The Bill Simmons Podcast - Caleb Wilson Fever, 2020 NBA Redraftables, and the ‘Odyssey’ MVP Rankings With Joe House, J. Kyle Mann, and Jason Concepcion

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by J. Kyle Mann and Joe House to recap the NBA summer league before having a 2020 NBA redraft. Then, Jason Concepcion joins the podcast to react to Bill’s MVP rankings for ‘The Odyssey.’ (0:00) Intro (4:34) NBA summer league (26:36) 2020 NBA redraft (01:24:28) The ‘Odyssey’ MVP ballot Host: Bill Simmons Guests: J. Kyle Mann, Joe House, and Jason Concepcion Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo Brought to you by PayPal. Learn more at paypal.com The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Hulu original series Furious is coming to Disney Plus, starring Emmy Rossum. Furious follows FBI agent Alice Black on the hunt for a mysterious and calculating serial killer. Both walk their own paths toward justice, and as their lives start to intertwine, the line between right and wrong begins to blur. Don't miss the three-episode premiere of the Hulu original series Furious on July 27th, only on Hulu on Disney Plus. Simmons podcast is brought to you by PayPal. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast network where I put up a new rewatchables on Monday. We did Hitch. The Will Smith movie, it is

21 years old, one of the last really, really killer rom-com. So we had fun breaking that down. Next week on Monday, we're going to be doing a live rewatchables on Netflix on Monday sometime in the afternoon. And I'm not going to tell you what the movie is yet. I'll tell you over the weekend what we're doing, but there's a really, really good chance you've seen it. So we're going to be going live on Netflix, rewatchables, Monday afternoon, Pacific Time. So stay tuned for that. I have no Red Sox on this episode because they've won 15 straight. I'm taping this intro.

It's afternoon, Wednesday. They had a double header today. They won one of the craziest Red Sox experiences in the history of the first. franchise. The team was dead. The day I had my colonoscopy, the day Jalen Brown got traded. The Red Sox lost that day. They were 37 and 48. It was my least favorite Red Sox season we've ever had in my lifetime. There was not a single thing to like. Guys's getting hurt. Roman Anthony was supposed to be next Ted Williams. He's out. Crochet got hurt. Trevor Story, I think was the most expensive of the team. He's hurt. And things just flipped over the last three weeks. And it's been

incredible to watch. I think I'm going to, I'll do something in the last segment on Sunday about it with my dad or my friend Hanch or somebody, but it's been so much fun to watch. And my favorite guy, Wilson Contreras, comes in and is carrying himself. He's the new guy. Comes in in April and has this intensity in him and it doesn't fit in with the rest of the team. They have a bunch. Like, the team's a mess. We can't hit lefties and Roman Anthony and Marcela Meyer. Like, they're supposed be the young guys that come up and they're doing nothing. And he has this intensity and he's around and it almost seemed like he was on the wrong team for two months.

And then they sweep the Yankees. There's the stuff that happens with the Nationals where he gets kicked out of two games in a row and something flipped and he's at the center of all of it. And he's my favorite Red Sock player probably since they traded Moogie because he's just a maniac. And these are to say the Boston fans love him. He's like, somebody hits a big home run. He's out of the dugout.

He's the first guy. He's doing these. Like, he's just, I really feel like he's transformed the team watching him. So anyway, that's been great. And I'm glad the Red Sox are good because there's no sports coming on. That's why for this podcast, you know it's July 22nd. We were doing a redraft of the 2020 NBA draft with Kyle, Mann, and Joe House after we talk a little summer league. I haven't done a redraft in a while, but we're going to do that.

And then Jason Ketepseon came on. I have a big thing about the Odyssey. I'm going to unleash my MVP ballot for the Odyssey because I've now seen it twice. So if you haven't seen yet, no problem if you want to listen to the redraft and then pop out. If you have seen The Odyssey, I would highly encourage you to listen to that part with me and Jason. So that is the podcast. We're going to take a break. Pearl Jam and then Joe House and Kyle Man.

This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is presented by PayPal. You know a clutch move when you see one, a no look pass, a buzzer beater, big steel. Well, imagine if your wallet could pull off moves like that. That, my friends, is PayPal. Right now you can find offers from hundreds of brands like Sony, all birds, and Viator, and save offers before you check out. Earn unlimited rewards. Plus, you can add those rewards on top of credit card points.

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Filler content. It's the one for us section of the BS podcast. Joe House is here, Kyle Man is here. We're going to talk about, we're going to do a redraft. Haven't done a redraft from forever. I'll explain what we're doing in a second. quickly wanted to hit Summer League because Kyle Mann ingested a bunch of it. Joe House had, I would say, successful Wizards, A.J. DeBanza, like, literally lost no fans, no mojo, nothing, right?

I mean, wildly successful for the Wizards, not only did AJ come out and cause my text threats to stop being populated with Darren Peterson clips. everybody could F right off as soon as AJ showed up. But on top of that, on top of that, both Trey Johnson and Will Riley showed out. Like that was to me as an important of revelation as anything because that's really, those are the elemental pieces of the trajectory for this upcoming wizard season. It's going to be hilarious 10 years from now when people are listening to this just for the 2020 redraft. And they're like, House is excited for Will Riley. Where is he?

Is he in China now? It's funny with that top four, wherever you stood on the top four, you kind of got a win, Kyle. Like if you were a boozer guy, big win. He did everything that he normally does. They made the finals. He was consistent and really good. Peterson had moments where it was like, oh, this was high school Kobe version Peterson. The Bonsillian.

He had some moments where we went, oh, and then he had some, oh, moments. But overall, it was good. Yeah, he had a six for eight. teen, he wasn't perfect, but he definitely, you know, and I thought it was interesting where he talked about, finally I'm on the ball and there was like some veiled, fuck you bill self stuff that, you know, it seemed like he was a little more unhappy during the college season, but then the big revelation, which was not a revelation to any of us. I was on the record as saying, I thought Caleb Wilson was the most undervalued guy at the draft, even at four. I think there was a real case to just trade

back and he might be the best player anyway, which I don't ever normally feel that we're with a draft. And he comes in and he hits three's house. I got to say, we're a little older than Kyle. He looked very T-Mackish to me. That was the one that jumped out to me. I love this. This is like watching T-Mack again. Like he's a little taller. He's like 6-10. But same kind of skinny inside outside, but then is adding this explosive Sean Kemp's side too. And if I was a Bulls fan, I would have no sperm left in my body. It would just, be ejaculate in every room of my house. I would lose my mind.

You need a jizz room for what that man did. I did. It's a complete. It's like when we had the colonoscopy. It was when they give you this stuff to clean your, clean your colon out. That's what Caleb Wilson was for, for sperm.

Oh, my God. How many minutes in are we? Yeah. It's, it's summer season. We're in the summer season. We're getting, let's talk about jiz.

Let's talk about it. Sure. Why not? How's, did you see? Yeah, well, here's my question for JKM, because the thing that jumped off the screen, and he validated it through the sustained, outstanding performance, I'm so glad you broke the fuck label right away,

because I want to curse. This motherfucker, his shooting stroke is so beautiful. It's so beautiful. And this was not something that, we saw at least, you know, us Normies, JKM, out of his North Carolina performance, right? If he had that stroke, he had to have had that stroke the whole time he was at North Carolina because he wasn't there for very long. But holy cow, he can shoot and it's absolutely effortless. He has the best stroke. He has a better looking stroke to me than Peterson.

And I mean, I'll go ahead and fight somebody on that. I'll fight somebody on that. I'll fight Peterson's really nice. Peterson's like to fight you, House. Peterson's just like this. It's going 25 feet. But yeah, but that was the thing with me.

Hey, did you see where that man was shooting from? I know. Did you see where Caleb was shooting from? But people were Dane Wilson with the shooting stuff. And I remember saying this to you a couple times during the pre-draft process. Like, guys are a great athlete and he's competitive.

He's going to figure it out. It's not like he's going to have this broken jumper for his whole career. What we didn't expect was he would figure it out in July. I hesitate to go like overboard and say like, oh, my God. he's just learned, he just learned with there's a before and an after kind of thing. I think he worked on it in that window between, you know, he broke his hand, he had some time off that, you know, I know he really wanted to play.

I would say this, I was more excited about like the defensive stuff that he did where he was just swallowing up people. His drives and things are a little chaotic. He showed me glimpses. I'm cautious, not even cautiously. I'm very optimistic, I would say. I hesitate to like really read into the shooting stuff because he took. some wild ones. They went in. Credit to him for that. His shot does look good. The free to percentage is solid. There's always been workable stuff to make you have confidence. I don't

think anybody was ever, there maybe some people out there who were just like, it's never going to happen. But when you would watch him do his little rip through fake stuff in the mid-range to get to his like turnaround stuff, it always looked good. So it was just kind of an opportunity thing here. I think it wouldn't surprise me if we come out a little bumpy, you know, because this was just such a crazy first. But I mean, I came out of this event being like, Yeah, this this dude is absolutely in the taxonomy of the case. I wouldn't, I don't know if I'd go T-Mack because I don't know that he's quite as like T-Mitch handle T-Mack's handle was so polished.

Yeah, but remember T-Mack, year two, Raptors, go back and watch T-Mack back then. Like, he wasn't anywhere close to anything that he became. Let me, because you were there, House and I weren't. What was like the it factor with him, just being in the room with him, seeing his effect, like, how he carried himself on the court during free throw. during timeouts, people with their eyes on the gym on him. What was, give us the verdict on that? I mean, he won at the moment, clearly.

And I think that's true of all the top guys. All the top dudes were to the point where they were chasing it a little bit, and it got a little ugly as a result of that. But I don't really begrud. They were wanting to put on a show. And that's what Summer League's for. You know, Cam Boozer didn't really do that because he just doesn't do that. No.

You know, you remember last year, you know, Cooper, even Cooper, as competitive and psychotic as he is, he got caught up in the bright lights and tried to put on a show. But Caleb just has a smiley confidence about him, and he's just very sure of the work that he's put in. Even if it's chaotic this year in terms of like the percentages and the outcome and stuff like that, it'd be really hard to bet against him not having just a continued upward trajectory. I was going to say he's kind of in that taxonomy of like a KG type body and maybe input the Sean Kemp in there too.

If you just watch him, I clip this out on Twitter. If you just watch where he starts and where he finishes without much momentum, without bending his knees at all, Wilson can get to ceilings that other people can't get to, and he does it faster. He doesn't really need much of a load up or a runway to do it. He's just such an impressive athlete, man, like breathtaking. House. Fandle, Rookie of the Earots right now.

I'm not allowed to bet. Who do you think is the favorite? Um, Uzer. That is correct. Plus 290. Who do you think is second? Caleb.

Peterson plus 310. Okay. And then Caleb and AJ tied at 4 to 1. Huh. But I don't remember a rookie of the year where we had four choices kind of clustered together as the top four. And I honestly don't know what the best bet is.

But I would say, say from even what we saw in Summer League and what we saw the teams do in the summer, the Wizards are going to be a little bit more of a complete team. I don't know if AJ's going to have the usage rate. And they seem, I don't know whether Davis is saying all the right things because they're actually going to trade them and he's playing the game right now or whatever. But all those guys were there. They made a big show of like, hey, we think we're going to be pretty good this year. So you have that. Boozer is going to be on a Memphis team that I think he's going to be exactly what we thought.

19 and 10, 20 and 10, somewhere in there. Peterson, who knows? And then Caleb is the one to me that I just feel like he's going to have the ball a lot and they're going to put everything on him in year one. And I don't know why they wouldn't. And I think he wants it. And it's not like there's a ton of stuff on the Bulls anyway where it's like, oh, that guy's going to take stuff or this guy.

I just think if I was a Bulls fan, I'd be out of my mind. They've been waiting for this since Derek Rose got. hurt, basically. So who would you take out of those four just out of curiosity, Kyle? For rookie the year? Yeah, right now. I think they're going to be high highs of like scoring output from Peterson. It's going to be pretty predictable, I think. It's probably why they have Camboosier number one. I just think Cam's going to be very productive and very steady and really contribute to winning. I think he's going to make that Grizzlies team make a lot of sense in a more direct.

DeBonza's not going to have the opportunity to do this directly and like be the centerpiece guy. I, on the ringer NBA show, I compared it to the way that Tatum came in, granted, not one to one. It's just, you've got some older players ahead and, like, he's going to come in and be this very talented dude, but not just, like, overtly given the keys immediately in the way that, in the way that boozer will. So I understand him of a booze number one, and I'd probably pick him for that reason. Yeah, Tatum was over a lot of times just in the corner, like a stretch four, three, and D type guy, and they would have to kind of nudge him to be more involved. And, you know, I remember if we're running a column about it during the playoffs, like, yo, like, let's get this guy the car keys a little bit. Like, there's more here.

We actually need the offense. I think AJ will probably want it. And then the other big winner, you know, Brown did what we would have expected. I still think the question for him was never talent, but durability. We'll see in December, January. But Burry's was the one that I think surprised some people, not us. We were calling for it. But, you know, he had the ball more.

And guess what? Like, that's how he played his whole career, except for last year. House, if you're the Clippers, are you gritting your teeth at all right now? I don't know. You didn't take the obvious two guard that was sitting there and you got seduced by this Wogler and now you're playing him and Garland together

when you just had this very obvious two guard you could have put in? It's hard to say because the Clippers are on a part. project timeline now, right? Aren't they officially like their win total? And Adam Silver is ramming in our bumholes project? What project is it? They are not poised to be successful this season or next season or any season that I can think of in the next five seasons. So the investment in, I mean, Wogler's so young. He still has a little bit of the baby deer look to him the way he's coming out. Burry's is literally the only shining hope for an equally horrible

Bucks team that is also going to be excruciating over the next five years. And Tyler Hero. Sure. A little chip on his shoulder and a little tiny weld under his eye after he got into a band. You're right about that. I just want to make the case for Caleb Wilson to win rookie of the year and I'm going to bet it the little bit now and then we'll see how everything shakes out. I do agree with both of you guys in terms of AJ not getting enough opportunity usage.

The whiz are too far along. I wonder about Peterson getting enough opportunities. I think the Jazz will try. A lot of shots on that team already. Yeah. And that's a pretty polished team. Like we all are pretty bullish on their playoff prospects. I don't think they're just going to turn the ball over to Peterson.

Caleb, this is the thing with. the rookie of the year. It is a narrative award. Like, it's counting stats and narrative. So if Caleb shows us a couple, a handful of spectacular games, he has some 40-point scoring output. You're like, Boozer's going to be 19 and 10. And Caleb layers on top of that a handful of these games where these blocks come from absolutely out of nowhere. And if he averages like two blocks a game or something like that, which feels kind of reasonable to me, you made the right point. The Bulls have absolutely absolutely nothing to showcase other than this dude. And it's Tiago Splitter at the helm, who will understand the mission, I think, and just ushered

in a guy that we're about to talk about on this podcast, he knows how to take a guy, you know, the ascending and turn the whole thing over to that ascending guy. Deni Abdiah certainly enjoyed Tiago Splitter's time. Tiago at the helm of this Bulls team with Caleb and what they want to do in terms of engendering some enthusiasm. Just him at that four to one range feels like a tiny bit of value to me. You left out the single best case for Caleb Wilson. Let's hear it.

He's going to, out of all these guys, he's going to be the social media guy. He's going to have 50 plays during this season that my son will know happen, right? Well, that's why I meant spectacular. But this is a whole different element to who owns the rookie of the year. It's like, can my son, Ben Simmons, the only working Ben Simmons right now? can my son Ben Simmons know you did something? Because he's not going to be watching Bulls games on league pass. But if you do something that's going to be on TikTok or Instagram, he's going to see it.

And I think Caleb, it's not just like he might have a game where he might hit 10 threes. He might have the dunk in traffic. He might have the spin boot move double clutch, Sean Kemp dunk. He might have some crazy pin block on the backward. But kill on all that stuff. Listen, my rule, as always, is never overreact to Summer League. And we're trying not to. But I do think Caleb hitting threes was the one.

Big picture like, oh, wow. Like this is, holy shit. There's nobody in the league like this guy. House really quickly, Washington Wizards, 35 plus wins, minus 110. I mean, that makes exactly perfect sense, right? They're a 35-win team. I'm on record. I think they're going to come in last in the Southeast Division

and win between 35 and 39 teams and contend for the play-in. contend for the plan. That's what I think. 40 wins plus 240. Nah. No? If you keep Davis all year and he plays like 68 games. So that's the bet. That's the bet. If Davis plays 65 to 68 games, I think you're a 40 win team. I don't want to bet on either one of those things. Defensively, man, I've said this throughout. I think it could be pretty interesting. If you can have, if you can have DeBon, Sassar, and Davis at your three, four, five, that is a rangey disruptive defensive group. I mean, you've think about all the other teams in the east.

I mean, Miami, obviously, with the addition of Janus, I'm just trying to rattle through and think of the teams that can compare or compete with that. Pretty promising, pretty good. Boston with Paul George. We forgot to say Giddy. So much fun. Yeah. With Caleb Wilson, that is going to be a very fun toy to throw.

Because one thing Giddy, well, I was just saying one thing Giddy can do is throw lobs. And I think that's going to be, that alone is going to be a. social media phenomenon, those two together, for sure. The other one that jumped out was Yaxel, which was no surprise because he's almost 24 years old. But I think if you're a Warriors fan, you know you're at least getting somebody who's going to be playing 25 to 28 minutes a game that you didn't have last year. And we'll see what happens with LeBron. But, you know, if Butler comes back February of March range, still not enough.

But, you know, can Steph Curry at least get to the playoffs and be relatively interesting? Yaxil is going to help. but I still think they need. Did you like the Yaxel-Booser rivalry? I feel like this is a budding thing that people aren't talking about. Yeah, I like it. Their personalities are just so polar opposite.

You know, Yaxel just can't not say whatever he's thinking, and boosers just quietly, intensely staring at it. You can tell they don't, I don't know for sure. I just, I don't suspect they like each other competitively. I'm just keeping an eye on that one. And they matched up twice in the summer league. Well, the only thing,

the only real big picture thing left is wherever LeBron goes. And it's just, you know, I went on game over yesterday with Richard Max because I was in the office and I was there and I ended up going on for 45 minutes. But the really red flag thing about this LeBron thing, which I don't really feel like is going to swing the title odds in any direction, at least for me. But it is notable that James Hardin hasn't signed and Draymond hasn't signed. So you have two teams that are definitely going,

You know, Golden State doing nothing is also doesn't mean nothing. It means they must feel like they're in this. So we'll see what happens with that. I still hope it's Golden State, but I still have a feeling it's going to be Cleveland all along. I do have a house. Before we do the redraft, I had a great email for you. This is from Harry, who did a, he paid conspiracy bill, who's always available. Do you were a beeper for that?

No, but he's, he's just, every time there's an email, conspiracy bill, conspiracy bill, justice. He mentioned, uh, Presti, O'KC, roster crunch. They have to get rid of, they got rid of Isaiah and Joe. They got rid of Aaron Wiggins, right? And then, uh, we knew that we were going to probably get rid of Lou Dort, which they did. They got three second runners for him.

Harry says, I 100% believe same Presti sought out, not one but two hawk steals to beef them up. this season and knocked their first round pick owned by San Antonio down a few spots. Very good. Pretty good. Conspiracy Bill, like he stamped that one immediately. I like that. Absolutely.

I endorse this. It's not like he got a lot for Lou Dore, right? He's got a couple seconds. I'm sure there were a few teams that would offer that. But I wonder, so you think Presti is that devious? Sure. Anything, they understand who their nemesis is, of course. That doesn't even sound like conspiracy to me.

That just sounds like strategy. I agree. J. KM. is right. J.K.M. is right. I want to go on record on LeBron. I think he's going to Philadelphia. Just want to say, get it out there. Oh, wow. I would bet anything against that. Okay. I just want to be on record. What do you want to bet? Let's bet something good.

We'll bet a dinner that has food. Yes, done. And then there's another conspiracy bill email. Stewart from Perth, Australia, said, does conspiracy bill think Dumars was sent to the Pelicans by the NBA, where he worked to make the Pelicans so bad that they would have to relocate to Seattle. I was watching the movie Major League

and couldn't help but think they took notes watching on how to get a team relocated. What team goes 26 and 56 and literally does nothing in the offseason? It's a very solid point. It went 26 to 56 and did nothing other than they signed an amazing to an amazing contract.

They did. That's not nothing. It's a bad on development. That's, I think that's what it is. That is literally, now that it's them going to Seattle makes no sense whatsoever because Seattle's going to get one of the expansion teams. But what markets are ripe for an NBA team? Seattle and Vegas obviously lead, but where should the Pelicans go?

They should go somewhere. Honestly, Kansas cities, I think, a bigger factor than people. Interesting. They just hosted World Cup. That city's built for like big events now. And they used to have basketball before. I think Kyle's neck of the woods is another one. I think Nashville, even though it's too close to Memphis is possible, I wouldn't rule out St. Louis.

I think there's a lot of cities. Like, we never would have said Oklahoma City in the mid-2000s. You know, if you have, if you have hungry, local, rich people and you have some sort of arena, you can make a play for a basketball team. A conspiracy bill got another one. Mike in New Orleans wanted to know if the Blazers owner did conspiracy bill think the league wants to get back in Seattle, gave this guy the team. He was going to force his way out and barge them to see.

Seattle. I actually don't believe that one because I don't think the Seattle fans want Portland's team. I think they would rather have their own expansion team and start over and they know what it's like to have your team rip from you. And I don't think they want Portland's team. And I also don't think that's why he's doing this. I just think he's super cheap and this is what he did with the Hurricanes. He has a specific method of he cut costs all over the place. And, you know, he's basically like, You guys should help me buy an arena. Or I might move. So how much do you want the Blazers here?

I don't agree with what he's doing. It's absolutely the most cutthroat thing you can do. But I don't think there's some master plan. I just think the guy's cutthroat across the board. And that's why he's handling it. Well, speaking of cutthroat, we're going to take a break. We are going to do our first redraft on the BS podcast. I think since the 2018, we did 2022 range.

Is that 2023? We did it three years ago. You didn't do one since then? No. There hasn't been. No. We did want an honor of chart. So we're going to bring up in this one we're about to do.

But when we come back, the 2020 NBA redraft next. That sound? It means summer's biggest event is here. The fashion is unmatched. The crowd's buzzing. The bets are down. This isn't just a race. It's the King's Played.

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And it was super fun and never did them again. And during the summer, because there's absolutely nothing going on for the next couple weeks. We're going to do a couple redrafts. And I texted you guys and we talked about possibilities and the one we landed on. is the single weirdest draft in the history of the league other than maybe 1986. What's weirder, 1986 or 2020 house? 2020 is super weird. 1986 had like not only the tragedy of the limb bias, but half the guys in that draft became drug guys. You know,

it was like the most jinxed weird draft ever, but we didn't know that as this happening. 2020 we knew right away. So 2020 COVID draft takes place on November 18th, 2020. Let's start there. I forgot about that. I was thinking it was Jude. Yeah, that's right.

Six weeks after the NBA finals in the bubble, which was even weirder, the season started five weeks later. They had no March Madness to study because there was no March Madness. They had no draft combine because they couldn't have draft combine. They had, for the most part, Zoom interviews. They had prospects only going one-on-zero workouts, basically, with mass on a lot of the times. These guys, they went from getting ready from March Madness to there's no more college basketball to, I'm just going to work out by myself in a gym for four to five months, basically. They kind of ramp up the process near the end.

And they're basically house, they're just fucking grasping at straws. It's the only draft where we can honestly say NBA teams were just like us. They're just watching YouTube and just kind of piecing things together. and guessing. You can't overstate how weird it was. I'm glad, you know, it's not fair to compare this to 1986. The whole world was upended. And every single element of, you know, an evaluation of talent for a professional

sports league, it's kind of asinine in a way, except it's the business, it's the industry. There's no other way to do it. They did it. They did it. And I'm thrilled that they did it. I actually kind of loved the way that that season played out because we had so much basketball in our lives. There was no dead moment. You know, there was no, let's all take a breather.

It went from, wow, it was really fun to have the bubble. That gave us something to look at and compare notes on and talk about. Yeah. Right into this super weird draft and then right into a season that began, was it like Christmas-ish, right after Christmas? Yeah, I think there was a real physical toll on some of the players that lasted long. the playoffs and then had to start the season. That was the only downside. For the fans, it was great because we had nothing going on.

It's like, oh, thank you. I've had things to watch again. Well, I remember the burnout among people covering it. I remember when they came back, you know, granted, the physical toll is a whole different thing, but I just remember when they came back at Christmas and then at the end of that season, I guess extending it to Summer League and Free Agency. I just remember the fried look in people's eyes from the toll of that. Because we were trying to stay busy during that gap where the season ended.

I remember we were doing all kinds of stuff, like the redrafts, and I did a bunch of historical stuff. Granted, we remember the win in our sales with the last dance and all that stuff, man? I think one of the things with the last dance that people forget is how bad we needed that shit, man. I mean, like, people were just so desperate for anything. And that alone kept us busy, that big Jordan sort of sweeping wind that came in for a while there. Yeah, Rissol and I were doing live podcasts after the two episodes of The Last Dance, like they were sporting events because we had literally nothing else going.

So the actual draft, when you look back at who the best players and we're going to do the redraft and people can hear it in real time. But I think it's the most off teams have been for who actually turned out to be the good players versus where they were drafted. Like for instance, so in the actual draft, Edwards was one, Lamella was three, Tyrese Maxey was 21, Desmond Bain was 30. right so wiseman went too and wiseman is the guy i think to think about when you think about this draft because they're basically going off three memphis games and nothing else and now you're going back to high school tape and now you're just looking at raw tools and it's one of those things where if we had had march madness i just think so much of this is different Like, what if Halberton goes on a run, you know, in the tournament and makes like the final four or the final eight?

What if Wiseman gets knocked out in the first round? What if Lamello's terrible? Oh, no, Lamello was in New Zealand. Yeah, so that Lamell is even out on that. Yeah. What if Edwards, like, gets knocked out in the first? Like, I do think March Madness swings this stuff one way or the other, but in this case, it didn't. And, but Wiseman is the one, Kyle, that I think we had the toughest time trying to figure out.

I went back in our old friend Charks, who did all the draft grades after. And the words take Wiseman second and Charks, writes, this is simultaneously the safest pick and biggest gamble at the top of the draft. Quality big men are easy to find in the modern NBA. Wiseman has to be elite to be worth going this high. So where did you stand when they took Wiseman? Did you feel like he had a chance to be elite? I remember having a similar sort of trepidation that Charks did, granted,

because we were talking about the draft constantly around that time. I had watched Wiseman a whole lot in high school coming up to that weird Memphis season. The other thing, too, is just the fact that it was the Warriors making that pick. That was the thing that made me the most suspicious because the things that are the most worried because the things that Wiseman needed to work on, the Warriors kind of conference about them extending this window like house i was watching your face as bill was talked about the warriors potentially being in the playoffs and he had a like no fucking way look on its face uh but but i mean at that point we were like hey i think there's still some more soap in that

rag and there was like they went and won a title despite this not working out but the things that he needed to work on subsequently comminga the following year uh i think it was 21 i was looking at those dudes and just thinking man offensively raw absolutely not ready for the speed of the way the Warriors want to play. That worried me. And then you combine, it was a lot of fog. If you're projecting the tape, the college development that we didn't really get to see, even at the time it was risky. I think I thought that it was, I thought that he could become a good player. I did not expect him to fall off a cliff the way that he did and, you know, not even in the league now. House, my biggest win from this draft was I absolutely loved Halliburton and thought he should

have gone way higher than he did and went nuts about that the whole draft. So that was a huge W for me. My biggest loss was I liked the last pick for the Warriors. I was a great pick. Passing center, unbelievable specimen. The guy a year ago would have been hands down the number one pick in the draft. And this is

amazing that they got a franchise center. And it just didn't work out for a variety of reasons. But I think the biggest one is I just don't think they had enough tape. And you start drafting the premise of a player versus what the actual player is, you know. What do you think

it when that happened? At that point, the Warriors had engendered so much, you know, confidence and trust in a kind of approach to both, you know, player development, player acquisition that I didn't know anything about Wiseman, but gave them the benefit of the doubt. Me too. But there is a through line all the way up to right now this very moment. and my wild skepticism about the Warriors making the playoffs this upcoming season between missing on that pick.

And today, the end of Steph's career that we've been experiencing, lost seasons, missed playoffs. After they won the title, they did eke out one more title. So God bless them in 22 with what they were able to put together. James Wise, an NBA champion. I feel like we're missing out on something because of the toll on Steph. and the way that Steph's career is going to end. If that pick had been somebody solid, somebody credible,

what would that have meant for the Warriors franchise and ultimately for Steph, who's really the only guy I care about? Bill, did you see the thing that I wrote in that draft guide? The specific thing that I said about Halliburton was like the league should be doing everything they can to not let this kid end up with Golden State. I specifically said that because he would have been perfect

for their style of play. He was who I wanted them to take, but they could not trade back, and they weren't going to take him in two. But I think they knew, at anybody in this top 12, that's the guy that if he's on our team, would fit perfectly with us and could play on the ball, off the ball. But nobody wanted to, you know, if they tried to trade back, nobody was trying to trade up because nobody could figure out

the top seven or eight in this draft, especially like Patrick Williams there. He had a coro. nobody could unlock Lamello at all. The Warriors thought about Lamello too, and I've talked about this before on the pod, but they had a Zoom interview with him that was so bad, like they felt like he, you know, was tanking the interview not to go there.

And he probably might have. That might have been what happened. I don't think he wanted to play for them. So they were kind of stuck. They weren't going to take Patrick Williams or a Koro. They weren't going to take a Congu. They weren't going to take Killing Hayes. So if you can't trade back,

I don't know what you do. So they took the swing with Wiseman and they're still paying for it. Can you, like, think about what an abandonment of philosophy. I've said this so many times. You get Steph under these circumstances where this guy is mis-evaluated in terms of where the league is going,

level to level, and they get so lucky that Khan takes, you know, Johnny Flynn and Ricky Rubio ahead and just with its backward-facing thinking, and then you get this opportunity to take this guy, Tyrese Halliburton, and you say to yourself, well, two's too high. I just feel like any time you have that type of conversation with yourself about a play where you're like, well, that's too high to take that guy, if you like that person,

just take them, like figure out a way to get them, even if it's like go back a couple spots. Like, it just, it's such a, like a shocking, remarkable abandonment of philosophy that they would strike gold with Steph and then fail to see what happened there and then not take Tyrese Hallibur. Well, there was so clearly the guy, like, going to be a good. one thing, though, there's one thing that teams didn't like about him. I remember specifically one team in the top 10 telling me this. Teams were worried he wouldn't be able to get his release off on his shot in the pros. And they're like in the college fine and the pros at that hitch.

It just takes too long known furl it's not going to happen. And, you know, I remember saying this at the time. It goes in. Like, what the fuck do you guys want? Like, the shot goes in. It's not like this is a long baseball swing that you get to the. majors and you're not going to be able to catch up at 98. Like his shot was weird, but it always went in. And the advanced stats were unbelievable for him. You know, I remember Haralbob talked about this. He was like doing everything possible to try to get Dallas to try to trade up,

especially, you know, the biggest legacy of this draft is Halliburton falls and keeps falling and then ends up going to ironically Sacramento, a team that could never do anything right in the draft. Um, so he goes 12. So to, uh, to recap the top 15 for. people. Edwards goes to Minnesota. Wiseman Golden State number two. Lamello Ball to Charlotte.

Then we have the Patrick Williams, Isaac Acorro, shit sandwich combo, 4-5, Chicago Cleveland, who then ended up getting traded for each other a couple years later. And both teams still unhappy after that. A congo at six. Killian Hayes

at seven. Shout out to our friend KOC, but this was KFC's had so many wins. He still carries to Killian Hayes. A Ska-Lat-Letter. This was his worst one, but he's also had a lot of good ones. Obie Toppan 8 to the Knicks, and that really should have been a Halliburton team. Like, first of all, Detroit taking Killian Hayes over Tyrese Halliburton is fireball, and everyone did get fired.

Obie Toppin versus Halliburton, when the Knicks, they didn't have Brunson yet. Like, oh, man. They needed playmaking, if I remember correctly at that point. He was perfect for them. He did, though, in fairness, Topin felt like the surest thing at the moment. What did you write about Toppin, JKM? I wasn't writing the guide at that point, but he was just crazy. He was a little older.

He played four years at Dayton, I remember. And he was just this elite athlete that we thought could turn into a big time defender. And, I mean, there's more stuff to unpack in relation to Halliburton, specifically, I think that's interesting as we like re-rank these guys. But no, Kevin and Charks were doing the writing at that. point on the guys. Got it, got it, got it, got it. I think sharks had,

hold on, I'm calling it up. Charks had a great draft guide. He basically, all the A's he handed out were the right A's except for, except for Killing Hayes. I'll kill you. That was the bad one. Yeah, I remember he said something about Tapping,

like he's the oldest and most ready pro player, but can't guard anybody. Like, he's athletic. There's clearly a way for him to succeed in the NBA, but just remember he will not be able to guard anybody in the court and that's how it bore out. So Topin went to the Knicks. At number nine, your Wizards house, Denny Obdia.

Tremendous. Tremic in retrospect. Great one of the best of the decade. It's too bad. It's too bad you gave them away four years later. They, it was a franchise in, in transition. And then at number 10, the worst and most egregious. mistake in this draft.

An incredible what if. A fireable offense, Phoenix takes Jalen Smith. Instead of taking Tyrese Halliburton, when they already had Chris Paul and they had Devin Booker, and they go on to make the finals anyway in 2021. And Halliburton could have been the third guard in that team. And I'm guessing he swings the finals if he's on the...

I feel like that's worth one of those six games. If you just go from Jalen Smith, through you're getting nothing for to Tyrese Halliburton as a rookie coming off the bench and being able to it's it was terrible and it happened I can't believe they did it um so take him 10 and then uh debon vassel was 11 which I was okay with um just because I felt like he dropped too I would take in Halliburton there too and then finally Sacramento 12 and then after that the draft gets weird Kira Lewis to New Orleans Aaron Neesmith to Boston and 14 Cole Anthony at 15 to Orlando Stewart at 16th to Portland.

And then we can end on number 17, Poku, who became an incredible source of comedy all the way around. But there's more stuff coming. Let's do the redraft. Which one of you guys wants the number one pick? J.K.M. can have it. All right. So we'll go snake fashion.

J.K.M. goes one. House goes two. I'll take three and four and then we'll snake it back and we'll see who can come up with the best team. So who is your number one pick in the 2020 redraft call, man? This was an interesting back and forth because I'd put these guys in tears. There are two guys in my top tier. Anthony Edwards is ultimately who I'm going to pick, although I will say this is very, very close for me. And the only thing that tipped it in its way is the fact that I'm not sure that Halliburton's going to be.

I don't know what he's going to be after this injury. As I was sitting down and kind of looking at their paths as players, like, developmentally, they're really interesting sides of an offensive coin where Halliburton came into the league as this like super, super advanced passer processor who we were like, if he can score the ball, we just weren't sure about it. We were like, well, you know, we know he has all these gifts, but if he's going to be a superstar, and I don't feel like he even answered that question until like a few years into his NBA career. There was still doubt about it.

It was, you know, once he got to the Pacers, it was like, okay, this guy is a system in and up himself. And I don't think you can say that necessarily about Ant. You know, I don't know that Ant's impact on a team like chemistry-wise and the way he plays. I don't think he elevates and adds value to other plays the same way that Halliburton does. That said, Ant is one of the best, you know, he's, I think in this class, he's the leader in May threes. He's when he wants to, he can be an on-ball terror. He's one of the most athletic creative scores in the league. he's ultra competitive.

It's very, very close, but just tilting towards Ant health-wise is what I'll ultimately do here, even though it's a pretty tough choice. But those two guys, to me, are in the top tier. I had that as well. Ant two conference finals, 26 a game in the playoffs, two second team OmbAs on the 24 Olympic team. House, not 25 years old left yet has scored over 10,000 points, 10,000, 854. that's a list of seven guys who scored 10,000 points before they turned 25. The other guys in that list are LeBron James, Luca, T-Mack, Kevin Durant, Kobe, and Carmelo.

Nice list. Pretty good list. Yeah, so he's on his way. He's averaging 25, 4, and 5 for his career. Charks wrote that. He's an elite athlete with a better feel for the game than advertised. All the physical tools necessary to become an all-star caliber wing. and I actually think he's probably a notch above that.

He's been twice now. He's been a franchise guy in a final four team, which I think is notable. So did you have him first? Oh, what kind of question is that? Yes, he's facing the league shit. I mean, Kyle was waffling.

No, I understand the analysis. I really do. Let's set some parameters here because this will factor into I have my selection for two overall, but are we basing this on at the time, what the team needed, the trajectory of the player? Are we basing this on kind of now? We have a lot of information about these players,

and we know what these players have in front of them. We're in a time machine. We're going back to November 18th, 2020, but we know everything that's happened in the last six years. So what do you do? It's still Edwards. It's not even close to me, to me. And the reason for that is because,

he is on another level, to me, in terms of the force of will. I mean, Halliburton was a revelation in last year's playoffs, absolutely positively. He finally got to the stage. He finally ascended to where he could show what he brought to the table, all of those intangibles, all of those shots at the end of game. But Edwards, he accelerated Minnesota because. of who he was when he arrived with that dog in him, with the incredible charisma,

a leader at his young age, taking the team. Now, I mean, there's a lot of leadership qualities in Halliburton as well, but if you're trying to build, you want a cornerstone for a franchise, Edwards,

to me, a lot easier call than Halliburton. That's the way I think about it. If Halliburton doesn't get hurt in game seven in Indiana, it beats OKC. and he just plays last season and he's fine. Is he the number one pick in this? It's an awesome conversation.

It is an incredible conversation. I think he'd have to be at that point, but we'll never know. It's a great what if. Well, you're going to take him second, I'm guessing. I am,

but I just want to make a case for Maxie, which is, I'll take Maxie third and we can talk about it. Halberton, Halberton at number two, best guy in a finals team already. 38 playoff games in 24 and 25, 18, 5, and 8.

some incredible clutch heroics. And then one of the saddest moments in the history of the league when he gets hurt in game seven. We talked about all the what-ifs with him in the draft, Golden State at two, Detroit seven, Knicks eight, Phoenix 10. There's another what-if where Philly could have traded Ben Simmons for him instead of how it turned out where Halberton goes with the Sacramento-Indiana straight up. Philly could have been in on that and ended up with, you know, Sabon was going into India.

and or whatever it turned out. Or they could have just done this straight up and send Ben Simmons to Sacramento. And you could have had Maxie, who's going to be the third guy in this draft with Halber. Billy also could have had Shea and McHale Bridges, if I'm not mistaken. They've got some pretty tough draft.

Yeah, they have a lot of this. I mean, they literally drafted McHale Bridges. They did draft him. He took him and he put a Philly head on. Sharks wrote that he's the perfect, this is Halburn. he's the perfect analytical selection an Uber efficient score

who never takes bad shots or turns the ball over and who also racks up defensive stats Let me ask. Can I make another case for Oh, go ahead. I've cut off the charts. My bad, my bad. No, we're done. If you look at the way when I was going back and looking at these guys

and how we think about them now and you look at Nie Smith, granted, I don't know if it's necessarily as true about knee Smith as it is about Obie Toppin. halberton affects other players value in a way that is similar to like a Steve Nash or it's it's it's a it's a quality that very few guys have and I think he he any situation that he comes into I don't think he's as hard to build around because his point fiveness just shine it it shines a light he shares the light and it doesn't have to be shining brightly on him all the time so even though aunt scores more you know I think that their offensive endpoint is that. the same because I think that Hallibert makes everybody better because he's able to make reads and play this like 0.5 style where he gets off the ball fast. And he produces as much offense as aunt does, I think in the end. I think the stats back that up. So I think it's a lot closer than you guys do, really. I have maxi at three. He went 21st in this draft, which is

incredible. Last three years, 27 points a game, six assists, 45, 3688 percentages. So in this draft, Minnesota passed on 17 had taken him and traded back. They could add Edwards and Maxi in the same draft, which is out of control. OKC had the 17th pick and took Poku over him. They could have had Maxi with SGA. Brooklyn at 19 could have taken him and put him with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant. That would have been weird. And then the crazy one to me, House, Miami had 20 coming off the 2020 finals. And I think, I can't remember if they lost Struggage or he was hurt or whatever. But they just could have taken him and added him to that 2020 finals team.

They did not do that. And he ended up being the 21st pick. Charks loved it. Called him a combo guard. He could play on and off the ball. Great combination of team fit and best player available. And he said the only reason he's not a lottery pick is that he's six foot three and won't be a primary ball handler in the NBA.

Well, it turned out he's a primary ball handle of the NBA. He fixed that one. So why did you almost take him second house? because he feels to me like he's just scratching the surface of who he can be. That's why because I feel like, you know, these guys, when we're trying to, you know, parse the top of this, are there still levels to what they're capable of? And Maxi, to me, is the easiest to say, yes, there's still a whole other. He just played the most minutes of his entire career was an absolute warrior through all of that.

single-handedly drug a team that had no business whatsoever winning 45 games. But they, you know, the combination of the incredible good luck the Sixers had, those dogs with VJ Edgecom. I'm there to say Jalen Brown. Well, that's, that wasn't good luck. That's your GM's Stevens. That's his player talent evaluation. But I would say what Maxie showed us that there is a whole other.

element to his game. And I mean, I think this is part of why I just love this upcoming Philadelphia season. Him with like the innings that he and Jalen Brown and VJ. Edgecom are going to be able to eat together create so much room for Joelle and Bede to be whoever he's going to be in whatever capacity he needs to be. And it's also why I think it makes the most sense for LeBron. LeBron could land there, play 45, 50 games, however many nights, Friday nights or Saturday nights are on Prime and NBC.

Sunday night NBC. Oh, it's a LeBron game. It's not going there. I understand, but I'm just making the case out of all the situations. It's the one that makes the most sense to me. I made the same case house. I think the basketball fits fun in Philly with LeBron. He got all these guys buzzing around him that he can feed with VJ and with Maxie.

And those guys tilt towards scoring. And with Jalen, I think it kind of makes a lot of sense to me. But you think it won't happen, Bill. If he's going basketball, you go to Minnesota, I think. That's a team where he's, He could actually win the title if he went there. He's not going there. He's not playing with Lamello ball.

I know. He doesn't do clowns. He'd be choking him like Homer, choking bark half the season, just like Lamello's neck. There's two reasons I think it would be fun if he went to Miami. One is that I think that's a terrible fit of all those guys together. And two,

they're annoying fans, they're even more annoying media, we'll be going nuts that they think they're going to win the title. And it's going to be really fun to watch that crash and burn. More annoying media. This is my favorite. What a hater. It's not an annoying media?

What are you talking about? It's the most annoying media. They know it. This is my favorite version. They know it. They know it. That's the only way they get attention. What a hater.

I love this. I have the number four pick as well. Denny Obdia will be my pick at number four. He went ninth overall. He's an all star last year, 24, 7, and 7. Used to be on the Wizards. To house his credit. He always said Denny Abdi, it was good.

He was always a fan. Never understood why he didn't have the ball more and why they didn't use him, kind of unleash him. And then when he went to Portland, was like, I bet he's going to be really good there. So, House, take a bow. Thank you.

I appreciate that. You always like him. Let Denny take the bow. I mean, he's become the best version of himself. It'll be super interesting this upcoming season for them, especially with this crazy-ass owner. Like, you know, will he get? that same usage. It was really important. We saw it in those playoff games for him to be the

on ball, the creative playmaker. How does that coexist with John Morant? That's a, I thought they should have traded for Jalen. I don't know why they didn't, but if the choices were what they did versus like maybe moving some of the resources differently and getting Jalen and trying to, I just think Jalen and Denny would have been kind of a bitch to play against these two physical downhill forwards that night after night, I think. would have would have been an attack. So I had, there were two other guys I thought about there, but I thought with the way Denny, with the arrow pointing up with him,

and he had the best season out of anybody left in this, in this redraft. So House, you have five. Who do you have? I'll take Lamello here. I think that, that's, that's fair. I got to say he was not next on my board, but go ahead. Me either.

Well, the offensive engine proposition, and we get to see it. We're going to, now, is it true? I saw news reports. Is Lamello Ball living with Anthony Edwards right now? Is that accurate? That's the best thing I've ever heard. This is, there's some news out there suggesting.

Even if it's not true, put it out there. As Lamello gets himself, you know, sort of oriented around his new thing, those guys are spending some time together. If that's true and there's not a camera involved, then, you know, what are we even doing? I hope there's a driver involved. Well, it could be Anthony Edwards or his own driver. House Lamella Ball played 52 plus games twice out of six years. Zero playoff wins.

Yes. Six years, 303 games, 93, 92 minutes. By the way, we should have mentioned this earlier. Way more fun of Golden State just says fuck it and take some second, right? We know you don't want to be here, but that's fine. We'll figure it out. We're going to put you in. We're going to basically make you what Jordan Poole became.

as this kind of heat check guy off the bench, instant offense. Let's see if we can fit you into our system. And it just would have been a fun experiment. I don't even know if it would have worked. Who knows? Well, they had to have had an opinion. You know, they clearly consulted, you know, the vets in the room. Do we think that we can take a spin with a teenager?

And it's not just a teenager, but like incredible immaturity. I don't think they did. No? I don't. To me, the Lamello thing was more, he played in New Zealand. His family was weird. The family part was still very in play. It's easy to forget.

That was still a big point. Is this guy an N1 player or a real player? Like, there was some real stuff six years ago. Do we need this circus? Yeah. We don't need this circus. Can this guy be a professional? Yeah.

Which, by the way, we're still not 100% positive. But so, House, you're in on Lamello here. Would you've taken them higher? Would you have taken them four? No, no, no, no. No. He's not, I mean, Denny Obdia, for where he seems to be headed, I would like to invest in him more than Lamella. Sharks had some interesting thoughts on him.

Six-seven point guard with an elite passing ability who will be a triple double threat from day one. The question is whether he will ever be a threat to make threes instead of just take them. Bell will like, a ball will likely be an inefficient offensive player for the first few years of his career, but he will make everyone around him better. all true. I mean, last year when he played, which was only 28 minutes a game, but he did,

you know, all the offensive stats, the eye test. Like I thought he had a really good season for them for them last year, but they were very careful about how they used him. And Minnesota is not going to be able

to be as careful. You know, it's going to be like, the 28 minutes a game is out. You're up to 35 now. And we're going to need 70 and we're going to need two, three or four rounds from you in the playoffs.

I have no idea if he can do it. I wonder if Charlotte in the playing game just saw some, They just opened the patient and saw cancer in terms of their chances to be like a, because the rim pressure is the thing because I had it written, you know, dove on a lot of these guys. And I was, I wrote down that Lamello, you know, Charks mentioned the shooting. And I think he's proven himself over time where, let's see, nine players this past year, attempted 300 or more threes off the dribble.

And only Jamal Murray had a higher percentage than Lamello in that group. So the wildness was good. But just getting to the rim, I, I, rewatch some of the Orlando game and it's just like you can't have that guy as like your primary option and maybe Charlotte thinks that they're not going to lose a ton with their passing and stuff with Miller and Khan but he was 46.4% from two and inside the arc he was like 50 like at the restricted area he was like 51%. It's really bad. So you're not getting free throws. He just can't be your primary option. So I kind of wonder if he's closer to Jamal Murray honestly in

terms of like what we should expect from him like star status wise. Listen there's so many fascinating things about this season that is now one, two, three months away. Lamello playing on Minnesota with real expectations is in that, I mean, that you have Jalen Brown in Philly, you're going to have wherever LeBron ends up, you're going to have like the new era Luca and Lakers and Kessler and the snow time Lakers, the Celtics support. There's this league, I don't know how over and over again. Dude, you didn't even mention the snow globe. The rookies.

It's eggplant emoji time, bro. I mean, right now, mid-July, I'm ready. Yeah. Can't wait. You know what I'm really ready for, though? Football. I can't wait. Can't wait to put some bets down.

Kyle man has two picks in a row, Kyle, man. I was going to say, House, have you thought at all about how you guys let go of Avdia, this big physical wing who gets downhill and you just basically reset with the, like, DeBontza is just sort of the spiritual reset of what you all would have had. So you're kind of, you turn out pretty well for you. I'm sure you're aware of that. Yeah, you tank, you tank so you can basically get Denny Abdiya again. Well, that's the basketball gods shining their good light down on this franchise for that sound decision making.

Because the franchise wasn't ready for this version of Denny. It wouldn't have not have made any sense. He would not have risen to these heights. He was being held back by the, you know, the direction that the franchise was going. And I give the front office credit for recognizing he was on a different timeline than the franchise was on. They need to be building up with these guys that are all between the age of 19 and 21. We have six or seven of them now. And they're all in the same contract.

That's why we'll make fun of Trey Young's contract for the balance of the season. But Trey Young's contract, Anthony Davis extension that Washington will probably pay for. It doesn't really matter because they have everybody else is on a rookie contract. They have to reach a certain floor, salary floor as required by the CBA. The funniest moment of this season is going to be the third, fourth, fifth, or sixth game this season. Trae Young's going to have like 39 points and hit a big three and do this with the Wizards jersey. And House is going to be like, we're back, baby. I already have his jersey. I mean, you know. And we're going to be studying the still frames and in the background.

Yeah, AJ's just going to have his hands on his shoulders looking off into the distance. I'm going to be, I'm going to be magnifying this. The Blazers should bring Moran off the bench. I just wanted to throw that in. My next to, I have Jaden McDaniels. He was fifth on my board. That's fine.

Jay McDaniels. Fifth on line as well, calm, man. Very fair. This is, we get into a team. My second tier, I wanted to say,

was playoff level primaries. That was Maxi and Avdia. Now we're into elite specialists. Yeah, McDaniels, he became a much better catch and shoot player from three this past year. He's one of the most dynamic. He's really, really good off the ball chasing defensively, like navigating screens and things like that,

very slinky and spindly and explosive. But he's also very good on the ball. His matchup difficulty consistently through the roof. And he's also just one of the meanest fuckers in basketball. If you just watch his face, I sometimes just want to pat him on the back and be like, Jayden, dude, it's cool, man. It's all right. Like, he's just such a monogical competitor.

I love the dude. He's one of my favorite players in the league. We should be able to vote on that when we do awards at the end of the year. There should be a meanest fucker first team. Well, he revealed that in that Spurs series. Joker's got a dark size. It's just like, are you okay? Yeah, McDaniels definitely is a mean motherfucker.

That Spurst series pulled it out of him in a way. Like, it was personal for him against Denver as well. The thing that I wonder, and I will wonder this entire upcoming season, is why Minnesota didn't just run it back. And I do get the idea moving on from Randall. Off season. Like getting rid of Randall is kind of fine. You can kind of run it back without Randall.

Although speaking of inning eaters, he has been pretty durable. He has played and given them, you know, minutes over the court. But it's a very weird decision for them to go in the direction that they've gone, especially in the face of a Wembe West. That's the, I just don't really get it. I still hate it. I'm always going to hate it. I thought they overreacted to some injuries and some bad luck and underreacted to the fact that they had made two conference finals in a row and had a pretty young team for the most part.

McDaniels, a couple things with him. Sharks wrote this. The biggest surprise that might be that the Thunder traded McDaniels instead of keeping them for himself, for themselves. He could have been on OKC. He's like the quintessential presti guy. The Lakers ended up with the 28th pick and traded it. with Danny Green for Dennis Schrooter and then OKC

flip the pick after that. So the Lakers also could end. Now it took them a couple of years to get going. And then the other piece, and I certainly made fun of him at the time when Minnesota gave up all that stuff for Rudy Gobert and then put out, they were adamant about keeping Jade McDaniels. It's like, oh, cool, congrats.

You just gave up 100 first round picks. Turned out to be the right move. I'll take the L. who'd you have for the other pick, Kyle, man? I was going to note an inefficiency, I think that was going on among, like, Washington, which is where he played wings. They played zone a lot weirdly for those few years,

and they happen to have two of the best, like, perimeter defensive prospects and Batisse Thibel and Jade McDaniels. So I think that was maybe a reason why he fell, who knows. I really liked him in that draft. My next guy is Devin Vassell, actually. Yeah, I'm going two-way guys who can shoot the shit out of the ball. had a pretty interesting arc where when they were tanking and rebuilding, his primacy has gone down as this team has gotten better.

But I actually think it's the sweet spot for him where that stuff was all invaluable for him. But I'd like him a lot. I mean, he's a shot maker. I'm going to be central to what they're doing going forward on a championship level team. I think we've seen that now. Sharks said he was the best three and D prospect in this year's draft and has more sharks loved him. More shock-created talent than he showed in college.

I was really surprised the Knicks didn't take them. I thought they were going to end up with them. All right. So we have so far, we have Edwards, Halliburton, Maxi, Adia, LaMello, Jaden McDaniels, and Devin Vassell as our top seven. And Desmond Bain, he's like, I have to have another chip on my shoulder. I went 30 in this draft. You guys are going to disrespect me again? Are you taking him here, house?

I am not. You're not. I'm sorry. This is so disappointing. respectful. Who you taking? I'm taking a Kongwu. I really feel like that guy's got, you know, there's a ceiling yet to be explored. I had him lower on my board just for the record. I get it. I get it. I get it. Yeah. So I mean, I'm taking him at eight. The problem I have with Bain is just watched a lot of him in a playoff series and on a team where just felt like that impact should have been more.

You know, there was plenty of things going on with Orlando. Where they needed him. Yeah. Yes. It should have been a wonderful fit. There is a reason that the forecast for Orlando was upper tier of the Eastern Conference and 50 plus wins. And I didn't see it every night from him.

I went to watch Washington play Orlando and he played significant minutes in that game. Was it a you forgot he was out there performance? The Wizards beat Orlando the night that I went. In fact, it was right on the precipice of the Wizards trading C.J. McCollum because it was the wizard's fifth win in seven games. It's starting to get too good. They're like, wait a minute, hold up. So last five years, he was 21, five and five, 39 percent from three.

And that was his calling card in the draft was he's going to be a good three point shooter. He turned out to be a way better player. I mean, when you think about it, the Grizzlies take him 30, they get five years out of them and some playoff series. then they flip them for four first round picks. So that's like, if you're like, I don't know, a stockbroker or a hedge fund person, and you're buying low on something and then selling high,

that's like the ultimate value you ever could have gotten for somebody. But I think he's a little better than House. I can't say he's been on the perfect team the last couple years. Like we've still never really seen him with a normal type of point card. Speaking of, well, I'm going to take him here at a 10. And then I, oh no, is it 10? Yeah. Nine. Nine.

At nine. And then I'm going to take Peyton Pritchard at 10. 26. 26 pick in the draft. A little bit controversial. It was like a Danny A and sheet check pick. They had the Celtics had 14 and 26 in this draft coming off a 2020 making the conference. I think they made the conference finals.

And it felt like this was going to be a really important draft for their depth. Pritchard took him a couple years. I always liked him more than it seemed like the coaches liked him, and it was always unclear why he wasn't getting the car keys a little bit more. And I think the team liked him because they gave him a contract even before he had kind of become who he became. And then he just became, you know, one of the best bench guards in the league. Last year moved into a whole different level where he was 17 a game and is really one of the best get into the lane guard scores we have in the league,

which is just weird. He's a little hit or miss. There's a question whether there's like another, is there a second leap for him, a la Jalen Brunson leaving Dallas? I don't think so. But there's really good stats with him. Jarks was a big fan. Jarks said should instantly be an excellent backup point guard,

has the confidence and skill to knock down shots in big playoff games. So nice job by him. But anyway, so I have Bain and Pritchard and now it's starting to get a little dicey house. Yeah. And I recognize my role in this podcast today as a little bit of an outlier with some of my perception. There's no wrong picks in a redraft. I'm valuing Stan Strong House. Some size here.

Well, I mean, I didn't really make. I loved Okongwu where I took him because I think that his flexibility, what he adds to a team, in terms of front court depth. And he shot, you know, he averaged two threes a game and he shot 38% from three. So that that's floor spacing, especially for that Atlanta team. And they really, really need that. Are you taking beef stew right here? Is that what you're telling us?

I am taking beef stew. That's exactly right. I sure am. You know me better than anybody. You're fucking A right. I'm taking beef stew. I had him either him or one other guy that I'm sure Kyle's going to take. But beef stew went 16th in this draft was an excellent bench big guy.

And then really from the fight last year on, just got weird with him in Detroit. There's an athletic article talking about he got into it with the coach during the playoff series. And he only played 11 minutes a game, I think, in their playoff series. So something funky happened. And then they basically dumped them. Gave him away. It'd probably be like a shorter article to like write like who he hasn't gotten into it with,

right? It'd be better because he's gotten into it with everybody from what I understand. I mean, honestly, San Antonio should got. It's exactly who's San Antonio. Tony Nuddy. They needed a fuck you guy in their team and he's a fuck you and a half guy. So Memphis is going to have him. He's going to fit in perfectly

with them and that couldn't have worked up better. I didn't mind the pick house. Who do you have next, Kyle? I have Aaron Neathsmith next. Yeah, I did. Good player. Drafted by Boston. Is that right? He just couldn't. Too many dudes, right? Yeah.

I had a couple jokes about in tweets and and podcasts. I always liked them. And I felt like they completely marginalized them. It's a good example of like bad team wrong fit where you'd go to the games and he would just kind of run up and down and stand in the corner and do nothing. They didn't trust them to do anything. He never knew when he was going to play or not.

His minutes were getting yanked around. He just had no confidence. And he goes to Indiana and becomes this awesome 3-D guy. And, you know, people think the Halliburton game was the Halliburton game, but it was really the Neesmith game. Yeah. You know, Halliburton made the famous shot in the game. It was Nismith making like four, he checked threes and prove themselves as somebody who could play in a finals at a high level, guard the best players and the other team.

That's the key. Yeah, he's a really deal. That's why he really deserves to be here. Well, this next pick will be interesting. It's starting to drop off, Kyle. Who do you have? Let's see. These are my starters, my playoff starters.

And my next one is, and I'm a little waffly on this one, but Emmanuel quickly was my next pick. I had him as well. 50-50. Yeah. Yeah. Funny because, you know, quickly when he was traded from the Knicks was still like ascendant. And, you know, everybody was like, okay, well, this guy's on a rocket just going upwards.

And then has a couple seasons in a row where he misses a lot of time. And then he comes back and play. It just has a really quiet season this past year. So I don't know if the star bet is still there with him. I don't know if the star confidence is still there as much as it was with him. They get him a gigantic, crazy contract. But he's a starter player. He's a good shooter.

I don't know that I'm going to run my offense through him. Like maybe people hope that they would, but probably already said too much about him, you quickly, honestly. No, there's one other thing. He got a stupid contract. So he's in the worst contract strapped every year. And then you start to hang that around your collar.

They have this dumb contract. But he's still a playoff guy who can come off the bench and, you know, he just shouldn't make $30 million a year. They missed him. I mean, he couldn't play in that playoff series this year. Yeah. And that's the lingering taste, which makes him, you know, at least for me when I was looking through, is like, can I?

But when you look at his resume, for the most part, he's played a lot of basketball. He missed like, you know, he scores. Two thirds of whatever that season was two years ago. But otherwise, you know, he's between 65 and low 70s in terms of the number of games played. Yeah, I, he's a net positive. I had dinner with Doc last night. And he was talking about how he always liked to have one guy, one guard. come off the bench, like the Eddie House, Lou Williams type that was just like,

no shot is a bad shot. I'm just firing it up. And he was like, I always love those guys. I would never tell them it was a bad shot. I would just kind of take them out if they didn't have it, but I would always tell them, go, go, go. I think quickly, if Toronto's good, quickly could be one of those guys, right? He comes in. If he doesn't have it, he doesn't have it. If he does have it, you can ride it for six, seven minutes. I think there was a moment there when we, felt like maybe he was more than that, but I don't know if he is. But it's fine. He's probably a two and a one's body. You know, he likes to score. And that's kind of, that's his destiny, I think. I'm taking Obie Toppin here. And he's really the last guy that I think we know for sure

could play in a top seven of a really good playoff team because we saw it in Indiana two years ago. He was really valuable for them. I like him. And especially seeing him in person was not afraid of the moment guy, which I think. I think, you know, for he's an underside. I don't even know he's a four, is he five? Who fucking knows? He can't really guard anyone. But he plays really hard, and I think he feeds off the crowd.

And I just thought he was a really good bench guy for them. So, House, would he, do I have another pick? Oh, yeah, I do. I have two. Wow, this gets really hard. Wait, did House get his turn? Like, does he get his two in a row? No, I don't get two in a row because where I am at the snake.

Yeah, that's right. I get two in a row and I'm kind of screwed now. Well, there's only a couple of picks left. I have, this is my last pick. Oh, man. I can't believe I'm at. There's two guys that are really good. Why am I agonizing over this?

I'll take Sadiq Bay here. Oh, wow. That's fair. Yeah. I have two other guys. I don't, I don't hold it against him that he got hurt. Okay. I like his game.

I thought, you know, he's buried. on that terrible Pelicans team last year. I thought he actually played well for them. I thought he did. I thought a playoff team could have not only traded for him, but he could have really helped them, and it just wasn't meant to be, I guess. But I've always liked him.

I think he's a tough wing. I think he's got a little fucking you in him, and it's not his fault. He got hurt. So that's my next pick. I like it. He could still help somebody. I will take,

uh, I'll take Isaiah Joe because I feel like that's a guy. Here's the skill that he possesses. This was the fourth consecutive season that he shot north of 40% from three. That's an important skill in the NBA. You know what? I wish I had taken them. That was a good picture.

I wondered if you might. Yeah. No, that's a good one. Well, the thing is we just don't know, right? Right. We'll go on Detroit this year. Can he play 25 to 27 minutes a game? Can he shoot 42%?

Can he actually be somebody they look for in the last two minutes of game? We have no answers for him because we've never really seen him in big moments. Who's your last pick here, Kyle? If I know Isaiah Joe, he's going to make three. He's been one of the better volumes shooters in the league.

He's been great. It's a good skill. Yeah. This is, I mean, there's only like two guys left that I would take. But for me, it's between Sam Merrill and Paul Reed. I'll lean I'll lean

Sam Merrill here just because we've seen him play in the playoffs it really really falls off though here we get to the guys who like are on the roster

optimistic and on the roster pessimistic those are my next two years but Merrill is a guy I'm just like can run some pick and roll

can make shots he's dynamic he's smart plays hard yeah I had him here too he was 60 in this draft house

All right, so guys that didn't get taken. Cole Anthony, which this would have been shocking two years ago that he didn't get drafted. He's out of the league. He's basically out of the league, didn't make it. He was the 15th pick. Playoff Paul was the other one, Paul Reed? Yeah, B-ball Paul.

Beball Paul. I'm screwing up my nicknames. No, you can call him playoff playoff Pete. Number 50 a pick, but we've at least seen him playing in playoff series and being somewhat relevant. And then here's what we have for the not drafted. wise minute number two Patrick Williams

at number four is a $90 million contract right now, not drafted. I never understood the Patrick Williams thing, even as it was happening in 2020 with the draft. It was like, he's a physical wing, but he can't shoot, but if he ever learns how to score, like it's one thing when it's like a Caleb Wilson,

is he going to house his stroke going to be five years from now? But when it's like, this guy can't score, but if he could score, it's like that usually never works out. Same thing for Isaac Okoro, who I thought was going to be better as like a defensive shutdown guy. I did too. He's just not. Killing Hayes at seven.

Jaylen Smith at 10, I think if we had gone 20 picks, maybe he gets taken. He's turned into at least a backup big. Kira Lewis of 15. There was a moment when it seemed like he was going to be the fastest guy in the league and a great change of pace guy. It just never happened for him. He went into the Pelicans volcano. Poku at 17, who I think could have gotten a championship ring in 25 for his incredible tanking exploits when they turned the entire offense over to him for 30 games. One of the funniest tanking moments of all time.

Josh Green at 18. Precious Achua at 20, who is. He's still playing. Virgin on having moments, but never totally. Zeke Najee at 22. Xavier Tillman at 35. I think if we did this three years ago, would have gotten drafted. but his knees went on him, unfortunately.

How many players in the league are a senior? He's Xavier Tillman's senior. And he seemed like he was 40 years old when he came into the league. I'm trying to think how many seniors there are in the league. And then the last one we could have drafted was Nick Richards at 42. I think the draft was 25 picks. Like he's somebody who we've seen play on different teams and get minutes. Poor, poor Najee Marshall, undrafted in this draft and undrafted in the NBA drafted

in 2020. All right. So, Kyle, if we had to grade this draft overall, like a,

like a B-plus? We have three franchise guys in this draft. Yeah. Edwards, Halberton, Lamello,

who were all franchise guys, I mean, I'm sorry, Edwards, Maxie and Halliburton, franchise guys

on teams that could make a final four with those guys as their best guys. So to me, that's a hugely successful draft.

And then you throw in a bunch of the role players. This is for, as weird as the COVID draft was. I think it's a B plus. Yeah. I mean,

like I said, I have Edwards and Halliburton a tier above Maxi and Avdia, but it's just sort of like these are contending level franchise players who, you know, worthy of max contracts and I think in any draft, if you can get that, it's just the depth. It's not great. It's really

funny to think about back about what we were thinking we were going into that draft. It's a funny time machine that this is the only COVID time machine that I'm willing to go into. willingly. House, what's your grade for this draft? Yeah, I think it's a solid B because

when I look at how many all NBA recommendations are we going to get out of this draft, then I think it's like a dozen ultimately. I think we'll get to by the time these guys are done, you add up those top sort of

four guys. I think we'll get to around 12 all NBA teams out of Maxie and Halliburton. And I mean, so we all. We We're about five or six now, right? Yeah, we have five All-Stars. We have three guys who made an NBA team.

We have one guy who led a team to the finals, and we have three NBA champs. Can you name the three? Wiseman got a ring for Golden State, didn't he? James Wiseman. Peyton Pritchard. Peyton Pritchard. The other guy got drafted for us.

Isaiah Joe. Oh, yeah, great point. Yeah, that's right. with the Thunder. Yeah. We also only had 10 guys who played 10K minutes so far in this draft. 10K minutes and six years, not a lot. Right. That feels right. That's 1500 a year, but we've only had 10. All right. So the final redraft. Edwards won Halliburton, Maxi, Avdia, LaMello Ball, our top five. McDaniels, Devon Vassell, Ocongwu, Bain, Pritchard, rounding at the top 10. And then we did Stuart, Neesmith,

quickly, Topin, Bay, Isaiah Joe, and Sam Merrill. I don't even think that's the right amount of somehow that's 17 players.

We probably skipped a guy at some point, but that was our redraft. And then the closest to getting drafted, probably Paul Reed. He was our bubble guy. Yeah.

You guys both liked them. I feel like Kyle Mann has not given up on a coro yet. What? Based on what? I think you're still holding out hope for him as a defensive shutdown. I was.

Didn't we get valuable playoff minutes from Najee Marshall? I feel like Nazi Marshall's being overlooked here. Was he in this draft? I'm a little flabbergasted by that accusation bill. I don't know. I saw a glimmer of hope when I Coro's name got part up. That was the sun reflecting off my glasses. Where was Najee Marshall in this draft?

Did I miss this? Undrafted. Oh, he's an undraft. So the undrafted were him and Deshaunateate. Nah, Najee Marshall could have been picked. I actually think he's arrow pointing up out of some of these guys who mentioned. Fecundo Campazo? No love?

Joe House. Yeah. Enjoy the golf. Thank you. Kyle, man. Enjoy the time off before the, for the playoffs get really kicking here. It was a pleasure to a redraft day. I have a feeling, obviously, in the two of you again for another redraft this summer, because I really enjoy this. Thank you, fellas.

We're going to take a break. Come back with Jason Goodsepte. My name is Peter Parker, but I'm also Spider-Man. This July, we're faced with a threat. be anyone. The world may have forgotten Peter Parker. I'm just a neighbor, friendly neighbor. But he hasn't forgotten them. Sometimes Spider-Man has to do the hard thing. That's my responsibility. Talk to Banner? I didn't know you could get that big. Spider-Man, brand new day in theaters July 31st. Some things are better when they're kept simple, like simply lemonade made with real lemons and cane sugar,

giving you a fresh, all-natural taste that shines through in every sip. It's the kind of drink that turns an everyday moment into something a little more special, bright, refreshing, and crafted for people who appreciate the real thing. Visit the chill juice aisle in your local grocery store today and say yes to Simple. Jason Concepcion is here for one of the most important moments of the year on the Bill Simmons podcast. I'm going to unleash my MVP ballot for The Odyssey. Okay. I haven't prepped you at all. I didn't send it to you.

And we're going from 100 to one. Now I'm going to skip some spots. Okay. Okay. Yeah, we're going backwards. How many times have you seen this movie? Once or twice? I've only seen it once.

I'm going a second time with my wife this week coming up. I saw it yesterday at 10 a.m. showing at the Grove with CR himself, Chris Ryan, and my son, Ben, who was completely blown away and tried to get tickets for last night and was like, Dad, there are no tickets. And I'm like, yeah. There's not going to be tickets for a while at night. Yeah.

We're not going to find those. But before we get into the MVP ballot, so you're obviously, you did binge mode for us with Mallory. You're a Game of Thrones officiado. Do these worlds overlap at all for you? Do you feel like there's some sort of DNA strands together? In the sense that this is based on history, you know, these are epic poems from a period of Western history, the dawn of history, but that within that,

it's also from an age of legends. It's you're unclear, like, what actually happened and what is fantastical. Yes, I think about them in the same way, which is something I've been telling people. Like, I think about this movie is, you know, when I was a kid, you'd turn on basic cable,

and it would be like the dark crystal or labyrinth or any number of movies that this movie reminded me of. Like, this is a movie where if I was 13 years old and I turned on TV and it was two hours into the movie, I'm like, well, I'm here for the rest of the 55 minutes. Well, this is going to be one of the all-time rewatchable. So I'm sure we'll do it at some point this year. I got to wait until it's on streaming or cable so I can really study it and take a bunch of notes and stuff. But it's, I love that. We're going to do a lot of spoilers for this. So if you haven't seen yet, no offense, you can leave, come back after you've watched it. But one of the things I love

about it, other than it's just so ambitious and they use technology perfectly. And it's almost impeccably cast with a couple of exceptions we'll get into. But the, I have, there's one I'm going to, yeah, there's somebody that fares very poorly on the MVP ballot. And his name rhymes with bomb ballant. Oh, go. Yeah. I told you, buckle up. But I think what I really love and what's great from a Ruechal standpoint,

it's got four like set pieces. Yes. Where it's like, all right. Okay. Buckle up. Ten minutes. Get ready. And, you know, when we see Cyclops for the first time.

And the movie's like kind of moving along. It's like we're bringing in all these different characters. I'm just kind of going along. It's like, oh, let's get some food. Hey, there's a sheep. Let's follow him up the hill. And you just have no idea what's about to happen. And from that point on, the movie just goes nuts.

Goes absolutely nuts. Yes. I loved it. I can't wait to, I cannot wait to see where we go with this MVP. 100 person MVP back. Yeah, I'm going to skip some spots. Okay. Coming in at number 100.

So just react off me after I give you each time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You got it. At 100, finishing last, bitchy internet people. Yes. They're 100 on the MVP ballot,

complaining that only 41 theaters can show IMAX. Sorry. The casting was too woke. That's been a big thing. Nolan wasn't faithful to Homer. Just shut the fuck out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We can't complain about everything. When somebody spends this amount of time and money and makes a great movie like this, we can't also bitch about it and find reasons that it's up. Faithful to Homer is hilarious because, first of all, Homer is not a guy. Homer is a collection of unknown amounts of anonymous poets. There was no actual Homer guy.

And two, you know, the things that people choose to be mad about, the wokeness of it, it's like, you know, what's not, what's barely in the Odyssey, the horse. The horse is like mentioned in a line and you certainly don't see what goes on inside of it. So it's just very interesting to me, the stuff that people choose to be. upset about and then the people, even with the trailer who were like, that's not what Agamemnon's helmet would have looked like. It's, get out of here. Please stop it. It's, it's, listen, there's a lot of people out there who need a nice 24 ounce glass of settled down juice. They know who they are. All right. We're dropping down a number 58 in the MVP ballot.

Benny Safty is Agamemnon. Oh, wow. Okay. Here's why. Didn't even know it was him the first time I watched it. No idea. He, he, He could have been anybody. And then it was like Benny Safdi's in it. It was like he was. So now I'm watching it. And I guess you can kind of see him at two different points. But really you just needed like a tall and posing guy.

I would have gone with con canipple. Like just going to somebody's success. Of course you would have gone with con can'tipple. Here's the thing about the Benny Safdi casting. You know, it was like it's a mythic depiction. You know, Agamemnon's like a foot and a half taller than everybody. He's almost as tall as the John. that they end up running from.

And it's to me, and I'm going to unveil this theory at the right moment in this podcast. I can't wait. To me, Nolan has done something incredibly creative and thoughtful with most of his casting choices. And I would include Safty because he's like

the most normal guy of the major characters in this cast. And they shoot him like Darth Vader, this mythic figure. But then when he speaks, it's just like a guy. So it's like this collision of myth and feet of clay that I think is really interesting. I thought it was really fascinating.

But I agree. You don't even know it's him. Would you have gone with Walker Kessler? Would you've just gone seven-footer? Talk about a guy that we also haven't seen very much of in recent years. James Wiseman? Weisman. Talk about another guy that we also haven't seen much of it.

Darko Milit. Yeah. Just go with it. Benny seven footer who's not an NBA team anymore? Because you're going for like a big giant tall guy, right? I don't know why you need Benny Safte. Anyway, I didn't know he's in it. All right.

Number 47, Tom Holland as Temeculas. Okay. Okay. I'll just start here, Jason. Sure. Go ahead. To me, this is a 2002 range Heath Ledger role. Interesting.

It's like, this is somebody I could see someday becoming this badass gladiator. But right now he's in, you know, he's. It's like a pup still trying to figure out the world. Tom Holland, way too short to be like the next guy who runs the whole thing, to be like this warrior. It's just not cool enough. I never bought the American accent the whole time. I didn't feel like he was related to Matt Damon.

And he's trying and they're trying to make it work. But I just find it hard to believe that this is Temeculous. Here's here. I'll unveil my theory here. So I think Nolan is playing with our, Sean Fennessey mentioned this on the pod. You guys talked about the Odyssey in from last week. I think Nolan is in a fascinating way playing with our perceptions of these people and the characters they have played. For instance, Tom Holland, who is almost eternally now associated with Peter Parker, Spider-Man,

who is a teenager forever, here plays a character who. their entire struggle is, why won't anybody see me as a man, as a full-grown man, as a person who could be king? He's trying to grow out of that image that we have placed him in because of his association with Peter Parker. And that's my Tom Holland example for why Nolan picked Tom Holland. And personally, I think it worked. I think it was, I think that kind of nod and a wink to the way we perceive Holland in this role, it worked for me. It worked for me.

Interesting. People are really split on it. That's why I knew putting him 47. I thought there was one scene Manane Hathaway just blew him off the screen. It was just, it was, because she's great in this movie. Obviously, we'll get to her much later.

But I had some questions with the age, too, because the disson was gone for, it seemed like 20 years, right? The dog is like barely holding on at the end. But then we have flashbacks of he sees his little kid there who's like four. Seems like four or five in the flashbacks. So that puts Temecoe set like 24, 25 range.

Yes, that would be mine. But he's treated in the movie like he's 16? I just don't, I don't, I just didn't, this was the one thing that really didn't work for me. Well, you know, it's like ancient Greek culture. He can't grow a beard. I think they just don't see you as a man until you like, until you can grow a full-fledged beard. Okay. At number 43, I have Poseidon.

Not a great dad. Negligent dad leaves his Cyclops son just in a cave. Son has to finally get stabbed, been attacked, and has to call out for him. And he's like, all right, fine. I'll do some stuff for you. It's a good point. I would add that every single Greek god, who's a male Greek god from Greek myths, is a bad dad. All they do is go out.

sire children like with regular human women after meeting them in disguise and being like, hey, I'm just like a really handsome guy. I'm not Zeus at all, by the way.

And then just abandoning them and never raising them. So this is like the culture of the pantheon of the Greek guys. This is just what they do. They're like, he's at a dinner party and they're like,

what's up with psychops? He's like, you know, he's doing all right. He's, you know, the caves going well, except the 12 sheet.

He's got a career. Yeah, he's got a job. He's, He's making his own way as a sheep herder on an island. He's doing really, really well. Works really hard at it. Obviously, one eye is tough, but, okay.

Number 40, bear with me, because we're not allowed to be critical of this person on. I'm not going to be able to explanation. Number 40 is Zendaya. The goddess of wisdom, warfare, and handicraft in this movie as Athena, which is also, people don't know this, Mali Rubin's title at the ring on. Yes. Mowry's the goddess of wisdom, warfare, and handicraft.

Yes. Listen, sometimes you can have too much star power in a movie. I'm not sure we need her for who she's playing in this movie. And I get it. Nolan's just like, he probably grew up on 70s movies, and we're just getting stars all over the place. But she's basically here. It feels like she filmed her scenes in two days.

She's making the Rooface from Euphoria in four different scenes. And then calling it a day. It's like, you have Zendaya here. She's one of the most famous actresses in the world. Like, she barely gets the ball. They don't run any plays for her. I liked it because you're meant to wonder what it could mean that she's here. She barely speaks throughout the movie.

She has a couple things, you know, at one point, you know, Odysseus is like, why can't you just like, why can't the gods speak plainly and just like say normal stuff? Right. And she's like, listen, this is, I don't know what to tell you that God's work in mysterious ways. We're doing the best we can. And so for me, it was like, you want to be starstruck by that face. It's a lot like the Charlize casting where it's like, I just want to be dazzled by this character. And I think that was appropriate. And with the end, listen, we're spoiling it, right?

We're spoiling everything. Yeah, yeah. With the way, with the reveal of who Zendaya is in the movie, which is a woman who was killed during the sack of Troy, adding to Odysseus's guilt, that reveal, after all this time wondering, like, what does Athena want? Like, is she going to be more plain spoken about it? Really hits for me.

And secondarily, a lot of the talk in this movie between the characters is, hey, remember, the gods can just show up in disguise, like, as a beggar or as a normal person. Right. So I think Odysseus at the end is meant to have wondered all these years, did, oh man, did we accidentally,

did we kill Athena in disguise? Did we insult her? Like, did I insult her with this Trojan horse? So you're saying we need somebody, we need more star power because there's a mystery of how important she was. Yeah, that's not bad. Because I was going to suggest Sophie Cunningham here,

where she's just, she's just doing the point. Just as the point? I mean, that's a, that's a, That's a great idea. And by the way, Sophie Cunningham. Yeah,

like Pat Riley needs to trademark the point quickly. Yeah, no question. Number 38, James Remar. Another one, I didn't realize

it was him the first time I saw the movie and then was looking for him the second time. He's in the dead people scene.

It's after the Elliott page comes back and says all the stuff. And then we see Remars in the bottom. I just want to give you his

IMD here. Please, please. When he's in the movie for 90 seconds, which is why he's not He's Ajax and the Warriors. Incredible.

He's Gans in 48 hours, one of the great villains in action movie history. He's Dexter's dad in Dexter. He's sex in the city, the best sex Samantha ever had. He's in Oppenheimer Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Pineapple Express and What Lies Beneath. He's in Miami Vice in an episode and he's in cruising. James Remar. Incredible, incredible turn. All time, IMDB.

Anyway, can kudos him. Okay, down to number 33. I have the giant Lastragonians. So these are the big giant mutant robots that kill most of Odysseus' crew. Yes. No backstory. I don't know what they're so upset about. I don't know where they came from.

If I'm going to cut anything in this movie, this might have been where I cut. I might have just had a boat capsize instead. I don't know. Here's why I loved it. Okay. Because it turns out that Nolan shot that with no special effects. They did the force perspective trick from the, you know, the Lord of the Rings, where they took, they replaced Damon and cast with like five foot tall stunt people.

And then they cast like seven foot two Serbian centers as the Lestragonians. And then shot like from a low angle up. So that's all legit. There's no CGI in that at all. Okay, you talked me into it. I just didn't understand what was going on in that scene, but you're kind of holding on for dear life for half of this movie anyway. Yeah.

Number 32, I mentioned the L.A. Page character, Ceynon? Seenon. Tough job. Tough fun. Tough coaching here by Odysseus, you know. It's like, hey, we're all going to be in the horse. you're going to be out there. It's going to be fine, though.

Nothing's going to happen. But he knows. It's tough one. I mean, to be fair to Odysseus, when he found out that Ceyon volunteered for this, was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, why did you do that? Like, way? Right. I didn't want it to be you.

Why did you have to do that? But there again, I think is this example of Nolan's really interesting casting. Here's a character that, like, is cut loose. and sacrificed by their entire community and society lied to and then left to die in order for this mission to like actually work. And so I thought that was like, yeah, it was, that really hit me. It was like, yeah. Felt bad.

I mean, who knows? Ceyn could have been much higher in the ballot, but you know who he didn't want them, want him higher? Who? Odysseus, just left about to die. It was brutal, brutal by Odysseus. And they had to listen to it from inside the horse. Number 30.

The spoiler alert people. We can't spoil the Odyssey. We all read the book. We all know it happens. There's nothing to spoil. It already happened. It's not like, hey, I wonder how this plays out. Number 27.

All right. Now we're starting to get into some real candidates here. Number 27. Mia goth as the handmade, the untrusting. Yes. in Hathaway as turns out she's got something going with Patinson. I wanted a little more from her.

I got to be honest. She felt like the most Game of Thrones character in this movie other than maybe Patinson and definitely was the only one who seemed like she was a little bit horny. This is not a horny movie. Not at all. There was that one moment where you realize

that that she is with Patinson's character when he's just come from clean. You did they do a sloppy kiss. And they were just like, oh, my God. Yeah. And that's about as horny as it gets. Well, you know, like there's the entire preamble of Odysseus with, you know,

Calypso on the beach that feels like the horniness. Like it's been like it's the horniness was 20 minutes ago. And now we're past that and we're just like rehydrating and basking in the glow. I'm glad you brought that up. There's an hour-rated version of this movie. There's definitely a calypso scene. There's probably a scene with Odysseus and Penelope in the first 20 minutes.

There's 100% of Mia Goth and Pattinson's scene. And then there's probably some sort of feast slas orgy if we went Game of Thrones style. There's probably a little finger running a brothel right outside of, yeah, there's something like that. There's a 1 a.m. on Showtime or Cinemax in 19, cut of this that comes after like

the hitcher or whatever like the Red Shoe Diaries or something. Bob Gucci-Honi produced it. Right. Was shot in the Netherlands. Absolutely there is a cut of this movie that is possible. Yeah, I think Mia Gauth was probably like,

this is, I was ready for more. I guess nothing's happened. All right. At number 25, the dog, Argos. RIP. So the first time I saw this was with your former binge mode partner, Mallory Rubin.

And the moment we saw the dog, and she was just terrified. And then the dog dies at the end. I thought Mallory was going to be reduced to a puddle. Odysseus comes back, just touches the dog. The dog's like, you're back.

And I thought Valerie was also maybe going to drop dead. The note I wrote down here is, you know, Murph is now six, my dog. This is how I want Murph to go. age 20, I'm away for a while. He holds on until I come back. I touch. Then he dies.

And just this is, what a relationship. How did she do when they were kicking the dogs, like in the dinner scene? You know, Mallory. How do you think she did? She threw up the both. She did one of those guarding her eyes. I will say the reason Argus is in hire is, I wanted one more flashback scene. This dog was such a great hunting dog.

Let's see it. We saw for a split second. I kind of wanted to see him cook a little bit. I don't know. Maybe Nolan, not a dog guy. All right, number 24, Corey Hawkins. He's Pallibus. He's Pattinson's kind of sidekick.

Honestly, possible Dionne Waiter's candidate. I thought he really jumped out. I thought he was really good. Huge reaction. I don't know about you. Huge reaction in my theater when he buys it. The audience absolutely loved it. To have that kind of impact in, what does he have, like, three lines and he's probably on screen for like two and a half minutes.

To have that kind of impact in two and a half minutes, I got to respect it. Crowd loved seeing him die. He kind of came in like he's out of the bad boy pistons. He's just got a crazy, he's just trying to get a tech, just trying to start shoot with people. Right. is like any member of the Argentino World Cup squad like the final. He's already got a yellow card.

It doesn't care if you might get kicked out. Number 22, Le Peter Nuwango, playing twins, playing hot twins, one has scars on her face, the other doesn't, the other shanks, Agamemnon. I don't think need a little more with this. This was kind of the untravelled side of her getting the evil sister getting the revenge at the end,

but there's all in the book. there's a whole backstory for why she did that and just kind of comes and goes and I don't know, I felt like I could have got another 10 minutes with it. This for me is the kind of your mileage may vary thing. I think what Nolan was trying to do here is

say through this character whose face launched the original Trojan War. Right. Is to say like, oh, Helen has thoughts about this, because she keeps wanting to say something. She pulls Tom Holland aside at one point and it gives him some very important information.

And then at the feast is like keeps trying to interject. But Menelaus just like won't let her speak. And to me that was like a meta statement about war and about this entire conflict within this. But I agree that you have Lapida and you just kind of want more. I thought that was a perfectly cast because she's one of the most beautiful actresses we have and that's like in your head Helen and Troy has to be

like oh yeah I get it number 20 mentor yeah original mentor they named everything else after them unbelievable I never I never realized they're or I'd forgotten because I read these books in high school

but the original mentor it's just kind of oh yeah that's a good one Here's my Nolan casting theory applied to John Leguizama mentor. I have, by the way, I have LeguZamo coming later if you want to save this. Oh, okay. I'll save it. I just had the concept of mentor as number 20.

Okay, yes. Yeah, we're going to hit Leguizamo in a second. Number 19. The big lesson of the Odyssey is my number 19 MVP. Winning isn't everything. You know what? Trojan horse, great idea. you offered somebody a gift?

Yeah. You turned it and you ended up winning the war because you shanked them with this gift. But Odysseus, as the movie goes on, he realizes, was it worth it? It's the nicest thing you can do for another human being is give them a gift. And we did that and then we betrayed them with it. And I don't know if I would do that again. I thought he was the proper amount of doubt and skepticism about whether that was the good move. I think that's absolutely right.

I think that, you know, one of the things that we know about Odysseus is not only how clever he is, which everybody says throughout the movie, but also that he is fair. Like, he thrums that bow with that classic Christopher Nolan bass drop sound moment. And, you know, Penelope asks him why he does that. And he's like, well, I want to give, I think it's only fair and honorable to give the animal I'm hunting, like fair warning that I'm coming. but he doesn't do that with Troy. He plays it underhanded. He never gives them the warning that this is, that actually the hunt is still on.

And that's a big reason why he's so guilty. He feels like he insulted Athena. A little parallels to Bill Belichick and SpyGate, maybe a little bit. How far do you want to go to win? Sometimes you can ever regret. How much is too much? Yeah, how much is too much? There are repercussions.

Coming in at number 18, Matt Damon's beard. authentic real beard it's weird because he can't I don't know if they were trimming the upper lip part but the beard itself I'm just going to ask you because it's one of the most important questions the movie

better or worse beard than Tom Hanks and Castaway also a natural beard there are different kinds of beards Odysse's beard was more both are wild but it was more manicured and it

seemed more air quote Greek, whereas Tom Hanks just had that crazy thing. He had the survivor beard, basically. He had the survivor beard. I'm going to give it a push. Push. I'm going to give it a push with the edge to Damon because of the dedication of how long it's, you know, it's like a year of your life to do this.

Pretty impressive to me. You know, it makes you realize when we've had fake beards in movies. Yes. How bad the fake beards are. Like, there's one point when he gets. wet in the beard, like kind of like stiffens up. It's like, oh, that's a fucking real beard. I knew he grew the real beard, but there's moments where this is why he spent a year

growing beard. Can I ask you, Bill? Yeah. So I was listening to your DiCaprio or Damon conversation. And can we just say right now that the Boston connection had nothing to do with it? There wasn't any, it didn't factor in at all. Maybe a little. Maybe a tight bit.

Okay. I'm not saying I disagree with the with where you landed with it. I think it's an interesting conversation. But I wanted it acknowledged at least a little bit, you know, DiCaprio Laker fan. Well, that is true. It's funny. I got so many emails from the listeners saying like, do you realize you've been a lifelong Jordan over LeBron fan?

And then you did Leo versus Damon and you picked LeBron over Jordan basically. You pick career, resume, more movies, more minutes, more games, more everything, versus the heights of Leo, which was the exact opposite of your strategy with Jordan. I'm like, you know what? Checkmate, you got me. I don't have a counter in that one. Number 17. Hamish Patal. Is that how you say his name?

Amish Patel. Amish Patel. Officially a Nolan guy, congrats to him. Like Nolan's making a movie he's in. I really liked him in this. I thought that is this a mutiny? It doesn't have to be. Like he had a couple really good moments.

I thought the way he was like watching Odysseus and you can see him losing faith. But I just thought it was kind of not the most exciting part, but I thought he kind of crushed it. I liked him. I loved it as well. He just brings a more, you know, with a guy like Odysseus who's like the mastermind, the brilliant guy, you need that character who's like, okay, I'm going to take all these brilliant plans of yours and somehow make it happen. And you felt that chemistry through their interactions. Totally. Yeah, yeah.

Number 16, this goes to the crossbow and arrow trick. Okay. So this movie has to hinge on this stupid bow thing that he does in the beginning that everybody's like, oh, wow. He did it again. And everybody's just like, oh, my God. This is fucking amazing. and they have to plant that seed for later. And it's like in all time comes back.

It's like, oh, she's going to have them do it. She's going to have, she knows the suitors won't be able to do this. And she's kind of secretly hoping that beggars and Desius, I just thought phenomenal. And by the way, I would watch this as a two-hour ESPN event. I'm just bending the bow and then through the 10 axes. I want to see people bend the bow. How many people can do it and then you have to shoot through the axes? I'm in for two hours.

through the axes incredibly underrated. Totally. Just be, I mean, just be completely glossed over. Like, obviously no one has done stringing the bow except for Odysseus. Yeah. But once you climb that mountain, there's arguably an even higher mountain after that. It's just impossible.

I love that they brought it back. I loved it. Okay. Now we're in the top 15. This is the really good stuff here. Whether life serves you an ace or an unexpected backhand. The high-protein yogurt, OICOS Pro, is there to feed your strength and help you turn every challenge into a smash. Oikos Pro helps build strong muscles and support muscle recovery with high protein and contains no added sugar.

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Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. Okay. Number 15, I put this in partly for you. Drunken, menacing, bordering on violent feasts. Really, this was the most Game of Thrones DNA here, where we just have a bunch of people eating together

and people drinking bad wine and just getting bombed, and they don't know how to interact. What are they talking about? that none of them have any hobbies. They can't be like, hey, what do you think about the playoffs tonight? The only goal is just to get drunk

and maybe get in a fight with somebody. And it was just fun to be back. It brought me back to Thrones. What an incredible collection of bad hang individuals that have been hanging out. Yeah. Not for a week, not for a month.

Three years. But for like years, they've been here eating Penelope out of house and home, bullying her son, kicking dogs, spitting in the face of beggars, and just trying to hook up with her

for years. Terrible. That is a maybe just poison everybody kind of moment for her. At some point, just swoop on something. It's like, hey, I got some special steak tonight.

Number 14, Samantha Morton as Circe. Oh, my God. So another, also like, thrown, Cersy versus Cersi, I'm like,

that can't be a coincidence, right? I mean, I think that there's significant, thematic connections for sure. Yeah. What performance was creepier for you? Samantha Morton as the creepy lady who lives on a hill and can turn everybody into pigs and knows a lot of shit and just has kind of a dark energy about her. Or who she played a minority report, the pods. One of the bald pods and the underwater.

One of the freakiest characters of all time. This is clearly a juicier role. I think this is the spookier role. Just because like the eating scene, when they're feasting on the food, and you're just like, this can't be good. Whatever's about to happen, it's going to be bad. And the way they, again, with the practical effect, she's like reaching into their cheeks, stretching their mouths,

turning them into pigs. It is so unsettling and magnetic, but also like really just gross on a base level that, I mean, I was I was blown away by this. This is a creepier role just because is she eating the people? So she's feeding people to people in the form of animals. To eventually eat that. And also very underrated part of this is she has her sister as a crow just in a cage forever.

Yeah, so she's a cannibal witch and also not a great sister. Not a great sister. I saw this the first time. second time. Three-hour movie. I'm going to drink it in giant water at some point. I got to go the bathroom. Timed it for when she turned everybody to pigs. I'm like, I don't want to watch this to get me out of this. I had another question for you. Turning people into pigs. Yeah. Top ten worst superpower? Like if you had to pick like, oh, cool, I get a superpower. What am I getting? Well, you're going to have to turn people into pigs and then you eat them.

That's your superpower. Well, with regards to your men, mentor, Paul, the first mentor. Is this the first mentor pigs? Oh, I like it. Maybe, yeah. I mean, yeah, because she's, she's calling her shot too. She's like, they're pigs. They're getting what they're deserved, right? Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I mean, we're really just like in the origin stories of so many tropes. It is true. Number 13, Zeus. I wrote down, he's a little like Adam Silver. He has a bunch of laws. We mostly don't know what they are. And the the punishment is either not nearly enough or way worse than it should be. That's like, that's exactly right.

No notes. I have no notes. That's perfect. Adam Zeus sober. Yes. Did we violate the laws with the aspiration scandal? I, you will find out. I don't know.

Is this king that I have put in place the cheapest king, the worst king ever? Yes. Oh, the Portland king of Portland. The king of Portland. I didn't realize he was so cheap, even though he did exactly the same thing in Carolina. He might be the king of Las Vegas very soon. We have no idea. All right.

Now we're really getting there. Number 12, John Bernthal. Arguably could have been five spots higher. He's the king of Sparta in this movie. So I intentionally, I mentioned this last week. I intentionally avoided all spoilers, everything. I literally didn't know he was in the movie. I gasped when I saw him.

I got so excited. Could he have played Odysseus if we were. we're doing like slightly cheaper budget. We can't afford Matt Damon. We need to go second level actors. Could you have bought John Bernthal as Odysseus? Because I would have. He could have done it, but here's why I think Nolan did it the way he did.

I've got to, this is part of my Nolan theory. With regards to Bernthal as a occasional, a little more than occasional listener to his podcast. Yeah. He is always, he's a very pro-veterans issue. choose figure. He's always talking about the sacrifice of vets. He's always platforming, you know, ex-Delta Force guys, ex-Seal Team Six guys on his podcast and talking about the things that warfighters go through. And here, I think Nolan very specifically playing with that,

cast him as like the character who's like, Trojan War was awesome, man. Like, oh, what's it? Your dad was in the Trojan War? Come here. Sit next to me. I want to talk to you. Yeah. Let me tell you about the horse. Let me tell you from inside the horse. horse. I'll tell you what that was about. And he's the guy who's the most concerned with what happened to the Trojan War veterans as they left the war and what they're up to now. And I think this is, could he have been Odysseus? Yes. But I think Nolan wanted him specifically for this kind of part. It's an awesome point. Number 11, I have Homer, who as you mentioned, isn't a complete person. No, it's not. Great stuff nonetheless. And,

And the legend of Homer continues. Great job by him. Great job by him, them, however many homers there were. We have no idea. But yeah, you know, Homer, they'll be reading it forever. It was enjoyable in high school. Just really laid it down. Great time back.

All right. Number 10. This got really tough. Okay. Number 10, the Trojan horse. Just in all time. I know ultimately able and the discus had a lot of regrets about it, but just fundamentally, probably the greatest war idea of all time.

It's without it. The fact that we're talking about it 5,000 years later proves the point and that it's become the word Trojan horse has become the byword for something that contains a hidden poison, some sort of ambush within it. I think you're exactly right. And let's be honest, Bill, if we were there like Minnaleas or any of these other characters. Yeah. We'd never stop talking about the horse ever. Right. That's it. I wouldn't have to do anything else. I would just be telling Trojan horse stories to everybody I met. Yeah, I was in there. Let me tell you. Every single podcast, the comments would be like, guess what, Bill managed to tie it back to the horse. He did it again. He did it again. It's the horse. Guess what? He's in the horse and the water level is

rising. You'll never guess. It's the horse. I think Kevin Wilde's half-baked ideas. The Trojan horse is the greatest half-baked idea ever, where they were like, all right, here's my idea. I only have half of it. We just build a horse. Right. And we all climb into it.

And somehow they pull it up. And then when we're inside, we'll come out of the horse. And they're like, okay. They try to work with it. And somehow it works. So the movie lays out a really key point about the Trojan. Because it's been romanticized over the years. Like, yeah, they were in a horse.

That really has, yeah. Bad times in the horse. I mean, about as bad as it gets where they're just pissing and shitting on themselves. There's water in the horse. People are drowning in the horse. They're suffocated in there. They also have no idea how long they're going to be in there. I'm going to say one of the worst things of all time.

It might not work at all. They might leave it there. You don't know. It's a Hail Mary pass for sure. You're getting stabbed in the horse. Then there's the guy who's like, I've got to also. wipe the blood off the blade before it pulls out or this whole thing is is going to be ruined. Very one of the all-time worst times in the horse, which is why, again, Bill, you would not

stop talking about the horse. It's right. It's the warriors figuring out how to get KD in 2016 multiplied by like 200. Wouldn't be great things ever. The smell by day four had to be all-time worse. You think anybody was like, yo, I know we're not supposed to open that little opening that we get at it, but what if we did? Yeah, I think Odysseus...

I think Odysseus very strategically put himself by that little opening because I think he was sneaking breaths. Yeah, no question. All right, number nine, Robert Pattinson as Antonis. This is the Billy Zane part. We have these big movies, and it's like,

oh, you're the Billy Zane part in this. And in Titanic, Billy Zane is over the top and just one of the most ridiculous characters in the history of movies. but it's great. This is a really good performance. And here's the thing, Jason Sepsion. This is an actual fact from Robert Pattinson.

He based his performance on James Woods in Casino. That's actually a great poll. He said this in an interview. Wow. I watched Casino and I decided, what if he was Antonis and I just was Lester Diamond? And that's why I was. And it's like, holy shit.

So I found that up to in the first and second movies. times I watched. I watched it the second time him as Lester and I was like, this is fucking out of control. There's a moment in this performance. Obviously,

like he's so almost cartoonishly evil throughout. But then they get to the final, you know, the test with the bow and the 10 axes and everybody's failing, failing, failing. It comes around to Antoninus. And he's like,

he does this fascinating thing where he gives this speech where he's like, hold on. None of us could ever imagine that we could replace Odysseus. Odysseus is a giant. Odysseus won the Trojan War. I would never deem to take his place. We can only hope to be selected by you, Penelope.

So I'm not going to try. I'm not going to even try to do it. I don't want to disgrace the bow. I won't disgrace the bow with that kind of performance. And I was like, man, that is, on the one hand, so slimy. And also, that would have worked on me. I would have been like, you know what? Maybe he's not such a bad guy.

It seems like a change. Maybe I did I have him wrong? Maybe I had him wrong. I think he should get nominated for this. If I was going to do supporting actor in Leguizama, the next person we're going to mention. But it, and maybe both. I don't know what the categories will look like.

But, you know, the academy and just in general, the over-the-top villain part like this never gets actual award recognition. I thought he was awesome. And Pat, since been in our life. now for since my kids were young and, you know, the fucking Twilight movies were coming out. This is like almost a 20-year career now for him. He's just a really good actor. I think this is the best he's been in a movie.

He's really good in this. He's always, especially, you know, post-Twilight, it seems like he's reveled in taking these really interesting roles. And I don't think, Bill, there is a better actor currently working at that specific kind of sniveling, two-faced villain. Like, obviously, like, a cartoon, like, mustache twirling villain, but also, like, has the wherewithal to understand, like, my villainy is revolting to people. So I need to put a mask on it.

And then, you know, is there a better actor at these really dynamic physical moments where, like, the fight is unfolding, and he's hiding behind a pillar, like, get him! Get the shield! Get him with the shields! Like, there's nobody better at this stuff. He's great. He's really good and good time. I mean, he's been in a bunch of good stuff.

But I love that. He keeps, he's all over the map. Like, I don't know what to expect from him anymore with movie parts that he plays. And in this one, you know, 10 years ago, you would have said he would have been the Tom Holland part. Right. It's like that's a kind of, but he's zagged. And now it's, I just think he's doing a really good job. All right.

Number eight. Leguizamo. Another one, didn't know he was going to be in the movie. saw him and I was like oh, Legu Zama, that's cool. He got in a scene and it's like, no, he's actually a big part of this movie and is probably going to get nominated for an Oscar. I thought

he fucking crushed it. I thought he was so good in this movie. And I do think he's going to get nominated, right? I think that would be my bet for this category for him. Completely agree. My favorite role of his since Tibolt in Romeo and Juliet, the 90s, Romeo and Juliet.

Yeah. And is one of those roles where you're like, damn, Legu Zamo, I forgot. Like, he can really do it. He can really act. And with my Nolan casting theory, uh-oh. I don't think, I don't think it's a,

I don't think it's a, a, I think it's a very specifically chosen that Leguizamo is now in a second movie where the death of a dog is the huge turning point in the movie. Just like in John Wick. And just like in John Wick, he is that character in John Wick who's like, listen, you don't know what you've done.

When John Wick gets here, you guys are fucked. He's the same character in this. It's like, listen, when Mike, when Odysseus gets back, you, that's really interesting. He's going to wipe the floor with you guys. I did not miss the John Wick parallels in this movie, but I missed the Leguizamo collection. That's a really good connection. I thought he was tremendous. Congrats to him.

He's tremendous. Completely agree. Number seven. arguably could have been one. Charlize. Oh, my God. Another one I had no idea was in the movie.

She's Calypso. It's a role that probably should not have worked. Seven years of great sex and lotus flowers. And he's like, my heart's somewhere else. I'm going to leave. I would have stayed. I don't know how she got the part to work like it does,

but she's really great in this. And it's like the perfect kind of huge. check, she comes off the bench, hits a couple threes, grab some boards, dunks over somebody, and then she's out. I don't know that she's looked better in a movie than this movie, and she's great in every movie. And with regards to Nolan theory, she's been the face of Dior for 20 years, this kind of like ageless and moral beauty. So from that perspective, the casting makes sense. She's been very public on numerous, podcast talking about how she's single by choice, that it's a source of strength for her.

Yeah. That she would, in fact, never date in the entertainment industry because she's been through that. It's too... She loves one night stands. One night stands are great for her. That's right. And here she is in this movie, an ageless beauty who ends up alone at the end. And kind of by choice, she says to him, okay, I've kept you here long enough.

Like, if you want to leave, you can leave. And so I think, once again, Nolan is playing with our... our idea of who this person is and using that creatively in the casting. And she was absolutely incredible. This was the best casting in the movie for me. And I don't know what other actress would have been a better. Sometimes we'll have somebody in this and it's like, nah, not quite. But this one is like, wow.

And then I had this in my nose, Jason. This is four decades now of heat check performances from her, going back to Reindeer Games and Devil's Advocate. Like we're talking, her basketball reference page. I was like, God damn. This is 32 years now of this. Fast and the Furious. I mean, it just goes on and on.

Like the amount of things that she has done. Yeah, it's fascinating. It's pretty incredible. Like, and to your point, career launched, you know, in a, in a basically a Tarantino ripoff movie. Like, that's how long she's been at this thing. Yeah. Incredible.

Incredible performance by her. Great casting. And the concept of Calypso, like there's seven different movies that could have spun off from this movie and just been like, all right, let's go there for an hour and a half. They're just the concept of Calypso just out in this island waiting for people to wash up. Pretty great. Number six, I don't want to get too film Dorky, but the editor, Jennifer Lane, the person did the score Ludwig Gorenson. I'm not sure who killed it more. So I have them as 6A and 6B here.

the editing and Chris and Sean talked about that when they did the pod last week about in the later Nolan movies where he does this kind of flashback edit thing that just kind of seamlessly goes into where we are now but I got to say the score in a couple of these scenes and the sound of Cyclops

calling for Poseidon the Trojan horse the music of that scene when they're breaking out and it's like and it's just like building up this is just an A-plus special teams movie. I would bet a lot that Gorinson wins the Oscar for this. I would hope so.

I also think, just like Sean and Chris said, what I loved about this movie, one of the things, is that Nolan put in all of like his classic Nolanisms, but in the most creative versions of those things that I've seen yet. There is the big, you know, inception level bass drop. The boar sound is all throughout, but like more creatively with the bow. There's the little little metal tokens that are given to other characters. Parents and children, sad wives, circular storytelling.

All of that stuff is here. But at the highest level that I've ever seen from him. Number five in Hathaway, who's absolutely tremendous. Yeah. And I think needed this big picture just for her. Yeah. I think this is a little capper. This was like making that last first all-MBA team.

I don't know if she gets nominated for best actress or best supporting. I think they'll give her best. I think it's best actors. Yeah. Right? It's probably best actress. She's in enough of the movie that she could probably go for it. I thought she was awesome.

I've been a long-time season ticket holder. It's interesting. If you said the first four movies, let's say she stopped acting tomorrow on 50 years from now, passes away, maybe 80 years from now. What are the first four movies mentioned

in her obituary? What are the four that popped to mind? Are we counting this? Yeah. Are we counting this? I think this would have to be one of the four. I think the Odyssey, I think the Princess Diaries.

is the breakout. Had that as well. I think lay miss and I think the devil wears Prada. So I had those four. You also, on the cutting room floor broke back, interstellar,

Dark Night Rises and Rachel getting married, which I think she got nominated for her. I loved Rachel. But I think you have the right four. Yeah. We're going to do this later. We're going. Yeah, but those are the big four for her. And she kind of needed this one. She's also, by my calculator, has never been in a best picture winner.

Brokeback should have won but didn't. I think you're right. I don't say this, too. There was a period, you remember the Hathaway hate. This must have been 12 years ago now where it was like. I made me mad. I didn't like it. So the hate, which I never understood,

was that she loved what she was doing. Like, that was it. She loved being an actor. She was like, oh, it wasn't authentic how much she liked acting. And it's like, maybe she just likes acting. Yeah. maybe she just loves what she does. Like, get out of here.

I'd never understood that. I've always been a long-time fan as well. I thought this movie used all the best pieces of her. Yeah, she was incredible. I mean, a couple really great, like, whoof, like Merrill Street level scenes. There's that speech she gives Telemachus after he tells her, like, maybe, I don't know, maybe he should marry the guys. I don't know.

Where she just, like, blows up at him about, like, I've been the queen of this place for 10 years that nobody treats me as the queen. And she's like, you know what I'd like to do? I'd like to shut the doors, kill everybody. I was like, whoa. Incredible stuff from Hathaway. Number four, we're now in the top four of the MVP ballot. See, you didn't think this was going to work and you're having a good time.

It absolutely worked. I used to do this with the NBA when I had my column. I would do my, I would do a 400 person MVP ballot, but really only have like 28 people on it. Number four, Cyclops. This is one of the holy shit. It was so fun going the second time with my son. And the movie's great and it's going along, but I'm like, I can't fucking wait for the psychop scene.

And to just, when it end, he just looked at me and it was like he'd just watch a Waymo fly in the air with a family of six and just fly around our house for it. It was just awesome. And also important to note, I just don't think it works before we have all the technology we have now. I don't think this scene works in 2012. I just think it would have felt fake. I would have loved to see, you know, as we talked about, I think Nolan's done a lot of practical stuff.

I would love to know how he did that. But I was like blown away, not just by the feel of the scale of the giant, but the creativity of like, you know, his face, the way the eye is like kind of sideways. Yeah. And then at the end, you're like, fuck, man, they really screwed that cyclops. I feel bad for the guy.

Right. It's terrible. Like, why? That was awful what happened to him. He was just at home, tending his sheep. Yeah, he didn't ask for you guys to show up. It was terrible. It also has this great, I mean, everything about that whole section is unbelievable, but it has

that great thing. They also have to figure out how to get the fuck out of there. Yeah. And they're going to kill him. They're like, wait, if we kill him, we're just going to die in this cave. We can't do that. So how do we, and then all of a sudden it turns into like an NFL strategy. How do we attack Cyclops deep?

I mean, classic Odysseus once again, like the man with the plan, everybody's like, well, you got us in here, Odysseus. How do we get out? Right. I got it. We all act like sheep. He figured it out, but then makes the fatal mistake of he shoots him. I mean, that was his pride.

That was his pride talking. He got mad. Cyclops took a couple away. played by Bill Irwin, by the way, who weirdly played Anne Hathaway's dad and Rachel getting married. And one of our... Reunited.

One of our famed clowns in entertainment. Like, has that kind of physical presence of classic clowning, vaudevillian clowning. So when I saw this the first time, I didn't know, I didn't make the Bill Roman connection. I didn't know they used an actual actor to play him. And then not only did they, but he was, you know, they really went all in a, anyway.

All right, three left. Number three, the 70 millimeter slash IMAX experience of this movie, which is just been, honestly has saved movies in some ways with making it an experience where you feel like you have to go. This is what they try to do with 3D 15 years ago and it didn't work. And now it's at the point where it's now working. and I know it's not everywhere yet, but,

and I still feel like if you see this on a normal awesome movie theater, it's still an awesome movie. Yeah. But the experience of seeing it the way no one wants you to see it, there's nothing like it. It's so overpowering to see it

in that 70 millimeter IMAX. Words cannot describe the power of it. It is like that, you know, the cinema meme come to life, the Scorsese picture where he's got his arms out, Like, that's, that's what it is.

You see somebody's, you know, Anne Hathaway giving a fire monologue with her face 40 feet tall, you're just like, man, this is the movies. This is what it's about. Combined with the sound, which has also gotten really better in these movie theaters, too. And there's some great sound in this movie, but just an experience. And it's so funny, like, when you think back to that 3D era, where they're like, this is how we're going to have to keep people in theaters. And we're going to have them put these fucking glasses on that give you a head.

but it's going to feel different than being at home. And it's like, no, you could actually just have the screen be way better and, you know, spend more money on the cameras. The thing that I hated about the 3D, the attempt to make 3D happen, like the attempt to make fetch happen was it was so forced. There was always a forced moment where like some bad guy gets his arm cut off and then the arm has to float. Right.

Towards the screen, towards you. There always had to be that. And it was like, oh, great. Here's the scene that the 3D manufacturers made them put in to show how the 3D work. You don't need that with IMAX. You just need the power of the movies. I remember seeing Friday the 13th 3D in the early 80s at a movie theater. And they have what you just mentioned was the specific scene.

Jason has like a bow and arrow on fire and shoots the arrow and it comes right toward the camera. And it was like the big 3D moment. Guess what? Didn't need the glasses for that. I, you know, they talk about a movie tickets get more expensive and all this stuff. I would double down on this. I would have like the IMAX, the 730 showings. I would make them five, six times as much in the big cities for the first couple weeks.

Like, I would like to see these movies make more money because then they'll make more of these movies. So if they have to rig the first couple weeks with the tickets and drive it up and drive interest, like, I'm all forward if you're going to make more of the Odyssey. I love this idea. Let's rig the box office. Let's do it. Let's rig it. I'm for it.

Listen, in L.A., like last night, if they had charged for those four rows in the middle, if they had just said, yeah, these are 150 bucks tonight, that would happen. Like, my daughter wanted to go to the Red Sox game tonight because, by the way, they won 15 straight. And the tickets are through the roof. Like, you can't find them because everybody wants to go.

It's like, why don't we have that mentality with movies? I would just have specific. rows where they could make more money because if they make more money, they'll make more movies like this. I don't think it's rocket science. And say, not like you have to pay for those tickets, like pay for them wherever. I was thinking about how fortunate we are to live in L.A. where there's multiple IMAX theaters. My brother-in-law lives in London. There's only one in the whole country. Right. Right. Yeah, Kyle Mann, who was on here before you, was saying he would have to drive somewhere just to see it on like a B-plus movie screen, right?

In Boston, there's like two. Yeah. In Boston, there's two. Like, if you live in, if you're like vacationing in Wyoming right now or something, you're not getting the great experience. But I'm sure we'll have more. The fact that they're consistently coming out with these now, like Spider-Man's coming in two weeks.

That's going to be an IMAX movie. And so there's going to be a regular cycle of these, which makes me think they'll have more. All right. Last two. Who do you think was two and who do you think was one between Damon and Nolan? I think Damon is two. I think no one is one. That was what I had on my ballot. So I talked about Damon and Leo for 35 minutes with CR on Sunday. I don't need to keep talking about Damon. But we want to hear your Matt Damon thoughts.

Well, here's my Nolan theory. This is the culmination of everything that Damon has been doing over the course of his career. broke out as a young actor as a boy genius, right, in Goodwill Hunting. Here plays The Grizzled Old Genius, everybody talking about, like, how brilliant he is as a guy. In this movie plays like a noted trickster, a liar, kind of a con man, pulling from his Tom Ripley performance. He's also Jason Bourne, the amnesiac trying to get home somewhere and trying to remember who he is. And he's also, and he, with fight scene. And he's also the Martian, the man who is stranded living by his wits, who is trying to figure out a way off, in this case, the island.

But in that case, Mars, this is everything that he's been doing up to now in one movie. And a little, we bought a zoo with the dog. A little bit, a little bit. Get the sprinkling of we bought a zoo. His love for animals. We've worked that in as well. Maybe a little bit of Invictus. Sure.

Fighting in front of large groups of people. All right. Damon was just as good the second time. I'm proud of Matt Damon. All right. Nolan, who, I mean, this is, I think this is the best movie he's ever done.

Other people would argue with it. But I just feel like degree of difficulty. Everybody who worked on this movie was like, I can't even tell you how hard that was. I can't believe how grueling that was. I'm glad I did it. I'll never do anything like that ever again. He just went for it, which I love.

But he's hit this point in his career where he's made enough movies now where I think everybody has a different top four for him. Like mine would be The Odyssey, Dark Night Momento, and I think Dark Night Rises would be my fourth. Okay. But you probably have a different four.

And I think Sean and Chris would probably have a different four. name anybody. Horlbeck would have a different for, because he's had enough of these now. Yeah, I would go, for me, it's the Odyssey, Dunkirk, Dark Knight.

Batman begins, but you know, there's a lot of other, you know, I think all the other ones are valid. It's just incredible. I think this is like if you had bought Spielberg stock like after E.T., this is like

the heat check that he's on. This is his ET moment. You know, Dark Night's 08. Yes. This is 26. So you're talking, and I thought Dark Night is in the running for best movies of the first 25 years. I completely agree.

It's at least in the conversation. And at some point it becomes subjective and not objective. But it's in the running. This will be in the mix for the next 25 years. But to have two of those. 18 years apart. That's awesome, not a long list. I mean, that's, you're going into the Scorsese Spielberg area of did you put two kickass, awesome, memorable, all-timers, but 20 years apart, basically. It's not easy. I mean, you know, with the Dark Knight, as a, as a comics guy,

that changed the way the Joker was depicted in the comics. They were like, and that's never really happened before. You know, obviously Jack Nicholson, iconic Joker that didn't, they didn't change. the way the Joker looked in the comics after Heath Ledger's performance, they're like, actually, that's incredible. Let's do him like that in the comic books. One of the things I've heard, people are talking about, this is, the movie industry has changed.

Now the directors are the IP. Now the, this is a theme now of like, instead of the comic book and the suits and the capes, the directors are now going to be the ones. And it's like, that's always been the case, man. I went to see Jackie Brown in New York City in 1997 because Tarantino had a new movie coming out. That's never changed.

We just have more good directors now. We're in a nice little run of talent. The trailer, I believe the trailer for Jackie Brown was, like one of the first frames was the new film from Quentin Tarantino. It's always been like that. The latest from Stephen Spielberg. You know, it's Steven Spielberg's Jaws. the closure day just now.

This is a Spielberg movie. I think the difference with Nolan is he's making movies that are big scale for as many people as possible, but also the best possible version of reaching the most people, basically, which is the hardest thing to do. This is why Spielberg is the best ever. Spielberg was able to make big-ass movies for the most people possible that made a ton of money that were also really, really, really good. And it's the hardest level of this. All right, that's my MVP bout.

Did we leave anything else out? No, I think that's it. That's comprehensive. We did 100, it's 100, a hundred level. We did 100, give or take 50? Yeah. I didn't think it was possible, much like Odysseus's journey home. I did not think it was possible.

And it was, we accomplished it. All right. Chase Concepcion, you still basking in the glow of the necks? I will not stop basking until the season starts. I'm absolutely basking. I'll be interested to see how they screw up the first home game. It's like, don't overthink it, James Dolan. Just throw some pitches down in the middle.

All the fans want to do is see the rings and the band. Like, don't, don't overthink it. You think he makes a speech? Just be careful. The parade, I thought the parade, definitely the mic was getting passed around. I just, you know, you almost can't screw up the night when you raise the banner. It's almost an unassailable night. It is disconcerting to see him moving around with this much confidence and freedom.

Where do you want LeBron to go? Where do you want LeBron to go, by the way? You know what? And I said this, I said this previously, and I mean it. I think Cleveland makes the most sense. And also, I want him to go there because it, will be incredibly satisfying when the Knicks wash the Cleveland Cavaliers once again, but this time with LeBron James.

With the ball movement as LeBron and Hardin are just like, what's happening? Yeah. The ball keeps going over there. No, no, no, it's there. I mean, I think at this point, they should just, like, do, like, the Pope smoke for when it actually happens because we're just, like, waiting. Just let us know. Now, he's milking the summer now.

All right. Thanks for doing that with me, Jason. I had a good time. Good to see you. Thanks for having me. All right. All right, thanks so much to House and Kyle and Concepcion and Gahou and Eduardo and everybody at Spotify. If you missed it, I went on the Game Over podcast with Richard Max.

By the way, it was really fun. I was just in the office when they were about to do it, so I ended up crashing it. I think I'm going to be Amina Kimes' podcast. I think that's running this week as well. And I'm probably not going to talk about the ESPN stuff, but press box with the press box podcast. with Brian Curtis and David Chewaker did a really good job talking about that. So I'm going to be back on this podcast on Sunday and then live rewatchables on Monday. So enjoy the rest of the week.

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