Paul George Leaves L.A., GSW’s Murky Future, Day One Reactions, and Half-Baked Ideas With Kevin Wildes
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We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I put up a new Rewatchables Thursday. We're doing two a week now, at least for the next few weeks, because we've got to burn off some of those Rewatchables. 1999 episodes. We did Big Daddy last Thursday. This Monday night, brand new episode, The Naked Gun, one of the great comedies of the last quarter of the 20th century, and it still holds up, and it's still funny as hell, and there is a lot to talk about. I have a special guest host for that one.

Hey, if you care about the NBA, please check out the ringer.com, our website, check out the ringer NBA show, check out the mismatch, check out the ringer gambling show, because we're going to be talking about a lot of the futures on there all week as the futures change with all the movement. Kevin Wilds, my old friend is coming out to talk about all of the signings, all of the gossip, all the rumors. Did the NBA change? Did it actually not change? What happened to the Clippers?

Paul George, how excited should you be? A lot of storylines. It's all next. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, I'm taping this. It is 621 Pacific Time. All hell broke loose today in the NBA. It is free agency day, which used to be July 1st, midnight. And now it's like a few hours before, and it's always hard to figure out, but we had a lot of signings and a lot of things happened already. My friend Kevin Wilds is here.

You can watch him on first things first. You'll be able to hear all of the takes he's about to give on this podcast tomorrow on the show. You can double dip. You have my permission. Thank you. I'm going to also take some of yours if you don't mind. It's part of the contract I drew up. Please take a couple. You know what I'm thinking? No, it's like when you come over and I, and I have dessert, I'm like, take some brownies, like take a couple of my takes. I'm like, I'm sure. Thanks.

I want to start with Paul George. I was thinking about how last decade we really mastered this NBA free agency thing where like every year it was like a

LeBron in 14. And then it was like LaMarcus Aldridge in 15 and Durant and Horford in 16 and Blake Griffin and Hayward and Millsap in 17. LeBron, Chris Paul and Paul George in 18. And then 19, Kawhi, KD, Kyrie, Horford, Butler, Kemba, D'Angelo Russell. It was just the smorgasbord. And then somehow this decade, the big prize in 20 was Hayward.

The big prize in 21 was DeRozan. The big prize in 22 is Beal, Levine, and Jalen Brunson, who actually turned out to be a real prize, but we didn't realize it. Last year was Kyrie and Fred VanVleet and Dylan Brooks. And this year it's Paul George, who's been in our lives a long time. Really good player. I voted for him for third team all NBA. I had Clipper season tickets the last five years.

At no point during those five years did I tell my kids, let's drive down to Staples, Paul George's plan. But he's a really good player. He became the prize of free agency. Is this a Clipper story or a Sixers story for you? I think it's a Sixers story. And first of all, I felt like you were downplaying Paul George, who is several players' current GOAT.

So don't talk bad about the third goat. Is that true? Yeah. Several guys said Paul George is their goat. Brandon Miller said Paul George is the goat. And then we thought it was kind of joking. But there's several players like, no, Paul George is the goat. There's a certain window when you were coming up that Paul George is just cooking, I assume, with the Pacers. And people think he's the goat.

Unironically. So Paul George is the goat in some people's eyes. I assume this is a Sixers story, and I don't think he could go anywhere else that makes me happy. Well, because Orlando took themselves off the table with Contavious Caldwell Pope, which made Cerruti happy as hell, but now they're on the couch. Well, that's another story for my nuggets that I'm kind of upset. Well, we're getting there later. Okay. All right. It's tough.

I assume Paul George is going to Philadelphia. He's been on this low key ring chase since he left Indiana, where I always thought another story. It's like, oh, do you think if he if he goes ringless, let's say just fast forward Paul George's career. If he goes ringless, do you think that he looks back and says, you know what? I could have been like Reggie Miller.

I could have been the next guy in Pacers history and just been a one-team guy and just been a legend and got a statue. Right now, Paul George is just roaming statueless and ringless. It's a bad combo to be statueless and ringless and, oddly, also the GOAT. And...

Also representative of kind of what his generation is where guys bounce around now and they don't stay with the team. So in a weird way, he makes sense for where we've been. I see you're mentioning all this Paul George, big picture stuff. And you hit on something that I don't think he takes seriously.

enough, enough poo poo for, whereas Kevin Durant takes all the poo poo. But Paul George has been pretty like bouncy around ish, right? Going back to Indiana that last year ends up in OKC. Then it's like, oh no, he really wants to play for the Lakers.

Then all of a sudden he's re-signing with OKC. Then a year later, it's like, would you like, would you be cool if we traded the Clippers? He's like, I'd love it. That'd be great. And now he's not staying with the Clippers when I thought the whole time he just wanted to be in LA because he's from here. And now he's going to Philly, I guess to chase a ring. And there's like some weird lack of respect piece too, because they didn't give him one extra year. He's 34. Oh, I didn't, I didn't read the lack of respect thing. Oh yeah. That's a big piece of this.

Oh, I didn't realize. He wants four years.

Give him four years. He's Paul George. You're giving Kawhi years. You're giving Harden two years. Well, the Clippers put out this big statement today about why they couldn't come to terms with him. They put it out like 20 minutes before we started taping. It was this bizarre little, I don't know who wrote it. It felt like Balmer wrote it and then like a PA kind of spruced it up. But it was basically like with this new apron, everybody's just going to blame the new apron. And we'll talk about Denver and some of these other teams. Oh, the apron. So afraid of the apron.

Can I ask you a question about the apron? How much do I have to care about the apron? Can I just watch basketball and enjoy free agency? Or do I have to dig in and be a pro bono lawyer and learn about the second apron and the first apron? It's just, it's almost where I...

I take a right turn off the basketball fandom. You just don't want to be second. Second apron locks down some decisions in the wrong ways. And I think if you're going second apron, you got to feel awesome about your team, which to me, we have, we have to win a championship. We're going second. Or second apron. You're like, you're the Celtics. And you're like second apron. We went,

80 and 21 last year. And if we bring back these six guys with some role players, we're probably going to keep contending for the title. Let's pay the second apron for the Clippers. You know, you've had this Paul George run where he was there for five years, 2020 bubble round two loss to Denver and seven 21 made it all the way to round three. Quagga Quagga gets hurt, but they lose to Phoenix 2022. No playoffs.

2023, Paul George was hurt. Round one, lost to Phoenix. 2024, Kawhi was hurt. Round one, lost to Dallas. So they won three playoff series in five years. And we're fun intermittently for little tiny stretches, but for the most part, I don't think anybody will remember this Clipper load management Kawhi era fondly. Do you? No. It was half a decade.

Yeah, no, they're still like far behind Lob City as far as fun Clippers teams. They might even be behind Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles. Oh, sure. Whatever that season was. I'll buy that. I just, I never believed in the Clippers. I know there's pockets of the NBA that believed in the Clippers. I just never thought they were going to do anything other than be...

middle of the pack in the West and get bounced. - But then there was that moment last year when they were like, oh my God, the Clippers. - I know, but did you really believe in the Clippers? - I was one of the last holdouts 'cause I just don't trust James Harden, I didn't trust Kawhi's health, and it felt like belatedly that was the right thing. But there was a moment there, what were they, like 26 and five? - I just never, I just don't-- - They killed the Celtics in Boston. With the Paul George thing though,

won first team all-NBA, five third team all-NBAs, nine all-stars. He was the number three MVP in 2019. He's made the conference finals three times. Since 2016, when his first season, when he came back from the broken leg, 24, six and four, almost 40% from three. And yet he's 34. And I read that Klipper statement. I'm like, I don't really blame him. Year four of this, he's going to be over 50 million. He's going to be 38 years old. Can I read you the names from his draft?

Most minutes from his draft. Paul George, number one, 29,000. Here's the rest of the list. Descending order of minutes played. Gordon Hayward, John Wall, Eric Bledsoe, DeMarcus Cousins, Derek Favors, Evan Turner, Avery Bradley, Al Farouk Aminu, Greg Monroe, Patrick Patterson, and Ed Davis. He's like the last guy from his draft. So if I'm the Clippers, I'm like, oh man.

We couldn't even make it out of round one this year with this team. We're going to go all in for four more. I kind of see it from their perspective. I don't like it. I mean, we ran a graphic the other day. I pulled up his basketball reference that he had, he shot 91% from the line. He shot 52%. These are all career highs. What did he shoot? Last year. Yeah. And he shot 41%. So career high and three point percentage.

free throw percentage and two point percentage. So overall field goal percentage. I mean, is there a chance that he's like, all right, so you're not going to get the old slashing Paul George, Pacers Paul George, little Thunder Paul George, but you're going to get raw shooter,

And can't miss from the free throw line, Paul George. Little extension of his career. So you don't have to worry about so many like mile. 22, you're basically getting a way better Tobias Harris, maybe 22 to 23 a game. Really good shooting percentages, can play defense and has been in a bunch of big games. And at least for two years, which is effectively your window of the beat. I mean, Philly has to do this. They don't have a choice. What are they going to do?

They're on the clock with Embiid in general. They're all in. How open is Embiid's window in your mind? In what respect? By saying how open is his window, at what point, if you were running the Sixers, would you be like, you know what? Our window is now closing pretty tight. I think we're there. You're in the closing part.

I mean, MVP. And then the window starts to close. I guess I don't see him making, is he playing, you know, a hundred games? I don't know. You're playing 90 games to get to a final. He turns 30 this season. He's never had a truly memorable playoff moment. He's had a bunch of different injuries. He has a bunch of, you know, bad stuff to his body in the rear view mirror. That's not great. That never ages well. He's the center. There's stuff to be worried about. And if you're,

if you're daryl you're just thinking you know you pulled off this hardened thing where harden only wanted to go to one team you somehow got enough assets to at least like stay competitive until beat got hurt last season then you basically have the illusion of hope with your fans with the cap space like no no we got cap space the fans are like yeah we got cap space we're gonna be able to get somebody

And then they actually got somebody. It worked out. You think like going back to Ben Simmons missing those free throws in Atlanta and that thing cratering, turning Ben Simmons into James Harden, that thing craters. Then James Harden feuds with Philly and Daryl. He wants out. That craters. They have to trade him. They get this cap space stuff back. Usually this doesn't work out, but the bigger question to me is, is this the right fit slash city for Paul George? Because...

This is, he played in Indiana, played in OKC, and he played for the Black Sheep Clippers in LA where it's all Lakers all the time and the Clippers are kind of over there unless they're doing well. And now he's going to Philly where I think, how many, what is there, like

20 Sixers podcasts? This is 24-7. This is the moment anything goes wrong, people get mad. Are you counting Paul George's podcast as one of those? Now he's 21. Are there Sixers podcasts upset that he's taking Sixers mindshare? Do you think he called Tobias Harris? He was like, hey, Tobias, can you tell me about Philly? No, no. Well, Tobias, don't disappear.

Don't get paid a ton of money and disappear. You'll be fine. I think that's what Tobias Harris would do. He'll play hard. He shows up like he played 74 games last year. He's going to play hard. And I think he's going to work with him. I think it works. I just, it definitely works on paper. Well, cause the, this Darrell, and I've talked about this in the past where he has this three-star theory.

Right. This has always been how is ever since he had Tracy McGrady and yeah, it's like, if I could just get three stars, like that's basically what the Celtics did. And now there's so much talent in the league. I don't know if it's two stars and a lot of depth or whatever it is, but just fundamentally when Maxie turns into a star and you still have been beat and you have this cap space, you're just keeping your fingers crossed basically from February on that something bad happens with another star.

that you can sign, right? So Paul George was the logical candidate forever. They lose in round one. It's still like, well, they're not going to lose him. They're, you know, Kawhi, who knows if he's playing, like, but it somehow worked out. And if you're Sixers, you have to do it. I'm not being critical at all. I just wonder from a Paul George standpoint, this now becomes a big,

home run or disaster with no in between whereas the clippers he could have just chugged along made one more thing and and basically kawaii gets blamed if it doesn't work out right yeah but he's just gonna i don't know if i'm paul george i kind of want to take a shot at some point right like he's not doing like the clippers are not winning the championship and he knows it so i actually like it like like why don't i go to the east why don't i go to philadelphia and try to win

I like it. His legacy is so, for knowing him as long as we have, his legacy is still very much in pencil.

I don't know what it is. What's the defining Paul George moment? Some bad playoff games? Dunking on LeBron when he was 21 or something? So the Clipper fans would say it was the Utah series the last couple games after Kawhi went out when Paul George went to a whole other level. That was, yes. Theoretically, it's the perfect third guy to play with Maxie and Embiid because you want...

He can be a stretch four for them. He could play two, three, or four. So he can basically Swiss army knife any of those positions, a little like Jalen Brown at the Celtics. He can handle the ball a little bit for them. They can play maxi off the ball. He gives them protection during the game. You know Embiid's going to have the 20-game stretch when he's just out for like a month. And he's been in a lot of big playoff games. So for them, it's the all-time no-brainer because plan B was basically

Clay Thompson and Najee Marshall. I do like Clay. I like Clay. Oh, you're in on Clay? I'm way in on Clay. You're in on Revenge Clay? I'm in on Leadership Clay. This is how you win, Clay. A little Revenge Clay, but I don't think that Clay plays well. Are we switching to Clay now? I don't think that Clay... Okay, I'll save my... I don't think Clay will play well.

I think Clay needs to find another level of joy. Clay only plays well happy. And he can't play resentful, I don't think he can play vengeful. But happy Clay, if we get happy Clay, yeah, I'm very big on happy Clay. - I feel that way about myself.

Happy situations I just produced better. Yeah, play with joy. Podcast with joy. Podcasting with vengeance. It doesn't play it. Takes are angrier, a little pessimistic. It doesn't work. Tearing your jersey, getting into fights in the first quarter. It doesn't work. Can we play conciliary with Paul George? Yeah. To this point, he has not signed yet, but it seems like he's done with the Clippers. But Paul George calls us.

He's like, yeah, Clippers won't give me four, four years max. Philly's like dying to give it to me. I really love living in Southern California. I've enjoyed being on the Clippers. Do you think I go back East and I throw myself into this Celtics, Sixers, Bucks, Hornets nest where now once and for all people are going to know?

about me as a player, or I could just glide over here and we'll have made $500 million and done a bunch of great stuff and I can just enjoy my life, or I'm gonna do this. It sounds like we're both like, man, just know what you're getting into, but yeah, do the Philly thing. - This is what I would say. I'd say, Paul, first thing I want you to do, I want you to watch several of the, I want you to watch three Rocky movies.

Three Rocky movies. You start with one and then you can pick two other ones. Yeah. And I want you to really start feeling Philadelphia. Then I want you to put on some Meek Mill, Dreams and Nightmares, start to get fired up.

And then when you sign with Philadelphia, I want you to buy a Phillies hat. I want you to go to a Phillies game. And that's the way to sort of- So just you embrace Philly right away. Like Creed's my favorite movie. I've watched Creed a hundred times. You got to go all in very quickly. I'm a, I've-

This is a great sports city. I'm new here. We had some good battles when I was with the Pacers, but I'm so happy to be a Sixer. Also call Iverson. Do maybe go to the Phillies game with Iverson. Have Iverson on your podcast. Great, great.

And then you have Philly month on the pod. Four Philly people in a row. I want you to hit the ground running. And the person I'm taking this from is Drake May. All of a sudden, Drake May at the Celtics game. Drake May wearing Red Sox hats. Like, great, Drake May. This is exactly what I want.

You come in like, yeah, Celtics, I'm here. Like, perfect. You would have been at a Wizards game if the commanders drafted you. But now you're 100% in on the Celtics. Boom, hit the ground running.

It's a great point. Drake May, day after he gets drafted, shows up with all his brothers and his girlfriend from the seventh grade and said, I wanted you to meet everybody because this is who you get when you get me. And this is who you're going to have in your life for the next 15 years. The six of us. I was like, I'm in. I also need six Celtics jerseys. Six. Just give me every guy gets a different player. So Paul George, you're right, because the Philly fans, they've been hurt. They're bitter.

Just a bitter, bitter fan base. But sometimes those are the tough loved ones that actually like you just got to kind of win them over and just get. So he just needs to embrace the Philly thing. It can't be anything. He comes out of the gate and he says,

I never wanted to leave LA. I love Southern California. Yeah, it's great. I'm from there. Oh, no. Don't do anything. This is such a tough call. Like, it's just spin it forward, spin it forward. I've always admired the city of Philadelphia when I come here. The passion of the fans. Yep. Yep. I thought the way you guys treated Ben Simmons, like he deserved it.

- I have a special Ben Simmons take coming up. - Oh good. - And I know you have Clippers season tickets. - Yeah, unfortunately. - It's a Lakers town and I think that he would enjoy the idea of a city being that passionate about a team that he's playing for. - Oh this is good. So he could say one of the reasons I had to leave LA, the city belongs to the Lakers. I wanted to go to a place that lives and breathes and dies.

with his basketball team. I just missed that. I had it in Indiana. I had it in OKC. I just never felt it. And then you're like insulting the Clippers too. It's a little shot. It's just a quick shot. But it doesn't feel like that big of a shot because if someone came back and was like, am I wrong? Is it a Clipper city? Let's be honest. LeBron owns LA. The Lakers own LA. We're just over here. I'm just being honest. Now I'm in Philly. I do feel like there's...

He could also like float it out a little bit like James Harden, not fun to play with. Like just maybe a second, not directly tied to him, but it's like one of those, it's in a story three days from now. Yeah, I think it's like you can do that via maxi compliments. Like, wow, this guy just loves the game here every day. Yeah. With infectious joy. Thinking about making me better. It's nice to put somebody who's thinking about making me better. Well, to put a bow on this Clippers thing.

I'm not ready to call it the most catastrophic NBA trade of this century because I think it was the Brooklyn Celtics trade, which isn't totally the fault of the trade because Prokhorov does that trade. And then a year later, just basically says, we're not spending money anymore after they had gone all in. I do feel like if he had just kept spending money that Tatum Brown doesn't happen. Like none of this stuff happens that happens with that trade. It's really like a fluke. This trade was pricey when it happened.

They gave up SGA. Nobody knew who was going to be SGA. They gave up four firsts and two swaps and another pick. And just already, even if I'm not going to just read all the stuff that's in it, but already OKC got SGA and Jalen Williams from this trade. Yeah.

So already it's a disaster, right? And from a Clippers standpoint, you're like, yeah, but they won the title. Like the way the Lakers fans talk about the Davis trade. Well, we did win in 2020. We won the title. We made the Western Finals two years later. There is a remaining 2025 swap with OKC where Presti's now doing the Dr. Evil laugh. And then there's still a 2026 unprotected first left.

There's still an unprotected asset left in this trade and it's moving up the ladder. I'll just say that it's really bad. It's a really, really tough one. The SGA piece alone, the franchise, SGA and a second rounder. It's a disaster. Yeah. It's like, wow, I trade SGA. Nevermind.

Unprotected first 2026. - And a swap next year. Like what happens if Kawhi just misses next year and then James Harden does the James Harden thing and all of a sudden now they're like the 13 seed in the West. - Yeah, and then the lottery hits. - Really tough. And you know, I'm sure they didn't make the decision lately. The other piece with it is that they trade for Harden, who they signed today for 35 million a year for two years.

I'm not saying they picked James Harden over Paul George, but when you trade all that stuff for James Harden, then he's the one you end up keeping. So now you basically traded Paul George, the first that you gave up in cap space for James Harden, which is a bad trade. And then today they signed Kevin Porter Jr., which I was just like, what are you guys doing?

They do. Clippers just seem like they're the old Clippers again. But this is like, this is why the team's been cursed since they moved to Southern California. It's never worked out ever with this team. Not great. I'm glad that you have season tickets though, but not great. I'm not glad I have season tickets. Well, you should have just, I mean, at this point you should just get Lakers tickets. No, I can't. No. It's just, it's a better environment. Let's take a break. We have a lot more to cover.

This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. From tip-off to hoisting the trophy, celebrate every moment of the WNBA Finals with a Michelob Ultra in hand. The WNBA is so hot, we just launched a Ringer WNBA show podcast. Yeah, that's happening. You know what goes well with it? Michelob Ultra.

The taste, super smooth. Low calories and carbs. Why not save on calories if you're drinking a good beer? I like to keep it nice and cold. It's just really good. And you got the WNBA finals, like all kinds of crazy matchups. Might have the two best teams in the league playing in round two.

It's going to be amazing. We'll see how far Kate and Clark goes. You're not going to want to miss a moment. Stock up on Michelob Ultra for the WNBA finals. Michelob Ultra, superior light beer. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2024 Anheuser-Busch. Michelob Ultra registered light beer, St. Louis, Missouri. This episode is brought to you by Buffalo Wild Wings Go. Takeout and delivery from Buffalo Wild Wings is now Buffalo Wild Wings Go.

And for a limited time, you can get 10 free boneless wings from Buffalo Wild Wings. Go. When you spend $15 and use promo code, go boneless, which by the way, I'm a boneless guy. Sorry. I just love it.

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I really like the orange chicken and I'm an original Buffalo guy. And if I had to pick one, I would pick the Nashville hot because I like my mouth feeling hot when I'm eating boneless chicken. Let's be honest, wings, they are the one true football food. So the fact that you can get 10 of them free while you watch, I don't know, the first Sunday action when they have all those games in the early games, you're just flipping around. Maybe you got a little multi-view action.

whatever, eat some wings while you're doing it. It's awesome. Order takeout or delivery from Buffalo Wild Wings Go while you watch the games this football season. Enjoy your 10 free boneless wings and maybe enjoy some Nashville hot sauce while you're at it at participating locations for a limited time when you order in the Buffalo Wild Wings web or app. I want to play two word NBA, but do you want to talk about clay first? Because it seems like you have a lot of clay thoughts because the clay era is over.

And he's at the time we're taping this, it could be Dallas, it could be the Lakers. I wouldn't rule out OKC. Who the hell knows? But we did put an official bow on the greatest shooting backcourt of all time. One of the great backcourts of all time. One of the great runs we've had in the modern NBA. And my takeaway watching from afar was it seems like the right move for him. It's time to go. He just, that last couple of years, it was just,

One bad thing after another, he's starting, he's benched, he's carrying himself like they're the champs, but they're not the champs anymore. And it's just like classic change of scenery guy. Classic. So I think he'll thrive. You think he'll thrive? I don't know if I'll go thrive. Well, what do you think? You're more bullish than I am. If I could tell you he shoots 42% from three and gives you 18 points a game, would you consider that thriving? I think that guy's gone.

I think that's, but I think he shot well, like the, the handful of bad games, um, and the narrative around clay, like you said, bouncing back from the, from the bench to the starting lineup. Here is numbers. What do you shoot? He shot 18 a game, 39% from three, but here, here's the caveat.

Okay. I'll take that. They really needed his scoring. And because he was clay and because they had the history with them, they were over and over again, trying to get him going, trying to get him involved wherever he goes. If he goes to Dallas, he goes to Lakers, wherever he's going to be a complimentary player. He's not going to be, I just think he's moving into that Ray Allen, 2013 heat stage. Yeah. He might be out there in crunch time. I don't think he's going to be an 18 points a game guy turns 35 in February.

He's had an average. I mean, he averaged 17.9. You don't think you give me, you can give you 18. But let's say he goes to Lakers. He's not scoring 18 points a game in the Lakers. They have too many guys. Okay. Like that's down to like 10. Or if he goes to Dallas and Dallas is trying to score 130 a game. More conceivable. I would think 12 to 15 would, would be the range. Oh, 12 easy. His, the advanced stats with him weren't great. I think that was one of the reasons they weren't like exactly average.

devastated to lose him. That's good. He was 267th in net rating last year. Got benched a couple times. I was looking at his career from 2015 to 2019 when they made the finals all five years and they won three and came very close the other two.

And then he ends up getting hurt in 2019. He played 386 regular season games and 104 playoff games. So he played 490 games in five years, 98 games a year, almost 17 K minutes. And then his body breaks down right at the end of it. But he played more games in minutes than Curry did, than Draymond did. Um, and, um,

you know, had two of the worst possible injuries you could have as a combo. ACL, Achilles. That's like, the fact that he even came back and did what he did last year was great. But I think this is actually good for him to move into this new phase. Okay, I do too. And I'm rooting for him. I think you're right. Classic change of scenery guy. Sort of, the Ray Allen heat would be perfect.

The other part of this, though, so let's say we agree that it's good for Clay. Steph is on the record no less than maybe a dozen times this year saying, I can't see myself playing without Clay. How do you think this is going to affect Steph? So Steph retires? No, I don't.

I think you can see it now he's imagining it. My take is I think they knew this was happening since the middle of the season. I think they knew that that was probably the end of the road. He turned down 48 for two years before the year last year. Yeah. Whatever that money, I thought it was kind of like a respect thing. Well, that's the thing. I was going to play some, I was going to play two word NBA with you. New gimmick. Feel free to steal this. All right. Two word NBA, two word NBA. Uh,

My two words for Klay Thompson, salary envy. They made the classic mistake. Jordan Poole, here's your extension. Draymond. Draymond, here's your extension. Klay, we'll talk after. He's just immediately offended. It's like, really? We won four titles together. Where's my extension? What about me? I mean, that's basically what started the Poole-Draymond thing in the first place. So I think once that started, you get into the why them, not me thing.

And you're down when you've won titles with a guy and you're not taking care of them like you're taking care of some of the other people. It's hard to come back from. Okay, so then what are the Warriors doing? You're letting Clay go. You're letting Chris Paul go. You're competing for a championship. You're making some huge move. That's my next two word NBA. Coghlan's Law. I know it's a cocktail reference. Everything ends badly. Otherwise, it doesn't end. This is how it's supposed to end.

Here's the thing. If we did conciliary for the Warriors, what would we tell them? Blow it up. It's over. You're not winning the title. It's done. You won four. It was a miracle you got 2022. It's over. Start thinking about how you can build around Curry for the next part of the decade. This is a gap year. Throw it away. That's what I would say. I mean, you're probably right. Just such a bummer. I don't know. I felt like, yeah, I'm just kind of bummed out about this one.

Just bummed out about it. I don't know why. It just feels like I'm just a little bit upset of this is the team that has defined a generation. Now it's just ending with a bit of a whimper. Now we have the Celtics. It's been done, I guess. Here's how I'd put it. First of all, they won four titles, which is amazing. If they made the Paul George trade,

I don't know what was in it, but I assume Kaminga was in it. I assume Chris Paul's contract was in it. Yeah. Probably a pick, some other stuff. And the Clippers just didn't want to take all that additional stuff and it fell through. But if they had made the Paul George trade, I was trying to figure out where I would have put them in the pecking order for who wins the title, right? So the top five to me is almost unassailable. That's the top six. Boston, OKC, Denver, Minnesota, New York, and Dallas, I think are the top six.

And then Milwaukee is like seven with a chance to jump. You had OKC in there? Yeah. Boston, OKC, Denver, Minnesota, New York, Dallas as your six.

And Milwaukee's like right there. They're in the lobby. They're like reading a Sports Illustrated for kids from nine months ago, kind of waiting to get called into an office, but they're still in the lobby. And then the next three would have been Indiana, Cleveland, Philly. Now Philly's getting Paul George, so maybe Philly's eight. But I think Golden State with Paul George would have been in that mix. Now I'm looking at them. I have them 19th. 19th? Yeah. Yeah.

I have them after Memphis. I have them after Houston. I have them after Sacramento. I think, I think Houston and I'm sorry, I think Memphis and the Lakers are tied at 13th because we did a story on it last week. Oh, that's funny. I had the Lakers at 14th. So I had Orlando 10. I'm sorry. Orlando 11, Phoenix 12, New Orleans 13, Lakers 14, Miami 15,

And the Golden State is just not better than any of those teams. Memphis, Houston, Sacramento, Golden State. And I think they're right there with the Clippers for that 19th spot. And I would give it to Golden State. But they're closer to the bottom than the top. Yeah. And I just don't know. Like if I was a minority owner of the team and Lake was like, hey, guys, do you want to pay the luxury tax? I'd be like, no. So what are you doing? You're trying to buy. This is a gap year to try to free up money and get somebody else to play with Steph.

Well, that's my next two word NBA answer. Trade Draymond. Right now is the time. Gotta do it. You just gotta. You gotta rip the bandaid off and just do it and talk Steph into it and explain to him like we're gonna not be good for one year and we'll make it up to you. Okay, we've already done that a few times. I'm done with that. I mean, this is what I would say. How come LeBron gets to compete for a championship every year?

Why can't I? Why do I have to take these huge gap years? - You know, here's the answer. Because you never push us and prod us and work the media to make it so that we're under constant pressure to do stuff because you're Steph Curry. You don't do that stuff. So we're gonna take advantage of you. - Okay, I mean, that's not the answer I wanna hear, but I appreciate your honesty. - Basically, so what could they get for Draymond?

Could they talk the Lakers into Rui Hachimura and that Hood Shefino and a 2029 first for Draymond? I wouldn't do that. For who? For Draymond, I wouldn't do that at all. But I'm saying this is all part of a bigger thing of we're not going to be good this year. Sorry. This is how it's going to go. So let's just not be good. If Steph...

If I was Steph and I didn't have enough, you know, my morning coffee, I'd be like, you know, while you're at it, why don't you, why don't you grab some offers for me too? If you're blowing up the team and trading all my friends and the core of this team, I'm just trying to get to the playoffs. And I think I, it's the same with LeBron. Get me to, I get a team good enough to get me to the playoffs and let us do our thing. This team did not make the playoffs last year with, with Chris Paul and Clay Thompson. Well, how'd we do the year before?

They lost in the playing game. Two years, three years ago. I don't know, but I guarantee you these are the conversations they're having. It's like we're closer to 30 than we are to one. It's the reality of the situation. Then if you're going to blow it up, don't keep the best player. I'd be mad if I was Steph. What's the point of me playing out the string like late, late, uh,

Kobe era Lakers, like I'm kind of, I'm there, I'm on kind of a, I'm just finishing my career here. - He got his 22 title and immortality, so now it's a question of, it just to me seems like the era of titles in Golden State is, it's not over, but it's on a hard pause, and it's gonna be impossible with the team they have. - So when Draymond got thrown out, was it the Magic game?

Right? Is it magic? Yeah. When Draymond got thrown out and Steph put his jersey over his face and it looked like he was crying, why do you think he was crying? Because... I don't think he was crying. I think he was so upset that it's just been the season, two seasons from hell, basically, since they won the title. I think he was probably just frustrated. Okay, so now you're gonna... I don't think he would cry at anything unless it was...

Like the end of the sad movie where it's like, like that movie with Mark Wahlberg with the dog, King Richard, whatever it's called. Did you see that? It's a sad. No. It gets emotional at the end. Don't tell me. So, so either way, he's very emotional about it. It's not, they actually ended up winning the game, but I, to me that showed like, I still want to win and I want to compete. I'm not here to just, yeah.

So how are you going to sell me on like, we're going to rebuild? Like how? Like we're not sure we're going to trade your other favorite player. Look at their team compared to who they're competing against just in the West. No, I know. OKC, if they get Hartenstein...

Combine what they got Caruso and SGA and Jalen Williams and Chet. They have no chance against that team. Denver's Jokic who owns them. Minnesota, who was really good last year. And then on top of it, just add a Rob Dillingham is going to be super fun. Dallas, who has the best player in the conference other than Jokic and who's loading up as well. They're not in the conversation anymore. At some point, if you can't... We went through this with the Patriots.

Right. That Brady's last year where it was just clear that it was over. Yeah. And it got super clumsy with how they handled it, but we all knew it was over. Like when it's over, it's over. I don't see any way back unless they reset. Well then play it out. Yeah.

The last year, I don't think they would trade Draymond even if that's the move because of the Curry piece. I think that would be the one where it's like, all right, this is too far. That's my guy. You can't trade him. Like I'm, I'm, I'm ready. Like we run a thousand plays a game where we just know where each other are. He gets me open. It's fun playing basketball with him. I'm not just here to, I'm not going to carry the team all by myself. Does Draymond get more or less erratic as the months pass here?

Cause it's been, it was been a pretty erratic 18 month stretch. And I wonder like with age, does that get better or worse? We've seen it go both ways. We've seen guys get goofier. We've also seen guys like kind of mature later in age. And either way, he cannot have the year he just had. It's a great question. I assume he's going to be locked in. He wants to compete too. I assume he's going to be locked in, but maybe he has to dial up a level of intensity because these games are

don't have as high enough stakes. - Here's my next two word. Do you have any more Warrior stuff? - No. - Oh, we don't have Chris Paul? We were waiting on Chris Paul. - Waiting on Chris Paul. Next two word NBA thing. LeBron's PSYOP. So, LeBron's gonna take less money, this came out today, he's gonna take less money if they get a free agent that he wants.

He's not running the Lakers. The Lakers are running themselves. They hired the coach themselves. They're doing all the draft picks themselves. Yeah, he doesn't even weigh in on that stuff. He doesn't weigh in at all, even though they hired the guy he was doing podcasts with. And then Rich Paul, as Russell pointed out last week, was like, if we wanted them to take him at 17, we'd tell them to take him at 17. So now we have, LeBron will take less money if, so does that mean there's a list? Did he give a list of four people? Like he's like, I will take,

$15 million less a year of Klay Thompson, Caldwell Pope, and it's like two others. But then he could be like, but I'm not telling them what to do. No, I'm just telling you I would be willing to take less money. Also, does the free agent then have to take less money? My point is, why do we have to pretend he's not running the Lakers? Like, how long do we have to do this? How long?

Give us a date. By the way, he should run the Lakers. Well, I thought he should coach the Lakers. Yeah, I thought they should have hired Maverick Carter as the coach. And then LeBron could have just told him what to do. I think LeBron is player coach. I broke that take out several times. Everybody was like, nah. I'm like, everyone's like, nah, it's not going to work. And then I would say, why?

Why is it seven coaches in the last 12 years? He's the smartest basketball player maybe we've ever had. One of the smartest basketball players we've ever had in the history of the league. He knows all the players. He knows all the plays. Let him run the show. It would work. Well, the substitutions. No, he'd be fine. It's just weird that nobody's just admitting what the reality of the situation is for just all this stuff.

Even like as people are doing gymnastics, trying to like, I thought it was cool that they took Bronny 55. That's great. But then people are doing the gymnastics of, well, you know, that first day in the combine and he looked and it's like, just stop. They took him because he's LeBron's son. Like, why are we doing this? Well, he also did well in the combine. He did well for one day. Next, next two word thing. Unless you have any, I think the Lakers could actually contend for a title takes. You want to get off? I don't think that at all.

No, I think they're same as last year. I am a little bit worried. No one has talked about this, Bill. Are we worried about the Olympics taking a toll on these guys? Oh. I like the concern in your voice. The way you delivered that was chills down my spine. I see a take coming down the take highway of the Lakers where the league likes to throw some good games on the Lakers' early schedule. The Lakers start slow.

It's like, ah, the Olympics, you know? Yeah, maybe it was a mistake. A lot of extra games. AD was out there. You know, we won the gold. That was great and all, but, you know, it's going to be a slow start, especially after they went all out in the in-season tournament, and then they would go 0-5 or 1-6. It was the in-season tournament hangover. It was how hard the in-season was, yeah. And it hurt them. All of a sudden, you're playing Denver. So that take is coming around down take highway.

I guess we're going to have a lot of time to talk about it. I guess I don't, they, they basically have two different versions of the Olympic team for, from an identity standpoint. I don't know which identity is going to win because you have the old generation guys, the LeBron, Durant, Curry, you have all those guys, but then you have like this young up and comer generation and you have 12 guys and you have five spots and you have, um,

240 minutes total and i just don't know like how it shakes out i don't know who plays crunch time you know there's there's going to be some absurd stuff especially like if kawaii doesn't play and they have derrick white derrick white will make it if kawaii gets scratched and you have derrick white and drew holiday and it's like you know who could probably shut down the really shifty dude from some country we've never heard of those two guys so they're you know it's just gonna be uh

It's going to be, it's a team I would not want to coach. I'll just put it that way. No. Have you looked at, oh, you tweeted Team Canada. I got this take from you. Yeah, yeah. Team Canada. Although Zach Eaddy got scratched. I was sad. Oh, he is? Yeah. I thought Zach Eaddy would have been a monster. He's coming off the bench for like three minutes. Yeah. Legal goaltending stuff. I like that. Team Canada scares me.

Well, I had the, I had the Lakers 14th on my list, but we'll see if they get, I, you know, the connecting was great for them. You might be able to actually play a little bit for them next year. Um, defensively is the issue for them, which is so funny that people are like, they need shooting. They need shooting. It's like, that's not how they want in 2020. They won because of LeBron and Davis and defense. And a couple of people made some shots. Just, and they have a rookie head coach. Maybe it'll work. Maybe it won't. I have more stuff, but let's take a one more break.

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Feed your dog good food. Visit Origin. It's spelled O-R-I-J-E-N. Petfoods.com to learn more. All right. I have a couple more two-word NBA things for you. Title curse? I like that. It's like Jeopardy, where you just put it out there and I have to guess. You have to guess. I'll take the 2019 Warriors for 200, Bill. So the Warriors were the last back-to-back. Next year, Durant and Klay went down.

19 Raptors, Kawhi leaves. 20 Lakers, never recaptured it. 21 Bucks. It felt like Giannis was poised to win multiple titles. Now they feel further away than probably they have in five years. 22 Warriors, tailspin. And this leads us to the 23 Nuggets. Your Nuggets. The KCP thing hurt today. It was Bruce Brown last year and KCP this year.

And I get it. You look at his playoff stats and it's like, he earned eight points a game. He shot 32% from three. And, you know, we could probably replace that, but that's not the point. Like he fit in with those guys and he was an excellent defensive player. It's tough. So I don't know who's filling that role. They have some young rookies that they're keeping their fingers crossed on. And not young rookies, young players, like Watson, Strother, people like that. Yeah, I guess so. Christian Brown, he's been good. Christian Brown is...

He did okay. Did it look like he was ready for big-time playoff minutes? No. I would have preferred Bruce Brown back. They would have said that about half-court shot Peyton Pritchard a year ago. Now what's he doing? Taking five steps and sinking 55-footers in finals games. Yeah. I would like Denver to find one more guy that can create their own shot.

You mean like a Russell Westbrook? Thank you. If Russ signs and can just run the second unit, I mean, this would be ideal for him. This would be ideal for him. Well, it sounds like... Is it done? They did the mutual interest tweets. I love those. I like that. Any eyeball tweets? If it's not an eyeball tweet...

Last night, people were tweeting, Kevin Wilds and Bill Simmons have mutual interest in appearing on a Sunday night podcast together. And I just put the eyeballs out. Here's my take on Russ. And you've probably done this when you've been out with Jacoby. You know how people do fireball shots? Yeah. And it seems like a great idea and super fun. So you want to do fireball shots? Yeah, let's do some fireball shots. That'll be fun. Some multiple? Okay. Okay.

They win maybe another round later. It's like, yeah, those are tasty. Fireball shots. Sure. And then like an hour later, you just feel sick. Yeah. I feel like that's the narrative of, we'll bring in Russ. He can run the second team. And I thought Russ was pretty good last year for the Clippers for the most part until the playoffs when he was reprehensible. But isn't he a little fool's goldie at this point? Nobody has ever made this work where it's like, we're a really good team and then we'll have Russ.

And Russ will come in and this will work for eight months. We just haven't seen it yet. We've seen it work for four months. Yeah. I do like the rebounding. I love the rebounding. I love the intensity, of course. You know, the idea of like, can anyone unlock, like, how can you be super intense and not great on defense at the same time? It's, it's this odd thing. Right. So if somehow that can get unlocked later in his career, maybe,

the one thing with him that he did during the clippers game which i talked about on the pod especially the first half of the year was he would just come in and completely change the energy of games and maybe that maybe denver is thinking he could do that it's a tradeable deal it'd be like four four million because he would do it think about denver would also give up these leads sometimes like there's a point for having the mvp on the floor that

We couldn't, we, like, I don't know, I could just root it for him, but now I'm on the team. Denver couldn't stop the bleeding.

Mavs come back, regular season, that Spurs come back. Like, guys, stop. Like, stop. Like, it's just the energy was wrong. If Joker's off and Jamal Murray's off, then the other guys are definitely... Aaron Gordon's not going to just be like, all right, let me just get to the line and get a free throw. Like, no, he's not going to do that. But if Russ could come in like, all right, it's Russ time. I'm going to grab an offensive rebound and get one, get fouled. There's something to stop the bleeding. I think that would be helpful. So yeah, I'm all in on Russ.

This would be for Russ to play with Jokic. He would be moving up the ladders of most great teammates somebody has had over the course of a career. You think back to like, he was with Durant and Harden. Yeah. Right. And then he was with Paul George and then he went back to Harden and then he played with LeBron Davis and then he played with Kawhi and Paul George and Harden. Yeah.

He played with Harden three different times and now he's going to play with Jokic. She's basically played with like 80% of the meaningful guys from the last 15 years. And it's pretty good. One, one finals game. I don't mind it for 4 million. I love it. I feel like there would be more teams that would want to grab him for $4 million. Here's my next two word thing. Great guy to have in the building. Let's see if he can guess this one. Eighth grade. That's the only hint. Yeah.

Is it about like some like long-term pick, like somebody's first round pick? No. Is currently. I just think the NBA, my biggest criticism with the NBA is they're like a bunch of eighth grade girls far too often for me having went through it with a daughter. We're just like these little slates and people getting pissed. And it's like, you guys are professional athletes who make a shitload of money. This is an actual Brian Windhorst quote today. Shout out to Wendy air guy.

When they signed Kawhi to that deal, they never told Paul George about it. With the insinuation being he's had his, I don't know, he's been perturbed ever since. It's like, really, we're doing this? They paid Paul George like $220 million. There's just, you know what, I'm going to start, I'll maybe do half-baked ideas later in the show. I'm just going to give you, I'm going to give you a quick one right now.

I'm going to come in like Winston Wolf in Pulp Fiction. Yeah. And they're going to call me the communicator. Oh, yeah.

Like, hey, like before an office front office does anything like, hey, call the communicator. And I come in in a tuxedo and I run through a quick checklist. Like, hey, did you tell your star player? Did you did you did you tell the star players agent? Did you tell the wide receiver? Did you tell the quarterback you're about to do? Did you tell Walsh? Did you tell Wendy? Like, and we're all going to have it all coordinated.

So that the wide receiver's not getting traded and you didn't hear about it, you heard about it right before. Well, how come you can't weigh in? Like, it's always a mess. And these guys can never figure it out and people get their feelings hurt. Not anymore. I'm the communicator. No, you know how they have for movie sets now? They have the intimacy coordinators.

You're the emotional coordinator. - Yeah, but I have to be on set. Like what are you about to do? We're about to sign this deal. We're about to offer the deal. Not yet, we're gonna get everybody on Zoom. - Maybe it's just the title's intimacy coordinator. You're just on the set. - No, I think that's probably too much. I'm just a dull communicator. I meant to say that. - All right. I like that, that's good.

More two words, sunk cost. This got, Chris Haynes reported this today. The Bulls offered Zach Levine for CP3 and Wiggins. Yeah, what was the deal there? Why didn't they do that? And the Warriors were like, no, thank you. Which tells me that Zach Levine is now untradeable on a sunk cost because you had the Warriors who were like, we have more money than God.

We've paid the luxury tax every year for seven straight years. And we can basically, cause we're losing Chris Paul anyway, we could turn Andrew Wiggins into a guy who scored 25 points a game for the last nine years. No thanks. That was a strange one. I think that speaks to his value though. It makes me think the bulls are going to be stuck with them either way. Um, let's do Chris Paul and Wemby.

Oh yeah. So Orlando gets KCP and I'm super excited for our guys to Rudy because I'm thinking Chris Paul is in play now for Orlando and there's, you know, they're 50 to one on Fandle right now. It's like, I'm not saying they'll win the title, but 50 to one. Yeah. Could they, could they be like a two seed?

You know, if they got Chris Paul and Paolo jumps, Franz learns how to shoot threes. Franz takes over the Olympics. Germany has a couple upsets. Like there's a roadmap for stuff to happen. Holy cow. But then Chris Paul goes to the Spurs. And that was even more delightful and more exciting. So I love this. What do you, when B1, they, when they were tanking, they won 22 games. Then they get the best prospect since LeBron and they won 22.

22 games. Well, I mean, they really tried hard to lose those 22 games. They had no point guard and they played G leaguers for the last six weeks of the season. So what does success look like now that Castle with law from UConn, but they traded Dillingham. So it felt like, all right,

Are we not? Are we just telling them we want to just still send stuff towards the future? By the way, I'm glad you brought that up really quick because I did the pod on Wednesday night and I didn't like the Dillingham trade. And as I've had time to marinate it and think about it, it actually makes me mad. I don't know why they didn't just keep them.

Now they have Chris Paul. I like it. Well, one rookie, one veteran. You know what would have been cool? Chris Paul could have taught Rob Dillingham how to do stuff like he did with Shea Gilgis-Alexander for that year they had an OKC together. And Shea's like, that was the most important thing that ever happened to me, being with Chris Paul for a year. So I love it. But what does success look like for Wemby? Be basically last year's Rockets? Like, hey, we might make the play-in. We did this Ringer Top 100 thing. And...

I had Wemby at number 10. I was like, I'm just not ever not having him in the top 10 for the rest of my life if he's healthy. Who's he sandwiched between? Do you know? Do you remember? I can look it up. I had him. He was ahead of Donovan Mitchell, Wemby Yama 10, Davis 11, Durant 12, Mitchell 13, Jalen Brown 14, Jamal Murray 15, and Bede was nine.

Okay. Where do you have Jalen Brunson? You have Brunson top? Oh, I had Jalen Brunson six. Okay, good. Yeah. Good. Yeah, I like that. I think that's fair. I mean, he could hit top. I'd have to do it. I think he could easily move up, though. He'd be better than Embiid. You know Kevin O'Connor, who works for the Ringer? Yeah. He had a couple insane Wemby takes. I almost...

I almost texted him to make sure he was all right. It's hard to have a take that's too hot on Wemby. Well, he texted 26, 12, six and four for Wemby Yama this season, all-star on the defensive player of the year. I'm like, all right, I can buy that. But then he said, I could be underestimating him. By the second half of the season, Wemby might be at 32, 13, eight and five. I'm like, okay, I'm going to send you some Tylenol. I mean that if he,

Could he do that at some point in his career? I'm gonna say yes. But in year two with the team he has, I'm gonna say no. It's really hard. - We went and saw him at the Garden. And he's thoroughly outplayed by Hartenstein. Thoroughly outplayed.

But that was early in the season. Then, I don't know, when he turned the corner, he's kind of like figured it out and he just kept figuring it out all the way to the end of the season. He's like AI. It's like how AI can figure out our habits. It's a hundred times better than it was last week. Yeah, he was...

That stretch he had in that last game that ended up knocking Denver out of the one seed. Yeah. When he scored the 17 points in three minutes, that was like, holy shit. Yeah. So now he has a point guard. Castle will be awesome for them immediately, at least on defense. Yeah. He just, he's out here working with Jamal Crawford. I think he's going to be,

Unbelievable. But can you... What's a fair expectation? Am I allowed to be disappointed if they win 30 games? I think so. I'm having a hard time like this...

All-time great prospect. Like, I know LeBron didn't make the playoffs early on either, but still. The history is it happened sooner than you think. And that was why I was so bullish on OKC last year where I was like, I thought they were going to win 50 games, the whole thing, because it usually moves faster, especially with young legs. They're healthier. They're more durable. I had San Antonio...

When I did that tiers, I had Memphis 16, Houston, Sacramento, Golden State, Clips, San Antonio as my next six. And that's why the West is so hard because you think like none of those are even the top teams in the West. I know. Like the teams I just ratted off, like you have OKC, Denver, Minnesota, Dallas. There's four. Then you have Phoenix, New Orleans, and the Lakers. There's seven. And then you have Memphis, Houston, Sacramento, Golden State, Clips, San Antonio, just for the eighth seed.

So what success? - Yeah, they're probably all there. - Probably 35 wins and some fun upsets, right? - 35 wins, I want more of that. The Rockets went 41 and 41. You could be the Rockets, they had a nice little win streak. You should be just as good as the Rockets. Got a great coach, now you've got a veteran. - I don't know if the Rockets had more depth though. - Yeah. - Yeah.

Although the Rockets might go backwards this year because your guys, Shangoon's coming back and it's Jalen Green's team now. It's going to be a tug of war. It's going to be like New Jack City. No. So there, it'll be, it'll work perfectly. Don't worry about that. I don't know. We'll see. Well,

You see the Shingun for Durant trades started to pop up. When did that happen? That popped up like, whoa, that was a little, whoa, that was a little, whoa, peripheral, whoa. I don't think, whoa, he's ever mentioned it, but then people took that and splintered off Shingun for, whoa, Shingun for Durant. I started to get nervous. I was thinking that was the one, the Warriors are never trading Curry. I'm just going to say that. But if Curry ever said, you guys have to trade me, it's,

less teams than you think, but Houston would have a godfather offer possibility because of all the picks they have. They have Shepard and they have Shingun and all their wings. Like they could just go. He'd have to, Draymond would have to be in the deal. It would have to be the two of them.

But they're never trading Steph Curry. I think the Warriors would rather just suck every year than trade Steph Curry. And that's how they should feel. That's how we would have felt about Larry Bird way back when. Yeah. Like I'd rather suck and have Larry Bird retire with us than. Yeah. And that's what hurts Clay's feelings though. So that's why. You know, though, I'm glad you brought this up. I did the research on this. I wanted to figure out, because I think Clay's a top 100 guy. He made my pyramid. Yeah. Number 77. Oh, top 100 all time. All time.

Yeah. All time. I looked up how many top hundred guys played for one team their whole career. And it's about 30%. The guys move. Like you had the top level of the MJ, Russell Bird, Magic, Kobe West. Those guys don't move. You don't count MJ moving? You would give that one. Oh, I guess I have to cancel that one. Yeah. I kind of don't count the Wizards, but I guess I have to. All right. Sorry, MJ. You're out. You're out.

But then when it's basically like every tier, like half of them, but then when it gets to the guys like over 50, like in the, in the clay group, it's really only Reggie Miller, Joe Dumars, Manu and Tony Parker were the guys that like his level that actually just stayed the whole time. A lot of times these guys bounce around and we're just, it's how it goes. Even Pippen played with Portland and Houston and Chicago. Yeah. He needed to go get his money.

This is just, eh. All right, that's Clay. I'm just bummed out. I'll be happy when he's doing well. Well, I'll tell you where I'm not going to be happy. It's if he goes to the Lakers because I love Clay Thompson. I don't want the Lakers to have somebody I like. They already have Austin Reeves who I like and that's been tough enough for me. I think I would like to have him

I would like to see what JJ draws up for him. He's like, oh, like just JJ would just like a pure shooter. It's like, oh, this is my favorite one. Clay, do you like this? He's like, yes. Great. Also, this will be to your listeners.

The dumbest reason ever, I want to see Klay on the Lakers. Also just kind of want him in a yellow jersey. Yellow uniform. Just yellow jersey. It's like, ah, yeah. I kind of like that. Good. Cool. Gold. That's perfect. So Rudy says that Woj said LeBron James called Klay Thompson right at 6 p.m. He's not running the Lakers though.

He's just calling him. Check in. But there's another Klay Thompson piece, which is why I think the Lakers would have the inside track as his dad. Yeah, I think that's nice. Yeah, I think that's kind of a significant, like everyone's like, oh, I could go to Dallas. It's like, if he can go to the Lakers, he's going to the Lakers. That's the only way, leaving Golden State, same way like if Curry ever leaves the Warriors, I think it would be Charlotte. God, I know that would be a nice story theoretically, but that'd be horrible.

Charlotte's coming back, man. They hired a good coach. Got Brandon Miller. Okay. I guess so. The only other free agency things, I think we hit every single thing that happened, right? Did we miss anything? Oh, there was a couple of funny ones.

Valanchunas went to the Wizards for three for 30, which I just loved. We always need like a weird one where you're like, wait, what? Yeah. Who went? I thought three for 30 was actually an okay deal. Pretty good deal. Yeah. Tradeable. Um,

Quickly went to Toronto re-signing for five for 175. And I honestly don't fucking know what Toronto's doing. That happened before today, but they're shelling out $460 million for Emmanuel Quickly and Scotty Barnes. I probably would have not signed off on that.

And then the other weird one was Patrick Williams back to Chicago for five years, 90 million. What is Chicago doing? I just don't. What are they doing? So I thought that was pretty, pretty strange as well. And then the only other thing we didn't talk about was the DeJounte Murray Pelicans trade, which I really liked. I thought he was exactly what they needed. I 100% agree. But I don't know what to think of the Pelicans trade.

I'm just, well, they need a center and they need to trade Brandon Ingram and everybody thinks they're trading him to Sacramento for, I guess it would be like Harrison Barnes and Kevin Herter and picks and basically dumping them. They lost Daniels in the Murray trade. They lost a couple of their weaker picks their team right now. Zion Murray, Herb Jones, Trey Murphy, McCollum, Hawkins, Alvarado and Ingram. Alvarado said no size at all. Um,

What's Hartenstein doing? I'm just, I'm just. Well, that's the other thing we should talk about is the, the biggest thing that will happen is if OKC gets Hartenstein, because we can talk about all this, all these, this guy moved here, this guy's here, Clay's going to be on this team. But like, if they end up with Caruso and Hartenstein this summer with the team they had with how close they were to beating Dallas anyway, in a series that really came down to, I said like four rebounds and one dumb play in the corner and,

two made threes. Um, to me, they're the favorite in the West. Cause that's now you have a complete team. You have a top five guy and Denver's weaker. Minnesota. We'll see. We'll see what Dallas does, but like just right now I'd have, okay. See, is the team I felt the safest about. Cause I thought they were right there with Dallas, man. Yeah. You're probably right. It was just an, yeah, I feel I have to, I'm still in like a Denver, uh,

You know, I'm in a Denver malaise. Let's talk about that. We'll take one more break. Denver malaise and then half-baked ideas. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. It's football season. You can now get almost anything you need for game day delivered with Uber Eats. What do we mean by almost? Well, you can't get a running back delivered, but you can get baby back ribs delivered. A field goal? That's a no. But a honey butter dinner roll? Oh yeah, that's a yes. A six pack of abs? Definitely no.

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All right. So I know we didn't hit absolutely everything, but I have a podcast Tuesday and I'll try to do winners and losers for anything we missed. Let's talk about the Denver malaise. Cause I think both of us are seeing this the same way. It talks about a little on the title curse stuff where Milwaukee had this window with Giannis, then they jump and they do the Dame trade and they hire the wrong coach. And last year's a throwaway. And now they're really kind of on the clock with that. I don't feel Denver still has that foundation of

Those four guys that play really well together. But KCP was the fifth. Now they're going to play roulette with that swing spot. But just in general, it doesn't feel like they're adding. It feels like they're kind of surviving with what they have. And I think all of us are looking at it going, you guys have Jokic. What are you doing? Yeah. But I don't know what move they're exactly supposed to make, but it seems like we're in an odd time in the NBA where all of the MVPs are

So the last guys who have shared the MVP, Joker, Giannis, and Embiid are all kind of on the outside looking in for either their second championship or first if you're Embiid. And it's going to be, and you think it's going to be Celtics, well not, you think it's Celtics and OKC right now as your one-two? Yeah. If you're looking at the East, it would be Celtics, Knicks, and then we'll see what the Sixers and Bucks look like.

If you're looking at the West, it's OKC, Denver, Dallas, Minnesota, all kind of clumped together and kind of pick who you think is the safest bet, whether the one seed will matter with them. But I just, I think OKC getting there, a little like what happened to 22 Celtics, like the experience they had last year is going to really help them, you know, and solving the giddy issue, which I think was a real issue for them because he wanted to start and, you know, they had a little bit of a chemistry thing. They fixed that.

If they can get Hartenstein, I feel like that's as complete of a team as we're getting in the West. And they have some good advantages, 'cause SGA's contract is still cheap for a superstar. Jaylen Williams is still on a rookie contract. So is Chet. This is very similar to that 2012 window they had with all those guys. - Yeah, so I like, going back to Denver, I like the idea that Denver's like, we just won, we're fine, we just need to get healthy.

If Jamal was at full strength, we probably win again. Yeah, we were up 20 in a game seven and we blew it because we kind of ran out of gas. Yeah, if we were healthy, we'd be good. And we ran into, you know, there's an element of like that team getting smashed, you know, was a game. What game was it? Game six, they got smashed.

Yeah. Yeah. Like that left a bad taste in my mouth. And then I'll be giving up the big lead left a bad taste in my mouth. So is that just bad luck? Is that just injuries or does that need to be remedied through a personnel decision? And maybe that's for us. Maybe I'll feel fine. Now, if I'm honest, on the other hand, like, man, all these guys are making moves. What are we doing? We feel like we're even further away than we were last year.

Yeah. Their first round pick was weird this year where they took like this total project who probably can't help them for a couple of years. And meanwhile, the Lakers got connect who can at least come in and make some threes, you know? I'm still, I'm still, I'm going to believe in Jamal Murray once he's healthy. So I think I might get back on the Denver train, but not ready to make any official predictions. Would you say he's, I think got one more year in his deal?

He hasn't signed it yet. I assume that's getting done. I assume this is all a formality. That hit your worried meter? I just didn't realize it was one year left. You never know with these dudes. The variable of having won the title...

to me, takes all the bets off the board. I know it's great to keep winning in the same place. And in his case, like he plays a world Yoko, but I just think when, when people have rings, they just think slightly differently about it. Kyle Kuzma factor is a gas. Yeah. They want, they're not shit. What are they chasing now? They're chasing the, you know, security as much money as they can make. I assume he's going to stay, but.

What if Jokic is like, yo, man, two years from now, I'm retiring from the NBA and I'm going to be riding horses in Serbia. That's my plan. And me and my brothers are opening a bar. I just want to give you a heads up. 2027, I'm out of the league. So Jamal Burr is like, cool, thanks for telling me. That's good. Let's go hard for two years. I'll extend for three years. I'll do a one-on-one. Yeah, we'll be fine. Are you buying the Knicks? Yes, 100%. 100%.

It's a team that, you know what the Knicks remind me of a little bit? How, and this is a half-baked theory, so you can refine it. One of the things that makes football great, the Ravens play like the Ravens. Whether if you were in a coma for the last five years, you wake up, you're like, oh yeah, Ravens football. That's great. And Sean McVay's doing his thing, and the 49ers are, I mean, they've changed a little bit. The 49ers are playing like the 49ers.

Tibbs is coaching a team that feels totally unique in the NBA. We're going to play everybody more. We're going to play tough defense where we are not going anywhere.

on a, we're not building the roster through basically stars blind dates. Like, Nope, we're taking a bunch of friends and we actually have proof of concept at Villanova. So I like that. It's a SIG, a signature look and feel of a team that reminds me of football. Can I zag? Yeah, go Julius Randall. How are they going to figure that out? Not sure. No, I'm a 24 and 10 guy.

- What about me? This whole Villanova thing's cool and all, but I'm over here. - Hey, go wild. He's always getting invited to watch the Wildcats. He's like, "No, guys, I don't." - Yeah, I'm not. - I'm more of a Kentucky guy. - I went to Kentucky, yeah. No, that's what I'm gonna be doing all summer, 'cause the Knicks fans, and I'm really happy for them. I was thinking about my friend Goldman, who died in November of 2018, and just saw nothing happy at all. And then within a couple years,

this flips and now it's like one of the most likable, not only NBA teams, but probably one of the most likable New York teams in a while. Oh yeah. So I, I, I don't want to like give my Knicks fan friend shit. Cause I'm really happy for them. But at the same time, if they're chest puffing too much, you just throw the, so what's going to happen with Randall, you think? And then it's just kind of like, ah, I'm fine. There's something else like in its simplicity of just like,

We show up to work every day. Yeah, we roll up our sleeves. Like, we're playing. Like, Dale Bridges is like, I haven't missed a game since I was eight years old. It's just, there's like, yeah, we play. Like, why? Because I'm not going to miss a game. You guys need me. Like, the fans are here for us every game. So it's just really relatable and awesome.

Yeah. Bridges is, I mean, he's even more durable than Jalen and Tatum who are like the most durable wings of the league. Bridges just literally doesn't miss games ever. It's going to be great. It's going to be great. Yeah, it's good. The best thing, when you think about next year, which I think is going to be really fun in a lot of ways, just from the unpredictability angle, unfortunately,

The, you know, the Lakers are just going to dominate everything, which I'm just, I just guess we all have to accept. Like even today ESPN did their free agency special and the first 15 minutes were about the Lakers. I'm like, Hey, Paul George, any info? But you did, you produce shows like that and people want the Lakers are the red meat, right? Yeah. The Lakers, you know, the marquee franchise, Cowboys, Yankees, Lakers.

That's it. Can't go wrong. I get it. Everyone's interested in the Lakers. Everybody's interested. But it'd be nice if New York got to be at that level. I mean, it's New York. Well, when I think about this season and the West is going to be so much fun with all these great players and then you have this

you know, assuming Paul George, we still don't know if he's officially signed, but you have this Celtics, Knicks, Sixers battle now with like stars and like every game's going to feel like it matters. And it's just going to feel like out of like the seventies and eighties when those teams were going at it with each other. And we haven't had, we haven't had the three of them going at the same time. I don't even remember the last time.

Can I say one final thing? Yeah. It's so weird we've done this whole podcast for, I don't know, almost two hours. No, it's hour 15. Hour 15, sorry. Yeah. And if I was Giannis listening to this podcast, I was barely mentioned? I'm probably the best player. I have a ring. I had an off year.

Off two years. He didn't. He had a really good year. His team had a rough year. Yeah, my team did. So it just feels like he's just on the outside looking in here. And it's just, it's strange. It's like, ah, it's going to be Philly, New York, Boston. What? I'm the best player in the conference. It's the same problem the Lakers have and the Warriors have where the league has gotten so young and athletic and

Just these, when you look at like the Knicks and OKC and the Celtics and it's like, how do you compete with that? And it's, if you don't have like wings and athleticism in that way, that's what's going to sink the Lakers ultimately. Like clay looks great on paper. Oh, cool. We got clay, but they're still going to have the same problem they had last year where they're going to have trouble defending basically anybody that

You pick like Tatum, Luca, Durant, like they're, they don't have anyone on the roster is going to be able to handle those guys. If I'm honest, I'm like, go back to stars. I'm a, you know, movie stars. Well, he needs a day. No, he needs the Dame, like all time comeback season.

Like the, I went through a divorce last year. I got traded. I doc said on my podcast, how he wasn't in shape over the summer in the right shape. I was afraid he was going to get traded. So you just have Dame now in Rocky four log cabin mode. And those two guys just lighten it up. I'm with you. I think Giannis is a maniac and he's just out of the dialogue now. Underrated at this point.

Where do you think they rank in the Eastern Conference for betting odds right now? What do you think they, I'm going to look this up as we're talking. I think they are. You think they're third? In the Eastern Conference, it goes Celtics, New York. I mean, yeah, I guess they're third. Celtics, Knicks, Sixers, plus 460 right now. Knicks are plus 420. Celts are plus 135. And Milwaukee is 701.

And Cerruti's Magic down to 20 to 1. A little magic action. Yeah. Wow. Whiff of magic. Cavs 20 to 1. Heat 24 to 1. Don't count them out. Heat culture. I'm actually going to count you guys out. Thanks. Cavs 20 to 1 as well. And Indiana is down to 21. So there you go. Do some half-baked for us before we go. Okay. I need my intro music. It's half-baked. Thank you.

I was on a city bike the other day. Yeah. And taking over New York city. Yeah. So I'm an electric city bike and I'm in the bike lane and there's a guy walking in between cars and I'm not going to slow down necessarily. So I just hit, they have a little bell there. You got to hit the bell. Beep, beep. He's a construction guy. It looks a little, look kind of a big guy. It looks a little bit of a tough guy, but I'm sure we would have been friends if we had the opportunity.

Uh, he turns, looks at me, walks past me. He says, nice little bell. I'm like, buddy, it's not my bike. It's the bell that comes with it. And it's just biking etiquette. I didn't say this, but, but he just, he just dressed me down. All right. So I have that. So you felt inadequate about your, your bike. 100%. And it's not, I didn't choose the belt. Yeah. It's the bell that comes with the bike. And I didn't want to yell at you.

Hey, watch it. Like, excuse me. Like, there's no way to do it. The bell is the way to go. You don't have to. I'm looking out for you, friend. So, OK, so you have that. So put that to the side. That's the backstory. Then walk through the grocery store. I see liquid death.

You've seen liquid death. Yeah. They don't sponsor anything. It's just a can of water. Yeah. It's a can of water where they put a huge dose of macho-ness on top of it. So the guy's like, Oh wow. That's not a bottle. It was a can. It's got skull on it. They got mango in there. Great. Yeah.

So I want to combine like overly macho-ness that we actually need, I guess, because liquid death works and my bell. So just, I call it just fog. I mean, there's exists, but fog horn. It's like a Patriots third down horn going off. Yeah. For bicycles, your car, if you're walking, whatever you have it. So it's like a necklace. I can just squeeze it.

No, I think it's just small. You know, it's AI. It's AI. AI figures it out. My iPhone reads my mind and blares it. Start to get fired up. You can play it at home. I just want more of foghorn that's not like a

you know, the orange thing at the, at, you know, the Olympics or, you know what, you don't want that. That's too loud. I want a nice low level foghorn coming out of a Nantucket lighthouse. That's what I want. Sounds tough. It sounds like I'm on a tugboat. That's what I want for my bike. Foghorn. That's really good. Why don't you call it, why don't you add the liquid death aspect though and call it death foghorn or

You know what? Sinister foghorn. Something. That's right. It needs to be macho foghorn. You know what foghorns were prevented? Fog you horn. Liquid death. You don't want to hit the rocks. Drown. All right. Next one. I was on Instagram. Oh, so this is a combination of think about this as I tell the story. A combination of Airbnb meets seamless. Okay. Okay.

I was on Instagram, it was some old grandmother, someone took a video of their old grandmother making pasta from scratch. She had the eggs and she had the dough and she was cooking it up. She's about 100 years old. I said, "That looks delicious. "There's no chance I can ever eat it. "I don't know this lovely old lady. "I wish there was an opportunity for me." So this is Airbnb meets Seamless. I call it Somebody's Grandma. Now, Somebody's Grandma is just an app you have on your phone

And there has to be some central, somebody who works for somebody's grandma in your vicinity. And they drive around to all the grandma's houses if they're a part of the system. Say, what are you making? When will it be ready? It's for a little extra income for grandmas who want to just cook and provide delicious food. They say, okay, that's great. And then it all shows up on an app.

You can order it just like Seamless, but somebody's grandma made it for you. It's literally somebody's grandma. Literally somebody's grandma is making this food for you. And the driver or whoever it is. So it's like Goop, but with grandmothers.

Well, what's goop got to do with it? I don't, it's just a brand. I don't know what goop is. I just know my daughter orders goop because she thinks it's healthy. Like I got goop for dinner. Oh, I like Gwyneth Paltrow's goop. Like Gwyneth Paltrow's thing. My daughter always orders from goop because she thinks it's healthy. And I, there's no evidence that it's called goop. No, they do food now too. Yeah. So somebody's grandma, it's like, oh, I might get some meatballs. Yeah. Just go to somebody's, just go to somebody's grandma. Yeah.

Be fantastic. That's a good one. Can I do a quick one? Yeah, go. Friday night, I had two parties. Okay. Had a, one birthday party was a dress up party. Like a costume or just like a tie? It said cocktail attire, which is always like. No idea. Yeah, you just think it could go any direction. No jeans, I guess. And then the next party was more of like a hangout party. Yeah.

So our plan was to go to the cocktail attire party first and end up at the other party. - Well, what are you doing for clothing? - Well, for me, it's easy. I'm a guy. But for my wife, she goes into this, just in the closet in this vortex of what to wear. And I'm just dreading her 'cause my daughter was gone.

And I'm just dreading her asking for my opinion because I know whatever my answer is, it's going to be the wrong answer. So she comes out in the dress and I'm like, it's a great dress. Is it too fancy?

Like one of the eight biggest mistakes of my life. Is it too fancy? Now, now there's no answer for that. Now, now I'm in, it's basically CNN is like breaking in and being like, we have a situation at Bill Simmons's house where he just asked his wife. And so now she's mad.

And then she's like, now things are getting thrown around. She tries something else on, but she's reading my reaction. I'm like, I want to, I don't want out. I want out. I'm tapping out. Perfect. She's like, no, you started this. Now I'm an asshole.

So then my daughter comes home and then my daughter saves the day and comes in, walks her up the ledge, figures it out. And even in the Uber, my wife's like still mad at me for answering an innocent question. So my thought is, cause I, you know, my daughter's in college, so she's not always there to smooth things over. Like how you had your, you know, we talked about intimacy coordinators on movie sets. You have your emotional coordinator with the sports teams, um,

I don't know what the title of this job is, but it's like there's a big party and it's almost like an Uber. You order a very pleasant, nice, friendly woman to come over and just be there for your wife as she tries on things for 25 minutes. It's like an Uber. Yeah. So it's not even like a stylist. It's more of just support. That's great. Could it be done over FaceTime?

Like how they have therapy over FaceTime. I thought about that. Yeah, maybe it's like a BetterHelp. It's like BetterHelp fashion, something like that. Yeah, it's FaceTime. Yeah, that's good. I like that. See, that's not even a half-baked idea. That's a full-baked idea. That could probably be an AI, too. You could just have some sort of bot just be like, looks awesome. Like a bot goes, that looks too fancy for a cocktail attire.

You are showing too much of your shoulders. Anyway, half-baked that out. All right, what's your next one? This is my last one. By the way, I know Kyle loved that last one because I've had conversations about him, about how psychotic the dressing stage is. Right, Kyle? All right, so...

My son's playing baseball and he's 11. So he's got a pretty small glove.

And when the ball gets hit around in Little League, it's just chaos. Now, luckily, now we're in All-Stars. Everyone's catching the ball now. But early on, it's just like, ah, the kids, you know, it's very challenging. The little ball. Well, one of the reasons it's challenging, because everyone's got gloves from like 1908. You look out there like Shoeless Joe. But as baseball's always looking to add offense to the game,

And the pitchers are throwing 100 miles an hour. Now, what are we going to do? Are we going to lower the mound? We already got the pitch counted. Just bring everybody's gloves back to old school. Small little gloves. Because then Russell had, he's playing first base, and someone gave him a huge first baseman's mitt. It was unbelievable. Unbelievable.

He was doing great. Jumped up, grabbed one. Right. Snagged one out of the dirt. Like, this is great for the defense. I'm glad that you're out there. But if you're on, if you hit the ball, I'd be a little bit upset. The kid should be out there with a tiny little glove. So just smaller little gloves, smaller gloves. Small gloves just in general until you're like 16. No, for in major leagues. Oh, just the whole time. The whole thing goes back to smaller gloves. Is anyone paying attention to these gloves?

It's just gotten bigger and bigger. Remember this happened with hockey goalies? No. Where all of a sudden their pads became so gigantic, like the goals went down and then they had to regulate how fat the pads and all the padding were. Yeah, that makes sense. Just bring the gloves back in. See, I like this. And also they should do this with tennis too, because the tennis, I think making, if you look at the tennis rackets from the seventies, they're just smaller and it's a little more challenging. And I think it would be more fun if we had those.

Of smaller rackets or just like, you don't like the composite rackets where it's like, everything's based around the serve? No, now it's like bigger head, everything. Like you can't even compare. Like what McEnroe played with, McEnroe is like a god when you go back and watch tennis, when you look at, think about the rackets he played with and Borg. Okay, smaller gloves, smaller rackets. It works. I have one more half bake for you. Okay, go. Do you like making popcorn? Like you're watching a movie, it's like, oh yeah, three minute popcorn. Okay, this is a great question.

- I'm gonna say I do not like making popcorn. - Does anyone in your family like making popcorn? - Yeah, Russell makes a lot of popcorn in the microwave. - Simmons family loves popcorn. Amazing we don't have a popcorn sponsor on the Bill Simmons podcast 'cause we love popcorn. But when you make the popcorn, so you make it for three minutes, right? - Yeah. - It gets super hot, you open it up, you like basically burn your fingers, the steam comes out. - Yeah, it's dangerous. - And then you pour it in thing,

And there's, it never, none, not all the kernels pop. Yeah. Right. You eat the thing. And then at the end, there's like 50 little kernels left. And then it's like, do I eat one of these? Do I chew them? I'm like, I'm going to give that one a shot. Yeah. So when I was doing countdown with Magic Johnson that year, he, when we did the Sunday morning countdowns, he used to have this guy bring Jamba juice for him.

And the guy would bring this big Jamba Juice, but then there was like this little extra cup of Jamba Juice. Oh, it was like that. And I didn't know Magic well enough initially, but then after a while, we're like, hey, what's the deal with the small cup? Why do you get both? And he said, because once upon a, you know, I was watching them make it and they would just dump out the rest of the Jamba Juice. And he's like, if I'm paying for

If I'm paying for a Jamba Juice, I want to get all the Jamba Juice. So if you're going to throw that away, give that to me. That's what I'm paying for. And I was like, that's why you're a billionaire, Magic Johnson. You think of stuff like this. With popcorn, so I make the popcorn. It should come with a side little mini popcorn bag pouch.

That's attached to it. And I rip it off. And then when I have the kernels left, pour the kernels back in, seal it. And I get a little extra, the extra 40 kernels. This is the extra popcorn for everybody versus just like dumping the kernels. But are, are they like,

seeds that didn't, you know, germinate. If we're using, I just think the way we're doing popcorn with microwaves. Yeah. It's just like you 80% of them make it and 20% of them wanted to make it, but there wasn't room in the bag or so. I'm giving those guys, but you think those guys have another chance. See, I feel like those guys are DOA. No, I think they have a second chance. I think they wanted to pop, but for whatever reason, it didn't happen.

The underdogs. You want to keep a chance. So, look, popcorn pouch. So, it's like popcorn, but then there's this little side pouch. You just peel it off. It's very small. It's almost like a, it's almost like a, like a, like a dessert, like a digestif. Yeah. Who's going to turn down the popcorn pouch? Like, hey, there's actually more popcorn. Does it, does it have the same flavor? Does it feel like a second chapter? It's exactly the same. Yeah. Exactly the same. Yeah. Because you don't want those going to waste. I mean, it's something. Yeah.

It feels like, it's definitely something. That is a perfectly, you know what? - It's a perfect half baked. It's half baked baking, yeah, everything. - Literally half baked. Literally half baked idea. - But the cousin of that is people put the M&M's in the popcorn, but we've never figured out how to just have, you know, you go to the movies, you buy M&M's, you buy popcorn, then you pour the M&M's in the popcorn. It kind of melts, but not really. Nobody's been able to solve putting the M&M's in the bag when you're microwaving the popcorn.

And it has M&Ms in there. They would probably melt all over the bag, but there's some sort of sweet spot that nobody's invented yet. That's like a quarter baked idea. I mean, that would be, if that ever happened with M&Ms baked into the thing that you put in the microwave, but they don't melt. The reason I have hope is because we have AI now that can write entire term papers for our kids. Oh, yeah.

We should be able to figure out the 7M's popcorn thing. Ask AI. Ask AI if it's even possible. Or is it like a perpetual motion machine? It's just like, no. It's totally impossible. I'm done with AI. When we hang up, I'm going to ask AI if it's possible to win another title with Steph Curry. I wonder what AI would say. AI is just going to take over the world. Yeah, this could be the last bit. Hold on. The undercurrent of this is I'm done with hearing about AI.

Hey, AI, can you make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Nope. Okay, sure, but you're going to take over the world. Gotcha. So what should I ask, AI? Has Steph Curry's championship window closed? Talking with AI. It said it's certainly possible they have a strong core with Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Andrew Wiggins. Come on, AI. However, winning a championship depends on various factors, including team health, chemistry, and competition.

If they stay healthy and maintain their high-level play, they have a good chance of contending for another title. I disagree. This is why humans are better than AI. I mean, we're still rolling. Humans are still crushing it. Maybe not in debates if we're over 80, but we're still crushing it. In general, humans are having a great run. In general. All right, Kevin Wilds, watch First Things First tomorrow to see how much content he steals from this podcast. Give me a couple. Yeah, Kyle, give me a quick... Give me the...

the recording because I got to get some stuff down before it goes out. I got to tweet some stuff. Good to see you, Wilds. All right. See you, buddy. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Wilds. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti as well. I'm going to do one more podcast this week on Tuesday. You can watch videos from this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel and new rewatch was coming Monday night, The Naked Gun. You'll be able to watch that on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. I will see you on Tuesday.

I want to sit there. I want to waste all I want to say. I feel the air. I'm the prince of all.