The Bill Simmons Podcast - An NBA All-Star Fix, Kendrick Vs. Drake, and the 'SNL' 50th Anniversary Show With Van Lathan and James Andrew Miller

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Van Lathan to discuss another disappointing NBA All-Star Weekend, Bill's plan to completely fix the All-Star Game, a new dunk contest idea, restructuring the weekend, the electric USA-Canada hockey game, and more (3:23) before discussing the state of the Kendrick Lamar–Drake rap beef after the Super Bowl (40:29). Then Bill talks with James Andrew Miller about the three-and-a-half-hour 'SNL' 50th anniversary special episode, what they loved, who they thought was missing, stories from 'SNL' Season 1, the future of 'SNL,' and more (01:05:34). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Listen to the end of this episode for additional details. Must be 21 plus in President-elect states. Gam problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Coming up, we're gonna try to fix NBA All-Star Weekend plus hockey, SNL 50, HBO, lots more next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I have new rewatchables coming for you on Monday night. We did Wayne's World in honor of SNL 50. A little bit later, Jim Miller is going to be coming on to talk about the big

three plus hour SNL 50 show and our biggest takeaways. Also having Van Lathan on at the beginning of this podcast to talk about NBA All-Star weekend and can we save this thing? Is this just the sunk cost at this point? Plus we have some other stuff we're gonna cover. We're also brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. I didn't do great at my Super Bowl bets, and I got seduced like a lot of other people with the Pat Mahomes thing,

so I'm trying to make it up to you guys. We have the seasons coming back after this All-Star break. I basically forced Fanandual to come up with a playoff prop for me, and this is what we did. We are going to do Minnesota, Detroit, and Golden State to make the playoffs. Parlay plus 160 are the current odds. Fandual is gonna boost this for us

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All right, we're gonna bring in Van Lathan in one second. Pearl Jam's coming up. I don't know if you knew this, but during the SNL 50, the music show on Friday night, Eddie Vedder came out and he sang Tom Petty, The Waiting, which was great. And then launched into corduroy, which is the theme for this podcast. Thank you, Eddie.

Here's Pearl Jam. All right. I made Van Lathan come over. We're going to talk about NBA All-Star Weekend, your new favorite sport, hockey. Yes. You're a true patriot now. You're a true patriot. You're a true patriot. You're a true patriot. You're a true patriot. You're a true patriot.

You're a true patriot. You're a true patriot. You're a true patriot. You're a true patriot. You're a true patriot. You're a true patriot. You're a true patriot. You're a true patriot.

You're a true patriot. You're a true patriot. You're a true patriot. You're a true patriot. You're a true patriot. You're a come over. We're going to talk about NBA All-Star Weekend, your new favorite sport, hockey. Yes. You're a true patriot now. Yeah. Yeah. The hockey got me.

It was a great watch. It was very intense competition on Saturday night. It was the three fights in nine seconds got you? The three fights got me. I missed the first two fights. Me too. I got started getting emails after the second fight. Right.

And then I turned it on for the third fight. But then I watched the first two fights. Me too. I started getting emails after the second fight. Right, and then I turned it on for the third fight. But then, I watched two groups of players playing at the highest level who absolutely wanted to embarrass each other. In an exhibition that meant nothing, that nobody even knew what it was. No one cared.

No one cared. No one cared in terms of outside of the world of hockey, but they cared and And the people in Montreal cared. Do you hear how quiet it got the last five minutes of that game? Yep, they were super quiet. They desponded. When they I learned some stuff now, what is it called now when a power play? Happens, okay the power play and then after the power play, when they, when they, it's even they become even sides, when they become even sides, what is

that called killing the penalty? They've killed the penalty successfully. They've successfully killed the penalty. Yeah. I heard this term. When they've successfully killed the penalty, the excitement from the crowd, because they didn't give up any goals during the power play. I was on edge the whole time. I'm watching the power play tick down and I'm like, oh my God, are we going to score? Are we going to score? You're getting roped in. I can feel it. I got roped in. It's good. Well, we're taping this before all the Monday games. The Thursday final is going to be in Boston,

USA against somebody, hopefully Canada, because I can't wait to see USA versus Canada in Boston would be awesome. But that's not why you're here. You're here for a few reasons. Yeah. We're going to try to fix NBA All-Star weekend and decide whether it could even be fixed. Is it a sunk cost? You have a theory about, well, do your exploration theory.

Okay. So certain things culturally expire and game shows, game shows. And game shows, game shows. For example, when I was growing up, Gilligan's Island and all of these shows from the 60s and the 70s were still in reruns, but they were still in reruns prominently. Like I still knew all of these characters. I still was aware of all of this stuff.

And then one day it just gets to a point, nobody cares about Gilligan's Island anymore, nobody cares about Three's Company anymore. These shows just evaporate. Cheers is like this, and yet Seinfeld lives on, and Friends lives on, but then Family Ties didn't. So you just kinda never know when it's gonna happen. There's a bunch of buffer years there.

Seinfeld and Friends made it to DVD. And because they made it to DVD, like a DVD release that everybody was like, oh my God, it's coming out on DVD, and they lived a little bit long in syndication on TBS and stuff, they're these kids' version, and it sounds really, really bad, of Gilligan's Island, of these older shows.

I a hundred percent agree. So they're that's their, this is an old TV show to a kid now as friends at Seinfeld. That's their old is an old TV show. Um, but yeah, so things just, they go and they never announced when they're leaving, they never tell you, Oh my God, this is the last year that this is going to be relevant. So it can happen. And the question is, could it happen to, the NBA won't ever culturally expire, but could it?

Has it happened already to All-Star weekend? Has it happened to the All-Star game? Has it happened to All-Star weekend? Has that culturally expired? So a lot of it has to do with how being a sports fan has changed from the late 70s to the early 2000s to now, right? When I was a kid, the All-Star game was amazing because it was like George Gervin, David Thompson, people like that were never on television.

So to have like some of my favorite Celtics in a game with people like Walter Davis, it was like I never got to see those guys play. It really mattered. That peaked in 87. Best All-Star game we've ever had. You remember that, right? Orlando Blackman made the free throws with time expired to send it to overtime. I have no recollection of this game whatsoever.

It's the best all-star game by far. I guarantee if you watched it, you'd have a great time. Okay, cool. Goes into overtime. Tom Chambers becomes James Worthy during the game. Magic's just feeding him. Bird's in it. Jordan's in it. Everybody's in it. It's amazing. And I think the last good all-star game was 2001. in it, Jordan's in it, everybody's in it, it's amazing. And I think the last good All-Star game was 2001. Cause I did a running diary of the 03 All-Star game, which was Jordan's last one. It went into overtime.

And if you just look at the basketball reference, it's like, Oh, that must've been a good game. It wasn't. Right. 01 was the last one. I think what's changed. So I remember I got league pass in 2000 because I got a direct TV dish. I got to see all these guys constantly.

Social media comes in, the internet comes in, and it's just not special in the same way to see all these guys on a court. So they have, that's problem number one. Is there anything you wanna add to that? So funny, as much as we have in common the different lives that we've lost, in 2000, I remember hiring somebody from the neighborhood

so that I could steal cable. And you were getting the DirecTV. Mine was more illegal, because I lived in an apartment and I wasn't supposed to have a DirecTV dish, and I had to lie and pretend I owned the house to get DirecTV, because it was literally illegal to have it if you just rented. The cable guy literally knocked on our door

and was like, hey, I didn't take it off again. Don't have him come back. I'm going to have somebody come out here. So yeah, here's the thing. The last All-Star game might have been 2003. I can understand that. That was MJ's last game. He wasn't good in it.

It went into overtime. It wasn't a great game. But was that MJ Kobe? Kobe has a red jersey on and him and MJ. It went into overtime, it wasn't a great game. But was that MJ, Kobe? Kobe has a red jersey on and him and MJ are going back. Yeah, it had a couple moments. Right. However, the weekend endured for a little while longer because there were still such memorable moments

from the weekend. There was Blake Griffin jumping over to. Well, that was 10 years later. Yeah, that was the last one. Yeah, yeah. Right, and then there was one of the greatest spectacles we've ever seen from the All-Star game, the Aaron Gordon, Zach Levine dunk contest

We're still having moments where there's still signs of life. It's still kicking but it hasn't had a pulse now In a while there hasn't been anything to make you go as a matter of fact The only thing I can think of was Steph Curry versus Sabrina the the shootout that they had and they even do that this year Yeah, cuz you can't it Mac McClung is had, and they didn't do that this year. Yeah, because you can't, Mac McClung was fun, but I don't care about Mac McClung. They might as well pull somebody from the stands. He's not an actual NBA player.

He's like in the G League. So at that point, just go get people from YouTube and have them dunk. It's not like Mac McClung's playing NBA minutes. I don't know. You go against your own, huh? Interesting. Well, it was a big weekend for the whites.

It was a gigantic weekend for the whites. Three point dunk hockey, but you became a hockey fan. Yeah, it's a big deal. SNL 50, one of the whitest TV events. Yeah, they tried to make fun of it. We know the truth though. But so look, there's just no, this used to be something to where

you saw all these celebrities and all of these people there, not because it was a corporate thing, which is kind of how it feels now, right? Kind of. Right. Now it feels like every time you see somebody famous, they're at the Metta Party or the Pringles event or the whatever. It seemed like before that they just wanted to be there because it was the biggest party of the year, or one of them, obviously Super Bowl weekend

and other things like that, notwithstanding. But now it all feels forced, none of it feels like fun, none of it feels grounded in basketball culture in any actual way. I actually went on Twitter and I asked what killed All Star weekend, and the variety of answers was so wide, but they were also all plausible,

which tells me that the NBA has not just one problem with All-Star weekend, but several. There's a player culture problem, as far as how they view the All-Star game. There's a- Well, they don't wanna get embarrassed. They don't wanna get embarrassed. They don't wanna end up on Twitter, Reddit, YouTube,

you name it, because they got dunked on because they missed the three, anything. Endless highlight feed type of situation, right? There's a top down NBA problem, some people were saying with Adam Silver. There's the way we ingest culture, which is kind of what you- The enabler, Adam Silver? The enabler, Adam Silver. So there's all of these different issues that's going on with the All-Star game.

Well, the three pointers are the other big thing. Three pointer, and not one clear way to fix it. Not one clear way to say, hey, this will bring the magic back to the weekend. It's turned into the word. So the game itself has turned into just a terrible pickup game with no defense. Now, that's the way it used to be for two and a half, three quarters. But the great thing about the All-Star game was it would settle into being an awesome game. And it was always a nice little snapshot

of who mattered that season. You'd see the five guys on each side, East versus West. You'd have a feel for, all right, these are the guys now. This is it. Everybody else got to play. Now who are the 10 guys that really matter?

Once they started messing with the teams and doing the thing they did this weekend, And I flagged it from the beginning. The rising, the four teams and one of them's the rising star. That's just stupidity. It really is. It's like, nobody wants to see Zach Eaddy and Steve and Stefan Castle, all these dudes who I like, but we don't see them on Sunday night. This is like, this is where you promote the biggest stars you have. There's nothing fun about watching these guys who have been barely in the league against like Steph Curry.

They're trying to make the All-Stars play. And they figure if they put the young guys out there, that they won't win. It backfired, LeBron didn't play. LeBron's like, I'm good. Do you think it's weird he just decided not to play five hours before the game? It's incredibly weird.

It's just a rare loss for him because there's no way you're not taking a loss and taking shit for that, so why? Everybody wants to see him. Yeah, he's the biggest star in the league. We don't have too many more All-Star games to enjoy him. So everybody wants to see him. Everybody just wants to see him out there.

So, odd thing. So, you know, as I tried to make myself watch it, like I didn't try to make myself watch it. Well, you love basketball, we should say, as do I. Love basketball. So, I'm going to watch NBA players doing cool stuff. Where the audience? There just wasn't NBA players doing cool stuff.

That's what the All-Star game is about. It's about NBA players doing cool stuff. Even the dunk contest. You have's about NBA players doing cool stuff, even the dunk contest. You have Mac McClung doing cool stuff. He's kinda not an NBA player though. So it's still not NBA players doing cool stuff. Yeah, the closest is Castle, who is probably like the third or fourth best Spur.

And the Spurs have their five games under 500, and he's a rookie. And he was by far the biggest star in the slam dunk contest. That's not good. He should have won maybe. He's pretty good. He's pretty good. But so, you know, it's just, it's tough, man.

Like there was a clip going around of the Thompson brother from up there in Detroit. Flying. Did you see this clip? Well, I mean, those guys are the best athletes probably in the league right now. He flew from like the restricted area and dunked the ball. It looked almost superhuman. And I'm like, that kind of energy and stuff

is what used to happen at dunk contests. It used to be one or two stars and then two or three, oh my god, this guy's a crazy athlete guy. And that mix of guys was enough to make that night electric, and it's just gone. Now we're hoping that they don't fail. And it just doesn't feel the same anymore. Can I give you a dunk idea?

I just thought of this as you were talking. What about dunk battle? Okay, what's this? It's just one guy challenges another guy at All-Star Saturday. And it's just one on one. So like the Thompson twins are like, Dunk Contest, two of us, let's go.

And the Dunk Contest is just like four one on one just for Pride battles. Like Giannis is like, you know what, I'm tired of this one-bunny-ama shit. Let's go, Dunk Contest right now, you versus me. I would love it. My thing is, I would wonder whether or not these guys could take the loss.

You know what I go back to? Do you remember when LeBron was adamant about hiding the video of getting poked on at his camp when the Crawford kid- I don't remember that story. Which Crawford kid was it? Oh, it was- Jordan Crawford? It was Jordan Crawford. I vaguely remember that story. Which Crawford kid was it? Oh, it was. Jordan Crawford?

It was Jordan Crawford. I vaguely remember it. So, oh my God. So Jordan Crawford dunks on LeBron at his camp and they hit the video. They like, they deep shadow protocol, midnight boys pew pew, they deep shadow protocol the video.

Wow. And I just remember at that time thinking, this has been made into such a big deal. Getting dunked on is something that happens. Anyone can dunk on anybody. You get caught from behind, you get lobbed, back door, whatever. But to me, that vision of yourself as a player

and yourself as an entity is the same reason why these guys can't let their hair down a little bit and have fun in an All-Star game. Because at an All-Star game, for it to be fun, somebody has to kind of lose its competition. It's fun. Right. Somebody's going to lose a three point contest. Remember, Allen Iverson goes out there and has one of the worst performances in the three point contest that we've ever seen. He laughs about it. Right.

He goes, maybe I should have practiced a little bit more. Now with the, with what you're going to take on Twitter and how these guys are looked at, nobody wants to be that guy. That's AI. That's one of the greatest ever who went out there and wasn't a three point shooter, and ended up with 10, and laughed. He laughed about it. So I just think they take themselves

a little bit too seriously. We take ourselves as fans a little bit too seriously as well. Well, it's the pastime to complain about All-Star Weekend. It's been 20 years of it. This was especially bad though, because it was so over the top, overproduced. I just wanna see basketball. I don't need to see,

I don't need games to stop for a half hour. We don't need to honor the TNT guys forever. We don't need all these different, we don't need like a slam dunk. Let's remember Vince Carter in 2001, whatever that was. And we've got to do that for 10 minutes. And then he comes out and has to talk to the crowd. I don't know who that's for. It's not for you and I, but it's also not for teenagers. It's not for eight year olds.

I honestly don't know. People just wanna see three pointers and dunks and a good game. Just go back to that. Can I ask you this? Is it possible that the basketball nerds have a hand in having ruined the All-Star game as well? In what way?

So. With the three pointers or something else? You and I talk a lot about the differing style of basketball that we like. Yeah. I like seeing a motherfucker get dunked on. Yeah. Okay? I think the- I don't not like that.

I get it. I think the league misses a Blake Griffin. I think the league misses a Deandre Jordan at his high. I think the league misses some good old power basketball to get people up out of their seats. You know what I mean? I think the fact that we don't have as much of that anymore doesn't really translate to the all-star game being good because what the all-star game then looks like

is a regular season NBA game where they're shooting so many threes, but when you have the best players on earth all on the same court, you kind of don't want to see them do that. What you want to see them do is kind of dominate each other. You want to see them get into each other. You want to see all the different styles of basketball

that they play clash. The old All-Star game was fun because it would be in a situation where you had the best players and everybody would have their little one-on-one thing. It would be like, okay, this guy's gonna go against this guy. Then KG is gonna go against Tim Duncan. Then Karl Malone is gonna go against Charles Barkley. You're gonna get all of that stuff.

But that's not how they play the game anymore anyway. So you're really not gonna get that in an All-Star game. That was the, one of the most famous All-Star games ever was 1977, the year after the merger and Dr. J's first NBA All-Star game. Now is when he, I can't remember if he dunked on Kareem or Bill Walton, was one of them. And it was one of his most famous dunks,

but he like tomahawked through it down and he was just awesome in the game in general. It really meant something. And it was cool to have all these guys in one game. And that faded out by the time Jordan retired the first time. To me, there's two issues. One is the competitiveness and two is the style. And I think you can fix both.

And I'm gonna have a fix for you that I'm gonna throw. Right after this break. Alright, Van, it's time. We're fixing the All-Star game. And this is the best I've ever felt about a fix. Oh, wow. And I actually really feel like I have it. Saturday. Slam dunk.

And then the first All-Star game. And then Sunday, three-pointer then the first all-star game. And then Sunday, three-pointer in the second all-star game. I'm gonna explain. We need the all-star week and have coherence again. It needs to be East versus West. We also need stakes. And the whole thing about, well, home court advantage for the finals

should go to which conference wins. You can't really do that when you have all these guys who could give a shit about like, I don't like, just wait, I have a fix. Trey Young's not going to care if the East wins cause he's not going to be in the finals, you know? So if you make home court the prize, you go to a 40 minute game, go FIBA rules. So it moves faster and feels different. And you have eight man teams from the East and the West. So we pick 24 All-Stars total, but only 16 of them play in the big game on Sunday with

the home court advantage at stakes. Here's the catch. Only players from top five seeds can be in the All-Star game. Oh. So everyone who's in the Sunday game is actually going to care about home court advantage. So I have it seven on each side plus an eighth person who's a commissioner pick. So eight versus, but we start everything at 7 PM.

We have the three pointer, three point contest, first round of it, first half of the game, three point contest at halftime, and then, first half of the game, three point contest at halftime, and then the second half of the game. And here, here's, here's what the teams would be. So we would have, um, so the West, these are all top five seats, Yocage, Jaren Jackson, LeBron, SGA, and Harden as the starters. Okay. Jalen Williams and Shen Gun coming off the bench and Curry as your exemption pick.

So that's eight. Okay. East, Tatum Towns, Giannis Brunson, Mitchell, Mobley and Jalen Brown. And then the exemption pick would be Cade Cunningham. Okay. And we're just fucking going for it. Whoever wins gets home court advantage. Everybody who's in that game is actually going to care.

Right. Because this is like, we might get a game seven at home if we win this. Certainly. So then you have, then you move to the other thing, the Saturday game, you take the remaining all stars, there's a Wemby, Siakam, Trey Young, Garland, Dame, Anthony Edwards, AD and Hero, and you have them play the eight best future guys. Castle, the Thompsons, the first best future guys, Castle, the Thomsons, the first second year guys, they play those guys, $2 million prize,

250 K per person. If you win eight V eight, same thing, 40 minute games. And you have the slam dunk after it. So that game was the Sunday game or the Saturday game. Okay. So that's Saturday game slam dunk. That's Saturday. Sunday is three point. And then this home court advantage finals game with all the top five, all the best players in the league

with actual stakes. So I like it. So here's the deal. You still have the rising stars game. Do you have the rising stars game? I don't have the rising stars game anymore. I have the eight best rising stars against the eight remaining all stars

who weren't top five seeds. So then we would have to change how we pick the all star game a little bit. So we'd have to have at least seven from the top five seeds. So then we would have to change how we pick the All-Star game a little bit. So we'd have to have at least seven from the top five seeds to be in this game. What happens when you get a vet in the consolation against the Rising Stars game who doesn't want to be there?

Then guess what? You don't get to fucking play in the All-Star game anymore. That's the other thing with this. That's my next wrinkle. What you're gonna have is. What you're gonna have is. That's my next wrinkle. Oh, the game's not good enough for you? Don't fucking come next year. You're not eligible. That's it. Like let's... Adam Silver, the enabler. Let's start hitting people with a ruler. Let's go.

Okay. So the Lakers are the five seed this year, right? Yeah. So they make it. But in the past, you might be looking at a situation where you had a team with LeBron who was in the playing. LeBron, you're playing on Saturday night? Or next year? He's not going to want to play. Okay.

Or next year you're not in the game. This is it. Once you diss us with this weekend, you're out. You don't get to play for home court advantage after that. Let's put real pressure on these dudes. It's like this is an honor and a privilege to be in this game. How much leverage do you feel like the league has to do that? I'm asking seriously.

Well, this is an Adam's over question because Stern would have been able to do it. Adam wants to be everybody's buddy. That's the difference. Yeah. Cause it. So again, I'm going to read you the teams. Okay. Go for it.

East Tatum towns, Yannis Brunson, Mitchell, Mobley, Jalen Brown, and then Cade Cunningham is the exemption pick. Versus Yoke edge, Jaren Jackson, LeBron, SGA Harden, Jalen Williams and Shangoon, Curry is the pick. 8 v 8, 40 minute games, three subs, that's it. Everyone's playing. We're fucking going home court advantage for the finals at stake. I'm watching that. I'm watching it too. In your revamps All-Star game,

is Victor Wimby-Yaman not- He's playing on Saturday in this one. But it's like, guess what, Victor? Still a privilege to be here. Go whoop on all these future stars. And by the way, next year, get a top five seed so you can be in the Sunday game. Right.

Because then it would lead to some top five seed jockeying. It's like, oh shit, there's a week to go until they pick the all-star. We got to get in there. Well, it would also lead to something that I think the all-star weekend needs is stakes and hierarchy. Because if you're a top five type of guy, right,

and you're playing in that game, not only are you an all-star, but you're almost like a more all-star-y all-star because you're playing on a team that's competitive. You've grabbed a carrot, which is I play for a top five team, so I am in our biggest profile game. Here's the other thing I forgot to mention.

This is what they lose with the stupid, oh, guys from different teams, and you have Jalen Brunson playing against towns. And like, I like when teammates are on an all-star team together, like this team I laid out, Tatum and Brown get to play together. Um, Mobley and Mitchell get to play together and then Brunson and Towns gets to play together and that's like an advantage in a game like this, right? You have SGA and Jalen Williams get to play together. Um, That's like an advantage in a game like this, right? You have SGA and Jalen Williams get to play together.

Jelomir and Miggah. Those guys are playing harder because they're incentivized because they were a home advantage. Yeah, and it's like, hey, it's crunch time, man. We're the two seed. This could be like a game seven in the finals, but everybody who'd be in that game, including LeBron and the Lakers, has at least a puncher's chance to play in the finals.

And then you go down to the runner up dudes, like, Wemby, sorry. Like, you're not a top five seed yet. You don't get to be in the Sunday game. Work your way up there, buddy. I get it. So these are the only two things

that are gonna stop the idea from really shining. Number one is the NBA is going to want to promote guys like Wimby, whether he's on a winning team or not. Saturday night, huge audience right after the slam dunk. Right, and number two, I guarantee you, you get pushed back from a surly vet, from a Steph, from a guy like that who happens to play on a team

that's not contending right now. 250 grand. You, your team wins, you get 250K. So that's your carrot and then your stick is you can't play in the game next year. You would really be that draconian about. I would. I think they have to be that.

But do you think it's that important? It's not like you're taking money from these dudes. You're just saying like, look man, you didn't give a shit about this weekend, so we don't wanna have you back. Like it's a privilege to be here. You're representing the league, we're trying to like, look, man, you didn't give a shit about this weekend. So we don't want to have you back. Yeah. Like this, it's a privilege to be here. You representing the league.

We're trying to build new fans. We're trying. Cause the other thing with this, if I did that Sunday thing, I would start that at seven o'clock, right? I want kids to watch it. I want kids to be up at 10 o'clock. You want something a little, so you seven o'clock Eastern. Seven o'clock Eastern.

Okay. Yeah. I want kids to watch it. Like the way they started last night, you had kids, it was like almost 11 o'clock Eastern. Seven o'clock Eastern. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. I want kids to watch it. Like the way they started last night, you had kids, it was like almost 11 o'clock at night and there's some stupid thing and they're playing to 40. Yeah. It's just like, what are we doing?

How important to the NBA is All-Star weekend in your estimation? I can't tell because I know they make a lot of money from it. It's a corporate event. That's what they do. I mean, if it were up to me, it would be two nights. That's it.

I think it's too many nights. I think this break is like right now there's no sports. We're taping this on a Monday. If this hockey thing wasn't happening, there'd be nothing happening right now other than college basketball and people put out mock drafts. Spring training. Spring training is coming back. Spring training is coming back. Yeah.

I saw the new Red Sox double play combo. I got a little excited about it. We got Bregman. Yeah. No, I think they need to, some sort of juice or really seriously think about not doing it anymore. Those would be my two options at this point.

Our friend. Because here's the thing, it's bad for the league. It's bad to have a bad weekend where every type of fan you have is like, that sucked. That didn't like it. It's particularly bad this year where everyone was talking about the death of the NBA, the whole ratings discussion, the conversation over the product on the court.

It was particularly bad this year for them to have a dud of all star weekend. They needed to have a good All-Star weekend. Well, and then you have Draymond too on the announcing team, just killing it. Yeah, but that's part of it, right? That's part of the criticism. Part of the criticism is about guys like Draymond

who are in those positions, who criticize the product of the league. You hear a lot of people talking about the inside, the NBA guys and all of that. I don't know how real that is. I do know that I I personally enjoy not being baby. I want to hear what people that are that invested into back basketball culture actually think about basketball.

So it doesn't bother me. Yeah. I can see how Draymond shooting on that idea to have the younger guys on Sunday night, how that puts a preconceived notion in people's mind that those guys shouldn't be there on Sunday night. Well, so two things. One, he was right. And I give him credit for saying it.

Two, you don't want somebody who's on TV when it's this like thing you're trying to push and sell to your fans just shitting on it. Which I think is a real problem for them because football doesn't let football people do that. They don't, when the football guys are out there, everything is very like, let's go to so and so who talked to Pat Mahomes and it's like this glowy, glossy light set and Mahomes says nothing for three minutes. They throw it back and Gronk's talking about

what a great guy he is and it's just how they do football, but I don't know. I kind of like it. I don't, I don't want to see critical shit when I'm about to watch a game. What about something that our friend Charlamagne the God said? Yeah. That the game is just suffering from it being too close to the super bowl. It being too close to so many other gigantic. Superbowl and being too close to so many other gigantic.

I was at the Superbowl in New Orleans that there is no possible way that I was going to be able to make, make myself get up and go to an all star game with all those red four days later, four days later, you would go if it was a good event, you would go if it was like East versus West with finals, home court at stake and people actually giving a shit like I've been At all-star games when people gave a shit But maybe it's just for a fourth quarter. It's fucking cool it was one of my favorite idea that as the super as the NFL season kind of

stretches out a little bit that they have to figure out how a way to kind of move their game away from the Super Bowl a little bit or else it's in the halo and the glow of the Super Bowl and the Grammys. I mean, the real way to do it is that that dead week between conference championship games and Super Bowl. Yeah. Where they could maybe do it then. But that's also a good week for basketball because that's the one week people kind of drift toward watching games night after night after night. The question to me is like, do they care? And they claim they do. It also feels like who's deciding this? Because whoever decided the structure of this last weekend, I don't understand

it. It's not like an entertainment person. It's not somebody who can look at basketball objectively. So who is it? Is it like the owners? Like who, I wonder who's spearheading this? Well, when you look at the things that they try to do, to me, it always looks like they're trying to appease the players, which I get. Yeah. They're, they're a league that is run essentially by their players. The players have a lot of power in the NBA.

They're the face of the league. The league pushes them in a way that a lot of other leagues don't push their players. The players have a lot of power in the NBA. They're the face of the league. The league pushes them in a way that a lot of other leagues don't push their players. But it seems as if they're afraid to make the players step out of their comfort zones because at this point, forget about everything else in the all star game, forget about the game, forget about all this stuff. And we just hone in on the dunk contest. The dunk contest used to be such an electric event. Like even more so than the game for me.

Such an electric event. And then 20 years ago it started a shift and then they would have a couple good ones, but people forget the bad ones. But even if you get, this is another thing. If there's a decade span and you get three good dunk contest events. You go one out of every three.

One out of every three. Okay. Like we can actually. That's a win for you. That's a win. Like the years that Nate Robinson won, they weren't spectacular, but they were memorable. And then if you get something that you can actually,

they were, I mean, cause he- I remember leaving the stadium for a couple of those, being like, never again, never going again. Right, so I'm saying is- Dwight Howard. But Dwight Howard, that was great stuff though. Was it? Yeah, you weren't into it?

I don't like watching Senors dunk in the dunk contest. Oh, but he was some kind of different type of freakish whatever. situation. He jumped- Should Wimby be in the dunk contest? Like how tall do we go? But Wimby wasn't gonna be able to get to the point. Dwight was still short enough to where he could take flight.

Remember the Superman dunk? He threw the ball in there, it was crazy. It was nuts. Have I told you my, nobody should be allowed to use props in the dunk contest rule? I feel like I'm gonna hear it now. Well, just like, what the fuck is a car doing on the court?

And also we've already seen it. Like, come on. But I mean, in a lot of dunk contests, people jump, is a human a prop? Could you not jump over a person? I think that's about it, but I think the human has to be facing you like they're a defender.

Right. Just make it look at least a little like basketball. So what I'm saying is, something as, and look, there's even cultural conversations around the dunk contest. Like I can watch on Instagram right now, like Jordan Klingon and One Foot God and the rest of these dudes that I watch on the internet, dunk, and do dunks that are so fucking filthy.

Bring them on Saturday. Now, that's an interesting thing to me. I always I always what's the difference between them and Mac McComb? He doesn't fucking play. I know but my thing is I would make the NBA guys dunk against them. I Would say hey the NBA guys if you want to come there's guys out there There's all all they're doing is Duncan all these guys are doing is Duncan. They're just Duncan. Right. But there's a guy that he's like a seventh grade teacher or something like that. He's like a D.J. Clark or something. I think his name. All he all they do is dunk.

I would make I would have a dunk contest with those guys and then make the NBA guys dunk against them because when the white boy, Jordan Cleon or whatever his name is gets out there and starts shining on Saturday night, they're not gonna wanna be embarrassed. I will put some stakes on it. I either want real stars or just find me the best dunkers.

So three point shooters, whatever. I think they made a huge mistake not putting a couple of WNBA players in the three point contest too. I just think, I think people like the WNBA. Like Caitlin should have been in the three point contest just period. And I would have had an Esquiu, like I would have had at least two WNBA players and I would have made the three point contest longer.

And I think it would have been more interesting. Like they own the WNBA. It's not like it would be like this crazy. Cri, you know, it's basically like what NBC used to do in the nineties, where they'd be like, now the Friends stars are going on ER. You know, and they'd do those crossover shows. Like just fucking bring Caitlin. Why can't she be at All-Star Weekend?

She's the biggest under 30 star in either sport. In basketball, like I think that's kind of an Obama era idea. I don't think that's gonna, people are gonna be down for that now. That's gonna start a real, real, real dialogue. I know where you're going. Right.

Counter, are you turning the channel? That's what we have to go back to with all this stuff, is are you turning the channel? It's like, Andre Jackson from the Bucks is dunking, I'm pretty sure I can go get a tea right now and maybe come back for Mac Mcconnaght trying to jump over at Kia. But if it's like three point contest and Tyler Hero just went and now here comes Caitlin Clark, I'm fucking watching. I'm not turning the channel for that.

So, as much as we're talking about it, is it just over? I don't think it's over. I think there's no fixes. Is it just over? Because if it wasn't over, this is like, it's kind of like the married couple that goes to... They're in counseling for 20 years. They broke up, got back together, got an apartment. And now they're trying BDSM. Yeah. You know what I mean? To kind of figure out their relationship. Really, what they need is to go out and be back on the market. And just date somebody else. Yeah.

So you think the All-Star Weekend's at BDSM stage. I think some of this stuff is really getting into having key parties. Well, this is why I'm telling Adam Sobers, got to dress up like a dominatrix and make these motherfuckers play hard again. I mean, seriously, um, I don't think it's that dire because I think if you have stakes and you have stars, you can still win with the basketball sporting event. And here to bring a full circle to the hockey, we just watched all these Canadian USA

dudes really give a shit. It wasn't just the three fights. That game was really, that was like a game seven. It was physical. Like McAvoy had that awesome check on McDavid. Like nobody hits McDavid like that. They were flying. They really cared.

So you can't tell me that these guys in the NBA, you can't pull that out. They're playing for something though. So I get what you're saying. We know it's there, you gotta pull it out. I know, they're... Oh. Wow.

Oh, excuse me. Well, wow. They're playing for something in that game. I don't mind your idea. I don't mind your idea because it would be interesting for me. This is the thing. A lot of these things that we're talking about, they, they make the

game interesting for me and that's important for you. Yeah. That's important. Well, I would really care if the Celtics had a chance to get home court in the finals because they won this all star game. Certainly. Now I'm watching that with like Celtics friends. What are you doing to make it interesting for them?

For the players. Got to be home court matters. Home court matters for the top five seeds that's a real thing and then for everybody else money throw money at it throw some money at it it worked for NBA Cup they threw money at NBA Cup and in people the guys that played kind of gave a shit about it yeah they kind of they wanted to get out there and play I mean look think about it man if you win $250,000 I mean that's nothing yeah one. That's not nothing. Donate that to somebody.

One night at Onyx for James Harden. I mean, that's a Tuesday at Onyx for Harden. That's great. It's a big win for him. So look, I remember baseball in the past. I remember them, if I'm correct, they went to doing home field advantage for the All-Star game for a while. Now, they stopped after a while though, didn't they? But it had the problem that we're trying to fix with this. You have guys in the game who don't care because they're not gonna make the World Series.

Right. So what do they care about, you know, where a game seven in the World Series is? In this case, if you had all the top five seeds They're gonna care. Let's take one more break. We're gonna talk about rap beats. Okay, Kendrick versus Drake day 280 I don't know. It's like the Iranian hostage crisis day 310 Still going Kendrick's having like this is like driven Kendrick to like a plus plus levels

He's just dominating coming off Super Bowl show. Drake still seems like he's interested in continuing the beef. He's like, keeps coming out of his corner. The trainer's like, no, no, no, I'm gonna throw the towel. I'm like, one more round, one more round. Is this the last rap beef ever for you? No, no.

The last huge one? No. So this is just gonna keep happening? Yeah. Okay. The last huge one? No. So this is just gonna keep happening? Yeah. Okay. There'll always be one. There's just not enough room on the mountaintop for everyone. There'll always be one.

If the moment that rap beats in, there's no more hip hop. So we need, it's fundamentally, we need this in the D.L. Fundamentally you have to have it. Fundamentally you have to have, like I hope everybody's paying attention right now to like what Kanye West is doing Kanye West like made it like he had all of these

Philosophical reasons for hating Drake During that whole time back in the day when me and Kanye were you know Going back and forth or whatever when we went back with Tim. He actually emailed Kanye and then he emailed me back and forth or whatever, when we went back and forth to him. So I actually emailed Kanye, and then he emailed me back, and he went through this whole rant, and in the middle of the rant, he just mentioned Drake for no reason. This is 2018. Just mentioned Drake for no reason.

Because the radio was playing Drake, Drake ain't talking about nothing. I was like, this guy must really not like Drake. But really, the reality of it was that the only reason why he had a problem with Drake is because Drake was on top. It's because Drake was threatening him. And now you see Kanye. That's why most rap beefs happen.

Yeah. Kanye's sniffing around a little bit and he's acting like he wants it with Kendrick now. So there's always going to be that one- But that's like, he's like the crazy guy in the street who's just yelling outside somebody's window. But there's always going to be this competitive thing in hip hop, just like there is in sports, to where some guys are gonna wanna take with some other guys. Well the reason I ask why is this gonna be

the last big one is because Drake lost it so decidedly, I wonder if it becomes like NBA All-Star Weekend, where it becomes not worth it. The risk reward thing is almost too great, because Drake would be this casual that everyone would look back at. Other people think he's just gonna, he'll go away for four months, come back and be fine.

Well the problem with that is, is that you're never gonna, the rap beef you don't have as much control over, right? Because somebody can decide that they're gonna diss you for any reason and once they do, you almost gotta say something. So that's- Well if you're on equal footing.

If you're on equal footing. Yeah. Sometimes if you're not on equal footing, sometimes you can let it slide. Some guys don't choose to let it slide. With this one, it's particularly interesting because I'm starting to think that this rap beef is going to do irreparable harm to hip hop.

Okay, explain. This is tearing rap apart. Like, it's one thing to, if you have, if you take any of the other beats right if you take Jay-Z and Nas if you take Big and Pac if you take... Big and Pac both died. Yeah but not because of no rap beef that was a percentage. No but tied together somehow. Yeah it was like just messing around but that was really over some other shit. Y'all can go to VladTV.com if you want to. Like he got the whole school.

OK, I got the whole school. But. This has become such a flag planting by each side that the seriousness of the allegations, and there's always been serious allegations, and like, you know, somehow verbally and all of this stuff. But right now, it like says something about you if you're a Drake fan. It says something about you if you're a Kendrick fan.

And it's like, it's this weird hip hop version of the Democrats and the Republicans, and the division that we see politically and culturally like in America, like in music. And that just means that everybody can't party together. And you have Kendrick, who's actually saying, it's time to let the party die. And then you got the girls that's going, well, we still want to shake our asses. Is it okay if we shake our ass and then we don't really know if it's okay Is it okay if we don't care about some of the social causes and issues that Kendrick cares about and I personally don't

I think you should care but there's always been a part of hip-hop that was just about the fun This is casting people in such distinct roles and it's so vicious. Maybe I'm getting older I could be getting older but if this one is so and it's so vicious. Maybe I'm getting older. I could be getting older, but this one is so particularly vicious with the fans going at it and really trying to sabotage each other

that it feels like it's time for everybody to just take their foot off the gas a little bit. Just like relax. The internet in full bloom we've never had for one of these, the way we have the internet and the shape it's in in 2025. Particularly this post Elon, every no holds barred version of Twitter. No holds barred. Yeah. Every no hold barred internet in every respect.

Right. And you can go as personal as you want. You can do AI stuff now. There's all these different ways you can make the other side look bad. Right. And so like right now it's getting to the point to where, okay, so Drake dropped, it came out, it was very successful for them, wasn't my favorite music in the world. The one Friday? The one that just came out, Sexy Songs for You, Drake and P&D. Wasn't my favorite music

in the world. However, you could listen to that and tell that somebody gonna like it. And it doesn't mean that you have, it doesn't make you a bad person or, it doesn't make you an asshole if you like Drake. And it doesn't make you righteous if you like Kendrick. Like they're both two entertainers that represent and do different things. And while I probably gravitate a little bit more towards, not don't probably, I gravitate a little bit more towards, not don't probably, I gravitate a little bit more towards

what Kendrick does. I think he's a very important artist with really something to say and really represents something. I like a lot of Drake records, and I've always liked Drake, and I've always liked listening to him. So I just think it's being taken a little too far now.

A little too far now. Take your foot off the gas a little bit. My son Ben Simmons, not the Clippers Ben Simmons, he says it's over, Drake's dead, nobody cares. That's his 17 year old LA take. I'll be honest with you. Drake was beaten in this as decisively as I've seen any rapper ever beaten in any of these.

Was it like a form and Frazier? Wasn't a form and Frazier, because that joint was two rounds. But I would say it was... Pacquiao Marquez four? Pfft. See, it's not Mayweather Gotti, because Mayweather Gotti was, you know what I mean?

Ali Cleveland Williams? Oh, hell no. If you guys ever want to see a killing machine, go watch Ali versus Cleveland Williams. Ali, it was, no, you know what it could be? It could be a Hagler-Herns. I'll tell you why. So it's a short fight.

It's longer than three rounds, though. Longer than three rounds. Yeah. A short fight. With a lot of action. With a lot of action. However, at the end of it, Hagler brutalized Tom. Greatest, one of the greatest boxing photos ever.

Hagler like this with his hands up, and in the back you can see Hearns being like carried back to his corner. Yeah. Fucking classic. Yeah, Hagler brutalized. At the end of it, it was clear. They both went crazy, but it was clear,

very clear and decisive who the tough motherfucker that guy was. Do you give Massachusetts credit for Hagler or no? I thought, oh well yeah, Brockston, right? Brockton, half hour from Boston. Brockton is Brockston or Brockton? So is that Boston? Oh yeah. That's why I was so mad.

Cause he grew up black in Boston, so he had to beat the... Why did I open myself up to that? Why did I do that? That's why he was so pissed off. That's why he was beating people up like that. That's why he had to do it. That was the hardest fight for me,

cause Sugar Ray was my guy, but Haggar was basically a Boston team. So I picked Sugar Ray, cause Sugar Ray was my favorite from like the 76 Olympics on. Sugar Ray won the fight. He won the fight. I thought he did. It's one of the great arguments, though.

He eat it out. There's other people who are like passionately convinced Haggar won and they get really mad if you bring it up. I just think he was sloppy and wasn't landing and he was off balance the whole fight. I didn't think he fought a good fight. This is going to sound so crazy. And people wonder about these obsessions I've had. I've watched two different broadcasts of the fight.

Like I've watched. I'm not surprised to see me blinking. And then I've watched the I've watched the fight with the sound off as well. And so it. Oh, sound off is important because the crowd was really behind Leonard. And and the and the announcers too. He made a couple tactical mistakes, but I was doing all of that stuff for a podcast.

But he made a couple tactical mistakes. He came out, I think Hagler came out orthodox in the softball. He tried to box with Leonard a little bit. He made some mistakes in the fight. I do think that had there been a rematch, that Hagler would have fucking destroyed Leonard. Well, he went to Italy. There was no rematch. that Hagler would have fucking destroyed Leonard.

Well, he went to Italy. There was no rematch. Yeah, he couldn't, he was. Hagler wasn't the same after the Mugabe fight. He was kind of, he had a lot of boxing miles on him at that point. Wasn't the same going into the Mugabe fight either. Early 80s Hagler against that version of Leonard,

he knocks him out. Yeah, I mean, once again, this is Leonard at middleweight. Leonard had come up from 47. Right. But he was smart. He planned out, he would steal like the last 20 seconds of rounds. Once again, this is Leonard at middleweight. Leonard had come up from 47. Or maybe he was 40. But he was smart. He planned out, he would steal the last 20 seconds of rounds. He really figured out how to win a scorecard

against Marvin Agar. Anyway. Anyway, but look, I get it. Drake lost the rap beef. It's over. He lost decidedly. Yeah, but what do you do after You decide they lost

the biggest rap beef At least in the last 10 years, right? Oh, this might be the biggest last 12 years It's certainly the biggest rap beat 21st century I Could make an argument and look you'd have to get ninth wonder you'd have to get sway you you'd have to get 9th Wonder, you'd have to get Sway, you'd have to get Ebro, Charlamagne, all of those guys that live and breathe hip hop. I can make an argument this is the biggest rap beef ever. I can make an argument this is the biggest one ever. Yeah, it's tied to the generations too much though.

Why would you? It's almost like arguing about different areas of basketball. Well, the only reason why I say it is because Biggie Tupac was like, the whole art form was still evolving as that was happening, you know? And it was so tied into like this incredibly influential decade. I get it.

And I was there for that one too. And here, we're already set. Music is music is what it is. Everybody's figured it out. Their versions have had it. So it music is what it is. Everybody's figured out their versions of that. So it's like, it's almost amazing that it got to this point. I didn't think it was possible anymore. But that's what makes it different to me. So Big and Pot come out and remember,

there was also some personal stuff that was going on in that beef as well. There's some here too, but not quite as much. This seems to be different to me because it's almost more akin to Jay and Nas because this is the culmination of an entire generation of hip-hop work. You have two guys that come out roughly around the same time. Drake beats Kendrick by two or three years as far as on the national scene. And then for a decade, a decade plus, they dance around each other. They, they poke at each other. There's disses on records. There's

references on records. There's interviews. There's all of this stuff. But these two guys along with Cole are recognized as the two biggest stars of their era. These are the two biggest guys in their era. And then they essentially fight or spar or battle for the kingdom of that era. They battle to decide who's music and who's more influential, who matters more, and there's so much

behind it. You're talking 10 years of work, you're talking two different outlooks on hip-hop, like two completely perfect foils, even down to the fact that one guy represents this long legacy of hip-hop that comes from Southern California, from Compton, think about all of the Compton artists. Post-OJLA. All of that stuff, right? And then you have one guy who is an upstart

coming from, with a new style of hip hop. The grassy high zone Drake. The grassy, all of that stuff, but still has roots in Memphis, right? It's almost like it was, and I don't wanna overstate it, it wasn't just a hip hop battle, it was a cultural litmus test in a way, which is another reason why I think people

are taking it so, so seriously. It was like a battle of what the truth of hip hop and hip hop culture is. So it was very, very, very high stakes. And the song that won was obviously a song that accused Drake of a lot of things, but the one thing that it accused Drake of, more than anything, was not being a part of hip hop.

And so it just ended up being incredibly high leverage in a way that I don't think that I thought it was going to be. So I can make an argument that like, this, because of those reasons that this is the most consequential one that I can remember. Well, the other way to help your argument is the best song that came out of this whole beef becomes one of the best songs of the decade.

Yeah. At least most famous, most influential, it would be most discussed 20 years from now and people are like the 2020s, what were the big songs? It'd be one of the first ones mentioned. All the other rap beef songs, none of them hit the heights that this did. I mean, this is basically, I'm not gonna say Michael Jackson thriller territory,

but like that one level below. Well, it was gonna be difficult for, first off, Fuck Your Bitch and The Click You Claim to really, really go pop. So it was gonna be difficult for that to really, really go pop. So it was gonna be difficult for that to really, really go pop. But I would say that culturally, Hit Him Up was being played in the club.

Like this is different. This is a number one. They weren't playing Hit Him Up at the Super Bowl. They weren't gonna play Hit Him Up. It's like, all right, it's halftime and Chargers Niners. Here comes Hit Him Up. Here comes Pac. Oh, he's got a lot of red on. But they weren't going to play that. But this one, it went everywhere.

And that was also, once again, it was kind of Kendrick saying, you know, not that he hadn't had a hit records. It was Kendrick saying, I can make a hit record that dances on your grave. You know, for making the people dance, I can have those same people dancing on your grave. And he did that. It's a tough one. I don't know how Drake bounces back from it. It's also, there's a talent issue too.

As successful and great as Drake's, some of his stuff has been. Kendrick's just levitating at a slightly different level. He's- Whether you, how much you like his music, whatever. Like he's the best artist that this genre has produced in the last 12 years. Drake is insanely talented.

Kendrick takes himself, Kendrick is- Kendrick's a one on one. He'll never be recreated. He makes more important music. He, I think the music that he makes is probably a higher difficulty. I don't want to take anything away from Drake's talent. But I don't want, but he's insanely talented.

Kendrick, you can't make that many great hits without being talented. That is something that we ain't never seen. I mean, and we knew this, he's just, it's almost like he didn't want to, like he's something that we ain't never seen before. To me, to me, and a lot of people would feel that way about other artists, about Drake,

like Kendrick's ability to communicate, but also to be relatable, all of that stuff. He's just different to me. You think Drake, cause Kendrick's short. I think Drake really missed the, I think like his dis-response could have just been like an entire short song. He's talked about the fact that he's short though.

But he didn't really go after it. I think that's like his one move left and it'll probably be clumsy and not work well. He should have sampled short people. Just a whole short song, just like, just mocking Kendrick for being short. It's like his only move left now. The problem is, is that you'll do that,

but the reality is like- Then you look thin skinned. No, it's an extra thing with Kendrick, cause Kendrick on one of these records, Kendrick says, it might be on Dodger Blue, he says, have you ever ran a fade and ran three more back to back? If not, then shut the fuck up and keep it rap.

And that's basically he's saying, like, if you want to fight, we can fight. You know what I'm saying? You want to fight, like we can fight too. The thing is, with how psych, we've seen that he is, you just don't know the level that he won't go to. So it's like, the best thing to do is just to rap about it. Just rap. And well, Kendrick's going on tour, going on tour, and this would just keep

going and going. It's time to let it go. Can you, the kid just doesn't want to, Kendrick's not letting it go. He doesn't want to make the mistake of orienting his career around. No one get back to pushing the mistake of orienting his career around Drake. No. You won. Get back to pushing the culture forward like you always have. You've done the victory lap. There's no bigger victory lap than the Super Bowl. Get back to doing the same.

All right. So you're Drake's Tom Hagan. You're his concilier. He hires you for a week. What are your two pieces of advice for Drake? Okay. Two pieces of advice. First of all, Tom Hagan, not a wartime concilier. Well, how about this? Maybe he was. They just didn't give him the chance. But maybe Sonny was- They just decided he wasn't. Maybe Sonny was just a terrible- Let me tell you what, my Kraut McFriend.

She was the best. And I've had them all over the place. Now you get your ass out of here. He doesn't get that movie. What would I tell Drake to do? Number one, the first thing I would say is just remember that you're Drake. Yeah. Remember that you are literally the artist of the decades of the 2010s. So number one, it's going to be OK.

Yeah. Take a breath, go to booby trap, chill out for a second. And also remember why people love you. They don't love you because you are the most devastating battle rapper of all time. They don't love you because of that. You already occurred out of one battle. They love you because you make hits.

So come back with some fire. Chill and come back with some fire. And I'd say something else. I said this on Higher Learning and racial disagreed and the entire audience disagreed. Oh, I can't wait. If I were Drake, if this is possible with Jay-Z running things, right. Cause I know they don't have the best relationship.

If I were Drake, I would do the Superbowl next year. Interesting. Yep. If I were Drake, I know it seems like he's coming behind Kindred, but let me tell you what, if Drake does the Superbowl next year, let me tell you what can happen. Number one, he can do something. He can answer the Lil Wayne question because Lil Wayne wants to do the Superbowl. Lil Wayne and Drake could do a whole set at the Superbowl.

Then Drake looks like for the entire South, which likes Drake anyway. So now this is, it's almost like politics. You're trying to win the South. You're like now it looks like Drake is the one who it looks like Kendrick took the Super Bowl stage away from Wayne and Drake is the one who gave Wayne is due. You can do the young money thing. Drake could do a whole Super Bowl, whereas Kendrick did a Super Bowl that was very dedicated to his audience and didn't have some of the hits

that he knew before. Drake could do a whole Super Bowl of just hits. It could be just hits. If people talking about they love hits, Drake could do such a low stakes Super Bowl. Yeah, I'm talking about nice for what hotline bling missed me. I'm talking about so many joints. I'm talking about all the joints with and it could be hip hop because he could have Gunna and Lil Baby out there if those guys will be on the same stage. He could have Thug out there he could have literally a Super Bowl full of hits and pop records and People would like it and he could leave

Reasserting but that's 11 months from now. I know for that 11 months you got a move I mean you do the Will Smith you chill you're gone. I mean, he already dropped the album So he probably gonna he's on tour Ben Simmons thinks he's dead He said it's done Nobody cares about Drake anymore Ben Simmons quote my 17 year old son who knows everything that could be true But I don't think it's true, but that a lot of people care less than they did. But even his back catalog, even his back catalog is enough that Drake will never be out of the public eye.

I like your idea of him attacking different parts of the country correctly. Almost like he's running for an election. He's like, all right, where's Kendrick weak? I can get him in the South. Can I get him in the Northeast? Like just start picking different pockets culminating in the Super Bowl show. Also, I'll just say this.

Drake, his support was cratering a little bit before this because Drake had, in my opinion, made some really weird moves. Like the decision to kind of support Tory Lane's and dis-meg the stallion, where when black women had been the ones that had been supporting Drake, and like even when other black men would be like,

ah, Drake too soft, I like the way, it was black women that held Drake down and really like, really kept him at the superstar level. And I just remember when he made the decision to make light of Meg getting shot and really like, really kept him at the superstar level. And I just remember when he made the decision to make light of Meg getting shot and to outwardly support Tory like that, a lot of women were like, what is he doing? Like, what's the deal?

And so a lot of the insulation that he would have had from getting his ass lit up like he did was gone for a lot of different reasons, right? For a lot of the, he had decided for some reason before all of this started to go heel a little bit. But it's almost like wrestling. I always feel like pop artists, different musician, different genres, you got like an eight to 12 year shelf life.

Yeah. And then you gotta start figuring out next acts. Like you think about even like somebody like Hulk Hogan, right? Comes in, hits big in the 84 range. And by the time we get to like when he turned in WCW. Yeah, that was like 11, 12 year mark because it was like his character had run its course the way he was doing it. He's got to flip it.

Now I'm going to darken my beard and become Hollywood Hogan. With think about how many musicians have been able to even, hit musicians, make big hits, have been able to last longer than 10 years. It's not a lot. By the way, another one is funny actors, like comedians, like comedians in movies, churning out like funny stuff that we care about. It's like eight to 10 years.

But those comedians- Then they have to audible. Then they start to audible. Then they start. You make a drama. Start doing drama. Now all of a sudden you're on like a streamer show. Like you gotta start.

And I think it's really tough to stay relevant in music for that long because eventually the new kids that are listening to it are gonna determine who's hot. Yeah. And they don't wanna root for like, they don't wanna like their dad's music. They want their own music. But once again, another reason why it was smart

that Kendrick did it, the timing. Drake was at kind of a little low, a lower point. He's still making hit records, CLB, 4 Outta Dogs, all those things still sold really well. And he hit them when he was down a little bit. So we'll see. But everybody is okay to like Kendrick and Drake. It's okay to- Van Lathan just trying to heal America. Hey it's okay to put on Not Like Us then listen to Family Matters it's okay to listen to push-ups

like A and Euphoria you can listen I listen to non-stop this morning when I was walking the dog it's okay you guys you guys can like both guys it's okay it's alright. And if you have your Kanye playlist, maybe roll the windows up as you're jamming along to it right now. Some of the records going to get played. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Some of the records going to get played.

It's tough. He's got a great heart. The guy, the guys are the guys are, he's a, he's a real, it's tough. It would have been nice like six years ago. He just like moved to Australia and just started raising cattle and just moved to a different point in his career. Yeah, you know what?

I don't wanna talk about that. It's an antecedent mind. I don't want to piss anybody off. It's rough. Yeah. It's not great. Not great. Meant a lot to my family over the years. Not awesome.

Not a great turn of events. It's just like, it's just weird. You can't. You can't. But then. You're not cranking it at a July 4th party. Yeah, it's all of the lights. Like, hey, I got seven Kanye songs in a row here for everybody.

What about all of the lights though? What about street lights? What about. That's the thing. That's why you roll the windows up. Roll them up. Van Lathan, good to see you. We're doing rewatchables. Van's gonna be on rewatchables on Monday

and then higher learning and ring of verse as well. Thank you. All right, we couldn't let SNL 50 go by without an appearance from our friend Jim Miller who has been on here many times. He wrote the oral history of SNL. He is an even bigger SNL student than I think I am, which I don't even know how that's possible.

But we just had a three and a half hour Sunday night show last night that featured almost everybody ever who's been involved with the show who's still alive. What was your biggest takeaway from last night? Well, listen, I think it was pretty good. You know, I loved Adam Sandler. Eddie doing tracing work, and I could watch all day, particularly given Eddie's tortured history with SNL.

It was just great to see him back. You know, the world's a difficult place when things work out between people and there's not contention and people forget about things. Um, you know, Bill Murray saying something nice about Chevy Chase. work out between people and there's not contention and people forget about things. Bill Murray saying something nice about Chevy Chase. It's time, it's all good. I miss Bill Hader. Wish he had been there.

Tina continues to be terrific. But there was enough good stuff going on that made you feel like it was worthwhile. I think one of the coolest,ler, I thought kind of, I don't know if anyone wins a three and a half hour SNL episode with that many people in it, but Sandler's thing was great. And when you saw him, it was like, is this going to be funny? Is it going to be pointing? It's going to be both, but he really nailed it.

And then for me, the highlight was just seeing Eddie Murphy and Will Farrell in a sketch together. Because I think those to me are the goats. Those are the two best people in the history of the show. And by the way, with Adam, let's not forget that Jack Nicholson introduced him. Jack hasn't been seen in, I mean, unless you're in certain parties or whatever, that's a big deal. And it was, it was wonderful for, uh, for, for that to happen. But, you know, Eddie Murphy being on the NNH is just incredible still.

I mean, he saved, you and I have discussed this before, but Eddie saved the franchise without a doubt. I don't think if that 19 year old Eddie Murphy hadn't come along when he did, we're not talking about SNL 50. Oh, there's no question. And not only that, but I think he was the only person who was probably overqualified to be on the show.

Like, hey, he ascended out of it. It was like he was like moonlighting on the show almost by the end, where I don't know if that phenomenon's ever been recaptured. Well, I will say though, Kristen Wiig, I told her, she gets big, big, I don't know. I mean, she came on after Bridesmaids. She stayed on the cast after bridesmaids.

That's pretty impressive. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, a couple of people have done that, I guess. And she got, and Kristin got one of the great send-offs of all time, do you remember that? Yeah. Mick Jagger singing to her and her dancing with Lauren. Not everybody gets that kind of send-off.

So the big people missing, Hader, and we don't know why they didn't come, but Hader and Ackroyd, I think were the two that jumped out to me the hardest that I just feel. Yeah. But I think hater would have been involved in multiple sketches because you think like Molly Shannon was in multiple sketches, you know, the, the, the way they were using different people and how,

how great hater was as a glue guy. I just think he would have been all over the place. So he was supposed to- He would have been all over. Fred Armisen was in a lot. Yeah. You know, I think, look, I don't know. I didn't talk to Bill and ask him exactly why. The awkward thing was a little suspicious

because at one point he said, it depends on who asks me and what they want of me. And it seemed like there was a bill of particulars attached. And as Lorna said many times to people, we don't negotiate with terrorists. So maybe he was unwilling. Right. And then Dana Carvey was the other one that I was surprised by

because he's been on the show this year and he had said, he was looking forward to being on it. So I'm not sure what happened with that, but I think he would have been involved. Without a doubt, without a doubt, particularly given, I mean, Martin short was, was visible, very visible. And, uh, I think Dana would have had a lot to do. So do you feel like part of it was SNL 40 felt like the original version of this

and the 50th is, you know, they're, they're basically rerunning a lot of the stuff they did in SNL 40 with 10 years of newer cast members, only a couple of whom have come even 20% as close to hitting the heights of some of these other people. You know, you may be onto something. Look, I was there at the 25th, and that was outrageous, because nothing like that had been done.

Remember, last night, they did not have a dress rehearsal. So this is the equivalent of Lorne and the writers flying blind. Because one of the great luxuries, right? You go in at 8 o'clock, you throw everything against the wall, you see what sticks. You can figure out what belongs in the show, what doesn't. And also, more importantly sometimes, the order. I mean, you get a real sentiment.

I mean, occasionally they'll screw up and put Wayne's World at 10 of 1 the first time it aired. But they had no dress rehearsal. I think maybe it wasn't that it was derivative, Bill, but that because they had done the 40th the way they did it, it was like there was some muscle memory. Like we can do this, we'll still have the monologue, we still need a big music act,

we still need a big closing music act. Then of course, it's the emotional art that you just referred to with Adam, which is you're going to have a glorious sketches, then you want some poignancy, then you want some memory. I thought one of the great things about Adam also was that they snuck in a memorial in there too. It wasn't just like a capital M Oscars or Emmy memorial. You saw Jan Hooks, you saw Phil, you saw the people that-

Norma Down. Unfortunately, couldn't, of course Norm. Yeah, I mean, that couldn't be there. So that was an elegant way of doing it. And, you know, they did that in the 25th, uh, in terms of recognizing people who had passed in. So I think that they, I'm not saying they used the same playbook, but it certainly felt like, you know, there was that DNA of 40th anniversary there. Yeah, there was some stuff that didn't surprise me.

Like you knew Paul Simon was going to lead the show. That was just the way it's going to go. Paul and Paul. Open and close with two of Lauren's best friends. Yeah. But Paul was like, you know, he was, he hosted the second show, which was basically, it turned out to be a Simon and Garfunkel reunion. Um, the sketches were shoved to the side and I think Lauren was so

worried after that first show, what would even be in the second show. He geared it towards Simon and then Simon became, you know, this guy that's been on over and over and over again. And now, you know, it's pretty striking how old he looked and how old McCartney looked. And he'd be like, that makes sense because this show's been on for 50 years. Yeah, exactly. But you bring up a good point about the second show. I feel this way about The Sopranos. And there's actually, somebody should really, it would be a really cool article. You get the first show and you're spending so much time thinking about the first show,

right? And then all of a sudden it's like, oh shit, we got a second show. And The Sopranos didn't find its way till episode five. Yeah. Saturday Night Live, you know, really, I mean, two, three and four, good stuff and everything, but you still didn't understand the DNA. It wasn't, the broth wasn't fully simmered. And I think that particularly when you don't get an order, like nowadays on streaming services, you get an order, go do eight.

So you're thinking about that. A lot of times when you're just doing one by one, you need to get them on their feet before you can really learn things. And so Paul signed in on episode two. People go back and watch it, man. It's an experiment. It's like, let's call my friend Paul, let's see how we can stitch together 90 minutes.

Yeah. And it was basically a musical show with a couple of sketches in it. That second episode thing. I've thought about that a lot, because when you're creating a show, especially if it's a drama, you're spending a year plus on the pilot, right? And you're getting notes from all these people and you're building back. And then finally you cast it and you're casting these people have never played the characters before and it could be a year long process, you make it.

And now all of a sudden you have to make eight more episodes, nine more episodes and you're doing that as fast as it took to do the entire process for the pilot. So it is something that I always think about when I watch new shows. Well, it's an incredible thing because also in the first episode, you're establishing the characters. So you're trying so hard to introduce the character that you're spending all that time

on that. That's why with like the Sopranos, not to get off track from SNL, but the Sopranos, the biggest fight David Chase ever had with HBO was in episode five was, were they going to watch Tony kill somebody? And like Chase is like, dude, like this is what the guy does. He's not a Hallmark salesman. He kills people. We got to show it.

And they hadn't really been thought of before that because it hadn't come up. And so I think particularly in for SNL, episode two, episode three, episode four, it's a cocktail, right? And like getting down, like how much of Albert Brooks, how much of a movie, how many commercial parodies are we going to have? How much time are we going to do two musical acts or just one? How much time does that leave for everything else? And then of course, what is Weekend Update going to be?

Because Weekend Update had this huge advantage, right? Chevy was the only one who said his real name. I'm Chevy Chaser or not. He got all that time by himself. Other cast members were a little resentful of that. He tried to cut back on that. So it takes a couple shows to iron out those arguments. Yeah, and it probably wasn't until the prior episode

that the show really knew where it was going and what it was, which was the 11th episode of the first season, right? There's a couple other good ones until then, but about midway through that season, the show became the show, but they ran the first episode on a Saturday night in the 1130 spot. Yeah, that was great. Carlin does three different monologues, the Muppets are on there, like, that show's all over the place. They have no idea what it is yet. Well, part of it also is though,

Carlin was stoned out of his mind. He can see it. He was unavailable at certain points throughout the show. The other thing that is worth mentioning is, like, Chevy, 15 minutes before the first show, said to one of the producers, hey, what do you think I should do after this? Because he was convinced it was going to be a failure.

Right. And Lauren kept on, Lauren's, I mean, Lauren is Lauren. I mean, he's telling everybody, oh no, this is, we're going to, it's a hit. We're going to be a hit. We're going to be a hit. Even before the ratings suggested it, even before anybody had written about it. But by the fifth time when Gilda is walking down Avenue of the Americas and starts getting stopped by people like, oh my gosh, you're so great and whatever. And she's like, what? The show changes when people know it's a hit.

Even though SNL wasn't going to pander to people and it wasn't going to try and become a hit, right? They were just going to do what they thought was cool and it caught on. That also has, I think, a real impact on the trajectory of the show because then all of a sudden you're like, well, we don't really care whether somebody thinks this is going to work or not. We're going to have Beethoven at a piano playing something. Oh, you should go ahead and do it. We think it's cool.

I mean, who, there's no time to like, I mean, they address us, but there's no time to really test that out. So I think that became a real powerful force. Yeah. And the amount of people that watch the show as it was happening in the seventies versus how it's consumed now, which says so much to do about the choices we have now and just how we consume entertainment, like in 1978, if you didn't see the show live, it wasn't on again until they ran the reruns in the summer.

That was it, you missed it. You just heard word of mouth, oh my God, they had the sketch last night. Now it's like you can miss the show and if there's something amazing in it, there's a big moment. You just watch it the next day on YouTube. Miss the show?

Most people watch clips. Most people get, maybe they'll get YouTube clips where they've customized it somehow on X or something else. But I think a lot more people obviously are watching it during the week than are sitting down in their bar collage at 11.35. Yeah, the surprise of I'm watching this, I don't know what's gonna happen.

That's just shifting into something completely different. But what's weird is the show, at least from an audience standpoint in 2025 is still big. I think it's like probably the biggest non-sports property that exists. Well, it's the highest rated non-sports entertainment show on winter television. Yeah. Which is nuts. Which is incredible. And that's why you get to spend nearly $100 million a season doing it.

Well, we'll see how long that lasts. Some stuff from the show that jumped out to me. So Meryl Streep, who had never been on the show, never hosted, and how many times do you think they asked her? A lot. Weird that she never did it. You know, I just- She seems pretty fun.

Like I'm at, and she lives in New York City or she lives in Connecticut, I think. I'm just surprised she never did it. Look, they asked Tom Cruise a lot. He never did it. That makes more sense to me. Because of dyslexia and the cue cards? No, because he's Tom Cruise.

He's weird. I don't know what to make of Tom Cruise. You know? Like, going any direction with Tom Cruise, I don't know. You know? He's a big movie star. He's a big movie star. And you know, he's more likely to jump a motorcycle

over some mountain than he would be to host a live sketch show where anything could happen. Actually, you know what? That would be a great question. If I, uh, if I get them in an interview again, uh, I think what would be more terrifying for you going over like the grand Canyon in a motorcycle or hosting Saturday live and he might say the latter. Oh, I think he would definitely say the latter.

So he never did it. Meryl Streep never did it. And then the other one who never did it was Jack Nicholson, who was partying with all these people in the seventies, especially, you know, he's in the Belushi books. Like he's early and often, man. So by the way, so is De Niro who was there last night too. De Niro finally broke and hosted, but I think Nicholson and Streep are the two biggest stars that never hosted the show. Right. I have two most famous actors other than Cruz.

Other than Cruz. Yeah, that's it. I would say so. Those are the three. Yeah, Nicol, I mean, De Niro did a couple of walk-ons from time to time and then eventually hosted, but- Well, he did the Joe Pesci show. Yeah, that was the best one.

Memorable. When Jim Brewer was, Jim Brewer probably his best thing when he was doing the Pesci things. So anyway, I love seeing Meryl Streep with Kate McKinnon, even though that Alien Encounter sketch, which is great, but it's the same sketch every time. They're just rerunning all the beats. But the Meryl Streep ad was fun.

Yeah, the ad was fun. And Kate is one of the few people that can pull that off, that give us, you know, even though you know what's coming, it's still fun to watch. And she's just trying to make everybody else laugh. So we had that. We had black Jeopardy with Eddie Murphy playing Tracy Morgan next to Tracy Morgan, which was, that was the first time I really laughed in the first, I don't know,

30 minutes where I was like, Oh my God, they're doing this. I mean, it was super exciting. It wasn't just Eddie coming on and doing Eddie or doing something. He was actually impersonating Tracy. Yeah. Who was standing right next to him. It was so good. That was a rough add on with Tom Hanks, but I will say the Black

Jeopardy sketch that Tom Hanks did do back then was, you know, legendary. It just was really hard last night after, after. No, you didn't need anything else with Eddie. Yeah. That was tough. And by the way, Eddie was good doing that. Eddie was good. Eddie was one of the big winners last night.

They tried the Lawrence Welk thing with Scarlett Johansson and Kim Kardashian, gas, Dyer, Kristen Wiig. That it's, that's the same sketch every time. Um, the Q and a from the audience was captivating, especially with, with the nice, nice TV Nice widescreen because every time they cut to somebody in the audience You could watch you could see everybody who was in like a specific section. I wasn't even really listening to the Q&A I was like, wait a second. Oh, oh, there's that and there's that person and I almost feel like that's they intentionally do that

Right, so we could lose their That was the whole purpose of it. They did that in the 40th as well. Yeah. You get to show off the wares, you know? I mean, like, because unless people are watching the red carpet or whatever, a lot of those people like Jerry and Larry, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David were in the audience,

obviously, but weren't in the show. Right. So, you know, it's a great way to show them off. And not only that, but Tina and Amy are the only, really the only two people that could handle that. Because you got to riff on it, you got to tease. I mean, it's really, it's much harder than it looks. Really smart way to get a bunch of people involved in the show.

I got to say the most surprising person, I don't know why Kevin Costner was there because he's never hosted the show. It just felt like they needed a star. And he seems like he's pretty available in general, like he was at UFC last month. But Letterman being there was shocking to me. That was somebody that's never hosted the show

and I never felt like had a real connection to it in any way, but maybe he did and I'm missing something. I hate to say it, but it's like driving a Porsche 40 miles an hour. Because why point out to us that David's here? And not use him. And then not use him for anything.

I mean, I just, I kept on waiting for him to do something or say something from his seat even, or whatever, and it wasn't anything. So, I mean, I guess, I don't know, it was weird. Julia too. I mean, Julia is, Julie Louis-Dreyfus, even though she had a hard time when she was an SNL cast member. She could have done anything. She's fearless and she's terrific. I was surprised by that. I was surprised Bill Murray ranked the weekend update people and started with Colin Quinn 10th, who wasn't there. That just felt like a direct shot. But that was, it actually felt like old school Bill Murray,

like his pace and his timing was really good, I thought. Well, I thought it was brilliant that he did this black anchorage first, got Che out of the way. And then what it wound up really doing was just being a real dig to Colin Jost, who didn't make any of the spots. So I think the Colin Quinn thing at the beginning was just to make Colin Jost think that he was gonna be on the list,

because he was Colin and then he waited a bit. I mean, Bill Murray's timing is fantastic, and he was Friday night at Radio City Music Hall. He was awesome as well. So we had Mulaney's New York Tribute, which was like this big giant movie that moved through the, through the errors of New York that I actually thought was, was really well written and interesting. I'm not positive at a hundred percent

worked, but I liked it. Um, they ran back, don't look back in anger. One of the great pieces of content that was ever produced. Thank God. And from start to finish, they didn't just run a minute of it, they actually ran it. No, thank God. Which I thought mattered. Really, I mean the irony of course that Belushi wound up dying first, but also when he mentioned Gilda,

I mean the whole thing is just perfect. It's one of, I think it's one of my favorite SNL moments of 50 years. No question. I was watching with my wife and my wife didn't totally understand why they, she's not a big SNL student. So she was like- And you guys got married.

Well, she was like, why did they run that? That was weird. And I was like, well, here's the backstory. They ran that, Belushi lives in it, and he was actually the one that died first. And she was like, oh, like, I think she was like half paying attention. But that's what I meant though, in terms of like the rhythm also.

Lauren, I think pays more attention to that than he talks about. And when you have something boisterous or something supposed to be really broad and loud, and then you come to something like that, it's, it's a really interesting symphony that he's conducting there. So we had the stagehand, we had, the end memoriam thing I thought was probably my favorite part of the show. When they did the end memoriam of all the times

they've crossed the line, I'm like, are they gonna show Uncle Roy? They gotta show Uncle Roy. And then Uncle Roy, the most indefensible sketch probably in the history of the show, but it was the 70s and shit happens. The lecherous babysitter trying to creep on Gilda Radner. But they went through all of it and I loved it

because it's like, you know what? Comedy changes, the definition of what's funny and what isn't funny changes. It's not, you can't go back retroactively and litigate it. This was stuff that ran. And not only that, but it's incredibly shrewd because for all of you thinking that we're gonna hide from it and you can go and write about it and just the task for it. Oh, we're going to own it.

We'll own it right now. Here you go. And with perfect context, I thought it was the shrewdest part of the entire show. And then Debbie Downer, which I think has belatedly become one of the most famous sketches in the history of the show. has belatedly become one of the most famous sketches in the history of the show. It was funny when it happened, but I think as the years have passed, it's one of the go-to ones people mention.

I think there are Debbie Downer societies. There are people that literally talk about it about themselves, they talk about it in therapy. There's a whole big online presence. So, you know, I was wondering whether or not Rachel and Will were going to do the lover sketch and Will was going to start cracking somebody up underneath the hot tub, which would have been terrific, but that also was logistically difficult.

I would have, if they had asked me, I would have had Neil Diamond storytellers with James Brown and just brought Eddie and Will together and just had them just had them do. I just think that would have gotten the biggest wow from me out of basically anything they could have done if they had just done those two together. Yeah. I think the one thing that might have worked against that is that requires another level of knowledge on the show just because it's not in the zeitgeist as prominently as some of these other ones or more as recently.

By the way, how about Sabrina Carpenter? That doesn't help the Lawrence Welk sketch. I mean, Lawrence Welk isn't in there. That's the thing. If you're going to do Lawrence Welk, I would have rather... More often. Anyway, what were you going to say? But how about Sabrina Carpenter's line to Paul Simon about my parents?

That one line, I think it shocked the audience and it set the tone for the whole night because you're going to see a bunch of people in their seventies and eighties. So there's some Lauren stuff with this. You know, there's five years where he's not on the show and Ebersol is running the show and that's, that's been fraught. Yeah. Jean and Jean Dominion. Initially she gets fired., Eversole takes over. You've written about this a ton. It's been talked about a ton.

It's always been a little icy with the two of them, but credit dating back to 75. It was notable to me that Eddie was really the only person from that five-year run that was prominently involved in anything. Like there was no Piscpo at all. Julie Lee Dreyfuss was in the Q&A and that's it. It was a show that just kind of pretended those five years didn't,

Billy Crystal wasn't anything. Martin Short was in it, but Martin Short has become kind of an honorary host slash cast member along the lines of Steve Martin. But he was a big part of that season 10 cast. But for the most part he pretends that doesn't happen those five years. And Billy Crystal was in the audience. Right. Never went to him. Could have been used.

Could have been used. Not used at all for anything. Without a doubt. I mean, listen, given what happened to Billy on the very first SNL where he and his manager stormed out because he wasn't going to get enough time. That's a complicated history, Billy Crystal and SNL. Right. Well then... All the way through 50. The cast after, Carvey, not there. Hartman, not with us, sadly. Same with Jan Hooks. And Myers

was really the only one. They went to Levitz pretty briefly, but the show was a little geared toward those last, basically last 30 years. The other notable thing to me, the last 10 years of cast members, Pete Davidson, Bo Nyang, they got attention. Marcelo got in on one of those sketches. Cause I think out of the, anyone on the new cast, he seems to be the one there. They think they might've hit, might've struck oil on a little bit, but on that, like that, that show was not a big win

for the current cast, which I think was different from SNL 40 when the current cast was a little more involved. Well, one of the things you and I have talked about before is that over recent years, you don't have a lot of reoccurring sketches, reoccurring characters that you can draw back on. And so that's when it really comes to haunt you because you can't all of a sudden, it's not like the cheerleaders were from the

past 10 years. So you throw them up or I guess we could go back to the Californians, but you can't do the Californians without Hader. So they were in a box, but I think that's part of what was going on. Look, Davidson, maybe you'll argue with me on this, but Davidson isn't there because of what he did on SNL. He's there because he became a cultural force with his, you know, many popular, you know. With his social game. With his big black energy. Yeah, no, he basically became a weekend update guy.

You know, and he was on like, he was never like, let's build all the sketches around him like he would with Will Ferrell, somebody like that. I think the show's in a weird place. If you ever get a moment, Pete's first show appearance was on update and he crushed. Yeah. He did a great, and so you think, whoa, wait a second.

And then, you know, it just, it didn't, it didn't have, I mean, I'm not saying he's not successful, but we know most people know Pete Davidson because of the incredible runway of, uh, beautiful popular women he dated rather than what he did on the show. And a couple of movies too. So the Lauren piece of this, I'm assuming there's not going to be an SNL 60 with Lauren Michaels That would be insane People always thought well We could show for it. No, but he's not gonna be producing last night

He was sitting in an aisle seat like three four rows up So he wasn't like producing and he actually seemed like he was an audience member for it I'm sure he I'm sure he decided every sketch and what, uh, decided every sketch and what was, who was going to be there and who was going to sit where, but it felt like he was a little more detached than he was probably. He was, uh, Friday night he was, you know, he had a great seat at radio city. Yeah. He sat there the whole time.

I mean, look, they had last night, they had, they had everybody come in. They had, um, we're some had everybody come in. They had some of the top notch, the varsity was in the writers room. And they went over that. And Lauren was very, very, very involved. And I think he geared it so he could actually, God forbid, not be under the bleachers, sit in a seat and enjoy it. Right. So what happens now to Lauren? What's your prediction? it. Right. So what happens now to Lauren? What's your prediction? I think he's going to stay. I think he's going to stay. I mean, whether or not there's an emeritus attached to him or not, I mean, but right now he's already cut back on his schedule.

So he's not in every single day and night like he used to be. And I think that what you'll probably see is more people. It will be interesting to see though. I mean, like, obviously, if Tina or Seth comes back to the show, Lauren's a Meredith, right? Lauren is, by definition, going to be seen. I'm handing over the reins. But without that, it'll be interesting to see what happens next season. Originally, he had said he would be, he'd like to make it to 50 and then walk away, but I don't think he said, I don't think I'm done.

I don't think I'm done. Were you surprised, A, Chevy Chase not featured in anything? Was that because of physical health or something else? I think it falls under the rubric of something else. Okay, that's it. That's all you got. Well, Friday night Jimmy Fallon did something very nice, which was, it may have been a commercial break or something, but he leaned down and he said, ladies and gentlemen, I haven't watched the air copy yet, so maybe it was on air. He laid and gentlemen, Chevy Chase. And Chevy stood up and took a big bow and like was expecting a big hand.

And I don't want to diss him, but it wasn't huge. And I think that the powers that be were aware of that and felt like maybe that wouldn't happen if he was part of the show. Interesting. Well, he certainly has burned some bridges over the years. I think he's, he may pop them. No, I think it's safe to say.

Yeah. So that one was weird. And then, um, the Conan O'Brien, not a Bob last night. Is that still going to the, when he took the tonight show and didn't, didn't include Lauren and his version of tonight show, which people have always said that was one of the reasons Leno was able to kind of double cross him and try to get the show back because he wasn't protected by Lauren. I don't know.

Where does that stand? I don't think, I don't think Conan would be that petty. In fact, I'd like to give him a get out of jail free card in the sense that two weeks from last night he's hosting the Oscars. And like, it's just like, I can't, I don't know. I mean, very few people would be going to be hosting the Oscars and then rehearsing a sketch. I'm not talking about Conan be petty. I'm talking about, uh, is there still like some Lauren pettiness with that whole thing?

Cause I had always thought there was. No. Okay. No. You know, I think Lauren is at the point now where he's like really too powerful, too rich to everything. Hey, like there's very few, like, who's he petty with? I mean, like it's true. It's a victory lap. He's declared victory. If you're petty, that means that you're in the trenches fighting with somebody. And there's no one that's going to fight with Lauren. Who's got, I mean, unless it's like Sharon Madonna, who's got even one name to

mention, like he's going to, he's going to be like, in a, I don't know, with Conan. No, I don't think so. Do you agree with the David Stern theory with Lauren that I think we've talked about before about the moment you give up this job, you give up this power and influence that's just never gonna be the same and that's one of the reasons you keep it

for as long as you can. Everyone's returning your call the moment you call them. I always thought that theory said more about David talking to himself than him giving advice to others. Right. Because he was so crestfallen. I mean, you must have seen him. When Adam took over, he was like, he was just a man without an island.

And I think Lauren, look, Lauren is always going to have agency and the keys to 8-H, no matter what, even if he retires. He can go back there and do whatever he wants, and he's got a million other projects. So I don't think people are going to stop calling him Lauren. The cast may stop worrying about whether he loves him or not, but that's about it. Amazing relationship. All right, so your final grade sounds like it was like an A-. I think so.

It was good to see, you know, I mean, look, whatever, again, I miss Bill Hader. And certainly, I mean, every time you have one of these shows, I mean, the idea that Belushi killed Phil and now Norm and Jan Hooks, I mean, you can go on the list. Yeah. It really, it really makes it because they died too young. Yeah. I mean, and Chris Farley, I mean, how ironic is it that Belushi was Chris Farley's hero? He tried on his clothes when he got to the show, right?

And then he winds up dying at 33 the same age that John was when he died I mean, there's just it's just you know, all the sadness surrounding the show is really sad Before we go any predictions for the second half of the decade for ESPN? Another place you wrote a book about? Well, we'll see what happens this fall, right? I mean, it's one of the big chapters in ESPN's life, going direct to consumer. And let's see how far out, how much they piss off the cable operators. What are they going to charge? I mean that is that's a wild calculation. I mean Jimmy's done his job. He made nice with the NFL. They got

they got the NBA. Maybe they'll improve the NBA shoulder programming. But, uh, I know you're dubious about that, but, uh, they've had it for the last, I don't know, two plus decades, but how's it going to be different with this contract? It's going to be the same crap. Well, it's always a work in progress. I feel like it's just getting louder and dumber, the coverage around it. Yeah, but this, this is going to be different now. Direct to consumer and look, when I wrote that book, it was 100 million homes. Now it's what, 67?

And you times that times $8 a month. You're talking about real money. If you're Disney, you can't buy Pixar, you can't buy Marvel, you can't do any of that with the current financial equation. So it's going to be really interesting to see what happens in the fall when they decide to price that out and see how many people follow them. How do you feel from people working there? Happy to be working there standpoint in 2025,

because you always have a good vibe of workplace happiness. I think most of the people I talk to, Freud had one of his definitions of maturity is the ability to handle ambiguity. So I think there are a lot of people becoming mature or else they're drinking themselves silly on the weekends because it used to be, you know this,

I mean, particularly because ESPN's in Bristol, Connecticut, you gotta move your ass up to central Connecticut. You put your kids in school. Everybody's there for 25, 30 years. I mean, if you're at CBS Sports and you don't like it or you get recruited to NBC, you're just going to cross town. So a lot of people out there for 25, 30 years, it wasn't those jobs aren't as safe as they used to be. And a lot of people were having a very difficult time, particularly since some real legends were laid off, you know, during these layoffs.

So I think there's a level of insecurity, a palpable level of insecurity, Bill, that's never been there before. That's what I'm hearing as well. HBO, another place that you wrote a book about. New series coming out March 3rd Celtic city, nine parts Celtics docu series. It's really good.

Um, but wait, how you feeling about HBO these days in the time Warner empire? I think there's a branding issue with the whole universe that, um, really hurt HBO and this idea that... I mean, those three letters are worth just as much in terms of currency and pedigree than any three-level letters there are in the ecosystem. And they dialed back on it. And I think Casey Boyce has done the Lord's work. He is, without a doubt, one of the best creative executives in the business

today. I wish they had more money. I wish they... I mean, I know that they could have done unbelievable things if they had more money, which wasn't always the case. But I think that they... The brand has really lost a lot of its halo. Not because it's turning out shit, but because it's gotten messed up in this whole Discovery Plus, HBO Plus, Max, and this, and that it was HBO Go, then it was, I mean, it's a lot to go through for a brand, and even though they have some great people working there, I just, I think they deserve better.

Yeah, I think with the Max app, like it just shouldn't be that hard to find the best shows HBO has ever done or the new shows. You know, you feel like you're wading through all these different choices. And sometimes somebody's going on there and like, I just want to watch sex in the city. And I feel like there's a, I feel like there's a lot of politics involved with that, with that homepage. I mean, look at Netflix, it Netflix, it's almost like Darwinian. It's survival of the fittest because you got that algorithm and like, don't mess around with

it, man. We know what we're doing. But with Max, it's like subjective. It's like, wait a second. And there's this whole big thing with entourage. Where is that? I mean, deep six too. And you can't find this. You can't find that. It's, um, it's really complicated on that max homepage. Well, the best, the best way to fight off any sort of weirdness is to just keep putting out good stuff, which it seems like they had to push a lot of stuff to 2025 and it seems like they, they are going to have a bunch of good

content this year and the question will be, how can they push it in the max app the best possible way? Yeah. Good luck with the Celtics, man. That's, I think that's awesome. Thanks. It was a lot of time. Anything else you're working on before we go? Got it.

Secret projects you want to tell us about now? Just writing, writing, writing. What are you writing? Stuff? Things? Yes, just stuff. I you writing? Yeah, yeah. Stuff? Things? Yes, just stuff.

Yeah, I'm writing stuff. New project? A couple new ones, yeah. Oh, all right. Mysterious Jim Miller. Thanks for your SNL 50 recap. Good to see you as always. Hey, thanks for having me, man.

All right. Thanks to Van Lathan and Jim Miller. Thanks to Kyle and Sarudhian Gahal, as always. You can watch clips and videos from this on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. You can also watch this as a video podcast on Spotify. I hope you did. We will be coming back on Thursday, actually,

after the big Austin live show. We're gonna run that on this feed. It's gonna be good, I promise. And don't forget, new rewatchable's coming Monday night, Wayne's World. So I will see you on Thursday. on the wayside. On the first side of Neverland.