of loss, but that show had built up so much good wealth for me. Euphoria, it goes away for years, comes back and has three of the biggest under 35 actors that we have and just fumbles it. So it was an F minus for me, but what did you think? It was like a C, I would say for me. I think there's some stuff in the finale that was really, really good, but I'm baffled by the way in which this season and this finale, especially, got bogged down in this, like, there's this Nazi cohort, and then there's Alamo and his bad guys. And so there's like two big shoot-out sequences that take up a lot of this episode, 30 minutes into the finale and we're still shooting Nazis. And I'm just like, what about all these characters we spent all these years with? Like, Hunter Schaefer plays Jules as barely in this finale, like Cassie and Maddie are kind of in the finale. It was just really confusing to me. I understand the impulse and it's okay to try something new with your show. We've reinvented ourselves for this season, but you still have these legacy characters that have been there from the beginning. So to not give them a conclusive story or more airtime in the final episode was absolutely insane to me. Yeah, I was probably a lot warmer on it than you guys were. The addiction stuff really worked for me. I thought the Zendaya, Coleman, Domingo, like, relationship was amazing. Very good. And I'll say what I've kind of been like trumpeting the whole year with this show with Andy is, I was just never bored. And so much TV bores me, you know, like, so much to the time I'm like, oh, I can see where this is going. Or I know what's going to happen now is like this XYZ is going to kind of play out. And when she, I guess obviously spoilers for this episode of Euphoria, I mean, finale, but when she passes away at like the 40 minute mark and there's still another hour, I was like, oh, are we going to spend an hour kind of remembering Rue and doing the funeral? And then it turns into fucking taxi driver. I was like, well, I didn't see this coming. You know, like, I kind of thought maybe Ali would sacrifice himself for Rue in some way, but it was such a, like, a weird dark fantasy of like the vengeance that probably people who lose people to addiction feel like they want to take out. And it was just, I mean, you could, you could say a lot of it, but it was very unique. So I'm probably more in the B zone, if you're F and she see, I'm a little bit higher on it, but just because I was like, this, this never, this never was dull to me. Well, that's why I wasn't sure until HBO confirmed it after we recorded our finale discussion, but that they confirmed that this was the final season. But I wasn't sure that it would be not, I mean, Jacob Allority and Zendaya would no longer be on the show, but you have plenty of other people and people are talking about it every week. Yeah. And that's hard to find in this TV landscape. So I was a little surprised that HBO didn't try to squeeze another season out of Sam Levinson. I feel like they were probably good. I'm just saying that I have this idle season that was pretty crazy and super expensive. I'm sure this season was not not expensive with probably the season was also more like the strikes and COVID and stuff like that. So it sounds like it went through a couple of different, like, whole creative, re-imagining actor. Plus they lost an actor and they also were cursed by never having their best actors all in the same scene for different reasons. I think for shooting schedules, but personal reasons, I really does seem like Zendaya and Zendaya, we didn't want to be in a scene together, which I think hurts the show, it felt very disjointed to me. I didn't like the Allority stuff at all. I didn't understand it. That doesn't really get actor, like, what the fuck was the point of that? It shouldn't have been in the season at all. Yeah. Or it shouldn't have died in the fur. If you're going to use it now, it just killed him in the first episode. And the whole point of him is to create this, well, the whole point of him is to say, we have Jacob Allority on our show in 2026, right? Yeah. That's why you keep Allority around. But for plot reasons, you really just need Cassie to be in debt. And so he could have died in the, they could have had the wedding and he died in like the first episode. But that's a, that's stuff kind of hardly gets interrogated in the finale. Like that was one of the, my problems with it is that like this sort of chain reaction from Rootell's Lexie that she's a D age and four, D.A. inform it. Yeah. And then Lexie tells Maddie, and Maddie tells Alamo, Alamo seems like probably would have found out either way, but like, there's no reckoning with like Maddie being like, I can't believe like, this is what happened to Root. Like, does she even know that she's the reason and that was, that was, that really bothered me because I know you're not like a huge Maddie slash a Lexi Demi fan, but I really love that character. And I think she's one of the smarter characters on the show. And so for her to just casually drop this D.A. information in front of Alamo, I thought was like a bizarrely stupid move to not then have any ramifications at all for that character. Yeah. I mean, this is like a show that did some did something in an incredible way that TV shows rarely do anyway. Anymore, which is like mint stars, like when you think about the fact that like that there's that shot of Zendaya, like the young Zendaya, when she's having her flashback, I'm like, wow, she was a kid when she started this, right? And like, so for them to have this lightning in a bottle with three performers, especially Alority, Sweeney and Zendaya, and it kind of have it wind up where it winds up. I guess it does feel a little bit like a wasted opportunity, but it's not surprising that, you know, like we're given their schedules and stuff like that. It is, it is disappointing, but it's not surprising that they're not more scenes together. But I just don't think something like Andy was just saying this today on the pod. Like, I don't think like anything like this is ever going to happen again, where you have this amount of like towering. So that's why I give it the F minus, I don't think it was an F minus show. But I think they had the opportunity to do something really special with the people they had. And I just don't think they pulled it off. And I don't know. You don't think he had a rivalry as head of that way? You don't think off-campus as head of that way? Maybe. I don't know what they tried to do with Sydney Sweeney this season. She seemed to enjoy it. She seemed to love it, and I'm so curious what you thought of it. Were they mocking what the people think is the perception of her? Yes. Or was he mocking her without her knowing she was being mocked? I think it was the forward. I don't, I feel like it was a little call mail call me, like I think there was just like a little bit of Sydney Sweeney not being entirely in on the joke, but her being somewhat in on the joke. That's how I felt. So my daughter who loved this show and it's a big part of like her generation. Yeah. And she liked this finale, but she likes everything because she really liked Rue and the Coleman Domingo character. So he had the theory that she like, I don't think Rue's going to die because she's the scenario. Right. Yeah. And she thought that he would die and then she would take his place and so they flipped it. But I guess the problem with Levinson is also the best thing about him. He could make anything look good and entertaining, right? So this turns into like a western. We have like a whole Nazi shootout. Yeah. And it's all that's really well done and well filmed and just interesting. And then you kind of think about it after you're like, what the fuck just happened? Why was that? I'm just not emotionally invested. Yeah. Why did I just spend an hour, 45 minutes watching that? And if that was a movie, would that have been a good use of my time? I don't know. I disagree with you on one thing though. I was pretty bored. Yeah.
multiple stretches yesterday. I just was like, what the fuck am I? - And not to shoot out. I thought it was like a barely long in the Lori suicide when I'm just sort of like, I don't care about this character. - I didn't care about anybody in that house. - So when I say that, I mean, even when I would be like, this is the third time they've had this conversation or the fourth time the scene has happened visually, I would be like, there's something that popped. Like, even the shoot out in the Nazi like, I thought the tunnel sequence was cool. I thought the Lasso sequence was cool. Like there's stuff where I was like, the Lasso sequence. - Nobody really makes Westerns like this right now. - Well, and as two people who were like podcasting about it week to week, like there was always something to talk about. And people were talking about it. And in this like, you know, attention economy, like the fact that people were engaged and all, even if they were angrily engaged. I mean, I don't know if that's a negative message to send, but like, there's something important about that. - I guess the bigger issue is, can any show end in a way that satisfies the fifth base? - Yeah. - Half finale rules also happen this week. - When did the two specials come out? - What year? - No, I mean, like was it between one and two? - One and two. - Yeah, so like between one and two, they did these two specials. One was about jewels and one's about Ollie and Rue. And I was, I remember thinking back about those like, just after watching last night and being like, man, like I wonder if it would have worked better if it was like three of these weird. - Yeah. - I'm gonna do a Nate movie. I'm gonna do a Cassie movie. And then I'm gonna do the Ollie and Rue movie. And we'll put it all together and it'll be like, a six to eight week special event of like wrapping up the euphoria story lines. - Yeah, yeah, but like to your point, I wonder if there was holding out hope of like, well, maybe we'll do more. Maybe like in five years we'll come back and they'll be like, they'll all be older then. And maybe I can do the Rue as a private detective story then. And all this stuff that had been kicked around as ideas. - Yeah. - Too much time passed. And I think. - That was a huge problem. - I think it's really hard to figure out how to land the plane correctly when you're also trying to land the plane on, this is five years after the last time you've seen all these people. - And I do, I mean, like, you know, would I rather have had season three of euphoria rather than the idol, yes. But I do, I mean, we can't underestimate the impact that losing Angus Cloud had on this entire crew and this creator and stuff like that. So like, I can understand that while still not enjoying the end product of what we got. - Is this better if it's just a five-year ruin in for high school? And we don't go completely over the top and make this like the absolute craziest. I mean, there were scenes this season where it's like, you're trying to set the record for the craziest scene that's been on HBO five different times. - It's like the dildo lid. - It's like, would it almost have been better scaling it back the other way and trying to make the show look more normal when it wasn't? - Yeah, it's almost distracting at points 'cause like, when Ali is doing his vengeance tour and you're like, wow, I'm really engaged. This guy's got his military uniform on. This is like rolling thunder, it's happening. - Yeah. - But then you've got like fake Brazilian butt lifts like walking across the screen every second. And I know it's set in a strip club, so it like works. But. - There's no strip club in the world. Like that strip club. - But it's also just like, do fucking concentrate. Like, like tell the story that's right in front of you rather than making sure I see four snakes and two butts. - You have one of your main characters in the show, Maddie here in this shootout, but she might as well have not been there. She was a piece of furniture, so weird. - You like the hax finale a lot? - I loved the hax finale. - Yeah, I did. - I liked it and it was also, but it was interesting. Did you watch hax at all? - No. - Something happens at hax where they like kind of get up to the edge of something very, very, you know, like, unexpected and impactful happening. And they back off of it the last second probably for the best for like, in terms of people's enjoyment of it. But I'm glad, I'm glad that with you for it, they were like, this is what happens to people who dance too close to the sun a little bit. - But also, I would say with the hax finale, and I guess we're talking around it. Like, they don't say it's not gonna happen. - Sure. - It's just not happening in this episode. - In this episode, yeah, right. - TV's in a weird spot right now, even though we're all watching a ton of it. - This year is very, the back half of this year is very strange. I don't know. Like, I don't know what. - I think the whole year has been weird because one of the weirdest things that's happened is we thought TV had taken over from movies. And now, movies has happened in this huge renaissance 'cause they're actually making movies about original IP. - Sean just heard you across town. - I know, sorry, Sean. Conversationally, he and Steven Spielberg clinking espresso and creaking. (laughing) - Conversation, I think more and more people are doing the. - We seem sarsher and it's the way it used to be. I don't know why we had to die for 10 years. And I don't think it was, you know, and I know this is, we've done so many pods and different things about this. But I really just think everybody got lazy for a long time and then it finally started not making money. And then it's like, well, maybe we need to find new stories. It's like, yeah, motherfuckers. - Oh, in movies, yeah. - COVID definitely fucked it up and knocked it backwards. Maybe this all would happen three years sooner. But movies just feel a little more vibrant than TV right now. Like if I see another fucking Apple show and I've watched most of them where it's three actors I've known a few times from different things. - Yeah. - And there's a murder and one of them died and now we go backwards. And like, how many fucking times can you make that show? - Are you excited for Cape Fear? - No, I'm not gonna watch Cape Fear. - Widow's Bay, we're loving Widow's Bay. - Yeah. - The Pit, huh? - Couldn't get there. - The Pit, where you were to hit. - The last one, yeah, I love the Pit. The Pit was, you know, 'cause I was sending you texts about. - I do know. - The Pit was, and now people are gonna rip the pit off. And then we're gonna get a lot of like every hour in a day. - Like what's the pit? - The Pit was just ripping, you know, - Dead. - The creeps. - The Creedles. - The Michael Crainer's Day. - A Legendary, yeah. - The Pit is just doing old school television. - There's something about they got, I think that collectively, and you could do a Matt Bell Andy conversation about moving away from networks and into streaming services and why like different priorities change. But there was something about the golden age of television that basically raised Joe and Joe and I as people who talk about this stuff, where it was like breaking bad and some pranos and some of these shows, even if maybe there had been a feature script at its origin story ever. It felt like a new and different way of telling stories. And then when you have this gold rush and talent rush into TV, but it's like, yeah, I guess what, Nicole Kim is gonna be on this, but she can always shoot for like four weeks. So can we do all of her scenes in three sets? And they have to be like, before we know what the end of the show is, or I'm not even talking about our specific show, but I feel like more and more, you can see the scene of shows where you're like, oh, did they actually not have like the ending or what happened here? - That and also, it's connected what Bill was saying about sort of this way in which IP or superheroes or whatever you, however you care to put it, took over movies. Then all those like mid-level original idea of movies became like drawn out limited series, 'cause that's the only place you could tell those stories. But you didn't have enough story there. So then you just get this like really thin sort of diluted version of what would have been a good like, you know, just movies for adults movie. And people can tell, you get tired of the time. A lot of those Apple shows that you're talking about are just stretched out movies that people can't get made as movies. And so they're taking them to-- - And you make more money if you stretch it out. - There's so many other things. - There's a big behavioral going on. And I recognize it in myself where I get like three episodes into a show. And I'm like, that's pretty good, but I think I'm good. - I got it. - You know what I mean? - Oh my God, you make it three. - But you know what I mean? - I'm like an episode, you know what I'm saying? - I'm like, I think I'm out. - You're like kind of cruising through a Netflix or an Apple or an Amazon show. And you're like, I think I got it. You know, like I think that this is like kind of, did you do any more burrows after we talked about it? - No. - I think I got it. I mean, that's a good example. Legends is like a great show on Netflix. I was like, I got to finish this. But there's something daunting, especially if like, you know, like you said, like movies have kind of had this a little bit of a revival of like we got to go out and see back rooms like the weekend, it comes out because it feels like that's-- - People are talking about it. - Really like a shoot. - I couldn't believe it. I mean, we live in LA obviously where everybody loves going in the movies and we have great apps now where you can see how many seats are available and things like that. And so I was thinking about making my way to go to see back rooms last night and looked in the morning and there were a bunch of seats left on like the 10 o'clock, you know, they was, by the time I got to two o'clock, like everything was gone. It was like sold out, it was like holy shit. And I was talking to my son about it 'cause he, him and his friends, my son's 18, they love going to movies obviously. But I do think a big piece of this other than the original IP thing. People were COVID stuck kind of in their house for a while, not being able to go out as much. And then that started a slowly shift away and then now it's back to normal. And now people are looking for excuses to go out again that I don't feel like was there a few years ago for a variety of reasons. - They've also now, they're learning that. And they just announced that obsession was supposed to come out this week on paid video. - Couldn't believe it, they delayed it. - And now they're delaying it for like another 30 days or 40 days. And the event is happening with TV where it's like there's four or five shows a year that are big deals that are weekly and everything else is like these binge drops that's either where you're a psycho and you watch it on Friday or if you watched it over the course of two months. - Yeah.
to finish it, but you haven't yet, and Joe and I are both huge fans of Widow's Bay. One of the reasons why it's been kind of like this cool little show is that you can kind of feel it, game momentum. The same thing happened with the pit in his first season of the pit, watching audiences need time to find these things. And if Widow's Bay had been a binge jump, you wouldn't have this like as the audience grows and then a week to week and Widow's Bay is a little bit of a theory show, so like people get to trade theories and get really invested and I've just like always been anti-binge. It is very anti-social and like what you're talking about in terms of this like post-COVID thing is a social experience. When you go to a movie and you sit in a dark room with people and you laugh or you cry or whatever it is, you are feeling something with people around you and we're in a psychological space, a side of space right now where people feel so isolated. People feel like they can't connect or agree on anything. And if you have this communal experience, TV can be that if it comes out week to week and if everyone's watching the same thing, which is so hard to capture. >>Tapeting was sports, sporting events too, like sports is completely back and attendance is doing great in all these different places because people like being around other people. >>Yeah. >>The binge thing, like we've been talking about it on this podcast forever, I just don't like it. >>It's horrible. >>For some of us reasons, dating back to Grantland, it's like it's just that, stranger things was bad for us the way this schedule was. If they had spread it out, it would have been better for us. So I'm being selfish about it, but I just think the ability to dive into a show every week, wonder what just happened, what's going to happen next is I think that's how people want to watch shows. >>These networks aren't stupid if they thought there was more money or more interest in it being a week to week. I'm sure they would do it. I do think it's a little bit of an us problem where we like to talk about these things. We like to talk about these things episodically. I'm bummed out that the last season of the bear is going to go up on a Thursday night. You know what I mean? I'm bummed out that. >>The bear has been a confusing case the entire run because its first season was a binge dumb. But once it was such a huge thing, we were confused every year. >>It should have been two weeks. >>And well, in FX, we've got the numbers that support this is the mon of the news. But it's more of an instant gratification versus a long-term investment thing, but I'm sure the numbers prove that if you binge drop something, you will get more eyeballs on it immediately. But in terms of building a widow's Bay audience or building a pit audience, there's longer term benefits, come MECs and come all these other things in terms of its endurance. Yeah, it's an us covering shows problem, but I also think it's an impatience and that anxiety, that insecurity that a lot of studios and streamers are experiencing. >>I only superficially follow this stuff, but I am very much aware that there's usually like a huge flood of shows right around now of previous few weeks because people are trying to get in under the Emmy's nomination and to me, that's a lot of like, you know, maybe bigger stars doing TV who are like, if I'm doing this, I want to be up for an Emmy. Don't put me out in August and have people try to remember me next spring. >>Yeah. >>And I don't know if there's that many shows that it came out in the last couple of weeks that I would be like, this is so good, I wish it had had a better runway or had a better window. But they were putting out way too much shit in like a six week period because they're like, we have to get this up to run an FIC campaign to get an Emmy nomination to satisfy the talent relations that we have and do whatever, and I do think it's like kind of now blinding people to like be like, it just seems like five shows just pop up on Peacock every week and I don't know what to do about that. And I think that like, five shows where somebody gets kidnapped. >>Well, or just like, do you think the bill is finale, the hacks finale, there were like a ton of finales. >>Yeah, but it's the actual thing where you have two shows on at once and you promote them and you like build conversation about them and then hand the baton off to the next two shows. It just doesn't make any sense. Because when you're thinking about, I do think a lot about the FIC stuff and when you think about what they're running, like task is a huge thing and they didn't run that in the classic Emmy's window, you know, but it is week to week built an audience and was a huge thing for them. >>Yeah, one other thing with the binge that I think gets lost is we always talk about how it's bad for us. It's bad for discussing. >>It is. >>I also find when you binge a show, I just don't watch it as carefully because especially it's like, I'll bang out four episodes. I watch those seasons of the bear and they all just kind of lump together because I don't feel like I watch them the way I would normally watch them if it was just spread out. >>Yeah. >>Even you for it would stroke me crazy. It was at least once a week and I actually watched it and it was something that I was concentrating on. If I was trying to binge that, it would have been a nightmare. >>Yeah. >>I remember the bear thing that was jumped out at me was like that first season you're like, it had almost like a stranger things kind of thing where it went from like, do you see the show the bear? >>I remember you slacking me and you're like, have you seen this bear thing? >>I was like, no, now I've watched the bear in five hours. >>Yeah. >>It was the second season and I think I had screeners so it wasn't like a personal thing but I remember being like, oh man, it sucks that not everyone is going to watch the Christmas dinner episode at the same time. >>Yeah. >>Right. >>And that there's going to be pre-packaged articles going out about how did the bear do that episode and you're like, I would love for everybody to be like, oh, it's Bear Night. It's Wednesday night and it's like, holy shit, Jamie Lee Curtis, John Bernthalder in this episode, like in Bob Odin Kirk, like. >>Some of the best shows ever benefited from that more than anything. I mean, thrown certainly, so Prana's, which still doesn't know, but lost. >>Yeah. >>I need to do that. >>Yeah, I think about lost now it would have been 10 episodes a season. It would have been a bin show and it's just like- >>It's completely different now. >>Jack says we have to go back. It just would have been trapped during the season long binge and everybody would have experienced it at different times and it wouldn't have the impact. >>I was thinking, with the pit, I was thinking so much about this idea of water cooler culture and water cooler conversation and the way in which shows like lost or the sopranos or madmen or whatever, or to a lesser degree, like that idea of the water cooler is so rare and it feels so good when everyone's watching something together, when everyone's watching task and we can see it with podcast numbers, when people are like dialed into a show and then people want to text me and talk, you know, people want to text me on that night while they're watching it and they're like, holy shit, I can't believe this happened or like, why did Robbie do this? Or, you know, who's the secret warrant on Widow's Bay, you know, and that's better for our culture. We came out on the Monday when the sopranos was running and so we, all the writers, we'd all get together with Jimmy and we try to figure out like act one and we all go around the room and pitch bits and during this time the sopranos had like, it was one of their runs. I can't remember what season and we were just all around the room on the Monday. We would talk about the show for like an hour and a half and we'd have like no bits and it was just like, that's just gone in the binge model and so I don't know. I understand there's reasons why they do it and I'm sure the numbers are just as good. But like, I watched DTF because I had screeners for that, DTF St. Louis, I watched it the day after New Year's all at once. I watched like six episodes in one day because I was hungover and I just wanted something to watch and it hit me differently. I think if I had watched it week to week, I would have liked it more, but it was like too much all at once and that's another issue. Some of these shows are like too dense to binge. It's a show that didn't really work for me personally, but I will respect it. I really, and also like, is the kind of thing that we should have more of. Now you could say DTF might have been like a good to our movie or whatever, but I wish more shows had like the sensibility and also like the creative bravery to be like, this is not like every other show. Right. The sense of humor is going to be different. The performance style is going to be a little bit different. The tone is going to be different. You may or may not love it, but we're going to take a risk with it. And I think that there's a lot of like risk a version in TV that you can really feel. Every show starting with a flash forward and then a six months earlier is like, you guys are putting the hook at the front of your song. Yeah, you guys don't trust me to watch the TV show because you got to show me a dead body in the first five seconds. Right. I know. I know what show I'm watching. It's presumed innocent. You know, like, it's like, I assume. I've seen the movie. To go back to your point about how you don't watch binge shows that closely, then we get into that feedback loop that, you know, people have been talking about more and more recently where Netflix execs or whoever say you have to repeat things 10 times because people are second screening this. They're not paying attention. Right. And so then the shows get worse and so then people want to pay even less attention to them because you're like, oh, I already saw this scene. You keep repeating the same lines over and over again because you think I'm not paying attention and so I won't pay attention. Yeah. Sadly, I was laid on the pit and we binged it. And I really tried to lock in and, but I'm sure I missed a bunch of stuff and it was almost fun to watch. Well, the kid is almost like, I think it's, it's an amazing week to week experience. But watching it in binge is almost representative of like the quality, like the derational quality of the day that they're having on the show. Yeah. True. So if you watch like five episodes, you really are like, holy shit, it's been five hours and it's like, yeah, it didn't work, but I still feel like I missed something. You could have read at the end. Didn't you? I thought you caught up, like by the time the finale. I caught up for you guys. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I made it in time. It was good. But I do wonder like the seesaw of the movies.
versus TV. This is gonna be an interesting next couple of years. So if I'm a creative person, do I wanna have a movie and I can get out of it? I can just create something from scratch and have people see it and do well and make the next one? Or do I wanna emulate what these other people are doing with these TV shows where it's like I might be locked into this for five, six years of my life. By the way, I'm not gonna make as much money as I used to back in the day. And I actually might have more upside on the movie side. Your brain's gonna shift toward the movie making, I think. Like even somebody like the guy in the bear, right? Jeremy Allen, what? - No, the director. - The creator. - Christopher, he's making a movie next. - Yeah, the bear was amazing for him, right? It's the stepping stone for him to make movies, which is where I think that's where the real money is gonna be for them. - I hope so, but there's still plenty of movies that come and go and people pay no attention to them. - But you can at least move on to the next thing when you're doing-- - Sure. - You do a show, this is, you're locked down. - I mean, even before the actors couldn't get after it. - Yeah, but they probably got these movies kind of flopped. If he had been locked into, like, I have to do everybody loves Raymond for 10 years, he probably-- - Mr. Mom for 10 years, yeah. - Well, that was like kind of like, maybe that made more sense. I don't know, I mean, you know, the differences is like, yeah, Joe's right, like there's gonna be, for every Odyssey and back rooms and obsession, there's gonna be 10 movies and-- - A bunch of me didn't know. - Yeah. - But then some of them can even do well when they end up unlike the Amazon on demand, you know, the pay-per-view, the Roku. - Does that even exist? I don't know. - Fendango universe. - It is fun, you know, I'm relatively new to living in Los Angeles and but having worked with you guys for years and years and years and having listened to Mallory say, every screening of this is sold out and I'm in service at school, I'm like, not here, man. So it is nice to be in this town where people are going to the movies all the time and any time of day that you decide to go to movies, they're gonna be other people there. - But you're really right though about there's something different. Like, I remember even like last year with Andor and I was like, me and the 10 people I know who are watching Andor are obsessed with this and can't believe this is happening and then there's like all these people who are like, I know I'm gonna love it, I just, you know, just don't have time right now, you know what I mean? - That's too much, because there's too much stuff and it's too much of a commitment to go into any of these shows. That was one of the things that kept me from the pit for a while. I was like, I don't know. I'm busy watching important stuff, like terrible NBA games. - Yeah. - Showing up like horrible things, yeah. But it is a commitment and I found the same thing, it would be a funny letter box of like, did I quit this TV show where it's like, I lasted an episode and a half with that new show on HBO that I just kind of stuck with. - But I also feel like I hear from you more often than not, it was horrible, I watched all of it. - Yes. - When it comes to TV. - Yeah, but usually that means I had it on as I was doing other stuff. Beef is a good example. - So when you're watching beef, but if you quizzed me on it, I'd probably miss like half of the second season. - My nanny stole my dog and turned it into a fighting pit bull, like when you're watching that on Netflix. - Yeah. - Yeah, it's greeting that. - Well, and that's another thing that's winning right now. It's certainly winning for Netflix as these hour and a half true crime documentaries. The crash has been, I think number one on Netflix for like two weeks and I feel like everybody saw it. At some point, I hadn't opinion on it. There were other documentaries about it. And from a watercourse standpoint, it feels like true crime documentaries are hitting as hard as any TV show. It's really a strange time. - Can we talk about our pals at HBO? Who like, HBO FX and Apple are the ones who are like holding it down on the week-to-week releases despite the bear? - And Hulu is doing the release too. And then you have to-- - Right, the mini, the half binge sort of thing. - HBO this year had, not in Seven Kingdoms, which was great, but that's like their IP. Euphoria is their IP to a certain degree, right? DTF, which you liked. - I liked, but that was, like my dad would not have made it 10 minutes on that show. Like that show had a distinct audience. And I'm not sure middle America. - They're interesting one. - Ironically, 'cause it was set in middle America. - Right, I was the dragon, lanterns. So, and then Harry Potter at the end of the year. You know, off the back of them doing like, welcome to Dairy and Dune. So then investing in these like IP shows. - Yeah, it seems like they're kind of going a little bit more either big blockbuster stuff or getting into the pitification of other genres. - And I'm here for the pitification of other genres, but like, and the pit obviously. But like, I'm curious like, where's this used task? Or where's, you know, where's, like, where is it? - To me, as long as those guys still make industry or something like it. As long as like, there's a show that comes out of nowhere and just kind of like, feels like lightning in a bottle and it feels different. - Industry was great. - Industry was fantastic. - And that's the kind of thing that you really, really need to keep TV feel alive. - What's the show you're looking forward to the most? - Plus the dragon, 'cause I get to cover it with Chris. Actually, the real answer is the vampire list at on AMC. - That's just my own personal. - Oh, that's where, I don't know. I think Lanterns, I'm really excited to see Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre and their show together. I'm a big Kelly McDonald fan, she's in it. Excited about that. - If you knew a super talented 25 year old who made shit, would you tell them to go into TV or movies? - It depends on what kind of shit they want to make. You know, if they're little Vince Gilligan, then I would say try to pitch TV. - What would you want them to make? - Again, it depends on the person. - Yeah, it depends on the person. - It depends on the story. - We love TVN movies, so I wouldn't trade a well-made movie for a shitty season of television. I wouldn't trade a well-made season of television. - I push into movies. - The one thing I have learned is that over the last 15 years, is this will go in some cycle that's way faster than we understand. And whether or not, the kind of TV that we're watching in three or four years feels way more like the kind of TV we were watching in the early 2000s. I think that's possible. I think people could start being like, there were certain things that people expected. There's a reason why these kids are watching 300 episodes of Gilmore Girls and not this other show that kind of feels like Gilmore Girls, but isn't as well-made. Like how do we go back to that? But the economics have to work. - That did happen by the way. - Yeah. - Grey's Anatomy and Gilmore Girls for whatever reason. - Friends, the office, you know. I think the 90s stuff is starting to die according to my daughter. - Well, 'cause we're in the different nostalgia cycle. - It's too far now. The nostalgia cycle is now the 2000s. - It's now the yachts, yeah. - What's really interesting is that lost hasn't had its real moment again yet. And I keep waiting for it to happen. - It had many peak during the pandemic, I would say. But I mean, 'cause everyone was at home watching everything. But yeah, it's not in that nostalgia cycle yet, you know? 'Cause in the '90s, we were. - Usually 20 years is then the nostalgia cycle. So which is right now. - 2030, like I was talking to Yasi about '80s movie soundtracks. That's just gonna be doing on band's plane. We were talking about the big chill and we were talking. - Another time, I didn't get the call from Yasi. - And we were talking about. - She won't take it too long. - That's so bad. - But now we're talking about big chill. We were talking about dirty dancing and that like 50s nostalgia that infused the '80s, you know? And how like, all we listened to in my house was 50s music in the '80s. - Yeah, the '90s, it was the '70s. - Yeah. - Well, the '70s was amazing. 'Cause like happy days, people going backwards for basically previewing on more. - What did we just talk about that with? What movie was it? - We talked about it with, yeah, we brought it up with something. - Animal House. - Right. - Yeah. - Oh, 'cause Animal House was set in 1962. - Yeah. - But it's so weird that that never really happened for the '90s, I don't know. - Oh it did. I mean, I feel like the '90s nostalgia has been a real, like, I was-- - But not like, we'd never had our happy days set. - I think, but Seattle and the '90s too. - I mean, everything from the love story show to the way that like Gene Cuts came back, the way, like, the '90s, the closest that we had. - Also, there's like, I can name 100 bands that sound basically like-- - Yeah. - Obscure bands from the '90s, but are now like much bigger, it's crazy. - I was in New York a couple of years ago, and a friend of mine said, she's like, "Oh, '90s fashion is back." I was like, "Yeah, kind of." And then four girls walked past us, the teenage girls dressed exactly like they walked out of my so-called life, like exactly, just like the flannels and the docks and it was just like all there. And I was like, "Nevermind." - Yeah, my daughter's big on this. She thought love story just fucking nailed it. She's like, "All this stuff you could wear now." She was all excited about it. Love story is a good success story. - True. - I wonder if we're gonna get more of those too, like the real life stuff with the twist. We watched, when my daughter was home, we watched the entire OJ show that they did 10 years ago. - That OJ show's fantastic. - They're in Brian Murphy, OJ show. - Oh, it was great. I forgot how awesome the actors were. - The same people on love stories. - Paulson's like, "Add a control." Courtney Vance's, "Add a control." There's like five great, Sterling Brown. - Travolta's, Travolta-ing. - Travolta's, Travolta Cuma booting is really good. - Yeah. - I emailed Rob Melz. - Swimmer. - I texted Rob Melz at Hulu and I was like, you guys, you know, we're, it's almost OJ time. It's June 12th. You guys should put this on the main page, 'cause my daughter didn't do anything. - They put it on the main page with it's almost. - It's almost OJ time. - It's OJ time. - It's OJ season. - But my daughter didn't know anything and she, like, couldn't believe it or she didn't know that car chase happened. - Yeah. - And she's like. - I remember that happening when it came out and we were covering it. And I was just like, you had to write explainer posts. You know, this is like what happened with the crown.
Where it's just sort of like the dianna season of the crown and don't spoil the crown. And don't spoil the crown. Don't spoil the OJ show. Don't spoil what whether the plane crashes and love story. That's another thing that's going on now. We have so much good content from the last 25 years that you can just repurpose the content, pretend it's new. And somebody like my daughter would have no idea. What's the true crime story that you would want to tell in a love story fashion? Yeah. You know what? The Koonan and Doc was pretty good. It was too long or the show was too long, but that was the Versace one. I thought it was good. It was just like too many episodes. I don't know, man. I thought the further we get away from that throne, it's breaking bad, what else was in that? Mad man. Mad man. Mad man. Yeah. What was there was a fourth one? It's a pranos. A pranos year over no six. No, that was 2000s. We had that run when we're at Grant Land where we just had all those shows at the same time. You could go down the list, Americans, justifies, like, yeah, I mean, there was tons of tons of stuff. Hopefully it comes back. Julian Robinson. Thanks. Chris Renn, thanks. Thanks for having me. Thanks, man. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Doc Rivers. Thanks to Chris Ryan and Joanne Robinson. Thanks to Eduardo and Chris and Jack Wilson. Everybody on the Spotify and Ringer side. I'm not sure if I'm going to be back on this feed this week, but you know where I'm going to be? We have a rewatch vols mailbag that's coming on Thursday. So stay tuned for that. It is in the bag that is coming. And then our next three movies because we are doing from hell month. And the first one's going to be on Monday. No single white female on Monday. Then hand that rocks to cradle the next week and then the good sun. All those movies are on Netflix if you want to watch those. So I will see you again on this feed. Maybe maybe Sunday night. Maybe earlier, I don't know, but I'll see you soon. 21 plus and president select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas start casino or 18 plus and president DC Kentucky Wyoming. First online real money wage or only minimum five dollar wage required for seven consecutive days. Bonus issued as not much of a bonus bet. So it's expire seven days after receipt. Game problem called one hundred gambler or one eight hundred by reset. Call eight eight eighty seventy nine seven seven seven seven or visit ccpg.org/chat Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline ma.org or call eight hundred three two seven fifty fifty for twenty four seven sport Massachusetts or call eight seven seven eight hope and why or text hope and why in New York for Louisiana call eight seven seven seven seven zero seven eight six seven
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