The Bill Simmons Podcast - Boston’s Gamble, the GOAT Blazer, Philly’s Future, and ‘The Idol’ Flames Out With Chris Ryan and Wesley Morris

Episode Date: July 7, 2023

The Ringer's Bill SImmons shares some NBA thoughts, including the only realistic way Damian Lillard can be traded to the Heat, teams that are "on the clock" with their superstars, the Celtics parting ways with their defensive anchors, who is truly the greatest Trail Blazer of all time, and more (1:19). Next, Bill talks with Chris Ryan about how the James Harden situation will be resolved, new 76ers coach Nick Nurse, a competitive Eastern Conference, NBA in-season tournament takes, and more (28:34). Then, Bill is joined by Wesley Morris of the New York Times to discuss HBO's 'The Idol', why the show flopped, 'The Weekend', and more (54:23). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Chris Ryan and Wesley Morris Producers: Kyle Crichton and Jessie Lopez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, basketball? The idol? What? That's next. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me. I can't go a day without sports. I really can't.

And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right. There's a new exclusive home for streaming Monday night NHL hockey. And it's on Prime. All season long, watch prime Monday night hockey deliver unreal plays. The biggest goals can't miss moments. Matthews, McDavid, Crosby, the NHL is best. They're all on prime prime Monday night hockey. It's on Monday. It's on prime. This episode is brought to you by my old friend Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I

was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gangs here, you're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air? Moments like that. Or when you want a light beer that tastes like beer, that's delicious. You don't want to load up on those heavier beers and then you only have two of them. Then you feel tired. Your stomach feels full. Miller Lite, it's your friend. It just accompanies whatever else you're doing. You're super happy with it. Opening an ice cold Miller Lite can signal the beginning of Miller time. Miller Lite is the light beer with all the great beer tastes we like. 90 calories per 355 mil can. So why not grab

some Miller Lites today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where you can hear a new rewatchable. It is courtroom month, primal fear. We did it on Monday. We have another one coming on next Monday. I will tell you what it is on Sunday. I'll tell you now. It's a time to kill. You can find it on streamer services and you know the movie. Me and Wesley Morris break it down. So that's coming up on Monday. Coming up on this podcast, I'm going to do a little NBA six-pack at the top.

Chris Ryan comes on and tell us about Philly sports, what is happening with Harden, and why we're feeling a little bullish about soccer in America. Or as Chris calls it, football, because he's douchey sometimes that way. But I call it soccer. And then last but not least, Wesley Morris is here to talk about The Idol,

one of the all-time swing and a miss shows in recent memory, and we're going to explain why. That is the pod. It's on next, first our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, I'm taping this on a Thursday. Summer League is this weekend. It is one of the most anticipated summer leagues we've ever had. Wembley, Scoot, they're playing each other Sunday night. Wembley's playing Friday night.

Vegas sold out. UFC this weekend too. Great Vegas weekend. Thank you, Vegas. As always, Vegas in July. You can't beat it. It's like 120 degrees. There's stuff to do.

People walking around. You go outside. It's like this huge heat wave hits you for 10 seconds. You're dying to get back inside. Stuff going on everywhere. Faces. It is really the last time the NBA matters for a couple months. And that's why we're going to open an NBA six-pack. Six players, storylines, just things that have caught my attention. I can't believe we don't have this sponsored yet. First one, Ben Simmons. Not my Ben Simmons,

the one who plays sports. I'm talking about the Ben Simmons that doesn't play sports. Agent World's Jurassic World, peaceforaspan.com today, and reiterated what we've been hearing all week and Rosillo and I talked about on Sunday, that Portland's just not going to trade Dame to Miami and take 40 cents on the dollar. It's not happening. They're going to do the best possible trade. And as Woj pointed out in the piece, Joe Cronin, the GM of the Blazers, this is the most important trade he's ever going to make, right? He already hit the lottery that Charlotte took Miller over Scoot, so he ends up with Scoot third and has this once in a decade chance to build a really, really, really good collection of young assets around Scoot and Simons and Sharp

and the stuff they have already. Well, in that piece, they mention how Brooklyn likes Tyler Harrow. That's what Walsh said, which to me, I was like, oh, now this is a way we can get Dame to go to Miami because here's the trade. I think this is a pretty simple one, actually.

Brooklyn gets Kyle Lowry and Tyler Harrow. Miami gets Dame and they get Nurkic because you have to take Nurkic. Portland's not trading Dame without also trading Nurkic. She's like three years, 50 plus million left. And I'm sorry, but you're taking Nurkic, you're taking Dayton. He's the tax. So if you're Portland and you're getting a slew of picks, which I'll break down in a second, and you get Finney Smith from the Nets, really good wing player. You get Jovich from Miami, some potential, maybe get Jaquez. And then you'd have to take Ben Simmons to make the salaries work, right? And the question is,

is it still worth it to roll the dice with Ben Simmons? He turns 27 this month. He made an All-NBA third team a couple years ago. That's no small thing. We thought he was one of the best 15 players in the league a couple years ago. He was All-Defensive first team in 20 and 21. That was only two years ago.

He was the Rookie of the Year once. He's played in some big games, and he's been 21. That was only two years ago. He was the rookie of the year once. He's played in some big games. And he's been a mess for the last two years. And you have to ask yourself, A, is this a distressed asset that might actually become an asset for us? Let's put him in a small market on a rebuilding team around a bunch of young players

and just kind of unleash him and let him go. It's kind of what they need. They need a jack of all trades defense, unselfish guy. There's more than enough shots on that team already with Scoot and with Simons and with Grant. They don't need more offense. Roll the dice with it. $37 million this year, $40 million expiring next year. You do it this year and it doesn't work, then that helps you become a bottom five team anyway. You get another great draft pick. He gets you the salary cap for, which they're probably already close to it anyway. And then he's an expiring next year that you can trade or whatever. More importantly,

it allows them to get more picks out of this because I'm already getting from Miami everything everything they have, which is 24, 28, and 30 Miami first, a 29 pick swap, and Jovich. But then if I'm taking Ben Simmons from Brooklyn and Brooklyn's getting Hero, guess what? I want their Dallas first in 2029. I want their Phoenix first in 27 and 29. And all of a sudden, and maybe throw me like a swap down the road, all of a sudden, I have throw me like a swap down the road, all of a sudden,

I have like eight firsts and a swap and I got Fannie Smith back who I can flip if I need to. I got Jovich back, people like, although who knows, he might be the Roddy Bubo of this generation, just thrown into trade machines.

We have no idea if he's good. And I take a flyer on Simmons and if it works, I look like a genius. And if it doesn't work, then shit happens. And he's an expiring contract next year. I think this is the only way that he goes, Dame goes to Miami. And if I'm Brooklyn and I can end up with Bridges and Cam and Hero, three young guys that I can build around with a bunch of cap space next summer. I still have some of the Phoenix picks. I got rid of Ben Simmons. I'm thinking about it. So that's my first NBA six pack.

Would you trade for Ben Simmons? He's probably the least tradable contract in the league. Would you roll the dice with it if you're Portland and you're going nowhere anyway? So we'll start there. Second one, the phrase on the clock. I mentioned this on Sunday when I was talking to Ursula. I was saying how I was a little suspicious that Mark Lasry sold his share of the Bucs.

He was a co-owner, sold at a valuation of 3.5 billion two years before Giannis became a free agent. This to me is the all-time I'm selling high. This is like you're sitting at a blackjack table with somebody and everyone's killing it at the table and they change dealers and the guy goes, you know what, I'm going to cash out. And you look at the guy and you go, hmm, he's probably right, but I think I'm going to stay

at the table. I just bought a pack of cigarettes. I just got a drink. I'm going to try 20 minutes here with the new dealer. And then all of a sudden you're getting smoked and you look at the guy left and you're going, God damn, that guy knew something. Lazzari selling his share two years before Giannis leaves officially puts Milwaukee on the clock for me. Because if you feel like Giannis is going to be there for his whole career, why would you sell? He's got to be worth an extra billion plus in value to that team.

And I just think Milwaukee's on the clock now. I'm really interested to see how they build around this team beyond what they've already did, which they did continuity. They did Brooke Lopez. They brought him back. They brought back Middleton. They kept Drew Holiday. They were able to sign, I think they got Malik Beasley.

They're just going to do that swingman roulette thing again. And we'll see with Giannis, right? We're going to start hearing the on-the-clock phrase for him. I think we're going to start hearing with Luka and Dallas, right? Dallas is all in on Grant Williams, so we'll talk about it in a second.

But Dallas, they signed Kyrie to 38 and 42 for the next two years. They have, for the next two years, Hardaway, Grant Williams, Rashawn Holmes, Maxie Kleber, and JaVale McGee, all role guys at $62 million per year. They have Josh Green and Curry

and Lively, their first-round picks, and Omax at nice value. Those guys are like under 20, and then they still have their mid-level spot because Portland matched the Tybo contract. But they're paying $62 million for six guys who will never make an all-star team. That gives you pause.

They're paying $38 and $42 to Kyrie who has flamed out and blow-torched a bunch of situations over the last six years. And if this doesn't work, because they have Luka at 40, 43, and 46, if this doesn't work, if this gets off to the wrong start, however you think the worst case scenario is

if this goes and it goes that way, they're on the clock with Luka. What are they going to do? They have no more moves. They've already traded a couple picks. What's the next move? There is none. So they're on the clock.

And then the other team that's on the clock has to be the Clippers. They got the new arena opening in a year. Ballmer bought this team a few, I forget how many years ago. It's like eight and seven at this point. I'm going to build my own arena. We're going to go get Kawhi and Paul George.

None of it has resulted in a finals trip. They've never been able to keep those guys healthy. They now can trade. I think they're 28, 29, and 30 first round picks. They have Norm Powell as an asset. Terrence Mann is an asset. How desperate is he going to be over these next couple months with Harden? Because I think, as I said on Sunday,

Daryl's not going to trade Harden for a bunch of parts. He's going to want to get a star back somehow or a top 50 guy. How desperate is Ballmer going to be? Is he going to just keep increasing the ante to get Harden where it becomes like Terrence Mann and Norm Powell and two first-round picks? Is there going to be somebody else that pops up that he gets excited about?

Are they going to get on the Dame Lillard sweepstakes? I think the Clippers are on the clock. What happens if they suck again this year? And it's like, hey, here's our new arena. Do you want to see our two broken-down load management guys? Will they put Paul George on the table at any point for Dame? Is Paul George on the table at all? Do people want Paul George? I have the Clippers on the clock. That's my second one. Third one off of the Dallas thing. You notice Grant Williams signed and traded with Dallas.

And the Celtics got nothing back, which brings me to my third six-pack person. Joe Mazzola, who my dad calls second row Joe. He's definitely fired if there's a Miami sweep. Celtics got nothing back, which brings me to my third six-pack person, Joe Mazzola, who my dad calls Second Row Joe. He's definitely fired if there's a Miami sweep. After the season, there were excuses galore. I thought a lot of them were fair. He got thrown into a terrible situation. Last minute becomes the head coach of a team. Really doesn't have an assistant coaching staff where they lose Will Hardy, they lose Damon Stoudemire, they lose him. And, you know, all hell breaks loose during the playoffs. And you could come out of that,

and if they had fired him, I think the fan base would have been fine with it. But it also would have been unfair. And what you saw Brad Stevens do right after was he doubled down on Joe. He's like, this is my guy. Let's go get him a coaching staff, which they did.

They got him Sam Cassell, Charles Lee, a couple other behind the scenes people. And then there were two guys on the team that Joe didn't vibe with. Grant Williams and Marcus Smart for different reasons. Like Grant, you could just see it during the year. He's yanking his minutes around.

Just wasn't a Grant guy. Grant was getting DMPs in the first game of the Miami playoff series. DMP. Didn't play. So you kind of knew where that was headed. I was suspicious that they were going to match because they're playing eight figures a year for Horford and for Rob Williams.

Porzingis is making 30 a year. White and Brogdon are making 40 combined. Jalen's contract's coming. Tatum's already max guy. It just seemed far-fetched that they were going to be like, all right, cool. Let's get Grant Williams, who our coach doesn't even really seem to like. So they trade him. And then they trade Marcus a couple of weeks ago, which was the other guy that it was unclear how they were vibing, right? Marcus, as we talked about on this podcast and the Off the

Pike podcast, had a really outside voice in this locker room. He did not play that well last year. Derek White was better than him, but as we covered over and over again, he was in this situation where he had to play Marcus. You can't bench Marcus at crunch time. So they solved that problem. They solved two problems for Joe. And in the Grant Williams trade, didn't even get an asset back. They just got a bunch of second rounders. I would have personally taken the Reggie Bullock expiring and taken that 20-30 pick swap

that San Antonio got to facilitate the trade. I would have grabbed that. Thank you. I'll take it. We'll take Reggie Bullock for a year as a backup swing guy. We'll take that pick swap with Dallas in 2030 when Luca might not be on the team anymore. Instead, they kept the cap space open.

So by the time you hear this, they might have already done something, but it feels like something else is happening. And the bigger point here is that they're doing a lot of stuff to help make Joe Mazzulla succeed. A guy that I'm not sure can be a successful coach. And my fear is that we're going to look back a couple of stuff to help make Joe Mazzulla succeed. A guy that I'm not sure can be a successful coach. And my fear is that we're going to look back

a couple years from now, and this will be the, what the fuck were we doing that summer, summer? Where we're like, remember we had that terrible coach, and they decided it wasn't his fault, and they made all these moves to try to build a team that made more sense for him, and then it still turned out he wasn't a good coach. That's in play. Like the worst case

scenario for this team is the season starts. Poor Zingas, you know, gets hurt within the first six weeks, some dumb injury. The team can't guard anybody. Jalen gets the extension, but still doesn't seem totally happy about it. And the vibes are off. And you just kind of know by Thanksgiving, like, oh man, holy mackerel. This team took a huge risk. They had a real defensive identity in 2022

that they took from January to June when we were comparing them to the 2004 Pistons. That's how good they were defensively. And now Marcus, who wasn't the same guy since then, he's gone. Grant, who was really their Giannis stopper, the case for keeping Grant was he did a nice job on Giannis.

Nobody stops Giannis, but he did a nice job on him. He could also guard Jokic, which is nothing. They just looked at it and they're like, you know what? If you look at the rest of his stats, there's a lot of playoff games where he's playing like 29 minutes and he scores seven points,

he gets two rebounds, and we're not paying $50 million a year for that. I can't totally blame him. But I will blame them if Joe Mazzulla isn't a good coach in year two. Because year one, you can make the excuses. Year two, you can't. So we'll see.

We'll see if there's any more moves left. That's my third one. My fourth one is just a really quick one on Scoot, because he's going to be in Summer League, and I still feel like people are sleeping on him. I can't believe he didn't go second. I think we're going to come, this is my one prediction for Summer League. We're going to come out of summer league with people going, holy shit, Scoot's awesome. Wow. Scoot, can't believe it. And Scoot has a chance. A couple of things have broken his way here.

Charlotte takes Miller over him, chip on the shoulder time. There's all kinds of Wemby hype. So a slide under the radar. Team's not going to be that good. And now the Dame trade is in motion. So we're not going to have that awkward couple months where they're trying to coexist. Just a clear runway for somebody that I think has a chance to be a special guard. So we'll see if I'm right. Fifth one, Chet Holmgren. I know you saw the clips

a couple of days ago, him and Summer Lake. You look great. He's kind of the forgotten young guy right now. When I was doing my trade value, I had no idea where to put him. House was giving me shit. I think I had him in the low 40s, and House was saying, well, that's even too high. And then you watch him in the summer league. He looked like he put on some muscle.

He was doing some up fakes at the three-point line, driving the basket. He was around the rim. He was protecting the rim. He's plus 500 for the rookie of the year on FanDuel. The odds dropped a little bit, but man, if you're... I know

Wemby. Everyone's going to bet Wemby, and those odds are only going to go up, but Wemby's also 7'5". We see big guys. Who knows? They might get dinged up. There might be a load management thing. By February, they decide they're going for a top five pick and they just start benching him.

Chet's going to play. And I was thinking, if Chet is as good as some of our ringer people thought he was potentially, but also just how he's looking in these clips. And you think of what OKC had last year, where they just were like super small ball. They had no big guys. But everybody played so goddamn hard.

And everybody rebounded. And they were able to still go 500 somehow. And SGA was unbelievable. But now they have SGA, Jalen Williams, Josh Giddey, and hopefully Chet, which is the best young nucleus in the league if Chet's good. It just is. Those are, you would pick, can I have any four under 27 guys on one team?

You'd probably pick those four. There's a chance he might be as impactful as Wemby the first couple years anyway. And, you know, I hate to start shit, but, you know, OKC did steal a team from somebody else. This is the smallest market in the league. They have the smallest arena in the league. This is an arena.

And if you go, you can go Google Oklahoma City Thunder Arena lease. Go Google all the stuff. It's been a story there for a couple years. They want the taxpayers to pay for a new stadium. They want to keep the team. And the lease, I think, was up this year. They did a little three-year short lease extension. But I just wonder, again, I hate starting shit,

but I just wonder, you have the Bucks being evaluated or valued at $3.5 billion. You have Phoenix at $4 billion. What happens to this team when they have all these young assets? Like if I'm in Seattle, and I don't know if I'm going to be able to get an expansion team anytime soon

because I still think Seattle and Vegas are going to be the expansion teams if when it happens. But what if you get a little antsy in Seattle and you look at that OKC team with the assets they built, you have the lineage of they played in Seattle once upon a time. What does Clay Bennett, who owns that team, they have a couple other owners, one of them, the Chesapeake, whatever the hell it was, they've fallen on some hard times to say the least.

What does Clay Bennett do if Seattle just offers them like $5 billion for the team? We'll take it. Here's $5 billion. And what does the NBA do? And what happens if OKC wants to do it? What is the value of that team in a small market versus a big market?

And what if somebody just says, fuck it and overpays? That's how you get stuff. That's how Balmer got the Clippers. Remember back in the day, it was like, oh my God, Balmer? Yeah, the Clippers are probably worth one, two, one, three billion.

And it was like, no, they were actually worth two. That's how it played out. And what happens if somebody comes at them? If I was a rich dude, like a crazy, like multi-billionaire, I just want to go buy a team guy, I would start kicking the tires hard with OKC.

Come on, what's the price? Name a number. You can't name a number too crazy. I love the nucleus they have on this team. And if they stay in OKC, great. But that lease situation is at least a little interesting. So that's on my list. And then last but not least,

all right, I'm going to be the old guy for a second. There's been a lot of stuff about Dean Lillard being the greatest blazer of all time. And I've seen it in multiple places. I've heard people say it on TV that I thought followed basketball. I've seen it in print. It seems to be the general consensus

he's the best blazer ever. He's the third best blazer ever. I'm just gonna give you a history lesson. Bill Walton, who just had a four-part documentary on ESPN. Did it have to be four parts? Probably not. Could have been three. As you know, I love Bill Walton.

He was the epilogue of my book. I think he is the greatest what-if guy of the last 50 years. He was the best player on the planet for 18 months. How we feel about Jokic right now, we felt about Bill Walton all of the 77 season into the first 60 games of 78 when they went 50 and 10 and he got hurt and that was it. I had him when I did my book, I had him I think in the low 30s because it was like just the fact that he won a title in Portland with a team built around everything that he was great at. On paper, maybe the greatest center ever in terms of total package. Russell is the greatest center and Creed's the second best center. But if you're just talking about tools and ceiling and what a center can do on both ends, everything, doing the stuff Jokic did in the playoffs combined with shot

blocking and rebounding, he has to be the greatest Blazer ever. He's the only one that won them a title. I'm sorry. That wins. If you're going greatest Blazers career, Dame doesn't win that either. And this is where I become the old guy. What the fuck? Clyde Drexler. Were any of you there for that? Clyde Drexler was awesome. I have Clyde Drexler right now on my pyramid. He's 52 and I have Dame in the low 70s. Clyde was the MVP runner-up in 1992 to Jordan. Number two, Dame's never been, I think he was fourth once. Clyde made two finals in 1990 and 92 during, I think, the single most competitive time in the history of the league, 1990 to 1993.

Clyde and the Blazers beat the Lakers, date the throne, the Lakers. Only two teams did that in the entire 80s in the West, the 86 Rockets, who were a complete fluke with Sampson and Hakeem, and then the 90 Blazers. Clyde was basically 25, seven and seven for, and it felt like eight, nine years. This was the early days of fantasy basketball. He was always a first round pick. He was the second best guard of Jordan's entire generation.

He made the NBA team, first team once, second team twice, third team three times. He was on the 92 dream team. He finished his career in the 22, six, six club, 22K points, 6K rebounds, 6K assist. He was on the 92 Dream Team. He finished his career in the 22-6-6 club. 22K points, 6K rebounds, 6K assists.

Here's everybody who's done that. LeBron, Oscar, Kobe, John Havlicek, Russell Westbrook, Clyde Drexler. I had him 44th in my book when I wrote it in 2010 in the paperback. He's 52nd for me now. He got traded to Houston in 1995 and won a title with them with Hakeem Olajuwon on the 95 Rockets. I just feel like this stuff should matter. I don't know.

Call me nuts. He was an absolutely electric, electric open court player. Dominique was the best. I had him as kind of a poor man's Dominique from just taking off with the ball, going full court, dunking on three guys. He had the ability to absolutely supercharge his crowd in a really, really rare and unique way with an athletic play. The reason he gets dinged is that team,

that whole Blazers era was a little reminiscent of the Celtics in the last couple of years where they were kind of their own worst enemy at the worst possible times. And, um, they blew some games, like, especially you think that, that 90 finals, they were right there with the Pistons and just kind of shot themselves in the foot a couple times. 91, same thing. And just could never get over the hump. And he got blamed for that. He had a 58-game playoff run in 90, 91, and 92. They end up losing to the Lakers in 91, and then they get back to the finals in 92.

He's one of those guys who's a little like Dame. If he's your best guy I'm not sure you're winning the title but if he's your second best guy like he was in Houston in 95 he was overqualified so he was like that that kind of 1B superstar

and the big thing that killed him was the Jordan piece of it where Portland doesn't take Jordan because they already have Clyde Drexler. Well, that sucks. So that hangs over his head. He peaks in 92, where he was 25-7-7.

There was an actual Drexler-Jordan debate heading into that finals, which was nuts. And MJ completely obliterated him. And it was brutal for Clyde. It actually kind of sent him in a tailspin career-wise. But he got obliterated

by the greatest player of all time. Then they go to the dream team and it's the same thing. Like Jordan's still pissed that he was getting compared to Clyde. And there's a bunch of dream team stories about how he just goes at Clyde in a way where they actually had to,

like a couple other people were like, hey, you got to back off a little bit. He just went at him the whole playoffs. Magic was the one who pulled him aside and told MJ, yo, man, this guy's on our team. You're going after him. There's a famous story about Clyde took two left sneakers to a practice

but was so embarrassed that he just played in the two left foot sneakers. So the Jordan thing hangs over him. And ironically, he ends up winning the title in 95 because that was the year Jordan came back from playing basketball and didn't make it. The point is, we have to stop acting like basketball started when LeBron or Kobe came into the league. You can't say Dame's the best Portland Trailblazer ever when Drexler was on the Portland Trailblazers.

Dame has never won a game in the conference finals, right? So he made the conference finals once. It got swept. His career just wasn't as good as Clyde's so far. And he's actually played less years than Clyde did in Portland. And, you know, he had the two walk-off playoff series shots. He's one of the best three-point shooters of all time. They've had some bad luck on the team

from a roster standpoint, and I'm not dinging damn on that, but when people start throwing greatest around, just do some research. Clyde Drexler was awesome. I have him still on the fringe of my top 50. I had him at the tail end of level two. I think what was

interesting about him is because he just could never get over that hump of being like the 1A guy, which I think has happened to a lot of guys over the years, that's where you end up. He was tail end of level two in my book, and there was a level three and a level four, and then the Pantheon level five. I have Dame at the tail end of level one because we haven't even seen him win a conference finals game. That is one of the reasons I think he wants to get traded to Miami because he wants to do this on a big stage.

He wants to go to Miami and be in these games. I think he understands if none of that stuff happens, then ultimately, how do you remember your career? What are the highlights? How do people talk about it? I think he's probably sensing a little bit of that now. But I look at somebody like Drexler and we always talk about legacy, legacy, legacy.

Like Drexler's legacy was really good and we're talking about it incorrectly. So maybe legacy doesn't matter as much as we thought. All right, let's take a break and we'll come back with a little Philly talk. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl,

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Little Philadelphia 76ers and some other NBA stuff. Russell and I talked about Philly trying to figure out what the F they're doing. It's always really, it's one of my more heartwarming listens is when you and Ryan are talking about Philly. Like what's the plan? So I figured you're a lifelong Sixers fan.

You pop on Philly special with Raheem all the time to talk about them, but now we're in this mode of now it's out. This is what we said on Sunday. Daryl is not a guy who trades a star for parts. How does this play out? You have James Harden now who's played at what? 14, 15 million less than he was worth last year. Apparently had I had to do that again this year. And Daryl's doing the hardball thing. But he's doing hardball. This time, it's not with Ben Simmons, who's 24 years old,

coming off an all-defense season, all that stuff. This is James Harden, who wasn't awesome in the playoffs, who seems like he's aging, not that great, who makes a fair amount of money. And I don't think other teams in the league are like, oh, cool. Here's our top 40 for yours. So what happens? I think he goes back to the Sixers. I really do. I mean, I, and I'll tell you what, it's been such a weird week. I had this epiphany where it's like, we've done all these podcasts about where we know you want Norm Powell and Terrence Mann, or you want to do this or you want to do that. And it goes, it starts at Paul

George. And then you start talking yourself into want to do that. And it starts at Paul George, and then you start talking yourself into all these other things. And I saw all these pictures from Michael Rubin's white party. Yeah. And it's just Harden with Joel, Maxie, Tobias, and hanging out with Josh Harris, who owns the team, and looking like he's having a blast. And I'm like, do i take this stuff too seriously

yeah and like do it is like is he's just going to be back and like or do we all like kind of put all of this psychology onto these trades and onto these trade demands where it's like like are they just going to take him back and that's fine and there's just going to come back on a what a two plus one or something like that they can't extend him now though is the problem right well he'll opt in but like is he problem. Right, well, he'll opt in. But like, is- He already opted in. Yeah, I know.

He'll opt in, but is he going to like- They wink wink it. Yeah, and is it going to be one of those things where he basically like, is he going to show up 30 pounds overweight and pretend like his hamstring's torn like he did with the last two teams he played for? Or is this actually going to just be,

you know what? We tested the market. Maybe feelings got hurt, but it seems like we've all like water under the bridge and let's try it again. And that seems like what it's going to be. So you're saying his prior history of basically completely tanking, torpedoing two different teams has you a little worried. Yeah, absolutely. But it also seems like maybe like when we watch these trade demands take place in public, like the Lillard thing or whatever, then it's like behind the scenes. It's much more professional in business than we'd like to think it is. I think because the fans have such personal investment in the teams that we think it's all heartbreak.

But it's not. I think maybe it's just like Harden's just going to come back and be like, oh, well, I tried. And he'll be like, no big deal. Come on back, James. But that happened last year with Durant. Of course it did, yeah. Where he kind of came back and it was like. I tried to get the coach fired.

Okay. Yeah, right. Sorry, buddy. Let's go. Let's play some ball. I think the difference, and this is why I think with Portland, with the Dame situation, they don't end up trading him this summer. You're leveraging somebody's love for their sport

kind of against them. Yes. Where KD, he just likes basketball too much. He wasn't going to sit out until they traded him. He respects the game too much. Yeah. And I think Dame is wired the same way. So Portland knows they have that.

I did think there was that part in that Woe story today about where Aaron Goodman's like, be careful. Yeah, you're trading for an unhappy player. You'd be trading for an unhappy guy. It's like, okay, that's fine. But I just think Dame loves basketball, whereas Harden, I'm not sure sometimes.

Right. And that's where it gets dangerous for Philly because you have this Embiid window and Harden can say whatever he wants now, but what happens if he comes back in October? He's 30 pounds overweight. Right. He starts pulling the James Harden stuff

and now you've lost another. Or if he just like winds up playing for Nick Nurse and Nick Nurse is like, you have to move without the ball. And he's just like, I don't know if you've seen my tape. I don't do that. You know, like that'll be like a real like

rubber hits the road moment for the team. Are we sleeping on the Nick Nurse piece of this too? You know, the guy won the title. Yeah. Oh, you mean to fix him? No, just in general. Like when was the last time you had like a really good, innovative coach?

Yeah. And well, he also, Nick Nurse comes from like the Houston, he was a Houston G League or D League coach back in the day. Yeah. He comes from the Daryl school of thought. Like there is presumably an idea there where they're like, we know how to maximize James in a way that Doc maybe didn't. Would you see like he's coaching your G League team?

I love Doc. Doc's not coaching the G League team. I know. Doc's like, hey man, I'm going away. Let me know how it goes. Send me some clips. I know. Jaden Springer, who's like a big Sixers fan favorite.

We're like, why didn't Doc ever play this kid? Yeah. He's like, yeah, you know, Nick was out there stopping drills, showing us how to do things differently. I had never had that before. And it's like, oh, shit. That's hilarious. We were in that with Doc with the Celtics. had that before. And it's like, oh, shit. That's hilarious. We had,

we were in that with Doc with the Celtics. There was this Rondo's first year when we were terrible. And he just really didn't play Rondo that much.

And we were like, wait, there's something here with that Rondo guy. And didn't really fully understand it. And then Rondo, they needed him

and he became Rondo. But he's that old generation of like, he proved to me, I think Steve Kerr's like this. Rolled the ball out. He's that old generation of prove to me. I think Steve Kerr is like this. Roll the ball out. Hey rookie, prove to me you can earn minutes on my court and play defense

and do all the right things. I think you're right. I think a combination of Daryl's stubbornness and the fact that the media and our whole culture of how we deal with this stuff probably blows this stuff out a little bit. Harden opting in, hoping to force Philly Sand, but also knowing he's not getting that money anywhere else. None of the principals in this story have given like an on-record

interview where they're like, here's what's happened. This is all conjecture. It's all sources say. It's all like reporting from anonymous sources about Harden's camp, Sixers camp, whatever. Yeah. So I really don't know what the truth is in this. You know, it sounds like Harden made a pretty impulsive decision to opt in, you know, without knowing that he didn't have the Houston offer. It sounds like he opted in to just be like,

well, fuck you guys. You guys figure it out. You know, like, I don't want to be here. Now trade me to the Clippers. It'd be funny if he opted in at like two in the morning. He'd been out all night. He's like, fuck these guys, I'm opting in. And then the next day he's like, what did I do? Do you think the opt-in is like buying something on Instagram? You in at like two in the morning. He'd been out all night. He's like, fuck, he's got some opting in. And then the next day he's like, what did I do?

Do you think the opt-in is like buying something on Instagram? You're just like, I opt in. I have an app. It's like when you buy something on eBay or something. The next day you're like, wait, I just bought the entire Godfather set on Blu-ray. I already have it. I don't have a Blu-ray player. I don't have a Blu-ray player anymore.

Yeah, I wonder if it gets a little heated. There's some posturing, but ultimately he stays. And if he stays, it's great for Philly. You got him at a good price. Yeah, I wonder if it gets a little heated. There's some posturing, but ultimately he stays. And if he stays, it's great for Philly. You got him at a good price. You don't have to pay him long term. Somebody was talking recently about the longer this goes on, the more the Clippers

come into play, I think, where it's like maybe they start thinking more about, do we really want to run this back because I think Zach and Hollinger were talking about this where the Clippers haven't done anything and that

like as the Western Conference teams get stronger and stronger especially the Lakers they might have to look in the mirror and be like so we're just going to do this again but without Eric Gordon right

and basically hope that this is the year those two guys stay healthy I think I did that in the first segment about Balmer, that there's a desperation with them. There's some on-the-clock stuff this year, but with them, it's, will the fan base accept,

all right, year five, maybe this will be the year everything falls into place. And I think Harden would be a great Clipper. I honestly do. I think he's like, it's the perfect player for the franchise. Well, if you were able to get Powell and Mann and like two of their firsts for James Harden, like some 130 cents in the dollar trade.

Yes. This is what I was like for Simmons too. So I think I'm in the minority of Sixers fans. Yeah. Where I would have been fine with like CJ McCollum and some other stuff, or, you know, I got obviously Halliburton would have been the dream in retrospect, but I'm fine with Harden for Terrence Mann and Norm Powell. You know, like that to me actually works pretty well within the Sixers. Like Terrence Mann and Tyrese Maxey as a backcourt sounds pretty good. Yeah. All the

Clipper fans loved him. Would you, I know you said, or the team said that they wouldn't trade Maxie. Yeah. But would you be shocked if all of a sudden one day you woke up and it was like Harris and Maxie and two firsts and two swaps for Dame and that trade is in? Daryl's not from like South Philly. Like he's like, I'm here to make a championship team. And it's like your sentimental attachment to these guys is irrelevant. Do you believe in Maxie as like a legitimate asset? Yeah. For sure. So the Sixer fans would have been happier if you just

traded Harden for Powell and Mann in the first. I know. I think I'm a little bit in the minority. No, but like if it actually happens, once it settles, I actually think the Sixer fans should be okay with that. Especially if Maxie continues to progress.

It's a car keys. It's like what the Celtics did with Derek White. Yes. Where part of the belief in Derek White was, we've now gotten rid of Marcus Smart. Here are the car keys. Right. There's no awkward,

who do we close with? Who gets the ball in the last five minutes? If you were Maxie and Harris last year, were you psyched? Were you like fired up to be on that team? Well, that's what I would think. But then you look at them and they just like, you see them at the white party and they're just like, yeah, this is our guy, Jim.

This is James. We're hanging out. It's cool. Him and Kyrie are the two guys that just with the people around them, they seem to just be liked and they're defended. And it's a lot of like, you don't understand. Am I like that? Am I like that for you and Sean and those guys? You don't understand Bill when you're around him. He's a magnetic presence. He's so much. No, no, you don't get it. You don't get it. But it is crazy.

Like you would think, especially after last year, that's one of the weird things about sports now is it's so constant. Like we saw this with Buffalo last year. They lose in 13 seconds to the Chiefs. It's this devastating game.

And then the next year, like, you know, it was the favorites, the Bills. Yes. You know, the Bills are going to be fine. And we just kind of moved on

from that loss. And I do feel like I could see this happening with the Sixers. Where by the time we get to September, people are talking themselves into it. Yeah. It's like,

well, I know we completely fell apart in the last two games and we got absolutely spanked in Boston in game seven. And, but we changed coaches and the new offense. And then you just kind of talk yourself back into it. Yeah. And like,

I feel like the advanced stats models, predictor models, like always love the Sixers. You know, so it's always like, oh, the Sixers, third best chance, you know? Right, look at them from November to February last year. They were on a 68-win space. After Christmas, they were basically the Warriors. Yeah.

I personally would break up the Embiid-Hardin combo. Yeah, but I do think that this is the last time you can do this to him without it being Joel who's asking out. Like, I don't see how many more times you can rebuild a team with this guy. I know that changes the constant in the NBA now, but it just feels like if you're Embiid

and you were on iteration number six of this team in your prime, you might just be like, come on on guys. Like this is- Well, the process officially started 10 years ago. I was doing that draft. It was Michael Carter Williams.

They drafted him. They traded Drew Holiday for two firsts and it seemed like a good trade. It was and New Orleans came into that, right? Yeah. New Orleans was involved. And then I don't think we fully knew what was about to happen. And then all of a sudden it goes well the process in some ways really starts when he trades Michael Carter Williams right oh

yeah oh my god like this is just full turning it over all the time yeah the Drew Holiday trade in retrospect was pretty good value but now you think I don't think anybody knew what was going to happen with him yeah and the Carter Williams I never, I never told I understood that. Tobias would be the other big piece with this. Sure. 39.2 million. I think he's going to have a good year and you can attach him to basically any trade for any salary. And it makes sense. I don't know. I would have sniffed around if it's, there's a lot of the stuff I just didn't get with the summer of this year, but some of the free agency like San Antonio they took out they used their cap to basically

get well how it turned out actually I guess made sense so maybe they're smarter than I am they end up stumbling into Reggie Bullock who I like free agent they get a pick swap they get Seti Osman from the Cavs and that was kind of how they used their cap space I would be

way more proactive with the restricted guys. Then the counter would be, well, you know, Dallas just did that with Tybo and then poor the match. That's why you don't go in on all the restricted guys. In the history of making those offers on restricted guys, how often has it ever turned out that the guy winds up going to the team who made the offer? You got to overpay for the guy.

Yeah. Right? It's like, didn't Memphis do that with Chandler Parsons? That was one of them. Right. Or maybe, Oh, maybe Houston, Houston did it. Jeremy Lin, Jeremy Lin, Omer, she combo. Yeah. And they poison pill staggered it and did that whole thing. All right. So we think Philly is going to stay the same. I, at this point. Yes. So if I gave you stay the same or be different, you would bet stay the same. I bet stay the same because I also think Daryl wants to stay the same.

I think he's probably thinking, now I've got my guy. Push Nick Dursard. Yeah. Clippers, I don't think will stay the same. Okay. I don't know what Miami does at this time. I guess they're just going to wait on Dame. Wait on Dame.

Wait for Portland to break. So can Dame drag into January? Can this become like a kind of all season thing? It could. You think we'll get a little Kyle Lowry October stories? Best shape of his career? Tyler here was hurt when he was in trade rumors, but now he's rededicated himself.

He's put Miami's back in his Instagram bio. That Dame last, the fourth year when it's like 63 million, it's kind of underrated. Yeah, but if you're a team that doesn't care, if Miami doesn't care about that.

Well, they're going to care when they're paying three guys 160 million or whatever it is. Yeah. Because Butler's at like 55. Yeah, but they're going to have- And the Dame's going to be at 40. Yeah.

Although the cap goes up, I think 10%. I don't know. It's just, I do not know who I would pick coming out of the East right now. Certainly doesn't seem like you're going to pick Boston. I'm waiting for the next move before we start. I was looking at my phone.

I was like, what the fuck are we doing? Yeah. So what's the latest? The last was Grant Williams last night, right? Is there something, nothing else happened today? There's just stockpiling stuff. That's the part I don't get. They're grabbing like seconds and they have these first

and this flexibility to do something, but I don't know what the something is. But what's like, who's available? I don't know. It's probably somebody on a team. Is the team trying to get involved in a Dame Miami trade as the third team to get some stuff? Is that what's happening? I don't know. It's probably somebody on a team. Is the team trying to get involved in a Dame Miami trade as the third team to get some stuff? Is that what's happening?

Maybe. I mean, basically, they have two wings and no backup wings at all unless the second round pick, Jordan Walsh, can play. They have three bigs, one of whom's 37, and the other two haven't proven they can stay healthy for multiple years. They got rid of Smart.

So Brogdon, they're going to need him. Nobody knows if he's going to be able to play this year. Or how psyched he's going to be after he's been traded. They're missing. Like you let Smart and Williams go because you know there's this piece coming in that's going to take those minutes. And they still haven't done the Brown deal. They still haven't signed Jalen to the extension we're taping this

in early afternoon July 6th and they have not done the deal and I don't have an answer on that either all these other deals got done in the first two days Anthony Edwards

LaMelo Ball Sabonis extension where's the Jalen Brown extension is there any reason to like is there like a timing thing for Jalen where it's like

we do a trade first and then do Jalen or something like that or nothing? No. Conspiracy Bill just feels like they're watching this Dame thing. Right. And wondering what it means. What are your in-season tournament takes?

They released a date. December 7th, December 9th, Las Vegas is the final four. I think it'll be cool. You know, I think that the league itself needs something spicy like this, like a little bit of an extra wrinkle, a little bit of a curveball.

I think that... So you're actually going to care because I don't think I will. I think I will, especially because my Sixers fandom is now starting to boil down to like,

wake me up... This is when you peak. In game five or six of, that's not fair. Wake me up in game six of the second round. Mr. December is here. No, but I'm just saying like, I need something else to look at.

Like if you're in this situation I'm in where it's like, oh, like the team is basically playing out the exact same season every year. 50 plus wins. Oh, poor you with your 16-1 Eagles team. Everyone feels bad. The entire Georgia defensive unit is crushing everybody. Jalen Hurts, your second round pick.

My take is nobody in Philly is going to care about the Sixers at all until the NFL season's over. Yeah. I think that's the one thing that's happened over the last couple of years is the Eagles have blown them out. The Sixers team last year benefited from the fact that the Eagles were on a crazy run and the Phillies were in the World Series. So nobody paid attention to that first month. Wow. Yeah, they had that rocky first three weeks or something. And this year, nobody's going to care. I have a bunch of Philly people in my life somehow.

And the sense I get. You hired them all. Well, some of them work here. I know some people in the past, but the sense I get from everybody is they're just kind of so tired of this kind of era. Like, just give us some resolution one way or the other.

Yeah. Are we just going to chug along again and lose in the second round and then make excuses or something going to happen? You and Ryan were like rattling off the Pacers roster. Yeah. That sounds pretty fun. Sounds pretty like solid. Right.

Just like, let me just cheer for Benedict Mather. Well, I did something at the top like that. OKC roster with Chet and Jalen Williams and Giddy and SGA and then all those other guys

they have. It's like that's, that's, that would be like the number one roster you would draft if it wasn't like a Jokic or Gideon.

Oh, that's a season tickets roster. That's like a, I'm going to save up and get season tickets to go see these guys play like 80 games, you know? I don't think the in-season thing is going to work. Okay, why? I don't know what the stakes are. They're like, everybody's going to make money. Do we care if players make more money?

Like, I certainly don't. Well, it doesn't have to. We're going to be in the beginning part of the history. I mean, the FA Cup in England is like, it's important because it's old. So like, this is new. This is going to be, it's going to take some time for this to be cool. I think we're going to get one. Oh my God, are the Magic going to win this thing?

And we're all going to be like completely addicted to it. Really? Yeah. Yes. I hope you're right. Yeah. Tournament basketball is good. Like, it's just going to be fun.

A Final Four for these, the NBA, that's really cool. But what are the stakes? Who cares, Bill? Like, aren't you tired of being like, okay, this first game was cool

and now we have to wait until the fifth game for somebody to lose on the road for it to really matter in the first two rounds of the playoffs. I would care way more

if it was a 70 game season and they had this tournament and there were huge stakes. Oh, I definitely think there's too much basketball and they should have dropped, they should have done this in conjunction

with shaving off games for sure. But I think that we are underrating what's going to happen if it's like, oh, the Warriors and the Pacers are in the finals

and it's just like one game and Carlisle can just throw the kitchen sink and like, is Steph going to play 45 minutes or is it going to be like, I think it's going to be fascinating. Or somebody ruptures their Achilles or tears a knee. People are like, this blood is on Adam Silver's hands. Yes, we're going to get that.

We're going to have that. That could be that scenario too. I think they should- You're going to be into it. If the Celtics are in the final four of this thing, you're going to be into it. If the Celtics are in the final four of this thing, you're going to be into it. Yeah. Tell me what the stakes are.

It's kind of cool in the, in the, in England when they do these cups in the, in the premier league or in, you know, in the entire country participates in them pretty much in the opening rounds. It's usually like the really young players are playing.

Yeah. So you're going to get like the Peyton Pritchard led Celtics maybe in the early rounds of this. And it might be kind of like, oh, it's kind of fun. Like the, like the US men's soccer team. We played that country. I didn't even know it was a country. And then we had guys out there I'd never heard of.

Women's World Cup, scale one to 10. How excited are you? Oh, like eight. I love tournament football. It's great. Yeah. I can't wait. I'm like a 10.

Yeah. I love the Women's World Cup, but Alyssa's playing this year. I mean, she went to my son's high school. She was the greatest high school soccer player, at least of the last 20 years. It's kind of wide open this year because England, who's one of the favorites, has had a bunch of injuries. So they're really short-handed.

So it's going to be a pretty exciting tournament. And it seems like our women's team is caught between two eras. Yeah. They haven't really gotten rid of, you know, the Wombat generation. They're still kind of lingering, but they should really be ushering in this new generation. I think Alyssa has a chance to become like a real thing. A big player. Yeah.

I can't figure out if they're actually going to play her. Like for the people listening who don't know like she's there's like not Tiger Woods potential but really there's Alyssa Thompson has a chance to be the best women's player we've ever had yeah I think that's in play right that's fair yeah it's actually a pretty cool time for both

of those national teams because the USMNT the men have introduced this guy Florian Balgun who's from Arsenal this guy, Florian Balgun, who's from Arsenal. This guy? Yeah. Yeah, we finally won against... Yeah?

What are you talking about? I watch all those games. I texted you during a game you weren't even watching. Yeah, it was like a Saturday night. Yeah, it was like, man, that's my team. I'm sorry, I'm patriotic. But yeah, the men's team has actual speed and skill now in like a crazy way if you showed this team

to you 20 years ago you'd have been like what's going on what country is this but they've actually seemed to have like fully like you're talking about

in between eras I feel like they are finally starting to like shake off the last era and it's like this is Pulisic just with the old coach

McKinney yeah well that's Gio Reyna's problem not ours well they still have Pulisic just with the old coach McKinney yeah well that's Gio Reyna's problem not ours well they still have Pulisic doing the

corner kicks until that ends until our national nightmare ends with his corner kicks I'm just telling you I know you don't like that but it's not like he is not like

a goal threat on headers I just like if they could get in the box that would be nice you're not with me on this? I just think that he that's the function he serves because of like what he's good at. Okay.

Yeah. Disagree. Okay. We're good at soccer, it seems like. Yeah. It's coming home. The Cubs, we're the next Cup place. So that's going to be really fun.

Can't wait. I'm also excited for the Olympic basketball next year. Are you going to watch the World Cup? Did you see the World Cup team? The FIBA World Cup team? Oh, our team. And it's like Villanova plus. Yeah, it's awesome.

There's some fun. I was messing around with some fun lineups I was getting excited about. And I was like, oh, I'm going to enjoy this. It seems like they're one offense first guy too many. But other than that, I kind of like the matchup. It's exciting. I can't tell who's playing for the other teams.

It seems like Joker's playing. For Serbia? Yeah. Oh, wow. I mean, that's, I don't know for a fact,

but that was the word in the street. That'll be really cool. So that'd be fun. Or he might not show up. It's like Josh Hart and Jalen Brunson are on this FIBA team, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Palo. Yeah. Austin Ree Palo. Yeah. Austin Reeves, my guy. Oh, that's right. That's right. That's who it was. I was like, oh yeah, this is fun. I had some Laker fans give me shit.

People in my life about like, oh, Austin Reeves, four for 98, huh? He took a little less, didn't he? I'm like, it's not my fault the league is stupid. Like Kuzma gets 102. Cam Johnson gets 108. Kuzma gets 102. Cam Johnson gets 108. Austin Reeves gets 56. He's not as good as those guys?

He's going to be in Space Jam 3 or something. You think he's under the table? I just wouldn't be surprised if he had a Spring Hill development deal in the works. The Austin Reeves story? Yeah. A 10-part docuseries? The last dance. All right, CR.

Eagles prediction before we go? Like, just for the season? Like, if they don't win the Super Bowl, is it a loss for you? No, because I think while it'll be sad to see Kelsey and those guys not get another ring or whatever,

I think that this is a team built for the future. What does that mean? I mean, look, we have the entire Georgia defense plus Devontae, like, Jalen, like, all the guys we have are, like, entering their prime,

not, not out of it. What is the over under for wins for you guys? I'm looking this up now. 12. Is it 12? I don't know. 11 and a half.

That feels like an over. Smash the over. What happened? Yeah. I mean, the Giants got worse, right? Yeah.

The Cowboys, same. Commanders are basically... But we play the AFC this year. AFC East. So it's going to be a little bit of a gauntlet. Oh, you're going to fucking juggernaut. Yeah. Come on in. Come into our world. All right, CR. You can hear CR on The Watch

and on The Big Picture. And most importantly for me on The Rewatch because we're doing courtroom month. Good to see you. See you, man. Liquid IV powder helps you turn ordinary water into extraordinary hydration so you can live a more extraordinary life. Live more with Liquid IV Hydration Multiplier. Available in refreshing lemon, lime, passion fruit, and strawberry flavors. Buy a stick in store at Costco, Walmart, Amazon, and other Canadian retailers. Upper Canada College inspires boys from senior kindergarten to year 12 to find their passions and realize their potential. An IB World School, UCC offers a supportive environment, cutting-edge facilities, and a best-in-Canada financial assistance program. UCC, a place where tradition, excellence, and innovation meet.

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This is what BHP has committed to Canada. The future is clear. It's happening now at BHP, a future resources company. To discover how, visit bhp.com slash better future. All right, Wesley Morris is here. He flew cross country to be on the rewatchables because we're doing courtroom month. So he's popping on a couple of those. But we both watched The Idol. You and me and Chris Ryan seem to be the only people in my life that watched every episode of the show.

It was mostly reviled. It didn't end very well. Here's my take, Wesley. Okay. I'm really glad this show existed I like that they took a big swing it didn't work I appreciated

the swing and I want more people to do stuff like this and it's okay if it doesn't work that's where I've landed it's okay that the idol didn't. That's where I've landed. It's okay that the idol didn't work. We're all okay.

We're going to get past this. I thought Lily Rose Depp was great. I actually kind of liked her. I thought she felt that way after the first three, even the last two. I just think she's a star. It was a hot mess the whole time, the show. I kind of enjoyed watching it. I was mad the last 15 minutes just it lost the narrative for me yep but for the most part we just don't see shows like this anymore and now when i when something like this fails then i just get worried nobody's gonna

even try anymore okay i am almost 100% with you. Where are you, Nada? What percent? What's holding you back? I actually am mad at this show because I think... I mean, I don't know what was happening behind the scenes. There's been some reporting. I've read some of it. I did a conversation with Jim Ponowozik and and lindsey zolatz for the times about this show and you know they clued me into some things that i would not have known about because they were following some stories that were written about like the showrunner change yeah all that

stuff i didn't know anything about that but you can see it in the show the thing that makes me angry is about the show itself is that it has one of the great first episodes of a television show i liked it too i was surprised that it was polarizing that first episode is so funny and sad and well acted satirical and all the actors are on the same page everybody's on the same show and the ways in which the personalities are different is just contributing to the larger air of indictment of an industry right yeah there's also just the fact that the choreography which is basically seems like it's just taken from Britney Spears, is sexy. And just watching those bodies move in that heat under that sun on that grass is erotic. And yet it's not erotic for its own sake.

It's like a piece that's going into some larger puzzle somewhere else. So you watched the first episode and you thought this show is going somewhere. I was like, what are y'all talking about? And there's this other thing that is like, there's three other things that are wonderful about that pilot. Is it even right to call it a pilot? I don't know what, I mean the first part of this thing

that probably should have just been a two hour movie. But, as you know I'm a big fan of group chaos. Yeah. In a, like, organized way, like, whether it's a dinner party sequence, a gala, a rehearsal.

I love things where a bunch of people have to do different things in a space and talk to each other behind closed doors, in front of everybody else. I love that kind of stress. And this first episode really does that. But the other thing that I like about it is that there's a mystery, Bill,

that very few people have seemed comfortable talking about, which is that the animating crisis of this episode and seemingly of the show is who came on this girl's face. That seemed like what the show was about. Right. Everybody was wondering, was this going to ruin her career? How did this information get out there? Who did this?

So we went from who shot J.R.allas to who shot who shot on jocelyn yeah we're not ready as a culture for the people who were watching this show anyway to really talk about the discomfort of a thing that just happens on the internet not infrequently sadly but that's what the show seemed to be about to me a kind of opportunity to think about like sledge shaming what the show is talking about right the show wants to talk about it until it doesn't because after that by the time that second episode happens that's not really the issue anymore yeah issue now all of a sudden becomes a weekend show it becomes a show about i don't know what and that's the problem too like i don't know what this show becomes i don't it's about i mean we're told he's if you have to tell me you're a cult leader

then i don't you're not doing a very good job of being a cult leader i totally i couldn't agree more with the cumshot piece because it brings in all of this other stuff. Like right now, Jennifer Lawrence is promoting, or she was promoting her rom-com movie, right? And she has a nude scene in the movie and she's pretty open in the interview. It's like, well, everybody's seen him anyway. And the reason is because like her phone got hacked and there was a bunch of Jennifer Lawrence pictures. And I thought in that first episode, I thought they were going that way. It's like when something terrible happens like this

in 2023 versus in 1996, when it seemed like the biggest thing in the world, like Pam Anderson sex tape. Oh my God, this is out there. This is going to ruin her career. Or Chloe Sevigny, the brown bunny when that happened and the way it was dissected and does this ruin her career? And now it's like this carnage that people kind of, they see and they

move on from, it doesn't seem career ending. And I thought that's where the show was going. It's like, oh, actually in a weird way, this might be the best thing that happened to her career because it gave her this danger. So I was like, whoa, they're really going here and exploring what stardom is now. It was exciting. And then they just went away from it. So I was like, whoa, they're really going here and exploring what stardom is now. It was exciting. And then they just went away from it. And I think that there was a way, you know, there's a Jane Addams,

one of the many good actors on this show. Fucking great on this show. Jane Addams is really good as, what is she? The PR, the label person? Yeah. She's at the record label. And she's like, oh, I mean, in the very deadpan Jane Addams sort of way.

Oh, come on. Like, we've all had come on our face. When has that not happened? We've all been there. And I'm like, Jane, you ain't lying. Right. The difference is nobody put mine on the internet. Right.

Well, remember at one point in the pilot, they say, why don't we make that the album cover? Yes. No, it's not the pilot. Or the second episode. It's like the third episode. And I'm like, oh, you remember this happened now. Yeah. And really, that information is the second episode, right?

It doesn't come up in this sort of cult situation. This is actually Jane Addams being like, you know what we do? We make this the album cover. The show just got really confused about what it was satirizing, whether it was a satire. And if it was a satire, who exactly should we be aiming all this sort of,

what is it, who and what is this an indictment of? Well, you're asking what was the point of this show yes and i i'm trying to think from i i think euphoria is an incredible show yes i agree we've talked about it it's a great show you're giving sand the benefit of the doubt sam levitt's the guy who does it it's like what's he trying to do with this show from the start the interesting piece is the weekend piece because it seems like the weekend was like really really really really really involved and that there was a purple rain element to this that i think he loved purple rain he's mentioned this in some of the press about it like basically i was thinking he's thinking

purple rain that guy's kind of a loathsome character, but you're captivated by him anyway. Which I think is what he was trying to do with this character in this, except he's just kind of sweaty and awful. But what if it was actually The Weeknd, right? Like, what if the show is actually about this other pop star who's like, hey. Like, should he have been the pop star? Well, what if it was about two famous people, right? Right. What if it was about this other very much more famous person, like a serious artist who also had this freaky deaky side?

Yeah. And put it in the music. He's more Prince than R. Kelly in terms of the problems. Right. But what if some girl pop star falls under this boy pop star's sway? So it's like a star is born gone wrong. Well, a star is born where the other person is also a star and not one being made, but one being reframed, refashioned, rethought, who's ready for that kind of rethinking where the hunger is changed right they keep giving you this the thing about about lily rose depth that i find interesting in that

first episode is the scene you you're watching something i feel having watched a zillion european movies you feel like you've seen a thousand times which is like a very vacant actor sit in front of a camera and seem to be doing nothing as all this chaos is happening around her. And then stuff starts happening. And then stuff starts happening from within her. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, this person who I've never seen before, this person is interesting to me.

That's how I felt. I'm now feeling this person is not just some vacant body upon which all these ideas are being projected. This is now going to be a person who is going to have her own ideas about how to like the actor playing the part is going to have ideas. Then the part itself is going to that character is going to have ideas. Yeah. But that never seemed to happen, right? The tension and the unpleasant tension of the show is how much is this actor being allowed to do

and how much do the people writing this show understand who this character is that this actor is supposed to play? Well, and then the other piece is the first show was so good i thought that then you're comparing everything we're seeing after that to the first show which was really carefully thought out and executed then all of a sudden it wasn't executed well at all and i don't know what we're doing i'm like well all right i'm gonna trust the process here

and even when we got to the fourth episode, which had the shock collar and all the crazy cult stuff. And it was like, that was when I was thinking, I was saying to my wife, like, I don't think they know what this show is anymore, but I'm still going to give it the brim for the doubt. And then we get to the fifth episode. It's like, oh, okay.

We've circled around. It was reset for you. Well, because I thought it was going a certain way. And then the last 15 minutes completely undermined that. And by the time we got to the credits, I was just like, what just happened? Why did the show exist?

What was the point of the show? Well, that he got her to unleash the side, the creative side of her that was lurking there all along. And she felt indebted to that. So even though he was a fucking crazy coke leader with all this baggage and she ruined his life she still felt indebted to him and now it's them together it just doesn't that's the point i feel like somebody read some some interesting psychoanalytic history some like really read you know what a bully is what

a cult leader is like some some real case studies yeah about the psychological profiles of people who who get people to fall under their command and i think it tried to sympathize in some way with those people. Like, what makes a bully a bully? Like, what are the worst things we can tell you about Tedros, whose name we're told at some point is Tedros Tedros? Right. But then that's not even his name. It's like Mauricio something.

Right, Mauricio Jackson. But the bullying scene at the end of episode 3 at the dinner table which is like 15 minutes I thought that scene was a great scene yeah where you're watching him

manipulate his surroundings and just the weekend who's been a very polarizing actor I think for the public or most people are like he fucking sucks

he's not a good actor he's good in that scene and he's he's using the room and he's playing people off each other and he's just kind of staring at people I thought that was a good scene so that gave me hope for the last two

and then the wheels came off i never believed that character because i don't think the show understood who the character was and i think the problem is yeah what was the character was. And I think the problem is... Yeah, what was the character? There was a... There's probably a degree of vanity involved, right? Because for as much as The Weeknd probably wanted to make this guy a real asshole, for as much as maybe somebody did, I don't know who would have most wanted to

take the character to all the dark places the character probably should have gone. Yeah. In order to be an effective villain or in order to create a better tension among these characters. But I feel like The Weeknd at the end of the day

is one of the biggest pop stars on the planet and could not go all in. Couldn't agree more, which is how we ended up with the last 15 minutes. Right. Right. Cause this guy's like,

could this be a redemptive arc? Yes. Yes. Yes. But really it should have ended with that guy being shunned at the door. A hundred percent. And then he walks away sadly. Or worse.

He probably has done some, I mean, listen, I'm not going to, I don't want to sit here and like talk about sending a black man to prison but you know the way the show is writing about this character

where he tries to kill her in the concert there's so many interesting dramatically interesting places for the show to have gone before it to end with this whimper it was it was one of the worst endings of any show I can ever remember. But Bill, did you not think at the beginning of episode five,

where she's suddenly a completely different person? Well, but it seemed like- That it was a dream? No, it seemed like there was an episode missing. Yeah, probably. We went from episode- I heard there was supposed to be six episodes. I think they, and I don't know this and nobody's told me,

but I think there was six episodes. I think they just and I don't know this and nobody's told me, but I think there was six episodes. I think they just got rid of five. I think five was probably when she turned on him. Because when we get to the last episode, she's already kind of turned on him. Yes. In season 40 was. I just think the upside of this was so strange for the weekend. And he's in the credits in multiple places. Songs.

The songs are his. He's doing all the songs. This seemed like this was like a two-year odyssey for him to get this show and play this character. And I swear, it's like Purple Rain got in his head. Where he's like, oh, the Purple Rain guy. I mean, people like that guy, right? That guy wasn't great. The whole message of Purple Rain is like,

oh, we got to have this guy, the kid, learn how to basically not beat his girlfriends and be like his dad. But Bill, at the end of the day, the great thing about Purple Rain is that you are actually

watching a genius be a genius. That doesn't excuse any of the treatment of the people in the movie. The darling Nikki scene is like one of the great scenes of the 80s. There's nothing in this from anybody except Chloe. Yeah. Chloe and Moses Sumney, we all, I mean, anybody who knows who Moses Sumney is, knows that he is a talented performer.

Yeah. But in the world of the show, the only people who you can see talent that kind of excuses either the lapses in judgment in Chloe's case or like the actual sort of creepy immoral behavior in Moses Sumney character's case. Talent really will get you out of a jam. Well, that's that Lily Rose Depp when she performs for Eli Roth. Right. She's amazing in that scene. That's the only time I believed or was interested in her as a performer. Yeah. Yep.

And this movie, if it wants to be Purple Rain, is missing the point. I like that you called it a movie because it kind of was a movie it's a tv show no but it's basically a movie right and i think it's funny because i when you're talking about sam levington i wonder if there wasn't like an emmy party or an oscar party where the two of them met in the corner of a room. Yeah. Had a little conversation and the weekend was just talking. It's like purple rain crossed with the stars born. And Sam Levinson, basically, what happened to Jocelyn happened to Sam Levinson.

Oh, wow. So Sam Levinson's the Jocelyn proxy. I think yes. Because in a weird way, if you like Euphoria, I mean, Euphoria, as far as I know, is like a one-man operation, right? Yeah.

And that show really has insights about young people, young people in technology, human beings interacting with each other. I told you my daughter, this is horrifying, but she says it's still the most realistic show about young people that exists. And I'm like, really? A thousand times. Yes. And I'm not even this cohort of young person, But I mean, those people are in my life. Yeah.

I ride the New York subway. I see it. I mean, that is like a tiny fraction of what is really going on that I don't even know about. But I believe what's happening in Euphoria. Also, just visually, that's a great show. There are shots on Euphoria that I've never seen any place and with some really really really good performances the acting on the show is great yeah and i just feel like all of the risk of euphoria it none of it's really happening after that first episode on this show

right like there's nothing nothing of interest really happens except the scene where destiny who divine joy randolph plays like a real weird character because you don't really know what her what her end game or motivations are yeah like making money is sort of what she's interested in but also being a good person there's this great scene by a pool at Jocelyn's house, which, by the way, there's a whole Manson family aspect to this show, where these weirdos move into Jocelyn's mansion, which is really apparently the weekend's mansion.

Is that true? I heard it was filmed in his house. Wow. Divine Joy Randolph is sitting by the pool with this actress who's pretty wonderful who plays this character, Chloe. And you think, you don't know, this is a great movie trick that I love,

which is this person that you don't think has any talent, or you've never considered whether they do have talent, demonstrates that they have talent and it they're like crazy good right yeah not only can this girl sing her songs are pretty good yeah right and not in a deriv i mean tori amos came to mind fiona apple came to mind regina specter came to mind nelly mckay came to mind but she still seems unique in and not a like marketplace driven idea of what artistry is supposed to be like right and there is this real sense of discovery that does not exist and and divine joy randolph has this moment where

she's singing and she's like listen you gotta use your tongue in this other way you gotta instead of curling your tongue flatten it out and and like elongate it a little bit yeah and she you watch her do it and it's a different sound yeah she's teaching her how to sing like a black girl yeah and it's just such a great loaded sweet intimate true moment that has all this history attached to it. And then at the other end, all this possibility. There's nothing else on the show that is remotely that sweet, tender, insightful,

like kind of dangerous, right? Because she already has a client. She's in her client's house. Right. But she's helping this young girl out who actually seems to have a client. She's in her client's house. Right. But she's helping this young girl out who actually seems to have a talent. One of the things with Sam's shows, and I'm absolving The Weeknd

because he's not an actor, but everyone who's in the show just feels really distinct. He has a way of getting actors and actresses the best possible version of whatever that performance is going to be. Like, Euphoria, there's like no, really nobody on that show really, like, it's kind of the squeaky wheel. Yeah.

You know, and it's same for this show. I just, the weekend thing, I think it's so weird. This is one of the biggest stars in music for really the last decade. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And what a, what a swing. But this goes back to my original point, which is like, even though it didn't work

and he'll probably be ridiculed for a few months and then it'll be fine and nobody will probably remember that this show existed in a year. I love that he took the swing. I just wish more people took swings. I'm going to say it again. I think this is why he's going to be fine.

He'll be fine. I think the thing about hbo hbo is still hbo can we say hbo still do we have to say max um no this is hbo they were and they were due for a miss but but again to your point this is a much more interesting miss than most other network platforms any like right this is like this is a miss that in some ways as is as good as a hit right yeah the people who watch this show have a lot of deep feelings about it um it enraged a certain vector of the of the world that's going to get enraged by shit like this anyway it's enraging i mean just as a as a work of art it's enraging right like yeah you don't even know why you exist anymore and you just feel like a lot of things got moved around and you don't trust anybody's

instincts after a little while because some things are really good and some things are terrible but the thing is the reason i know that even though this was probably a bad show i cared to the bitter end was i was i was mad that they messed up the last 15 minutes. I can't believe that the last 15 minutes are where you were like, I mean, my jaw also dropped. I was just like, oh my God. Like, how? Why did, why was this the ending? Why?

I don't know. It's just like, man. It's so bad. I mean, the show is already, the ship had sailed, but I did feel like they had, when they were at the stadium and Eli Roth and Jane Addams and Hank Azaria and they're all a bit like, man, we did it. We finally pulled off.

I was like, oh man, they're not going to try to swerve us here. No, I mean. And then they did. They did. And it just. It just didn't work. It just didn't work. But, you know, I've. And then they did. They did. And it just. It just didn't work. It just didn't work.

But, you know, I've never seen Eli Roth act. Maybe he was in Glorious Bastards, wasn't he? Yeah, he's popped in a couple of things. Yeah, I mean, he reminds me of my friend Brett, actually. He's really good on this show. Jane Addams was really good. Zari was good. He's got too many throwaway lines.

Yeah. But his presence, right? His boyishness is very appealing. I just like stuff like this that's about the industry. And, you know, you and I are in the

top level of people who care about like deep industry. What are they trying to say? Who's this about? Who are these people supposed to be? But I still like that stuff.

Like we did this as the end for the Rewatchables recently. We were talking about like how they dip into the Larry Sanders kind of celebrities playing exaggerated sticky versions of their own celebrity

and then making fun of each other and I just like that stuff and nobody does it anymore maybe the audience isn't there for it or maybe celebrities are less likely to make fun of themselves but it feels like an art that's kind of dying. I actually feel like that is one of the things I love about the Jennifer Lawrence movie.

Yeah. You know, I love that movie. Yeah, I know you did. that you have this movie about a woman who doesn't seem old, but there actually are people younger than she is now. Yeah. Trying to figure out how to live a life among a different generation of sexual beings is interesting.

Well, the other piece of that movie is what you found the most interesting. Which part? The part, I still haven't seen it. But you told me it's about a movie about how people don't have sex anymore. Oh, well, that's 100% true. I mean, basically, she is,

she's hired basically to show this high school kid a good time by his parents. And I just love the conceit of that movie. Yeah. And I think it also is obviously true in this show. The thing that's annoying about the show is that you know that the guy who made it also made Euphoria, which is also a show about people, a generation of people who don't know how to have sex.

Right. But have learned everything about having sex from snippets of porn that is no longer attached to a narrative right yeah um and the the idol doesn't work in some ways because i don't believe that any of the sex is really true, right? And that's what's so riveting about the cum shot, right? Yeah. It's not your, it's not a sex tape, right?

We don't know what the story is of how that happened. We just know that it happened. It is divorced from the pleasure of the act and it is divorced from, eventually the show doesn't even care about the implications of

what it could mean for jocelyn because we've all seen the photo right and so the damage control part of that incident just falls out of the show but there's no i mean i can't think of a major work of popular culture right now and there's a lot of examples like beef has a lot of interesting sex stuff in it beef one of the great tv shows of the last few years especially as you get to like episode seven and eight that's got a lot of weird sex stuff in it yeah but there's no movie that there's no work of popular culture right now that really isn't terrified of the sex act, right? Of like people connecting sexually. There's a lot of anxiety and no comfort and no pleasure.

There's no mystique with sex anymore in movies. How do you mean that? Well, let's take Purple Rain. Okay. He says, purify yourself in Lake Minnetonka, Apollonia. Takes her top off. And it was arguably one of the five most exciting moments of 1984 for me. Right.

Yeah. It was like, oh my God. Oh, she's doing it. Oh my God. Yeah. I just don't think that moment exists anymore. There's nudity everywhere. But Prince is,

but it's not just the nudity, right? It's the energy. Like Prince is a sexual beast. Right. He's got that little Prince smirk. He is. Well, that leads to the darling Nikki scene where he's basically fucking the stage.

It's incredible. If The Weeknd was playing something like that that i think he was trying he but there's nothing no there wasn't there's nothing but i think that's what he was going for it was like the weird sexy creepy vibe of purple rain but to my point if that's the case i mean this is not like i mean to invoke to bring in another comparable famous pop star bruno mars could not have played that part that way right bruno mars would have needed a moment to hump the stage right yeah if you think about the weekend super bowl performance it was just him surrounded by a bunch of anonymous people doing a lot of really interesting orchestrated movement but he was

never really engaged with anybody else he looked like a vampire yeah right it was a great as a production it was a great set but what did it tell you about the weekend not terribly sexual here to get the job done the architect of many good pop songs but not a charismatic presence well how about when he was in Uncut Gems he was in it for a few minutes kind of playing a parody of what I think an old weekend song might have been about

he made a kind of emo R&B he definitely has a curiosity to be beyond whatever just people think of him as the musical artist. Like the fact that he was in Uncut Gems and then wanted to then do the idol and develop this thing with Sam.

Sure. But I also, I mean, there's some sort of, it's pretty unique. Like, I don't think Bruno Mars is like, I'm going to get together with the euphoria guy and create this psychotic

six episode show. Because Bruno Mars probably knows his limitations. And and is like, I'm not doing that. But that's what I like about The Weeknd. It's like, he thought this was going to work and vault him to some sort of new creative territory. Do you think that that's what he thought? I think he did. I don't, I mean, I actually don't know.

I don't know. That's what's so fascinating about Swingin' and Miss stuff. Yeah. But if you, I mean, let's just stay in the prince realm right purple rain under the cherry moon well under the cherry moon doesn't work right uh graffiti bridge i mean it just it keeps going south and i think that one of the one of the well you know why it keeps going south because purple rain worked and then he's like i have another weird idea for a movie they're like you do it prince here's some money right but the ego i think that the thing that's really interesting to me is this is also work about you know various psychological states right yeah this is a show about ego it's a show

about id and to show about super ego right and there are all of these you know the sort of the the industrial layer the manager the pr guy the eli roth live nation manage uh executive like there's this layer that's meant to keep ids out of ego territory right like there there's this super ego layer yeah that's meant to like act as a barrier against the ego running a man's nephew kyle he's my super ego layer that's meant to like act as a barrier against the ego running a mind's nephew, Kyle. He's my super ego there. That's why I love you, Kyle. And I think as long as the show is about that, it's great.

Right. Even if you get a couple episodes where like it is about Jocelyn being taken over by this super ego, but I'm sorry, by this id energy. Yeah. Yeah. Right? But the show at some point loses interest in what is essentially compelling about Tedros. We never know what should happen. He's just sweaty and creepy and cokie and alcoholy.

The danger of the show that does not exist, and what Purple Rain has, is you as an audience member being like, I would take my top off for Prince. Right. Prince is amazing. I would take my pants down. Cut Prince some slack. I would take my pants down for Prince.

Whatever this is, I think I would do it. There's nothing that Tedros could even trick me into thinking that I wanted to do. Well, can I ask you this? If the show ended with the three of them before the concert and saying like, hey man, the best idea we ever had was leaking that cumshot photo

and rejuvenated her career. And it turned out they were the villains all along. And then the weekend gets turned away and that's the end of the show. I think I feel better about it. Oh, Bill. Right? Yeah. But that means that you.

And the super ego is the actual evil part of the movie. Yeah. You. And by the way, the super ego is the problem with all of the stuff that's happening with our entertainment right now. Yeah. Right. Like, and it's really what's wrong with America in a weird way. Right.

It is, it is kind of this, this attempt to kind of gatekeep on our behalf. Yeah. Right. You can't read this. You can't watch this. You can't hear this.

This is bad for you. It's done disingenuously. Right. Like it's not like these people really know it's done. It's done for power. It's not done for the right reason, but it's the disingenuously right like it's not like these people really know it's done it's done for power it's not done for the right reason but it's the performance right it might even be the it impersonating itself as a super ego yeah right but that barrier to pleasure that barrier to ecstasy is the problem with the show in some way and maybe that ply should not have been there in the first place maybe it really should about a bit about a pop star on a bender right yeah

there's no there's no there's no barrier in purple rain there's no moral um there's no moral obstacle to Prince getting what he wants really it's just he keeps getting in his own way and at some point Wendy and Lisa are like you're an asshole we quit but at the end of the day Prince wins because

we get to see him be Prince he gets to give us the pleasure of his performance. Well, he also learns to listen to other people's riffs. Exactly. And he can make great music with other people. Yes. And also the stuff his dad was doing, not great.

Maybe don't do that. But he wrote a song about it, right? There's a whole song about maybe I'm both these people. Maybe that's not so great. And I just feel like to the extent that this show might be in some way. But, you know, there are the two shots of there's the shot of the weekend looking up at that giant Prince photograph. Yeah. From Purple Rain or Purple Rain era Prince.

And he talks to him at some point. I don't remember what he says, but he says something to that photograph and then there and at some point the way that that that poster is shot or that photograph is shot it looks like there are two of them but it's a mirror right is that there's something there's something there it's a little homage but it it needs to go just never figures it out it needs to go past that anyway how will this show be remembered because

my friend Tommy Alter said this will be showgirls hmm like there will be a campiness to it that we'll live on ah god I wish it was showgirls

I don't I don't agree and I think it's more likely that this show just disappears from the max app in like 18 months than it's ever seen again

I mean do you talk about John from Cincinnatiincinnati ever no you know i mean i feel like i feel like a like i don't that was another big swing show i didn't mind that they tried that show it's just people didn't like it yeah people didn't like it this this but that show knew what it was yeah that was just a show that didn't connect with us or you know the the hbo watching public but this is a show that that didn't know how us or the you know the the hbo watching public but this is a show that that didn't know how to connect with itself and that's what turned the people who were there maybe for the first episode off from going back there's just it just seems like everybody's in their own heads even season two yellow jackets yellow jackets was a cool idea

for a show yeah yeah yeah and then they had a good first season and then the show got in its head and it went sideways. We see this over and over again with TV shows. The Bear was the opposite. The Bear... I was just about to say. The Bear actually took everything that worked

and went to another level with it and was great. And it's just like a really differently soulful show. I actually think Beef, which I pray to God, does not get a second season

because the first one was so great. Beef should not come back. It should but but but what it did was kind of in a weird way what we're talking about right yeah it start it starts off as this broad kind of farcical physical comedy yeah and then you know there's one there's like one and a half kind of filler episodes to get you to this insanely in its head finale. Yeah. That to me really captures so many different experiences of being alive in this country. And then, you know, writ large on this planet.

Well, that show also had the two lead actors were both really good. By the end of that show, the two of them were just, they were great. Steve's on your top level, right? Steve when? Yeah. Like he's in the mix now for you.

In terms of what though? Just being in the good actor club. He's a good actor. Like you see him, you're like, oh, it's him. I love Steve. I definitely want to see anything he was in and what he does with it.

I'm excited for his next five years. Yeah, me too. And then I didn't know Ali Wong had that in her. I didn't know. I didn't know. I mean, that was... She's a good comedian.

That was... She was excellent. But I think the point, one of the things we're talking about is when you have good writing and you have somebody writing. Yeah. And you have somebody who knows how to direct actors. You don't even have to be a, I mean, I guess that makes you a good director.

And a plan. I think a plan helps too. That's part of the problem with the idols. It seems like they blew the show up and tried to start over with it. This show, Beef knew, I don't know what it knew when it knew what it knew but it it knew how it was going to end somehow right and so it you it could kind of get away with all of the tangents and the in the like well it's it should have been eight episodes stuff yeah um because it ends in this really

beautiful place. And every time I think about that ending. Can't say that about the idol. No. I just, I want to cry I think about the end

of that show. It makes, it just moves me so much. Whereas, you know, the idol I just was like, oh my God, really?

This is terrible. I bought, I didn't buy like lower level Lily Rose Depp season tickets, but I did buy, I, lower level Lily Rose Depp season tickets, but I did buy... I did split a package with Joe House in the upper deck.

We each have 20 games. But what does this person do now? She's going to have a really interesting career. Really? Yeah. How old is she? Do you know? I have no idea.

I just don't... Again, this is kind of... This is really the question for all young people who are kind of interesting once. Like. 24, Kyle says. She's 24. Okay.

I don't know. This is like, this is the crisis of our age. Like when it comes to falling in love with people who are in things, right? Like Greta Lee from Past Lives, this movie that like a lot of people are going to see at the art house right now yeah uh or it's actually playing all kinds of places uh what is that gretta lee is wonderful in that movie what is she gonna do what's her career look like i just don't know where are these scripts coming from and like what are they going to be

putting people in who have really like won me over captivated me made me interested in seeing what happened to them over the course of 30 years what's a 30-year career look like for lily rose depp i don't know um yeah it's a tough it's it's tough because you need to really be able to do a thing a year in order for us to have a relationship with you and in order for you to figure out how you want to appear in the mid-90s she would have been McConaughey's wife in the Ashley Judd spot she would have done that then she would have been in some

weird indie movie she would have been fighting for parts of Cameron Diaz and then maybe like a big comedy and then maybe some sort of like psycho sexual erotic thriller that's under the radar. Yeah. New director. I mean, I just feel like.

She would have made four movies in like a year. There's just no, that world does not exist even with streaming. And as this writer's strike is telling everybody, that golden age. Yeah. Is turning 10 right now. And we're going to come out on the other side of all of this stuff changed culturally. I don't know what survives. Pop culturally.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But maybe even some other kind of culturally, because, you know, we're talking about AI. Yeah. I don't have the sort of foresight to know how writers work with, against, around this technology. I would say AI would be more like Lifetime movies and stuff like that. That's what you say but i mean obviously you know if you're the studios and you don't you don't want

to deal with you know if you're this i'm speaking only as a studio person in my mind i don't believe this but if you're like do i want to work with these assholes right or can i just like type in some some some instructions and like get a whole show in 10 minutes or even sooner than that. We should just start a movie studio and just AI all the scripts we like into a little AI souffle. Yeah, but Bill- We could do all the erotic thrillers that we always talk about how they don't make anymore and we'll just pump it into the AI machine. I guess that's true. But if you think about-

There's a murder at the beginning then we meet our hot protagonist but think about all the things that you really love right no i'm kidding i know but i just feel like there's just i don't i think we're really good as a people at smelling rats even when we like stupid shit but long order they made 300 episodes yeah but a machine didn't write that right it could have me oh i don't know i because i think in some ways there's two parts of this a machine could write it but people would still have to act it i used to watch watch The Incredible Hulk in the 70s. I loved that show. And he would always turn into the Hulk at like the 27-minute mark

and then the 51-minute mark. I'm pretty sure AI could have done it. There are some things that... I just think AI can replace bad writing. Could AI do the idol? No. That's why I still like the fact that the idol exists. Right.

Which is a good way to put a bow in this conversation. But maybe actually AI could do it. Maybe AI did do it. Sam went into AI. Good to see you. We'll see you on the rewatchables. You're coming back on to talk about football at some point. Oh, yeah.

I will definitely come on and tell you my football thought. All right. Good to see you. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Jesse Lopez for producing. Thanks to Chris Ryan and Wesley Morris. And I will see you on Sunday.

Have a good weekend.