The Mailbag Makes a Dramatic Return | The Bill Simmons Podcast

The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where we put up a new Rewatchables on Monday night.

I did Weird Science with Kyle Brandt.

It is a 1985 movie.

John Hughes.

It's both unbelievable that it happened, but also kind of delightful that it happened.

It straddles both worlds.

1985, very weird year in general.

I put up a tweet a couple days ago of the Billy Ocean song from.

It's either Jewel of the Nile or Romance in the Stone.

Where he does uh, he sings it with Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito and Michael Douglas.

And they're in the background.

And then at some point, Danny DeVito grabs a trumpet or a sax and starts the sax and starts pretending to play the sax.

And it's just bonkers.

And I put it up and um, for some reason it became a really popular tweet because I think everybody was like what was going on in 1985.

What was going on in 1985 was things like word science.

So, uh, Check out that Rewatchables.

I'm not sure what we're doing next week yet.

I am recording this mailbag on a Monday.

So if anything crazy happens, we're running it on Tuesday.

But if anything bonkers happens, don't blame me.

But I asked for mailbag questions at bspodcast33 at gmail.com.

People sent a lot of questions and we're going to tackle them right after this break and right after Pearl Jam.

The listener mailbag is back.

This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is presented by State Farm.

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The mailbag.

Here's the history of the mailbag because it started in 1997 and now it's 2025.

I can't believe this is still going.

But when I started I had the old Boston Sports Guy website and I was looking for things that would you know, little gimmicks that would make me feel different than the newspaper columnist.

So the easy one was a mailbag that readers could email on questions.

It was modeled after David Letterman's viewer mail that he was doing in the 80s, which I always loved, which I always tried to get in never got in there and then it became one of the staples for me.

When I had my old website when I went to ESPN, it was one of the things that I knew was going to work.

I got so many questions those first couple years at ESPN that I actually had to hire an intern.

Jamie shout out to Jamie, who eventually ended up working for Jimmy Kimmel Show, and he was going through all those things and sending me choices and I would sift through it and it just kind of kept going all the way through to 2015 when I left ESPN.

I think I did a couple more at The Ringer.

And then we tried some on the podcast and then I don't really know why I just kind of stopped doing them.

The listener, the listener mailbags, uh, somewhere before COVID it's coming back.

This is time heading into 2026.

Um, it allows me to hit a whole bunch of dumb stuff and hopefully lean on the, uh, on the listeners.

I will say some very good questions in this first batch which you could uh, you can send to BS podcast 33 at gmailcom.

A little more serious than the old days, more serious, a lot of serious sports questions.

We didn't have a ton of goofy, which is fine.

We're all kind of working our way back in.

And I probably need like five or six to really figure out how to do this correctly.

So this is the virgin effort in 2025, the virgin post post COVID effort.

But, uh, But I probably need five or six.

There's some wrinkles that I was thinking about.

I didn't want to try on this first one.

I'm just going to go through.

We're going to go through all the emails.

I'm going to do all the answers.

I wrote out some stuff.

We can add the other stuff.

And we're just going to try it.

So hold my hand and join me on this mailbag journey.

First question.

It's from Chris from the North Shore.

He says, you know what this mailbag comeback reminds me of?

It's like Jalen Brown sprayed on hair.

You didn't think it could come back.

You're not sure it should come back, but there it is, somehow holding together for another run.

First of all, thank you, Chris.

I totally agree.

I don't really have an answer for Jalen Brown's sprayed-on hair or why anyone does this, other than to maybe get people talking.

But I think Jalen Brown would look fine bald.

I don't understand why you'd want to play sports with sprayed-on hair.

I don't really understand any of it, but I think it's a good comparison to how we're starting here.

We're trying to spray on some hair and bring the mailbag back.

Next question.

From Tommy from Rye.

Shout out to Rye.

I know a couple of people on Rye.

Simmons, if you're bringing the mailbag back, please don't do 90 NBA questions and forget the stuff that got you here.

Like talking about favorite TV shows, stupid sports announcers David Stern rigging the NBA or Apollonia purifying herself in Lake Minnetonka.

Yep, these are your readers.

Tommy from Rye.

Tommy, I understand the assignment.

I hope you guys all understand the assignment.

We need a slightly...

We need a nice little blend of serious, smart emails and then just completely goofy.

But yeah, I understand the assignment.

Don't worry.

Next question from Mark from San Diego.

In your old age, this is a new thing people are giving me that I'm old.

I feel spiritually young.

I don't feel like I'm old yet.

And how dare you?

Anyway, in your old age, You forgot about one of the greatest football metrics you ever created.

Wins above Raheem Morris.

It's never mentioned or considered in any of your pickpods.

Please bring it back for the sake of your bankroll.

That's from Mark from San Diego.

Okay, so I use WARM.

That was the acronym for Wins Above Raheem Morris.

I use WARM when I do my preseason NFL futures because under the theory that if you're replacing a bad coach with a good coach, it has to be worth between five to eight wins.

I mean, we just have so much evidence of this now.

It was the reason I picked New England to be a playoff team, because Mike Vrabel was replacing Gerard Mayo.

It was the reason I picked the Bears.

I think I went over on them.

I think I might have even had them in the playoffs, because Ben Johnson was taking over from a complete mess there.

It was the reason in 2024, the Chargers case of Jim Harbaugh taking over for Brandon Steele, who was really really terrible.

And then Dan Quinn in Washington, same thing, taking over for Ron Rivera.

So warm works.

And if you're talking about futures, yes.

I did wonder though, was it fair to name warm after Raheem Morris?

Because when I did it, when I was writing my column, part of the reason was he got hired by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

He was young.

He was like 31 or 32 and he was terrible.

He was 32.

He went 17 and 29 over three years.

It couldn't have gone worse, but he was young.

Then he got the Atlanta job.

Well, in two and a half years for them, he's 15 and 25.

So lifetime, he's 32 and 54, which is 12th worst all time for anyone who's lost at least 50 games.

12th worst.

The only guy I was thinking who might have had a case to have WARM named after him, which we would have to change the acronym was Romeo Cronel.

Because one year after I created WARM, Romeo Cornell was coaching the Chiefs.

They went 2-14.

Andy Reid came in.

He immediately went 11-5.

So it was a plus 9.

And Romeo's 32-63 career, which is third worst winning percentage of anyone who's ever lost 60-plus games.

So you could potentially call this work.

W-A-R-C.

But I really enjoy Warm.

Warm's funnier.

And by the way, the Falcons should be better.

They went 8-9 last year.

They had...

I think they had the 15th pick and then they traded the 26th pick, or they traded for the 26th pick and traded their 2026 first to the Rams so they could pick 26.

Take these two rookie pass rushers.

They really went for it and now they're 3-7 and their injury-prone quarterback, Michael Penix, got hurt.

I do wonder we talked about this at the time whether Belichick would have been a better pick for them.

Now, granted, Belichick might just have lost his mind, but in theory...

They don't pick Belichick.

They spent 40 million a year on Kirk Cousins, who's coming off a torn Achilles and didn't have a lot of mobility to begin with.

They then draft an injury-prone Michael Penix, eighth, who's now hurt.

And they trade their 2026 unprotected first for a second-level rookie pass rusher.

And I am not sure Belichick could have done worse than that, even if Jordan Hudson was the GM.

So there you go.

Speaking of war, which actor or actress had the highest war for a role they played?

This is from Patrick Broderick.

Someone doing at a level way above what any other actor could have done with the same role.

So he throws out Gandolfini.

He said Gandolfini doing something as Tony Soprano that no one else could have truly done.

Was it the Seinfeld main cast, the TV version of the Phillies Four Aces?

I like that.

And then he said his pick is Jon Hamm as Don Draper on Mad Men.

Excellent actor, actually tall, classically handsome.

More importantly, a complete unknown, which is true.

You needed that for the role.

I think I've talked about this before.

The highest war ever for a TV show and war.

If you don't know what that means, it's wins above replacement.

So if you take, it started in baseball.

Take a baseball player like a shortstop and let's say it's A-Rod in 1999 and you just put an average person in that spot.

How much better is A-Rod than that average person?

They have a good metric for this.

It's one of the, I think the best metrics nerd stats we have in sports is war.

So the answer here is clearly Gandolfini.

It's not even a question.

He had the most important role on one of the four or five greatest TV shows ever.

I personally think it's the greatest TV acting performance of all time.

I have it number one.

We could argue about it, but if we're doing a list, he has to be mentioned pretty quickly as you're going down your list.

I think it's first.

But then the other finalist for that role and there's been a lot of stuff written and talked about with this was Michael Raspoli.

Michael Raspoli, who we just covered on Snake Eyes in the Rewatchables pod on Monday, actually had a bit role in that.

You probably remember he's one of those guys, but you probably remember him as Grandma in Rounders that really seedy guy with the pit bulls and wanted worms money.

That was the other choice.

And I'll do respect to Michael Rispoli.

I'm sure he's an awesome guy.

Seems like a very good character actor.

But if he's Tony Soprano, I just don't think that show is the same show.

I don't think it's remembered as an all-time Hall of Famer.

I think one of the great things I loved about that show was that there were some people who weren't the greatest actors.

As fun as Pauly was, Pauly wasn't exactly Pacino.

Christopher was great.

Edie Falco was unbelievable.

Some of the bit people were good, but when you think about all the people in the mob people like ironically, Michael Rospoli played Jackie April, Jackie April Jr.

Johnny Sack, he was okay.

When they brought Frank Vincent in, he was really good.

But for the most part, you needed Gandolfini to just be levitating above everybody else.

And it turned out to be one of the great performances, not just in TV, but in movies.

I think if you're just Go in 21st century, what are the great performances?

You have to put it up there.

So I would say he has the highest war.

Next question is from Mark Skeggs.

This came in this morning actually, because Sal and I were talking last night about Sam Darnold and what's the nickname for Sam.

And when Sam's alter ego shows up and throws multiple interceptions in big games and Sal decided it should be Sham Darnold, which I thought was pretty good.

Mark Skeggs says, given his penchant for betraying his team and betters in big games, Should the alter ego for Sam Darnold be Benedict Darnold.

That's amazing.

I don't know how we didn't think of that.

Benedict Darnold, perfect.

That's better than Scam Darnold, Sham Darnold, or Spam Darnold.

I have Seahawks overs.

I like the Seahawks.

I don't want to see Benedict Darnold again, but who knows?

We might.

Okay.

Next question's from Matt from Manhattan Beach.

Is LeBron secretly the greatest leveraged buyout guy in history?

Every time he joins a team, he pulls all the future growth of the franchise into the present, spiking the valuation, then wins a title, then leaves right before the debt comes due.

Miami, Cleveland 2.0, Cleveland 1.0, the Lakers, same playbook every time.

He even got his kid an internship.

That's funny.

He's basically a one-man Bain Capital, except he actually gets hundreds of millions and a parade for it.

No private equity guy ever bought a company, stripped it of its future assets and then got a trophy and confetti for doing it.

See, this feels like a major dig against LeBron.

I actually think I can't decide if this helps LeBron's go case against MJ or hurts it, because technically all that stuff worked.

He won two titles at Miami.

He won the 2016 title in Cleveland and he won the 20 title in the Lakers.

So it's not like it didn't work.

I asked a hedge fund guy I know for his take.

Here's what he wrote back.

This is so smart.

Riddles the business with debt, inflates its value, and then leaves town before the debt due.

Who is the corollary for a CEO that does this?

Huge pay package, slaps lipstick on a pig for short-term optics, rides out of town on a high horse.

Sounds like David Zasloff.

And Warner Brothers.

I think that's our parallel.

David Zasloff and LeBron.

The mailbag's back.

What other areas comparing those two people?

This question's really good.

This is from Ethan.

Doesn't the Luca trade need to be memorialized in a rewatchables category?

I can't believe I didn't think of this.

Maybe the Nico Harrison Award for a character's decision that makes no sense even as it's happening.

Like in Disclosure...

Did anyone think it was a good idea for Michael Douglas to hang out in Demi Moore's low-lit office after hours?

No, not one person thought that.

Anyway, good job, Ethan.

Incredible idea.

I'm just saying it now.

We're going to add this to the rewatchables when it's appropriate.

I think the Nico Harrison award for worst decision that was terrible as it was happening I think just should be in there.

Whenever I think of whether a rewatchables category should work, I always go back to Heat, because Heat was the reason the rewatchables happened.

And could this category have worked in Heat?

Obviously, yes, because Neil McCauley wins the Nico Harrison Award in Heat.

He could have gotten away.

His whole life is about when the heat's around the corner.

You got to get out of there in 30 seconds.

Can't have any attachments.

And he's literally leaving to get away after this incredible bank heist with a million people murdered.

And they got all this money, and he's leaving.

And all of a sudden, he's like, you know what?

Before I go, I think I got to kill Wayne Groh, even though he's in a hotel that's heavily protected by police.

I just got to bang this out.

Terrible, terrible idea.

Nico Harrison Award winner.

So we'll be adding that the next time we do Heat.

I was trying to think of the five best Nico Harrison Award winners other than Neil.

And I'm going to count these down from five to one.

John Wick 2.

Tarasov's loser son killing John Wick's dog.

Terrible idea.

I'm not even sure Nico would have done that.

So that's number five.

Number four the old lady at the end of Titanic throwing her kajillion dollar necklace into the water because she was still in love with Jack even though she married another guy and had a whole family with the other guy.

And that necklace, which was worth roughly seven kajillion dollars, maybe could have.

Maybe could have generated some future wealth for future generations of this family she allegedly cared about.

Nope, throws the necklace in the water.

That's number four.

Number three, saving Private Ryan.

This was the flaw of saving Private Ryan.

What was the point of this?

Because all of his brothers died and now we have to make sure he's the only brother that's left.

So we're going to go back into battle and potentially risk hundreds of soldiers to save this one guy stupid.

Number two, this one still bothers me.

Fredo pretending he didn't know Johnny Ola in Godfather 2.

There's just no way Michael's not going to find out at some point that he actually knew Johnny Ola.

I have no idea why he lied.

Johnny Ola's right there.

Just say, oh yeah, I know Johnny.

These guys are all in the same mafia circles together.

Like, just stop.

Just say you knew him.

Instead, he doesn't say he knows him, but you know.

Every family member, every family has a Fredo.

Number one, this is easy.

Mervon demanding to keep the Amity beaches open in Jaws, even after there's been an attack.

This was if you could pick one thing from a movie that directly parallels the Luca trade, it's Mervon keeping the beaches open.

And somehow keeping his job for Jaws 2, which I never really figured out.

But Mervon, Nico Harrison, dead even.

At least in the Mavericks case, they inadvertently ended up with Cooper Flagg.

I don't know what happened in Jaws 2.

Just more murders.

Anyway, we're going to take a break and then we'll keep going with the mailbag.

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All right, the mailbag.

Next question is from Daniel.

What's the most realistic thing Trump could do that would send sports fans into a fucking frenzy?

Thought about this for a while.

I mean, it's interesting.

He could have been owning the Buffalo Bills this entire time if that sale had been through.

I don't know if that would have meant he wouldn't have run for president but Trump, as an active Buffalo Bills owner and president, I think would have probably been a thing just guessing, but he probably couldn't have done both.

But I think the answer to this and I really thought about it I was trying to think about something that was realistic and something that would just drive at least a certain either a franchise crazy, or the fans of a league crazy, or something.

And I think it would be Trump messing with the masters and Augusta.

Like Trump, just deciding some sort of obscure rule or um, Maybe this land belongs to somebody else, or he's going to push through some rule where somebody can buy Augusta and completely change it and modernize it.

I think that would make people absolutely bonkers.

Trump messing with Augusta is the answer to that question.

This is from my friend Ben, who texted me last night because I put up a YouTube short of me in the sauna making a Patrick Mahomes joke, which I called sauna takes.

And he said, you wear a t-shirt in the sauna.

Are you a sociopath?

And we started arguing about if it's okay to wear a t-shirt in the sauna.

So this could go one of two ways.

I think if you're in a health club, you just, you go in probably shirtless with the towel.

If you have one of those like little mini saunas, which is what we have.

I actually like wearing the t-shirt because then I can wipe my face with it.

I don't like white I don't like wiping my face with a towel in the sauna.

I actually like having the sweat and wiping it, but I'm also not defending it.

It actually made me do a reevaluation, wondering if I was actually a sociopath.

T-shirt in the sauna.

Maybe not for everybody.

Maybe that's what we've learned.

Okay.

In the 21st century?

This is from Joe Goldstein.

Which of these two events do you consider considered to be the bigger sliding doors moment in terms of overall impact to the NBA?

His first choice is the 2003 NBA draft where Detroit selected Darko basically over Carmelo.

People now after the fact throwing Dwayne Wade into this.

But there was no way Dwayne Wade was going second in this draft.

He just wasn't.

It was either LeBron or Carmelo and Darko was the other pick and Darko gained a lot of steam.

And as usual with sports, we have a lot of revisionist history in there.

Darko was the fast riser.

It was LeBron, then it was Carmelo, and it was those three.

So Wade wasn't going second.

Carmelo, I said at the time, I thought they should have taken Carmelo.

I couldn't believe they didn't.

I actually think it would have been the greatest thing that ever happened in Carmelo's career, which I think ultimately, for what his talent was and how good of a scorer he was, was pretty disappointing.

He made the conference finals once in his entire career, in 2009, and actually had the Lakers 2-2 and then couldn't pull off either of the last two games.

But I think for the most part, if you did Carmelo's career 10 times, the version we ended up with might be the most disappointing version.

I always thought, I said the same thing when Dirk won the title in 2011.

I always thought that could have been the model for Carmelo, where you have, he was an awesome scorer, you could have built the right team around him, and you actually could have won the title with him.

I've always thought that.

So Detroit selecting Darko instead of Carmelo, I just don't think they win in 2004 if they do that.

I think they have to work them in.

There's some weird Tayshaun Prince versus Carmelo stuff.

And if the goal is to win a title, do they win a title with Carmelo?

Because it would have had to have been 04 or 05, then the Wallace's start getting old.

So maybe the 05 title.

I don't think it's as big a sliding door as Joe's other option, which she said 2016 NBA finals.

Draymond's ball shot to LeBron late in game four.

No question it's the ball shot.

And I've talked about this a little before, but so Golden State is up 2-1 in that series.

Game four is the game.

It's in Cleveland.

And I think that's one of the best games of the last 15 years which, if you go back and watch it, which they don't really rerun it that much.

I wonder if it was because of the controversial ball shot and everything that happened after.

Maybe we'll say nut shot.

I think nut shot is better than ball shot.

But...

It's, I think, one of the best games of the entire Warriors era with Steph.

They go in, Cleveland throws absolutely everything at them and Golden State still gets through it and they pull it off and they're going to go back to Golden State and they're going to win in game five right.

And near the end, LeBron in one of the great moments of his career.

Like really smart, he knows Draymond is right near that technical foul limit where you get suspended for the next game.

And he starts fucking with him at the end of the game and stands over him.

And Draymond doesn't like it and is trying to get him up and kind of waves his hand up.

And they look at it after and decide that it should have been a technical.

And ever since it happened, the running joke with pretty much anybody who knows anything about the NBA and works for a team is connected name.

It is always like, oh yeah, that suspension happened because they wanted LeBron and Cleveland to win.

I mean, it really...

This is one of the most mentioned ones.

Conspiracy Bill is showing up later in this mailbag, but if you're really going to bring out Conspiracy Bill, this is one of the best ones.

But the sliding door stuff for this, I think Cleveland loses game five.

Golden State goes down as the greatest single-season, regular-season team ever.

They win 73 games, come back against OKC, and then beat Cleveland in five.

KD cannot sign with Golden State if they win the title.

He just can't.

It's off the table, which means he either goes to Boston because Boston had the cap space, or resigns with OKC for one more year and then reevaluates in 2017.

I actually think that's probably what he would have done.

I think he would have done a one-year deal and then tried to figure it out a year later.

LeBron never wins in 2016, which puts an incredible amount of pressure on 2017.

Now, if Durant's not there in 2017, maybe they could have won that one.

The Kyrie thing is starting to get a little gamey in 2017.

I don't know.

He might not have won in Cleveland.

Kyrie never gets his shot in game seven.

That becomes his one great moment and becomes the thing people always pointed to until he had his Dallas redemption of like ah say what you want about Kyrie, but he made one of the great shots in the history of the league.

And then the Klay Thompson game in OKC.

That becomes if they win the title that year, that becomes the most legendary playoff he check we've ever had, because that would have swung them getting into the finals, the whole thing.

And then Curry wins back-to-back.

And then also the favorite of 2017 historically puts him on a whole other level.

They ended up winning back-to-back with Durant, but I think winning 15 and 16 back-to-back, that's a big one.

But the big one is LeBron not winning in Cleveland.

And if he hadn't won in Cleveland in 16, 17, 18, would he have just stayed?

Would he have just been like, I can't leave until this happens?

And that just would have kept been like a Jenga stack with.

They didn't have a lot of picks and a lot of ways to get better.

And then he never goes to the Lakers.

What happens to the Lakers, with Lonzo and Brandon Ingram and Julius Randall?

All these guys they had, would they have just tried to go young?

Would they have eventually gone all in on Kawhi?

Like that is the best sliding doors of the last 10 years.

No question.

And it all comes back to Draymond who may or may not have intentionally hit LeBron on the balls.

There you go.

Okay.

This is from Adam in Lafayette, Colorado.

How many of the Pat's six Super Bowls would you give up in exchange for them finishing off the 18-0 season in 07-08, going 19-0 and beating the Giants?

And which one of the six would you give up?

First of all, thank you for asking.

I thought about it.

I think the 19-0 season you almost have to think about this like a football trade, where when somebody trades up in football for a quarterback, they're giving up their current first, a future first and something else at the very least.

So obviously trading the 2005 Eagles Super Bowl, because they'd already won in the year before and then in the 2001, the miracle season.

So even though beating Pittsburgh that year was great, the actual Super Bowl against the Eagles wasn't like the greatest game.

Kind of more remembered for Donovan McBabb, Brendan, the two-minute drill for 10 minutes.

So I'd sacrifice that one for the for 19-0 in a heartbeat, but I think I'd have to throw in more.

I'd be willing to throw in the last Belichick-Brady Super Bowl when they beat the Rams 13-3.

Maybe lose that game, but you beat the Chiefs the round before which was the real Super Bowl, holding off Mahomes for one more year, giving Brady that.

And then I would also, if I had to throw in anything else making the 2012 Super Bowl, which was they ended up sneaking by the Ravens in the AFC title game.

Lee Evans got stripped when he caught what seemed to be the game-winning touchdown and then got stripped right after he caught it.

And then Billy Cundiff missed an easy field goal.

All of a sudden, the Pats were in the Super Bowl.

Gronkowski was hurt.

It wasn't a great Pats team.

So I would trade 2005, 2019, and I'd lose in the AFC title game.

I'd turn all of those into losses for the chance to go 19-0, achieve immortality, never having the helmet catch and keeping Eli Manning out of the Hall of Fame.

Yeah.

It's not even a question.

So in this scenario, in the Super Bowl trade scenario, we'd win five Super Bowls instead of six.

We'd make eight Super Bowls instead of nine.

The helmet catch never happened.

19-0 did happen.

And Eli stays out of the Hall of Fame.

That sounds great.

Next question from John Walsh.

John, J-O-N, not the John Walsh who was my mentor.

I know the NBA has shelved its plan for expansion.

But assuming they do add teams in Seattle and Las Vegas, how would you realign the conferences?

You know, this is a really interesting NBA question.

And I've talked about this with different NBA people who probably won't talk to me now after the LeBron nut shot thing.

But Memphis and New Orleans go east.

I think that happens.

And I think Milwaukee has to go west.

And what's interesting is, Milwaukee was initially west and then somehow switched back and became east.

I don't know how we decided to do that.

I would switch those three.

Then you add Seattle and Las Vegas.

You put them on the Western Conference side.

I'll just rip through this super quick.

Four 18 divisions.

You have the East.

Boston, New York, Brooklyn, Philly, Washington, Toronto, Detroit, Cleveland.

Those are all pretty close together.

You have the South.

Chicago, Indiana, Charlotte, Orlando, Miami, Atlanta, New Orleans, Memphis.

You have the North.

Milwaukee, Denver, Minnesota, Utah, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, OKC.

And then the West, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix, Vegas, LA, LA, Sacramento, Golden State.

I just solved it.

Unfortunately, we're not getting expansion.

Although, although, there is some Vegas buzz building again.

I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that the league adds one more team, not two, that they have 31 teams, and that they jump on this Vegas market, while there's like a real opportunity and real money behind it and a lot of groups and a lot of interest.

And the price would have to be.

My guess, what I've been told is somewhere between seven and 8 billion, at least seven, because that's what.

It's basically what the Celtics got when you put in all the other stuff, all the puts the minority owners had.

So let's say it's, Let's go $7.5 billion for a new Vegas team.

That would mean 30 times 250.

Every team gets $250 million cash.

They don't have to share it with the players.

Just money into their pockets.

And they'd be sacrificing going from a 130th media right to a 131st media right.

But they'd be getting this $250 million up front.

And if you think about it, how long are you going to own an NBA team?

It's weird.

The expansion was dead.

I think they moved toward this NBA Europe thing.

But there's some Vegas buzz again.

I'm just telling you.

And I look forward to other people reporting this down the road and not mentioning this podcast.

But there's some Vegas buzz.

Next question from Jeremy Alexander.

Oh, it's another reordering question with teams.

He says Indy moves to the AFC North, Baltimore moves to the AFC East and Miami moves to the AFC South.

Who says no?

I looked at this and I was like, wait, why isn't that the way they've done it?

Why is Miami in the AFC East instead of the AFC South?

Baltimore is right next to Washington.

So you could basically have the AFC East.

They would have Buffalo, New England, the Jets in Baltimore, all of whom are next to each other.

And then Indy in the AFC North, that makes sense too.

They'd be with Pittsburgh and Cincinnati and Cleveland.

Of course.

And then Miami is in the AFC South with Jacksonville and Houston and Tennessee.

Of course.

Why wouldn't they do this?

Come on, Goodell.

Next question is from Albert Stern.

He said a basic Google search about steroids say they weaken tendons and increase the risk of rupture.

Why does no one talk about this?

Albert, what are we doing?

We're trying to ease the mailbag in here.

Settle down.

Let's not get in trouble in the first mailbag.

Jack G.

He wonders if you could pick one game to be able to rewatch like it had never happened before.

What would it be?

And if you could pick any game in history to attend in person, what would it be?

So I actually did this with my son once.

During COVID, we watched a Christian Laettner game against Kentucky.

And he had no idea what was happening.

And I was like, let's just watch the second half.

This game is awesome.

Like, just watch this.

He's like, who won?

I'm like, I'm not going to tell you.

So we watched it, all the back and forth stuff.

And then Lehner hits the shot at the end.

And my son was like, just his head was doing 360s.

He couldn't believe this was an actual sporting event.

So that made me think like, that's a great, that's at least a finalist for this.

But the actual answer is the 1980 Olympic hockey game between the US and the USSR.

That's the answer.

That's the game you would have wanted to be at.

There's no game in the history of sports you would rather have wanted to be at than that game.

That's also the game.

If you didn't know what happened and you came out of a coma and you just put that on, you wouldn't believe it happened.

So I think that is the answer on both ways.

Okay, Kevin from Las Vegas asks with the Celtics hanging around 500, not looking like they'll tank which is true if Jason Tatum actually comes back on the early side Does the trade machine Picasso see a move they could make to actually make them a threat this year?

So I came on this pod almost two weeks ago after I saw the Celtics in person in Washington and thought to myself feels like this is a tank situation.

They can't rebound.

They're very dependent on three guys.

If any of them get hurt, they're in a lot of trouble.

And I'm not sure I see it.

But think about all the stuff that's happened since.

Washington and Brooklyn, are in a death race to see who's worse.

It's the two of them.

And, and that's that Indiana is clearly tanking.

They can not admit that, but they had so many injuries start the season.

Combined with Albert and that um, I think they have one.

They own, their own pick.

They're not going to be a playoff team.

Um, even if they made the plan, who cares?

Um, and the way they started the season, like, well, what's the point of this?

So you know, I think you'll see them trade math or in and I think you'll see guys start getting mystery injuries there.

But those three are pretty much guaranteed to be worse than the Celtics in any scenario you want to come up with.

So then if you go, all right, Charlotte.

As I'm recording this on a Monday, Charlotte is four and nine.

You never know when LaMelo is going to play.

I actually like the base they have, but Brandon Miller has missed a bunch of games and it's probably too late for them to do anything.

So those are four teams, right?

And then after that, the Celtics could potentially be the fifth team.

That could be, though.

We don't care about the play-in or the playoffs.

But if Tatum's coming back and you're kind of hanging around, I don't understand the point of tanking to get the ninth or tenth pick.

Because even though this is a good draft, I just don't personally understand it.

So I would be a little more proactive.

And the thing I was thinking, so they have this Anthony Simons contract.

He makes like 27 and a half million.

I actually like Simons.

I don't think Mizzou likes him.

Simons had in Orlando a week from Sunday, he had 25 points in the first half.

And then in the three and a half games since, he scored 23.

And he played 11 minutes on Sunday and basically got benched.

But I do think he's something.

And the team that really needs him more than anyone else is the Clippers, who I saw in person on Wednesday.

And they thought, Kawhi, you just never know when he's going to play.

He's hurt and who knows when he's coming back.

And then they traded Norm Powell because he was about to you know he was going into his extension year.

They would have to decide on it.

They didn't want to pay him.

So they trade him and they get John Collins back and then decide that they'll sign Bradley Beal and Bradley Beal will be the Norm Powell and Bradley Beal gets hurt in like two days.

And by the way, his career was probably over two years ago.

They need a second scorer.

They're in a lot of trouble.

They don't have their pick.

Which is the biggest NBA crisis right now is that OKC has the Clippers' first-round pick.

And if you look at it right now, the Clippers are 11th in the West.

And Sacramento and New Orleans are always going to be lower than them.

I think Memphis will be too, and Utah will be probably.

But the Clippers are not a top-10 team in the West.

So they really need a scorer.

They really need to do something.

And as weird as this sounds, they actually really need somebody like Simons.

Their offense is so... part independent, that Simons is kind of perfect for them.

They have Bogdan Bogdanovich.

I can't remember which Bogdanovich is which.

They have Bogdanovich.

He's an expiring.

They have Derek Jones, who makes like $10 million a year for this year and next.

So the salaries obviously add up for a Simons trade for the Celtics.

But I would get friskier than that.

Here's my fake trade.

Picasso's in the studio for this one.

Clippers get Anthony Simons and Sadiq Bey from New Orleans.

The Pelicans get Bogdanovich's expiring plus Derrick Jones.

The Celtics get Trey Murphy.

The Pelicans from the Celtics get the Celtics' first pick this year, which might be a lottery pick, might be a high lottery pick if it's in the lottery.

They get the right to grab.

The Celtics have a swap with the Spurs in 2028.

So the Pelicans, whichever pick the Celtics end up with in that swap, Pelicans would get that.

And then the Boston's unprotected 2031 pick for Trey Murphy, who's on a great contract, who I think is a really good player, who has been in the worst possible situation in New Orleans from the time he got there.

That's the most poorly run organization in the league.

They, for some reason, wouldn't sign him to an extension a year ago.

He ends up getting hurt after he gets the extension.

The perfect prototypical mid-20s NBA player.

40% three-point shooter, maybe even better.

Knows how to play, what to do.

Underrated asset because he's been on New Orleans.

So we've never even really seen him in the right situation.

And if you're the Celtics, if you could do whatever it took to turn Simons into Trey Murphy and spend some picks and then have the foundation of White and Pritchard and Tatum and Brown and Trey Murphy and Kata, who's kind of turned into something here, and random big dudes.

Um, and then look at free agency, like that's you've, you've rebooted.

So that'd be my dream.

Probably won't happen.

Do Mars probably won't do it just cause I suggested it.

Next question's from Wade hacker.

Is it too early to start calling Jaden Daniels RG four?

It's 100% too early.

And I would encourage you not to make this joke around Washington fence.

This is from John R.

Of all your pop culture references, there's nothing I felt more connected to than your love and adoration of Eddie Murphy.

What are your thoughts on the new Netflix doc being Eddie?

There's no one I'd rather hear a review than you.

Thank you.

I wrote a huge, long, giant piece for Grantland about Eddie in 2012.

That was one of my favorite things that I've written.

He said, I know your celebrity interviews have become less frequent.

That's probably going to change in 26.

But I'd love to know if you've ever had him on a podcast as a guest, if you've ever tried to get him.

Why hasn't he been on?

I'd love nothing more than to listen to it, make it happen.

Thanks.

Eddie, I don't know if he'd be the number one person all the time I'd want on my podcast, but he's shortlist, first wave.

If he ever wanted to do it, I'd love it.

He doesn't really do stuff like that.

I haven't really seen him do really anything.

He'll pop on like Kimmel shown, you know, but for the most part I would love it.

Nothing.

I would have so many Eddie questions, but, uh, the being Eddie doc, I saw it.

Um, I kind of was scared to watch it because it felt like a doc commercial.

But I'll explain that in a second.

I loved it.

I couldn't believe how many good celebrities they had interviewed for it.

I loved going back into the seventies and eighties, seeing some of the standup stuff.

And if I had a note, I actually, I think it could have been multiple parts.

I think you could have really the 80s and what Eddie meant and how white everything was back then and how he became the bridge to a lot of pop culture changes as we headed into the late 80s and him and Michael Jackson and a couple others were the bridge to that.

They talk about this in the doc.

But to me, I could have watched way more of that and gotten the background of it.

I wrote a little bit about it when I did my big piece about Eddie.

But there was this weird stretch on TV where it just got super white and there was no explanation for it.

It was like the Jeffersons Stanford at Sun was gone by then.

Gary Coleman, Isaac the bartender, the black guy in Hill Street Blues, the white shadow, was canceled.

Black people just weren't represented on TV anymore.

And so Eddie, when he, when he got on SNL and started hitting that, it wasn't just that he's the best cast member they've ever had.

And probably the only person who was overqualified to be on the show pretty much immediately.

But, um, there was also nobody like him on television.

So it was, it just felt like the most important thing, especially for if you were a teenager or you were, you know, late teens or in your twenties, this was like this is.

This guy was everything.

He was our number one.

So, um, I, I could have dove into that.

There's this new trend right now and I think we're getting better at it and I call it the documershal.

It's basically a documentary, crossed with an infomercial, about somebody who participates in it but has some sort of editorial say over it.

I don't really personally like being involved in these that much, but the way to think about it is they have autobiographies and books and these are kind of the well-done celebrity documentary versions of that.

Beckham, I think, was a good example.

I thought Beckham was really good. it's basically a really well done autobiography.

Like, if you think of the Agassi autobiography people it's the documenters are are kind of staring more and more toward that principle.

The catch is when you know it just becomes an infomercial, and that's when uh, that's when it gets really hard.

But I, I didn't feel like the Eddie thing was an infomercial.

He was obviously super involved.

Um, you know, there's things they didn't touch, but uh, for the most part thought it was worth watching.

If you like Eddie at all, I don't understand why you wouldn't like that movie.

Okay.

This is from JD.

So we went from John R to JD.

He said, it appears Miles Turner and A.D.

Mitchell are locked in a spirited battle for this year's Mike Pence Award, given to the person the state of Indiana was not sad to lose.

Past recipients include Victor Oladipo and suicide cult leader Jim Jones.

JD was going for it.

So I always think this is interesting when this happened, because I think Indiana fans like Miles Turner, but I also got the feeling they weren't like devastated to see him go, which I think is a really fun random list.

I would call it the glass half empty.

Guys, flawed stars that you like that bring way more to the table than they take off.

But the more you're with them, you start concentrating on this stuff.

They take off the table and you just start seeing all their warts and instead of their strengths.

So if I had to name this after anybody, I would call this Anton Walker syndrome.

Cause I loved Anton Walker, but by 2003 became convinced this was a losing player.

And then they traded back for him in oh five.

And I kind of got amnesia for all the things I didn't like about Anton Walker.

And they made a little play out front with him.

It was the same thing.

It was like, oh yeah, I forgot.

Um, these guys that you love that their hearts in the right place, but they kind of drive you crazy.

Marcus Smart is the best example of the last 10 years.

I was ready for Marcus Smart to go and talked about that in the podcast, but loved him, appreciated him.

It was great.

But I just kind of watched him for too long.

Derek Lowe was a great one on the Red Sox.

Drew Bledsoe definitely got there for the Patriots.

And then I was trying to think of guys in the future who might be like this.

And it's definitely Raffaella for the Red Sox and Christian Gonzalez for the Patriots, who...

It has a chance to be the best cornerback in the league.

But there's three things again that drive me crazy.

And I think five years from now, I'm going to be going nuts about this.

But anyway, those are my guys.

All right, we'll take one more break, and then we'll hit the rest of the mailbag.

All right, more mailbag.

This is from Connor B.

You always say how, if you were a GM, you would have already traded for so-and-so.

And parentheses Bill Simmons' voice.

Does this mean I have to do my own voice?

Bill Simmons' voice.

He'd already be on my team.

But you always seem to say this after the trade when the player is succeeding in his new dig.

So put your money where your mouth is.

What five guys are you going after in the NBA?

Well, too late for Ryan Rollins.

I loved Ryan Rollins.

The Milwaukee just said, yeah, we like him too and gave him a great contract.

I'll give you six guys I really like.

And maybe I'll add to this list.

I used to when I wrote when my fingers worked.

I used to in my NBA column.

Near the end of the year I would have the Bill Simmons all-stars for guys that I inexplicably liked.

That I didn't feel like got any buzz.

And this was way less people had league pass back then.

Um, guys, I like two on Atlanta.

I like guy, a, however you say his name, G U E Y E guy.

I think, I think that's how you pronounce it.

Uh, he was like bouncing around the last couple of years.

Then all of a sudden this year you watch him and it's like, yeah, like guy.

Um, and then Crutchie, the other guy in the Hawks.

He's a shooter who, um?

I really enjoy his work too.

He had a game the other day where he just kind of went nuts.

But he's exactly the type of shooter you want, like a streak, he-check shooter.

So I like those two.

Keita and the Celtics, I get to watch every day.

I've liked Keita for multiple years.

He's actually my daughter's favorite non-star Celtic really, since she was living in Boston two years ago.

And kind of would intermittently play, not play.

He'd be in the G League.

But you'd always watch him go.

Is he...

Is there a difference between Kata and DeAndre Ayton?

Because I don't feel like there is.

What is the difference?

And then he's actually playing this year, and he's been a revelation and a huge plus minus.

So he's probably actually ineligible for this list now.

Quentin Jackson on the Pacers I like.

He's a guard.

You'll see him a lot as they start tanking.

I've always liked Jordan Goodwin.

The Suns ended up with him.

I thought it was smart because the Lakers would rather have Brian James than Jordan Goodwin.

And then Naquan Tomlin.

I think is the number one for this.

I don't know where this guy came from.

Every time I watch the Cavs, I'm always like, what's going on with this guy?

I really like Naquan Tomlin.

So that would be my five plus Keita.

Next question is from Andrew Spots.

Do Wemby and Castle have the potential to be the best defensive pair ever?

Who holds the title?

Settle down, Andrew.

Honorable mention, I would go Duncan and Bowen.

Rodman and Robinson, Rodman and Dumars, Drew and Giannis, Draymond and Iguodala, DeBuscher and Frazier, and the Wallaces in Detroit.

And I think there are only two actual answers for this question.

One is Bill Russell and Casey Jones, who Casey Jones was the most famous defensive guard of his era.

And Bill Russell was the greatest defensive player in the history of any professional sport and won 11 titles in 13 years.

So yeah, let's mention him.

And then Jordan and Pippen.

There's two versions of Jordan and Pippen, and both of them were out of control.

That the year after they won their first title, when they were like two Dobermans was, was crazy.

But then after Jordan came back from baseball the first full season, back when they won the 72, those two guys they really knew each other and they were just.

I talked to Tim Legger about this on my podcast two weeks ago.

Um, just out of control, when they just decided to shut teams down and take out guards and do whatever they want to do.

They just did it.

So, uh, I think it has to be those two pairs.

Jordan Pippen, when you throw the Rodman piece, that might have the edge, but that's it.

That's the bar.

And Wemby and Castle Castle would have to be.

He'd have to go up seven other levels before I'm ready to have that conversation.

As great as Wemby is.

This next question is from Joe O. Didn't include his last name.

It's just Joe O. What's the funnier movie death?

The woman on the boat in Jaws 2 panics, dumps gasoline on herself and accidentally blows up the boat.

Or poor Ben Tramer in Halloween 2, getting obliterated by a speeding cop car and exploding like a Michael Myers decoy gone wrong.

Follow-up.

If you had to pick your own movie-style demise between those two spontaneous boat explosion or mistaken identity fireball, which way are you going out?

So we covered both of these in the rewatchables in the last six months and we were just laughing just a couple weeks ago about how funny that Ben.

Trey Morrison is.

He's basically this poor kid who makes the mistake of wearing a Michael Myers mask.

They see him, cops start chasing him.

He gets hit by a car, driven into a white van that blows up and he just blows up and burns to death.

And meanwhile, it's a mistaken identity.

And then the cops, it's like, it's not him.

They just kind of run off.

But I think the Jaws 2 lady is funnier because she thought pouring gasoline on an attacking shark And then I guess trying to blow it up would not blow her up too.

And the way she's... That's great.

I think the worst death is just being left in your Halloween costume to burn to death by two people who then drive away.

I think would be worse.

I have... If we were doing a Mount Rushmore movie deaths, I would include those two.

I would also include...

Henry Thomas dying in Legend of the Fall, which I just watched.

I mentioned earlier, it's a drama that's not comedy.

There's a scene where he's in a war and Brad Pitt's his brother.

And Brad Pitt sees him in the distance, running for him, and sees a shooter about to shoot him and starts running.

Everything's in slow motion.

And it's the kind of thing like in the 90s made perfect sense.

But by the 2000s, they're making fun of it.

Movies like Tropic Thunder.

He's running in slow motion, cut to the guy cocking the rifle in slow motion and then Henry Thomas getting shot and he does the full Jesus death where he's like, and then it cuts to Brad Pitt who's like no running, and then it goes back to Henry Thomas who's like just taking it.

It's fucking hilarious.

I would put that in there, but I think the funniest death scene ever because I think you have to include the entire scene leading to the death is Steven Weber in Single White Female, which is an awesome awesome, really weird movie.

And it's Bridget Fonda, her roommate, Jennifer Jason Leigh.

And Jennifer Jason Leigh just starts pretending to be her roommate and ends up going into Steven Weber's hotel room pretending she's the other one.

She's got the red hair and the overcoat.

It's dark.

He's not really awake.

And she goes in, takes off the overcoat and starts blowing him.

And he doesn't really realize it's not his girlfriend until the tail end of the blow job.

And then decides, he kind of does the, fuck it, let's just finish and we'll deal with this later.

But he also doesn't want to finish.

He's like, oh, oh no, oh.

So then she looks up and it's her and he's horrified and they start arguing and then she throws a high heel shoe right in his eye and kills him.

And the entire sequence is hilarious.

So that would be my... Those would be my four.

But if you have any other suggestions, I'm happy to hear them.

Send them in.

Brian... asks, at what point do we retire the term podcast?

Nobody uses an iPad, and with the pivot to video and streaming, these are very clearly talk shows.

Not necessarily.

I think we're stuck with the term.

I just think we're going to morph into saying video podcast or podcast, depending on if it's a video show or not.

But if you look at the definition of podcast, which I looked up, a podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the internet.

So why would we change that?

Maybe it'll change and just become shows.

Maybe because, as we stop making TV shows, maybe podcasts become shows and we just call everything show.

That's the only thing I could say.

It did make me wonder.

I do wonder why words die.

Words that we use just kind of go away.

Like we used to say taping.

I would even say I'm taping a podcast.

Now you wouldn't say tape because we don't tape them.

We're like digitally recording them.

So I should say recording a podcast. but I'm still saying taping.

They're words from like the 60s and 70s and 80s, like groovy, wicked yoked was a big one when I was in the 80s.

And when I was in high school, somebody was yoked.

We don't say that anymore.

Radical went away.

Foxy, calling a woman Foxy, that stopped.

I think the number one though is knapsack.

And I know this because my kids constantly make fun of me because they have backpacks.

They call them backpacks.

And then I'll be like, I'll misplace my backpack, which I call a knapsack.

I'm like, has anyone seen my knapsack?

And my kids just think I'm like a thousand years old.

It's like, why do you keep calling it a knapsack?

It's a backpack.

Nobody says the word knapsack, but we did call it a knapsack.

And then for some reason, we all decided backpack's better.

So maybe that happens with podcasts.

I don't know.

TJ McGlynn writes in, I've been reading your stuff since 1999 when I was at Northeastern.

Thanks, TJ.

I don't write anymore, but thank you.

I actually proposed this hypothetical to you at your book signing at Professor Tom's in New York City back in 2010.

So I'm running it back.

That was a great book signing.

The premise, you're a 30-year-old average player.

You're somewhere around six feet tall.

You're in decent shape.

You get out on a team with Jokic, Giannis, Luca, and Steph.

You have an average NBA bench.

You'd have all training camp to practice with them.

And the only two caveats, you have to play at least 30 minutes a game and you can't foul out.

So I assume by saying can't foul out, you could just keep fouling people.

But you couldn't foul people intentionally to try to just get out of the game.

You'd have to play 30 minutes.

And even if you had 12 fouls, they'd have to keep you in.

So TJ asks, what's this team's record?

He thinks he'd say at best 38 and 44.

So I was thinking about this.

Even if... Take me 30.

Even... when I had my big USC pickup basketball comeback in the early 2010s.

So I fit the profile for pretty much all of this.

I think it's at least a 48-win team.

I know that sounds crazy, but I have Jokic, Giannis, Luka, and Steph.

They're four of the best 10 NBA players in the league.

Jokic is the best.

I'm getting all kinds of rebounds.

I'm getting passing.

I can outscore basically any team.

Jokic and Steph together would be holy shit.

And I was thinking like, all right, so you're going to be wide open every game.

So you're either in the right corner or the left corner in every offensive play.

So they're just putting you there.

And all you're doing is you just for practice.

You're practicing nothing else other than just shooting like a thousand threes a game from the left and right corner, because they're going to be open.

At some point you're probably going to have to take them Um, and could you hit 30 on the wide open threes?

Then maybe honest, get some rebounds.

Then on defense, I think you'd have to play zone.

You'd have to stay in the corner.

You're only playing 30 minutes, so you might want to rig it.

So maybe you play 16 minutes in the first half and then 14 in the second, but you saved the last 10 for crunch time or even if the team's down nine now you can try to make a run in the last 10 minutes with Luka, Giannis Jokic Staff and some good bench player.

I think that's a 48-win team.

I'd like to see somebody try that.

Maybe that's why they created the second apron.

Next question is from Jesse McCoppen.

Why are the Dolphins so underrated in the tortured fan base discussion?

We haven't had a playoff win since 2002 as our best quarterback since Marino.

They were rendered irrelevant by Brady's Pats and Josh's Buffalo Bills recently.

So that's basically this entire century.

But my entire childhood, this was the team we had to beat.

The Dolphins were awesome in the 70s.

They were one of the coolest teams in the 80s, even though they never won a Super Bowl.

The Marino Dolphins were one of the envies of everybody.

And they weren't as maybe fun or successful as people remember in the 90s.

They did make the 92 AFC title game.

But I always felt like with the Dolphins Um, because of the success in the seventies and eighties.

And then Marina was so iconic in the nineties and eighties.

Um, it always seemed like they mattered more than they did.

So it's tough for me to think of them as completely irrelevant, even though they've been irrelevant for this entire century.

Um, which raises a different question from Patrick B. I don't know if he knows Jesse McCoppen.

Who do you use the most irrelevant franchise in professional sports?

They're too bad to make the playoffs, but not so bad.

They're top in the news with their total dysfunction.

It's a team that's usually in a small market.

Bonus points if their location name is generic, Indiana, Golden State, New England.

It's a team that makes you say, oh yeah, they still exist when they're picking eighth in the draft.

I'll just assume it's my Columbus Blue Jackets, who are celebrating their 26th season and only have a total of 15 franchise playoff wins.

So I had no idea which I think speaks to Patrick's case that the answer is the Columbus Blue Jackets.

I combed through all four leagues, tried to...

Top this.

The dysfunction rule that he made, that cancels out the Wizards, the Pelicans, and the Kings.

The Hornets were too lousy.

I don't think they matter either for this.

It's really the Bulls and the NBA for the last 25 years, but they had MJ before that, so you can't count them.

In baseball, it's probably the Reds are the closest, but they even won in 1990.

I don't know.

NFL, it's really the Dolphins, but you can't say it because the 70s and 80s and Marino.

Titans and Cardinals, maybe the closest, but they both made Super Bowls.

The Cardinals made it in 08.

The Titans made it in 99.

Titans were pretty good with Vrabel for a couple years too.

Columbus's case is incredible.

So they come in the league in 2000.

They haven't made round two of the playoffs ever.

They haven't made the playoffs since 2020.

They've missed the playoffs 20 of 25 times.

The best Blue Jacket ever is Rick Nash.

They've had 17 captains.

Lyle Odeline, Ray Whitney, Luke Richardson, Adam Foote, Rick Nash, Nick Foligno, and Boone Jenner.

I've never heard a single conversation about the Blue Jackets.

Now granted, I don't have a ton of hockey fans in my life, but I have never heard a single convo about them.

I'm not sure who the rival is.

I looked this up on Google and Google said their rival, the Google AI, whatever that thing is called, their biggest rival, the Pittsburgh Penguins.

And then I asked Google what the Pittsburgh Penguins' biggest rival was, and they suggested Philly Washington, the Rangers and the Devils.

So Columbus' biggest rival isn't even one of that team's four biggest rivals.

Their saddest moment was Johnny Goudreau dying recently.

That was really sad.

Their weirdest moment was a backup goalie a few years ago died in an awful fireworks accident which I didn't know about, but it's a terrible story.

Their worst draft pick.

In 2006, they took Gilbert Brule over Andrzej Kopitar, who became probably the greatest player in the history of the Kings other than Gretzky.

And apparently the Blue Jacket.

I did a lot of research on this one.

Apparently the Blue Jacket fans are still upset about that pick.

Most exciting controversy was they hired Mike Babcock, who is already kind of not in disgrace, but controversial.

And then they had to fire him before his first season because of some weird scandal where He asked players to share personal photos with them and then use the photos in some sort of something and the players got upset about it and they just fired him.

That was weird.

And then their greatest win, they swept the 2019 Panthers in round one.

It was the only time they made it to round two.

It has to be the Columbus Blue Jackets.

I can't believe how boring all that is.

Unbelievable.

Anyway, that's your answer.

Jared in Ohio asks if you could take one weird thing from the old NBA and bring it into today's game.

What would it be?

Well, it's an easy answer.

Weird looking jump shots.

I really miss from my childhood and from loving the NBA in the 80s when people had different shooting motions and there was just different, distinct ways to shoot a basketball.

Feel like they're gone.

The best one jamal wilkes um, who would start like near his hip and come up and i don't even know how he did it and it was awesome to watch in person and he was a great shooter and that was like you couldn't even replicate his shot.

Kareem skyhook.

Michael adams he shot like he had a little hop step from from his right shoulder like a push shot.

Sean marion his shot always looked broken.

It looked he would shoot it from here and kind of fling it up.

Reggie Miller for a great jump shooter.

He had a really really distinct jump shot which I thought was just really cool to watch.

Larry Bird had a weird one.

He'd kind of shoot it like this.

But it was like a cross-face shot, but one of the best ones ever.

Kevin Martin, I think was probably of the recent players, probably the last recent player who was a big scorer, who had a weird shot.

And then I think my favorite for this, other than Jamal Works, Vinnie Johnson, the Microwave.

His shot just kind of came out of his neck.

It was like he didn't have a head and it was unblockable.

Everything about Vinnie Johnson can't be replicated.

I don't know.

He had no neck.

He was like this little fire hydrant.

His shot came out.

He was impossible to guard and he would just score 16 points in five minutes.

So that's probably what I missed the most.

Kenny from Brooklyn wants to know Is TAS still your favorite TV show of all of 2025, or did the season premiere of Landman, unleashing Demi Moore, take the honors?

I did watch Landman.

I think the winner for me for 2025 and granted there is, granted there is, I don't know, six weeks left is The Beast and Me, which just went up on Netflix and I devoured it.

I watched all eight episodes.

I actually was raining so hard in LA on Saturday night that I woke up because of the rain, because I thought like a window was broken.

It was just raining that hard and I couldn't fall back asleep.

And I'm watching two more episodes of it.

I finished it on Sunday night after I did the podcast.

The star, the beast in me is Claire Danes, who's finally getting to play a conflicted erratic, possibly crazy neurotic person who's on the verge of melting down in every episode.

She's never played a character like this before.

The guy from the americans, matthew reese he's in it, he's cooking, he's so good.

And the guy from breaking bad who played mike um, one of the uh, the older guy who then, in a better call, saw that guy who initially i know him as the guy from 48 hours who gets shot um, by gans.

My ipad test when you're watching a show, how much of the time are you looking at your phone or your ipad?

So the morning show is basically like a 99.

You look at the tv like 1 of the time you're actually watching it when it's the morning show.

This show is a put the iPad down show.

It's like, I don't even want to be distracted.

I'm so into this.

It's like a real old school thriller where you're like, I don't know where this is going.

I can't wait to see what happens next.

It's just, I really enjoyed it.

And I was thinking Clear Day and Season Tickets.

I still might be a season ticket holder for her.

And she's basically playing some variation of the same part in every show.

And I'm in every time.

It seems very normal in real life.

But I was thinking, I was texting with Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney about this because I wanted them to cover this on Prestige, on the Prestige TV podcast, excellent podcast.

And I was saying how I'd been with Claire since my so-called life, because she was great on that show.

And I really liked that show, but it wasn't like a typical show for a guy in his twenties to watch.

And I was explaining like back in in when being single in the nineties, like being versed on 90210 and Melrose Place and The Real World and My So-Called Life, which were shows I liked anyway, were great conversation breakers with girls you want to talk to at a bar.

And just being well-versed and having jokes and material about that was actually helpful.

And we were wondering what are those shows now that if you're in your 20s and you meet somebody at wherever party work wherever, what are the end shows that a man would have to to I don't know make some sort of connection over the show?

And I don't really know the answer.

It's probably prestige shows, but if you're in high school or college you probably have to watch Summer I Turn Pretty to be able to have jokes about it, in case it ever comes up, or euphoria.

I don't know.

I don't know the answer.

Maybe this is just specific to the 1990s.

John in Portland wants to know, I'm taking bets on Nico's next job.

He offers the following five.

Special Assistant Rob Palenka, Clutch Super Agent, Nike Jordan Sports Marketing Czar, CEO of Mamba Inc.

And VP GM Adidas Basketball.

All decent choices.

He's gone.

He has to leave the country.

I think he gets involved in NBA Europe.

I think would be the next move for Nico.

I don't think it could be anything in the United States of America.

Kyle Wiltshire and Hendersonville, Tennessee.

Pennsylvania.

I almost created a state.

He wonders why we haven't inducted the first class of the Bill Simmons Podcast Hall of Fame yet.

Said, develop a criteria, create a panel to serve as voters, include the audience in the process.

Pre-record all the announcement induction episodes, run them in July when we're on vacation.

Imagine CR knocking on Kohl's from his door to present him with a 33 Larry Bird jersey as a first ballot.

Bill Simmons Podcast Hall of Famer.

Then you sit down with Chuck and have a retrospective career.

Pod about his career on your show would be so great.

Just a thought.

I enjoy the show.

That's from Kyle and Hendersonville.

Tennessee.

We'd probably spend most of the time talking about Chuck's controversial Nico take.

That really really made people in Dallas mad, but I loved it.

I'm trying to think if there's been a lower stakes hall of fame, but I'm not necessarily against this.

I think it would be two people a year.

And I think, as the years pass, we'd have to leave somebody out to kind of get a Pete Rose type controversy going.

I think it would be Sal first, because Sal would do this if it was somebody else just to torture them.

But also, like you could say, Because Sal is my co-host on the infamous podcast in September 2014, when I said too much about Goodell and ended up getting suspended and just opened a can of worms.

Sal got blamed for that.

It's a little like bonds in the steroids.

And is he going to get in?

Can he shake that podcast off him?

I don't know.

Maybe I can start the Hall of Fame in one of the future mailbags.

Okay.

We're heading down the homestretch here.

Sumo wrestlers... must win consecutive tournaments to reach Yokozuna status.

That's from Craig in Nishinoma, Japan.

How would that work in the NBA?

I think players would need multiple championships and or MVPs to be considered.

In sumo, there can only be two or three NBA Yokozunas at the same time.

And once they're out, they can't reach that status again.

So who are the NBA Yokozunas in the history of the league?

This is interesting.

So you'd have to win back-to-back, two MVPs in a row, maybe two MVPs and a championship.

So I think it's Mikan, Bill Russell, Wilt, Kareem, Bird, Magic, Isaiah.

I think Isaiah qualifies.

The Pistons won two in a row.

Jordan, Hakeem, Shaq, Duncan.

Nash won two MVPs by this definition.

I think he's in.

Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Giannis, Jokic, and...

Probably SGA right now is we'd be talking about, could he be a Yokozuna?

I like this idea.

This is like, it's a little like the Pantheon.

It's like with like a distorted definition of it, but I like the Yokozuna idea.

Brad in Chicago wants to know with his recent passing, do you have any final thoughts on the life and career of Michael Ray Richardson?

I actually do.

Thank you for asking Brad in Chicago.

I think he's the single most talented guard to fuck his career up in NBA history.

It's either him or John Lucas in the finals.

I think he was slightly better than John Lucas.

His second year, 1980, Bird of Magic's rookie year, led the league in assistant steals.

He was the perfect Nick for the late 70s, early 80s, NBA cocaine era.

Cool as hell.

Really talented.

Fun to watch.

Had an awesome, awesome, awesome Nike poster that I can't believe is in my studio.

And was probably the most likely guy to put up a triple-double and then go to studio 54 until 5 in the morning.

He was involved in the best 80s drug guy trade ever.

The Knicks signed Bernard King as a free agent.

He'd had a ton of problems at Utah and Golden State.

And they signed Bernard King, traded Michael Ray to him as compensation to Golden State.

I wrote in my book this was like Marbury for kid, only with the Russian roulette aspect of each.

Guy has battled serious coke alcohol problems and will either make or break our franchise.

So the Warriors got broken.

They had to trade him for Sleepy Floyd four months later and Bernard King became an iconic Knicks.

So the Knicks won that one.

But Michael Ray goes to the Nets in 84 in round one.

They're playing the Sixers who had Moses, Dr J Mo Cheeks, Andrew Tony, Bobby Jones.

They had just had one of the greatest seasons of all time, won the title, and they beat them in five games.

And it was mainly because how good Michael Ray was.

In 85.

The year later he was at 28 and six for the Nets, played 82 games, led the league in steals and then became one of the first kicked out of the league guys when Stern cracked down on the cocaine stuff.

But I wrote in 2010 how I wanted a comments section in the Hall of Fame.

That, just this one section you go, and it's all the guys who had the potential to be great and just didn't pull it off because they had drugs injuries, some sort of bad break, a tragic death, whatever it was.

So I had 2010.

I had Michael Ray Richardson as the first guy in this, Andrew Toney, Penny Hardaway, James Silas, Marvin Barnes, Gus Johnson, Ralph Sampson, Brad Doherty, Maurice Stokes, John Lucas, Sam Bowie.

Terry Cummings, Roy Tarpley, Reggie Lewis, Grant Hill, Alonzo Mourning, Drazen Petrovic and Tim Hardaway.

Those were the 18.

You would 100% add Derrick Rose to that.

You wouldn't add Yao Ming because I think he's in the Hall of Fame anyway.

I think you'd add Brandon Murray because I love Brandon Murray and his knees just couldn't hold up.

You might add Ben Simmons.

Not my Ben Simmons, the other Ben Simmons.

I think he's in.

I think he's in the Comet Hall of Fame section.

The guy in 17, 18, and 19, there was times when he looked like LeBron in the open court.

He was a first-team all-defense guy.

He could absolutely be the second-best guy in a team that could win a title, and there was kind of nobody else like him in the league.

And then that Hawk series, when they started intentionally fouling him, broke his brain.

I think he's in.

So I would have 21, and then we'll leave two spots open for Zion and Jaa.

Sean from New Jersey wants to know who would you pick to star in the sports drama about the NBA gambling scandal.

My pick is Giancarlo Esposito as Chauncey Billups.

So I only have four so far.

I have Denzel as Chauncey Billups.

I think we need some star power.

I have Marlon Wayans as Damon Jones.

That's easy.

Jarrell Jerome as Terry Rozier.

Big step up for Jarrell.

And I think Michael Imperioli is the head of the Mafia.

Whatever Mafia is involved in this, I think he's involved.

And then after that, I'm not sure.

I'm not sure who plays Adam Silver.

I have to think about that.

Maybe it's Corey Stahl.

Could he do an Adam Silver?

We'll find out.

The more we know about this story, we'll have to keep adding cast members.

Okay, we're really in the homestretch now.

Ben from Chicago says, we need a conspiracy Bill Simmons podcast.

I for one love when Bill goes into conspiracy mode.

Can't imagine I'm the only one out there.

First episode, did Adam Silver force the Luka trade on Nico Harrison?

Silver says, okay, Nico, this is what's going to happen.

You're going to either trade Luka to the Lakers now or we're going to get them there in a few years.

You'll get nothing from him.

However, if you trade him right now, we'll get you AD and Cooper flag.

Hold that thought.

This next question is from Shane.

Was the Luka trade orchestrated by the league to pump up the valuation of Lakers before the sale?

Ooh.

Did the NBA say to Dallas, don't worry, we'll compensate you with the first overall pick?

Also did Cuban sell the team because the league told him they need Luka and the Lakers and he didn't want to be a part of it.

What are your thoughts?

Woo!

Conspiracy Bill is here.

Regular Bill does not think any of this happened, because not only would it be illegal, I think it would be consumer fraud and Adam Silver and Mark Cuban and the DeMont family would all go to jail.

So I just wanted to mention that.

I genuinely think this is what happened.

Luke had been with the Mavericks since he was like 18.

It was his first job.

I think they slowly came to think he was an entitled dick and that he wasn't going to stay in shape.

And it's a little like what I talked about earlier with Antoine Walker syndrome.

The more time they spent with them, the more they just started seeing the glass half empty stuff, not the glass half full stuff.

He screwed up in the 24 finals when he fouled out of game three and acted pretty petulant afterwards.

And yeah, Didn't really play well in general and I think that left a bad taste in everyone's mouth and they overacted to that.

Didn't think about the first three rounds, thought about the last one.

I think Kidd, who has blood all over him in this.

All over him because there's no way they'd make this trade without Jason Kidd.

There's just no way.

And I think he probably bitched about Luka's defense all the time and complained to Niko about him constantly.

And then Niko, who was obsessed with Kobe, who had the Kobe work ethic thing in his head, and he's just obsessing with how different Luka was than Kobe.

And the two of them are just making each other crazy.

Then you have Nico has an irrational love for Anthony Davis.

He has irrational GM confidence after the Kyrie trade.

That worked out.

I thought the Kyrie trade was a disaster.

It's like, what are you guys doing?

You're trading for Kyrie Irving?

You're nuts.

And then it works out.

Patrick Dumont, obviously, maybe not a buffoon, but a sports buffoon.

Didn't really seem like he knows that much about basketball and Made the mistake of like well, I delegate with my employees.

So if they tell me this is what we should all do.

But he did sign off on this trade.

Let's be fair.

Nico was an acting rogue.

The guy at some point had to sign off on it.

So Kidd did this after the trade didn't work out.

Dumont did this.

And everything got blamed on Nico.

I don't think that's fair, even though it was his fault.

I think Nico had the idea.

Kidd loved it.

And they pulled one over on Dumont.

And here's the important thing.

I think Nico...

I think he genuinely thought if they did this trade, they're going to win the 25 title.

I think they, he thought they could beat Oklahoma city.

If they did this, if they added Davis, they were really big that they could throw whatever against OKC.

Kyrie, Anthony Davis, all of these role players, defense guys.

And he said, fuck it.

He's like, we're going to win the title if we did this.

Cause that's what we do when you're have a rational confidence.

And I think that's what happened, but we do have to include conspiracy bill.

Um, This did inspire me to come up with conspiracy bills.

NBA conspiracy scale on a scale of one to 10, with one being the lowest level type of conspiracy and 10 being the biggest.

Number one Stern, leaking the FBI's Donahue investigation to the New York Post.

So the story would blow up before they kept working on it and may or may not have found out if any other refs were involved.

That definitely happened.

That's not even a conspiracy.

I think he did leak it, so that's one.

A two, Really, I don't think this happened, but it's a fun one.

The league made David Kahn, when he was the Minnesota Timberwolves GM, pass on Curry two times in a row, so he'd end up in either Golden State or New York in a bigger market.

Again, I don't think this happened, but it's a great conspiracy theory.

And by the way, David Kahn did work for Pro Scour Rose after law school, big law firm.

You know who was like the biggest Pro Scour Rose guy ever?

David Stern, before he became NBA commissioner.

Yeah, conspiracy bill is in the house.

The 2006 pro Miami Heat finals, officiating being a huge fuck you to Cuban for all the stuff he was doing to try to make the league better.

Now we're starting to get into the 2011 and 2012 lotteries being rigged.

I don't think they could rig a lottery, but these are the two most suspicious ones to me.

2011 Cleveland wins with the Clippers pick, which wasn't even one of the top seven picks the year after LeBron leaves.

And then 2012, New Orleans finally sells the team after the league owns it.

The league owns it, sells it, the Benson family buys it, and then they win the number one pick.

So I'm just mentioning those.

I would say the Luka Lakers conspiracy is a five out of 10.

So again, these first five, they're for really conspiracy corners, not actual reality.

Number six.

Stern pushed a Seattle sale to OKC businessmen, knowing he would move the team, because he wanted Seattle to stay empty as a potential leverage city, either to draw teams out and relocate or to point to teams that wouldn't build new arenas where he could say see,

See what happened to Seattle?

You could be next.

Actually kind of believed that one.

A 7 out of 10.

Draymond's suspension gets upheld in the 2016 finals, so LeBron could have a chance to come back with the Cavs.

That's one of those proof to me that didn't happen.

Eight out of 10, 2001 Buck Sixer Series and game six of the 2002 Kings Lakers Series.

Yeah.

Nine out of 10 Jordan suspended in 1993 and he's suspended for a whole year and comes back with 20 games to go in the next season.

It's just never added up.

I've talked about it a million times how the most competitive guy of all time could be like yeah, I think I've competed enough.

It's never added up.

And then 10 out of 10 is the frozen envelope in the 1984 lottery, which I've broken down over and over again, where they put seven envelopes in this bin.

Stern went around, he fell down miraculously, picked out the Knicks envelope and the rest was history.

And people thought that they made that envelope super cold so that he would know not to pick that one.

That is the best NBA conspiracy of all time.

I don't think any of these 10 actually happened.

But if you go from unbelievable to, yeah, I could see that one.

The frozen envelope is still the best one.

So thank you, Conspiracy Bill.

And thank you to the people who brought him in.

And then Crazy Carl writes in another question for Conspiracy Bill.

Do we think that Libby Dunn is dating Skeens for his future money?

No one can accuse her of it because she started dating him when they were at LSU.

So...

Maybe Skeens is the winner in this transaction, because she's worth any price, because she's wicked hot.

P.S., I'm not sexist.

P.P.S., the reason I'm not sexist is because I think that guys can be gold diggers too.

I'm worried that Zoe's new guy, Hank, might be trying the same move on Zoe.

As the heiress to the BS kingdom, she probably has guys coming at her for the wrong reason.

Let me know if you want me to get Big Dom Albanian George Ham from the town and we'll put a tail on Hank.

We'll report back soon.

Just answer any call if it's from unknown caller.

That's from Crazy Carl.

Yep, these are my listeners.

Thanks to everybody who sent mailbag questions.

You can send them to bspodcast33 at gmail.com.

Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well.

And I will see you on Thursday.

I think Zach Lowe's coming on on Thursday and we're gonna do some football picks as well.

So enjoy the first part of the week.

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[The Return of the Listener Mailbag: Nostalgia, NBA Conspiracies, and Pop Culture Debates]-[The Mailbag Makes a Dramatic Return]

📋 Summary

The Return of the Listener Mailbag: A New Era

The "Wins Above Raheem Morris" (WARM) Metric

The "Nico Harrison Award" and Cinematic Blunders

Conspiracy Bill: The Luka Trade and NBA History

Sliding Doors: 2016 NBA Finals

Pop Culture and Nostalgia

Hypotheticals and Future Outlook

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

[The Return of the Listener Mailbag: Nostalgia, NBA Conspiracies, and Pop Culture Debates]-[The Mailbag Makes a Dramatic Return]

📋 Summary

The Return of the Listener Mailbag: A New Era

The "Wins Above Raheem Morris" (WARM) Metric

The "Nico Harrison Award" and Cinematic Blunders

Conspiracy Bill: The Luka Trade and NBA History

Sliding Doors: 2016 NBA Finals

Pop Culture and Nostalgia

Hypotheticals and Future Outlook

Deep Learning with ListenLeap

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

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