The Bill Simmons Podcast - Best 10 NBA Players Right Now, Thanksgiving Tips, and Million $ Picks. Plus: Sterling K. Brown | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: November 27, 2019

HBO and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Joe House to discuss the 10 best NBA players today (2:40), a Thanksgiving preview, and Million Dollar Picks (56:53). Then Bill sits down with actor Sterling K. Brown to discuss some of his past work including ‘Army Wives,’ ‘The People v. O.J. Simpson,’ as well as ‘This Is Us,’ NBA, NFL, and more (1:32:07). Finally they discuss Sterling’s new film, 'Waves' [SPOILERS] (2:16:40). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by State Farm. Just like football, life can be unpredictable. That's why State Farm agents are there to help. With over 19,000 agents, a local State Farm agent could be just around the block. Whether you're talking person by phone or through the app, State Farm is there. Kind of like Neficaio is there for every Thanksgiving. Excited for Thanksgiving or what? I'm so excited.

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because we got to talk about all the good stuff more. So that is up there now. We have nine podcasts. You can listen to them on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, wherever you get your pods. The Book of Basketball 2.0 podcast. Don't forget about, Spotify, Stitcher, wherever you get your pods. The Book of Basketball 2.0 podcast. Don't forget about TheRinger.com and The Ringer Podcast Network all week. And we have the rewatchables. I hope you didn't let your subscription lapse to that one because December is loaded with guest stars

and all kinds of stuff. So get ready for that as well. Coming up, we're going to talk to Joe House. We're going to do a little NBA. We're going to do a little Thanksgiving. We're going to do a little NFL picks. The red hot million dollar picks are back. And then Sterling K. Brown, a delightful interview with him. And if you're a Wire fan, I would urge you to listen to this. So that's all coming up first. Our friends from Pearl Jam. All right.

It's hard for me to imagine Thanksgiving week without the man on the line right now. He enjoys not working. He enjoys eating. He enjoys watching sports. And he enjoys sweets. And it's really everything comes up Joe House on Thanksgiving week. How are you, House? It really is. I'd like to call it, you know, it's Housegiving in my neck of the woods.

I just go around telling everybody that will within earshot. Happy house giving everybody. I'm great. We did this a year ago. We're doing a modified version of it this year. You know, we Luca started out amazing. Giannis is on pace for another MVP season. We have all the LeBron's playing great again. And you just keep hearing the word. Well, he's Luca started out amazing. Giannis is on pace for another MVP season. We have all the, LeBron's playing great again.

And you just keep hearing the word, well, he's a top 10 player. Well, he's a top five guy. And I just thought, you know what? Let's put, let's put all these names down and try to figure out who actually is a top 10 player. Last year, we tried to do 25. 25 is a little more complicated this year and probably a little less interesting too. What's interesting to me is the top 10 and maybe even the top 15.

But House, I sent you a preliminary list, which I'm sure you're looking at right now. What struck me- I have it open in front of me. So some caveats. We don't have Kevin Durant. We don't have Stephen Curry. We don't have Victor Oladipo yet.

And we do not have Klay Thompson. So we're four short and more notably too short in the top 10. So we have that. The other thing is we always get confused when we talk about best 25 guys right now, best 10 guys right now. Are we saying right now or are we saying the list we would make if we were trying to win a title, who is on that list versus who is on the list just on league pass or just dominant from night to night? What should we go with? Because my take is I think we should go with, if I'm trying to win a title, who are my top 10 guys? Oh, I was going to go the other way.

Okay. Because I wanted to reward a handful of guys. I, I, I'm in agreement on a top six. I, I very easily came up with a top six and that top six fits both categories, both who's playing great right now, but also who would you want to go to war with if you were looking for a title. And then I have another three or four guys that maybe not. I mean, they would all be very important guys on title teams, but I want to reward them for the roles that they've been playing in pushing their teams forward in kind of an unexpected way. So that's the way that I organized this 10, this at this November, the 26, 2019 juncture. Right. But we're 20% through the season.

So I don't feel like this is premature, you know, like if we'd done it two weeks ago, maybe not. But now I feel like I have a nice feel for the league. I've been able to watch everybody. I've been able to see the important people over and over again. I think we should do this. Let's go with right now. And then right at the end

we'll make another list of the top 10 guys we'd want if we're trying to win the title sure okay so we'll go that way so if I'm going right now this moment

I agree with you it's the top six I would have Giannis in the one spot I would have James Harden second LeBron third Luka Doncic

four, Kawhi five, Anthony Davis six. What do you think of that? There's nothing to argue with. We could quibble. Do you want to swap Anthony Davis and Luka? Kawhi's missed five games already. Maybe Kawhi should be

sixth out of the top six. We can split hairs, but what's the point? Those are the top six. They're the most impactful. They're the, right now, the six best players in the league. So what's notable about that top six? First of all, I think Giannis has

to be number one. People quibble with that because he hasn't made a finals yet. He's still getting better as a player. I just feel like we're watching somebody who night after night is, is having a better season than Shaq's best possible season ever, which FYI was the case last year.

He was having a season as good as any Shaq season ever this year. It's actually better. And he put up, we're taping this on a Tuesday, he put up a 50-14-6 last night, which if you're going against, I don't know, Charlotte or the Wizards or something, you'd be like, okay, yeah, that makes sense. He did this against Utah. And granted, Utah's banged up, but it's still, it's, it's a contending team and they were playing really well and it was a really good game and he was just awesome. And I just think he's the most night to night dominant guy in the league. What are your thoughts on that? So last night's game was

impressive to me for this reason, Utah was without go bear. So it wasn't just that they were banged up. They were without their, you know, sort of arguably single most likely player to have an impact on Giannis getting off. But the thing that impressed me was the bucks were flat. Utah led most of this basketball game. And this was a game that Giannis single-handedly, and you could see it happening as the fourth quarter got going, he just said, I don't want to lose tonight. I don't want to let my team lose tonight. And he asserted his will and got that 50 spot on him. And they needed every one of those points because Utah is good.

They're well-coached. They're deep. They have a lot of flexibility. They can play a couple different styles. Like the things that we imagined they could be when we were looking at the over-unders at the beginning of the season. You know, everybody's bullish on Utah with good reason. Like they're demonstrating there's good reason to be bullish on Utah. And Giannis was the best player on the court, so he willed his team to win.

It was a classic best guy on the court kind of game. You agree with that? And he was missing George Hill. Korver's already fallen out of favor, it seems like. No Brogdon, obviously, because they didn't bring him back. But if you just look at the box score, the Villanova kid played 33 minutes last night Wes Matthews played 32 minutes

I know Wes Matthews there's a 3 and D case for him but basically crunch time they're going Lopez Bledsoe Matthews Dante that's your crunch time 5 that's you take Giannis out of that and that's like a 20 win team

so I'm with you what I liked about him last night and what I've crunch time five. That's, you take Giannis out of that and that's like a 20 win team. So, I'm with you. What I liked about him last night and what I've liked about him a few times this season is he just has that air about him. Like, we're not losing tonight.

Sorry, Gus. The other team can do whatever they want. We're not losing. I still feel like he has a chance of getting better. But, I posted a thing yesterday

about how the highest PER ever right now is Luka's number one. He's in the 33 range. And Giannis was a shade under 32. Now he's probably over 32 because of last night's game. But statistically, he's been out of control. I test out of control. And athletically, just completely overpowering.

There was a play in the last two minutes yesterday when he kind of did like a Euro step in traffic and he missed it and then just dunked the rebound. But it was like some 1994 Shaq shit that he's doing. He just seems like he's seven foot four now. I know he's not, but doesn't it feel that way watching him? It feels like he's seven foot four yeah i i the thing that i was so impressed by last night with yannis 50 points 14 rebounds zero turnovers

zero turnovers and so we saw this stat he's the fourth player since they started recording turnovers back in 1977 78 fourth player to have 50 points, 50 plus points, 10 plus rebounds and zero turnovers. The other guys, Moses Malone, Michael Jordan. And I found this hard to believe Carmelo Anthony. Yeah. Well done. Listen, Carmelo's first 10 years of his career, unassailable. He gets shit on all the time, but that guy, that guy's going to be a hall of famer and he deserves to be. And he was really good. And I think a lot of people criticizing him were probably people that, you know, were 15 and under when he was really good in the two thousands. So I think that's unfair. Yeah. I just looked at Giannis is a PR it's 33.4 right now,

which is the highest of all time, even higher than Luca. He jumped over Luca because that's what happens with PER. No turnovers. 50 points and no turnovers. PER likes that. Well, here's the other thing. He, this season, is now averaging 11.6 free throws a game. He had 19 last night.

So he's 14 rebounds a game. He's 11.5 free throws a game 2.9 stocks, steals plus blocks combined but I still feel like there's room to grow because of the three pointers he'll probably end up

a couple years from now in the 36% range maybe 37 but from an overpowering the dunks, he always leads the league in dunks by a wide margin it's really just kind of like what Shaq would have been like if

he came along 30 years later and and had the footwork Giannis has and was thinking more of a point guard and all that stuff so

I think he's the clear number one and I gotta be honest I know there's gonna be a Luka MVP run from a narrative standpoint I know Harden's gonna be a Luka MVP run from a narrative standpoint. I know Harden's going to be involved because he's near, you know, high 30, something like that. But if Giannis, if the Bucks are 57 to 62 wins in that range again, Giannis has to be the MVP, doesn't he? Yeah. And once again, Milwaukee leading the entire NBA in differential, right?

Averaging 120 points a game and giving up only a smidge over a 110.5, 110.6, plus 9.3 differential. If they sustain that all season last season, and that's really a sign of, you know, kicking ass, beating the team you're supposed to. They're second in overall win percentage only to the Lakers. Yeah, they're 14-3. And I think it's a worse team than last year overall.

I think he's better, but I think the team is a little bit worse because of the Brogdon thing. Yeah, the Brogdon thing. And Brogdon's been really good. So I have him one. I think Harden has to be the number two if you're talking right now. Just what he's doing night to night tonight is outrageous.

And, you know, it's funny. Zach and I did the podcast for Book of Basketball about his career, trying to figure out, you know, does he have another level to go to? And we were both like, no way. Where's he going to go? Was he average 36 a game last year?

What other level is there? And somehow he's found a new level. He's shooting more free throws than ever. He's shooting more threes than ever. Seems to be more unstoppable than ever. And now we're hitting a point where teams are just double teaming him at the end of games. They don't have Eric Gordon, which isn't helping them, but teams are double teaming him at the end of the games and just forcing him to give up the ball. They're like, we're good with anybody else. We'll play four on three with the other four guys, but you're not scoring. And you know, you can do that with the rules these days, but the degrees that teams are going now to prevent him from hurting them in the last two minutes is a tribute to how good this guy is. Yeah, I mean, it's he just keeps on innovating.

Leading, he has an all-time historical pace right now in terms of getting to the free throw line. Nobody's gotten to the free throw line. Not even like Wilt. Wilt being guarded by six or seven white guys who were just fouling him anytime he's near the basket. I don't get it.

He's on pace to shoot like 1,200 free throws. Pretty good. I still don't like watching it that much. And I don't think that makes me a hater. I think I can, as somebody who's loved basketball his whole life, I think I have the right to decide what I enjoy. And I would just much rather watch Luka Doncic, who, by the way, has the ball almost as much as Harden does.

But I think one of the things I enjoy about Luka is just how all his teammates just seem a little more involved and his decisions are a little more collaborative than the Harden decisions. I know Harden. I know all his stats about him creating open threes, all that stuff, but man, just watching that dude dribble

at the half-court line for 12 to 13 seconds, I just don't enjoy it. I don't. No thoughts? Well, I mean, we've been talking about it for what feels like three or four years now. I'm really bored of it. They have the identity they have.

They have to win a meaningful playoff series to make us all believers. Until they can demonstrate it's a winning brand of basketball, they're going to win 54, 55 55 or 58 games this regular season depending on health and and their own uh ability to ward off boredom um but they they let you know we just got to see it in the playoffs they have to beat somebody good in the in the playoffs before we can really validate this run i mean that's my view and i i understand there's all kinds of variables at play, but they have to beat somebody in the playoffs. Well, Zach made the crucial point

on the Book of Basketball podcast when he said it was, he's on pace to become guard Carl Malone, James Harden. And the stats that Malone put up for 15, 16 years were just for a power forward, the consistency, the durability, and especially as the pace slowed down and he was still putting up 27 and 11 every night when there was like 65, 66 shot attempts,

really stands out if you're just looking at the numbers and you weren't actually there. And I think Harden, you're right. The postseason, he's going to have to do this in some form in the postseason. I will say watching the Rocket games, I do enjoy them a little more than last year because of the Westbrook part of it.

Because I think what Westbrook's brought to them is something that when we were making the case about why we thought they were potentially going to be good in the over-under podcast. And I was saying, I thought the most important thing he brought to the table for them was unpredictability and chaos and the ability to grab a rebound and just go coast to coast for a layup or the ability,

you know, you miss a three and he comes flying in over three guys and gets it. Just the athletics, the athletic holy shit plays that he does. I think it's really helped this team. I think, I think, I think it makes them a little harder to figure out versus the monotony of

the hardened offense. Now, is he going to kill them at the end of a game when it really matters? Yeah, probably. It happened Friday night, right? Did you see Friday night?

Against, the Clippers? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Friday night, right? Did you see Friday night? Against the Clippers? Yeah. Yes. So they had a really interesting response. The Clippers were doing the doubling-hearted thing, and they would put Westbrook at the foul line. He would dump it to Westbrook,

and then Westbrook would either just go to the basket or he would try to pull people toward him and then dish it to Capella or hit a shooter. And it was working. And it was like, oh man, they solved this. And then in the last shot of the game, suddenly Westbrook's 25 feet from the hoop. It's a brick. And then he gets mocked by Patrick Beverly after. I thought that was like about as personal as we've seen on a court in a while.

And Westbrook's just screaming, bitch, at him over and over again. They have all history dating back to Beverly injured him in the playoffs a few years back. But that Rockets-Clippers series, in general, I think has a really, really high upside if that was a playoff series. I also think it would be a real problem for Harden because they have all those defenders to throw at him. But did you see the Beverly thing? I didn't see that. I missed it. Beverly was on the sidelines. The game wasn't over yet. The Clippers were shooting game-winning free throws and Beverly was mocking Westbrook's brick and how he shot it. And he just kept shooting it like almost, you know, like the worst shooting motion ever, but it kind of looked Westbrook-y

and he was just shooting it over and over again and laughing with the teammates and Westbrook looked like he was going to run over and fight him and he just kept yelling, bitch, bitch at him and it was heated. It was really good. So I have Harden second. LeBron James, number three.

Welcome back. Unbelievable. I went to that Clipper game opening night and I was like, oh, he's the third best guy on the floor. LeBron James number three welcome back unbelievable I went to that Clipper game opening night and I was like ah he's the third best guy on the floor

this is makes sense this is his 18th year this is just the stage of career he's in he is he's been reinvigorated as the point forward

slash point guard I hesitate to call him a point guard because he's not guarding the other team's point guards he's point forward you know what else

has been reinvigorated what his hairline I mean the plugs hate to call him a point guard because he's not guarding the other team's point guard. Well, you know what else has been reinvigorated? What? His hairline. I mean, the plugs are unbelievable. He looks great. He looks five years younger. He looks great. I think he's really, really energized by playing with Davis.

No surprise. Davis is also going to be in this top six list, but it's been so long since he played with somebody who was this consistently good, right? Like he was with Kyrie. Kyrie's ceiling was this good, but Kyrie's up and down depending on the week. Kevin Love was never as good as Davis. Davis on both ends, and there's an overpowering aspect to the combo of them.

And I just think LeBron seems really energized. Like he, I never thought he liked last year's team and it never a hundred percent seemed like he wanted to be there. That's your professional basketball. He quit on that team at Christmas. He hated that team. He did.

He was like, what am I doing with all these kids? I hate it here. He got the coach fired. I mean, of course he did. He hated that team. He did. He was like, what am I doing with all these kids? I hate it here. He got the coach fired. I mean, of course he did. He hated it. And by the way, we're talking about him being energized. He should have a lot of energy. He got

to take four months off, five months off the first time in what, 15 years that he actually had a break? It had to have been terrific for his mind, body, and spirit. And also, Taco Tuesday is incredible. Taco Tuesday!

It's today! Today's Taco Tuesday. You're back on LeBron. You're back. Yeah, I'm all the way back. Steve Kerr has been pretty open about talking about how brutal it was to be in that eight-month, 100-game season

vortex for five straight years. And how last year they were at the tail end of that cycle. If there's a silver lining for that team, it's that they get to regroup mentally and physically and then kind of make another run at it next season. And you think

like LeBron did that for, I don't know. Eight years. It was really. Eight consecutive finals. Yeah, but you think back even before the eight finals, like 09, he goes pretty deep against Orlando. And then 2010, you know, he's playing 90 game seasons the two years before it too, you know?

So I think he does seem reinvigorated, but I also think to the Steve Kerr point, the break probably helped mentally. Cause I do think that's to be in that hamster wheel of just every year, a hundred games. Of course it did. Jesus. What do you mean? Probably. Of course it did.

But here's what it doesn't make sense. He got to like be a human for a little while. Here's what doesn't make sense. That he is as good as he's ever been in his year 18. That's the part that doesn't make sense to me. He's now approaching these game and minute totals career-wise that

really don't have any parallel to anybody. So it might be a modern technology science. He puts more thought and time into his body probably than anybody who's played the sport before. But it's still, I want to see if he's playing this well in March, I guess would be my point. Because history says early in the season with old guys, it looks great.

You know, I remember Larry Bird in 87, 88, his last great season. He showed up, remember he had lost 20 pounds he was done he had a big dunk he was like oh my god the legend oh he has another level to go

and then he broke down because he had a lot of miles on him and he had some some ailments and he was old so we'll see if this is still going on in March

but I've been really impressed by LeBron it's been fun watching the Lakers so I have for the best players right now I have Doncic 4th Davis 5th and Kawhi sixth, who I dropped only because of the injury

thing. But we should mention, they play Boston and Houston back-to-back games at home Wednesday and Friday. And Kawhi looks like he's about 80%. I went to the Boston game. I would say he's 80, 85% Houston game. Same thing. Guess who made the blocks to end both games? Kawhi Leonard. I know. I know. He's still the fourth quarter guy. I want him out there as much as anybody in the league, right? He's maybe even number one. We, we had the great, good fortune. I was with you at the beginning of November and we got to catch them at home against the trailblazers. Yeah. And he had a quiet first three quarters and then it was time to go win that

basketball game. And I don't know if he scored 20, but he scored 16 or 18, took the game over, made every big shot, forced his will on both ends of the ball court. I mean, it was true.

OG like, like Michael Jordan kind of stuff. I know you got to take a break, but I mean, Kawhi reminder, top two or three best guy in the, in the whole, on the whole planet earth and could you, well, I don't want to, I don't want to get too crazy, but I, I would love, I would love to see him in the finals again. That's, that's as far as I'll go right now. We're going to take a break and then I would love to see him in the finals again. That's as far as I'll go right now. We're going to take a break and then we're going to hose down house

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Okay, so Kawhi. I mentioned this one or two podcasts ago about how he is starting to morph into late 90s Michael Jordan from an offensive game standpoint where the athleticism isn't where he was a couple of years ago, but he can still summon it whenever he wants. And he's developed this style of playing at the pace that he likes, getting the shots that he wants to get, but there's nothing frantic about it at all. And over and over again, he goes to that right elbow, just like MJ used to, at the speed that he wants to get to. MJ would use a little push off every once in a while or a little shoulder fake or whatever.

Kawhi, it's more like a herky-jerky thing where he's got a hitch in how he sets up his shot that just seems to throw off the defender every single time. And over and over again, he ends up with a wide open 19 footer. He did it again in the Houston game on Friday night. And it's become, in my opinion, the most reliable shot in basketball.

When, if it's the fourth quarter in the last four minutes, and he has the ball and he's ISO'd, and he has to create a shot for himself, I feel like he can get that 19-footer and make it. I trust that more than any other shot in the league. Where do you stand on that? It's inarguable.

He did it for an entire playoffs last year. He was the difference in series that they easily could have lost to Milwaukee, easily could have lost to the Sixers. He would not let it happen, and it was those fourth quarter moments where they had to have a basket, and sometimes it was a humongous, you can't believe it, three, but lots of times it was him creating

for a mid-range shot, as you're describing, and the change of pace is reminiscent to me. And I'm sorry to, to go, you know, sort of deep dive in this way, but like Brandon Roy, remember Brandon Roy? I like it. You agree with this? Yeah. I mean, he, he, he really could start and stop in a way and create space. It was at a pace that was not, he wasn't going 90 miles an hour and then putting on the brakes. He was going like 75 and then kind of putting on the brakes a bit. And, and all of a sudden he's rising up and it's like, where is everybody? Nobody's within three feet of him.

Well, I've noticed. So he's 26, eight and five this year, basically two steals. He's 44%. He's only 30% from three. He's getting the line seven times a game. The reason I mention the threes, I've noticed sometimes he doesn't have the legs right away.

If you watch, they have so many good advanced stats. I would love to see a stat of where shots hit on the rim because we could track front rim shots. And LeBron, same thing for him sometimes where he doesn't seem like he has legs all the time either.

But Kawhi, a lot of front rim for him. And then his legs kind of come. It's almost like he gets warmed up and his legs come. Man, if he wins with the Clippers, that will rank among the greatest NBA achievements

to be the best guy on three title teams. That'll be really hard to, that'd be a really hard one to pass. I don't feel like anyone's doing that on four teams, right? Be the number one guy on four teams. Three is probably the max. And that's never happened. Kyle's getting all fidgety. He's excited. four teams, right? Be the number one guy in four teams. Three is probably the max. And that's never happened. Kyle's getting all fidgety. He's excited.

It's why I try to calm myself down. I really am psyched to fast forward and see this Clippers team in the playoffs. I'm kind of ready for the playoffs to start now. Luca, I had a week ago on this podcast, we titled the podcast A Full-Fledged Luka-gasm.

And I splooged all over Mark Stein for an hour talking about Luka. I did. So I shot my wad. I got nothing left. But you have not had a chance to have a Luka-gasm on the podcast. Anything you want to say?

Well, I'm not going to have a Luka-gasm because they've only beat three teams with winning records. So, but here's the thing. That sounds like a knock. It's not a knock. They need to be doing what they're doing right now. part of the regular season in the NBA is crucial for certain teams who have to come out and try and change their direction to establish themselves as having a different identity. And there are a handful of teams that fit that description for the season. The Phoenix Suns fit that description.

The Minnesota Timberwolves fit that description. The Miami Heat fit that description. The Dallas Mavericks fit that description. I couldn't be more in love with, I mean, Luca seriously plays like he's 28 years old. The amount of his basketball IQ, I don't want to do a, can we look at his birth certificate thing? But I'm not against it. He just plays. He's so savvy. He's so smart.

He's so fearless. He's clearly learned a version of basketball from competing at the highest levels in Europe that translated so perfectly here. I mean, the stats are through the roof. The thing that we have to see, there know, there's two things with Dallas. He got tired last year. So what, what lessons did he learn from the second half of last year? And part of his thing that's just incredible to me is his athleticism. He does play a physical style of basketball.

There's not, he's not avoiding contact. He's finding contact and he's, he's finishing through that contact. It is unbelievable, unbelievably bad-ass. I want to see it through the whole season. The other thing is God, he's dragging this team along.

I'm going to ask, you probably know this already. Who do you think is the third leading scorer on Dallas? Oh God. Hardaway junior. No, it's JJ Barea. So,

uh, what? At like 11, 11 points or something. I'm not kidding. He's the third leading scorer. He barely played. He's only played two games.

No, on average. I'm talking about hardaways. Yeah. But hardaways, the third lady score, Bray is fourth. Bray's played two games,

and he's averaging 11.5 points a game. That's still hilarious, though. Yeah, that's the point that I'm making. That's all I'm getting at, the average point thing. Luka's averaging 30-10-10, basically, which seems high. Yeah, exactly.

So my question for you is, are we entering some weird era? And it's not, it's not the steroids era, like with baseball, but when all of a sudden the home run stats got super weird and we didn't know how to compare them to other eras, is it just possible that that's where we are with this weird basketball era

with threes and the pace that you almost can't like Luca averaging a 30, 10, 10. I'm not even sure what that means anymore with the way basketball is played now. Does that make sense? Yeah, sure. I mean, it does feel like, uh, again, it's November of a, of an NBA season. We're about 20 games in, you know, 16 to 20 games in for all the teams. And it feels like overs are hitting at an incredible rate. We've seen all these games in the 130s and the high 120s. Every single night that the Washington Wizards play, the over-under for them is like between 233, 228 and 233, like the combined score between the teams.

And lots of times the Wizards are hitting the over because they're just playing, you know, at this pace this pace and it's across, uh, the league, the, the, the scores feel high. Now, I don't know, um, if you measure it a year over year, whether or not this is just, you know, the we're rearrange, we're, you know, we're 20 games in, it's a new season, but, um, it, it does feel like pace wise and, and efficiency efficiency wise that the the league's at an all-time offensive peak maybe i'm crazy but it just feels that way jalen predicted that james harden was going to have a 90 game 90 point game this season and i was very jealous of the prediction i liked it because if you just think about, you know, Kobe got the 81,

the area averaged 35 a game. Harden averaged 36 game last year. Never really had anything over, I think like 62, something like that. But if he's averaging 40 a game this year, odds are he's going to have a 75 to 80 point game at some point where the threes are just going in. And same thing with Luka. Like we're going to be watching league pass one night. 80-point game at some point where the threes are just going in. And same thing with Luka.

We're going to be watching League Pass one night. Luka's going to have like 68 points. It's going to happen. Oh, yeah. With the amount of threes and the pace, he's just going to have one of those games. And it's just hard for me to put all this in context. I need to wrap my head around it more. It reminds me when I wrote my book,

the early 60s, the 61-62 season when Will had averaged 50 a game and had the 100-point game, and a whole bunch of weird shit happened. And a lot of it had to do with just the pace was completely out of whack. And it led to all these outcomes. And I'm wondering if this era that we're in, we might be thinking that too. The last guy on the top six for both of us is Anthony Davis, who I guess he's fifth on the best players right now behind Kawhi's behind him only because Kawhi has been missing games. But Davis, I guess the only thing he's,

he's looked exactly how we thought we'd look. The only thing is I do worry about him physically. It seems like he's already a little banged up and that would be my fear with that. What are your thoughts? I mean, he's Anthony Davis. He's another guy who had the benefit of

taking off half a season last year. Another guy terrifically energized, invigorated by his situation. They are an extremely professional basketball team with mature professional basketball players surrounded by them, even with JaVale McGee on the team. And Anthony Davis is out there doing Anthony Davis stuff.

I still, the thing that I find gratifying is he still either leads the league in blocks or he's in the top three in blocks. And delivering on both ends in that way is still, that's the place where we may get to this guy's name. Joel Embiid, I don't know where he is, whether you have him in your top ten or not, and we'll get to this eventually.

But the fact that Embiid barely averages a block a game is just inexplicable to me. And that's the thing about Davis that I find so admirable. So that's our top six. If we were going to say, out of that top six, let's just do right now. I need these guys to win the title. Kawhi is first for me. Who's second for you?

Because I know Kawhi is first for you as well. I think until somebody beats Kawhi in a playoff series, he's still number one in that list. I don't care. You can give me any other player. You have to go through Kawhi and beat him

and then I'll rank you higher. Then the next guy on the list is LeBron for me. I'm leaning the same way. I can't put any of these other guys over him. I can't either. He's a champion.

Now here's, for number three I think I would put Giannis over Harden. If I'm trying to win the title, I think I have to take Giannis. I can't argue with it. I still can't unsee what Toronto did to him last year as they figured out over the course of the series that they would let him catch the ball at the free throw line

and then funnel him down into the lane and then cut him off at about eight feet, seven feet. And then he would find himself a little bit lost. I would really love to see like a replay of somebody with that kind of defense against him and see, um, how he, uh, what he's capable of in terms of innovation, but I I'm with you. He just is right now. It feels like too versatile, but I, it, it's, it's a close one for me. I think the difference to him at Harden is if Harden isn't shooting well, it's hard for him to make up in other ways, especially on the defensive end Giannis,

you can take them out a little bit offensively, and he can still impact the game 19 different ways. So I would have him ahead. It's interesting. For number four, if I knew I was getting healthy Davis, healthy Davis, I think I would have healthy Davis over Luka and over James Harden, too. Okay.

I'm not going to argue with that. I mean, the sample size for Davis in the playoffs is so small. But on the other hand, he single-handedly destroyed Portland. So we know he's got the inside-outside game. The reason I wanted to flag it and put it on there is they've had a couple games this year, and they've played the most cream puff schedule of all time. Way to go, Adam Silver. You were

able to create your Lakers super team by giving them a bunch of marshmallows. Not to mention the Dallas game that the refs gave them the gift call of all time when Seth Curry got pulled away from the game tying three. I sound like a bitter Celtics fan. I'm just pointing out.

I want to see the Lakers play a hard schedule it's unbelievable, how many times can they play Oklahoma City and New Orleans with that said I've liked how Davis has risen to the occasion in some of these fourth quarter slash last few minutes where he just seems like

he has the perfect block at the right time, the rebound in traffic where I'm just excited to see him in a playoff series with a good team for once. You know, we've never seen it now. We've never seen it. That's exactly right. We'll see how he does. And then Harden, Luka.

Harden's been in more playoff games. I still would probably weirdly trust Luka more. Is that wrong? No, that's rude. Luka's won a EuroLeague. What's James Harden won? We got to see Luka get through 82 regular season games, get to a playoffs.

I mean, it's just not, that's disrespectful that James Harden. Number seven on that list though. I can't believe I'm saying this and this brings us to the next part of our list too, but I think Siakam might be number seven. I have him sitting right here. On the playoff list.

I'm looking at him. But let's keep it to the top six. Okay, so we're doing best players right now. Giannis, Harden, James, Doncic, Davis, Kawhi, Giannis Harden James Doncic Davis

Kawhi and then if you make it best players for if I'm trying to win a title Kawhi moves all the way up to number one order gets shifted a little around

now we go to the next group of people and I'm going to rip through this because we got to talk about Thanksgiving and the picks but it's a group of, for right now, Jokic, Paul George,

Pascal Siakam, Carl Anthony Towns, amazingly, Damien Lillard, Joel Embiid. And then after that, you start getting into that Bradley Beal, Donovan Mitchell, Devin Booker group. And don't even

mention Kyrie's name. Thanks. Is Siakam the case for seven right now? Is he the seventh best player in the league right now? Because I think he is. What he's done so far in terms of improving all over his improving is nearly unprecedented. And for sure, it's unprecedented that a guy could win,

that a guy has ever won most improved player. It's never happened back to back. Right. Because it's kind of illogical. But he is up in every statistical category. He is exceeding his performance from last year. The point is through the roof. I he's he's a scoring machine now he's up again another two rebounds a game he's up a full assist a game i mean it's it's it's it's really unparalleled well and then you left out this part. So Kawhi leaves and basically bestows his Kawhi-ness on Siakam.

And now Siakam's the guy who goes 25-8-4 and helps carry them in crunch time. They played last night, they beat the Sixers and Embiid was awful. Simmons wasn't much better. But Siakam was the best player on the floor. And I think that's notable because a year ago if we did this Embiid would have been in the top 8 or 9 and Simmons would have probably been in the top 13 or 14 and now to me it's like

you would clearly rather have Siakam than both of those guys in either situation whether we're talking about would I want the guy right now or would I rather have them in the playoffs I'm going with siakam and i don't even think it's an argument i agree with you there the the the raptors are 12 and floor like way to go raptors way to go credible validation so proud of them coming like that's what i'm saying and and all that credit to runs to see akam you mentioned uh the kawaii effect that that was the the point i was going to make not only was kawaii the mvp of the finals

he might still be the mvp of this 2019 right from what he did for for siakam i'll get the one more person though van vliet van Vliet went up two other levels. And he actually is probably in the conversation for most improved too. He, in crunch time, and Lowry's out right now. If Lowry's there, maybe it's different. But in crunch time, it's basically Van Vliet and Siakam. And Van Vliet has turned into this guard that can create his own shot. He's got this weird herky jerky game.

He goes into the paint, pulls out like he he's, he's kind of unstoppable sometimes. And, uh, and it all started those last two rounds of that playoffs. He went from being one of the worst players in the Raptors to being one of the most valuable guys in the finals.

And, uh, and it's carried over. His kid was born. It was after his kid was born. That's what really propelled him. Crazy. So I think Siakam's the clear number seven.

And I still have Jokic eight based on Denver's playing well again. He was out of shape to start the season. There's no other way to say it. He just looked fatter. And it seems like he's playing himself in his shape a little bit. but he was... You think he's in shape now? I mean... No, but I think he's in better shape. He looked like the start of the season. He looked like a guy who had just been at visiting his younger brother in college for a five-day weekend and drinking and doing whatever. But when you think of what he did in the playoffs last year, I think he's number eight. And then, uh, I love what I've seen from Paul George so far.

I was worried about his shoulders. You know, somebody made this point. I think it was chaos. It was on the KOC Verno show. And I can't remember which ones said it. Um, talking about how Paul George has never been in an offense where he actually had space before. And I was like, that's not true.

And then I'm thinking about it. It's like, yeah, what good offense is that guy had space before? And I was like, that's not true. And then I'm thinking about it. It's like, yeah, what good offense has that guy ever been in? Indiana and OKC. Can you remember the really fun Paul George offense? Never existed. Now he's in an offense where Kawhi can create a shot for himself

and for Paul George. They can run screen and rolls with Williams and Harrell. That's the best screen and roll in the league. And then Paul George. And if they give him the ball, nobody can double Paul George or shade over to him because he's surrounded by shooters. And he just looks awesome. So I

think to me, he's a top 10 player, no question. So you got Jokic, George, and Siakam. So we got one more spot for who is in the top 10 for when we say, oh, that guy's a top 10 player. Now we can either extend it to 12 and include Embiid,

Carl Anthony Towns, and Dame Lillard, or choose between the three. I don't want to include a loser. So I'm sorry, Dame. Wow. Oh my God god that was an assassination he's not singularly to blame for how bad portland is yeah but how how can you let him escape all blame for how bad portland is i mean they are completely discombobulated as a result of the Collins injury, apparently, as a result of the Whiteside acquisition, as a result of who is the terrible doesn't belong in the league. White guy, small forward that we watched. Couldn't believe he was on an NBA floor. He was so bad.

They had to go sign Carmelo. How can he? He does not belong in the NBA. He's so bad they had to go sign Carmelo. How can he he does not belong in the NBA he's so bad. Now none of that's Dame's fault but you know they're terrible. They're a bad basketball team. And so I can't say oh you're

he's a top 10 guy or a top 12 guy when your team stinks. They stink stink. So we'll go top 12 won't'll include all three. But for top 10, I agree. He has to get bumped this season because of how bad his team's been.

Then it's Towns versus Embiid. I think the fact that Embiid crushed Towns head-to-head should count. But I also think the fact that Embiid just doesn't seem like he's better not only physically, still I also think the fact that Embiid just doesn't seem like he's better,

not only physically, still doesn't seem like he's in awesome shape. God forbid that ever happen. Hoops IQ-wise, I don't know whether to blame him or Brett Brown, or maybe they should share the blame. But I just hate how they use him. I just hate it. The only person who hates it more than me is Rosillo. Like Rosillo cannot watch this.

He can't watch a six-game without tweeting about it. It drives him like bonkers. But he's right. Why is Joel Embiid 25 feet for the basket? Why? What are you doing? And then that they have to prioritize Simmons and his freaking weird limited offensive game that doesn't seem to be getting better either.

It's just such an odd team. And man, I hate overreacting after 16 games, but I just don't think that team is... I think they're going to have to pick between those two guys. And I think the moment's coming sooner than later, in my opinion, we, we, we keep saying that unless they bring in something on the coaching side that, you know, allows them to, to, you know, have a strategy to, to let these guys look at this. He, he was, I wouldn't have Embiid in the, in the top 12 right now as punishment for last night. Oh, for 11 from the field over 0 for 3 from the free throw line,

and he missed four shots from three-point range. Why is Joel Embiid taking four mother-effing shots from the three-point line? It's garbage ball. That's how you lose to good teams. They're a disappointing 11 and 6. We all were very bullish on the Sixers entering this season. And, you know, we're right now, November the 26th,

talking about the exact same goddamn things that were the criticisms we had back in October with Rosillo. I'm right there with Rosillo. I'm mad at this team. I want Embiid to be better. He's a top five talent in the NBA, and we're not getting that out of him. Well, here's the thing. If you switched him in towns this season on that Sixers team or the Sixers better off

this season. Yes. Towns has been shooting his ass off. Towns has a credible three point stroke. I think this is the guy that they should have shooting four, three pointers a game. I can't believe I'm about to say this. I think towns is the 10th best guy in the league. I think he is. We, we, we issued the challenge at the beginning of the season. We said, and I mean, I, I went off on one of my typical petty over the top crazy hyperbole death to Minnesota rants. Cause I was mad that they didn't win 40 games last year and I lost money as a result of that. Yeah. But like he's doing the thing that we wanted to see out of him. He's doing it right now. I would love to see him do it for a full season. I would love still, they still have defensive lapses in fourth quarters that let teams come back and tie games that they, they, they should, that Minnesota

should win going away or they lose games that they should win going away. But by contradistinction, they're also sometimes going out and kicking ass in the fourth quarter. And how about Wiggins? Wiggins heard all of that blasphemy, all that slander. Is he a top 150 player? He's 25 a game. He's playing pretty damn good. Pretty good. Towns is 26 and a half, 12 and a half, and four. And he's shooting nine threes a game.

He's making four threes a game. That's really good. 44% from three. And I think if you're going to say he's a top 10 guy, I think he has to be in there. So we're bumping for now. This is for right now, Thanksgiving week. We are bumping Embiid and Lillard to the top 12.

And if you're going to go top 15, I would say the next five guys from 11 through 15 would be Embiid, Lillard, Bradley Beal, Donovan Mitchell. And we can argue about Devin Booker or Jimmy Butler. I would say Devin Booker, even though I think that Suns team is going to end up around 35, 36 wins.

But I like that he keeps getting a little bit better each year, which he should be because he's in his early 20s, but he's shown enough this year that I think I feel better about the pace we're on. I still wish he had played for Team USA. I think it could have

helped him. I know it helped Tatum and Brown and Kemba Walker and Marcus Smart, but I would say he's at least the top helped him i know it helped tatum and brown and kemba walker and marcus smart but uh but i i would say he's at least the top 16 guy right am i wrong i like i really like jimmy butler i would have butler um a tick ahead it feels to me like uh um you know booker this this is the first time he's had a chance to play with the point guard probably in his entire basketball career he's never played with a point guard as good as rubio jimmy butler coming into miami and essentially like rebranding that team in his image is i know that's a funny thing to say but they have some dog in them have you watched many mi Miami games? Yeah, I'm a huge fan. That's why I was so surprised.

Philly just completely annihilated them on Saturday night. That was one of the weirdest results of the year. I didn't fully understand it, but I'm with you. Miami has a lot of attitude. They got a lot of... They're definitely... If you're going to say what team's going to get into

a huge fight this year, I would say Miami. They'd be my number one pick. Me too. I like that. All right. So I'm with you. I'll put Butler 15th because I do think if we're trying to win, he's at least proven he can win.

And he's been in playoff games and stuff. And especially in that Sixers situation last year. He's not been in games. He was the go-to scorer for the Sixers out of necessity last year. Yeah. All right. That's fair. Well, scorer for the Sixers out of necessity last year. Yeah. All right. That's fair. Well, that was fun.

We're going to take a break. Then we do Thanksgiving and football picks. Let's talk about the Drinkworks Home Bar by Keurig. You know, those high-end premium espresso machines you might have at home. Well, the Drinkworks Home Bar is like that, but only making cocktails, not coffee. Ooh.

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No code needed, available in limited states. And remember, please enjoy responsibly. Hey, finding key players for your team can be challenging. You just look at the Patriots right now. Receivers are out. They had to rely on an undrafted free agent. They had to rely on the first-round rookie.

Julian Edelman is getting a little old. They got rid of Damaris Thomas. Probably shouldn't have. Took a chance on Antonio Brown. Didn't work out. It's hard. It is hard to find key players for your team. Well, Cafe Autor is COO, Dylan Miskiewicz, one of Kyle's favorites. Love that guy.

He could relate. He needed to hire a director of coffee. So what he did is he emailed Gretchen Huebner. No, he didn't do that actually. He posted his job on ZipRecruiter and he found the best person for the role in just a few days. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site within the first day. I keep telling you this. I've told you this for a couple of years now because ZipRecruiter, we're buddies. Yeah.

Four out of five employers. Try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. ZipRecruiter, The smartest way to hire. All right, House. We're going to do million-dollar picks in a second. Million-dollar picks. What a comeback. We hit rock bottom.

We win it all back on the Patriots against the Eagles. And then last week, we won a lot of money, House. $929,000. That's where we're up right now, heading into Thanksgiving. I'm trying not to take it personally, but I was gone for two weeks. And those two weeks are the two weeks that we got all the money back. No, don't blame yourself, House. Okay, thank you.

Don't blame yourself. It's not your fault. It's not your fault, House. It's not your fault. It's not your fault, house. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. Well, playing the Patriots money line was pretty smart. We could just do that, you know.

Before we do Pixar, I wanted to read you everything that's going to be on the menu at the Simmons house for Thanksgiving. You ready? I'm very excited for this. I'm very excited for this. First of all, my mom,

aka Jamie, that's what my kids call her. She is making her famous Aunt Jen's baked beans. And you've had the baked beans, right? No, I've never had Aunt Jen's baked beans. We're always having Italian when your mom cooks for us. Oh, my mom makes the greatest. Kyle, how good are the baked beans? With the bacon in them?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. They're top tier. There's three types of beans. There's a lot of maple syrup. There's a lot going on and they're delicious. So we have that. And I think she's making a lasagna too. So we got that going. That's great. I like that multiculturalism on Thanksgiving. Green bean casserole. Where do you stand on that? Yeah on that yeah it's a classic i mean you know there's there's uh i'm i'm very interested in hearing because i don't know how this is is going to go i have a question for you when you're done well i'll just ask it now what i'm wondering is you're an east coaster i'm an east coaster and not only are are you we both we have like the New England tradition, I would say, as our style of Thanksgiving.

You've lived in California since 2003. Yeah. Has Thanksgiving changed for you since you've been out in California? Are things jumping on the menu? Like, is it less New England centric? No. What's the approach? Same.

Same. I think it's the one day where everybody goes, let's stop being such assholes about all this health stuff. Let's just go. Let's go old school. It wasn't even. Yeah, it wasn't necessarily the health stuff. Although I guess, you know, with the produce that's available, the legendary Southern California produce. Yeah.

You could do like a cauliflower gratin and, you know, I don't know, uh, what you could do with sweet potatoes and, and, uh, you know, some,

some kale or something down there, but, uh, okay. Let, let me let you keep going with the menu. Oh, that,

that's the other thing I made him. I, my mom is not making lasagna. She's making the ancient sweet potatoes. Oh, okay. Good. Which is, uh, I got that wrong. It's a sweet potato cass sweet potatoes. Oh, okay. Good. Which is,

uh, I got that wrong. It's a sweet potato casserole. Um, and it's got pecans on the top with a lot of sugar and you bake it for a while. So it's like hot. It's really good.

So that's how it Jen, aunt Jen's the author of the baked beans, the author of the sweet potato casserole. Is she also the author of the meatballs? Yeah, the meat, everything. Ann Chen was, I'm trying to think of a sports parallel. The Sean McVay coaching tree for my mom's family, my Ann Chen, Sean McVay. But if Sean McVay won more than one season, if Sean McVay won for 40 seasons instead of one, he'd be Ann Chen. He's a young guy.

There's still time. So here's what else we have. Green bean casserole. Some of this stuff my wife is ordering. She didn't want to make herself. Green bean casserole. Traditional herb stuffing. Creamy mashed potatoes.

Corn pudding. You know what I plan on doing with the corn pudding? Mixing it with Auntjan sweet potatoes. I'm going to make a little corn pudding sweet potato combo thingy. Cider roasted Brussels sprouts. I said creamy mashed potatoes. For prelim, there's a huge antipas platter and some guacamole as well.

There's going to be cream. That's an off in the other direction. Nobody on the East Coast is having guacamole as part of any of their prelim, their middle, or any of it. Keep going. Butterflake rolls, a giant, giant turkey,

and then my wife just put this in there, Mediterranean platter. I don't know what the hell's going to be on that. What is that? Sounds like something Kyle's going to be bringing home at 9.30 that night. That's the California nod I was halfway expecting. Guacamole and Mediterranean platter.

What's a... You need to know more about the Mediterranean platter. Oh, here's another California one. Green salad with cranberry and goat cheese and pecans with Southern cornbread and sausage dressing. Oh, good. So I was worried when you said herb,

herb stuffing that there was not going to be, you need a sausage stuffing of some sort. Okay. I know to be a proper, what we don't have in there as a ham. And I know you and I have tackled it before, but let's just retackle the ground for a second. Some people are pro-ham on Thanksgiving and having the turkey and the ham, or maybe even thrown in like a roast going that

way, or ideally a prime rib even with turkey. I just want turkey. Don't give me other meats. Don't offer other meats to me. Just today is my day with turkey. I'm going to have the turkey. I want my wife to make the turkey soup with the leftovers the day, the next day, the whole thing. I don't need to introduce other meats into my Thanksgiving. Where do you stand on this? I have to tell you, I approached approached this year's thanksgiving and looking at all of the the content we were preparing we had a wonderful house of carbs yesterday andrew nolten uh for editor-at-large for bon appetit uh came on and he's down in texas now and he talked a little bit about a texas tradition where they're having brisket. He's having smoked brisket. Now I, I,

uh, and that they're going to have a little smoked Turkey also, but he was talking about a Texas tradition that was utterly foreign. I have in, in over the last handful of weeks and doing my research and preparing with the kind of, uh, uh, food diligence you would want out of the host of House of Carbs. I'm finding that other proteins on the Thanksgiving dinner table is a pretty common thing. Like if you're in Atlanta, Georgia, you're having turkey for sure, but there's a honey-baked ham I think on everybody's table. And I'm now coming to think I don't think we're quite at the moment where people are ready to cancel Turkey. Although don't ask David Chang, David Chang would

cancel Turkey. Oh, he's wrong. Well, if you ask David Chang, he'll cancel Turkey, you know, uh, every day of the week and twice on, on Sunday. But I am finding there are, there is prime rib, there is roast beef, there is ham, and a lot of it fits some other traditions out there. When you think about a feast, you have multiple variations of potato. You're going to have – or you just described to me two different kinds of stuffing dressing that you're going to do. People have multiple kinds of salads. Why can't you have more than one protein on your Thanksgiving table? And how about this? Can I, wait, can I answer that question? Well, go ahead. You know why I can't have other, other forms? Cause it's fucking

Thanksgiving. It's the day we eat Turkey. That's, that's what Thanksgiving is. Thanksgiving is the day we eat Turkey. Everyone can fuck off. Stop adding meats. Some people would call that the tyranny of New England. In fact, our guest yesterday on House of Carbs called that the tyranny of New England. No, that's classic cancel culture 2019. Now we're going to fucking cancel turkey? Can we have anything?

We're not there yet, but I will say this. Here's the point that stuck it to me. When you're waking up on, on a Friday morning and you're thinking about the college football, that's going to be on around noon. And you're thinking about your first post Thanksgiving sandwich. Yeah. In addition to the Turkey,

if you had in your fridge, half of a delicious honey baked ham, a ham and Turkey sandwich. Yeah. Your first meal. That's pretty good. So maybe honey baked ham, a ham and turkey sandwich as your first meal. That's pretty good. So maybe buy the ham just for Friday. Why does it have to ruin my Thursday? I forgot to mention.

Who says ruin it? We have two different types of cranberry at Thanksgiving because I am an all-time cranberry guy. I think cranberry is the blue guy of Thanksgiving. It's the Fred Van Vliet. Let me hear about the two ways. Are either one of the forms coming out of a can? Yeah, because

I am a big canned cranberry guy still. Okay. All right. I like putting a knife through the cranberry and having the jelly thing and it's probably not 100% healthy and I don't really care. And then I also like the soupy expensive cranberry. That's like somebody who spent a lot of time making and

you need like a ladle for it. I want to have both. I like to have both options. I don't know what kind of mood I'm in for. I also really care about the mustard situation. If you have the ham, which like if we're at my uncle Ricky's house, which he's in Connecticut, so that won't be happening, but he would always have the ham. And if you have the ham, I want different mustards. I don't want just like the honey mustard. Maybe I'm in a Dijon kind of mood. I hate when people limit my mustard choices. Are you talking about that at the Thanksgiving table?

Are you talking about Friday lunchtime? Either. Okay. I think mustard is just underrated. Like people buy ketchup and they just get one ketchup and that's fine.

Ketchup can work for anybody. But you start getting into the mustard thing. Mustard is like soda. Like not everybody likes Coke. Some people like ginger ale. Some people like Dr. Pepper. You know, whatever.

Down the line, cream soda. You never know what somebody's soda preferences. I think mustard is the same way. I, there, there, there is a, a nearly infinite variety combination of, of mustard and texture and taste and sharpness and sweetness in spiciness. Absolutely. Positively. I applaud your evolved palette. I want to drop this on you because you just went through a bunch of ingredients that I think are going to be absolutely delicious on Friday. What I want you to consider, you don't have to do it, but I want you to consider. Yeah. I want you to

consider a grilled cheese sandwich. What do you mean? Sourdough bread. I consider a grilled cheese sandwich every day. That's probably one of my favorite things. No, but listen. Here are the ingredients. Your ingredients are turkey, ham, cranberry. I want you to take some of your leftover cranberry, that tart cranberry, and I want you, you can choose your cheese. I personally would recommend, as you're building this, Swiss cheese. Have your Dijjon mustard yeah and then

don't be afraid to stick a little pickle in there oh yeah after it's all the way been cooked up let that cold crunchy you could slide it in there you can pick a pocket and slide it in and that that's it's a kind of a modified cubano right but all the ingredients are there it's it's your it's your thanksgiving you're putting all those great flavors right back together again. That's my Thanksgiving gift to you, Bill Simmons. Kyle, where do you stand? Kyle just stands on

have as much food as possible because then I'll get to bring more home. Yes, yes. That's Kyle's thing. Kyle's agnostic. Take it easy at the dinner so I can feed myself. Kyle's already getting sleepy

just hearing about the turkey. I should have ate before this. He needs to eat for the next two weeks. Unbelievable. That c*** is hungry. F***. He's got a bleep for Thanksgiving. That's the only bleep. I only did it once. Alright, we're

going to do some million dollar picks. The three Thanksgiving games. The Bears are minus three point favorites in Detroit. That's my imitation of the Lions game. Dallas is minus seven at home against the Bills of Buffalo. And the New Orleans Saints are favored by seven in Atlanta against the seemingly resurgent Atlanta Falcons, who suddenly weren't that resurgent and got their asses kicked by Tampa Bay.

So those are our three. A couple other games I wanted to flag from Sunday if we want to use them in parlays. Tennessee is getting three at Indy. Tampa is getting one point at Jacksonville. Pittsburgh is getting two and a half at home against Cleveland. The Patriots are giving minus three at Houston. And Minnesota is getting three points

in Seattle against a Seattle team that week after week seems to have an exciting fourth quarter or a fourth quarter with the game in doubt unless they're playing a team with no wide receivers like Philadelphia last week. Any of those games jump out to you?

Well, I do like the idea of taking some of this disappointing Thanksgiving slate and spreading it out, pairing it up with some Sunday action. The Sunday action that I personally like, the one that I'm going to go heaviest on, is the Green Bay Packers favored by less than a touchdown at the New York Giants. I think this is a terrific bounce-back opportunity for the Green Bay Packers. I think that they come in motivated, wanting to reestablish confidence in their offense. There is no better team in the NFL for your offense to get healthy against than the New York Giants. They need to reestablish the run in Green Bay. So the six and a half points is just a magical number because of what you can do tease-wise with the Green Bay Packers at minus six and a half.

What do you think about that game? So Sal and I threw them in the teaser basket on Sunday night. The Giants are awful. Might as well start there. They're really bad. I'm not sure Danny Dimes, not sure he has it.

I'm not saying he doesn't have it. I just think we talked about it a little on Sunday with Sal. They have Saquon Barkley and Golden Tate. Even Slayton's good, the rookie. And I don't know. It's not like he's playing with a bunch of... It's not like he's on the Redskins.

He's actually had some weapons. So the fact that they're not... That they're kind of seemingly heading the wrong direction. They've lost to one, two, three, four, five, six, seven straight games. That's not good. Doesn't seem good. Again, a professional opinion. Yes, that's not good.

Lost the Vikings by 18, the Pats by 21, the Cards by six, the Lions by five, the Cowboys by 19, the Jets by 7, and the Bears by 5. And it seems like the crows are circling Pat Sherman. So you're saying, would you do a Cowboys-Packers tease or would you do a Cowboys-Saints-Packers tease. And I'd also like to factor in the fact that I imagine everybody on Thanksgiving is going to tease Dallas and the Saints together, which tells me that that's a stay away. Well, I actually like the bills in that Dallas game. Really? I haven't seen one thing out of Dallas that suggests that they are a winning football

team. They haven't beat a team this season with a winning record. They're 0-4. They're 1-6 in their past seven games. That includes this season and last season. 1-6 against the spread in their last seven games against teams with winning records. Since 2011, they are 1- seven against the spread on thanksgiving i also want to ask you this well this is it's a revealing thing dax passed seven games 14 touchdowns seven interceptions yeah what do you think josh allen's numbers are over that same period?

Tell me. 15 touchdowns, two interceptions. Very quietly, the Buffalo Bills have come up with a competent mistake minimizing kind of offense. And that's the reason that they are, you know, eight and three, you, you last week, uh,

went against them because you had them kind of pegged as the bad, good team. Is that right? They're there. They're the, the good, bad team, which was Buffalo.

Well, here's the thing. Since they had their bi-week and week six, they beat, they beat Miami. They lost to Philly by 18. They beat your terrible Redskins. They lost to fucking Freddy Kitchens, 19 to 16.

They beat Miami again. And then Denver was their first win against anybody half decent in a long time. And in week five, they got to play Mariota, Tennessee. I think that was Mariota's last game. They lost to the Pats. They beat Cincy and they beat both New York teams. When I say they've played nobody, they've played nobody.

They have no good wins at all, except for Denver. And Denver, I think is what, three and eight or four and seven. So this is a real referendum. That's the case. I think they're the good-bad team, personally. Okay. All right. Well, I don't like any of those trends for Dallas, and I don't like the idea of teasing Dallas down to one

with everything that's surrounding them at a core competency. You know, the entire world watched Jason Garrett poop his pants on television. Repeat now, the league, the chipping stuff is just otherworldly. I mean, how this league can continue to indulge the meaning of its product in this way with the unbelievable incompetence week in and week out of its referees and why we're talking about the referees and why we're talking about trip tripping in week 12 of the goddamn NFL season is absolutely incomprehensible. I thought the shield, I thought it was great. I fully supported it.

So you can't let that, you can't let the Cowboys get away with was great. I fully supported it. You can't let the cowboys get away with that stuff. You just can't. Just do better. Maybe block some people better. Where does that leave us? Here's where it leaves us. Let's stay away from Dallas Buffalo.

I think that's a stay away. Okay. That's it. We're on opposite sides. Because you could tell me they're going to win by 30. You could tell me that Jason Garrett's going to be getting booed by the beginning

of the third quarter. Who the fuck knows? Let's stay away. I like the idea of teasing the Packers and Saints. Okay. I think that should be... Packers just have to win.

Saints just have to win. We get a little action on that Saints game and uh and that's fun I kind of want to suggest can we put the Bears into it just no I have the Bears I have the Bears coming oh good okay all right hallelujah well I want to have a reason to watch that game because otherwise here's the reason we're going to take the Bears minus three. Okay, well, good. I'm right there with you on this one. I think the Lions are awful.

I think they are absolutely awful. They stink. They're fucking terrible. They lost to your team. They lost to the Redskins. I watched that whole game. I couldn't believe it. First of all, it's incomprehensible that I watched that whole game. Like what's going on in my life that I watched that whole game. I couldn't believe it. First of all, it's incomprehensible that I watched that whole game. Like what's going on in my life that I watched that football game.

Yeah. It was worse than the WCAC championship. Congratulations to good council beating St. John's. Yeah. But I mean, what the, what the mother F it was terrible football. I, I, we needed, I, we, we, we came up with Fanny pack fangio for for the coach of the denver broncos matt patricia xfl uh coach of the year next year potentially i need i need it we need a name for him for for the pencil pushing patricia i don't know what it is he's fucking terrible they're an

awfully coached team i tried're a disaster in every phase. I tried to tell everybody for two years. Nobody listened to me. It's just, he wasn't a good defensive coordinator. We got better when he left. All right, so we have Bears minus three. I don't even care about Trubisky. I think they can, it doesn't even matter.

I think their defense can win the game on this series. The last three game, the Bears have won the last three. The Lions are 0-3 against the spread. In the last 10 games, the Lions are 2-6-2 against the spread against the Bears. The Lions stink

at home. They're 3-7 straight up against the spread in their last 10 home games. I mean, the Lions, they're 0-6 against the spread in their past six games. They suck. They suck. They stink. And they're in a four-game losing streak, which is also fun. Bears, 5-6, not totally out of

the playoff picture, amazingly. It's going to take 10 wins to get a wild card, but they at least it's not like they're done and re-evaluating stuff. They're still trying to actually make it. So we got that. Bucks plus one? Or am I just in love with the Bucks?

You're in love with the Bucks. I feel like it's a stay away after last week's. I mean, they really validated everything that you love about them. It was the full Jameis experience last week. An incredible Jameis experience last week. An incredible Jameis experience last week. Well, the one I do like, and I'm worried it's too obvious,

is Tennessee plus three in Indianapolis. And this would involve us going against the Colts, who have treated us so well over the years and have treated me well. And even on Thursday night, I won some money on them covering by a half point. I think they're in a lot of trouble, the Colts. They really only have one receiver. From a coaching standpoint, it hasn't been great. Defensively, they can't seem to get stops when they absolutely need to.

And I don't think Brissette's healthy. The big thing for me is I think Brissette is like 60, 65%. He can't create plays with his legs anymore and extend plays and doesn't seem like he wants to go downfield that much either. Hilton doesn't seem healthy either. He had a couple of big drops last week. And in general, I just haven't really liked the way they've looked that much. They can stay in these games. They force the other team to play their pace. The problem for them is Tennessee is a better version of what they're trying to do every week now. Because Henry's playing unbelievable. They have big physical receivers that can make plays.

They're just a really physical team. And I think they're a better version of what Indy's trying to do. I actually like Tennessee in this division so um i like them plus three what do you think of that i uh don't want to go against the colts okay because we have too much riding on it but i understand the rationale i'm i. They've been impressive since they went to Tannehill. They're a competent looking football team. They know their identity and they took

care of business against the Jaguars. The big thing for me is, and I think we can still grab it on Tuesdays, is I think this is a field goal game either way. Why not take the three and if you push, you push. I think if they had had Tannehill the whole season, this is a field goal game either way. So why not, why not take the three? And if you push, you push. Um, I think if they had had Tannehill the whole season,

it might be an eight and three team. It might be, it might be. I mean, this, we, we, we started off kind of believing in them at the beginning of the season.

Um, well, how about this? You want to just play it? Cause it's three. No, I had a combo. Actually.

I wanted to do Tennessee. My plus three with the Pats minus three parlay plus two 60. Because if this, if this works out, all of a sudden, Tennessee is looking awesome in the AFC South and people are going, wait, what the hell just happened? Tennessee. Wait, what? Tennessee right now is six and five Indyy 6-5, Houston 7-4. Tennessee wins and Houston loses.

Tennessee is in a tie with Houston in first place, and they play Houston in Week 15 and Week 17. So I'm actually making a parlay based on, I think both of those things will happen, and that's plus 260. So file that away. The last one I really like is the steelers for a few reasons i think they just finally realized mason rudolph was unplayable i could

have told them that two weeks ago well this was the the the the truly disappointing thing for steelers fans about the miles garrett thing is that he didn't knock rudolph out of out of uh being able to play. He's like getting suspended for the fight for six games or something. Yeah. That was the truly galling aspect of that thing. The galling aspect was that Rudolph was so bad in that game. And then the helmet thing happens.

And then nobody's talking about how bad Rudolph was in that game. And then last week, he's just as bad. And they benched him at halftime. They brought in Hodges and he was actually pretty good. They asked Tomlin in the press conference on Tuesday morning, why Hodges? Why are you playing Devlin Hodges? Why did you make the switch?

And why is Hodges going to start against Cleveland Brown? Tomlin's response was, he has not killed us. The 2019 Pittsburgh Steelers, ladies and gentlemen. They have a quarterback who didn't kill. He has not killed us, so he'll be starting this week. The translation of that is Mason Rudolph fucking killed us, and I had to get him out of there. And he has.

He's killed them. He's been awful. He killed them. And I actually think Tomlin likes this team. I think this team has built a lot of confidence, weirdly. And the Rudolph thing was the elephant in the room, and now he's out. And they're playing Cleveland. I think this is a revenge game in a lot of different ways.

And I just think they're gonna win i don't i don't think freddie kitchens is beating mike tomlin twice i'm sorry so i have them for two and a half i love that there's a little extra something here um you know, AFC North head-to-head, like an old-school Cleveland-Pittsburgh slugfest lining up here with Duck Hodges leading the way. I like it. I'm with you on this. And anything that avoids having to put any faith in soup kitchens, I support. So, yeah, why not?

I like this. The Pittsburgh defense is mother effing good, and it's been the difference maker for them. It saved their season. So, sure, I like this. I like getting the points. I'm with you. All right, so here's what we're going to do, House.

Million-dollar picks, Thanksgiving week edition. Bears, minus three. $300,000. I'm going to be so happy and hungry. This will be like you're picking out of derbs, watching Matt Patricia do dumb stuff, hoping Trubisky doesn't keep throwing the ball to the other team. I don't think that will happen. My guess is that they will take the car keys away from Trubisky and give him

one of those bird scooters and a fluorescent jacket and just tell him not to hit another car. 300,000 on the Bears minus three. Next one. We're doing the Saints, the Thursday night game, teasing them down to one with the Packers, teasing them down to a half point against the Giants on Sunday, putting $300,000 on that one as well. Then we're betting on Hodges. We're betting against Freddy's Soup Kitchens, the Steelers, plus two and a half in Cleveland. I just think they're better. I think their defense is better. Cleveland is looking as good as they're ever going to look after a Thursday night win and then a Miami win. Everybody's feeling good about them, wondering if they can

sneak into the playoff picture. I have a newsflash for you. They're coached by Freddie Kitchens. It's not happening. 300,000 on the Steelers plus two and a half. And then the last one, we're going to put $250,000 on a parlay plus 260. Tennessee plus three in Indianapolis with Pats minus three in Houston. A little road team Thanksgiving parlay in honor of all the people who are going to be on the road on Sunday. So if that one hits, 250 times 260. What is that, Kyle? Oh, man.

650. $650,000 windfall. So there you go. Bears minus three. Parlay, Tennessee plus three. Pats minus three. Tees, Saints, Packers. And then Pittsburgh plus two and a half.

We're betting on Devlin Hodges' house. How do you feel about that? It's duck, duck, goose. It's an all-poultry Thanksgiving weekend. You're going to have your turkey on Thursday and your duck on Sunday. Maybe a little roasted goose in between. That's called a winner, Bill Simmons. House, happy Thanksgiving.

Talk to you soon. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Happy Housegiving. All right. State Farm believes in helping people and strengthening communities. Being a good neighbor is rooted in the DNA and core values of State Farm employees and agents.

State Farm is involved with many organizations and initiatives that are focused on bringing about positive change in the communities we live in, like Atlanta. State Farmers teamed up with the Atlanta Hawks to support the people living in Georgia's capital. Very few people embody what it means to be a true Atlantean like Dominique Wilkins, who's here. My guy.

Hey, how you been, man? Long time no see. We did a great podcast once upon a time. Yeah, yeah. Back when? Yeah, five years ago. Our hair was a little darker then. Yeah, I? Long time no see. We did a great podcast once upon a time. Yeah, yeah. Back when? Yeah, five years ago. Our hair was a little darker then. Yeah, I think both of us were.

And you're going to come on my podcast later down the road to talk about this exciting new Hawks team. But let's talk about Georgia, Atlanta, basketball in the late 70s and the 80s in Georgia, and everything that's happened since. And, you know, that era was just a beautiful time to be a part of basketball. Yeah. Not just in Georgia, but, you know, across the country, the basketball was, man, it was just such a delight to be a part of that era where you had so many great, great players and great, great teams you played against every single night.

Yeah. You have a statue outside of State Farm Arena. Much deserved. You're the most exciting Hawk of all time, and it's not close. Maravich was pretty good. He's probably second. Maravich was pretty good.

But you had a longer run than Maravich did for the Hawks. Yeah, I think Maravich was there like four years. I spent probably my there like four years. Yeah. I spent probably my whole career in Atlanta. At least 90% of my career was in Atlanta. So, I mean,

you know, I've never, I never felt more comfortable in a city than I felt in Atlanta to this day. And I could never leave that city. Going toe-to-toe with Bird,

Jordan, Isaiah. It's a great era. That's the era I grew up with. Now you're a special advisor to the CEO of the Hawks and together with State Farm, the organizations are renovating community center courts, creating good neighbor clubs through state-of-the-art

rec room renovations, building long-term give-back initiatives. What sucked you into this? What made you want to be involved? Being part of Hawks, that's who I am. I mean, I don't know anything else but the Hawks. And so it's a blessing to be a part of a great organization, great ownership, and Tony Ressler and the group that he's brought in to bring two powerhouses together, Atlanta Hawks and State Farm, to come together to try to eradicate hunger in our city. And we had a campaign where we packed one million meals in a day. Wow.

Over a thousand volunteers. And how we did it, I don't know, but it was one beautiful fight to see. So you have two. So that was called the Million Meal Pack. The Million Meal Pack. Yeah. One Million Meal Pack. So it was a great function that the Hawks and State Song put together.

But renovating the arena, I think we got one of the, if not the best arena in the NBA for what we've done and how we reconfigured that whole arena. Just a beautiful place to play basketball. And you're talking about concerts and all these different activities. It's a wonderful place to be. So 1,020,672 meals were packed in total, showing how each individual can do one small act to make a collective impact in fighting food insecurity in Atlanta. What do we need to do next? Well, the thing is, is continue to expand on that, to add to what we've already done.

And now you put something so big out there. Now the key is to make it even bigger. Yeah. And get more people involved. And let's show people as an organization we care. To pack one million meals, I mean, that shows you how much we care about our community. And we've done a lot of stuff in the community,

from court renovations to feeding the hungry, all these different things care about our community. And we've done a lot of stuff in the community from court renovations to feeding the hungry, all these different things to show our community that the Atlanta Hawks really care and State Farm. All right, well, you can listen to Nick on a later episode of the BS Podcast. State Farm is built on the power of relationships. They're focused on helping strengthen the neighborhoods where they live and work.

Discover how you can make a positive difference in your own community. Visit neighborhoodofgood.com. Thanks, Dominique. Oh, thanks, man. We appreciate it. This is a great campaign. It's near and dear to our hearts.

So anytime we can spread the message, it's a very good thing. All right. Thanks for being on. Thank you, man. All right. St. Louis in the house. No doubt. Do you want to talk about Super Bowl 36 at all? You want to just pretend? Greatest show on turf you're talking about, St. Louis in the house. No doubt. Do you want to talk about Super Bowl XXXVI at all?

You want to just pretend? Greatest show on turf you talking about, man? Yeah, we just ignore it. The tackle? Ignore it. Yeah, okay, we can ignore it. So what's the deal? The Rams leave, but they move to where you are?

This is very true. So what, I don't understand. I'm a man without a team. So you're a widow? Yeah, I'm from St. Louis. NFL widow. Everything is from St. Louis, yeah. I'm looking for a team right now. I try to find

connections for Randall Pearson because he's from Pittsburgh. Do I go for the Steelers now? I just moved to Philadelphia. Is it possible to be an Eagles fan? I'm looking for connections. Nothing feels organic right now. And it's not that I hate the Rams or anything,

but just being from St. Louis, I can't be for them. And there was some dishonesty with the departure. I mean, people were led to believe that there was a possibility with the new stadium that we were going to keep this team in perpetuity. And I think the Cronkies were just like, no. They said that, and then they pulled it, and people felt awful. I knew. I still feel awful. As a student of the game, because you know I'm a student of the game.

No doubt. When he bought all the land in LA, I was like, oh, this is going to go bad. Say, I'm just going to buy all this land. Yeah, I don't know what I'm going to do with it. Yeah, it looks like. It happens to be the exact size of what a football stadium in a parking lot would look like. And every time you fly into the city, you see it being built,

and it looks like it's going to be state-of-the-art. And maybe I'll go and watch the Chargers there. So do you root for all the St. Louis guys in all the sports? You must, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a little group. Are you all on a text thread?

Like you and Jason Tatum and Bradley Beal? No, I don't know. They're way more famous than I am and too cool and too young. I don't know if they're way more famous than I am and too cool and too young. I don't know if they're more famous than you. This Is Us is what, 20 million people? 15? Not that many. Maybe once like all the plus

threes and sevens and like online and everything like that, but numbers are different than what they were in the 80s and 90s. You know what I'm saying? Cheers and Cosby and all that type stuff. It's different. So I'm always cognizant of the fact that most people

don't know who the fuck you are if This Is Us was on in like 1985 it'd be big it would have like 50 million people

an episode it would be stupid have you ever gone back and looked at the viewership for like the shows how are you mid 40s how old are you

43 yeah I'm I just turned 50 you're good man but thank you you're welcome the shows how are you mid 40s how old are you 43 yeah I'm I just turned 50 you're good man but thank you you're welcome the shows in the 70s where we only had

three channels and it was like 30 million for everything absolutely yeah I look at that even like shows that weren't doing that well it's like

that show we gotta cancel it it only has 22 million viewers today we gotta get rid of that one even like you know TGIF what they did on ABC

back in the day with like Full House Modern Family. They weren't huge numbers, but like they were, compared to now, massive. I remember like maybe like six, seven years ago, Kimmel told me that more people watched the man show than his show on ABC. And I was like, that's not right. And he was like, send all the numbers. Are you serious?

And it was like, just the man show on Comedy Central 20 years ago was more than any late night show right now. More than Fallon. But yeah, the audience is so splintered now. Yeah. There's so many places to watch, man. Because of Hulu, which in places like that, and Hulu is a friend of This Is Us. Yeah.

Now, it's all, well well everything now becomes like part of a conglomerate because disney and fox are sort of merged together and now there's the disney plus and hulu espn plus like i feel like i should just thank bob eiger for everything yeah i've rarely ever seen him but i was like thanks bob for for the job at least give him a half hug yeah you know what by the way yeah he'll be 70 on his next birthday. I know. The guy does 45 minutes of the VersaClimber every day. I know.

He wakes up at like 4.30 in the morning. Yeah. He's a beast. Great posture, too, on Popeye. Incredible. Yeah. Like he's giving me something to shoot for. He's good.

He's very active, mid-60s dude. Yeah, he is. Your career is really fascinating it's an unusual arc in this day and age where you're just on all these shows for years right and then belatedly it happens yeah did you ever give up hope no because i at the time i I was happy. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like, I actually was paying bills. I was able to buy a house. Like, my wife and I had a kid. Yeah.

I did a TV show, Army Wise, for six and a half seasons. Had a great time doing it. Nobody watched it. It's all good. It's like, I don't mind. Like, military families would see you in the airport and everything, and they would fan out and go crazy. I thought that was like a sneaky, heavily watched show, though.

Isn't it like anybody with a military? It was Lifetime's number one show the whole time it was on the air. And then definitely Middle America, military families, it was big. What was your character on that show? I was one of the army wives. I was the military spouse of the male variety. My name was Dr. Roland Burton. That was his name.

It was Roland Burton. He was a psychiatrist and he specialized in PTSD and helped soldiers sort of reacclimate to civilian society. Oh, that sounds intense. My wife was the lieutenant colonel.

So I was, me and four other women were running around. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Running around base and just, you know, solving problems and helping each other. We were a community. Yeah, so now, so you're going through the airports and anybody wearing a uniform. Yeah.

We'll come up to them. Like, hey! Totally. Like, women would come up and be like, you helped me get through my husband's last deployment. Like, things like that all the time. And it was awesome, right? But in New York and LA, it was relatively on deaf ears. And then all of a sudden, OJ happens.

Well, first, I'll say this, like there was a possibility of re-upping my contract for Army Wives. Yeah. And I said, I feel like I've explored everything I want to with this character. I'm excited to see what comes next. And they dangle a big carrot and they say like, are you going to turn this down? And I said, yes, I'm going to turn this down. And it was about two oh man, that sucks. And there was a moan of like, oh man, I got this kid. I got a house. You know, like, is it going to work out? And that pilot season was when the People vs. OJ came along.

I was like, oh shit, cool. It worked out. Yeah. And I felt like I, when I, I love that OJ show. Thanks. When I saw you on it, I was like, I know that guy. Yeah. I'm that dude. I've seen him in stuff. You were that guy. I'm the journeyJ show. Thanks. When I saw you on it, I was like, I know that guy. Yeah. I'm that dude.

I've seen him in stuff. You were that guy for a while. I'm a journeyman actor. Yes. Now you're you. But for years, you were like, oh, I like that guy. You can't place where you like them, but you know you like them. I pop around all over the place.

Yeah. But then you graduated from that guy's status. Yeah, I did. And the OJ thing was a monster. It's a crazy, I mean, to see how quickly it place. Yeah, but then you graduated from that guy's status. Yeah, I did. And the OJ thing was a monster. It's a crazy, I mean, to see how quickly it happened. Yeah. And even my agent will say the same thing. He's like, you know, this doesn't happen like this all the time.

I'm like, yeah, I'm well aware that it doesn't happen like this. Because I was the new kid on the block. And I was looking around at Sarah Paulson and Courtney B. Vance and John Travolta. You know, Nathan Lane and this cast of all-stars and this little dude from St. Louis, Missouri, who just kind of like snuck in between the cracks. And I thought they were going to haze me. They didn't haze me. They were all pretty cool, very sweet. Ryan Murphy was really wonderful. And he scares a lot of people, but he's like my dude. Like I will ride for him to the day I die.

You wait for that opportunity. Like you think that you have ability, you know, and you have confidence in that ability. But the more you get overlooked, you're like, well, maybe this is going to be my trajectory and that's okay. And then someone gives you an opportunity to be thrust into the limelight with a show that kind of became appointment television. And it's hard to come by these days. Like you were saying in the 80s, all you had was three or four networks to check out and everybody sat down and watched it together as a family. OJ was the first time that people came up to me and be like, look, I don't watch anything live, but I wait for that night. So me and my family get together and we watch this show and that sort of just like

turned things overnight it almost created or it didn't create because we grew up with the miniseries format sure

I feel like it brought it back and now and now you look at you look at HBO and all these different like the seven episode seasons of these things it's now

it's now standard but when OJ happened it wasn't standard. I'm going to tell you. So like they talk about the rebirth of the anthology series. And Ryan gets a lot of credit through like American Horror Story, now American Crime Story, et cetera. But I'm going to cite one of your favorite shows. Yeah.

Because you've talked about The Wire on many an occasion. Yeah. The Wire on the sneak is the rebirth of the anthology because it was five seasons, but each season had a different focus. That's a good point. You start with the drug game, you move into the kids,

you go to the news, you go to the docks, then you go to the kids, then you go to the newspaper. So it's like focused on all these different tangents of Baltimore, right? But it was all under the umbrella of The Wire. It was really five different shows

with connected characters. I'm actually re-watching it right now. Yeah. I bought this exercise bike. Okay. You're a Peloton man now? No, no, no. Well, I actually have a Peloton too,

but this one, it's one of those hands-free bikes where you move your legs. Uh-huh. And I play video games and i put a show on that i've seen before so i'm not too distracted okay so now i'm midway through season four the wire but it's like i'm so into it again and i've already this is the third time i plowed through it and i feel like when i get back when i when i go through it again it's like my friends

are back all these people that are just like oh man I fucking miss McNulty what's your favorite season hey Bodhi what's your favorite season so my favorite season was 4 4 is pretty great

cause uh I thought by the time it gets to 4 the show knows what it is but more importantly like McNulty was the star of the show and he's barely in season 4

this is true cause they had so much swagger at that point they were like we can do this and the kids are so good the kids are so good. The kids are so good. Is that when we meet Snoop

at the beginning of season four? Is that season three? Snoop comes in season three, but then season four is when she evolves. But I just love the kids. Yeah. And to me,

it's a key season because it's about, it starts here with the school. Sure. They're fucked from the beginning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the whole thing is just... I think that Omar is one of the greatest characters

in modern television history. Who would you have wanted to play if... I auditioned for and was close to playing Stringer Bell. No! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alexa Fogel's casting director out of New York City, and I had a couple of rounds of auditions for it. And no, Idris is freaking fantastic.

Loved him. But I was close. I was close. They took a British guy over you? They took a British guy over me. God. Shit, it's not the first time, and it won't be the last. Yo, I will say this.

There was this idea for a really long time. Like people would talk about like how American actors aren't as well trained as our British counterparts. And I think that is starting to shift and people are being a bit more like, you know, there's so many different pathways to fame in America, whether it's through music, through rap, through sports, et cetera. And like, there is a training background that tends to be pervasive across the pond, but like, we have some wonderful programs here. I went to school with Mahershala Ali at NYU. My buddy, Brian Tyree Henry, who is, uh, who is on Atlanta right now. He went to Yale. Like I have friends from Juilliard from ucsd etc like we have some really wonderful training programs here and i'm glad to see with oj the producers were talking about how they had to like they were going to look in south africa they were

going to look in london like we couldn't find the guy i was living right down the street on pico i'm thankfully like they're sort of going away from that idea that we aren't good enough because we have some really wonderful people there that was a hard character i think all the other ones you could you know either you play the character of the character or you can put on the right wig and that does have to battle and darden was always so like, even during the whole, I was a huge OJ junkie. Okay. He was so inscrutable even during the trial and stuff. He was the one guy you're like, what's going on in there? And then when he would lose it, it seemed like, oh my God.

And then he couldn't calm down after. No, he couldn't. When he got upset, he almost needed it. He was like a third grader who needed a timeout. Like, all right, you can take timeout, go in the corner. And that must have been like such a fun character to play. There's so many layers to it. It was really like, I think a lot of people passed on it because of his relative lack of popularity in the community, if you will.

Right. And I remember being in college when it all went down and I was like, he's on the wrong side. You know what I'm saying? Like as a young black man, I was squarely on the side of the defense. So what was doubly sort of amazing about it was to step into the side of the prosecution to look at the evidence as it was presented to them and be like, oh, they had a case. Like there's a point. Like whether or not you think OJ did or did not do it,

there's an overwhelming amount of DNA evidence that suggests he was present at the crime. Yeah. Right? Okay. And then he is pulled into this thing, incredibly unpopular for a black man to be a part of, right? His family told him not to do it.

He had, this is something we didn't talk about in the show, but he had a brother dying of AIDS at the time. So it was taking a lot away from him. He had a daughter who he would try to visit who was up in the Bay at the time. There was a lot of personal sacrifice that he made in order to be a part of the case to now feel as if your voice is not being heard, that you're being used for your face, but not really being used for your opinions and your voice and your perspective. That had to be an incredibly difficult space to inhabit for a long time. Like the case went on much longer than anyone had anticipated happening. So yeah, it was fascinating for me to just get a glimpse of what it must have been

like for him and for marcia i was a barely working sports writer at the time yeah working in restaurants and uh was home during the day and it was like a godsend we didn't even have the internet back then like video games in the trial at three in the afternoon what else was i gonna do go get coffee at dunkin donuts? I watched a lot of that. And man, there will never be anything like that again. No, no. Especially because there's so many more

outlets now to take in news, to take in media, period. Also to take sides now. Back then, the reaction of the different communities to the verdict was, I was a white guy living in Boston. I had no idea what was going on. It's not like other than reading New Yorker or a couple of places about it, it's not like I had all this diversity in my life to talk about the trial.

And when the reaction that, and we were all like, they're celebrating. Why are they, this guy just got away with murder. And it happened everywhere. I was at Stanford and I was living in what I'll call just the African-American dorm on campus. And when they said the verdict, we erupted. But the dorm is half black and then half everybody else. And the other half of the dorm is like, are you guys crazy? And we're like, are you not crazy?

Like, this is a win for black. Like, how often does a black man actually have the justice system work in his behalf? Right. So it became less about the specifics of the case. It became like the imagery of a black man actually getting over on the system. And it took me a while. I remember I wrote about it in 2004. I think it was the 10-year anniversary.

Yeah. And at that point, I had read every book. And I was like, oh, I get it now. Right. It took a while. And then when we did 30 for 30, one of the first ones we did was the day that he escapes, or Don escapes with the chase. The chase. Because all these other sports things happen at this. Yeah, there's the Rock ones we did was, was the day that he escapes or Don escapes with the chase.

The chase. Cause all these other sports things happen at this. We grabbed the rockets playing the Knicks. Yeah. Rockets Knicks. It was Arnold Palmer's last masters. It was the Rangers staying in the cup parade. Just all these things.

And, uh, and the, the audience for that was pretty big. And that's what eventually led to us doing the multi-part series, which I was there for the beginning of, and that was coming out after your thing. Yeah, that's what eventually led to us doing the multi-part series which i was there for the beginning of and that was coming out after your thing yeah that's right and then your thing came out first i was like ah that's gonna be terrible for the other thing and it's like no it was it was actually they were complimentary yeah they really were like nothing canceled out anything else like and it was fascinating for me to watch like just seeing him grow up in san francisco but really the epilogue like the florida stuff oh my god videos like holy shit balls like yeah he he unraveled and then some a little bit well now

he's on twitter he can hit you up he's like hey man i loved you as darted you did a great job really enjoyed it you can't don't do that on television. He was giving Miles Garrett thoughts last week. Was he really? Yeah, he's on Twitter. He's talking about his fantasy team. I don't follow him. Real quick tangent.

Yeah. Was the punishment right for Miles? I thought it should have been for the season. For the season. I think people have gotten a little carried away by comparing it to the Artest Melee. Sure. And some of the other,

like the Artest Melee was 100 times worse. Right, that's not going into, yeah. Also, it was like way scarier and literally almost turned into a riot. Yeah. This was, he hit him with a helmet. And also, Rudolph just kind of took it. Here's my question.

It just bounced off him. Because it kind of got like the inside part of the helmet and whatnot. And not to take away from the atrociousness. Like I was watching Max talk about it or whatnot. Yeah.

He was instigating. Yeah. He was on the bottom of that pile trying to rip his helmet off and then continuing to follow him. But no, when you take a helmet, I mean, I played the game in high school

and I love the game dearly like it's it's a tough one i asked chris long about it i was like because i was like rudolph we have chris long does a podcast with ryan rossillo okay he played for i don't know 12 years rams he uh yeah rams a big rams guy i know so i was like how much would it hurt to get hit by the helmet and he's like in that part of the head that's where you'd want it I was like, how much would it hurt to get hit by the helmet? And he's like, in that part of the head, that's where you'd want it. He was like,

where it would be bad is like nose. Right. Or side of the eye. Sure. Something like that. But it was like, actually like on there, you could take it.

Yeah. That makes sense. So. I would agree with that, but it was, it was. Cause he, he,

he just turned around and did the arms thing. It's going to follow Garrett around his whole career. It certainly did with Artest. It did. You know, it's too bad. But that also has to do with the personality of Metta World Peace as well. You know what I'm saying? Like, I think Miles, when I hear him talk about it and express the remorse that he did,

I'm hopeful that he's able to move forward. He's a really talented player and a really decent human being who I just think saw red in a moment. And slow motion makes everything worse too. Sure. Because when something's unfolding like that in two seconds, you're just, I don't want to step on your movie, but. No.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But in slow motion, it's all of a sudden 10 seconds and 12 seconds, and it seems like there's more. Right. Anyway. Everybody can watch it. You've done first take, right?

No. What did I do? When Marcellus was on with Max. Oh, you did that one? I did that one. Are you doing first take for this whole media thing? Not as of yet. Not as of yet. Not as of yet. You should go on.

You would love that. It would be fun. It would be fun. It was so fun. I was watching the day. Stephen A. let me get a word in. That would be great.

No, he'll let you. He'd actually be excited a bit. The day after the Miles Garrett thing, they had this previously scheduled thing with David Boreanz.

Okay. So they're going through it. They're screaming at each other and it's like, coming out David Boreanz. So then So they're going through it. They're screaming at each other and it's like, coming at David Boreanz. So then he comes in and they're like, what do you think

about the Miles Garrett thing? And this guy's like, I'm just here to promote my Navy SEAL thing, but all right, here's my Miles Garrett take. But I do enjoy when they pull in the celebs.

Yeah. I would love to do first take. They're great. So OJ takes off and then you get This Is Us. Then I got This Is Us. And then boom, you OJ takes off. Yeah. And then you get This Is Us. Then I got This Is Us. And then boom, you're off. Yeah, man.

And then you have to, like, how many speeches have you given out at award shows? Like five? Uh... You have three Emmys, one Golden Globe, four Emmys? How many Emmys do you have? I have... Stop, stop. You have...

I'm looking at your two... I have sports Emmys. ...over there. I have two Emmys. Two Emmys. Over there. I have two Emmys. Two Emmys. I have a third regional Emmy for an ad campaign that I did promoting tourism in St. Louis. Nice. So I have a Midwest Emmy as well. It's pretty cool.

I have, am I actually going to tell you what I, all the. No, you have a Golden Globe. I have a Golden Globe. And the first Golden Globe given for an African-American actor as best drama, best lead actor in a drama series. Really? And at that time

it was the 75 years of the Golden Globes and that was crazy. I was like, I can't believe this is the first time. That's a little shaky too, by the way.

It's a tough voting pattern. It's well that they've rectified the situation and I won the first best male lead actor in a drama series for the SAG Awards as well,

which is just 20, 25 years. Well, your speeches are really good. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Are you memorizing them? What are you doing? Is it an ad lib? Bullet points.

Bullet points? You do sort of bullet points of what the basic gist is that you want to talk about. And you try to just make it as heartfelt as possible. Like the best piece of advice that I got for those speeches is if you can go up there without a piece of paper, I think people will remember it more. And I took it to heart. Yeah. I really, that's the one thing I like about the award show because I really respect the

art of a good speech. Yeah. And I think it's hard to do. Sure. It's hard to keep it the right length. It's hard to make it seem like it's coming from the heart when meanwhile it's in your head it's somehow bullet point rehearsed but yeah no it's you did a good job with those this is us um do people just come up to you and they're just

already they're just crying do you just trigger tears yeah pretty much like people come up and hug you. It's such an emotional show. Yeah, they linger too. Like it's a lingering hug. And it's like, okay. And you sort of like smooth out their back. It's going to be okay.

And this is in the middle of a CVS or Vons or whatever. Like it doesn't matter. Because when you come into people's homes once a week, you become a part of their family. And now they're like, I know you. Like, you hear that all the time. I know you! And they're like, I have no idea who you are.

But, like, I appreciate it. And thank you. And you're sweet and you're kind. But, like, the fans of This Is Us are, they're really diehard. And they feel it to their core and when they see you they can't help but express including my wife

yeah she's a fan it's funny when cause I was telling you before we started I know Dan a little bit cause he was in the whole Kimmel Circles

he was a PA I think on the Man Show okay I remember seeing the trailer or the commercial or the one minute ad or something

before the show launched yeah and I remember we were texting about it Jimmy and a couple of us and I was like the trailer or the commercial or the one minute ad or something before the show launched. Yeah. And I remember we were texting about it, Jimmy and a couple of us. And I was like, the show is going to be a monster hit. You could just tell.

It's like sometimes you could tell it's just to me, it's a combo of the timing. Yeah. Has there been a show like this in a while? Right. And just like what just, and you could just be like, oh, that'll work. This is filling some sort of void that exists right now. And sometimes that'll happen too with like medical dramas. Like I remember feeling that way about Grey's Anatomy.

Yeah, me too. Seeing that, I was like, oh yeah, it's time for another one of these. Let's go. Agreed. I think there's something about the way Dan structured it to have like the parallel timelines of the parents and the kids living at the same time in their lives. Yeah. Because it's sort of, you have your parents up on this pedestal and then you reach a point in your life when you realize, oh, you're just people.

And you guys are just making this crap up as you go along. And I expect you to have all the answers, but nobody has all the answers. And you start giving them a break. Like, I feel like the show collectively, like, gives parents a break because we're all doing the best that we can until we know how to do better. And I think the streaming thing really helps with it, too. Yeah. Because you can, even if you miss the first eight, when a show becomes a thing, you can go. I always tell this story about Friday Night Lights.

I just, I watched the first one. I didn't, I thought it was going to get canceled. It's like this high school football show in the mid 2000s on NBC. Like I'm not getting attached to these people. They're going to cancel this. I'm out. I'm out.

You're not doing this to me. And then it became a thing. I was like, how do I watch these? And I had to go on eBay and ordered these Japanese DVDs of it. So it was the show with the Japanese subtitles. Are you serious? I got all of them and I caught up. Yeah. I had to get, now you just catch up on Hulu in five minutes. Yeah. You just catch up on the streamer. My intro to Lost was, I'd heard all this stuff about season one. I was like, I'm not going to

watch this crap. Right. I went and bought the DVD from Target and my wife and I were doing a play in Minneapolis and I'm like, let's watch one. And it was 10 o my wife and I were doing a play in Minneapolis and I'm like let's watch one it was 10 o'clock and we were up to five o'clock in the morning watching the first seven I was like all right I'm in I did that with The Wire I missed the first season because the corner was the show he did before and it was it was just too intense for me right like I think sometimes art can pass a point where you feel like, all right, I'm going to watch this, but I'm going to be like fucked up for the next two hours. Like it's. There are different things that art can do.

Sometimes you try to show life as it is. Sometimes you try to steer life into the direction of where you think it can be. Like Sorkin at his best is an idealist. Right. So the West Wing is not our necessarily heart government system as is, but he's like, look at what it can be. You know what I'm saying? With the newsroom, like things become so partisan and whatnot. Like if you are a purist, like let's see if we can steer it towards what we want it to be. And I

think both things are of value. You know what I mean? Hey, it's officially holiday season. Everyone loves a gift that can feel good in and good about. Allbirds. Stylish, comfortable, sustainable. You can't go wrong. Allbirds has streamlined design, versatile. They look great anytime you lace them up. Wide range of colors inspired by nature. A variety of silhouettes to keep you looking your best in whatever situation you find yourself this holiday season. I plan to find myself in plenty of situations. Ladies, the Tree Breezers, your new go-to flats. They have you feeling like the belle of the ball at any holiday party. The Wool Runners, they're made from ZQ certified merino wool. Help you stay warm. And the Mizzle Collection, complete with Puddle Guard, will help you stay prepared through winter's unpredictable weather.

You can see all these bands at Coachella in April. Kyle, you love the Allbirds. Love them. Like the colors. If you had to pick between Puddle Guard and ZQ Certified Merino, what would you go with? Well, the Puddle Guard's a new development, so I have to check that out.

Yeah, we got to check those out. It's never rainy here either. I can't wait to check out the Puddle Guard. Allbirds, the perfect gift to make the holidays a little more comfortable for everyone on your list. Give the gift of comfort this holiday season or get a pair for yourself at allbirds.com. So you're doing This Is Us and it's a massive success,

but then you get a chance to this movie and you have to film it on the weekends. Yeah. This is the only research I did for this whole podcast. That's good research. Well, I'd rather, I like winging it and finding out stuff and not,

not feeling like you're just going to answer something that I already read. I feel you. Yeah. But this one, you're flying to Florida on Friday, red eyes. Yeah, man.

And then you're acting Saturday, Sunday, and then flying back and then do it. So you're basically working seven days a week for how many months? We did that for about a month and a half. Jesus. Like six weekends in a row. How do you stay fresh as an actor in the scenes?

Like you have to be tired, right? You're tired. I can sleep on the plane. Oh, so there you go. I sleep when they taxi. Like there's something like, I don't know how people stay awake on a plane, to be perfectly honest with you, unless I have a really good movie.

Like if I start to read on the plane, I pass out. If I taxi for too long, like there's something about the air and I'm just like gone. You know, NBA player, like Jalen was like that. Really?

Jalen put the seatbelt on, he's asleep. Plane lands, he wakes up. Hey, what are we doing? that's exactly what i want that's that's me how we doing you're like you're just asleep you're in a coma for nine straight hours you're wide awake wait you know what i just realized i want to say this on the podcast i didn't realize jaylen and molly are married yeah good for him she took she took his last name that's amazing way to go jaylen i was was just like, that's a win.

She checked a lot of boxes for him, including tall. Yes. Because he's legit 6'8 and a half. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how tall is she? She's 6? She's not 6. She's pretty tall.

She's tall. She's at least 5'10, 5'11. Okay. She's tall. Yeah. No, good for him. No, so I slept on the plane, man. And the other thing is, too, and I'm sure you've had this experience.

When you get a chance to work on multiple projects simultaneously, you can have that experience of we're like, all right, I'm a little fatigued here. But you're not fatigued in general. Like, you can actually have newfound energy for this other thing. Oh, that's a good point. And by virtue of moving from one thing to the other, you can keep your energy up. So that's, I agree with that. Because I started to realize that in 08, 09, that I liked working on multiple things at the same time.

Right. And I would pull the energy from the different things. Exactly. I always felt like it was one giant thing, but I'm like, I'm going to go over here. I'll go over there. Yeah. But it's still playing two different characters.

Two different characters. A little bit of a different animal. I mean, yeah, but then you watch something like Orphan Black. Like, you're playing like 97 different people in a thing. And that's fucking awesome, right? Like, it was nice. Like, I love Randall. I love the image that he's able to put out into the world.

This sort of nerdy guy who's very well-meaning, who wears his heart on his sleeve, right? But I'm wonderful and I'm often cognizant of the fact that I want to take advantage of the opportunity to show that I'm not Randall. I'm Sterling and Sterling loves to play many, many different people. And so hopefully if people get a chance to check this out, they get a chance to see a dad, but who manifests in a very different way. What's, this is us, how many years now? Four? Season four right now. Yeah.

How has the show evolved? You know, you talk about TV. Yeah. First season's easy, right? You're introducing all the characters, you get the stories, you've created this new kind of thing. Second season's always a little weird because there's a ton of hype. Yeah.

We did all right, though. We didn't have too much of a slump. I'm just doing the typical arc of whatever. There's some hype. There's a little backlash. People know what they're going to expect. And that's when it usually gets creative. Then season three is usually really good.

Season three was really good. And then season four, now you're kind of there for a while. You've done, what done what 60 70 episodes at this point yeah 60 this is usually where somebody has a baby

or you put you have the ratings death or you start mixing it up right season four so we we did this thing

at the beginning of season four where we introduced three new characters yes this is what I mean I didn't even know this and everybody was watching and they're like,

who the fuck are these people? Why are they on my TV, right? And they're like, is this us that we get canceled? But then, like, these three people sort of tie into the main narrative of how they fit into the Pearson family at the end. And so by the end of it, they were like, okay, that made sense. Like, you had me waiting for a while. And I'll say this, Fogelmanelman watches like online like a hawk yeah but that's is that a good thing though

it is a thing i'm not gonna put uh good or bad on it because sometimes i think he gets a little over immersed into the whole thing yeah but he cares right he cares deeply yeah and so he's freaking out for the first 45 minutes of the show. He's like, I'm going to lose them. I'm going to lose them. I'm going to fucking lose them. They're gone. And then the last 15 minutes when it all comes together and he's like, oh God.

I made it. I didn't lose them. You know what I'm saying? It was, it was, he's delightfully neurotic and it was more fun watching him watch Twitter as the show was on than actually watching the show. Well, I knew the show was doing well anyway because it was obviously doing well and had huge ratings.

Yeah. But when there was a copycat show, I was like, oh, this show's really doing well. The other networks are doing their version of the same show. This is amazing. It was amazing for us too because we were like, oh, they're doing,

they're trying to do our show. They're on our corner. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, look, there's. It was like when Marlo shows up at season three. He's like, hey, oh, who's this guy? There's more than enough to go around. I think, you know, we get a chance, they get a chance to sample other people's product.

But hopefully at the end of the day, they come back to the blue magic. Well, I want to talk about waves, but I told you I want to put it at the tail end. Yep. Because there's the tail end. Yep. Because there's some spoiler stuff. Okay. And I want to, did we do all the sports we needed to do? Is there any NBA thoughts you want to get out? Any NFL?

I'm excited to go to the Staples Center any given night. I'll say that much. I am a huge LeBron fan. Oh, look at you. And have been a LeBron fan from the beginning. And it's not just what he does on the court. It's how he conducts himself off the court. For a young man to come straight from the league from high school.

Yeah. And to have that level of polish that he has shown over the duration of his career. I don't think a lot of people give him the credit that he really deserves. You're right. You know what I'm saying? His friend group, who he's sort of ensconced himself with, they've made major moves. And they haven't had... If you can say at the end of his career that his biggest misstep was the decision, you

know what I'm saying? When I was 25, you told me I could go play in South Beach? Fuck you. I'm going to South Beach I could go play in South Beach? Fuck you. Like, I'm going to South Beach. Have you been to South Beach? Right. It's just fucking amazing, right? It's amazing.

If that's the biggest downfall of his career, he's won. He's a winner. Yeah, I agree with you. I don't think he gets the credit because I think of him almost like a child actor. Yeah. He's famous when he was 16. Yeah. You know, and that goes wrong how many times? 19 out of 20?

Absolutely. At some point, there's some residue or something. Yeah. And nothing. You had it the best way. You became famous later in your life when you could really see it and appreciate it. Yeah. But he became famous when he was 16. To deal with it from that young on, I'm amazed by him. on, I'm amazed by him.

Like, I'm amazed by him. So you've chosen the Lakers over the Clippers? I choose LeBron. Okay. NFL, you're a widow. I'm a widow. You gravitate toward players or anyone from St. Louis. I'll say this because I know where you're from,

and God bless you or whatever. I hate, I hate, I hate the Patriots. I know. This is the lot we've ended up with somehow.

And it's not your fault. It's not even Brady's fault. I feel like there's the smugness of the coach. The fact that he stole signals when I was supposed to get two Super Bowls in a row.

No, no, he didn't steal signals. Never proven. Kyle and I, Kyle, big Pat's man as well. We embrace the hate now. We embrace the hate. It hurt our feelings for a while, but then after like the fifth Super Bowl, we're like, yeah, fuck everybody. We're just going to keep winning. It even got to the point for me for for as a young man, I was like,

I don't care what he does in his career. The GOAT will always be Montana. And now even I, Sterling K. Brown of St. Louis, Missouri, after you go to the game nine times and you get six Ws. You got to give it to him. He's the GOAT. What's the best St. Louis movie

of all time? I don't even know how many St. Louis movies are. Like, the air up there is shot partly in St. Louis. You probably know more than I do.

There's not too much shoots there. I feel like there's nothing. There's not a lot. I remember in Vacation, the Griswolds, didn't they drive through St. Louis?

They passed through the arch for sure. But like, that might be something for me to do with the production company. I got to shoot in st louis that would be your production company now yeah i got a production company it's called indian meadows named after my neighborhood in st louis missouri um just trying to put some more diversity up there while i can like it feels like things are moving in a way where there's an appreciation by hollywood the diverse stories are not only important, but can make money. You know what I'm saying?

And that you only address the universal through the specific. And so while the door is wedged, I'm going to try to wedge it open a little bit more and put my own little stank on it. I have two thoughts on what you just said. Give it to me. It's awesome that it's finally happening belatedly and that somebody like you who probably this should have all happened for you sooner than it did um the cynical side of me is like this is also happening because these things are making money

that's there's no cynicism about it it's show business but i think i think everybody's trying to present this as how things are better and it's all the pressure we put on it's like it's also a business move for a lot of these places because there's a fucking audience and it's like yeah no shit there was an audience this is what we were saying oh look yeah i think for the the misnomer was that like mainstream society i.e white men would not be able to see themselves in somebody else's story and And I think you've had Black Panther sort of kind of destroyed that myth in a way. And then the other thing was that black faces don't necessarily sell overseas.

So that's been destroyed. I think if the story is well told, people will see it. What about Moonlight? Moonlight makes no sense as a hit. If I tried to sell that to somebody in a room, be like, so here's the plot of Moonlight. They'd be like, yeah I, if I tried to sell that to somebody in a room, like, so here's,

here's the plot of Moonlight. They'd be like, yeah, that's making $5. What are you talking about? It's, it was the first, Barry just shot it so gorgeously.

because it was a good fucking movie. Like, that's where we're getting, and that was how I felt about Waves. It was like, you know,

I don't want, I don't want to go nuts, but I did it. Tell us when we tell them to like stop listening. They don't want to. I tweeted today about, I was like, don't read anything about this movie. Just go experience it. Because I knew nothing.

I avoided everything. I had, they sent me a screener. I couldn't even stream it to my TV. I had to watch it on my iPad. So I'm lying in bed, put it on. And it's fucking intense. It starts with everything's in a circle. And it's happening.

360 camera. And it's just moving. It's with everything's in a circle and it's happening, the 360 camera, and it's just moving and it's moving and it doesn't let go and it just goes and it goes and it goes and it goes and it doesn't stop. No. And when it finally stops, you need to have a cigarette.

Yeah. And then it goes again. And it's just, rarely do you see movies like this. So first of all, I love that you had that experience watching it by yourself because one of my favorite things is to sit in the screening and there's a couple of moments in particular and i i will i'll let you say the specifics because

i'm not sure we'll do it later yeah we'll do the specific later but there's a the scene yeah right there's a collective gasp right in the In the audience where people are like, whoa, right? And even before that- We're going to bleep what you just said so we don't spoil it. Okay. Yeah, I'm with you. Okay.

Like there's something, especially, so I don't know if this gives, no, I'll wait till the end. We'll wait till the end. I'll wait till the end to talk about the film specifically. Well, what's interesting about how he constructs it is, and this is where, you know,

movies can be well-directed and then there's a whole other level that people go to where it's like just every decision is really carefully made down to the second. Right.

And the pace and the intensity of what he does is just so, like, I was like, when I saw it, I was like,

there's no way this guy is older than 35 i read nothing yeah because i was like i would have heard of this person before this as a filmmaker because there's yeah he was 30 when we shot yeah so he's so i wasn't surprised to see that there is so the script um there's no hard copy for the script he has it on a computer program and he has like music cues embedded into the script so you can hit a button listen to a song as you read the scene and music's one of the most essential characters of the movie it's huge right and most of the music that was in the script he was able to get the rights for for the actual film so you had an idea of what the

propulsion of the movie was going to be just just reading it on the page, right? I also like that it was not the typical music. It was actually like modern music and Kanye and Kendrick and things that made sense for where the story was happening. Yeah, and it took right down to the last minute to get rights for that Kanye song because he was busy making his album. And so we didn't know if we were going to get it or not. Yeah, but Kanye is totally easy to deal with.

What could go wrong? Nothing. What could go wrong with Kanye? He's as cool as the other side of the pillow, man. So that was something that I knew. He's done two movies before, Trey Edward Schultz. Yeah. And I watched one of his films, Crescia,

which is about his family. And he shot it like over the course of nine days or something like that. Hired his family to play the actors in the thing. And there's not a lot that happens in the movie, but his aunt comes home for like a Thanksgiving or a family reunion and everybody's treating her sort of strangely and like, why is everybody being so mean to her? Well, it's because you discover through the course of the movie that she has a substance abuse problem. She's an alcoholic. And they're just waiting for her to slip up

because they know that every time she comes around, she slips up. And so people are walking around until she finally slips up. And they're like, I told you. And so off of just this simple storytelling, I was so immersed. He creates this claustrophobic sort of environment where you feel as if like you're part of it

whether you want to be or not you can't shake that shit right that's and I'm glad that you had that experience by yourself

on your iPad well with my snoring wife next to me and and I watched I started at like 11 and it was done at like

I don't know 1.15 yeah which is late for me usually I go to bed earlier than that because I wake up early sure and it was done at like, I don't know, 1.15. Yeah. Which is late for me. Usually I go to bed earlier than that because I wake up early. Sure. And then I couldn't fall asleep.

Really? And I was like, fuck, my heart was still kind of like going. It was one of those movies. I just felt like I had been through the ringer. I had nobody to talk about it with. I was like,

is there a support group? Can I talk? Is there anybody I can talk to? Anybody home right now? You can talk to me. But yeah, it's really good. You're really good at it. Thanks, man.

I mean, you'll get all the plaudits, and they're going to be all deserving. I like that it was a different character than, you're not, this is us, dad. This is like a different person. No, completely different character. Who goes through a totally different journey. Yeah. We'll talk about it more in the end, but I also just want to shout out, like,

Calvin Harrison Jr., who plays my son, and Taylor Russell, who plays my daughter, like, they are really phenomenal. And it's their movie. I'm there to support and lift them up, but, like, it was a joy to see the work that they brought to it. And Lucas Hedges and Alexa Demi as the two young love interests. And my wife, too, Renee Elise Goldsberry.

Hats off to all of them. From Hamilton, right? From Hamilton. All right, so people who haven't seen it yet don't want to hear it. Turn off the podcast now. It was great seeing you. Come back for the end of it after you see the movie.

Right on. Okay. So the craziest thing about this movie to me is this doesn't work when it becomes a different movie halfway through. Yeah. I'm saying like just in general, this is a bad device for movies. You don't normally switch protagonists at the midway point. This is usually a disaster when it's like, oh, you like this movie?

Now we're going to go this way. Yeah. And it never works. And it actually worked with this movie. I couldn't believe as I was watching, I couldn't believe you pulled it off. No. worked with this movie. I couldn't believe as I was watching, I couldn't believe you pulled it off. No, it's so I'll say this, like, I was terrified of this

movie when I first read it because a young black man takes a young woman's life halfway through the film. And I said, is this a movie that's going to be exacerbating an already negative stereotype? Or is this a movie that's going to be humanizing a human being who

loses his way makes a terrible mistake but that does not negate his humanity and so i met with trey and i talked to him i said i don't know if i can stick with you for the second half of your film because on the page it is beautiful but my mind is sort of obsessed as a black man with two black sons yeah what this young man just did and And he's like, look, I don't want to lose anybody either. Right. So let's talk about the ways in which you think we can make sure we maintain our audience from beginning to end. And then I talked to Kelvin who plays my son. I was like, bro, you know, do you know what you're getting yourself into? Note to the listener, Trey is white, right? He's a young white man, whatever.

And this movie is largely autobiographical. It goes into fictional narrative, but there's a lot of him in it. But when he decided to hire Kelvin to play the son, they talked about the script together. And Kelvin got a chance to give his infusion about what it was like to be a young black man in Louisiana. His father was very much a taskmaster and the arena was music. Trey was a wrestler. His father put a lot of pressure on him to excel in that particular arena. And so they blended those two things together to make sure that they did it right.

And what I mean by doing it right is that the family's not black just by happenstance, but they're black on purpose, right? I said, now that this character is black like if this was a white man young white man doing the exact same thing it would elicit a different reaction now that it is a young black man you just need to be cognizant that shit may land in a very specific way and once it's in the audience's hands it's it you can't do anything about that right and so he said yeah i hear you my dad thinks it's kind of crazy too but it's a really good part right i was like yeah man it's a really good part and he said well should i not do it just because i am black i was like oh shit i didn't think like i was like that that hit me in a way that's like you're so I've been so fearful of representation and like not representing the

community in the right way. And you can't ever shoulder that, but you sometimes feel that pressure to like make sure, like we've had so many negative images of ourselves thrown at us. It's like, this is not us. That's not us. That's not us. Right. But now this family is very specific and they're very, an upper middle-class family. And I know this family, right. And this family is very specific and they're very an upper middle class family and i know this family right and they have a very specific set of problems um with the drugs and the household like you know the over-the-counter drugs we're not talking about illicit things but things that you can find at home yeah use how you want to like this is the type of shit that's happening the pressure that children are feeling the the advent of social

media and how that can turn the pressure the dial up on anything that you're experiencing on a personal level because everybody has a say like and you can see everything at the same there's a really important scene with that with the daughter after the incident huge huge huge thing where she's seeing the the repercussions of like how her brother's murder has like impacted her life and like the hate that he's receiving. And she sort of internalizes that too. And she just dies inside basically. She totally dies inside. And that's the other reason why this movie for me was a must was the scene that Ronald, the dad, has with Emily, the daughter, in the fishing, after they go fishing.

Because I think that there are conversations that happen in Black households or in communities of color that don't necessarily happen in white families, at least not as early on. Like the idea that you have to be twice as good or 10 times as good to make it just as far. The idea is that people are not looking for you to succeed.

They're looking for reasons to dismiss you, right? And we're trying not to give them any reason for you to dismiss us, right? I think that these are appropriate conversations to be having with your children. The shortfalling of the father is I don't think he ever gives his son the space or the stature to represent himself back. To have a two-way conversation. Right. Like the learning is only going in one way. Well, he thinks he's bonding with them just because they're like lifting weights.

Exactly. And working wrestling moves at 10 at night in the garage. Yeah. But he's not actually like connecting with them. Exactly. Yeah. So when I was watching it, the first 40 minutes or so, I was going, oh, this is cool. 10 years ago, they make this movie and it's a white family.

Right. But now we're at a place where it's like, it doesn't really matter what the color of the family is. It's more about this family. But then as the movie went on, it's like, no, it actually really does matter that this is a black family. But it takes a while to get there as the viewer. I think.

And then it really, really comes in the second half. But it's also one of those things too, Bill, where like the idea, the misnomer that you're talking about is that in order for people to all universally see themselves within the story, the face has to be white. Right? Like as a little kid, you're like, oh, man, Superman would be so cool. But all I had was Clark Kent. You know, all you have is Michael Keaton, like all these things.

And now you have Chadwick. And now you have this family. But the biggest compliment is that folks will say, like, I see myself in that family. And it doesn't have to be a white face for Asian, African, Latino, white to see themselves in it. Like, I think we are getting to that place where the specificity of the story that we're telling, whether it's racial or cultural or whatnot, somebody can bond with some aspect of it, whether they're part of that group or not. So this movie reminded me, this is weird because it's nothing like, but I feel like it is Ordinary People,

which is 40 years ago, which is this family that everything seems okay, and then it's not. Yeah. And then it's really not. And that movie's filmed completely differently. Yeah. It's filmed super standard.

Redford actually won Best Director, which... That's his first to know, I think. He lost. Scorsese lost that year to him. Did he really? For Raging Bull. Yeah. What?

Yeah, it's a tough one. Wow! Yeah. Yeah. It's not great. But that just... And Hutton won too. The family kind of imploding on itself.

Yeah. Reminded me of that. And it made me think it was like the 2020 version of what ordinary people would be. That's a wonderful reference. It's all the diversity and the music and how it's filmed. And it's just so different. Yeah. Basically the same premise.

He's a really, just to point out the difference, he's a very visceral filmmaker. And so you're talking about the specifics. He changes the aspect ratio of the film throughout the course of the movie. And it's probably hard to see on the iPad. Definitely. When things start to become claustrophobic, he actually changes the frame size.

And then when Emily finds love with Lucas, things start to expand again. Really? Yo, he does some really cool shit, man. It's fucking awesome. And the music even changes. The colors are good, too. Colors are rich. Yeah, it's a beautiful film.

It's not just the story. It's the way that he tells the story that makes it feel so immersive. It's almost like if you could scratch the screen, you could smell like salt water coming from it. You know what I mean? That character you play, that's just a great part thanks man and you have to you were great in it and you have to evolve in this or almost devolve but just that character gets broken down as the movie goes along in a way that really feels legitimate. It feels, I would say it's an evolution because, like, folks would throw around this term toxic masculinity. I don't know exactly what it means in this particular context, but I do know there's this idea of what it means to be a man can be very narrow. Yeah. Right?

You know what I'm saying? Like, even sometimes you'll catch yourself talking to your kids, or I don't because I'm pretty cognizant, but like people have said, like, be a man. Hey, quit crying. Be a man. You know what I'm saying? Like, grow up. Da-da-da-da-da.

And so what Ronald is able to do with his daughter out of necessity more than anything else, right? A lot of change is born out of necessity because he literally has no one else that he can talk to who understands what he's going through right and if he wants to make a connection with his daughter he kind of has to be the change he wants to see and share himself right yeah and when he finally shares himself she does the same thing in turn and i I don't think, unfortunately, he would have been able to do that with his son without the tragedy. The beauty of the film is that he does learn something from it. I also like that the son's gone halfway through the movie and they don't throw in the token couple scenes in prison.

He basically dies as a character, which is kind of what needs to happen. Even though he's alive, he needs to die for us to pay attention to everyone else in the movie. Exactly. And if you talk to Trey about it, the whole first half of the film is about trying to immerse you into the perspective of Tyler.

The music that he uses, the colors, et cetera, like it's Tyler's film. And the second half of the film is Emily's. So it wouldn't make sense to jump back to Tyler because now it's Emily's story.

What an awesome movie. Thanks, man. How optimistic. I like that Bill likes my movie. No, that was really good. How optimistic are you that it's going to find a big audience? That's why I really want to do the podcast, partly because I want people to see it. I thought it was excellent.

Cautiously optimistic. It's a tough watch, right? It's something that hopefully will inspire a lot of conversation. I think that if there is a genre that this movie falls into, it's the R-rated family film. Like, I think that parents and kids should see it together. If they're at least 14, you know, maybe 13 or 12 if you're a progressive parent, but like, I think it's something that they could learn a lot about each other from because in this day of social media where everybody has a little pocket computer all the time,

you spend a lot of time in the same space with people, but you're not actually connecting with them. You know what I'm saying? So I feel like this movie is that movie to be like, oh, fuck, we haven't been paying attention. You know what I'm saying? Children to their parents, parents to their children. We haven't been paying attention. Right. You know what I'm saying? Children to their parents, parents to their children. We haven't been paying attention

and hopefully this movie can break that wall down. All right. Well, good luck with it. Thanks a lot, man. Thanks for coming on. This was great. Sorry about Super Bowl 36.

Yeah, it's, you know, whatever. All right. Thanks to House. Thanks to Sterling K. Brown. Don't forget to go see Waves. It's awesome. Thanks to Allbirds. Stylish, comfortable, sustainable.

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I'll be thinking of you as I eat a ton of food and watch a ton of football. And we'll be back on Sunday night here on the BS Podcast. Until then. Yes, we can. On the wayside. On the Bruce and Leveron.