The Bill Simmons Podcast - A Lakers Abyss, Plus Embiid Tales, Boston’s Bad Luck, and Will Smith Fallout With Chris Mannix and Larry Wilmore

Episode Date: March 30, 2022

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons shares his thoughts on the Bucks’ win over the 76ers and wonders “Is this two-year Lakers collapse the worst of any modern title team?” (3:05). Then Bill talks with SI’s Chris Mannix about Joel Embiid, the 76ers’ playoff hopes, the third-place Celtics, the Eastern Conference standings, and more (20:34). Next Bill is joined by Larry Wilmore to discuss the Oscars, the 11th-place Lakers, and HBO’s ‘Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty’ (1:06:16). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Chris Mannix and Larry Wilmore Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For as long as I've known the NBA, it's been a stars league. But even among the stars, there's an exclusive club. Russell, Dr. J, Jordan, Kobe. They're all part of a select group that paved the way for the NBA superstar of today. And some even shared secrets with each other along the way. From Spotify and the Ringer Podcast Network, I'm Jackie McMullen, and this is the Icons Club. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer.

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Must be legal drinking age. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going

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to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler

or visit rg-help.com. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. Hope you're checking out Icons Club. It's Jackie McMullin's new narrative podcast on the NBA Superstars Evolution. You can hear it on the Book of Basketball 2.0 feed. This week's episode is a big one. She got Michael Jordan. It's the Michael Jordan episode and Michael Jordan's interviewed for it.

A lot of great people are interviewed, but it's an amazing episode. Check it out. Also, speaking of great narrative podcasts, Just Like Us, which Clara Malone did for us for the Ringer Dish Feed, which was about, you know, the rise of paparazzi slash reality culture

in the 2000s. Bennifer, Tabloids, Us Weekly, TMZ, the reality TV takeover. It's all in there. It's how we go basically from the early 2000s all the way to kind of where we landed, which, you know, I would say the words for better or worse apply for that. But that was a great podcast. Thanks to Claire for doing that for us. And one more narrative podcast for you. We announced this this week, the time for WrestleMania,

which is going to be a two-day event, Saturday, Sunday. David Shoemaker, he created a book of wrestling podcasts. Yeah. And the first whole section of it, 25 catchphrases that define the Attitude Era, which was in the mid to late 90s in WWE when everything changed.

The Rock, Stone Cold, Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Generation X. So he deep dives into that. It is going to be 25 catchphrases. He interviews a whole bunch of people. It is a big picture, full-fledged deep dive into that era. Hope you check it out. Book of Wrestling. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Check out the Ring of Wrestling show as well. They're covering WrestleMania all week. We're sending a whole bunch of people down there. I'm not going this year.

I think my son's out. He's hit that stage with wrestling where he's probably out, I would say for, he's 14 now, 14 to age 19. And then I think he gets sucked back in, probably sophomore year in college.

Land it out. That's usually how it goes. Age six, you get sucked in. Probably sophomore year in college. Blame it out. That's usually how it goes. Age six, you get sucked in. Age six to age nine, you fall out a little bit. You come flying back. Age 11, age 12, 13, girls start to come in.

Then you come back age 19. That's my prediction. That's my roadmap for him. Coming up on this podcast much later, our friend Larry Wilmar is going to talk about winning time. He's going to talk about Will, our friend Larry Wilmar is going to talk about winning time. He's going to talk about Will Smith and Chris Rock. He's going to talk about what it's like to be a Laker fan in 2022. And before that, Chris Mannix comes out and we're going to talk

about Joel Embiid in the East, which is just getting wackier and wackier. Tonight, the Bucks beat the 76ers. It was an awesome game. MVP performances from Giannis and Bede. Harden sort of until he missed the last three shots, including an absolute brick on a step back. And Bede comes flying and gets a rebound. Giannis with the MVP block and the Bucks win by two. They took the training wheels off Giannis tonight. You know, it's regular season. You want him around 32, 33. Tonight he played 38, 24 shots, 10 free throws, puts up to 40, 14, and six. And he's still my pick for who is the best player in the league. I still think it's Giannis. If you're asking who I want for one game, probably Durant. Who do I think is having the most valuable season? I would say Jokic.

And I haven't really wavered from that all year. It feels like those are the three lanes. But Embiid, he has a chance to flip this. Right now, Miami's in first place. Milwaukee is a half game behind them. Boston and Philly are third and fourth. And that's going to flip and that's going to keep flipping. Who the hell knows how it's going to turn out?'s going to keep flipping. Who the hell knows how

it's going to turn out? We will find out. I will tell you this. I'm freaking out about the Robert Williams thing. Mannix and I talk about it. After we did that interview in the late morning, and then I was trying to find out from all kinds of people what was going on. And it's like, meniscus, you can remove it. He can play faster. You have to repair it. That can take a year. That's what happened to Jaron Jackson, James Wiseman. You can shave it. And if you shave it, I know people who've, you know, they've come back in four weeks.

It's not a total repair. I don't understand it. And I don't like the meniscus and I'm upset. So let's cheer me up by talking about the Los Angeles Lakers. So listen, they lost tonight. They're out of the plan as of this point. Now that could change.

You know, if you look at their schedule, maybe not. The only easy game that they have left is OKC. They're tied for 10th with San Antonio, but San Antonio is a tiebreaker. They're both 31 and 44. The Lakers are 13 games under 500.

Chris Haynes reported on TV tonight that Anthony Davis might come back on Friday. LeBron didn't play tonight. He has sprained ankle. He might come back so he could make a case. Hey, they're 17 and 20 when Davis plays. They're basically a 500 team. If he comes back, they can split those games.

The Spurs, I love it. They really want to get into the play-in. It's been respectable. And the Lakers, what else do they have to play for? New Orleans has their pick. New Orleans is incentivized to finish ahead of the Lakers. It knocks the Lakers down. It's a comedy of errors.

And you don't need to hear my diatribe of how bad the Westbrook trade was. We have talked about that basically from the moment it got made. But what's interesting about this Lakers season, I was trying to think of anyone who has won a title within two years, did a worse job of protecting the nucleus of that title team. You think about what the Lakers did. Here's who they let leave last summer. Alex Caruso. By every defensive metric, one of the best defensive guards in the league. They let Dennis Schroeder go, who was confident. They let Wesley Matthews go, who's going to be

playing for the Bucs in the playoffs. They let Andre Drummond go, who's been a beast for the Nets. He was a good backup center for Philly, and he's been even better than that for Brooklyn. In fact, if you look at that trade with the Harding for Curry, Drummond, and Ben Simmons, who hasn't even played, who had an epidural, who knows if we're going to see him this year. You think like Brooklyn just gave away James Harding, got two bench players back basically, but really they've been better than bench players. Anyway, Lakers let Drummond go. Marquise Morris, let him go. And then the classic where door A was Russell Westbrook, 44.2 million this year, 47.1 million next year. Door B was trading Kuzma and Harrell and maybe a first round pick. Hard to say if their number 22 pick

was in there or not. But let's say it was for Buddy Heald. And if they had kept KCP and gotten Buddy Heald, $36 million. If they had done what they did, which was get Westbrook,

$44.2 million, $8.2 million difference, big luxury tax thing, which then allows Caruso, they think, well, we Westbrook $44.2 million, $8.2 million difference, big luxury tax thing, which then allows Caruso. They think, well, we'll let Caruso leave. We don't want to go further in the tax. He signs with the Bulls for four years, $37 million. So you basically could add KCP Heald and Caruso in door B versus Russ in door A. But then you look at the guys they signed. They spent their $5 million mid-level on Kendrick Nunn, who I thought was pretty erratic on Miami, and he's been hurt this year. Their minimum signings, Dwight Howard, Rajad Rondo, Carmelo Anthony, Trevor

Ariza, Wayne Ellington, and then Avery Bradley. That is brutal. That is like two big three teams. They spent $30 million for three years on Taylor Horton Tucker. They drafted Austin Reeves. They went into this season with a payroll of

$149 million. Their luxury tax is $45 million. When you add all this up, I listen. I know everybody's like, oh my God, they botched this year. This was so bad. I actually think we're underrating it. I don't think you can do worse. Just look at the guys that left. Markeith Morris, Caruso, Drummond, Wes Matthews, Dennis Schroeder, KCP, Kuzma, Harrell. And then the guys they bring in. Nunn, Monk, Dwight, Rondo,

Carmelo, Ariza, Ellington, Westbrook. It's kind of staggering. And as well, I don't want to step on Wilmore's point much later, but he was like, we won the title two years ago with defense and LeBron and Davis. They traded away all the defense. Why do we do this?

Why didn't we keep this team together? That got me thinking. So it's not just bad. It's not just like a complete mis-evaluation of talent. It's not just the fact that the Westbrook trade is hands down the worst trade of the last couple of years. And it is in the running for the worst trades of all time. I'm actually going to have to try to figure this out.

Worst trades of the 21st century. It has to be in the top five. It has to. It was a complete miscalculation. They go into it thinking, well, he'll bring us one more score. It's a big three. He'll take some load off LeBron.

He did the opposite of taking a load off LeBron, by the way. They caught him at the wrong point of his career. He just is incapable of being a supporting player who doesn't have the ball. Misread all the way around. With all that said, I think you can actually make a case that for a team that won the title less than two years ago,

this is the worst job anyone has ever done two years later after a title. So I went through and I tried to figure out how many teams since the ABA-NBA merger in 1976, how many teams won the finals and then didn't make the playoffs two years later, which is now at stake for the Lakers. And here's who we have.

The 1978 Celtics. They won in 76. That was when they beat Phoenix in the Triple OT game. That was a really old team. You had Paul Silas. They ended up letting him leave. Don Nelson retired. JoJo White was really hitting the tail end.

He had one more year after that. That was it. John Havlicek's last year was 1978. Charlie Scott, they ended up trading Charlie Scott and Jojo White that year. Red Auerbach, kind of an early version of the tank as this year went on. They traded for Kermit Washington after he threw the punch. They finished 32 and 50. You look at it, it's defensible. They had an awesome run. They won in 74 and 76. They should have won in 73. So they got two titles over under us, probably two and a half. And the run probably was going to end around 76, 77.

Can't hold that against them. Our next one, the 1981 Sonics. They won in 79. By 1981, two things happened. They traded Dennis Johnson, who was disgruntled for Paul Westfall, They won in 79. By 1981, two things happened. They traded Dennis Johnson, who was disgruntled, for Paul Westphal, which were two of the best guards in the league. This was an awesome one-for-one trade, which rarely happens.

I'm trying to think what the equivalent would be now. This would be like... Like Jason Tatum for Devin Booker. That kind of trade, like, wow. Those two guys got traded for Booker. That kind of traded like, wow, those two guys got traded for each other. That was the impact. So Westfall gets hurt that year, 1980, 81. And then more importantly, Gus Williams,

one of my favorite players in my childhood. He held out the entire year. And weirdly it worked. He ended up getting a much bigger contract, but we lost a year of Gus Williams, which sucked. Anyway, they lost their backcourt, which was the reason they won the finals in 79, finished 34 and 48. Again, defensible.

The 1999-2000 Bulls, which, as you know, Jordan retires in 98, and they just do an epic tank. They get the first pick in 99 with Elton Brand. They keep throwing stuff away in 2000, 2001. You know how that goes. So I can't hold that against them. So I listed three teams where not even remotely as bad

as what happened in the Lakers. Here's our fourth team. The 2006 Miami Heat win the title. Two years later, they go 15 and 67. This is pretty bad. Now, some of it was Shaquille starting to get old and that team got a little gamey the year before. I think they have 44 and 38 got knocked out early. The next year, they trade Shaquille to the Suns for Sean Marion and Marcus Banks, who was like the tax for that trade. Before that season, they traded a bunch of contracts,

Antoine Walker, a couple other guys, and a 2009 first for Ricky Davis and Mark Blunt. That trade was terrible. So somehow, in two years, they turned whatever that kind of aging nucleus where you had like Morning and Shaq, Antoine Walker, White Chocolate, all those guys. All that's left is Dwayne Wade, Sean Barry,

Ricky Davis, Mark Blunt, White Chocolate's still there. And they decide, they do a full tanker row. They finish 15 and 67 and get the number two pick and take Michael Beasley, which even as it was happening, we knew it wasn't the right move. Westbrook went forth. There were other guys than that,

but Beasley, you know, they couldn't resist the talent. Regardless, not a great job, but at least somewhat defensible. They took some swings. They still ended up with Sean Marion, who I think they eventually turned up with Jermaine O'Neal. It's pretty bad. Pretty bad.

Not as bad as the Lakers. And then the last one, the 2013 Mavericks, two years after they won in 2011. If you remember, they had a big fork in the road with Tyson Chandler after that 2011 season. We had the lockout. Lockout ends. Body's flying around. They let Tyson Chandler lead. 2011 season. We had the lockout. Lockout ends. Body's flying around.

They let Tyson Chandler leave. They let him go to the Knicks. Jason Kidd eventually leaves. Jason Terry eventually leaves. They signed Vince Carter in 2011. They trade for Lamar Odom. Carter was fine. Lamar Odom just couldn't have worked out worse. 2012, I forgot this. They signed O. Carter was fine. Lamar wrote him. Just couldn't have worked out worse. 2012,

I forgot this. They signed OJ Mayo. They signed Elton Brand. They signed Chris Kamen. They traded Jan Mahimny for Darren Collison. What happens? They go 41 and 41. Dirk was a little banged up that year. Again, not as bad as, not as remotely as bad as what happened with the Lakers. The indefensible one to me, and I said this at the time, was the Tyson Chandler piece. Because I feel like when you win the title, you have a responsibility to protect the title. The year after, as weird as this sounds, matters at least a little bit, unless you're blowing it up like the 1999 Bulls do. You owe your guys a chance to defend the title the next year. And sometimes that's a more fun year than the year you won the title. The 2009 Celtics before KG got hurt, they were awesome. They were

so much fun to watch. And in a way, they kind of came together and they were carrying themselves with that swagger. I wrote about this in my book, trying to figure out if the 92 Bulls or the 97 Bulls, in some ways, when you had that FU edge from having already won, you're carrying yourself like a champ. In a way, is that better than the year you won the championship itself when trying to get over the hump, you don't know if you can do it. The second year, you know you can do it. So I always hate when teams kind of blow that chance. You look at the Lakers last year.

They kept their team intact for the most part. And then they had bad luck. Davis got hurt. And if Davis doesn't get hurt in that Suns series, and it looked like he was going to kick their ass that whole series, Chris Paul was out. At that point, we didn't know if he was coming back or not. And, you know, they just decided, what's Ottawa? I think they listened to LeBron.

I think LeBron really, unfortunately, pushed for Westbrook. DeRozan was sitting right there. So that was another door they didn't go down. They potentially could have signed DeMar DeRozan. And they end up where they are. They completely changed where they were the two years earlier when it was just LeBron and Davis defense. And the other thing they did,

when you build a team around a big three and just a bunch of old guys and minimum contract guys, things like that, you're putting so much pressure on those three guys. And you're really hoping that, A, those guys are going to play well together, and then B, that they can stay healthy. In the Lakers case, Davis just is not a safe health bet. You look at when Miami did this in 2011, they were doing it with Wade at the peak of his powers, LeBron at his athletic peak, Bosh moving into his athletic peak. Those guys were really safe bets to stay on the floor.

You go to this Lakers team this year, LeBron in year 19, Westbrook, spent the week since 2008, and Davis, who just over and over and again gets hurt. He comes in heavy. From the get-go, it didn't look great. But man, you add everything up with the fact that they traded away all those picks,

all of them for that Davis trade. And it's like, well, they won the title. And, and we're still, and I litigated this the other two weekends ago. Like you do that trade every time the goal is to win the title. On the other hand, if you're a Laker fan, you didn't get to go to any of the playoff games. If you're late, if you're living here, if you're a season ticket holder, if you just wanted to go to one, it's happening in Florida. It's not even happening here half the time. Then you don't get a parade. And it's just this weird title that kind of happened. It's on the side. It's during a pandemic. It's bizarre. And then they don't even keep the team together. And now two years later, you're 31 and 44 and you're battling DeJounte Murray and Jakob Pertl

and Landale, Doug McDermott, all the guys in that Spurs team. It's incredible. And then the last piece of it, which really pushes it over the top for me, next year, they're on the books for $148.9 million. Exactly, basically where they are this year. They got Westbrook at $47.1, LeBron at $44.7,

Davis at $38, Horton Tucker at $10.2, and then Nunn has a player option at $5.3. So they have no flexibility at all. And all these Laker fans are like, no, no, it's going to be fine. We're going to trade Westbrook. It's like, good luck with that, dude. Good luck.

Good luck finding anyone to take Westbrook for $47 million. You're taking back somebody else's terrible contract and you're probably going to have to throw picks in. So you're going to have no picks for the whole decade. You add everything up and it's an absolute clusterfuck, especially because there's this other alternate universe where they just get to Rosen

or they just end up with KCP and Buddy Hield and Caruso. Or maybe they get to Rosen and those guys. Every single decision went horribly wrong except for Malik Monk, who I think whatever iteration of whatever team they would have had would have been good. But man, what a weird way for year 19 for LeBron to end. Averaging 30 plus a game, might win the scoring title.

They get Westbrook to save the miles on his legs. It goes the opposite way. I can't say I'm bummed out for them. Just in case you're wondering. All right, we're going to, uh, we're going to go to our friends from Pearl Jam. All right. Chris Mannix is here from Sports Illustrated. Has an excellent boxing podcast as well.

What's that called? Pretty simple. Boxing with Chris Mannix. Wow. Were you in the lab cooking that one up? What was going on? It tapped my considerable creativity to come up with that name. Great job. We're taping this. It is late morning Pacific time,

so we don't know the results yet of Philadelphia, Milwaukee, but we did want to talk about the East, which the Celtics were in fourth place. Then they were in first place. Then Rob Williams got hurt. They lost an OT to Toronto. They're in fourth place again. It's just going to be topsy-turvy. We'll go all into that. But you spent some time with Embiid, who seems like he's doing some MVP candidacy press availability, I would say. He's playing the game. He's like Will Smith before the Oscars.

Hopefully he doesn't slap somebody. What did you learn from Embiid? I think there's some truth to that. The, you know, get out there and get in the mind of the voters. His story is, he's got a story that reinforces that candidacy. You know, one of the reasons I wanted to talk to him is because, like, Jokic justifiably gets a lot of credit for lifting the Nuggets up in the absence of Murray and Porter Jr. and all the issues they've had. But Embiid, to me, deserves an equal amount of credit

for kind of how he kept that team together and just how dysfunctional it was. I mean, how he handled the Simmons stuff really set the tone for the entire season. Like Embiid in Philly, he's the most powerful athlete in Philadelphia. And that's something to be that powerful in Philadelphia. And people down there were telling me, like, Joel controls the mob. And if Joel had just basically sicked the mob on Ben Simmons,

he could have changed everything about the way this whole thing played out. But he was smart about it. He knew that at some point he was going to get something for Ben Simmons. And the best way to maximize that was to play nice, was to demur on all the questions about, did he want to see Philadelphia do something sooner rather than later? To not tattoo him at every opportunity that he had. He admitted to me, he was like, man, it was hard sometimes because you go to every new city and the questions are the exact same. It's like, what about Ben? When's Ben coming back?

Do you want Ben to be traded? Like he told me a couple of times, like he just, he came dangerously close to just popping off and saying what everybody kind of wanted him to say and what part of him really felt. But how he was able to kind of keep it together, I think is as important as anything

for why Philadelphia is in this position right now with James Harden and with a real chance to win a championship. He's had an awesome season. I think because I've been a little pro-Jokic with my vote, even though I'm not decided either way. I felt like the last couple of pods,

maybe I was dismissing the Embiid thing, which is one of the reasons I wanted to have you on. Just, I think what you said was 100% right. I think what he means to the city and a city that's really hard to win over, combined with his story, which let's be honest, like people love narratives and nobody has a better rags to riches NBA superstar story than him, where he basically doesn't play. What's he played 26 games in three years. And just, it was inconceivable to even think that he could stay on the court long enough during a season to

be eligible for an MVP. He's done it a couple of years in a row now. He passes the eye test. Priscilla and I talked about that on Sunday where catch him on the right night and it's just like, Jesus, what do you do with this guy? So, you know, similar to the Shaq era stuff. And I'm with you, like the Simmons thing, all it took was one remark to send that sideways.

And he held that. There's a couple of times where he kind of intimated, but for the most part, like remember Harden had that thing about Kyrie. He was like, I'll give him the shot myself. And that was like, oh, you're mad about this. It was like the window open, but Embiid never did this. How much do you think the Simmons mental health,

not knowing what was going on there, played that though I don't know um I think Joel and we talked about this a lot in the course of of a couple of days I think that he was genuinely perplexed and remains perplexed at what was going on with Ben Simmons. Like most of us, he wasn't sure if the mental health stuff was real or a ploy to get him out of Philadelphia. And to this day, he was telling me he still isn't entirely sure what Ben's problem was. What does really piss him off, and he kind of got into this a little bit was you know the quote that gets dragged into um the simmons mb discussion is the one from the end of the playoffs last year right where he said um you know paraphrasing but you know everything went downhill after we had a

attempt and we only got one free throw out of it well it really bothers him that quote because as he directed me, you go back and look at it, and that wasn't all with that quote. In the same answer, he went out and said, Matisse Teibel missed a free throw. I committed a turnover. Our defense couldn't get stops. Our offense struggled to get something going.

So in his mind, it was a long quote where it was kind of cherry-picked, and he didn't think that was necessarily fair. At the same time, one thing he said to me was like, look, if that's really what bothers you, if that's kind of the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, I don't know what I can do for you there. Like if you're that sensitive to something like that, I don't know what I can do for you. Because Joel always harkens back on the absolute flogging that he took in his first couple of years in that city. I mean, you go back and look at some of the clips.

I mean, there was a time when the perception was that he spent his entire rehab like housing cheeseburgers and drinking Shirley Temples. That was basically the story around Joel Embiid. He was killed in Philly until he got uh on the court so like in joel's mind and i i'm sort of speaking for him here in the sense that this is what i took away from it but in his mind like he's like i took this beating and i came out on the other end of it you're taking a beating stick with me you will come out on the other end of it and he still i still he said it he's, I still don't know exactly why things

went as South as quickly as they did. I have an answer not to defend Ben Simmons. I certainly don't want to be in that position, but I do think the root of all of it was when they tried to trade him for Harden and it didn't work out because we've seen that over and over again in the history of the league. We saw it with Ray Allen. I mean, think about Ray Allen, not until KG gets retired the other day to see even is it okay for them to even interact. It took nine years for the KG Pierce Rondo group to recover. Now there's some other stuff and maybe some off the court stuff

that we don't need to get into. But when they tried to trade Ray, I think that what did the trade, it got rescinded or it fell through last minute or like he knew they were tried to trade Ray, I think that what did the trade, it got rescinded or it fell through last minute or like he knew they were trying to trade on that last trade deadline. And that was one of the reasons he left because he was like, well, fuck these guys.

Like, why should I have loyalty to them? They didn't have loyalty to me. And I think with Simmons, that's what starts it. He's already got a little bit of a complex with the Embiid piece of it, where the city loves Embiid. Embiid is their guy. You're never breaking that.

You're never getting through to that. They try to trade you. The playoffs, you go south. You lose your confidence. The free throw shooting is historic. The 34.8, I think it was, for the entire playoffs. You completely retreat in the Atlanta series. You completely fall apart.

And then you have people in your life being like, we got to get you out of here. It's not your fault. They try to trade you to be in it. And you start planning that stuff. Your coach, he doesn't, your coach is ready to get you out. Like you got to get out of there. And I do think people use some of that stuff. And by people, I mean the people in his life, clutch, whoever you want to blame, they saw a window to like, look, we can get this guy to a better situation. He's not happy there anyway. I don't think it was salvageable after the trade. And I think it hits people different ways. I look, if when I was at ESPN, if they tried to trade me in like 2013, you know, to like Fox and I found out about it

and it fell through, I would be like, I'm fucking out of here. When is my contract up? I can't wait to leave. Don't you think that was a piece of it? Absolutely. The feeling going into that shortened season was that Philadelphia, whether it was before the season with Harden or after the season, they were going to move on from him at some point, and that hits you in a certain way. And I tend to agree with you.

If Sports Illustrated said, we're trading you to the New York Times, I'd be like, well, that's a dick move. I don't want to go there. I'm happy doing what I'm doing. Can you at least get Abrams and some picks to make me feel better? Can I feel good about myself? What do you get back in return for me? You're not just trading me for a subscription. I don't. Yeah, I buy into that as well. You know, Embiid's funny, man. Like there's an innocence to him that I don't see in a lot of athletes. We were talking about how he befriends general managers and how he's had a good relationship with Sam Hankey and a good relationship now with Daryl Morey.

And like one thing he said was like, man, I don't want to get traded. I'm like, I don't think you're going to get traded. Like he's like, you never know. You never know. I might get traded. So he wants to be buddy buddy with these GMs in part because he wants to control his future. But I think you're right. I think I think the Embiid Simmons stuff had less to do, far less to do with anything between

Embiid and Simmons than the Sixers desire to shake things up and move on from Ben Simmons and get something else back in return. Well, and some of the anecdotes that have come out too from guys who played with them now that everybody and their brother has a podcast and you get these little, these glimmers of like Simmons when it was just him, he was like alpha doggy. And then Embiid went into the locker room. What was that Danny Green story? And then all of a sudden he would retreat again. And there was clearly a little tug of war. He was the number one pick.

So it was Embiid. Yeah, but in Simmons' mind, in Simmons' mind, or sorry, in Embiid's mind, like in addition to trying to be a good teammate to Simmons, he feels like over the last recent years that he's changed his game for Ben Simmons. Like he's gone into every off season trying to be more perimeter oriented because he knows that playing with Ben, he needs to be like,

I don't think he would be as be studying as many guards as he did. If he didn't have Ben Simmons on that team and look, you watch with Harden, like he's pretty content. Most times like being that low post presence and, and dominating down there in the mid-range or in the low post. And to Embiid and the people around him, they're like, he worked hard to become a good teammate

on the floor with Ben Simmons. And he doesn't feel he gets enough credit for that. Well, he's got, I'm looking it up now, 31 games the first three years. 63-64. 51 in the bubble season. 51 last year. 61 this year.

321 overall. And then 34 in the playoffs. So it's crazy. It feels like he's been around for a while. He's played like 356 total games. He's funny, man. He honestly thinks he's overpaid. He looks at his salary and he's like, wow, I make way too much money.

He says stuff like that. Even going back to that original rookie contract when they offered him the 150 extension, the one thing he said to me is like, these dumbasses are going to give me $150 million? Okay, I right from them so like and i said this to him and i kind of feel like i have to like you know in that moment i'm like you know that this is a player driven league here man you are generating way more money than what they're paying you like you deserve probably double given the ticket sales and tv revenue that you personally bring in. But he's still, he kind of operates like this, you know, this kid that is being

given like a pot of gold and isn't sure he necessarily deserves it. There's a lot of similarities to him and Shaq, obviously basketball wise, imposing wise, the whole thing. But the one thing from a personality standpoint, and Shaq has evolved into one of the best, I think, post-career athletes from a personality standpoint. He's moved into that Sam Jackson, Snoop Dogg, can endorse everything. Everybody loves him. He's a great guy. Um, remembers everyone's name. He's just like, he's just great at being a ex-athlete. When he played, there was something that was inauthentic about it, especially the first 10 years where he was trying to do all these different things. And sometimes he would do the monosyllabic interviews. He had that quote about how he had his smile, but you had to pay

for it. It had to be in a commercial. And there was something calculating about him that you could feel. And it was kind of part of that era. And Beats feels the opposite to me. He really seems genuine. Like at times, and I'm sure when you're doing an interview with him, he probably can't help himself sometimes. He's just like this really authentic guy. He's like, could be his own worst enemy probably. Everything about him during the time I spent with him felt authentic. There was never kind of any, and you can tell when you're talking to a guy, if he's kind of thinking in his head, what should I say in that moment? It may not necessarily be what

he means. I felt like MB was just speaking off the cuff and telling me what kind of was on his mind. Now, maybe he, like I'm sure deep down he's well aware of what happened with Ben last year and the possible trade. He knows all that stuff, but he was more, again, from his perspective,

he's like, I feel like I did everything you possibly could to be a good teammate. If you're just going to cherry pick one quote where I said you missed a shot and we got one free throw out of it, that shouldn't be enough of it. It also sticks with them. And like, you know, that whole plane trip that those Sixers were trying to take over the summer to go see Ben and Ben told them no. I mean, that to Joel is like that was like another example of Joel kind of like putting his ego aside. Like, yeah, he shouldn't have to go chase Ben Simmons to California to get him not to return as a free agent, but to live up to his contract and return in training camp and play with that team.

So, again, he felt like he did everything. And if you look at some of the examples of it, it's hard to argue most of it. I wish you had asked him when you were talking to him. I mean, just between us, you thought Harden was going to be a little better, right? Like he's just like deep down, deep down. You were expecting like, I don't know, 20% better? Because that's what's jumped out in these Philly games.

He's looked better in the blowout games than I know. People are going to be like, oh, they're offensive reading. But you watch a game like the Suns game, the Brooklyn game,

when teams were really throwing multiple athletic perimeter people at him, and he just has trouble going by people at this point in his career. And then they hunt him on the other end. Welcome to what's going to happen in the playoffs, James Harden.

That's a big thing. Losing Seth Curry really hurt them. And Joel brought that up. Kind of what Seth brought to the table. A shooter that worked great playing off Embiid. They aren't particularly long. They aren't particularly long.

They aren't particularly athletic. Tybalt's a great defender, no question. They've got some other guys. Joel obviously is a top-level defender when he's engaged on that end, which is most of the time. There is a little bit missing with that team. Maybe they overcome it. If Harden goes off and gets back to being himself,

if Joel takes over, that's as good a one, two combinations you're going to find at least, uh, in the Eastern conference. But what, what I think about it, well,

I don't know if I see it either. Um, maybe we'll talk about Boston, maybe with them having their issues that might create an opening, but I'm more, I'm honestly more concerned. Like this is a trade that sets up Joel for the next, presumably the next three or four years,

prime years of his career. There are definitely people in Philadelphia wary of giving James Harden what would be tantamount to a five-year, quarter of a billion dollar deal. Even now, with the short sample size of watching him, that's a concern. That's a legitimate concern amongst some people in Philly

that it's going to be a bad contract at some point. The concern is, does it become a bad contract sooner rather than later? I'd be a little worried about that. If you don't get a great playoff run this year out of them,

are you going to get one next year? When does he start to really decline? Like there are, they're going to give him that contract. I don't think there's any doubt about that, but that's a worry for some people down there. Just seems like the law of the league, right? 935 games played in the regular season for him. And then he has 137 playoffs. So now we're in the thousands. daryl has said and i don't

i don't know if i believe this like daryl's talked about believing that james's game is going to age well i don't know that i see it completely disagree well you also the other thing with him is he really was durable for a while i mean mean, you look at the 935, I don't know, that's probably out of like a possible thousand or something, but he was playing pretty much, I mean, his career minutes per game is 34.6. And that includes the first couple things. So I just like the law of the league is

if you're going to move into this next phase of your career, the guys who have crushed it are the maniacs. They're the Kobe, LeBron, these people. You think like Kobe, like completely reinvented his career in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Cause he's just like, he was so competitive day in, day out. He just was there, you know, Tom Brady, there's people that are wired like that. I'm just not sure Harden's wired like that. And you even see some of these games. The Brooklyn game was alarming. I thought the Suns game on Sunday was alarming.

That was a big game for them. He sucked, you know? And I just, I think he was so naturally awesome. And I know he works his footwork and Daryl's probably gonna get pissed when he hears this, whatever. But I don't know if that's gonna age well if he loses loses that half step

Because he's not this physically dominant guy And he's not the way MJ and Kobe And even LeBron have been able to reinvent their game As the years went Harden reinvented it mid-2000s in Houston Became point guard Harden Became ISO, all that stuff he was doing, but he was just, I thought faster and quicker and in better shape and I don't see it

anymore. Yeah. And, and I think it's fair to wonder that, you know, Kobe was, you talk about the maniacal commitment, you know, to his body, to everything late in his career. Um, you know, just Harden have that, uh, you know you know there's we all know the stories of kind of socializing going out things like that and it stands in stark contrast to mb like the whole time we're doing interviews with mb like he's watching like calves raptors on league pass like in front of him the whole time like it's just and and i put this in there like he goes up to like assistant coaches like you know what do you guys do on the road? Because I don't do anything. I just stay in at all times.

So, you know, I wonder, you know, with how that's going to work with James and, you know, it could go fast. I Iverson is the ultimate example. I'm not going to say it's like the Iverson where it's just the years just catch up immediately. And one minute you're averaging 27 a game in Denver. And two years later later you're almost out of the league. I don't think that's going to happen to Harden, but I think there's

you know, I had Ben Solek on my pod last week and we were talking about the Tyreek Hill trade. How Tyreek Hill is the top five receiver in the situation he was, right? And if you switch that situation and now my quarterback's not as good, I'm not in the same type of offense.

My coach is different. I'm still a top five talent, but maybe I'm not a top five receiver anymore. Maybe now, maybe now somebody else takes my spot. And that's what happens. There's like 15, 17 awesome receivers. Five of them could be in the top five every year. And I wonder with Harden, like that, that list of like, I am one of the seven best guys in the league to I'm one of the 20 best guys in the league. That's kind of not what Philly traded for. They went all in on this and they waited the Simmons thing out

because they thought they were getting another guy that would increase their odds to win the title. And from what I've seen, from what they gave up with their bench and for what Harden adds to them and what he offers in big games, which is he's going to get hunted, and I'm not positive he's the same offensive threat anymore.

I don't think he is. I don't know if that trade was worth it. Yeah, let me ask you this. Would you have then done like the Kevin Herter, Bogdan Bogdanovic, draft pick kind of deal that maybe even John Collins in Atlanta was trying to put together. Would that have been better for Philly short and long term than Harden? I think they overrated Harden.

And listen, I'm not saying that that was the easiest thing to see because I think we all thought he was on cruise control in Brooklyn. But now we see him in Philly and is it much different than he was in Brooklyn? I mean, other than like the last few weeks when he was really thrown away, I, I, I really loved what Curry brought for them. And I thought him and Embiid had something really special and I'm glad Embiid. Yeah. And I really thought that mattered. And if there was a way to flip Simmons into Halliburton, like, I think he was on that Halliburton Sabonis level of kind of asset. And he was hurt. Now,

I did Philly know he was hurt. Like that's another, like there's a lot of conspiracy theories floating around about that. That Brooklyn give him a physical, that they know he had a back thing. Would they have traded for him anyway? Were they that desperate to get rid of Harden? I haven't heard the right intel about that yet.

But if they had just gotten Halliburton for Simmons and a future pick and kept Curry and kept Drummond and kind of kept their team together and just asked a little more from Maxey, they might be in better shape. I don't know.

The Simmons thing is weird, man. Scalabrini and I were talking about this the other night. How do you have a back problem right now? You've been off since last May. You've had access to the best medical facilities money could buy. Unless this happened during a ramp up, unless he gets to Brooklyn, he's so excited, he's getting into practice, and all of a sudden he pulls a back muscle and it becomes something chronic that apparently needs an epidural um if that happened that's just bad luck but if he's been dealing with

some kind of lingering back issue which he's had in the past remember like he's had a back problem for for a while now why was this not taken care of over the last eight months like why was this not priority number one at the very very least, if I get traded, mental health is one thing, but physically, I'm going to be in as good a shape as I can possibly and as healthy as I can be.

That story's weird. When Steve Nash is out there saying he got an epidural, I'm like, how bad is his back? Are we going to see him play at all this season?

I'm getting more skeptical by the day. I've talked to a bunch of people just kind of who knew what Simmons was up to the last nine months. Not from one person did I hear, oh, this guy's only focus is basketball. He's just trying to get in the best shape possible.

I heard he was in London. I heard he was in LA. I don't know how he hurt his back, but maybe this story will come out someday. All right, we're going to take a break and then let's talk about the Celtics. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance.

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That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. Okay, so as we're taping this, Miami's 48 and 28, Philly and Milwaukee are 46 and 28 playing tonight. The Celtics dropped to 47-29. There was a moment in Sunday, second quarter,

and Rossella and I taped, we didn't know Rob Williams was hurt. Second quarter, Minnesota really brought it that game. Did you see, were you there at that game? I was working at the broadcast for NBC, but yeah, that was why. Yeah, Minnesota was into it. They wanted it.

Towns was talking shit. They wanted it. Towns was talking shit. They were going at them and it was a pretty close first quarter. And then the Celtics did what they always do is lately they completely demolished them in the second quarter. And I'm watching, I'm going like, this team's going to make the finals. Like this is, we are watching not to compare them to the Jordan Pippen Grant Bulls because they had Jordan, obviously, but the same kind of like the athleticism, every shot contested,

the fact that Tatum is so comfortable. I was just like, I really believe in this. And then Rob Williams gets hurt. I mean, devastating. Like that second quarter against Minnesota, it's like they said to the Wolves, we had a little bit of fun in the first. You guys scored 30 points.

Here's 19 in the second quarter. We commit seven turnovers in the first quarter. Here's one for the rest of the game. It's like they toy with teams now. It's wild. But I don't know how you recover from losing Rob, at least not at a championship level. They'll still win a first-round series.

They can beat Chicago, and they can beat Cleveland, and they can beat Toronto. They can beat a lot of teams without Rob Williams. But when you get to Milwaukee and Philadelphia and Miami and the top teams in the Eastern Conference, you're going to need that guy. Now, I think they'll still compete for one of those top three seeds because I assume that Emei

Udoka is going to plug Al Horford in at five, where he played all last year in Oklahoma City, plug Grant Williams in at four, and use Daniel Tice as the guy coming off the bench. Al and Grant starting, they're still able to do what they do defensively. The bedrock of what they do defensively is switching everything. That's what makes them so dangerous, that one can guard five, and five can guard one,

and everybody in between can mix and match. They'll still be able to do that, because Al can switch. Grant's really good. Like, Grant, he's not going to win most improved, but he should be on a list somewhere. Like, he's really become excellent. He's an excellent player for this team.

So, they'll be fine there. It's just, you know, I watched the Monday Night Game and Pascal Siakam, they're treating Pascal Siakam like he's Russell Westbrook out there. They're playing like the shell in the paint and they're daring Siakam to shoot.

And he's just driving right into the middle of them. And not once, not once did Siakam put his head up. If Rob Williams is there, Siakam's heads up. Siakam's looking around to see If Rob Williams is there, Siakam's head's up. Siakam's looking around to see where Rob Williams is and if he's going to block his shot. They scored 66 points in the paint. Toronto did. That's going to become a problem for the Celtics

because Rob, he's one of like a handful of guys, like Rudy Gobert's on that list and Bede's on that list. When he's in the game, you got to account for him. And the Celtics don't have anybody that can replace that. On top of that, when you start to play the physical teams, like the Miamis and the Milwaukees

and the Philadelphias, someone's getting into foul trouble there. And there's nobody else on that bench. You got three guys now in your front court with Al, Grant, and Tice. There's nobody else. You're gonna have to play small ball and start to reinvent yourself a little bit

If these guys get into foul trouble Move Jalen back up into a four spot kind of role So they're going to change And I don't think that change is going to really hit them Until they get to the second round of the playoffs Yeah the thing they lose Is the invincibility Because as you said

They were so malleable with the different lineups. That was what I loved about this team. They could really play any style. Who are we playing tonight? All right, we can do that. And the White, even though White hasn't shot it that well, at least he allowed them to finally go small. The Pritchard started coming. Yeah, look, the glass half full of me side says that Rob wasn't one of their best three players. And if you still have your best three, I can't count you out. But then the glass half empty is like, but Rob did all the, like really it was a top four. It wasn't a top three.

And what made that four special together was just how athletic and ridiculous they were. I mean, the contested shots. Is that a stat? Can I look that up? Yeah. Is that on like NBA.com? The contested shots. It's, oh my God, Minnesota.

I mean, Russell was like, I'm out of this game. Like, I'm just like, Russell had three points, I think. He wanted, by the third quarter, he wanted no part of it. But, so they lose that. I do think if they used Heist the way they used Williams, like basically putting him on the weak shooter

and having him kind of more on the baseline, jumping out to protect versus how he was used two years ago, maybe that'll be a little better. But yeah, the foul trouble thing's an issue. Really, it depends on Tatum to me because Tatum's not the same guy.

And Roussel and I talked about it on Sunday, but like the little brother era is over. He's going into these games now, and he really thinks he's better than the people on the court. He doesn't care who they are. There's no reverence from him. There's no, oh my God, what an honor to trade some haymakers with you. He really thinks he's the best guy now.

So I think that matters. He said, I didn't put this in my story but he said to like he and he works with drew hanlon and joel and bead works with drew hanlon to a skills coach and like he called drew one day when drew was with mb he didn't know it but before he got off the phone like he made drew put it on speakerphone and say to mb you better win mvp this year because it's mine next year. His confidence is next level at this point. And a lot of that is going to the basket. You saw this.

A lot of times, recent years, he'd settle for threes or pull up mid-range Kobe jump shots. He's going right to the rim. But don't you feel like it really does seem like it's slowed down for him? And you see this sometimes. I just feel like he knows before he does whatever he's going to do, how it's going to turn out. I don't know how to describe it. I just feel like he has the ball now and you can see him solving whatever it is.

And he's like, oh, they're going to do this. I'm going to throw it to the guy in the corner or this guy's going to come here. I'm going to wait. And then I'm just going to go around him and get to the hoop. And it's honestly looks like OKC Durant is the earlier version, like the 2010, 11, 12, when Durant just all of a sudden he was averaging 30 a game and he led the league in scoring. And it was like, oh, is this just who he is? I think this is who Tatum is. I don't feel like this is a hot streak. No, it's not a hot streak. I mean, he's top five. I think since January 1st, top five and fourth

quarter scoring top 10 in overall scoring. These numbers are not an aberration. He's going... Next year, if this pace continues, he'll be a 30-point-per-game scorer competing for the scoring title. He'll do that for the rest of his prime years. He's been 30 points since

January 1st? Whenever they were on that streak, yeah. They were on that run of games. To me, though me, though, like, Tatum, obviously huge. Like, Smart, to me, is like the wild card. Smart offensively is the wild card. I mean, I love watching Smart against, like, Toronto because, like, it felt like Smart was, like, shedding everything he had worked on all season.

Like, there's nobody around me. I'm going to shoot 25 times in this game. I'm going to take 11 threes and do old Marcus Smart stuff for that game. But he's been so good. Our text message should never be released because we were so far off of so many things early

on in this season. Ime Udoka, ready to fire him mid-December. It was more like what is this guy doing? How many times can you call out your guys? And it turned out he was a genius. Genius. Complete right strategy.

He made all those guys way tougher. I didn't understand what he was doing. That team had clearly atrophied under Brad Stevens. It takes nothing away from Brad and what he did, but they were just too used to a soft touch. And they couldn't advance any

further with that soft touch. So he may like this is why like Monty Williams going to win coach of the year. He'll get my vote. He'll get everybody's vote. He'll deserve it. But I think he may is number two on that list ahead of guys like Spolstra and Taylor Jenkins and Billy Donovan. And the argument against him is often, well, they only were good for like the last three

months of the season. No, no, no. He was coaching his ass off in the first two months of the season breaking them of all the shitty habits that they had coming into the season right so like he deserves credit for not backing off that not like i mean you and i and i was doing it on nbc like every night like every night i'm going out there being like is he may going to tattoo tatum, Brown, Smart? Who is he going to go after after this game? And why does he keep doing it? But he knew it worked

and it did work. And by early January, they came together and all coalesced and he deserves I respected what he was doing and I also thought it was insane because I was just like, you can't do this with how soft the league is now. You can't call these guys out.

These guys are all individual brands. They're going to turn on them. And this is going to be a disaster. And there was a couple moments in those first 50 games when it, I don't want to say they were quitting on them, but it felt like they were a little bit broken. And I think the trades, look, you're around the team more than I am, but it did seem like it helped to get Schroeder out of there. I don't know if he was Mr. Popularity. And it also helped from Smart's standpoint,

because then he became the true point guard. It's my team now. And he really embraced it. But the calibration of guys weren't right. You had Richardson in there. He wanted to play. He played well. My dad really liked him, but he was kind of thrown off the rotation. Pritchard wasn't playing enough because of Schroeder. Now it seems like everybody likes each other, but sometimes sports is weird. Danny Ainge is a great GM, but as I look back now, he probably needed to go too. And Brad needed to take that job because Danny never would have included a first round pick to get off Kemba Walker. Would not have done. And Brad did. And I know everybody

is excited about Alper and Sangoon, but whatever. Like, he got Horford back and Horford has been huge for this team all season long. Well, Brad coached Kemba, so I think he was under the hood with the car. Yeah. But Danny also never would have thrown in the draft consideration

to get derrick white i i don't believe that i i don't believe he would have traded picks to get derrick white to boss derrick white's been huge for them both ends of the floor a perfect fit with that team so like brad needed to be out of the coaching box danny for this team kind of needed to be out of the gm box and everybody's this team, kind of needed to be out of the GM box and everybody's in their right slot, which I never thought was true. Like you asked me in December, I thought everybody should be fired. They should have brought in Sam Presti

to just fire everybody and do the whole thing over again. I was headed that way because neither you or I wanted to do the Tatum Brown, let's pick one. We were just like, that's the last resort.

We're two years away from even really seriously considering that. That cannot be the answer to just be like, oh, oh, well, let's just trade a top 25 guy. No. So looking at the East, Miami is the weird team to me. They have six games left at Boston, at Chicago, at Toronto are their next three. Chicago, Toronto's back-to-back. Then they got Charlotte, Atlanta, at Orlando to finish. At Orlando should be an easy one.

Atlanta and Charlotte both need that stuff because they're jacking for playing stuff. We didn't really talk about heat culture on Sunday with Russillo. This was pretty weird how all that went down last week to have the four straight losses on top of the Jimmy Butler, whatever the fuck happened with that whole thing. Um, in general, I can't decide, is this the team I most want to play or are they rope-a-doping us and we're going to get into the playoffs and they're going to figure it out. It really, to me, it depends on

what are they getting from Hero because for whatever reason, he's become their last six minutes of the game. He determines them offensively what's going to happen, which I did not expect. Yeah, I would want to play them if for no other reason like in most playoff series, historically, the team

with the best player often wins. The numbers indicate that. Miami's against top teams, they're not going to have the best player in that series Like, the numbers indicate that. Miami's, against top teams, they're not going to have the best player in that series. Might not even have the second best player at times in that series. I mean, Jimmy Butler's really good, but is he going to be...

He's not going to be better than Tatum. He's not going to be better than Giannis, Embiid, Harden, even Jalen Brown. I mean, they're just... I don't see it on that. And Hero, like remember the game last week against Philadelphia, where the Sixers ran like the same play,

the Sixers without Harden and Embiid, ran the same play over and over again that attacked Tyler Hero. Like, they just went at him like over and over again. And that's going to happen repeatedly. So the Heat might be in a position where, you know, do you play Tyler Hero

because you need his offense because he's almost a lock to be sixth man of the year? Or do you put somebody else in there because defensively, he's become such a huge liability. And I don't, I also don't know how deep the rot is within that team.

Like that blow up last week, like to me, that wasn't masterpiece theater like that wasn't nothing that wasn't like, you know, did blowing off some steam there like they went out and responded to that by losing to the Knicks and getting their butts kicked at home by the Nets.

Like that's not a team that's just brushing that aside. So every time Kyle Lowry is the one that's front and center every single day is like, I don't know. I don't know what we're going to do.

Like we got to get it right. We got to get it right. He's kind of like, what did I sign up He's like, I don't know. I don't know what we're going to do. Like, we got to get it right. We got to get it right. Yeah, he's kind of like, what did I sign up for? Yeah, I'm with you. How fast did Kyle walk away from that huddle when Jimmy Butler was going off there? Oh, he didn't want any part of that. Listen, my dad went to a game earlier in the year

when he said, oh, I think I was at the game too when Brown and Schroeder really got into it on the bench and the cameras didn't capture it. But it was like not a normal interaction between two teammates who like each other but had a disagreement. It was like, ooh, this isn't great. I was at the heart of the Durant-Draymond Green game.

Immediately knew this doesn't look right. And the Miami thing didn't pass the sniff test. The guys yelling at each other on the court, it's part of sports, we've done it. We've both played basketball in our lives. You're going to get mad at somebody, it blows over in two minutes. That did not seem like a blow over in two minutes thing.

That was fucking crazy. And the fact that they responded the way they did afterwards is even more alarming. So Eric Spolsch has been in every possible position to get stressed out. Including getting bumped by LeBron. Yeah, the bump. If you're not going to lose it over getting bumped by LeBron and then talked about it on national TV for days after, I don't know what's going to happen. I have never, ever, ever seen Spolster react that way.

Does he even use a clipboard? Like, did he have to find the clipboard to throw at Jimmy Butler? Like, it was just bizarre to see him chasing Butler down. So to me, that was like the breaking point for Miami. Something had been going on up until that point that made Butler go at Spolster, Spolster go back at Butler, and Spolster's's losing on the sideline in the way they did.

And I'm just not convinced it's something you can easily brush away, that when the playoffs start, a switch is going to flip, and they'll be just fine. Maybe in the first round, if they wind up with Cleveland or somebody like that,

that's younger and not ready for that moment, but not against a good team in the second round. That's where I think they're going to have problems. That's why I'd want to face them in the second round. Boston plays them Wednesday. The three biggest games left

are the Milwaukee-Philly game tonight, Miami-Boston on Wednesday, and then a week from Thursday, Boston-Milwaukee. And, you know, if Boston beats Miami tomorrow, I actually think Miami probably ends up in the fourth seed.

Philly has Milwaukee at Detroit, Charlotte at Cleveland, at Indy, at Toronto, Indy, Detroit. So they have three tanking teams in there. And then Milwaukee has at Philly, at Brooklyn, Clips, Dallas, at Chicago, Boston, at Detroit, at Cleveland. Impossible to figure out

how this is going to play out. But my guess is Miami will be the one team that's going to be totally comfortable getting out of the Brooklyn possibilities. And the thing with the Brooklyn thing is you kind of either have to get the one seed or three or four. You don't want the two seed. That's the killer seed. So the jockeying that could go on next week. Listen, I don't think Emeigh is going to do that. I can't imagine him being like, let's duck somebody. I think he's going to be like, we are who we are. We're tough.

We're not afraid of anybody. Don't you think that would be his strategy? Yeah, I mean, he came out of that San Antonio system. And Pop never really cared about seeding. Never really looked too deep into first round matchups. Never played the game. Remember the Clippers last year with one of the most brazen tanking jobs against oklahoma city late this season which might have cost them the thunder too because it hurt their draft position um right like i don't see the celtics doing that like it's it's

also too unpredictable like yeah you you know you you want to like three four is probably the safest place to be to avoid that brooklyn game but like now, as we tape this, everything's separated by half a game. So it's just like, if you start doing that, you're, it just becomes challenging and problematic. So I think they'll just like, they've got a bunch of guys with bumps and bruises.

I think he'll approach the end of the season, play his guys against the top teams, and then rest them against the crappy ones that the Celtics have left and, and see if he can buy some rest from anyway. And by the way, like, I mean, there's a week off between the end of the regular season and the start of the playoffs.

There are no back-to-backs in the postseason. I'm not... Health isn't a problem for many of these teams that are remaining. Out of the top four, I think Boston, the one seed, would help them the most from knowing that they'll have the home court for

the hammer game because they have the best home court of those four. And you saw it on Sunday, the crowds have been out of control. Every game is sold out. People love this team. It's so funny. They were, I would say batting fourth, probably in November in Boston, right? They're probably batting first now. Locally, I don't think it's, I think what's, especially like the smart thing, it's been such a rollercoaster ride with that guy to watch him

play the best he's ever played, basically. This guy that we always, we didn't know and then we kind of gave up that that was in there and he's just back to whatever the greatest possible version of his is.

We've been with this guy eight years now. I mean, smart thing has always been like, I played point guard in high school. I played point guard in college. Why don't you believe that I can play point guard in the pros? Well, it's been like eight years since he did that. He's been a tweener for this team for the entirety of his time there,

backing up Isaiah, Kyrie, Kemba, being kind of a dual guard in that spot. I just didn't believe it. I'd never seen it with him. But like you watch him play and you talk about Tatum and the game slowing down. It has 100% slowed down for Marcus Smart. Like he is not rushing into anything.

Like he is taking his time. He's willing to make what he knows is not going to be an assist pass, like the hockey pass. He's willing to swing it to the top so it gets the other side of the floor. And these aren't things I saw from Smart in recent years.

He would take, I don't know how many games he shot double digit threes, but they were too many. He did it again against Toronto, because who cares? But he did it so many times over the last few years. Now, he's totally changed that. It's a credit to him, man. He's become a high

level point guard, especially when you factor in that when It's a credit to him, man. Like he's, he's become a high-level point guard, especially when you factor in that when he's above average offensively and elite defensively, that makes for a point guard that, you know, upper half of the league for sure,

maybe even top 10. I think he's been a top 35 guy for the last two months, which I never would have imagined was going to happen. All right, before we go, I just want to mention

2017, Isaiah Thomas, the hip thing. 2018, Hayward blows out his ankle in five minutes. Kyrie gets hurt right before the playoffs. And they almost make the finals anyway. 2019, Kyrie's personality, whatever the hell happened. I'm counting that as an injury. 2020, Hayward hurts his ankle in the bubble.

2021, probably not going to be an awesome season, but Jalen did hurt his wrist and he's out for the year. We'll never know. Could they have even thrown a couple punches? And then this year, the knee. Six straight years? Yeah. It's exorcism time.

I don't know what's going on, but I think we need some sort of basketball exorcism with this team. I'd even go back further. Like, 09, when KG got hurt? Right. The KG knee, yeah. Perk in 2010. Perk in 2010.

Rondo's elbow in 11. Yes. Like the ACL tear for Rondo, too. Yeah. That team was pretty good. Remember that team was actually playing really well when Rondo got hurt at that time.

So, like, you know, outside of the tank years or the rebuild years, like it's, since 09, it's been one thing after the other

for this tree. I need some good luck at some point. All right, Manix, good to see you. Don't forget to read his Embiid piece this week. Check out his boxing podcast.

We didn't talk Conlon fight, but we'll do it next time. Anytime, man. Hopefully we top it. Good to see you. You too. My friend Larry Wilmore is here. Been meaning to have him on just because the Celtics were playing well and the Lakers are in a hole.

I always like to have him on when my team's doing good and his team's doing bad. We have a lot to talk about. A lot of stuff has happened. I don't even know where to begin. I guess we could start with the Oscars. Did you watch the Oscars? Oh, yeah.

Were you watching live when that happened? Yeah, but here's the thing. Well, I've watched the Oscars since I was a kid. I've always loved the Oscars, you know. Yeah, me too. As somebody who dreamed of being in showbiz, you know, you dream of being able to make a speech like that. I was fortunate enough to do it at the Emmys, you know,

but it's the same type of thing, you know. And I've always, my favorite part of the Oscars are the hosts from Johnny Carson to, you know, Billy Crystal, who I think arguably was the best, you know, Whoopi. So many people have done it, made it their own. And I always look forward to what they're going to bring. I thought the host did a good job this year.

I was an hour behind because my daughter comes over on Sunday nights. And with my son, we watch movies. They show me whatever they're watching on YouTube. Like we do that type of thing. You know, she brings her boyfriend. So we kind of hang out. And she got there a little after so you know you i have it on uh on on dvr and we're behind you know because so we could zip through the commercials right about an hour behind

so everything's happening in front of me i start getting these texts oh my god will smith what are you doing i'm like hey stop spoiler stop. Spoiler alert, you guys. Spoiler alert. I'm not there yet. And people didn't care. They just kept saying what was going on even after I told them I'm not there yet. Let me get there. So I had kind of a bizarre experience of trying to catch up and find out what was going on after it happened. So in other words, it wasn't a surprise to me. I kind of already knew as I was getting there. So I didn't have the same surprise that everybody had. I was kind of braced for it, I guess.

That's probably for the better. I'm surprised some people didn't go into shock. I've had two days. We're taping this. It's like lunchtime, Pacific time. I've had two days. We're taping this. It's like lunchtime, Pacific time. I've had two days to digest this. It's one thing to talk about in the moment. It gets crazier as you get more away from it.

It's like Kimmel compared it to the Tyson Holyfield thing. That's amazing. That is a great comparison. Yeah, that was the same kind of moment where you kind of remember where you watched it. It was one of those great. Yeah. That was the same kind of moment. Like where you kind of remember where you watched it. Yeah. One of those moments.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, I, I think ultimately longterm, the Will Smith piece of this, it remember when Tom Cruise jumped on the couch and, on Oprah show.

And it was like, it was just hard to look at him the same after that. It was like, what happened with this guy? And then from that point on, there was an authenticity piece that you the same after that. It was like, what happened with this guy? And then from that point on, there was an authenticity piece that you would just struggle with. It's like, what's real?

What's not real? What is going on with this guy? And with Will, I don't know, man. It wasn't just that he hit Chris Rock, but that he was still really mad about it an hour later. And it just seems like he's going through something that's way bigger than a joke at the Oscars. Yeah. It's tough on me because I know both of these guys. You know, I just worked with Will on a great project called Amend. I think I told you about

it at the time because we were over at Sons of God. Oh, no, we were at the Netflix lot. But, you know, it was a great documentary. And ironically, I was working on Fresh Prince when Chris Rock appeared on Fresh Prince. So that episode where like Chris was in drag or something, I would say an unfortunate appearance, as I'll be kind about. But so I actually was there when they worked together back in the day on Fresh Prince, if you can believe that, you know, and Chris is a good buddy. You know, I've talked to Chris many times. He's they're both. Here's the thing. They're both some of the most some of the nicest, most generous, generous performers you can meet as people. Yeah. Like they're not dicks. Like I would be the first to tell you, man, he puts on that image that he's a dick. No,

Will, he really is how he presents himself. Like he's not inauthentic. So it was so out of character for him to do that. Like I could see him being upset, but to do that just really shocked me. I'm still trying to process it, to be honest with you, of the slap. Like I don't get it. I just, I don't know where it came from. Maybe he was channeling the Richard Williams thing because he was saying that in his speech and that which created a whole nother series of problems and issues in terms of in terms of messaging, because I thought, no, as he was saying that, I'm looking at my TV going, no, no, no, please don't say that because he was talking about protecting and he was, I believed he was removing women's agency all over the place by saying how they needed to be protected by him. And it's like, like Anjana Ellis is a fantastic actress.

She doesn't need unset protection from Will Smith. If anything, she's creating a safe environment for him to be dangerous in his acting. You know, because she's so good safe environment for him to be dangerous in his acting you know well you know because she's so good you know the thing i wish i had said sunday night because kim and i talked about it right after i hit like 85 of the points i wish i'd hit but the thing watching it over and over again as as a lot of people did like chris rock's hands were behind his back that was like i didn't realize that yeah it's really glaring the more you watch it where just like in general,

like do you punch somebody whose hands are behind their back? Do you slap somebody whose hands are, like whether you want to punch, slap somebody in the get-go, but like if that happened in a sporting event

or any other thing, and it's like, wait a second, what are you doing, dude? Here's the thing. In any other environment, the approach itself causes you

to go like this you know like your head right the approach itself but like and at first i thought it was staged i'm like there's no way this could have i'm like there's no way this could happen but then there's no good reason for it to be staged like will doesn't win in staging this so that's an impossibility he just doesn't win neither does neither. So that's an impossibility. He just doesn't win. Neither does Chris. Neither of them wins. Right. So there's no possible benefit at all. I think Chris thought that Will was going to say something in the mic.

And because when he said, oh, like Chris said something like, oh, like I got him mad or something like that. I think he thought he was going to step aside and Will was going to say, you know what, motherfucker, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, say his piece and go back. That's what I think Chris thought. Or pretend to hit him or something. I don't think he thought that was coming because no way your hands stay behind your back if you think he's even going to pretend to hit you. I don't think Chris thought that part was coming. I think he was genuinely shocked about that. Yeah, I think he was genuinely shocked about that.

Yeah. I think you're right. Well, and then it led to... It's impossible. Human nature, your hands would just come out. Well, we're taping this. So who knows? Chris might say something. He hasn't yet.

My guess is between how it played out on stage, Will's speech an hour later where he didn't apologize and kind of made it seem like this is what... Then Will's at the party dancing and then Will doesn't apologize. He got a standing ovation from Tim. Yeah.

And doesn't apologize till basically, I don't know, dinner time the next day, which it seems like at least partially he apologized because he's taking so much shit. And because maybe he was worried, much shit. And because, um, maybe he was worried, his team was worried about, they might take your Oscar if you don't say something.

Right. Right. And Chris still doesn't say something. So knowing Chris, who's, you know, one of my favorite comics ever, I'm guessing now he's like,

all right, my win for this is I'm using this for my tour and fuck this guy. And I'm going to do me. I'll, I'm going to turn this into material for when I go out and I'm going to use this for me. And I'm not, I'm not going to help out Will Smith basically. I don't know. I don't know. I, I have to do some more digging to find out. I don't know if Chris is that cold about it. You know, I honestly think it was a ad lib and I, I don't think if chris is that cold about it you know i honestly think it was a ad lib and i i don't

think he knew about even the alopecia in the moment i don't think he did either um and i didn't by the way i didn't know about it when i actually didn't know about it i was like why why is it why does she have a shaved head what's is that like a new look what's going on like that before too and by way she looked fantastic she looked awesome she did um so and like i said there's so many levels to this too bill like chris did what his job was he wasn't right out of turn with what he does like amy schumer spent like a whole minute saying how unfunny aaron sin was, you know? Right. I mean, she just went in. That was hilarious. I thought she did a good job.

Oh, she was awesome. And she went after Adam McKay, too, you know? Yeah. But, yeah, if you analyze the joke itself, it doesn't fit what happened after, you know? I mean, he had three jokes in a row that weren't funny. Chris did? Leading to Will Smith. Yeah, because, like, in a row that weren't funny. Chris did? Leading to Will Smith.

Yeah, because his Denzel thing didn't work. He did the Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz thing. That didn't really work. He had forgotten that they had both won awards before. Oh, okay. And then the G.I. Jane thing, which is a really obscure reference. I got it, but...

It's obscure, and it's also a joke that's been done before. It's not a new type of joke. It's you look like somebody that reminds us of a movie is the joke. Yeah. You know, which that's done a thousand times. So, you know, it's that's not a real good Chris Rock type of joke. No, it was a Chris Rock caliber. The better Chris Rock joke is when he said in 2016 where he said he wasn't invited to Rihanna's panties. Now, that's a Chris Rock caliber. The better Chris Rock joke is when he said in 2016, where he said he wasn't invited to Rihanna's

panties. Now that's a Chris Rock joke. That to me, that's a proper joke. So if they came to you and they asked you to mediate this, what would your advice have been to both parties? Mediate? I mean...

I don't know. We haven't heard... Wilmore, you're a wise man. Come up with a fix for all of this. We haven't heard from Jada. You know, I still feel this whole notion that a man has to protect this woman to me is the outdated notion in all of this. You know, Jada has agency. She can speak for herself. I think she said something today, but I don't think it was anything crazy. But I think she had some sort of... Jada has said that she's proud of this look, you know? Yeah, she posted about, she said, this is a season for healing and I'm here for it. Yeah, I think...

That was her take. That's kind of ambiguous. I think the proper mediator should be Jada because she was the one in the middle of it. Certainly not me who I'm a comedian. I think you know which side I'm going to lean on, you know, I'm going to be mediating, you know, the guy who was doing his job kind of, you know, and I have to do I have to give Chris a lot of credit, man. He kept his composure. I don't know how many people could have kept their composure like that. It was crazy. My mediation, if they had asked me, would have been well, you got to say something

immediately that that was a super tense night for you. You've been through a lot of stuff the last couple years. It was your chance to win an Oscar to put yourself on the map. My hero Denzel was right there. And there was so much adrenaline that I honestly snapped and I left my body and it's the biggest regret of my life.

And I wish I hadn't done that. And I apologize to Chris. I couldn't have handled that worse. Like you really have to go over the top. Why do you think he did it? Why do you think he did it? I mean, cause I think, I just think he's kind of lost. Why do you think he did it? I mean, because...

I just think he kind of lost it. But why did he lose it? That's the part I don't understand. Like, why? Because I think so much adrenaline from the night and from you going to that. He's been campaigning for this for six months. He'd spent all this time on this movie.

This is his one chance. This is a credibility side you know you win the best actor Oscar you're just at a different level career wise how you're remembered now you're in the club

with Denzel and you're in the club with Daniel Day-Lewis and all these great actors yeah but he was nominated I just think it was too much for him he's been nominated before he was nominated for Ali

wasn't he? but he had this is he had a chance you know he's the favorite this year he's never been the favorite this was then this was his one chance it felt like because for the most part he doesn't pick movies that are oscar movies he picks movies that you know are box office movies well i mean that's his fault no not necessarily. I think you get Oscar movies by having nothing against him, but Oscar ability primarily, you know. Well, he's turned down a couple in the past

that could have been interesting for him. I think Will is a good actor, but I don't think we put him in the same category as Denzel Washington. No, well, Denzel's one of the greatest actors ever. Right, so it's not like he's not taking Oscar-worthy parts. You know, you have... But it's almost like NBA MVP where, you know, there's the LeBron bird magic section of people

who are just going to be in the voting every year. And then every once in a while, somebody can come up and kind of... Yeah, Steve Nash. Kind of swing punches with them once a year. That aren't one of the 10 best guys. Yeah, but he's not playing up 10 best guys yeah so but he's not playing up to his mvp years because he's not really that kind of player you know is what i think you know what was interesting too is uh how everyone reacted in the moment that kind of stuff

is fascinating to me i was really shocked that he got a standing ovation you know when he won you know i right i know that people i know that that people wanted him to win and they liked him, but the emotions, standing ovations are usually emotional. They come out, people are feeling a certain way in that moment. Like when you see,

like when Liza Minnelli, I hope she got one, I didn't see that part, but I'm sure Liza coming out, people are seeing her in the wheelchair, they must have given her standing ovation for everything she's done. That's an emotional response, right? So there's this emotional response to him winning.

So that confused me a bit. I was like, what did they just witness here? Like, what, Ty? Is this an episode? Maybe they were scared. Yeah, I'm like, it could be. He didn't know who was coming after next. Well, it could be white people thinking, you know what?

This is black on black crime. This really isn't. This really isn't our place to say anything. You know, as, as Diddy said, we should let them handle it. Did you see the video?

Scott from Holly reporter had it during the commercial right after it happened. Wide shot video. It's on Twitter, of Tyler Perry and Denzel calming down Will. And then Will is walking back to his seat. Bradley Cooper comes over. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they had this intense 45 second, but three hugs, Will's crying. And it's just like, I can't imagine what it would have been like to be, because we've been at, both of us have been at a bunch of awards things. You have that dead time during the commercials where people kind of stand up, the seatbelters come in. To have that kind of energy happening.

Oh, yeah. And they're going like, all right, 30 seconds, coming back, 15 seconds, coming back. It's like, wait, what's going on? We're coming back? Yeah. And you're Will Smith. And meanwhile, Madea and Malcolm X are trying to see me.

So he said, Denzel Will Smith said this, at your highest moment, be careful. That's when the devil comes for you, was what he said. Denzel told him. I thought that was one of the greatest quotes I've ever heard. I don't know if Denzel made that up. Did he borrow

it from Shakespeare? Did he borrow it from Shakespeare? Did he borrow it from a musician? I don't even know where it came from. Denzel's got all that old school stuff. And the way Denzel's eyes were looking too, like, see, motherfucker, I told you. You better be careful. Well, some people were pointing out Scientology

had something to do with this. And they were talking pointing out Scientology, you know, had something to do with this. And they were talking about in Scientology, you're told to slap people who like aren't behaving a certain way to you or improper, that type of thing. I went down this rabbit hole about it. It was very bizarre, you know. Scientology slap rabbit hole. Exactly. And I'm like, what? This can't be.

Is that a true thing? Like, you slap people? Or you have to admonish them very loudly. And they were saying how Tom Cruise does this on set. And I'm like, well, but he could just be an asshole movie star, too. You know, they do that type of thing. Well, the Denzel piece of it. It's just, Jimmy and I talked about it on Sunday.

It's just, it's amazing how Denzel always wins. Whatever the room, the situation, he's just the coolest guy in there at all times. If all chaos breaks out, because Jimmy told the story about the La La Land moonlight when that whole thing was going and nobody knew what to do and Denzel

started ordering people around, telling them what to do. He just knows. He's like the pilot of that uh what was the pilot's name uh oh sully yeah or captain phillips he's like sully or captain phillips yeah and then sam jackson's the same way he's like motherfuckers all right this y'all need to come but you know he's right there just chilling Well then poor Kveslev Well I don't know how it plays out For Will I don't know what his Rehabilitation

Reclamation tour will look like I'm assuming it'll look A little bit similar To the Lakers rehabilitation tour Of just a broken Somebody's trying to make a transition A broken We're going to talk about the Lakers.

We'll take a break. All right, Lakers. Yep. It's sad, man. You know the Lakers story. Are you going? You had a moment where you went to a couple games when you thought things were turning around. You were like, you're feeling yourself?

Or was it just all Rams? No, was rams this past year absolutely rams so you you're just rams you you kick the lakers to the side no i didn't kick them to the side i i've been mad at the lakers management because and i was mad at them over the summer and early i was mad before the season even started because we had a championship team in 2020. You call it bubble championship, whatever. It's still a championship, you know. And the Lakers were had an identity in that bubble year. And that was a defensive identity. They did not allow points in the paint. You know, they had JaVale McGee, who was starting, and Dwight Howard coming off the bench to let um Anthony Davis play wherever he wanted to play because you know he refuses to be a five

so whatever you know so he refuses to play as tall as he is all right whatever so but and they had a nucleus of a team that had great chemistry from Caruso to KCP to Kuzma. You know, these guys that have been around a while, Kuzma and Caruso both came up in the Laker organization. You know, KCP was a buddy of LeBron's. You know, they're both clutch sports, whatever. You know, they had all these players that were playing well together, as well as people like your boy, Avery Bradley,

and these other pieces that are, those pieces sometimes can come in and out, but that nucleus was a real good nucleus of people that just knew each other's game. The Lakers thought they could just get rid of all of that. To me, it's so arrogant, Bill, to think I got a championship team. We just get rid of everybody, wholesale changes, and just keep two guys. Who the fuck does that? Honestly, I have never seen that in the history of basketball to have a championship team. And we're talking eight months later, nine months, not even a year when they did this, because remember the following season started right away and the Lakers had tired legs. So did Miami, you know, uh, neither of them did pretty well.

And the Lakers got injured to think that, you think that you had to get rid of everybody, to me, it was just stupidity at the highest level. And to bring in the worst possible fix for it, nothing but old guys. It wasn't just Westbrook, but also Trevor Ariza somehow is going to be the answer. DeAndre Jordan.

Yeah, Carmelo. I'm not mad at Carmelo who's doing his best, but he can't be the person you're looking to. No, Carmelo should be the 11th man on a good team where like once in a playoff series, he comes in and hits a couple of threes. Yeah. He makes, he makes the other team honest when you need him to be, but he's got to be on the second squad in there to get you some points and give the starters some rest. You know,

if you go back and you read the stories, because I'm on the record, I thought the Westbrook trade, I thought it was one of the craziest trades. I hated it. I didn't get it. I didn't understand how he fit in with them. And the stories back then were about,

this is great. Westbrook, his ability to play off the ball. Now LeBron, you can conserve his legs in the regular season because Westbrook can carry the offense. And it's like, not only is that not true, LeBron's had to carry a bigger load than probably he's had to carry in a couple years. Because anytime he's not on the court,

they completely fall apart. Also, two of those things are just, are so wrong thinking. Here's the first one. The Lakers had Buddy Heald in a contract. You know, they had the answer to LeBron resting. The answer to LeBron resting is perimeter shooters, people that can shoot. Because LeBron is ball dominant.

LeBron doesn't like giving up the ball to somebody and rest. He doesn't. He's never done that. People have talked about that for the last 10 years. LeBron just needs somebody to bring up the ball and he can rest. He's never done that. He's ball dominant. What LeBron always needs are people who can shoot and that's when he rests. So he does shooting and defense. Exactly. That's when he rests because LeBron does not play man to man defense. He plays off the ball defense because he rests. And so then he can play off the ball. So somebody driving his basket,

the important point, he'll go and block it. That's what Westbrook does too. Westbrook also plays no defense. Off the ball. No, but LeBron. I'm floating around. LeBron's one of the best off the ball defense players ever. You know?

Yeah, well, I mean. That's faded a little bit at this point. It's faded, but he can still. Year 19 of his career. But when it counts in a moment, he can be effective at it, is what I'm saying. Very true. Westbrook is not effective at any point.

Liability. Nothing but a liability on defense. But you knew that last year? You knew it the year before? Like, this was a huge issue with him. He's not a good defensive player. With Westbrook. Westbrook gets lost,

makes crazy decisions at the end of games on both ends. But here's the thing. I've never watched him fully. I've only seen pieces of Westbrook like other people. We see the good highlights, right? It is crazy

how many poor decisions Westbrook makes for a person who is an MVP type player. It's honestly been like this for three, four years. I had no idea it was that bad. it's, it's,

look, he was such an unbelievable athlete. The first half of last decade. Yeah. That, that can make up for a lot of it. Even his MVP year, he's just an amazing athlete.

So, you know, the warts aren't as glaring when you have somebody who is one of the three, four best athletes in the league, but now that he's not the same kind of athlete. And because he's ball dominant. And here's how it happens. Westbrook brings the ball down, throws it away.

Other team makes two points. Westbrook comes back down, throws it away again. Now they make three points. Westbrook comes back down. Now he shoots it. Bricks. Other team makes the three pointer. Now we're down by 10 points.

That happens in the span of like 40 seconds many times. It goes that quick. Why didn't Frank Vogel just, the moment he's like, look, I'm the Joe Pesci walking in and just getting shot as I walk into the room person on this team. Like, I will be the first one blamed. So if I'm going to be blamed,

I'm just going to bring Westbrook off the bench and play him 20 minutes a game. And if he doesn't like that, then maybe he'll just sit out the season. Because I'm not going to win with this guy. It wouldn't matter. That was just one of the problems. The Lakers got a coach

who's known for defense and he won a championship with it with the offensive. Yes. With old offensive players. They turn the team completely around. That does not fit what this coach does. You know, right.

That's a good coach. Frank Vogel is a great coach, but nobody could coach that. I'm sorry. Nobody could. So that's my take on my Lakers. How does it play out for LeBron though? What do you want to happen?

Are you still in on LeBron and Davis going forward, or do you think they have to make a move? Everyone thinks they're going to trade Westbrook. I got news for you. You're not trading Westbrook. Nobody's taking that contract. It's not happening.

You're going to have to give up all the rest of your first-round picks for this decade to get somebody to take the contract. And then where are you? You're getting somebody else's bad contract. You're getting like Tobias Harris. Bill, I mean, you have cloudy, dark clouds no matter what the Lakers do, so nobody should be listening to your advice about the Lakers first of all. Not at all. If they did the buddy-heeled

and if they got buddy-heeled, kept KCP, kept their first-round pick, I think they would have hung around. The Davis injury, the second one, was bad luck. The Davis injury hurts the Lakers more than anything. The Davis injury, the second one, was bad luck. The Davis injury hurts the Lakers more than anything.

Also, though, Davis wasn't playing the way he needed to play this year as far as I'm concerned. No, he sucked. He sucked this year, but the injury was bad luck. And Shaq called him out.

But before the injury, like... He was too big. He was carrying too much weight. Also, he needs to be scoring 30 to 35 points a night and letting LeBron only have to score

18 to 26, you know, but that's the thing you thought you were getting, you know, Shaq in 1996 and all these guys, these legendary centers. I will say that we have only did that the bubble season. We want a championship. So if nothing else happens,

we already want a championship. So I mean, if the Celtics had to win that championship, I would defend the bubble title, the death and talk about how hard it was to bubble it up. Doesn't matter. Since the Lakers won? Spurs won in 99.

It's short in season. Still a championship. You know? I know. Since it was the Lakers and the Spurs, not the Celtics, I put asterisks next to this championship. Doesn't hurt my feelings.

Last time Celtics... Big fat asterisk next to it. I think the Lakers have won three championships since the last time the Celtics have won one. That's very true. And I think the Lakers... I can't refute that at all. And I think the Lakers have won three championships since the last time the Celtics have won one. That's very true. And I think the Lakers... I can't refute that at all. And I think it was 20 years before that, over 20 years, the last time the Celtics won one before that.

So in the last 40, almost 40 years... This century, you have six. The last 35 years, the Celtics have won two championships. This century, you've won six we've won one but you gave us an unbelievable gift the one year

you had Magic Johnson inexplicably running the team no I know you took Lonzo Ball over Jason Tatum even though we traded backwards to take Jason Tatum

and our nemesis Magic looked at it and goes eh I'm gonna still take Lonzo Ball yeah and we take Tatum. And our nemesis Magic looked at it and goes, eh, I'm going to still take Lonzo Ball. And we take Tatum, who now is, you know, he has a championship in him. Yeah, but at some point in his life. Unless a player dominates in college basketball,

hindsight is 20-20 for all of us. Like, nobody knew Dwayne Wade was going to be what he was when he was, you know, coming out of college. So there's a lot of that type of thinking. It's fine. I'm just glad Magic passed on our guy. I wish we had picked Jason Tatum. Me too. And when you win a championship,

then you can really gloat about it, but you haven't done that yet. I'll tell you this. It was my favorite Magic Johnson pass. Speaking of Magic Johnson, another transition. Are your Celtics going to win this year? Yes or no?

Well, we lost our center. Oh, wait. One player's going to make a difference? Yeah. He was our defensive anchor. He was our Anthony Davis. Oh, it's so sad. So you guys are going to be, you're going to think next two years you're going to win?

You got a chance? No. We're not. We're not rolling over. It's going to be a little harder. Not rolling over yet. We're like five years out? Like this team.

Five years out? Ten years out? Might be this year. Might be this year. Don't count us out. When did you win? 2008? I would say. Oh, wait.

I'd say 2028. You guys are ready to win another one. That would be 20 years. Maybe every 20 years. That might be who we are at this point. I'm not mad at that. Listen, we're not in big, splashy LA where everyone wants to live. We're just in this little place.

Even I moved out of there. No, it's me. Boston. Ooh, this little bean pit. Hey, you know, we're a little place, Massachusetts. Even I moved out of there. No, it's me, Boston. Ooh, this little bean pit. Hey, you know, we're a little underdog city. Who is your favorite, though, before you get to Wingtown?

Who is your favorite? Who's going to win it? On Sunday, and I was convinced, I thought it was between Phoenix. I think Phoenix is the prohibitive favorite. Yeah, me too.

And I think Milwaukee and Boston were the two teams that had a chance to beat them. Yeah. And then Robert Williams got hurt. So I'd say Milwaukee, maybe Boston. And then who knows with Brooklyn? Yeah. I don't think they can do it without Simmons.

But if he comes back and can actually give them defense, I doubt it. He's not ready to play basketball at a high level. Not at a high level. He's not. I can't fully count them out, but I'm like 99% counting them out. Yeah, well, you guys were never going to get past Milwaukee,

even though you would have played well, but you wouldn't have gotten. We play them. We play Milwaukee. That's the one team we've always played really well. Not in the playoffs. It's a different thing.

All right, winning time. Winning time. I've watched the first four episodes. I think you've seen the first six yeah I think so it was five or six I can't remember it's basically a show

they created a show for us for NBA fans who are there in the moment who want to be driven crazy by factual stuff but also have

we can compare as we watch it our feelings what we remembered versus what the show's doing what I didn't anticipate was how upset some of the people would be about some of the inaccuracies. And the more I think about it,

I think I might've missed it. Are people upset about it? Well, the, I think the West thing, how West is portrayed on the show. Yeah. It's not just over the top. It's, it's complete. He's a completely different guy than who he was by all accounts. Yeah. So you have that, you have Pat Riley, who they turned into,

you know, frigging Sonny Bono. I don't know where Tennille was. Wait, Tennille. Or not Tennille, Cher. I was thinking Captain Tennille.

Yeah, Cher. Like he became where Cher was. Sonny and the Captain at the same time. I was thinking that night when they swapped couples at the Playboy mansion but yeah that chick hern is a maniac red arback's a maniac you know it's it's very cartoony which is like kind of a mckay staple it is and yet um i thought i was gonna like that part more than i did and the more i watch i'm just like what what are we doing are we gonna get to the finals and the Lakers are going to lose game

six to the Sixers? Cause we want to add drama. How factually insane are we going to get? They're not going to change that part. You know, what's funny is that people that don't know anything about it, this will be the record for them. You know, it's like, uh, like the movie JFK, you know, like all of Oliver Stone's crazy theories. Now people think that's what actually happened. You know, no, that's just a movie, guys. We just did a rewatchables about that. And that was part of the premise is like, that became a touch point for people at JFK where it's like, no, Oliver Stone thinks this.

And it's like, no, he created characters. I know. Entire scene. Guys, sit down and talk to Oliver Stone. You will see how crazy he actually is. Right. So this is, so Winning Time's kind of like insane. It is insane. And yet

I still enjoy watching it. I love watching it. It's a it is a hyper version of all of that. And I was saying, I was telling you that I was playing basketball back then. I was, you know, coming out of high school and I came from real sports area. I went to high school. Bill Duffy was a high school American. He's a big sports agent now. He lived down the street from me. We're like brothers,

you know. And he came back one year from one of his high school American games. This guy, there's this guy who's going to college next year. He's a six, nine point guard. And we were like, no way. Instead, I'm telling you, he throws throws wrap around the back full court passes we're like no way who is this and he said his name is magic we're like magic what is this guy and he told us about magic before he even went to michigan state you know yeah and so i looked out for magic in in the beginning and really followed him through college and everything and what's interesting at that time right before the Lakers first game with Magic, when they were going down to San Diego to play the Clippers, I was in a barbershop in LA with my dad and Magic came in and people didn't really know who he was. I'm like, I told my dad, that's Magic Johnson. My dad's like, who? I'm like,

God, shut up. So I went over there and I sat down and talked with Magic for a good like, like half an hour. Cause I, I knew a lot of the ballplayers. And that kind of stuff. And we just talked about everything. And Bill it was so nice. Because I feel like I got to talk to him. When he was still Irvin. Like before he really became magic. And I still feel it was one of the best moments. I ever had.

So the time where winning time takes place. I met that magic. That Irvin in that time period. So I have an interesting relationship to this series. And he was 20 years old. The series does this weird thing where they make it seem like West was just furious that they couldn't

take Sidney Moncrief over him. To me, it's like, and I get it. I mean, Moncrief I think was the second best two guard of the 80s. Certainly wouldn't have been a bad pick. pick he hurt his knee he would have been better than he ended up one of the best college guards for sure yeah incredible iconic si cover like yeah but yet especially in la you couldn't not take magic johnson it coming off beating bird in the finals all the hype he was you know you go back and you read the Sports Illustrated even

before that season launches, the 79-80 season. And it's all about Magic and Bird are coming into the league. They're here to save the NBA. You read Breaks of the Game by Halberstam, same thing. They knew before those guys had played a game, like this is our shot to rejuvenate the league. So the thought of them ever not taking Moncrief is nuts. I know, it does. I mean, or taking Moncrief over Magic. But also it reeks of people that don't really know basketball. That's, you know, because Jerry West,

we were talking about this before. Jerry West is arguably one of the best eyeballers of basketball talent that basketball GMs have known. He's been one of the best GMs ever. And wherever he goes, he creates something. He went to Golden State. He went to Memphis, to the Clippers. Something good happens after

Jerry West is there in terms of young talent, especially flowering on those teams. Look at Memphis, what they're doing now. And West was there a while ago. But he can put a culture in place, right? So there is no way in the world, Bill, there is no

way that Jerry West, you know, this Hall of Famer, looks at Magic Johnson and is upset that the Lakers are going to have this person on their team that is angry about that. Angry. Do I believe that he tried to figure out,

well, what does this look like if we take Moncrief? Because we have Norm Nixon already. Right. Natural backcourt. This actually makes sense on paper. Do I think they talked about all the angles? There's been some good reporting on this over the years. Right.

I don't think it was ever to the point where he's like, if we don't take Moncrief, I'm ready to throw something out my window. Also, Norm Nixon wasn't Clyde Frazier. No, he's a very good point guard. There were a bunch of them back then. Yes, thank you. You know, he wasn't Gus Williams or, you know, those guys.

No. You know, so. No, he was like, it was like Gus Williams and Tiny Archibald, Maurice Lucas. Nixon was like maybe a notch under. Yeah. He was like better than like Johnny Davis, but he was kind of, you know, borderline all-star,

I would say. Yeah, borderline. But not somebody that would convince you to not take Magic Johnson. No, no, no, no. The thing is, they were great together, right? Absolutely. That 82 Lakers team, when I was doing my book,

I thought that was the most underrated team of all the title teams. It was a good one. Because they put McAdoo and they had a full-court press situation. So anyway, that part, I didn't like the West thing. I didn't like how they made Riley seem like such a loser. I know. I just refuse to believe. Pat Riley, 6'6 refuse to believe. Yeah.

Pat Riley, six foot six, handsome dude. Yes. Played professional basketball, won a title. I just don't see him as this dude who was like that broken.

Yeah. They make him out to be some kind of like beach bum loser or something. It's like, no, no, no. If anything,

and when he was teamed up with Chick, I remember those days because Chick had a, what's his name? Lynn Shackleford, know if anything and when he was teamed up with chick i remember those days because uh chick had a what's his name um lynn shackleford i think right before that who played with ucla you know and uh but chick was chick the thing i don't like about chick for those of you that don't know so the two best basketball announcers are your boy johnny most and chick hearn legendary announcers, your boy Johnny Most and Chick Hearn, legendary announcers. And you miss Chick Magic in this performance.

You really do. And Chick, he loved players. He wasn't cynical in that sense too. He was the one at that dinner that asked what's his name to get Magic a cheeseburger. It wasn't Jerry Buss. They kind of changed that.

Like Chick was looking out from them. But they missed it. That's the other thing. When they take liberties like that, and then they have the part where Jack can't cook the old owner, he says, boy, to Magic. Yeah. And I'm like, did that happen?

Like, because that's a pretty strong one to just throw in a show. And that's where, like, when we get these made for TV versions of real life stuff and we're getting a ton of them now, right? We're getting them. Basically every tech startup that became huge and fell apart

now has a TV show. And we have, it really started with the OJ, the Ryan Murphy OJ show. And now it's basically the Lifetime, the prestige version of the lifetime movie has come to tv all these different things and I don't know you can bend the truth but

how far do you go I will say I do feel like with winning time I feel like they've gone a little too far with some of the characters I I agree but I will also say the casting is fantastic it's superb uh they have an amazing cast of they really do the kid who plays magic johnson is amazing i mean he really is really good like that whole spirit of magic at the time and of course john c riley is jerry buss is he's really playing jerry buss's id more than jerry buss himself right you know the id of jerry buss and plus he's much older than jerry buss was at that time jerry bus older than Jerry Buss was at that time. Jerry Buss was a much younger guy at that time.

I know. I looked this up. He was only 46. I'm six years older than Jerry Buss was in 1979. And by the way, he was in much better shape at that time, too. Yeah. The later Jerry Buss looked a little like the way John C. Reilly looks right now. I asked Magic once if Buss and

Hefner were at a restaurant together and they both liked the waitress. Who had the better chance with the waitress? And he was like, Dr. Buss. 100 times out of 100. I just like Hefner had no chance. So I think Buss really had it going in the late

70s. And even you go back, there's a Sports Illustrated story about him. there's an insane, you can Google it. This 1979 sports illustrated feature about him where he talks about his photo album of all like the people he's dated. And he's like, I date somebody for lunch and I have a different date for dinner. And he's just like, he has 17 crazy quotes in the span of two paragraphs. That was another thing. I don't feel like Jeannie was just in the middle of all of this in 1979 in the Lakers office. I really doubt that. She went to business school. You know, she was much more equipped to be working in the Lakers organization when she joined it. She wasn't like an intern, like who was this innocent person right

out of high school, the way they make it look, you know? Yeah. I didn't, I didn't get that at all. Yeah. And she had worked at a couple of places too, you know? So she had more experience than how they're portraying her. So that's, that's big license on that one. Yeah.

And then Kareem, who I think they did about as good of a job as you possibly can do casting Kareem. He's seven foot four. Yeah. What are you going to do? Amazing casting there. Not finding that. So they've done a good job of cheating at making him seem

big. But I actually feel like they could have gone further with the Kareem piece of it. Oh, really? Because he was just like smoldering. Like basically until Magic showed up, that was the big thing. He was a guy who didn't want to play the game for anybody in any

situation. Was not friendly to the media. Was really play the game for anybody in any situation. Was not friendly to the media. Was really not that friendly to anybody by all accounts. By all the reporting that was done during that era. I think he loosened up in the 80s. Yeah, he did. But what's fascinating now is he's one of my favorite writers. Yeah, Kareem. These random writers on the internet.

He's like one of the ones I always, when he has a take on stuff, I'm always like, wow, Kareem, another good one. He's really loosened up. You know, I think Kareem, when he was younger, he felt like a freak, you know, cause, cause he grew so tall, so quick and people gawked at him all the time and he never could have a real life. And even though he was a basketball player, there was a James Baldwin, like inside of him, you know, that, that, you know, had this different expression. And he was always very thoughtful about that. Remember, he was at that press conference with Muhammad Ali as a freshman in college. What? Yeah. Who does that? For Christ's sakes.

You know, the kid was 17, 18 years old and he's doing that, you know. And I think he never really fit in in the NBA. He just did. That's what That's not his crowd, really. I remember being a kid and he'd come to town when we had Celtics season tickets. I'm talking 70s before Magic. And he was the best player in the league, right? And we beat him in the 74 finals, which I don't remember.

But he'd call me to play once or twice a year. It'd be so exciting. It's like, Kareem's going to be here today. And then he would come. He had the goggles on. He didn't interact with anybody. He would go. They'd throw him the ball.

Skyhook two points. Run down the court. You know, defend. Splat shot. Come down. Skyhook two points. And it was just like, there was no way in with him. You know, and that was, I think one of the reasons why Bird of Magic, you know, there

were other guys that I think they could have gotten behind, but like David Thompson and George Girvin, I think from that era really should have almost been bigger. And Dr. J obviously was, well, he was, he was the one. Yeah. He was Dr. J was, he was the one that when you came in, you felt like a little like how you feel about the guys now. It's like this guy, I want this guy's cards. I want to wear sneakers.

Before there was Jordan. But Bird of Magic were the big ones. Before there was Jordan, there was Julius Irving. You know, he was, in fact, Jordan wanted to be Dr. J.

That's who he wanted to be. You know, um, you know. Yeah, we're, we're doing this Icons Club podcast that Jackie McMullen's doing

for The Ringer and she has a whole Dr. J episode. Oh, that's great. I think, I think he slipped through the cracks more than anybody last 50 years. A thousand percent. See, that's my era. Julius Irving to me, I tried to play like the doctor, you know, that type of thing. That's what we tried to be on the playgrounds. We tried to be Julius Irving. Uh, and you know, as far as the playground, I mean, there was nobody who was revered more than than Dr. Jay in those days.

He's just he was like the 10 coolest guys all together now into one guy. Oh, the other thing about the other thing about Kareem, I'll say real quick. Kareem was a villain to me at first, you know, because, you know, I was a Laker fan. And, you know, and he broke that 33 game winning streak that the Lakers had in that season by number 33. But I'll never forget when I was a kid, Kareem went up and he did that hook shot. Wilt actually was one of the few people who went up and blocked it once. And I was like, that's what I'm talking about. That's not going anywhere.

Yeah, they had some good battles in the early 70s. Yeah, they did. That was a thing for a while. Yeah, the Kareem thing, he comes to the Lakers. You think like even that team, the year before Magic, they had Adrian Dantley and Norm Nixon and Jamal Willis.

Had a good team. Wasn't a bad team. No, not at all. They trade Dantley for Spencer Haywood, who goes into a drug, I'm sure that's going to be spelled out in a minute,

but goes into an absolute abyss with cocaine. Yeah, it's a shame. And Dantley goes and he scores like 28 a game for six straight years in Utah and Detroit. But that was a tough one too. That Lakers team could have even been better. Just don't make that trade.

You have Nixon, Magic, Jamal Wilkes, Adrian Dantley, Kareem. Jesus. Dantley was a ball stopper though. He was. He played so slow. But you could haveley was a ball stopper, though. He was. You know, he played so slow. He was, but you could have gotten better than Spencer Haywood for him. Yeah, but eventually we cleared that space for what the offense needed to be. You know, not a ball stopping offense, you know.

Because he was already stopping with Kareem. But to stop twice with Dantley and Kareem. Yeah, that's a good point. It was so slow. It's just like, I guess they needed more for the asset. They needed to get him out of there. And yeah, it's not that Spencer Hayward was the person, but eventually it's better to have Rambis over there,

you know, getting rebounds and kicking it out. You know, that's ultimately a better fit for the Lakers. Unfortunately, you have Rambis now. That was the price. Rambis as a front office advisor. He's in there. Yeah, Westbrook, let's get him. Do you think it was him

or do you think it was LeBron? No, it was LeBron. Of course it was. So why are you blaming Rambis? Come on. I don't know. Rambis is probably nodding. So you've seen six episodes?

It's five or six. I can't remember because I watched it a couple weeks ago before I interviewed Rodney on my show. It's been interesting. I have people in my life

who are like, I'm out. I don't like it. And then I have my life who are like, I'm out. I don't like it. And then I have other people who are like, I'm in. I want to see where it goes. But nobody's all in. I agree with every choice they've made. Everybody's got a nitpick.

But sometimes that's not a bad thing. That's why I don't know how it plays out for that show. I suspend my disbelief because I know it's exaggerated so for me it's just fun to watch yeah so you're in the jfk zone with this exactly like alberstone's like absolutely all right he's got tommy lee jones he's got that that uh that boy's got maggots draws he couldn't he couldn't shoot the side of a of a bar with maggots draws. It's the CIA in conjunction with Castro and the Russians that did. It's like, what are you talking about?

Great job by you. How are all these people involved? And also LBJ, who wanted Kennedy to kill because he wanted to enlarge the military industrial complex. Look it up, boy. I said, look it up soon. That was excellent. I should have had you on the JFK podcast. I've been telling you, how many times have I told you, put me on Rewatchables?

You know, I won't talk about these ones. I'm going to text you about this after. We have some good ones coming up. So, anyhow, that's my take on that. What are you working on before we go? What do you got going? What are you up to? Other than your awesome take on that but what are you what are you working on before we go what do you got going what are you up to other than your awesome podcast on the ringer podcast network thank you very much got a real fun drama that i'm producing with carrie washington at the moment and it's called reasonable doubt and it'll be on hulu next fall and uh it's really a lot of fun to

work with carrie and do a show like that and I've got a lot of projects that are brewing right now over at my home, NBC Universal, including an animated project that I'm very excited about. It's an idea I had a few years ago. I haven't done animation since the PJs, which was a lot of fun. So I got a lot of stuff brewing, some film stuff I'm working on too. It's just a lot, but i'm having so much fun right now you know you're still cranking it i i like that you you're still going oh yeah i ever since i've known you you're never like yeah i'm in hawaii for six months i'm just gonna regroup

like you're not you're not like that well because here's the thing i'm naturally lazy and by yeah the type of lazy i am is i just want, I I'd rather be playing or doing something, you know? And, but I'm also Catholic. So I have the Catholic guilt and my parents are from the Midwest. I have Catholic and Midwestern work guilt plus work ethic. That's also in there.

So I feel guilty if I'm not working, you know, and I can't take, that's interesting. I can't take that guilt for too long. It's too much. I have to be doing something. I have the same thing. I don't, is that a condition? It's not, not quite workaholicism, although I feel like I'm kind of workaholic, but I feel myself with that.

So, and it, it gets rid of the lazy, but I'm compelled to do those things. I can't help it. I have to, if I'm lazy for too long, if I'm actually lazy and give into that, I can't help it. I have to. If I'm lazy for too long, if I'm actually lazy and give in to that, I can't take it. I'd much rather be too busy and have that be the thing that I can't take than too lazy. What's your favorite TV show right now? That you're not involved with.

Anything grab you lately? I haven't had a time to watch stuff you know it's funny it might be winning time because I haven't watched anything shout out to Quinta Brunson's show though Abbott Elementary I mean she's killing it

that's a big show in the Simmons house she's killing network television I had her on my pod a couple of times talked about her book last year but she's a good friend of mine we had her on the pod a couple of times. We talked about her book last year, but she's a good friend of mine. We had her on the nightly show years ago. And I was doing a pilot with her for CBS, her and Jermaine. So she's a good buddy. And I'm so happy for her on that. That was excellent. So she was like a lottery pick from a few years ago and

finally first team on NBA. I picked Jason Tatum, man. That's what I did. Now that show and the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air remake are the two biggest shows in my house right now for my kids. A little bit of trivia. I actually brought that to NBC, that drama. I saw the thing online with Morgan Cooper and they were

already thinking about it. I was going to produce it with Will. It got a little too top-heavy and I decided to drop out of it. At a certain point, this is a business thing I'm saying, some things become untenable for the studio to really make anything. So I said, okay, I'll drop out

because I was busy doing some other things, but I wished it well and all that. And now it's like they got a two-season pickup and all that stuff right from the beginning. It's kind of interesting. People are kind of split out there in the Twittersphere about it though. My son's into it. He's like,

if they're going to remake that show, which he liked and he caught up on, the old one, he's like, they can't remake it. They're not going to do a better version

than having Will Smith as the Fresh Prince. So just have this go off the rails. He really likes how off the rails it is. Oh, wow. I still haven't watched it. I've got to watch it.

I'll tell you the show I'd love to redo is Sanford and Son. I would love to redo Sanford and Son. To me. Yeah, what would Sanford and Son be now?

I have no idea. But just Red Fox, all he did was just talk shit. That's really all he did. Honestly, because there was really no plots or anything. No, like,

there's no stories that you really remember from Sanford and Son. Remember that story? It's just him insulting Esther. And Esther. Exactly. You just need a show

where somebody could just do the dozens, like, do the whole show. Just talk shit about people. Me and Jimmy and Sal were texting about that show recently because there was a picture of Grady. Somebody had a tweet

and they had a picture of Grady, a.k.a. Whitman Mayo. Yeah, he was great. And the picture, and he was 46 in the picture. He looked 70, right? And we're just like, we're all way older than Grady in this picture? What's going on?

I know. People looked so old back then. I think Carroll O'Connor, was he in his 40s when he did All in the Family? I don't know whether it was the smoking or what was going on back then. Or the Golden Girls were in their 50s, right? Right. Like, what, Betty White

or somebody, one of them was probably like 52, 53. That's crazy. The show that 50s look completely different nowadays. The show that I would be really interested in the reinvention of would be Good Times because I felt like that was such an important show for the seventies and just

what it was trying to do and what it pulled off and what it meant. And what is the 2022 version of that show? I don't know. I think, yeah, that would be a tough one because good times was controversial at its time. Right. Uh,

because a lot of black people didn't like the portrayal on television of this of people that you know black people like that you know but they like the fact that there's a father in the home and then people were upset that the father left you know and that type of thing but he left because he didn't he let not like james evans here jj he didn't like jj evans right in real life real life J.J. Walker I think he had a falling out with Norman Lear and I think yeah he was supposed to be the star of that show and you know those things like

Urkel became the star of Family Matters Fonzie became the star of Happy Days and it wasn't his show at first that just happens you know side characters sometimes just do better who knows you know it's television it's crazy how many people watch those shows back then when you look at the ratings.

Oh, huge. Where it's like 17 million people watch Good Times every week. 22 million people watch Welcome Back, Connor. Cosby Show, 40 million. Yeah, think about that. 40. The Oscars was 14 million. Yeah.

That's crazy. The Super Bowl is like, what, 25? No, it was bigger than that. Right? 30? Well, remember that. What was that? The last Cheers episode or the last Seinfeld?

75 million? MASH was like huge. The last MASH was. I don't know if Cheers was that big, but the last MASH was huge. Or Seinfeld. Seinfeld. One of them was like, that was the last gigantic audience for a TV show. Yeah. Yeah.

People, we only do that for live events now, right? Well, we only had three channels in the 70s. I watched all of these shows. Wait, even,

even Boston had a, yeah, we had three channels. Plus we had the two extra ones that had the sports and the syndicated stuff. We were good to go. All that stuff.

Yeah. Those were the days, man. All right, Wilmer. It was good to see you. Where's the luck with the Lakers? Do you want to make the play in or do you want this to end? I want it to go. All that stuff. Yeah. Those were the days, man. All right. One more. It was good to see you. Worst of luck with the Lakers. Do you want to make the play in or do you want this to end?

I want it to end. Worst of luck with the Celtics too. So you want it out. You don't even want to make the play in. What's the point? You just want it to end. You want your pain to be over. Take the sword, draw it through and declare victory.

Depart the field. What do you think LeBron wants? I think he wants it to end. Look, here's, I think, realistically, Anthony Davis is not going to get it together before they have a chance to do anything. I give the, by the way, the last week and a half, I know this is going to sound weird,

I give the players a lot of credit. They've actually been playing some ball. They actually look like a team, and maybe they are starting to gel. I give the players a lot of credit. They've actually been playing some ball. You know, they actually look like a team. And maybe they are starting to gel. I just think it's probably too little too late. And I don't care who you are in the West, not getting past Phoenix. Nobody is, you know,

they're just too good of a team right now. They have it locked up. I'd be shocked if they didn't win. Manny Williams should get coach of the year. I don't know how people aren't talking about that. It's crazy. I'm voting for him. All right, one more. Thanks about that. It's crazy. I'm voting for him.

All right, Wilmore. Thanks, Bill. See you soon. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to producer Kyle Creighton, as always. Thanks to Larry Wilmore. Thanks to Chris Mannix.

Thanks to Dylan Berkey and Steve Cerruti. Back on this feed on Thursday. I'm going to have an action-packed one on Thursday. See you then.