A Two-Week NBA Power Poll, Plus Drake Maye, Best Candy, and Half-Baked Ideas With Kevin Wildes
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on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. Coming up on this pod, I'm going to do a two-week NBA Power Pull. There's no games tonight, and there were 15 games last night. So wrote down a bunch of notes. I was working on this the last two days. We're going to count down the teams from 30 to one. And then after that, our old friend Kevin Wilds is coming on. We're going to talk candy for actually a long time. Drake May, Patrick Mahomes, and then a heaping healthy batch

of half-baked ideas. I want to put this up early today because I'm hoping everybody is out there voting. You can listen to this when you're in line on your headphones, on your AirPods, whatever you listen to. In my case, the Wirepods. Have we come up with the name of those yet? You can listen to them when you're driving to go vote, when you're taking the bus or the train to go vote. But I hope

you're voting. And I stayed out of the election this time around on the podcast, but you know where I stand. It's the same place I stood every four years. But I thought this time around, we would keep the podcast around the stuff that people come forward for. And, you know, if you want to consume politics, there's plenty of places to do it. But you know where I stand. Anyway, we're going to bring in the power pole in one second. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. ♪

All right, I'm taping this Tuesday morning. There are no NBA games today, which is the perfect time to do a PowerPoll after two weeks. We did this last year. We did this the year before. Counting backwards with tiers from 30 to one. We have a nice little two-week sample size here. So first category, there's only one team in it.

And it's called poop for coop. You could also have talked me in a sag for flag. You could have talked me in a poop scooper for Cooper, but I think poop for coop is, is the right one for this. And this is basically just Utah 30th offense minus 14.4 net rating already. Um, I don't know what's going on with this team. And I think the thing is they know they want to stink. One of the things they're doing, they're putting a lot of eggs in the Keontae George basket who I actually, um,

I'm not against like he might have potential down the road, but he has the ball a lot. He's shooting 33%, 29% from three. Uh, when he's out there minus 22.3 net and he's a young player that you're getting good reps for. So it's actually like, he's probably one of the best tanking assets in the league because maybe four years from now, he'll be really good.

There is no path for this team to be good. They're in a conference that's way better than the other conference. If you look at the standings, I think there's only two teams in the East that have an above 500 record right now. The West is absolutely ridiculously loaded and Utah is the stinker in the West. So they are number 30. Next category is the pre tankers. I think these are teams that haven't admitted yet that they want to tank, but they'll get there.

They're going to get there, especially as Cooper Flagg starts looking better and better in these Duke games. Number 29, Toronto. So 29th in defense, and it feels worse. They've lost Scotty Barnes for at least three weeks. Rossello talked about this when we did the Over Under podcast. There's really no path for them to be

good, especially defensively. I don't really know what this team is. I do know that I like Grady Dick. So you got that going, but I wonder like as the season goes along, does Yaka Perto become a trade piece for them? Anyway, that not a very fun team to watch. Not a fan. Number 28, Washington, who I watched a lot of last night in the, uh, the golden state game, which they hung around, they hung around, they might've nailed the draft.

House was texting me about this. This is the 2024 draft. Legendarily bad. I don't think we have a rookie averaging 11 points a game right now. And everybody is either kind of lukewarm or kind of okay with who they picked. Washington's fired up. Sar, Bub Carrington, George, who's grown to 6'8". They were talking about how his growth plates, he might be able to get to 6'10". The guy averaged like seven points a game last year at Miami. But they...

This team plays hard. Draymond called it out after the game last night. He just talked about that was the hardest he'd seen a Wizards team play in a while. Now that's going to change when Kyle Kuzma comes back. Shots at Kyle, sorry. But I also like Kulibale. I like Kispert. And there's something here. So this is like a very fun, bad team that I think at least has a little bit of hope. Maybe get another top three pick. I'm not against this team.

Number 27, Charlotte, 30th defensive rating, feels worse. This is a team you can catch for a quarter on league pass and they look great, but ultimately they can't stop anybody. LaMelo, good stats, bad team. We might have to wait the five-year waiting period for the Hall of Fame.

He's putting up giant stats and the team loses. And this has just been his entire career. Now you could argue if you just switched him with Halliburton in Indiana, could he be really good on the Pacers? Probably, but I'm just from a result standpoint, it has not been great for him. And then the last team, number 26 and the pre tankers, the Atlanta Hawks. Oh no, they can't tank. They don't have their pick.

Yikes. I really like this team on opening night. Since then, they've lost Bogdanovich. They lost Hunter. They lost Bufkin. They basically lost a lot of their wings, which I think is what made them interesting. And they also are having Trae Young's worst year ever. Like all his shooting stats have been awful. I still kind of like this team. I want to see when everybody comes back. But the problem for them is there's

You could say if they had their number one pick, it'd be like, oh shit. Well, let's zag the other way. But you can't zag when you don't have a pick. So they're in the pre-tanker category without a first round pick. I don't know what to tell you. Next category, potentially frisky, probably harmless. Portland, number 25. They have size. They have wings who can create shots. They have Scoot who is starting to go downhill a little bit more.

Russell and I, this is probably one third of our tax because I think we own all the scoot stock at this point. It's like a dollar stock, but he looks better than he did last year and they kind of need him.

I'm not against this team. I actually kind of like watching them. I think they've been a really strong league pass team on the West coast. 28th on offense feels like that could be better. So we'll see. They'll probably end up tanking one more time, but there's some pieces here and there's some trade bait pieces too. Plus Robert Williams coming back. Number 24, Detroit beat the Lakers last night. Good news for them. They have a coach that's not in a coma. So that's a bonus.

Um, Cade and Ivy averaging almost 43 points a game. And this team rebounds. There are rebounding teams by seven a game. They were, they were kind of standing up to the Lakers physically last night and they legitimately beat the Lakers. I didn't even think like Detroit played amazing. I just think they had a deeper team with some size. And even though Davis went off, they still won the game. Detroit's interesting because Tobias hasn't shot well yet. I think he's shooting like 18% from three. So I'm watching them because they're,

That's like a night to night. They're like a 10 point underdog against whoever and they win the game. There's something dangerous about them. And Cade's been good, but he's still at five turnovers a game. I feel like there's another level for him. I kind of like Detroit. Chicago number 23. This has been a league pass revelation. They are first in pace. They're 28th last year.

They just push the ball and shoot threes. They're 43.1, three point, uh, three, three point shots a game. They're making over 16. They're shooting 38%. Levine is averaging 22 a game, 50, 46, 82 percentages, and just dying for somebody to panic trade for him. Maybe it'd be the Lakers on the flip side. Somebody is scoring 70 points on them this year.

And I don't know who it is. There's about nine candidates, but they're going to give up a 70 point game this year because they can't stop anything. But I kind of like how they play. They play like a, like one of those European Olympic teams that just pushes the ball that has a center that can, can pass and create shots. And, uh, they can do small ball lineups and I've enjoyed the bulls thumbs up.

Good to see Josh Giddey finally on a team that's giving him the car keys a little bit too. Number 22, the biggest surprise of the season, Brooklyn. Now, House and I went over for them 18 and a half wins before the season because we thought they had a lot of competent basketball players. And as the season has unfolded here for two weeks, Schroeder, Claxton, Cam Thomas is like 27 a game. Cam Johnson, Finney Smith, the 20 minutes of Simmons a game, like

they're actually a little too confident. And you think about the trades that they made before the year where they got their own pick back and it seemed like there was this whole tanking plan.

I don't know what they're going to do now because the East just isn't good. Like we have, you know, seven, eight teams. And then it's like this massive drop off to everybody else. And there's going to be a plan team. That's like, all right, fine. We'll make the plan. It might be Brooklyn. Schroeder's playing great. Schroeder is a legitimate trade asset. I think he's at 12 million. Uh, he's a fun one for a bunch of different teams. I would have said Orlando, but I kind of want them to just ride with Anthony black. Anyway, could they package Schroeder and Finney Smith?

to the Lakers for the DLO contract, Christian Wood, something else, and get one of those first round picks from the Lakers that they're still hoarding, they probably could. Would that be a good trade for the Lakers? It actually would be. I'll get to that later. But Brooklyn at 22, and you can make a case they should be higher because I have some teams that have been playing awful ahead of them. Number 21, the last team in this group, San Antonio.

28th offensive rating, ninth on defense. The Wemby on off stats are like genuinely hilarious. I think they're like, it's like a plus 40 swing or something crazy. They're shooting 32% from three. Demba sell has been out. So Han made a, made a little mini leap now that they're not forcing him to bring the ball up. I'm not sure what this team is yet, but defensively, um,

They're not nothing. They blew a huge lead to the Clippers last night. I haven't loved what I've seen from Wembley this year. He doesn't really seem any different to me from last year. And I was talking to Termini and Eddie about this on their serious show the other day. It just feels like he's too far from the basket again. And last year they rectified this in the, like basically the last two months of the season, they just had him around the basket more where he can use his size, his length, his long arms, his Freddy Krueger arms, and just kind of be around the rim.

And this year they, they seem like they've doubled down on making him more of a ball hander. And I don't like it. So Chris Paul, not washed. I can't say he's the point God anymore, but not terrible. We'll see whether he makes sense for them or somebody else, but the West is so good. It's probably going to make sense for them to, uh, to try to tank and do one more tanking session. All right. The next category is fantastic. There's five teams in it and it's called panic time with three exclamation points.

It's not just panic time. It's panic time with three exclamation points. Number 20, New Orleans. Just guys keep getting hurt. Murphy's been out the whole year. Herb Jones got hurt. CJ's out, which not the worst thing in the world because now it's Jordan Hawkins time. And I like Jordan Hawkins, even though he's not good on defense. But Missy's not bad as a center, but they still need a center. And they have Ingram doing an amazing trade bait season where he's basically 24 a night.

He's borderline 50, 40, 90 guy. And he's an expiring contract. And somebody will talk themselves into him because it doesn't seem like they want to pay him. I guess the big, I, and it's early, it's two weeks. But the thing that's concerning to me is Zion year five. So year five, year five, year six. Can't remember how many years it's been in the league. Field goal percentage is rough. Remember he was like a 60% field goal guy. So last three years, 61%. Last year, 57%.

And this year it's 44% and his shots just not going in. And I actually thought he would be a better scorer as his career age. He seemed like he was in good shape. So I'm just watching that. It's early. In general, super early with New Orleans. They have a bunch of trade possibilities. Year six for Zion, Saru reminds me. They have a bunch of picks and things they can do. The problem in the West is it might make more sense for them to

punt on the year if they fall way behind with all these injuries. We'll see what happens. Not counting them out yet. Milwaukee, number 19. They're tied for the worst record in the league. They're one and six. Their over-under has dropped to 45 and a half on FanDuel. And I watched their last two games closely against the Cavs, including last night where they did not have Giannis. They're basically the Midwest Lakers. They have an awesome big man,

They have an aging offensive star who doesn't play defense. They have nobody else on the team who can play defense. They have no bench. And unlike the Lakers, there's no fixes because if you look at what they can do, they can trade Dame, I guess. They have Connaughton and Portis at 22 million combined for this year and next year. And Portis has been really bad this year. The net rating stats with him are terrible. The eye test defensively, he's really hurting them.

And that's really all they can do is package those guys together with, I don't even know what, because I don't have any picks left. I keep thinking about Doc, who is in such a great spot here in LA. He was coming on my podcast. He was playing golf. He was doing TV. Great times. And then Giannis got dangled in front of him and he jumped at it. And he's on this team that I don't see any conceivable way this team is a contender. I felt that way before.

fairly strongly before the year, except for the Giannis piece. Giannis has been awesome. And they're one in six. I don't see a fix defensively. We've talked about it already in this pod, but it's, it's an atrocious defensive team. You look at every night after night, after night, after night, last night, it was Garland. Garland was getting whatever he wanted. They had no chance. They're playing guys in crunch time that would not even play for the Celtics or the Thunder.

So I don't know what the fix is. I'm not counting out anything with Giannis yet. That's why I have a 19 and not 28 or 27 where there should be, but really rough, really rough with no fixes. And doc, come back to the podcast. Just move back to LA. Make, make believe this was like a dream sequence on the Sopranos. Just come back, get out of there. Number 18, the LA Clippers. I saw these guys on Saturday night.

They played Oklahoma City. They played really well for about a quarter and a half, two quarters. And unfortunately for them, OKC is just a ridiculous beast of a team where they bring in their bench and their bench is Alex Caruso and Kaysan Wallace.

And those are their defensive guards coming off the bench. So poor Harden, who is having a great season, like for him. He's averaging almost a triple-double. He's 21-9-10. Three-point shots down to below 30%. And he's on a team that has no chance to do anything, but he's having a great time. He has the ball all the time. He's with Norm Powell, who's somehow averaging 25 points a game. Not sure that's sustainable. But you go against a team like OKC and you realize what a chasm it is.

where the Clippers, where they are without Kawhi versus teams like the Celtics and OKC and Cleveland, these teams that have really good starting fives and depth and the Clippers are a million miles away. I still don't understand why they didn't sign Paul George. When you go into that arena, the amount of money they spent

which it just seems like one of those crazy mansions you see in the Rob Report where you're like, wow, that guy spent $200 million on a house? That's what Ballmer did with that arena? And yet Paul George, he was like, ah, too rich for my blood. Doesn't really make sense. This team has no path. It was weird seeing Kawhi there on the bench just kind of being like, hey guys, go get him. And I don't see a path for him to be an NBA player anymore. It just seems like there's been too many knee injuries

So anyway, the biggest problem with them just as a night-to-night team, because they're really good defensively when they want to be, but their starting lineup's terrible. Nobody can create a shot for anyone else except for Harden. And they're not a very good three-point shooting team either. 12 for 34 basically every game for the season. So this is going to be a lottery team. I had them under 37 and a half wins last year.

in the over-under as a lock, and I still feel good about that because I do not see enough talent on this team. Number 17, sadly, Orlando. I would have had them number six before the pallo injury, just a huge bummer. They're saying four to six weeks, which in NBA speak means two months. That ruins his all-NBA chances because he's not going to play enough games. I think it also ruins their chance to be a top three seed, which they absolutely positively would have been. No question.

Now, offensively, they're challenged. And I guess if you're going to spin into a positive, no palo means, hey, Franz, let's see it. Step up. Can you be a crunch time guy near the end of games? Anthony Black, can you create some shots in the fourth quarter? Suggs, how much is in there? I mean, I have Suggs. Suggs to me is now a top 50 guy. Like we're handing in ringer 100 next week. I don't know how high Suggs is going to be, but he is in that 40 to 50 range. At least he's probably the best defensive guard in the league.

And offensively, he's gotten better every year and he's, I think, 18 points a game and creating offense for them sometimes. So could they patch something together that would give them confidence when Paolo comes back? Maybe. I was thinking, speaking of Suggs, the 2021 redraft, if you're going to do it.

Just quickly, this would probably have been a better podcast, but I'm just going to go quick because I was like, where would Suggs go if they redrafted that draft? Mobley, I think is still first. And I'm not just saying that because I'm over leveraged with Evan Mobley's stock. He's been awesome this year for him. Cade, I think has to be second. And I have Suggs third. Suggs was the fifth pick in the draft. I think he goes three if we do it again. Jalen Johnson, I have fourth. Shengun's fifth. He went 16th in the draft. Jalen Johnson went 20th.

So those would be the top five. Then I got Scotty, Trey Murphy, Franz, Herb Jones, Jalen Green. It's a three-year run of putting Herb Jones ahead of Jalen Green for me. And then Josh Giddey. I think that would be the redraft. Now, people would argue with the Jalen Green part, maybe put him up. And I'm willing to accept that argument. I want to see a couple more weeks because that Houston team, as we'll get to after the break, is still trying to figure out what they're doing. Anyway, the point is,

I think if you're doing that draft again, Suggs would be third because he's that good and he's been that important to them. And he's that unusual as a player. I mean, could he be the third best player in the title team? I think he could. Number 16, the Lakers. 25th defensive rating. I left the Detroit game last night thinking, how do we get Anthony Davis more help? That was a joke. D'Lo, Reeves, LeBron, Rui, and Davis as your crunch time team. Good luck getting stops.

If you're a wing or a point guard, it's much like the Milwaukee situation. You're scoring on everybody that team has. And really the reason, I mean, they beat Phoenix twice because Davis just owns Nerkich and both of those games, you know, are pretty close. But the real reason their record isn't as bad as I think it probably should be considering their bench is so bad that JJ could become a player coach like what we used to have in the 1970s. And he'd probably be like the eighth man on the team, right?

The reason their record is better than maybe it should be, and maybe the eye test says that they're a little better than I think they are, is they just shoot a ton of free throws. They're shooting almost 10 free throws attempts more than their opponents. 9.7 to be exact. For the season, 207 free throw attempts to 132.

I'm positive they don't go to the rim that much more than everybody else, but that's part of what happens when you're the Lakers. You, and you have LeBron on your team and you're 22, you're going to get some calls, but, uh, with the free throw attempt luck that they've had, if you want to call it luck, you could also call it something else. Um, I think the fact that they're basically a 500 team,

Not a great sign for the Lakers. And this is another, much like Milwaukee, what's the fix? Like, you hope Jared Vanderbilt comes back. That's not going to help them with three-point shooting. Rui, I've been saying this, especially after the first two games, and Rui looked really good and all the Laker fans were like, oh, Rui, oh, Rui.

Rue is trick or treat. That's just who he is. Rue is the same guy who will go one for five in a game like he did last night. That's just who he is. He's in his like mid twenties. Now he's been in the league for a few years. That's who he is. You just got to accept it. So, um,

The defense, the health of LeBron in year 22, can he play 70 games? Davis fell down last night. It looked like he was going to be out. Then he got back up. But I still, they over under was 42 and a half. JJ is definitely a better coach than Darvin Ham. They might need to start playing connect more. That's not going to help with their defense, but at least it'll help them with the shooting. They still have a DLO trade to make, which I'm sure we'll be getting passive aggressive hints about fairly soon.

I have it on my calendar for November 15th, but, uh, but they, to me, they, they just seem pretty far away from the best teams in the league at this point. So that's what I have. That's the top 15. We're going to take a break and we're going to come back with the rest of the list.

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So Rudy said that during the break that the Scottie Barnes fans are going to be mad that I had Suggs over him in a redraft. And you know what? I put real thought into it and I'd rather have Suggs. Sorry. I think Suggs is a winning player. We'll see with Scottie Barnes. He might be, but I haven't seen it yet. All right. The top 15. This tier is called feeling it out. And I'm not even sure what we're feeling, but we have number 15, the Miami Heat. They beat Washington and Charlotte and Detroit. Congratulations.

I think it's very possible they're the good-bad team, much like the Denver Broncos. I said this on Termini and Eddie's show, and I genuinely believe it. I think it's over for these guys. I think the league just got better and they stayed the same. And I watched them and they don't seem that special.

Um, defensively, I don't think they, they seem like, you know, really good or anything. Crunch time. I always feel like the guy on the other team has just as good of a chance of scoring whoever the best guy is that they're playing as the guys that they have. And they just seem like they missed their window, you know, which was a great window, by the way, they made the finals in 2020, they made the finals in

2023, you know, they had a really nice four-year run. They battled Boston. This was great. But now Butler's 35, you know, they put a lot of eggs in the Yovage basket. I'm not seeing it. And, uh, you know, there's, there's panic trades to make like would Milwaukee accept hero and Duncan Robinson and a pick for Dame tomorrow? They probably would, but, um, I don't see it with them.

And I don't think that's a controversial opinion. I just think that I, I just feel like they're at a different phase of whatever journey they're on. They're going to be mentioned in the honest a ton, like get ready for that machine to start the, and, and basically that would be out of bio would have to be in the trade, um, plus picks. And, you know, is that a better situation than the one you honest is in now? If, if, if BAM's in the trade, I don't know. But, um, I think this team's going to be a lot of trade rumors, uh,

And I'm going to be really interested to see if Butler's on this team in February, because if I had to bet, I would say it's 50-50. And I would probably bet on no. We will see. Memphis, number 14. This is a classic feeling it out team. You know, Ja's not even playing 30 minutes a game yet. Last night, he had a couple Ja highlight games.

highlight real plays that only he can do. I think he's ready to take his cornerback from Edwards as the most beloved under 26 American guy in the league. Their 10th offensive rating, they lucked out again, but it's not luck because Memphis keeps doing this. But Scottie Pippen Jr., who I saw in person last year when I took my daughter to an absolutely terrible Celtics-Grizzlies game, and Scottie Pippen Jr. just looked like an NBA player. And I kind of filed it away. I was like, hmm, that's interesting.

Um, he's turned into a legitimately good backup player. And then Huff, who I'd never heard of. And I watched the NBA every night and I barely remember that he was in Denver last year and they've turned in him into a really good backup big, hard to believe the nuggets didn't have use for him. Somebody get Calbo some coffee. Um, we'll see. Bane is hurt. Smart's hurt. Now smart was 23% field goal, 17% from three before he got hurt and looked slow and doughy to me.

We'll see if he's at a different point in his career because I have a feeling he is, but you know, maybe they have three, four months to ramp them up and get them where they need them to be. This team, you could pick any direction for them and I would believe it. You could tell me they're never going to get their shit together. You could tell me they're going to win 49 games. I'll believe anything. Pretty fun league pass team though. All their games seem to be close. I don't think they're the same defensively as they used to be, but we'll see when they get everybody back. The last feeling it out team is Philadelphia.

So Paul George came back last night against the Suns and some really interesting crunch time stuff with them because the Suns couldn't stop Maxie. And then in the last four minutes, Maxie just never had the ball. Yaba Selly took a few shots in a row. And then the biggest shot of the game, Paul George took, and it was a contested 21 footer. And of course he missed it. And I think he was four for 14 for the game.

And I was watching Maxie's body language, just standing on the side as Paul George decided the game. And he was kind of like, what the fuck is going on? It made me think when Embiid comes back, that's going to be even more notable with what happens there. I was thinking about Philly a lot before this season. I meant to say this on the over under pod and I didn't. But when you put like three guys together like this, there has to be some sort of sacrifice in place with the three.

Right now, think about the 2008 Celtics is a good example not to bring the Celtics into this. I swear I wasn't looking for an excuse, but go back and go back and read anything about that team that year. You can watch the documentary we have coming six months, five months, four months, whatever it is. KG, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Doc brought him in.

And Doc was like, you guys are going to have to sacrifice. You don't all get to shoot 20 shots a game anymore. They were all at the point of their career that they're ready to make sacrifices because they'd all done a bunch of great stuff on their own, right? Paul Pierce had been the best player in the Celtics for almost a decade. He'd averaged 26 game. Ray Allen had almost made the finals in 2001 and it got rudely taken from him by the refs and David Stern. We don't talk about that now, but he had been a real guy on his own and had plenty of shots.

Garnett had been an MVP in Minnesota in 2004 and just wanted to win. And all those guys were at the point in their career where they wanted to give up something. So you look at the Sixers team, you could argue Paul George is at that point in his career, right? He's been on a bunch of good teams. He's been close. Maybe that's somebody who will sacrifice. Embiid, no comment.

And then Maxie is the one that's interesting because when you're, when you're asking three guys to sacrifice and be all right, this game, you're going to be the one that stands in the side. You're going to be the one that only shoots 12 times. Maxie doesn't know who he is as a player yet. He doesn't know how good he is yet. He, for all he knows, he might be one of the 10 best players in the league a year from now. And he's just blossoming and figuring out

Like, what is the ceiling? How many floors does this go up? And now you're asking the sacrifice and he's sacrificing something that he hasn't even achieved yet. So I'm just flagging it because when you're asking young players who haven't hit their potential yet, and he's a special player, I think he's the most beloved Sixer. I don't think there's any question. I think if you're asking Sixers fans, protect one person on this team, they pick Maxie.

And he's still figuring out who he is as a player. So from a sacrifice element, that's the main thing I'm watching. You're asking three guys to sacrifice and they're not at the right point of their careers as a threesome yet. The supporting cast, Yabasele, I think was a good signing. I like Caleb Barton.

not willing to rule this team out, especially when there's only two above 500 East teams right now. The Embiid thing is just going to be a soap opera all season. And they weren't honest about it before the year. There had been rumors and they weren't even rumors because people were telling me this in September that his knee wasn't right. So we'll see. He's had a bunch of surgeries. He's had a bunch of things happen to him. And I just don't think

You can count on him week to week as a reliable person who's going to be in the rotation. It only matters in the playoffs, but I also think this is what the Clippers did with Kawhi for four years and it never worked out. So we'll see how it goes. But I'm really interested in the sacrifice piece of it. I was thinking about it last night as Maxie's just standing there on the side watching Paul George. And Maxie's probably thinking, this should be my team. We'll see how it plays out. Next category, trust the process. Number 12, Sacramento.

Fifth in offensive rating, even though they're only 33% from three. This is a team, you watch them at the end of games and they almost have too many crunch time options, right? They got Malik Monk, they have Fox, and now they have DeRozan. All three guys I really like with the ball, with like a minute left in a one-point game. So they have to navigate that piece. They also, I don't love their bench, even though Herter's playing better this year. Lyles, Len, McDermott, it just feels like a six-man team and that's depending on how you feel about Ellis.

But, you know, they missed on Davion Mitchell in 2021 with the ninth pick. And then they took Carter 13th in June and he's not coming back till some point the winner, but it feels like they're a guy short. They have picks. They have things to trade. I'm watching them. That's a possible trade partner for Brooklyn or any of these other teams that have some sort of veteran between like 9 million and 18 million. Utah's another one with Clarkson and Sexton. We'll see what they do.

Number 11, I have Indiana, who has the 25th defensive rating and is just getting a weird Hal Burton season. He looked more like himself last night against Dallas. He had a 24 and 12. You think last year, the first 31 games of the year, he was 24 and 13, 50% shooting, 41% from three and was probably the most fun guard in the league. And then he got hurt. It never really came back. And this year before the Dallas game last night,

He was 33%, 24% from three, 14 and seven. And it was worse than that. Cause if you watched it, it didn't seem like he had the same confidence in his legs. It didn't seem like he was going downhill the same way. It didn't that crazy 25 foot three point shot that he would take that always went in last year. It didn't seem like he even thought it was going in this year. So, um,

I'm not panicking about him yet, but it's notable that he hasn't been that good because Matherin came back 16 points a game for him and is a crunch time guy. Nismith just got hurt. Not sure when he's coming back, but I'd still believe in these guys. I am 11th, but really only because...

We haven't seen them all healthy yet. They had a couple of bench guys go down. I still believe in these guys and I still think night to night, they're scary to play and they know who they are. They have an identity. They beat the Celtics in OT already. So 11 seems right for them. 10th Houston, ninth in offense, 10 in defense for, for the ratings.

They're shooting 43s a game. They're only making 32%, partly because Van Vliet has kind of sucked this year. He's 28% from three. I'm not positive he should be in their best lineup. You could talk me into them just going bigger and just having Jalen Green bring the ball up when there's four minutes left and just go with wings and size. It's a really interesting team to coach.

And I don't think Udoka knows who his guys are yet. And he's been experimenting like Shingun. Like I think he played only 21 minutes in the Warriors game last night. He played a bunch. Um, he seems like he really likes, uh,

Eason and Amin Thompson. And guess what? Join the club because I really like those guys too. Those guys are hard to keep out of the game in crunch time because of the defense and the versatility and the athleticism. Amin Thompson, I threw him in a Butler trade if they want to do a three for one, like, I don't know, a week ago. I'd like to recant that. He might be a top 40 trade value guy for me at this point, but I'm not sure what the version of their best team is yet.

And whether they need to turn Brooks and Cam Whitmore and I don't know what else into, and some picks into one more awesome piece or whether they just ride it this year, cause they're not going to win the title. They're a top five league past him. Whitmore had a DNP on Monday night, which I thought was notable because I feel like they could get something for him. I think he could really help somebody off the bench, but yeah,

This is a team that has different looks night to night. And I think they might be the league pass MVP for me. I never know who's finishing games for them. Shangoon might have a 30, 20 any night. Jalen Green might have 40 points any night. Every time Reed Shepard's in, I'm mesmerized because he's basically Mark Price on the 1991 Cavaliers back. Really like this Houston team. They're in a great spot. Congratulations, Houston fans.

Number nine, last person in this trust the process category, last team is Denver. So, you know, there's been a lot of KCP stuff this first couple of weeks. Brown's been good. Their starting lineup is plus 14.9 net. It's been their bench that's killing them. The fact that, uh, the Westbrook was pretty good last night playing for Murray. The bench hasn't been good enough. And then, uh, Murray's just not the same guy.

And that's it. We could talk about the bench. We could talk about the league getting better, but Murray in the 2023 playoffs was 26 a game, 47% field goal, 40% three, 7.1 assists. And this year he's 16 points a game, 4.4 assists, 37%, 30% from three.

And I test backs it up. He just looks slower. He has trouble getting a shot off. And that's the guy to watch because if he's not back to 2023 Murray by April, this team is, has no chance of winning the title, no matter how good Jokic is. Next category, the sleeper. So this was my hardest one in the power pole. Golden State, who I think you could argue probably should be in the top five with how they've looked.

And I just, I don't want to shoot my wad on that one yet. They got Boston Cleveland. Okay. See, is there next three games? Not great. That's probably the, the, one of the all time gauntlets you're going to have in a regular season this decade. Their second in defensive rating, which is something Steve Kerr was talking about a lot in the preseason that he really liked how this team was defending. They're playing Draymond with TJD a little bit. Um,

He played 12 guys the first couple of games, which I don't know if that was a trade bait thing or what the plan was with that. As you know, I'm morally opposed to 12 man rotations, but I think he kind of wanted to see what he had. Almost treated it like a college team. The big thing for them is the buddy healed in the clay spot has been amazing. He's 22 a game in 25.5 minutes, making five threes a game.

For all-time heat check seasons, like the Pantheon all-time heat check season ever was John Drew in 1983 averaging 21.2 points a game in 27 minutes. One of my favorites. Freeman Williams in 1980, 18.6 points a game in 25.8 minutes. But he's 22 in 25 and a half minutes.

which might be as close as we've gotten to minutes and points for anyone playing under 27 a game, but they've unleashed him. I think they really believe in him. The shooting coach was his coach for the Bahamas. And, uh, and they've just basically running all the clay stuff for him and it's going great. Curry came back.

This team's better than I thought it was going to be. I think I went over, didn't do a lock or anything, but, um, but with their depth, which you need in the regular season, I think this team, this is a high forties team. I think, I think, uh, they have a lot of options and they have curry. Okay. Next category, definitely lurking. So we have four teams in here. Number seven is the Knicks. This is weird. Third offensive rating, 19th defensive rating, fifth overall, um,

I don't know if you saw Towns last week, but he eviscerated Bam Adebayo and it was notable. And I don't know if there was a history with those guys or what was happening, but he absolutely destroyed them. That plus the Towns-Brunson high screen, which I think is probably a top five unstoppable NBA player right now. I don't really know what you do because you basically have to settle for Towns shooting from 25 feet wide open because you don't want to have Brunson basically attacking your big guy.

That plays great. I love how Towns is fit in their bench sucks. They're seven, eight, nine, 10 right now is pain Sims, daddy and hook party. Uh, I know the next fan is like, well, we go to Robinson coming back. Well, he played, he gets hurt every year. The big thing for me is what was the point of the bridges trade for all the stuff they gave up, which I know they had to, but they gave up a fucking shitload for him. And then when you watch the next play, he's basically Nikhil Alexander Walker on the side.

And for what they gave up for him, for how kind of little they use him, it's, it's kind of shocking. Like he's like a 15 points a game guy. He just stands in the corner and crunch time. I thought he would be way more involved with their offense. And, you know, you think like if Giannis is really going to be available over these next couple of weeks, months, they shot their wad on this bridges package and, you know, they could have just done the towns thing.

They could have kept everything else they had and kind of waited, but they went all in. I defended it last summer. It made sense to me. But I also thought they'd use Bridges as more than just like this complimentary player. So maybe it's got to sort itself out, but I'm just watching that because he just seems irrelevant sometimes for them. And I don't like it. So if you're going to give up that many picks for somebody, maybe use them. Number six, Minnesota minus 0.4 net, 18th defense.

Edwards has been the story because of all the threes he's taken, which by the way, if he's going to take 12 threes a game and make 43% of them, knock yourself out. I like how Randall's looked offensively for them. He's almost 23 a game. It's a little clumsy sometimes, but, um, you know, their defenses is obviously worse. One of the reasons it's worse is McDaniels is basically unplayable. He's sucked since the Dallas series. Um, McDaniels, DiFincenzo and Conley are basically at 30% shooting threes this year. And that's

That's why I think they haven't looked like maybe we thought they'd look yet. But I'm watching the McDaniels thing because they gave him an extension and Alexander Walker's just outplaying him. So,

Is he a possible trade piece for them? Can they get him going? But this started in the playoffs last year and it hasn't gotten better. And you think like one of the reasons their defense looked like one of the best defenses in the last 20 years, the first runs of the playoffs was because the size of Townsend go bear. And then what McDaniels and Edwards were able to do together. And now McDaniels is in a complete funk. So watch out for that one. Number five is Phoenix.

Somehow only a 16th offensive rating, which doesn't make sense when you're watching them because, uh, Katie and Booker and Beal are almost nine threes a game, 42% from three Katie's 27 a game, 55% shooting. His crunch time stuff is as good as it's ever been. It's unbelievable. I mean, he, he was in the 2007 draft.

I think everybody from that draft is gone except for Horford and Conley who are like role players at this point. And Katie's like beating double teams off the dribble and you know, he's going by whoever he wants. He's been awesome. I think he's, he might be, it's him and Tatum, I think as the MVP through two weeks, just because of how much they've meant to their teams and how good they've been. So it turns out having a point guard helps.

Who could have guessed? We only had 77 years of basketball history there. They now get fast breaks. They now get KD rolling off stuff. Still some weird fourth quarter shit with them. The Nurkic thing I still don't love against certain teams like Davis owns him. But I think Phoenix is where they want to be. That was one of the teams we went big on before the season. And, you know, they have one loss. They're doing great.

So I almost put them in the, in the contender category, but I still don't think they know who their fifth guy is. Like they were putting Ryan Dunn in there, but team started leaving them open and they, they need to figure out Beal, KD, Booker, Nurkic, O'Neal. I guess, I guess that's the five. I, I kind of like it more sometimes when Nurkic isn't in there and they just go smaller and they have shooting all over the place. But, um,

I'm feeling good about Phoenix. Good to see Coach Bud on the sidelines again. The contenders, I have Dallas four. Other people would have them a little further back because they haven't been playing that great. They're 15th in offense, eighth in defense. PJ Washington, who beat OKC last year because he made all those corner threes and they haven't gone in since. The big thing for me is Luka, who the MVP is sitting there for him now. Like Giannis is out.

Jokic is going to be out because Denver's not going to be good enough. Embiid's not going to play enough. Tatum, who has... I think he's averaging 13 points a game in the first quarters, but the Celtics are blowing all these teams out, so he's not even playing enough minutes to pad his stats. But he's been great. KD's in there. But it just feels like Luka...

If, if he goes on a tear, he's going to be the easy MVP favorite. He's only 28 a game, 40% field goal, 31% from three. So I'm sure that's going to flip. I'm sure he's going to have like 72 points against the bulls. And all of a sudden all those numbers will go up, but, um, just feels first two weeks. Hasn't, hasn't gotten it going. It's fun to see clay on this team. I still feel like he's a little too involved.

Cause he's clay Thompson, but you know, in crunch time, I kind of want the ball with Luca and Kyrie and just stand in the corner of clay Thompson, but, uh, their starting lineup sucked too. So they got to figure that piece out. Why is, why do they get better as soon as live that comes in? Maybe he should just start and play more minutes. Number three, Cleveland home run first two weeks for them. They're eight now.

Uh, this was another team we went big on before the season. Second and offense, fifth and defense. They're plus 12.7 net. They haven't had streusel year, but Laverde's been good for them. Uh, the gotten good shooting from Dean Wade, people like that. But the big thing is Garland's back and we flagged this. We talked about it extensively in the over under pod. Garland broke his jaw last year. It was a weird year in general. They didn't know if Mitchell was staying or not this year.

Garland's 53%, 45% for three. He absolutely obliterated Milwaukee last night. Now, granted, it's Milwaukee and it's Dame, but he's back to getting wherever he wants to go. And what I really like and what I think is really potentially special about this team, maybe Kenny Atkinson has a little bit to do with it. Maybe the fact that Mitchell re-signed with them. But there's a real generosity with Garland and Mitchell now. Like last night, it was Garland's night and Mitchell...

Mitchell deferred. He let him kind of run the show the last four or five minutes. And if they needed Mitchell, he was there. I don't know if that was as seamless last year. And I think these guys have been together a couple of years now. They had two huge crunch time wins over Milwaukee. Mitchell made the big shot on Saturday. Garland made all the big plays yesterday, but I liked the combo of them. And I think the combo of Mobley and Allen who were wondering, should they trade one of those guys? Don't touch this team. This team, this is unequivocally the third best team in the league right now.

So number two, I have OKC, even though they are first in defensive rating at 93.2, which is 8.3 points lower than anyone else. I don't even like if we were going to say that's an NFL team, that would be like an NFL team giving up seven points a game for the first two months of the season. When they play Caruso and SGA together, though, all the advanced metrics, they're basically the 96 Bulls.

Chet is averaging almost five stocks a game. He's over three blocks. He's getting steals. They haven't played a close crunch time game yet. They're just dominating these games. And by the way, they're not shooting that well from three point percentages. Chet's under 30. SGA is under 30. Caruso's under 20. Wallace is under 33. So there's a level for them to go with the three point shooting. Defensively, they're unbelievable. I just couldn't believe watching them

on a, on Saturday night in person, it just never ends. That's the thing. Like, I know they have all these good defensive players and it makes sense that they're awesome on defense, but when you see it over the course of two and a half hours with your own eyes in person, it never lets up. It's like watching a defense where the, the, in, in football, where the defense is just blitzing every single down,

And the offense is picking up for the first quarter and a half of the game. And then by the third quarter, the quarterback's just getting pounded. That's what it felt like watching them. They have so many options. Everybody can switch onto a different guy. There's nobody to attack.

It's funny watching these NBA teams where like, who the fuck do we attack out of these guys? Every, every person we want to get into a pick and roll can also guard the person that's dribbling. So that plus how good Chet's look this year. Um, you know, this has a chance to be a really special regular season team. We'll see about the playoffs, but, um, you know, this is a team that could win mid to high sixties, I think.

because night to night, the youth, the legs, the defense, the Clippers played really well on Saturday night for about an hour and it didn't matter. They were losing double digits in the fourth quarter. Then the favorite is still has to be the Celtics. They've only lost once. They won the title last year. Their fourth and defensive rating without Porzingis, 14.1 net rating. Really good back-to-back wins against an annoying Charlotte team over the weekend that I thought were meaningful because the second game was a classic game

you forget to show up and you just kind of fuck the game up. But Grant Williams had done a hard foul of Tatum. That was a cheap shot at the end of the game. Celtics were pissed about it and they came out and they laid the smack down on Saturday. This is something that Steve Kerr talked about with me once upon a time when I was doing my book about the year after you win the title, you have this different confidence and swagger to you because you've done it. You've climbed the mountain. You believe in the infrastructure of who you are.

And he's like, it's just, there's this invincibility that develops. And it feels like the Celtics are tapping into that a little bit. Now, Jalen got a little banged up. Porzingis probably isn't coming back till December. And then there's this Horford piece where he's playing 25 minutes a game. He's fine. He's eight and five. They're just trying to basically pace him for the playoffs.

He hasn't shot a free throw yet this year in two weeks. So last four years, free throws 95, 21, 30 last year, and then zero this year. So they're really patching together the center position with him and Cornette and Kata. Kata has been really big for them from a shot blocking standpoint. And as a regular season team, I still think they're in their sixties. If, if Tatum and white and holiday are all playing and Jalen plays enough games, Tatum has been, uh,

been on a mission. And the three isn't even going in every game, but he's just peak of his powers at this point. This is the best game-to-game, quarter-to-quarter that he's ever been offensively. He really knows how to attack, what he wants to do, how to be a point forward. And this is still the best team in the league. When Porzingis comes back,

this is a 18 game winning streak kind of a team. And I think OKC is too. And I think my big lesson from the first two weeks is that Boston and OKC are

in my opinion, are levitating above everybody else. Maybe Cleveland can kind of tap at their shoes a little bit, but it's Boston and OKC. And that's what I picked before the season to make the finals. I haven't seen one thing to make me think that's not going to be our finals. So there you go. That is our two-week Power Poll. We're going to take a break and come back with my old friend, Kevin Wilds.

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All right, we're taping this late Monday afternoon, Eastern time. I got Kevin Wilds right after he taped First Things First. This is when I like him. He's just done a two-hour live TV show. He's groggy. He's not really thinking anymore. He's just reacting, ad-libbing, not overthinking his takes. And I want to start here, Wilds. You posted a picture of your favorite candies, pyramid style. Yes. And you had Reese's at the top. You did this during Halloween week.

And I had a lot of problems with the pyramid. A lot of people had problems with the pyramid. It was meant to provoke discussion, but it felt like nobody had a problem with Reese's being number one. The problem that everybody had was, and I didn't realize I was the only one that thought this, that plain M&Ms are better than peanut M&Ms. Turns out I was wrong. It wasn't one of those things like, well, that's just your opinion, Wilds. You're allowed to have it. Nope.

Every single person said I was wrong, so I said, you know what, I'll fold my hand on that one. I was wrong about that. I would flip those if I did it again. - So people have peanut M&Ms over plain M&Ms? - I was the only person, so I folded my hand on that. If I was next, tune in next year to see where they rank. - See, I feel like those two

are kind of their own candies. I don't feel like they're even like brothers or siblings or sisters or even cousins. I just feel like they're over here and over here. They're so different. And when I, like I went to the Clipper game on Saturday and they had the plain M&Ms and the peanut M&Ms. And I really thought about it. I'm like, am I in a plain M&M mood or peanut M&M mood? And I was like, you know what? I'm in a peanut M&M mood. And I grabbed those instead. But I don't feel like they swim in the same pool. See, here's my...

Here's my argument if I was to make it. If I want chocolate, I'll go with the Reese's. I already have the box checked on that. And if I want M&M's, I'll go with an M&M. The peanut M&M is living in the middle of that somewhere. So for me, it doesn't work. And a lot of people will say, well, what about the candy shell? I get that from the M&M. So I don't need the peanut M&M to even exist. But everyone's mad at me.

So here is my biggest, uh, my biggest pick. I think the a hundred grand bar is the best chocolate bar on the planet. And I think everybody really deep down thinks this, but nobody wants to admit it. And if you put like, we have, we have a candy jar in our house and you've been to our house and there's two full jars of candy. Cause for some reason, my wife likes having candy in the house. The a hundred grands are always gone.

And we start out equally and they just get pulled out. I don't know anybody who's against a hundred grand. I think it's the perfect chocolate bar.

And I actually think they market it badly. I feel like their campaign almost had like LeBron has been marketing himself as like since the last dance as like the goat. And he's just done all these different things to kind of push this whole. Well, look at my whole career. Look at what what else can I do? I'm still playing 22 year hundred grand needs to hire like a media strategist to really grab the corner of the goat candy bar because I don't think it's there yet.

You're saying just being named after a denomination of money isn't really getting it done for the hundred grand bar. No, I think people mispronounce it. I think some people call it the hundred thousand grand bar. They can't remember which one it is. But then when they have it,

It's delicious. You go into like a Rite Aid or you go into a CVS, sometimes you can't even find them. No. Can I tell you something? A little ugly for a candy. Yeah, maybe they need a complete rebrand. It's kind of bumpy. It's not sure of itself versus when you take out, for example...

these kiss aesthetically. The Hershey kiss is just perfect. It's silver. It's got the little hat on it for the, you get to interact with it. Unwrap it. Exactly. A hundred grand bar. You take it out. You're like, what's going on here? It's just, it's all over the place. It's just feels like it's like a, like when you see an alien trying to be born out of something, it's like, it's kind of emerging. So I could see that being an issue. Nobody knows what it is.

People get confused, like, what does that have, rice crisps in it? It's like, yeah, I think so. It's like, is there a peanut butter-based something in there? Like, I'm not 100% sure. I don't know even what's in the 100-gram bar versus, is it a Milky Way with rice crisps? Rice crisps and caramel. Three things that everybody likes. Everybody likes caramel with a chocolate bar. Nobody's like, oh, man, there's caramel in this. I'm not eating it. That's a good point.

Reese's, I think part of what the success with Reese's is, first of all, great name. Second, people know what it is. It's chocolate with a peanut in it. It could be different sizes.

It has brand recognition. It's had a great media strategist over the last 80 years, whereas the 100-gram bar, not as much. They advertise aggressively. Like, Reese's is out here getting it done with the orange wrappers. They're really making moves. They've gone into ice cream. There's like Reese's ice cream. Like, they're really aggressively trying to expand the brand. 100-grand is just kind of like, we might be at CVS, we might not. Yeah, it's like 100-grand...

If I was to do a, you know what, like, remember when Tarantino got Travolta? I'm like, you know what? This guy is great and everybody's forgotten about him. If I was to grab the Travolta, 100 grand, 8A, probably Baby Ruth. I'd give Crackle a shot. If I was a Tarantino-esque director, I'd give Crackle a run. So here's the one you're missing. He's far away.

I think the Travolta Pulp Fiction is the Rolo. The Rolo bar. I think everybody loves Rolo bars. You can't find them anywhere. What do you mean no one? No one likes Rolos. Rolo has a bad texture to it. Rolos are slippery. A Rolo, again, doesn't know what it wants to be.

It's like, we're a cylinder. Like, what? Get out of here, Rolo. Wow, this is like my least favorite Wilds take probably ever. If you want Rolo...

What is it? It's a candy. You pull it apart. It's a caramel. It's kind of bisected. Yeah, it's almost like a Starburst. It's like a roll of Roll-Ups. No, I don't like those. Those are bad. That's Caramello. You want Caramello

versus Rolo head-to-head, that would be like Ravensville's. You think that they're both on the same level until you see them head-to-head. Caramello would wash Rolo. I love Caramello bars, but I never see those anymore. I thought those were just gone. I don't know. That's the problem. What happened to Caramello's?

Well, do your thing about Crackle, because I really want to dive into this. I thought it was one of your best and most important takes. We've known each other since 2006? Yeah, I guess so. Somewhere in there? This is one of my best takes.

I thought it was the one that resonated with me personally as hard as anything, as any of your recent albums, any of your recent, your recent work, even when we did a little country there for a second, a little hillbilly rock. I still like this one. Both a compliment and an insult. My crackle take was one of my best takes. Look, every year you get the, the Hershey's fun bag mix and there's crackle. You open it up.

You have to crackle. You think this is great. There's no reason crackle can't have the career that the crunch bar is having. And crunch bar is up here with a trophy case filled of most improved candy, most valuable candy.

Finals Candy MVP. Also, like, Hershey bar with s'mores. Like, it's got this whole second career where it's like you have to have it with the s'mores. It's an ice cream. I've had Hershey Crunch. And there's Crackle out here.

Pop in a game, give you, you know, 25 one night and then disappear for weeks on end. What could crackle pop up, throw for 300 yards, win you a game, three touchdowns and then just gone. So I don't know what to do with crackle. Part of me thinks that crackle, I don't want to say this, but part of me thinks that crackle doesn't have the heart.

got all the tools, but just might not have the motor or crackle on it. Here's the other thing about crackle might not want it. You're afraid of the bright lights on Halloween. One of the ideas I had was like crackle, maybe you should bail on Halloween. Try to find another holiday. Like peeps did. Peeps couldn't compete on Halloween. Peeps like we got to be out. We got to go to Easter. Candy canes saw the lineup and Halloween that

We can't compete here. We need to go to Christmas and just try to dominate Christmas. Maybe Crackle looks around and says, hey, you know what? Thanksgiving, we can take after dinner mints. But right now, Crackle can't cut it. Can't cut it on Halloween. - I was thinking, you made me think about Crackle, which I had really never truly thought about. And I'm with you, it would always be in the chocolate bags. You'd be like, oh, Crackle. - Yeah, there you are. - Game manager.

reminded me of a couple actors over the years that seemed to have all the tools and something was missing. Like right now it's Chris Hemsworth. I don't know why Chris Hemsworth isn't one of the, Chris Hemsworth, I just called him Hemsworth, maybe that's part of the problem. Chris Hemsworth, like I loved him in Rush. I really liked the movie Rush, the race car movie about Nicky Lotta and the other guy. But James Cook, whatever his name was, the Bill's running back.

He's got everything you need. He's 6'3", handsome, be a leading man. He was in Black Hat with Michael Mann. He could be in a rom-com. He can kind of do it all, but it's never really happened. And if he's opening a movie...

I don't think it's probably going to do well because he's the star of it. But Ryan Reynolds was in this zone for 10, 12 years. And then I think he escaped because it feels like he's an A-plus lister. So I don't know. Maybe that's... Oh, Ryan Reynolds did definitely. Yeah. So you're saying... But Ryan Reynolds, I feel like, and I'm not a Ryan Reynolds expert, although I'm a fan. It feels like Deadpool pushed him...

pushed him beyond. He's like, you know what? I'm not going to try to be for everybody. I'm going to be a little more foul and then that will allow my personality. So maybe, so I don't know how that plays for Crackle. No, that's what Crackle needs. It's Deadpool. Here, here's what I think Crackle, here's what it needs. It needs to be in a show like a stranger thing, season four, like euphoria season three. And there's some episode where the character is like,

really obsessed, just loves Crackle, like a big Crackle fan. And it's just, you know how those shows sometimes that our kids watch can just get momentum with weird shit? Crackle just needs its moment. It needs like its, its some sort of moment and it's just never had it. I'm gonna, I mean, this is gonna hurt if you work at Crackle, but I don't think the leading characters in any film are gonna love Crackle. Yeah. Like a secondary character or some, you know,

a supporting character it's like man my weird friend loves crackle the comic relief yeah yeah comic relief guy loves crackle isn't that weird it's like how did you get even 12 crackle you have to buy there's only come three to a bag hershey's doesn't believe in crackle either or nestle i don't even know who the parent company is but they don't believe in crackle

They don't think Crackle has it either. So if you're not getting support from management, all right, everyone's giving up on Crackle. Honestly, maybe this is Crackle's moment. Maybe you should just be the change you believe in and just start eating Crackles all the time. But again, probably not bad for the podcast though because of the stupid rice, Chris. I think it's like a Formula One situation.

Where Hershey is the preferred driver of the Formula One team and Krakow is like the number two team. Could maybe if you gave it the number one car, maybe could drive it, but it's just not going to get there the way it is. I would do a rebrand. I think the K hurts it. Maybe go back to the C. I think when people do goofy spelling for food or...

you know, like things you have to purchase. Sometimes there's a backlash with that and maybe the sizes have to be different. Maybe, maybe thinner, maybe fatter. Like you think about Kit Kat. Can't go thinner. Thinner is the score bar. S K O R. Get out of here. Nobody wants to score. You can't go thinner. I don't mess with the shapes. It, it, it, it comes across as desperate.

Once you start counter Kit Kat has done a lot of renovation stuff with the Kit Kat. Like they'll have like a white chocolate Kit Kat. They'll have during Halloween season. I'm like a spooky Kit Kat and it kind of works. It's like, I'll try that. But Kit Kat is operating from a position of strength. Kit Kat, that's like the lions running trick plays. Like we can do so much stuff. We're so good at the fundamentals. We're running other stuff.

Yeah, that's fair. Crackle can't go out there doing, you know, the Philly special. Like, you just got to work on blocking and tackling right now, Crackle. I think Kit Kat's on the Mount Rushmore. I think almost everybody likes Kit Kat. I think part of the success is...

the double piece, like you can burn, you can share it. Be like, you want to have half of my KitKat? Cut it out. Give one person the bar, you keep the other one. It's just, it's a good name, memorable. It's just really good. I think that is 100% marketing. I bet less than 1% of KitKats are shared. And

You want the option to share it. Yeah. I think anyone's got it. No one's been, Hey, do you want, Hey, uh, I already got this Kit Kat. Do you want one? I think that rarely happens. You can share any candy. I can break a Twix in half too, but nobody does that. Twix is another one. I think Twix has had a really good, uh, Twix has been kids. Really good run. Great run. Great. So who's on your Mount Rushmore Kit Kat? I have a hundred grand, uh,

Kit Kat, M&M's, Hershey, and Twix. Hershey Kisses? No, I just like the regular Hershey bar. I have five in the Mount Rushmore because Twix has to be on there. I really respect the Hershey, though. I like the little squares. You can have half of it, two-thirds. As you know, I make raw dog s'mores where I don't actually microwave them. I just put a graham cracker, two marshmallows, and half a Hershey, and I just eat it. Well, it's Snickers on?

I don't do Snickers. Wow. Not a Snickers guy. Wow. Okay. What was your Mount Rushmore? I mean, the Mount Rushmore for me personally, or what I think should be the Mount Rushmore. No, your personal Mount Rushmore. You could go five, not four. It's not going to be well-received. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

You ready? - Yeah. - York peppermint patties. - Yeah, it's really weird. - It's getting worse. Necco wafers. - Okay. - I love a dry wafer. And then I'll probably go, I'll probably just go plain M&M's. I like, it's the York that is really, that is really off-putting to people. And the wafers. - Yeah, the York's just gross. I don't know what to say to that.

Did you ever have the Reggie bar when Reggie Jackson had his candy bar? No. No, I never got. That's a little before my time. And then I don't think I've ever seen them for sale. I remember eating them as a kid and liking them, even though he was a Yankee. But it was basically a hundred grand bar is my memory of it. It was right on the corner. Very similar. Maybe. Oh, yeah. Celebrity endorsement. Not bad.

I mean, it's a good Anthony Edwards thing. Maybe this, maybe this is the key is you remember when LeBron attached himself to blaze pizza and we didn't know what pizza was. And we were like, wait, what's he doing? And then it was like, Oh, blaze pizza. That's the one that, and all of a sudden blaze pizza was worth a billion dollars. Maybe Anthony Edwards needs to do with the crackle. Okay. He's just eating. He takes, Anthony Edwards takes 13 threes in a game.

Sits in his locker room after, makes five funny comments to media members as he's eating a crackle. And people are like, something's happened with crackle. That would work. That would 100% work. That's the longest anyone's ever talked about crackle. And that includes inside the crackle building. Can we just move on to Mr. Goodbar? Maybe they took some notes. It's...

It's take season for you right now on First Things First. And I'm catching right after Dak was scratched for five to six weeks. Is it better if the Cowboys are awful, mediocre, or good? Good with flaws, I would say, is the best. That's the ideal? Good with flaws. I think every marquee team, when they're good with flaws, makes it the most interesting. And not to be too...

Philosophical about it but like A superhero like a superman thing Like a superhero with a Kryptonite I think is the most interesting Team That's why I think like I know we were talking basketball Like that's why I think Tatum is interesting Like oh like I think superhero with flaws Is fascinating But a mediocre team that could Get hot interesting but just A bad team a marquee team That is bad that's the worst There's no there's no takes that

That is dry, arid land that no takes can grow from. Is that the same for the Lakers? No, the Lakers, I think, are fascinating. But I always thought the Lakers punchers chance for the last few years, and now that they're running interesting stuff, it's like, oh, two top 10 players? Maybe. Maybe they can make a little run. I think the Lakers are always interesting. Two top 10 players? Who's the second one? 12? Where are you putting AD?

You could talk me into it, not LeBron. What do you have LeBron? He's not in the top 10. 15? Yeah. Okay. But every team with two top 15 players has a chance at the title, except them for the last few years. But maybe JJ can work some magic and maybe it'll work. They're not good defensively.

I haven't watched enough this year yet. I've been so locked in on football, I haven't switched over. I was locked in on the World Series. I got to switch over to basketball to get totally locked in. Who would have expected the Yankees-Dodgers became an actual spectacle? Awesome. It got 15 million people watching every baseball game. It was bigger than the NBA Finals. It was as big as a round one NFL game. It's huge. I was trying to

Maybe you'll be able to pull this off the top of your head. But for a five-game series, super tight and compelling.

versus you usually talk about great series, seven, six. It's like, oh, every game was good. Big moments. Again, superstar with a flaw with Aaron Judge. You're always pulling for him to pull out of it. Otani kind of battling back, kind of Willis-Reedy, although he never had the big moment. Freddie hitting a home run all the time. I thought it was just awesome. I thought it was just World Series baseball, just fantastic.

Well, it's funny because we always would have this in the NHL and in baseball. We're like, oh man, if it's only these two teams and then it's never the two teams. So it's like one of the two teams. And this time we actually got the two teams and it was awesome. And anecdotally, everybody, I mean, I'm in LA. So obviously I'm a little biased because everybody I knew out here cared about it. But it just felt like anecdotally, you realize how many Yankee and Dodger fans you just have in your life. If you're even whether you're East Coast, West Coast,

Those two teams and the Red Sox probably have the most fans. - Yeah, we went to the regular season Yankees-Dodgers game 'cause it was on Fox, and there was a ton of Dodgers fans. And I guess you can chalk some of it up to, oh, my dad was a Brooklyn, or my grandfather was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, and that kind of like, there is some of that still rooted here. Like how Mad Dog is like a old New York Giants fan.

But there was tons of Dodgers fans at the World Series games too. And Yankees fans are obviously everywhere. But I just thought it was awesome. I loved it. And I know I'm supposed to be a Red Sox. Well, I am a Red Sox fan. I'm supposed to be a Yankees fan. We don't count you in any way, shape, or form anymore. You're like a fucking Chiefs fan now. You might as well put a Chiefs jersey on. Okay. I love sports. You've sold your soul to the church at Nick Wright. It's fucking terrible. How?

I can't hate. I might as well like Aaron Judge. Oh, the Hobes. Oh. Okay. All right. This is terrible. He's a great player. I thought you were aligned with me. He's a great player. I'm going to be a fan of the great players. I'm not going to sit here and I already. Has anyone shed more blood and tears for Mac Jones than me? I'm out here. Get a little respite, a little breath of fresh air after watching Mac Jones. I'm still on Mac Jones Island by myself.

I'm still trading my own water, volleyball, all day. No one's here. Just me. - Mac Jones Island. Well, I was critical of Brady's Sunday broadcasting performance and even that made me feel like I was gonna get hit by lightning and I was super ungrateful. But to me it's apples and oranges. Now the sports career is over. I prayed to the church that Tom Brady is a quarterback and now it is what it is. - I'm still there. - I will say,

I do like that Mahomes has been a little odd. Now we're taping this before the Monday night game. So maybe he'll have 15 touchdowns tonight, but I do like that. He's been a little off this year because he said in this point in his career where Brady was just awesome year after year, except for the year that,

He blew out his ACL. And people are like, well, Mahomes doesn't have the same weapons. Well, I urge people to go back and look at Brady's weapons in 2006 and 2009. He had years where he had literally nobody to throw to. If the Chiefs go undefeated or if they lose one game, but Mahomes statistically, counting stats, are pretty bland.

But I guess there's other stats that we pulled off where it's like, you know, sort of must have moments, need to get it moments. And he's great in those moments, clutch moments. But if his counting stats are bland, would you give him the MVP? It'd be 16 and one. House and I talked about this on Thursday about what would their record have to be for him to just get it no matter what the stats are. And I think it would have to be 16 and one or 17 and oh.

How about 15-1 and they sit week 18 and Carson Wentz loses the game, but he only lost one game. 15... I mean, the thing is nobody's grabbed it. I'm going to keep walking you back. All right, how about 14? Well, I've watched every... I feel like I haven't missed a frame of this season. Lamar is the best player I've seen this season.

Yeah. And I think he means the most to his team. The record doesn't really back it up, but Lamar is just week to week. And I don't know if there's going to be voter fatigue with him or not. Alan is doing a lot too in Buffalo with what he has, but they, I, you know, they have some talent. Their schedule has been a little easier. Uh, what Lamar is doing week to week, uh,

I talked about this on Sunday's pod. I made the mistake of knocking that game off the multi-view with like 40 seconds left in the first half against Denver when it was 17-10. So I just thought they were going to halftime, forgetting that he could just easily get a 60-yard touchdown if he wanted to, which he did. And I felt pretty stupid. But he's been amazing. You don't care about head-to-head because I do. Like two MVPs going head-to-head, whoever won. So I put Mahomes over Lamar and I put Lamar over Josh.

I only care about it when it's self-serving to the team I root for, like with the Brady-Manning years. Brady would beat Manning, and I'd be like, look at the head-to-head. And then Manning beat him a couple times. It's like... It's one game. Way better team. He's got to have a Hedger, James, and Harrison win. I'm sorry, does he play defense too? He's supposed to be Travis Hunter out there? It's nothing to do with it. I think what's cool about the Mahomes-Chiefs thing is that we just...

Just immediately replaced almost in real time, whatever the Pats meant to the league year to year as this kind of arbitrary, you know, thing that's in front that you have to chase. And this is the team you have to get by. And when you play them, this is the game that matters the most. And this is the line you have to cross. And the Pats were that way for almost two decades. And then the Chiefs were like, okay, thanks. And that's who they've been since. Like even you look at the Lions versus the Chiefs and it's just like,

Yeah, I believe in the Lions, but can they beat the Chiefs? Like, you don't almost think about, I'm not thinking, can they beat Baltimore? Can they beat Philly? Like, it's just about the Chiefs. You know what, I realize it when I, this is gonna be a, this is like the biggest compliment I can give to Mahomes. When other teams have the ball with a chance to win the game, I will either think, A,

they're not going to do it or B, this will be challenging to do it. But if it was Mahomes, I'm like, oh, game's over. And everybody, you go to DraftKings or it's like, oh, or FanDuel or like, yeah, game, everybody thinks this game is over now and the Chiefs are behind. Right. But I mean, you know what? I felt a little bit like that with Drake May, a little bit.

I was like, oh, we're getting the ball back? I'm out of my mind. I've never been, we won six Super Bowls at May 9, and I've never been more locked into the week-to-week of the season, but I also think that technology is better. Watching the all-22 tapes of him on Monday, some of the throws that he made. You see what Drake did? Drake saw this, and this is why he threw it. Love it. Love it. His receivers are terrible. The play calling's terrible. His offensive line's terrible.

And he's doing 12 to 13 things a week that we've never seen a Patriots QB do some of the things he's doing because we haven't had an incredible athlete at QB in 50 years. Yes. What do you think about this, Dick? I'm like, how do I feel about Drake May? Part of me feels like a little bit of a stretch. How my parents view my kids. They're like, oh, they're like so excited to what they see. Like grandparent energy.

Yeah. Grandparent energy towards Drake May. Like I've already lived my adult life with Tom Brady, so to speak, and my kid life with like Tony Eason and Steve Grogan. And, and then a big chunk of my life when I was really in it with Brady. But now I get this, I, I've already seen it all. I've seen how it all happens. And now like Drake is like,

I've got grandparent energy. Like, look at this. This is great. Like, yeah, he lost. He fell down and scraped his knee. That's okay. He's learning. I can see it's going to be great. Like, oh, you're in for a great time. Grandparent energy towards Drake, man. I love it. Cause you've been through all the ups and downs. Yeah. You know, all the checkpoints.

And you're just kind of there to give gifts on the holidays and just be supportive and not overreact. But if you're a parent, like, oh, would you be worried about the interception? He threw a game-ending interception. If you're a parent, especially first kid parent, what am I doing? Oh, this and that. It's not a big deal. Trust me, he'll learn to clap. We freaked out.

because Russell, we're like, is he, this is a real conversation, is he clapping on time? We read some stupid thing. You should be clapping at, you know, 12, is he clapping on time? That's so stupid. And grandparents are like, no, don't worry about it. That's really good for him. That's fantastic. Yeah, the grandparent energy, you're talking about your little boy, your grandparent energy with little boys are like, they're all idiots until they're like seven. Don't worry about it. You're fine. I'm good.

Nobody's fired up about how mentally acute their four-year-old boy is. They're just worried all the time. Why is my kid so stupid? Grandparent energy, you're just like, hey, he'll be fine. We had a poop journal for our first baby. We were writing down... One of the best things with Drake, there's been a lot of great things, but

it really seems like he has a chance to be pretty special for like 15, 16, 17 years. And we having lived through that, knowing how long it is. And it was kind of happening with Tatum a little bit. Like Tatum had that first year and he went head to head with LeBron, he had the block on LeBron and the game seven made a couple of shots and you're just watching it going, this is a really good sign.

This is a really good checkpoint for him to hit. I'm excited for this journey. And then he kept like making the steps and then they finally win the title. But I'm just excited to go on that journey again with a QB because it was incredible with Brady. So the problem here is that the infrastructure, the IQ infrastructure of the behind the scenes Patriots, like I just don't trust it. Like, are they going to do this correctly? Like they have to get a left tackle.

They have to get a number one receiver. Like, are they going to know all the, once you have this, this is the number one gift you can get in football is to have a guy like this. Every decision has to be about maximizing this guy, which I love Belichick, but I feel like he didn't always do that with Brady, you know? No, he was just defense first. I think we're just trading down. We're going to have a great pick. We're going to trade down for multiple picks, probably be get, you know, bolster the offensive line.

And then I don't know how we're getting a number one receiver. Yeah, but if I'm the number one receiver, I'd want to play. I'm glad you're using we because the Mahomes, I got to be honest, the Mahomes thing really worries me. Oh, come on. Do you make right? It's like, it's like you're, you're going to Chiefs. You're literally going to Chiefs games.

- Going to Kansas City to Chiefs games. Don't think I didn't fucking notice. - I didn't go to a Chiefs game. - You did, you went to a Chiefs game. - I went to the Chiefs parade multiple times. - You did that too, yeah. - I went back to heroin. - Who are you? - I went to Patriot, I took my kids to Foxboro to see Patrick Mahomes. What am I supposed to do? Modern day Brady. - Keep it in check. We're gonna take a break and do half baked ideas.

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Inc. PNC Bank National Association. Member FDIC. This episode is brought to you by Paramount Network. Sunday, November 10th is the epic return to Yellowstone and it's only on Paramount Network. One of my favorite networks, by the way. What will become of the Dutton family? Can they save the Yellowstone Ranch? How far will Beth and Rip go to protect the family legacy? I bet they'll go far. Generations of blood have led to this.

Nothing will prepare you for this must-see premiere event, the epic return of Yellowstone, Sunday, November 10th at 8, 7 Central on Paramount Network. All right, so Wilds, ever since I've had a podcast, which was 2007, Wilds would come on and do half-baked ideas. And I don't remember the first time he did it, but many of them are on YouTube from the

08, 09, 2010. Then on this pod, when we brought it to the ringer, same thing, he's popped on. Now he's a busier guy, but every once in a while we have to grab them for the half bakes. And the concept of a half baked idea, it's not a fully baked idea, but there's enough in there that it makes you go, hmm, I like that. All right. So what's your first half baked idea? So I got a colonoscopy.

with the idea go out and get your colonoscopy if you need one. And everybody needs to get it checked out, the idea being you might think you're fine, but you might be dying inside. That's the concept that will run through this storyline. Also, hard stop, second part of the story. I know two families that recently got dogs.

And they're like, they didn't want dogs for a long time. We're not dog people, this and that. Then they made the jump, got a dog. And then, of course, they say, I can't believe we were ever in this house without a dog. Thus, the half-baked idea is, I'm calling it the, I don't even know how to pronounce it, get an Aryan.

OK, it's like veterinary, veterinarian. You have to go just like you have to go to a colonoscopy doctor every five years. Every five years, you need to go to a veterinarian. And it's kind of like a therapist. You sit and you talk or maybe they come to your house and you talk about whether or not you need a pet in your life.

So even if you already have a dog, you should have to talk about getting another dog. So every, you can go, all right, maybe you get a dog, maybe you get a cat, maybe you get a snake, maybe you get something, but it's an outside consultant that you have to go to every, every American. It's going to be in federal law. Every American needs to go to a get an Aryan and they ask, figure out if you need a dog that will make your life better.

- All right, so this is really interesting because I've had people in my life who've gotten pets and I just thought it was a mistake. - Oh, it could probably go the other way too. Like do not get a dog. You are more of a fish person. - Well, I think the Gettinarian should be really candid. - Oh yeah. - Like I've looked at you, you've been living alone your whole life.

You seem like you're having a pretty fun life, you do a lot of traveling, like you can't have a dog. The dog's gonna be alone, you're gonna be always like either putting it, like having somebody stay at your house with the dog or putting them up in one of those dog places. Like don't get a dog, it's mean to the dog, you travel too much. - Yeah, that's prime reptile right there. No you don't, but if you need a dog, so how many dogs do you have right now? Two? - We have two and probably gonna be two going forward. - Okay.

I know you think that, but you should probably go to the getting area and be like, hey man, we ran the numbers. You're actually a three dog household. I'm not saying it's a guarantee, but you should get checked out. My wife wants to get a third dog. It's very argument right now because we basically lost our kids. Like we went one kid in college and another kid who never wants to be home. It's just us now. So it's like a third dog.

Start thinking about like, oh, I've always loved those Bernese Mountain Dogs. Exactly. I was just going to say that. You know what you're going to get? A huge dog. Yeah. You got a huge dog with big dogs. Because you've got small, medium, large. Oh, yeah. All right. Do one more. Unless you want me to chime in with some quickies. I've got one more that I think you're either going to love or really hate, which is the key sweet spot for a half-baked idea. I've got an appetite to consume more media than I have time to consume.

Just like I have an appetite to consume all of the Sunday football games with, but I can't watch everything, you know, live. So I have red zone.

But shows that I've started, Gladiator I started, The Boys, Penguin, Yellowstone, those four shows. I've watched a bit of all of those shows. But I'm not going to, you know, I find myself, well, maybe I'll get the flu and I'll be laid out. That's no way to live, rooting for the flu so I can bang through all these shows. Yeah.

Some sort of Scott Hanson, Hanson zone, I'm calling some sort of Scott Hanson red zone thing where he's up there, but all right, let's go to the penguin. Oh, the penguin just killed this guy. Oh my God. Boom. Quick shot. Boom. All right. We got to go back. Now we're going over to Yellowstone. Oh my goodness. There's some real estate deal.

Coming back. All right, let's go to the boys. We're on season one of it. And it's just for you. Maybe it's AI, but I'm bouncing around. I don't need to see every little, you know, piece of plot. I just need the big moments. I can be conversant. I get a little emotional about, oh, my God, I can't believe, you know, Rip killed this guy on Yellowstone.

Red Zone for serialized television. - Let's go over to Tell Me Lies, where Brie has just fucked her professor, but the wife knows about it. - I didn't even know that show. I gotta put that on the list, I guess. That's Hanson's job. That's the idea. I really need this in my life. - Yeah, I don't really have any notes. I don't even think that's a half-baked idea. I think that's a fully-baked idea.

Thank you. And just like, you know how YouTube has, you can pick, they don't let you pick the multi-view. They're like, here are the four shows. That's what you go into. It's like, we're going to start season one of these four shows. Well, you're basically, it's talk soup. You're in there for an hour. This is talk soup, but you're now taking all the prestige TV shows, which we have way too many of. Yep. And we just zip it through. I don't know what's going on with the Penguin, but I would love to know just enough to be able to

chime in at a holiday party in two months. Be like, wow, I was stunned when he did that in episode seven. Yeah, can you believe that? Like, yes, exactly right. Drip away a lot of the art of it. Like, ah, here's the penguin walking through Gotham in this beautiful scene. I get it. But also, something that Hanson's taken out of the show for me. Boom, I'm out there, red zone Hanson. See, I thought you were going to say it's AI TV takes.

where you just listen to this podcast and they give you five things to then say at a, like if you're going to a holiday party. You're like, oh, I don't know if Tell Me Lies season two was as good as season one and here are my three points and it makes it seem like you watched it but you really didn't. That's way more of a half-baked idea. Yeah, there was an idea that I had for

Since the show is produced, we know what we're saying. We have notes and stats and full screen. Here's my point. Have I ever said this before? I come over and produce your Thanksgiving dinner.

It's like, all right, Bill, what do you want to talk about? Like, all right, I got to talk about, you know, the landscaping in my neighbor's house. Dinner producer. Yeah. It's like, all right, what's your issue with the landscape in every other, like these trees are too tall. I'm like, those trees are too tall. Like the average tree is this. I'm going to make you a full screen and say the average tree is this and this is blocking your view of whatever. Like what else? And this, and we've got lots, and I'm throwing stuff out there. You help with the seating chart?

- Well yeah, but I'm also just-- - Bob's gotta be in the middle, 'cause Bob can go either way. It's like on TV when the middle seat is an important seat on a studio show. - And I'm in Bob's ear, I'm like, hey Bob, don't forget, don't forget Bill said this the other day, stick it to him. - Right, don't bring up the election at Aunt Louise. - No, that's a no-go. - She'll go nuts. I have three tiny ones. I have two that I like, but I'll give you quick ones.

I don't even know if this is a half-baked idea. Full-service gas stations, just come back. Yeah, they got to move to New Jersey. But how many full-service gas stations are in California? None? Not really. Really? Everyone's on their own with gas. And I just kind of miss having the guy like...

do my windshield and just pump the gas for me. Apparently there's one place in Beverly Hills that does it, but I miss full service gas stations. I was trying to think, is there like a 2.0 version of those? Because they had those in like the 40s and 50s. Like maybe in LA it's standup comics who were doing gas, but they're also doing like three minutes of their act. Oh God. Yeah, I don't know. That's why it's half baked. 10 Day Westbrook. So Westbrook pops on all these different teams for a year and then it kind of wears out as welcome.

Right. But everybody's really excited when he shows up because it's like Westbrook, second unit, he'll be able to run the offense himself and he puts up all these stats and he'll change the energy. And each year a team talks himself into it. But by like midway through the year, everybody's like, ah, wish we didn't have Russell Westbrook. It also revitalizes your superstar. Like every superstar is like,

Russ changes the R team. Like Joker the other day, he's like, this is what he does for us. I'm like, all right. Does that sound back it up and he's shooting 20%? If he's just 10 day contract Westbrook,

He's just like Memphis right now is a bunch of injuries or New Orleans. And it's like, Oh, 10 day rest is here. Comes in. He's a hall of famer. He's padding stats, instant offense. But then, then you, you kind of, he just kind of leaves. It's like having leftovers in the fridge. He's just gone after 10 days. This will be the second Pulp Fiction reference, but kind of like, like the wolf.

Like West, like I'm here. Not like, not as confident. Yeah. Oh, we got, you bring him Russ. Oh yeah. Shows up there super fast. He's always dressed really well. And the key is he, so he signs with these teams so he can make like three, four or 5 million a year, whatever he gets. So 10 day Westbrook would just be more expensive on the salary cap. It'd be, he basically, he's basically getting paid like a hundred thousand a game.

And you just sign in. It's like, oh, I'll do 10 day Westbrook for four games. We got Jaron Jackson's out and jaws hurt and we need whatever. Great. And then I have a NBA announcer navigation systems. Okay. Oh, for your GPS? Well, just for specific moments, like when you're parking and you could just like switch to Ryan Rucco mode and he's like, he's going to parallel park in the back. Can he get it? You bet. No. No.

He's going to run this red light. Is he going to get caught? Bang! All right, what do you got next? I actually like that one. I actually like that one a lot. This one is super, hold on. This one is super depressing. You want a depressing one or a stupid one? Give us both. I'll start with the depressing one. Okay. We're trying to go to Hawaii for our next vacation.

I'll be probably after my birthday, so I'll be like 47. - That's a long way from the East Coast. Good luck. - I know. We're gonna pit stop and then we can go. Any of them. 47. - Yeah. - Prime funeral photo time for me. Prime.

Not too young, like right on my casket right there. What photo you got? It's that photo we took on vacation in Hawaii. I'm thinking about it. So right now, I don't know if there's photographers that specialize in this. So you get exposed to a professional photographer a few times in your life.

You're born. You usually get like a nice photo. Then K through 12, a guy or woman shows up every photo day. That's good. Then you're in a pretty much of a dry spell there until your wedding day. Boom. And then you're pretty much on your own. Like there's very few times that you're going to run into a perfect, maybe going down a roller coaster. And that's probably a robot, but that's it.

For all K through 12, your wedding, and if you're going down a water slide with a scary face, that's the only time you're getting professional photos. So when you die, your poor loved ones already have the stress of dealing with your departure. Now they have another stress of going through

How many pictures of me? 3,000 pictures on my iPhone? You got to go through 3,000 pictures and try to find the one? No. So they have to figure out your passwords. Oh, it's a disaster. Yeah. Like just a whole bunch of things and then a photo on top of it. Exactly. And I have a few things. One, got to be solo.

You gotta be on the casket, you can't have two people, like hold on, what happened here? Was this some sort of accident? - Or you have like your arms around somebody and it's like the cut off stump of your arm. - No, that's a no go. Gotta be solo, it's gotta be sort of a candid photo. Like oh look at this, which normal people have a hard time capturing. You pose on a photo, sure, but just like a candid photo and who am I laughing with? Like that person's taking the picture, gotta need a pro, gotta be smiling obviously.

And I need a lived life to the fullest background. You can't just have it, you know, just walking down the street at the coffee shop. I have to have, wow, oh, look at that. Remember he went to Hawaii? That's a great moment for him. And then part of me, and this is just an idea here. I have no proof of this. Part of me thinks that when you go to heaven or whatever you may believe in, and if you are a physical entity there,

that you need to put a recommendation up into the management at heaven on how you would like to be perceived. Right, do you want to be 28-year-old Wilds? Do you want to be mid-30s Wilds, 47-year-old Wilds? Yeah, because it's also confusing for everybody else. I was just thinking, Benjamin Franklin, he's 20 years old. I'm like, who are you? He's like, Ben Franklin. I'm like, Ben Franklin? Bro, who are you? And he's playing basketball. I'm like, dude, no, you have to be...

You need your specs. He's a stretch four. Yeah. He's just like this young, like strapping dude. Like, no, dude, where are your stocking? So anyways, it's, I called it taken, but since it's like the idea of the clock is ticking, TikTok, it's called, no, it's, I called it either weight gram, casket gram, or TikTok. But it's a photographer that only does funeral photos. So you consult with the photographer and he's, he's like, great spot at the top of this mountain in Kauai.

We'll get background, there's like a volcano over your right shoulder, I could do that. - Oh wow. - Or I'm thinking maybe hotel bar, just with a big drink and you're looking at somebody laughing and there's like the ocean behind you. - Love it. - Yeah. - Love it. I wouldn't do it honestly for that if you were the photographer, I'd be like let's do the bar because I think the clouds at the top, little too on the nose. So let's do the hotel bar.

good lighting and it'll be great. Like save it. And if you hear about my demise, let's, let's print that up. Well, you know how they have these national days that I hate. Like it's like national daughter's day. And then you have to feel bad if you don't post a picture of your daughter, because it's not, it's this arbitrary holiday that we've created five years ago. Maybe it should be, here's the photo I want shown at my funeral when I died day.

I mean, that's certainly there. Then whoever dies, you're just like, what did Wilds want first photo? Oh, that hotel bar one in Maui. Yeah. That's a great one. I really like this. This is good. This is almost a fully baked idea. Good. I'm glad. I thought that was going to be more depressing. No, I thought it was uplifting. All right. This is stupider. Okay. NFL game. You're going to the game. What are you wearing? Jersey.

NBA game, wearing a jersey. Soccer, wearing a jersey. Baseball game, hats and jerseys. Kentucky Derby, full suit. Kentucky Derby,

either jockey jerseys, little checkerboard action with the hat in the pants, or dress like the horse. Outfits where it's like, oh, nice markings with a shirt with a mane that goes down your spine. Like, oh, sick. You dress like your favorite horse. You don't have to wear a dress or some like fancy suit. Dress like the jockey. Got a shirt with a number on it. It's

Some of those shirts look great. Green checkerboard with like the number. So you think jockey shirt, almost like when soccer jerseys took off like 10 years ago. Yes. And all of a sudden soccer jerseys were the rage. Yes. So you're saying jockey jerseys happen out of momnia. I don't know about the horse part. Okay. Horse, you might not want to dress as the horse, but certainly you can dress like the jockey. They look great. And part of this is born. I started riding. I bought a bike. So I'm riding a bike in the first hurdle to get over after you buy the bike. It's like,

All right, am I really going to buy the, you know. Are you going to dress like one of those guys? Bill, I look fantastic. Oh, you're dressing like one of those guys now? Oh my God. Bill, I look great. Oh, I was going to ram my car into those guys. If you did, I would look great. It would be my funeral pic. And I was like. You're just sitting by a bike. They're like, that dude looks fantastic. And it's slimming. You're squeezed in there. You're looking aerodynamic.

You're in bright colors. You just look like you're out here living life. I look fantastic in my biking outfit. You just made me think that this should be an AI feature where I just get updates about my friends and everybody has to sign up and it'll just be like the Tuesday edition of your newsletter of all the people you know. Kevin Wilds, now a bike guy. Yeah. And that's how I just find out from the newsletter. I'll post some stuff of me looking like...

you look muscular in them it's like they're like spanks in there and once you start biking you start to get you know cut off a little bit it's great wow i can't believe you're a bike guy that's unbelievable but being a bike guy it's been fantastic the other part of this is and this is a half big idea uh subhead lower body available for uh fanatics

It's really like got basketball sneakers. That's taken care of. Hats. So, you know, tip to toe. That's taken care of. The whole upper body is taken care of. Shorts occasionally. But the lower body is there for you if you want to wear a Yankees pinstripe pants. Definitely wouldn't want to do that. Well, I'm just saying like the lower body is available for is an open piece of real estate for fanatics to jump on.

I'd wear personally, I'd wear the little jockey shorts, jockey and high boots. I look great. I have two that I really like that I'll go fast on, but one that's not even half big. It just struck me with the NFL trade deadline. Yeah. How much content we get from it, how I just wish it existed in other parts of life. Like it'd be like my wife, my wife and like all her friends. It was like Tuesdays.

Trade deadline. Might get rid of like one of my friends. It's like, really? Which one? Oh my God. And they just like the conversations it would provoke. My God, you're getting rid of Helen? Yeah. Well, you know, she hasn't been doing as much this year. She stopped drinking.

And we just go. Anyway, all right, here are my two. Can I spin one off of that? Yeah. I read a study. It was about like loneliness is like, you know, epidemic. It was like 58% of men haven't made a friend in the last year. A new friend in the last year. I was like 58. I would put that at 99. I didn't realize like everyone's like getting these new friends. Like a draft day of like, hey, you know, draft is coming up and you just call a guy that, you know,

your kid's, you know, a kid's, your kid's friend's father that you've seen, and like, hey man, I just wanted to let you know, I took you in the second round of my friend draft. We're gonna let you, happy to welcome you on board, friends, you're gonna invite it to, we're gonna go out for a beer or two. And like mandated, you gotta get new friends.

I always announce at the end of my year to my wife who my favorite new friend of the year was. But you're getting new friends all the time? Yeah, somehow I always end up with a new friend. Ah, geez, I'm stuck. I've just been rolling off. We're in New York. Everybody's just, it's like freaking Game of Thrones. I've been rolling with the same friends for a while. I'm like just trying to think of a team that's just like, yeah, we're running it back again. Like really? We all got a year older. I got to get some new blood. I'm thinking about, I'm like,

I met one of Billy's soccer friend's dads. - Could be a new friend. - Might be a new friend. Might be a new friend. - The parents of the kids usually end up being a very fertile new fan base of friends. - That's my only, you know, that's my only ground. A guy on the street, like, hey buddy. I did meet a random guy, like, buddy, we should be friends.

Well, it's weird because guys being like, hey, you want to go to a sports bar or watch the Laker game? All right. Here are my favorite two that I had. I'll make them quick. I feel like VHS players need to make a comeback. Vinyl came back, right?

all of a sudden vinyl is as big as it's ever been. It's like, man, that's weird. Oh man, I shouldn't have thrown out my vinyl. Oh, I kept some, oh, there's some over there. And now it's become this whole thing that's happened. And Sean fantasy for, you know, he's been a big physical media guy forever with blu-rays and DVDs, but there was this whole VHS era forever. And it wasn't just with buying movies and TV shows. It was also like,

you know, if you had a video camera and you videotaped like your kids or people in college, you just have these VHS tapes. And then all of a sudden the VCR player just died and you couldn't even buy them. And that you couldn't, that none of them work with HDMI cords. And then you go on Amazon and they like refurbish them and it all feels super shady. I just want them to come back. So then I was thinking, I also don't like

how annoying it is to have DVDs and to stand up instead of just like with my remote. I'm like, I'm going to watch something on Amazon. I just press a button. You like, you like, you like doing that. Let the scroll to find stuff. I would rather not move when I'm about to pick a movie, but with the DVD part, you have to get up. You have to go, you put the DVD in, you got to press the button. So then I was thinking, could they just have these VHS DVD players that are attached to the side of the TV?

So you have like this, you know, like these long thin TVs that would put on the walls. Maybe on the left side, it's like this little DVD thing. I just plop on the side. It's like a little VHS thing and it's part of the TV and that would encourage people to bring VHS and DVDs back. So A, that is not only a half-baked idea. I believe that is a full-baked idea. I stayed at a hotel. Oh, I broke the rule? I stayed at a hotel like in the Catskills and they had like a little library there of VHSs

And then it was included in the thing. And it was like literally part of the TV though. I think being part of the TV is, I think it was, I think it was one unit. Oh, interesting. All right. Bad idea then. Nobody has this idea. It's a great idea, but it's my best idea. Okay, here we go. So we're on these zooms, right? And sometimes you're on a zoom, uh,

And I'll do like, as you know, I walk around. So sometimes I'll be walking around when I'm on a Zoom. But then I was thinking it would be great if AI, which I think we're all afraid of, but also has some really good fertile things that could also help all of us. I'm more pro-AI than most. I was thinking if AI could basically replace and replicate my face on a Zoom.

So that the Zoom's happening and AI Bill is just there like nodding every once in a while and like a laugh. And it just can kind of react to the cues of the Zoom. But I'm not actually there. I'm just in another room. I'm not even on the Zoom. Or I'm on the Zoom, but I didn't feel like being on the Zoom. So I just did AI Bill for the Zoom.

And I'm just over there listening and I'm not really on the Zoom. AI Bill is pretending to be me on the Zoom. Yeah. It feels like AI is good enough that we could pull this off. And I think we should use AI for good. And part of AI for good is...

Let's figure out ways to cheat on Zoom so people don't know we're not actually on the Zoom. Can I ask you a question? Because I do very few Zooms now that are, do you feel the need that Zoom replaced conference calls? Like, why are you just on a conference call? Why do you need to see everybody? I don't, because it's a leftover COVID thing. People like seeing everybody. But no one likes to be seen.

Or maybe they kind of do because nobody goes to an office anymore or very few or less people go and it's like this is interaction time. We're in the, yeah, I guess so. You're in the office. You're having a typical situation. We're in the office and then with the Zoom that we have, everyone's camera's off. I'm like, we're actually just having a conference call.

The poor conference call industry is just really falling off. Conference calls are done. Yeah, dial in, press this pin, it's over. It's just Zooms now. Anyway, AI face for Zooms. What's work on it? What do you have for your last half bank? Are you going rapid fire? Just going to shoot three until I pick one? I have two. Hold on. All right. I have this one from Hutchinson was injured.

And he went to the game, and I said, sports bar. And he looked very comfortable as he recovers. So Godspeed, Aiden Hutchinson. Sports bar, but the seating looks like you just had major surgery. It's more of like you're just kind of being pampered. Oh, like an Alamo Drafthouse sports bar? Yeah, but it looks like you just had surgery. So you're really, it's really just, I mean, it's really short for...

It's a bar where you put your feet up and take your shoes off. I think that's where that's kind of the underlying current. Oh, interesting. Okay. I don't like self-checkout. I'm not a huge fan of that. I hate it as well. I'm like, all right, I have to work here too now. Not a fan. However, you like cook my own food at your dining establishment.

So all buffets, love it. Element of fun. The movie theater for my own sodas. Fantastic. There's like a yogurt shop in town. You can make your own yogurts, do that. That's great. Those like little like hibachi place, a little teriyaki where you like have a little open flame. Fantastic. Is I don't have this is a quarter big. Is there another food that is ripe for that treatment?

Where it's like, yeah, you actually go and you just do it yourself. I'm like, what? They don't do it for you? Like, no, you have to do it. They give you all the tools, but you get to do it. Like, great, but I don't know what the food is. So this is happening with pizza, at least with this 2.0 version of pizza, where they give you these giant, heavy, sharp scissors, and they just bring the pizza out and it's just a circle.

And then you have to cut the slices with the scissors. A bunch of people do it. But that's just like the ninth inning. I'm not going to buy when I come in and like. So you're saying like they give you the ingredients for a soup and you stand in the bowl and you like make a soup or you make like your own tomato sauce. I wouldn't mind being the guy who threw the pizza. Oh, you want to literally make your own pizza?

- Yeah, but I don't just like, a lot of times, make your own pizza just means throw some basil on it. I wouldn't mind, I don't know, I'm trying to find out the best thing. A very hot steak? I don't know. But I know I like pouring my own sodas, and I know I like, you know, cooking my own hibachis. So I don't know what the other-- - So a sports bar where you're grilling your own hot dogs and burgers. You just get your own grill.

Oh, that's not a bad idea. You get to the bar, so you're just on there, and then you're like Tony Soprano. That's what it is. It's a giant sports bar, and it's almost set up like pop golf.

And you go in there, it's like, here's your station. Here's your grill. Maybe you have like a huge smoker. Maybe you have a pig on a spit. It's like, this is your little area. You got to do it. And you're making friends. And you're like, hey, buddy, want to be friends? Come over. So you're basically like, you get to be Adam Perry Lang for like four hours. Yeah, it's high end. I got a big grill. I'm like, hey, buddy, because I'm grilling by myself. Making friends and grilling. You're like, you're competing other guys more for high end grills.

That's pretty good. - Can you get anything, like anybody have this? - Good, we solved it. - Kevin Wilds, you can see him on First Things First every single day. We're aligned on Drake May for the next 20 years. Can't wait. Can't wait to see your funeral photo. - Oh, thank you. - I'm gonna send you mine later. I think I have a good one from Hawaii last summer.

- Thanks. - I have a lay on. When you have a lay on, isn't that like, that's like bonus points. - Yeah, you're always having a blast. - Yeah. - This guy really lives. - Yeah, all right, good to see you, Wilds. - All right, good to see you. - All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kevin Wilds, thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti as well. Don't forget, you can watch all the clips and videos from this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. You can watch the new Rewatchables episode on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel. I hope you're voting today. I hope when I come back on Thursday.

to do the third podcast of the week. I hope the country's in a good place. We will see. Go out and vote. See you on Thursday.

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