The Bill Simmons Podcast - Clippers Revenge, Houston’s Dilemma, Simmons Trades, and Seth Meyers Returns, With Logan Murdock, Raja Bell, and Jonathan Tjarks

Episode Date: August 26, 2020

The Ringer’s Raja Bell and Logan Murdock react to the Clippers’ merciless win over the Mavericks, some heated exchanges on the court, Paul George’s postgame comments about being “checked out�� in the bubble, the Nuggets pulling out a win vs. the Jazz, and more (2:18). Then Bill Simmons talks with The Ringer’s Jonathan Tjarks about the Thunder-Rockets Round 1 playoff series, what the 76ers should be looking to do next, the Nuggets-Jazz series, 2021 NBA draft prospects, and more (38:35). Finally, Bill is joined by ‘SNL’ royalty and TV host Seth Meyers to talk about running a late-night show during the pandemic, his 13 seasons at ‘SNL,’ going back to host the show, NFL excitement, the passing of their friend and colleague Maura Mandt, and more (1:28:13). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Bill Simmons podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network is brought to you by Spotify, which has the best podcast listening experience around. You can change your speeds. You can go check out their awesome charts. You can do whatever you want there. If you love listening to music on Spotify, I would highly encourage you to listen to podcasts on Spotify as well. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where we had another new Rewatchables podcast go up on Monday night. 40-year-old virgin. Yeah, that one's up there. And then on Wednesday night, Dangerous Minds, because it is Teen Movie Week on TheRinger.com. We got all kinds of brackets, all kinds of stories, go to the ringer.com or to the ringers, Twitter feed. If you want to,

um, break down, um, every kind of teen movie possible. If you want to vote, if you want to vote with the greatest teen movie of, uh, recent history was all that stuff. It's good stuff all around, uh, coming up a little bit of a hodgepodge podcast today. At the very top, Logan Murdoch and Raja Bell, who you would normally hear on the Monday Ringer NBA show, and they're great together. They're going to do an instant react on Dallas Clippers game five. They're basically subbing for me just for the first 15 minutes of the pod. So that'll be the first 15 minutes that you won't hear my

voice. You'll hear Logan and Raja. Um, and you'll enjoy it because they're really good together. And then we're going to have, uh, me talking to Jonathan sharks from the ringer about OKC versus Houston, uh, Ben Simmons trades, and then what the lottery looks like for 2020. And then my old friend, Seth Meyers. Yeah. I can't remember the first time I had him on the podcast, but it's been a while. It was due for him to come on,

and we just catch up about a whole bunch of things. So really fun podcast to head first, our friends from Pearl Jam. What is poppin'? This is Logan Murdoch of the Ringer NBA Live Show. I am here with the curator of vibes, the former NBA player, the former Piedmont resident, the former amateur wrestler, the now media mogul, Raja Bell. What is popping, bro? How you doing, man? I'm good, bro.

I got my house shoes on. I'm chilling. It's like 1150 East Coast. It's all good. See, I'm on the best coast right now. You see what I'm saying? You got your little yellow sweater on and stuff. You know what I mean?

You got the little vibes. You curating it right now. You got the little columns in the back and stuff. I see you out here. You got the funk sway going on right now. Yeah, you see? Okay, bro. Okay, yeah. I see okay yeah okay yeah i see it i see it bro i see it i'm just saying i'm just trying to i'm just trying to show you that you out here doing a thing you know what i mean out here living up to your name

we are out we are here recording lives tapping shout out to everybody in twitter and youtube land all the spotify world and everything like that we are here after the mavericks got blown out that was that was pretty rough bro i don't even know the score right now you said it was like 150 to 106 we stopped watching right it was pretty bad have you ever gotten your ass kicked like this before and no not i mean well yes yes yes yes it happens right but not talking about in real life i'm not talking about a. I'm talking about in a basketball game. Both, yes. But not in a playoff game, right? That's kind of unique.

I don't remember playing on a team that got rocked like this. 20 point, maybe 15. But this is a genuine 40 piece they got hung on. I'm like, I've never been a part of anything like that that I can remember. See, I know in the media how it is. We're laughing at you guys if y'all losing and stuff we'll walk down to the to the to the um down by the locker room and stuff we're just talking about how trash you guys are right now that's what we're doing in the media outside of your mind by the way like you right before we came on you said like these last five minutes were trash like they

were my minutes man no don't don't disrespect yourself for like four years when i came into the league these were my minutes all right so i'm laughing at the terrible basketball that we just saw for the last six minutes then we're going down we're like this team was done what are you guys feeling like in the locker room when you get your ass kicked how is that for you guys yeah that's it that's a shitty feeling man um you know the good news i could say about the bubble situation is you're not going to get um you know you're not gonna have to travel on the end of this right so there's no plane ride like you're not gonna have to be stuck with everybody like commiserating over that loss for for much longer than you know it takes to get your showers, have your coach address the team, and then get back to your hotel room. So that's helpful because, you know, the plane rides can get kind of –

But are you – I'm talking about a normal service. Are you paying attention to the coach? Are you even like – are you pissed? Are you looking at your phone? What are you doing? No, you're high. Everybody's locked in because you know you're up against it now. You're down 2-3.

And most coaches understand that when you get beat like this, there's not a whole lot that can be said after the game. You're not going to stand up in front of me for 15 minutes because I am going to tune out. But I'll give you the three minutes to make your address and say what you got to say, and then we got to get out of there. What's the phone situation like? Is there like hella text and stuff?

Is it like, what are you doing? I didn't know y'all was this bad hella here's my favorite one what happened what happened is that one of those texts go in and what are you looking at those no they're cut there they were coming in the whole game like as as the game started and we and we were down on like a 26-4 run those started coming in so I've got to now go through the whole text string of like 40 texts asking basically what happened in a multitude of ways, right? So who do you text back? Oh, only family.

Like wife, mom, and dad probably. Like, you know, like you're keeping it close to the vest. Ain't no partners getting text back. Nah, nah, nah. You can't get caught up in that, man. Because real talk like lebron is good about going into what he's calling zero dark 30 or playoff mode whatever you you you got to block the noise out man to the best of your ability you gotta block it out so i mean you got

two phones like one for the you know like you got two phones for the one the family and then no is it just no okay it's one phone but you're just navigating through your uh you know through through your calls who you want to hit back and who you don't want to hit back and real like let me segue real quick allow me to do this because i'm looking at my phone you know who looks like they block the noise out who's that and i and i think he blocked the noise out because like he shut off the comments like on his ig page and all of that and he bounced back and had himself a really good game that's that's your boy playoff P. Oh, that was pretty good, man. You should do this for a living.

That was nice. Media mogul. Media mogul. Paul George had 35 points, three boards, and four threes. He told you to put some respect on Palmdale. He told you to put some respect on his name. He said, I'm not here for this Pandemic P. I'm not here for this PG 13% that y'all was talking about.

How did you feel about him putting some respect on his name? Because he was trash and we were putting Daryl and his name on this ringer NBA show that you can listen to every Monday only on Spotify. But what did you think about that response

from Paul George? No, listen, first of all, we weren't in the wrong for saying he wasn't playing. Like, he was not playing well. He wasn't holding up his end of the bargain. Like, it was happening. It was playing out right in front of our eyes.

But he did what I expected him to do, which was bounce back, come out, clip loaded, really forcing the issue early to get buckets and try to find his rhythm. And, you know, it was cool that Doc supported him and was vocal about that, so was Kawhi. But that's what you have to do. When your team needs you, Doc,

they don't have a shot at being the Clippers that people thought could win a championship if Paul George isn't contributing. It doesn't have to be the 30-some every night, but it's got to be upwards of 20, right? Roger, I'm going to keep it above. Mm-hmm. I'm going to keep it a whole stack. Mm-hmm. I'm going to be it's got to be upwards of 20 right raja i'm gonna keep it above i'm gonna keep it a

whole stack i'm gonna keep it g real i i don't think he has earned the playoff p moniker back i think he got p back i think he just got the p back that's cool i don't think that i don't playoff p means over years and years and years and i think there was a stat that he hasn't even made it past the first round like like four years as a superstar. I'm not mad at you for that. I'm going to say he's P. I'm going to say Palmdale P because he put some respect on Palmdale. I'm going to say that.

He played well to start the game. And what I liked about it was he wasn't settling to start the game. He missed some shots, but he was crashing boards. He was really active there. You could tell that that really pissed him off those first few games and he went he went out he went out wild for these first part for these first games and did not play well even after the instagram where he's like we stuck his chest out he still didn't play well i'm i'm happy he's palmdale p to me right now okay well palmdale p uh did and to to your point, what I found to be the best recipe for slump busting in my NBA career. Now, clearly, I wasn't scoring what he scores, but even when I couldn't make my normal 10, 11, 12 points a game, I was off. to the game and just play you know every possession and rebound the ball and hustle your tail off and play grade d and just don't trip out about the scoring or lack thereof like

really buy into doing everything else in the game and get yourself in a real flow um it usually finds its way to come back like you know the averages play themselves out percentages are what they are for a reason right so you just have to kind of let go of the fact that you're not scoring and do what you just talked about, like play ball, be aggressive. You're not on social media, Rajabell. I don't know if I'm going to change that. I don't know what's going to happen. But you are not at the moment on social media.

And I don't remember you being on social media during your playing career. However, you have been around players with social media. How much do they pay attention to that on a day-to-day basis when you see them in the locker room? Do they care about that? How much are they pay attention to that on a day-to-day basis when you see them in the locker room? Do they care about that? How much are they looking at it? Because there's always the narrative of, I don't care about what Logan Murdoch thinks.

I don't care about what the media thinks about me. Yet, I always see these players on their phones. And then they're the first ones to tell me when I didn't write something correct. From a player's perspective, how much do y'all pay attention to us? Enough. Enough.

Now, I'm older school, so the era I came up in, cats weren't on their phone. We didn't have social media. Some of my vets didn't even know what social media was. That younger generation that was coming in as I finished up, yeah, they're very aware of what's going on

on their social media accounts and what Logan Murdoch or myself might be saying at this point. I mean, it's just the way of the world, right? I got kids that are 12 and 13 years old and they know more about social media than I do. They're just locked in. What about when you were an executive, right? When you were in the front office, how do you tell these young guys you were in in in cleveland how do you tell these young guys like kairi when you were there or day on waiters when you were there you'll stay off of this so this is what you need to look for did you have any times where you had to just be like little homie chill no not not on not on social media um we've had conversation you know there are different

conversations that you got to have regarding like you know what people are getting into and and the timeliness of that but not not social media man most most guys most guys have a pretty good grasp of like time and place with social media um i always think less is more i know you're building a brand and and you know everyone's out there kind of trying to create their own, but you know, you, you gotta be careful on social media. So I've always advised whenever asked by,

by players, you know, less is more kind of on social media, you know, let's transition to something that you were well versed in. It's called beef. We saw a little bit of that. We saw a little bit of that in this game.

We started when Marcus Morris, I don't know his intent. I don't know. I can't speak for the man. But it looked like he might have kind of like maybe intentionally stepped on Luka Doncic's injured ankle. He did the thing where he was like, oh, my bad. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Come here. You know what I'm saying? I didn't mean to do that. But it looked like he may have stepped on it intentionally and then on the next possession tim hardaway the mavericks winds up on paul george gets ball but also gets a whole bunch of face a lot of face we've both been around the league we both know the code when somebody comes at you or comes at your teammate, what you got to do. Yes.

Was that fair game with what Hardaway did? Uh, I appreciate, I appreciate his willingness to step up to bat for a teammate. Every, every player like Luca needs, um, somebody that has his back. Like you need a Kendrick Perkins on the squad. You got to have somebody there. Someone that's not like not like necessarily a star correct someone there to hold that down i'm gonna check in the game just to get this foul and then we can get him out right my only problem with tim was and it's really not a problem but like go ahead and get go ahead and get morris like don't don't like palmdale p wasn't even really involved in that right so if if we're gonna if we're gonna

handle that business for luca then it's got to be the appropriate like perpetrator of the of the crime and that wasn't the case so that was my only beef with it but i kind of like you know like the mavs who even i question maybe a little bit of their toughness and and stuff like that you know i like you standing up you gotta stand up wait so for the record you think that marcus morris stepped on his ankle i i think that it was inadvertent look the wait wait wait what'd you say sir what'd you say i think i thought it was inadvertent i thought so you didn't think it was intentional i did not think it was intentional it was too look i've seen marcus morris bug out like when he hit when he hit uh what's the boy's name in the head with the ball like he he like um what's the cast name

justin justin anderson is that his name he kind of tapped him on the head with the ball like he he like um what's the cast name justin justin anderson is that his name he kind of tapped him on the head with the ball but this particular play like there's nothing else going on around you like luca's about to be the primary ball handler everybody else is in the in the front court what like why would you choose that wide open space with every camera lens in the world on you to try to step on that man's bad ankle like i don't buy that i feel like you can tell a lot about a team by the response that they give after after there's funk with somebody you know what i mean if if i'm not talking about the players that are on the floor off the floor and we can get to that in a second because it's something just came up to mind i need to ask you about all right about that but i feel like you could tell a lot about a team by who's ready for the smoke on the floor were you do you approve of the smoke that was happening on the

floor in in response to all this beef going on what's what smoke what what are you like what would you talk about when someone goes at your star player to other dudes come and protect them were you was that a plus or what grade would you give for sticking up for a teammate? Yeah. I thought that was with what you can get away with now in the NBA. Like I thought it was, I thought it was a solid a like Clippers were outraged. Um,

you just, you're not going to get away with a lot at work. You're talking about what happened to Luca or are you talking about what happened to Paul? Let's do a two separate instances, bro. So I give what happened to Luka if, again, and I think most Mavericks thought kind of like I did,

that you couldn't tell whether that was on purpose or not. So having said that, I'd probably still give it an A because maybe, you know, Timmy came down and did what he had to do. Quick Tim Jr. story. Let me sidebar real quick. We're playing in a gym down and did what he had to do. Quick, quick Tim Jr. story. Let me sidebar real quick. We're playing in a gym down here in Miami High, hot gym. Tim Jr. is probably about nine years old. Tim Sr. is locking horns with me that day, right? And he's a little older,

but we're getting after it. They beat us. So a ball comes down out of the net and I catch it on a volley and I kick the shit out of it. And it goes screaming and hits Tim Sr. in the face. I'm like, oh, God dang, I got to fight Tim Hardaway now. That's right before you know you got to fight. I got to fight him now, yeah. I didn't mean to, but I got to fight him. And Tim was cool as a fan. But from behind, I feel like these little fists beating me in the back,

and I turned around, and it was Jr. beating the hell out of my back so i'm not so i'm not surprised that he got down for luca today um and then from him hardaway junior and senior by the way you're and senior yes um and then from the from the clippers standpoint like i think what a g i don't have kids but i i hope if i have a son that he just does that for me just rides for me like like that. Absolutely. It ain't going to hurt you. You know, he's a nine-year-old. It ain't going to hurt the person, but I need him to ride. Yeah, not my dad.

You ain't going to get down on my dad like that. Yeah. Yeah, so it was cool. It's okay. Okay. The quick tangent aside, though, you were, if I'm not mistaken, you were a part of a brawl

that kind of changed all this shit, that changed all of this. In the 2007 playoffs against the Spurs. Some bullshit. Tell me about that. Tell me about that story and your involvement and what you thought about that whole shebang.

Well, it was, first of all, I didn't know this at the time, but when Robert Ori checked Steve Nash into the scores table, Steve was selling a call there, right? So I just saw it out of the corner of my eye and thought he had really got checked hella hard into the scores table. So I ran over, and it wasn't the greatest move

because then two more people ran over. Then, you know, if you know Boris Diaw, right? Like, I always tell this story. Boris Diaw would be more likely to run on that court to protect Tony Parker than he would be to run out there and fight Tony Parker. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, they're that tight.

So that was just ridiculous that the league took that stance. And Amari took, like, two steps on and then got back across the line. So for them to suspend those two dudes in a series, I think that the NBA deserved to see that year. I thought it was in pretty poor taste. But like I was saying before, when Sean, before we came on, was asking would Marcus get suspended for stepping on.

The league's going to do what the league wants to do. They suspended me for a play where I fell down and my legs kind of went up and Andre Bargnani was standing over me. He got called for offensive foul. And on film, they thought I kicked him in the balls. And Andre was like, no, he didn't do that. And they suspended me because they couldn't be sure that I didn't intentionally try to do it.

And then on the flip side, like, Bruce Bowen kicks Amari Stoudemire, like, kicks his leg out from behind him in a game, and they don't suspend him because they can't be sure he did it on purpose. So they're going to do what they want to do. Yeah. Shout out, Sean. You are a video producer who may or may not be on a future segment a future segment of pour out some liquor with us on the ringer NBA show on Monday.

Got to get that plug in. I want to quickly pivot to this. Paul George said the book quote, the bubble got the best of me. I was in a dark place. I really wasn't here. I checked out work. This is right after this game right now.

This is right after this is your, this is your second best player that's yeah that's team that's not quick reaction roger bell wait before we get the quick reaction roger bell i'm gonna say how i feel about this oh yeah go ahead please this is your second best player on the team a championship contending team this is only the first round in a series that you were favored in and you're already checked out at least for a stretch that you just admitted that can't happen,

bro. That can't happen. Or if it does happen, you cannot admit it. In my opinion. What do you think about this? Because I, I,

I'm just now getting this and I'm trying to figure this out while you're here. I'm kind of flabbergasted. Yeah, look, I couldn't have said that much better myself. Today's athlete, and as media members and fans, like, we want honesty, right? Like, we want you to bare your soul. We do want you to be candid, yes, that's true.

Keep that shit to yourself, bro. Nobody wants to hear that Paul Pierce, the the second highest i mean paul i said it i did it again i did it on monday um nobody wants to hear paul george is is checked out he's the second best player on the team dog second highest but no one wants to hear that like that dog like again we want to hear your candid vulnerability. Everyone wants to know that. Keep that shit to yourself. I will say this, though, and it just came to mind. We don't know also what he's going through.

No, no. We don't also know what he's going through. We don't know. We don't know the mental side of this, Roger. We don't know. Keep it to yourself. You can have it. You said it yourself.

Dog, you can be in a dark place like you could you can have personal stuff going on and all of that are all of those would be very valid reasons for you to not be producing like you're a human being i'm saying keep it to yourself don't nobody want to hear it so what what if he says it to you though like what if he's like man i just checked out like you're his teammate what if he says that to you oh listen then we you know let's let's grab a bite let's let's crack a bottle like let's talk it out let's try to get you to a healthy place also mental health health is you know it's a thing in this game you know somebody like kevin love who you've been around yeah that demar de rosen guys like that it is something to the psyche especially

in a global pandemic i just came to mind i'm just like damn you're right you know time and play time and place though bro like i have no like damar de rosen um uh um you know kev super brave man like braver braver than me like kudos to to you like um for being strong enough one to navigate it and then being strong enough to to come out and and and bare your soul about it i'm i'm just saying like as a as an excuse after the game still in the middle of the competition like you don't if in fact it is you don't want to be given is that what you tell him is that what you tell him as your teammate you're right next to him you know we have to scrum around him and you're right next you're like hey that's what are you behind it's like oh no not right now bro did did this game because you know you know how i've been i've been very

bullish on the clippers you know how i feel about the clippers right now i think that this game showed me something a little bit more heart this was the game that i've been trying to get out of the clippers just something like show me Like, I need you to, like, they've been talking about sticking their chest out. They did the thing at Summer League with Pat Bev, and they're walking in front of LeBron. They're like, this is our town. We run LA, LA our way.

But they carry themselves like a team that's been there before, but in a bad way, right? In a way that, like, we've won a bad way right in a way that like we've won three four champion we can afford we're good this is our this was the first game where i kind of saw them just be like okay y'all got us messed up we're gonna make a statement yeah happy to see that from them does this mean anything though does this mean anything um yeah it means exactly what tonight was you're winning three two and then that's a wrap like you have to you have to double down on that right like that's you're looking for consistent effort these are these are best of seven game series bro so if

you're gonna show up you know as great as you are as a team when when you have it, if you're only going to have it one or two nights in a series, then nah, it really doesn't mean anything. Now, if they can figure out a way to start stringing them together like that, Logan, then, you know, we're talking about a different animal. But, like, you're Lakers, right? Like, let me ask you the question. I know we're not talking about the Lakers, but, like, right now. We just did a good job.

Good job. Great segue. Bet that. So, like, who do you feel more secure in, like like they've got it figured out and they've got it rolling lakers the lakers i mean also they have the builds they just have a lot going for them right now and i just feel like they figured it out before the clippers right now yeah but i'm now i'm convinced that we're gonna get this western conference finals now i just see that that's happening i had a little bit of doubt after after game four i had

a little bit of doubt you know after luca won after luca beat them without without kp with all these things happening but now every i feel like everything's about to go as planned sorry sean sean who is a houston rockets fan i apologize bro but here's what it is i think that we're still going to be set up for conference finals well you you'll be right if like and the clippers don't even have to do what they did tonight tonight tonight was tonight was like their a plus effort man you had like everybody cooking but that that energy that you saw man like i don't you know they kept panning to their bench like how fired up the the bench was and you could feel them just contesting everything they were running people off of every look making you know putting the hand up just making it just a little bit more uncomfortable than you wanted it

to be as a shooter and that effort if they're gonna keep showing up with that you're gonna you're gonna get them in the lakers and that effort like if they're playing like that you'll get a good series out of them in the lake are they locked in now are the Clippers locked in now I don't know because they because all year long you would have thought they'd have been locked in and they weren't locked in right like they were Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Ott they're only locked in against the Lakers that's the only time that they're locked in now they need to get there first and I believe that they're going to get there but come on well it may not even matter right because if you you know if you have a banged up luca um

you don't have chris staffs um i i never i you know the mavs have been a good story but the reality is like if chris staffs don't play luca has to score 40 plus and he's just not gonna be able to do that on the leg they were trapping him tonight getting the ball out of his hands they're not i wouldn't imagine doc's just gonna watch luca score 40 for the rest of the series so i think it's probably a wrap yeah okay so we got some youtube comments one from matt skizzy who says is that logan murdoch or gerald henson gerald henderson cheryl he was my rook bro yes sir was he at it yes sir word yeah yeah how was that was he was he cool i got i got traded halfway through that season so another youtube comment. Is that Rajah Bell

or Skinny Jared Dudley? Yes. Let's switch gears, man. We saw another great game. Jazz Nuggets. The Nuggets responded, bro. They won 117-107 to stave off elimination such a cliche line but they staved off elimination they did stave it uh going into a game a game six jamal murray

bald 42 points eight rebounds oh i'm just gonna go full cliche right now out dueling jamal out dueling donovan mitchell who had 30 points and five rebounds yeah that uh look that go ahead now go ahead i look like you muted yourself for a second no no i'm here i'm here i'm here i just i just i i see both of these guys are just coming into their own it reminded me of what were you gonna say i think you have something to say was that no i was gonna ask you who like of the two of those right because i think their trajectory kind of the same same kind of trajectory right i i don't know their ages but like i would say same i would put donovan over him right now donovan is definitely in the

yeah he was in a rookie year conversation i'm putting donovan ahead of ahead of jamal right now okay you know he. I mean, they both have playoffs. I'm still putting Donovan on there right now. I got you. I think that especially what Donovan has done in the bubble as well. I think Donovan, we've talked about this in past shows, is one of the

unsung stars in this game right now. One thing that I did want to pick your brain about, though, is Kenny Smith said on a Turner broadcast, he said this about all young players, is that they had this offseason within the season, these three months off to get better,

and they're taking these leaps. I think I've seen that with Jamal Murray and Donovan Mitchell, also Luka Doncic. Have you seen that, though? Is that something that you've seen you know during this bubble no okay i don't know i don't listen i know but like real real talk like i i could see i could see like your your role guy um that's a young player coming in and looking a lot sharper in his defined role. But those guys, I always felt like Donovan Mitchell, Jamal Murray, Luca.

I mean, they might have gotten better at something, but I don't know if they got appreciably better. Those cats will drop 50 on you on any given night. But it's about consistency, though, Raja. Yeah, but you saw Luca tonight. It wasn't, I mean, hey, I know he's injured and everything like that, but it wasn't the Luka

that we were crowning like the face of the NBA two nights ago. You can make a case for that. And it is rare that you get that type of time off in the middle of a season. It gives you great opportunity to go back and say, all right, this is the way people were playing me.

This is where I struggled within this offense. Like for us to be a better team, this is where I got to get better in this offense and really attack that. And I'm sure guys did that. So that, I mean, that probably is why we're seeing such a great offensive display, like in the bubble. You know what I mean? Roger, you almost crushed the topic

and then you brought it back. So I can only respect it. You were like stepping on a topic like, Logan, you're stupid. What are you talking about? And then you brought it back. Yeah. So I can respect that.

I'm not into crushing dreams, bro. I don't like that. You almost did though. You already crushed my dream a long time ago. You guys can go to the past episodes and check that out. But I want to talk about

shooting in the bubble though. And I think that's an interesting topic. I want to shout out TD for our producer for bringing this up when we've seen this bubble it's there's no fans it's kind of like a controlled scrimmage with a lot of people right a controlled scrimmage with stakes yep um and with that shooting has gotten a lot better at least from my vantage point. What do you think that is? I think because, you know, we've seen loud arenas.

We've seen how an arena and fans can affect how a role player and even superstars shoot. Do you think that that is nullified by no fans? Well, excuse me, Lil Wayne is in the bubble sometimes. Steph was sometimes in a bubble like virtually and stuff But you know what the in the bubble do you think of that is affected at all? I think it's definitely affected or or Hasn't affected that many people right like the distraction of The fans and the shit going on you in the arena

Isn't there anymore most guys like once you've been in the league for a few years, that all becomes kind of white noise to you anyway. Like it shouldn't really bother you. But the reality is like, you know, you are human and there's a lot of shit going on. There are people to look at. There's, you know, sites. There's all kinds of stuff.

What's the wildest shit somebody's told you from a fan? What is the wildest? Oh, man. No, I don't know. I don't know. Come on. No, I really don't bro it all runs first of all you put me on the spot with that like i'd have to get into like some real depth of thought for that one um what is the wildest thing you're doing the thing where you're like no oh man i blocked all no no no i blocked out a lot of noise i was good at that you know i la was always wild because people told me they were going to kill me.

In Los Angeles? Yeah. Like people, okay, the wildest thing probably happened on like Rodeo. We were at the Wilshire. We were there for Christmas. And I had my wife, my parents with me. We were walking down the street. And somebody yelled at me and called me like a B-A-M-F-er, like walking down the street and um somebody yelled at me and called me like a

b-a-m-f-er like rolling down the street now it wasn't like a wild out-of-pocket thing to say like that's not a wild out-of-pocket thing to say in front of your wife and during but that's the thing in front of my wife during christmas like christmas the day before christmas it was kind of wild okay all right i meant in the in the book I mean, in the, in the arena, but like, that was, that was wild too. Um, in this, in thisAU tournaments. And like when you hear guys talk about shooters, like gyms and stuff like that, rims have a feel, man. Some rims are tight. Like when you touch that rim up,

that ball is always like cascading off. Some are bouncy. Some are bouncy. Some have a little bit of give to them. And like you feel like if you just get a piece of that rim, you can rattle them home. You know, likeets are really important. Some are nice, long shooting nets where they...

And then others are kind of like... I didn't like those. Right? So it's all personal preference. And then the other thing are... The one thing that I found to throw me off in different arenas, and this was way, way back when I first came in the league, were the cavernous buildings like the old Alamo Dome.

When that depth perception started to kick in, right? Like the Carrier Dome when we play in there, like those things used to jack me up. So the NBA has done a good job of creating a small, good depth perception like with the screens behind the stuff. And then, you know, it looks like they got some soft rims, man. And then you subtract the sound and all of the rest of the craziness going on. That's when I feel like

anything can happen. They're basically on a soundstage. But, um... Alright, let's end on this, man. Giannis, just won Defensive Player of the Year award. Now, he has a chance to be the first player since Hakeem Olajuwon in 1994

to sweep the MVP and Defensive Player of the Year awards. And our producer, TD, made sure of this. You saw this in the pre-show meeting. That would mean the last two people to sweep if Giannis does this will be Nigerian. Shout out to all the Nigerian homies. Shout out if that happens. No doubt.

Also, another person that did this. There's only three people that have done this if yannis does it michael jordan also swept it he did not win a title he did that in 88 though he swept and had mvp and defensive player of the year award do you think yannis can sweep um yeah i had picked i picked milwaukee um i don't like the way they're playing in the bubble though bro i'm gonna be honest with you. I don't like what I've seen out of them. The NBA clearly doesn't like what they've seen out of them because they give them some shitty slots to watch their games, bro. It's pretty bad.

They would be on NBA TV under normal circumstances. Yeah, right, right, right, right. But no, I don't. I don't. I'm changing. I don't. I don't think he will. And still, he's my favorite player. We did this segment about picking somebody to start your franchise. I'm picking. I don't. I don't think he will. And still, he's my favorite player.

We did this segment about picking somebody to start your franchise. I'm picking Giannis. So you don't think he's going to get the MVP? I'm sorry. No, wait. I thought you meant win the championship. No, no, no. It's the sweep, the defensive player.

He's a lock. He's a lock. Okay, okay, okay. I was like, oh, okay. All right. That was the question. No, he's a lock. I don't know if he could have gotten. I don't know if he could have gotten,

I don't know if he should have gotten defensive player of the year award. Who would have got that? There's a man by the name of Anthony Davis. Stop. Bro, stop. There's a name. Okay. There's a man by the name of Anthony Davis who balled out defensively and

carried the Lakers defense, sir. Go ahead and state your case, sir. I'm not going to. There's no case to state. I feel like you want to fade right now I don't want to do this I'm just saying it's really late right like just way past my bedtime I'm cranky I'm cranky right now alright

no he had a great defensive year man but that's the best defensive team in the league and he was the best defender on the best defensive team in the league I feel like I mean I don't know Am I wrong for feeling like that? Agree to disagree.

Boy, the Lakers were the second best defensive team in the league, right? Fair enough. I'm just... Okay. My bad. Fair enough. Fair enough. All right, man. Let's wrap up on that. Be sure to watch the Monday edition of the Ringer nba show with

me myself logan murdoch and raja bell look at our podcast on spotify and wherever else you get podcasts we're here every monday be sure to tune in on the ringer nba show be sure to tune in to all our ringer podcasts all of them worldwide wherever you consume podcasts and um we'll see you next time man did we get our name yet though bro like have we figured that out also we have not that's yes thank you yo good job that's the third time you got a great segue all right we also need some help from you guys we need a name we have a list of names that we will put on the on the twitter sphere for you to pick also if you guys want to choose a name for us and we like it, we might pick that too. So tap in.

I think that I have Twitter. Roger does not have social media. He'll probably be doing calls and stuff. He'll probably be knocking on doors or something like that. I don't know what he's going to do to try to crowdsource for names, but we're going to figure this out.

So help us get a name and tap into the Ringer NBA show. This has been the ringer NBA show live after dark tap in. We'll see you next time. All right. This is Bill again. Thanks to Logan and Raja for that little recap of Mavs clips. Hey, before we get to Jonathan Charks, I want you to keep playing fantasy basketball during the playoffs with our ultimate hoops ringer contest. There's a fan duel contest every day. There are playoff games, $5 entry fee per contest. And if you win your day, you get a ticket to the leader

board series during the NBA finals, where all the winners will compete for a share of 50 K cash ringer swag. And to be deemed the sole survivor of the ultimate hoops ringer, there's still time to enter contests every day, basically for a chance to get into the leaderboard series during the finals. What are you waiting for? Learn more and enter at Fandle.com slash hoops ringer age and location restrictions do apply. Let's bring in sharks. All right. We're taping this section. It is noon PT on Tuesday. So if anything goofy happens, like it gets announced, Russell Westbrook is out for the next two rounds or something like that. Don't blame us from the ringer. Jonathan sharks is here.

I want to talk about, okay, see Houston first. You wrote about it for the ringer this week, but fascinating series where Houston is up to nothing. Everybody starts shifting into the, Oh my God, how are they going to match up with the Lakers?

They look amazing. The defense, all that stuff. OKC was like plus 800 to win this series, something like that. You could have gotten really good value in them. They scrapped back. They pulled game three out, which could have gone either way. Then in game four, they take care of business down the stretch. Hard and starting to look worn out because of the immortal Lou Dort.

And there's no sign of Westbrook. How concerned should you be if you're a Rockets fan right now? I think very concerned. So for me in this series, I was so upset at Oklahoma City in the first two games because they're playing Steven Adams. They're playing New Orleans Noel. There's just no real role for them in this series. I think in game four, you saw in crunch time, they went to three point guards, Lou door Gallinari. That is a tough lineup for, for Houston, the guard, like they're playing small ball with

them now. I was shocked that it took them until game three to realize that the gal and Gallinari at center, I think has only played like 11 minutes total, but I thought that could be their lineup of, of death for this series, just because it does all the things you would want to do against Houston's defense. You broke down on the, on the ringer yesterday about the way to be Houston's defense. Isn't like more size.

Isn't it's actually with speed because once you get by the first guy, there's nobody there. And I don't, you think the Clippers have a little bit of the same problem as unbelievable as the Clippers are. There's really no second person there waiting for anybody once you get by them. But I think with Houston, it's even more glaring. What'd you see on that end? For sure. I think we talked to like with Schroeder, Schroeder is just too fast for those guys. If you put out the defense, let Schroeder attack, like with Harden, right? Everyone says, Oh, Harden post them up. He's so small. Like, no, he's a freaking tank.

Harden doesn't move side to side. Get him in a screen, attack him off the dribble. I think end of game three, you saw that Chris Paul on right by him for that gaming shot for SGA. It was just straight speed. I think like with Houston, they're a small team that wants you to play big.

If you play small against them, you've got a chance, especially without Westbrook. He is really the X factor for them, obviously. Yeah, and I felt like I stayed away from this series from a gambling standpoint because I just kind of wanted to see it. And I saw those first two games, and as good as Houston looked,

for some reason, I really liked OKC in game three because I thought, well, they're obviously not going to keep doing what they're doing. It didn't work. And I still really liked the possibility of them with the three guards. Cause we've seen Schroeder, you know, have, have success against Houston in the past. And in general,

I remember when they traded for him, not to toot my own horn here, although I'm about to, Hey, it's your podcast. Do it. I'm wrong a lot. I'm the first one to admit I'm wrong a lot. Although the, the, our staff with how we aligned on the Luka Doncic pick and that draft and all that, I think we'll go down in immortality as one of the great calls by a collective group of people. That was easy money, to be honest. Yeah.

That was not a hard call. We can talk about that later. The Schroeder thing never made sense to me. OKC basically gets them for this Carmelo contract that they had no idea what to do with. It was like $28 million. They were to do with. It was, it was like 28 million bucks. They were over the tax. It was a complete disaster. Nobody else wanted it. And Atlanta's like, cool, here's Schroeder. Um, we just want to get rid of him. Uh, we'll take the 28 million

from Carmelo. We'll take a shitty pick. And everybody's like, Oh man, Atlanta thinking ahead. And I'm like, I'm sorry, I like Schroeder. I think he's a gamer. He used to kill the Celtics. Why in this league do people just get shoved aside like they're not good? Like here's a case where, yeah, he's overpaid. There's some things you'd want to work on,

but he was super young when he came into the league. Why did people give up on this guy? I think it's just about finding the right role. I think people looked at Schroeder and said, if he's your best player, if he's your point guard running your offense, or just ceiling on your team, he gets to OKC. It's like, OK, you're the sixth man. And he's really found the right role for himself. I would say he was probably the sixth man of the year this year. He's been awesome. Yeah, I voted for him second. It's weird that Atlanta was trying to obviously focused on Trey Young

trying to figure out what this new identity could be and missed the part where it actually would have been cool to have Schroeder on that team. And if you're going for space and shooting, that's a nice guy to have with Trey Young at least a little bit of the time. I thought the whole thing was weird.

They were concerned about Schroeder's influence on Trae Young. They were like, if Trae Young's here, we'll shoot him one at the ball. They brought in Jeremy Lin that year. They were like, Jeremy Lin, that's a good guy, solid Christian. He's not going to be in the way of Trae Young. Whereas if you have Schroeder, he's like, this is my team still. I think that was their concern.

I think people overthink that sometimes. I think Schroeder's concern was can I just be on a good team if you have him on a shit team where he's the best guy going for his own stats he's going to look bad most of the guys in the league are going to look weird in that situation

anyway I don't want to belabor him the guy that we should be talking about people are saying Luka might be the best player in the league Kawhi LeBron. In my opinion, Lou Dort is right up there. I don't know.

I don't know whether he's the best player in the league, whether he's the fifth best, but he's in the conversation now. What do you see from Lou Dort? Man, he's a beast, man. He's like a new Andre Robertson. Like he can't do the same of his life, but man, he can guard.

And like Harden doesn't like playing against him. He's just so strong. Harden's usually more stronger than guys. Dort's a freaking brick wall. Not going to go through him. Did you see the Dort stats against Harden? Where Harden, basically, he's in the mid to low 30s when

Dort's guarding him, and he's like 57% with everybody else on the Thunder. And you can see it because Dort's that guy when you're playing pickup, you don't want any part of. You're like, oh, this guy. Oh, man. I do think for Houston, like that's the one problem with having a big man.

If you got like a Steven Adams, he would screen Dort for Harden, right? Get him off Harden. But they have no big to get Dort off him. Everyone's, you know, not that, no seven footers. So Roussel and I talked a little bit about Houston almost being like an NFL team where they're riding this specific gimmick.

The more you see it, the more you can kind of figure it out. You can get discombobulated at it, especially for one game or the first couple games of a series. But the more you see it, the more you go, oh, we'll just do this. I felt like Chris Paul was starting to figure that out even during game three and then again in game four and figuring out when to assert himself, when not.

Do you think that the curse of what Houston is trying to do is that over the course of two weeks, the more you see it, the more you get used to it? Are they ever going to get past that in your opinion? So I think for me, what Houston's doing, I think like they don't have that much talent on their roster, right? Like who's their best player taller than six, six. It's probably Jeff green.

Like they're really counting on green. He's on his, I think he's on his eighth team in six years. And he's like so important for them to me for Houston they've never had like a big wing or like a six foot eight guy there's no Draymond

right there's no like other player who can make offense for Harden who is any kind of size so I think they're always at a disadvantage

like they don't even have a Gallinari they have no big guy who can score or create offense and that's I think in a long series those kind of players

become more and more valuable. I think they were hoping Covington would be that guy. And he showed flashes of it in the regular season. But I think in the playoff series, not as much. What's interesting, you look at the stats. Gordon is the only, so this is only through four games. Gordon's the only one who's just sucked. He's seven for 34 from three, which is, you know,

as we know with threes, they can come and go, he might go 10 for 15 in the next game. But then you look at the rest of it. Jeff Green's 13 for 27 from three houses, 11 for 28. Tucker is 11 for 25 Covington's eight for 20 and Macklemore seven for 17. So if I'm looking at those numbers and I'm Houston Houston and I know they didn't hit threes in game four, that's going to happen. You're going to have the playoff games where they don't go in. But in general, it's like, we're shooting the ball pretty well. Harden's not, we're not getting an a plus or even an a, but it's,

it's probably been a B plus so far and it's two to two. And the other team has all the momentum. What is our move? What do we do if Westbrook's not coming back? And I don't really think they have a move. It's just basically like, let's keep shooting threes. That's who we are. And let's kind of hope they go in as we've seen over and over again with this team. And with that mindset in general, the longer a playoff series goes on, when there's wear and tear, when there's pressure,

when the stakes just feel higher and higher each game, those threes don't go in as easily. And you need other things. Do you feel like this is just the curse of that team or am I overthinking it? I would say it's like this. Houston is designed to win grind-em-out series with defensive players. And then you have James Harden score 35 points, right?

But if Houston can't defend, and I think they really can't defend OKC's small lineups, they don't have that many other scoring options, right? Like, really, what is Covington and Tucker going to do but shoot threes? They're not going to dribble and drive. They're not going to create for others. There's not a lot of offensive dynamism on the squad outside of Harden, Gordon, Westbrook. So I think

they're kind of limited in that respect. So they have to play good defense. The problem they're having now is OKC. OKC is like, we can score on you too. This is going to be a shootout. If it's a shootout of a series, Houston's got Harden, obviously. Gordon's hit or miss. You got

Jeff Green as a very important player now, and that's always risky to count on Jeff Green. Austin Rivers, like, OKC has four guys who get points. OKC has Chris Paul, SGA, Schroeder, Gallinari. That's four legit weapons. Houston only really has three

if Bucs doesn't come back. So to me, it's going to have to be either Westbrook comes back or Harden gets 40, 45 points. It's interesting. OKC right now, and it's only been four games.

But they basically have four games at 19 points and up. And Chris Paul is the highest at 21 and a half. Yeah, four guys. So they've stumbled on something good here. The guy who has not gotten going really yet is Gallo. And Gallo, even, you know, his stats aren't that bad. He's gotten to the, I always look at free throws with him. Cause I like when he gets to the line and he is 25 for 25 from the free throw line in general. Um, all the, all the good guys on OKC

are really good, uh, free throw shooters, which I think helps them in these crunch time games. I think that's why they've been in a effective crunch time team, but Gallo is the X factor. And he's somebody that I feel like I like him more than most. I always felt like he was undervalued. I got to watch him in person on the Clippers and just, I enjoyed how competitive he is. He's not, he's not a puss. Like he's, he, he gets in there. He's a little feisty. He kind of enjoys the moment. He'll take big shots. And if he gets going and they can get through this series and you start thinking Lakers in round two, I think he becomes the key guy for the next round for them because their guards are going to be able to create some stuff. And you know that with the Lakers backcourt, what a disaster that is, um, where Caruso is this hugely important guy for them.

So they'll be able to do some one-on-one stuff. But then if Gallo just gets destroyed by Anthony Davis, it's not going to matter. What do you see from Gallo? Gallo, like we were just talking about, he's just very versatile, right? He's not a 6'10 guy who just shoots threes. He's hard to guard because he can do everything.

He's a very well-rounded player. And yeah, I think he's got a ton of game. His question is going to be, and I've done their series, is his defense, right? Because he's guarding Anthony Davis. That's a really big ask to guard Anthony Davis or Danil Gallinari. It's turned out amazing for this

Lakers team. We're going into the playoffs and we're like, holy shit, what a terrible draw for these guys to get Portland. This is, this is like such a frisky eight seed. And Portland has this dude who is going to go into this series thinking he's the best guy.

This is like, what a pain in the ass. This series is going to be then Portland wins game one. It's like, holy shit. And then the Lakers just completely destroy them and do all the things we thought they were going to do. Lillard looks exhausted. McCollum's got a broken bone in his back.

No Zach Collins. They're relying on Carmelo to, like, astonishing degrees. Mario Hazonia's playing. He's just going down the line. They're playing Nurkic and Whiteside together. They're like, this series has been over for two games. For sure. So they get that gift.

And now in this next series, Houston with Westbrook, I don't know when he's coming back or what his condition is going to be. Houston has no chance against the Lakers without Westbrook. And then this OKC team where, you know, they can throw Adams, little Gallinari, a little Noel, but for the most part would get overpowered. And it would really come down to, could their guards take this series over, the Chris Paul thing, things like that.

But I would say, wouldn't you say, even though I don't love this Lakers team, that this is a pretty easy road to them to round three now? For sure. I mean, I think the Davis matchup is huge for them and they're asking Lou Dort to guard LeBron. Maybe you can do it. That's a big ask, obviously.

And then the Clippers are struggling in round one. If the Clippers lose, the Lakers are sitting pretty. Right. So, all right, back to the Houston series for one second.

Harden just needs to have two incredible Harden games and this is it. I don't see another roadmap for them to win the series. And I thought Harden looked pretty tired by the end of game four.

But, you know, the thing that sucks about getting betting, it's Houston, whether you do it with your money or just thinking like, oh, okay. So he's going to advance is then Harden has the 55 point game or whatever. Let's say they lose this series. And now we're talking about dating back to 2013, a litany of playoff, like, oh man, oh yeah, that sucked too. And that like, at what point do we just accept Harden is who he is? If he gets knocked out here in round one?

I think, well, if they lose a series, Dan, Tony's gone for sure. Right. That's going to happen. Harden is who he is now. I think the question is how do you build around him, right? To me, it's like what I was saying earlier about having a frontcourt player. I just wish he had a six... To me, if I was Houston, I would have went after Jimmy Butler

last year. I want a big 6'7", 6'8", frontcourt wing to pair with Harden. I think if Harden is your best player and he has no frontcourt help, you're probably not going to win a title. This last seven years is proof of that. How do you get that frontcourt player? They basically need Westbrook to be that

frontcourt player. If your best two players are 6'3 and 6'5, it's going to mean that you're at disadvantage no matter what. They got to make an upgrade in their roster because Harden is who he is. You're right. Not changing now. My thought would be, I think I could talk myself into we he is. You're right. Not changing now. See, I'm, my thought would be, I think I could talk myself into we didn't have Westbrook.

And if we had had him, the ceiling of this season is a lot higher. Cause Westbrook was, he was their best player for the last 20 games before the pandemic. Right. And then you see team for sure. Yeah. And then just added so many things. So I, I think my thing would be, I wouldn't panic, but I'd be trying to improve the Eric Gordon spot who I think they just signed.

They gave him a big extension. Yeah. Just like the summer. The problem for them is they don't have any picks to do stuff. Also their owner doesn't spend any money. That's also very tough to win that way. Their owner might be over leveraged. Who knows?

He has as much money as I do. Our friend of the ringer, Daryl Morey, I don't know if he becomes the fall guy in this situation, which I think would personally be unfair because Westbrook got hurt. And I think if any team loses, if any team is built around two guys and loses one of the two guys,

you have to assess that accordingly. At the same time, listening to the quotes after game four, we're like, we had the great shots. They just didn't go in. It's like, well, that's kind of the team you built. And year after year, as we get in these playoffs and guys get more and more tired. And then it's like, yeah, we had those threes that didn't go in. It's like, that seems like that happens every year to two or three teams. So unfortunately for you, that might be the hand you dealt yourself. So I don't, I don't really know the answer,

but I think they kind of maximized what the potential of this roster was, especially with like rivers, Macklemore house and green. You look at those four guys in the four Mavs guys that the Mavs kind of stumbled into, right? Trey Burke, who's on the sixers.

He's been killing it. My gosh. And then Seth Curry, who was just sitting there for free agency for anybody. Boban, who was basically the guy from John Wick and nobody was thinking about in a real basketball way. Didn't play for Philly last year at all in the playoffs. And these two teams kind of MacGyvered a supporting cast.

I don't know. This could be the end of the road for Houston as a major contender because you think like 18 and 19 and now this year, how often do title contenders have? Like three years, four years? If they don't do it this year and now Harden's 31 next year, Westbrook would be in his 30s and so on and so on it's like I don't know now you're really playing

I think you have Harden I think you reset the whole team with Westbrook this is year one of Harden Westbrook Harden's only 31 his game should age pretty well right not really a high flyer so if Westbrook can stay healthy the question is is this the beginning of him getting hurt?

Right. Right. As long as Russ have left in that big contract, what he plays is that style of play going to work in his thirties. If Russ breaks down and yeah, this is over. Well, and it's almost like a football running back,

right? Where somebody plays that those guys in the NFL, like the running backs of the receivers who were just hitting guys every game and taking punishment over and over again. And you start looking at them going, ah, I don't know how that person's going to, I can't imagine them in there.

35. The Cowboys running back a couple, like 10 years ago. Perfect example. Yeah. We had, uh, in the nineties,

we had Ben coats, the best Patriot tight end ever until Gronk. And every, every play where he caught a pass, three guys took him down. And all of a sudden it was like, it was done. And Gronk was like that the same way. Yeah. But it was like, oh man, man, this isn't going to last that long. And then it was over immediately.

The Westbrook thing, he plays so hard. He is so physical and he's constantly bouncing off dudes and flying and stuff like that. I can't imagine this is somebody who's going to be playing until his 40s. Not his 40s. There's no way. Harden, I think,

that's the one where I just have no idea how long he can do this. You can tell me he's doing this five years from now. I think so. Because his game is all off-speed. It's change of pace, using his size, how long he can do this. You can tell me he's doing this five years from now. Yeah. And I think it's effective. I would believe it. Cause his game is all off speed. It's changed its pace,

using a size, getting off tough shots, passing his game. I think will last a long time. The question for me is like, would he ever leave Houston? Where would he go? That'd be fun to watch Harden with somebody else, a different team.

Well, do you think Dallas and Houston basically have the same objective with what they want from their roster? I guess Dallas has the piece of the Porzingis piece where they actually have somebody who's seven foot three who can stick his hands up on defense. But for the most part, they're fishing in the same pool for role players, right? They want the Seth Curry, Trey Burke, Maxie Kleber type guys who, first things first, know how to shoot if somebody passes them the ball quickly. Yeah, I would say the Mavs role players

are better shooters. The Rockets guys are better defenders. But the way the league is now, if your guys aren't shooting really well, it's almost like shooting over everything else kind of feels like now. What would you do if you were OKC?

Let's say they get through this series. Let's say they win this series and they lose to the Lakers in five. They're a luxury tax team next year. Small market. There's always been rumors about the affordability of the team. They have all that stuff.

Chris Paul with a huge salary the next couple of years. Do you keep this team together and try to add to it? You have all these picks. Do you try to attach the picks with Adams to dump his contract? Do you feel like you could contend with the, with three of the guys that you have? Plus I think Alan is a free agent.

Yes. Yeah. I believe he's up. But do you feel like you could actually do stuff with this team, or do you just blow it up and rebuild around SGA and picks? Yeah, here's my thought. I wrote about this, I think, in February. To me, I'm saying, I'm going to count on SGA being a star.

Now I'm going to go star hunting for a second young star. Because I have a trillion picks. You know if you're OKC, we're never signing a star here. He Because I have like a trillion picks. I have, you know, if you're OKC, we're never signing a star here. He's got to be a trade. So if I have like eight first round picks and I have SGM say, maybe Cat comes free one summer,

maybe Booker comes free, Bradley Beal. I'm going after a star to pair with SGA and I'm building around that. And I'm going to gamble my cultural keep them in Oklahoma City long term. I think you got to go in on a star now and not rebuild because you already have a good team. If you have a good team, I think if this team had one more like real elite player, that could be a serious squad with all the picks they have. Let's go for somebody who ever's free.

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Kyle, tell the video team to get ready for this one. This is a clip, instant breakout clip. Charks, the Clippers can press the reset button and do the Paul George trade over again right now. Adam Silver has made a rule. We can undo this trade. You can have all your picks back and you can have SGA and Gallo for the rest of the playoffs and give Paul George back to the Thunder. It's under the wire.

It's under a year. You can return him with the Clippers doing this. Where he's playing right now, it'd be hard not to do it, right? But hopefully he can turn it around. I don't know. I mean, how is he so bad? It's unbelievable. Really. I don't understand that

he can't figure out how to have that Pippen kind of impact in these games if his shot's not going. I think the really great players who can vacillate between being a lead guy in a game versus being an awesome complimentary player. They'll just go get 13 rebounds or they'll block five shots

or they'll just fill up the box score, basically. They'll have 10 points, but they'll have seven assists, 13 rebounds, five steals. And it's like, I still had an impact anyway. The weird thing about him is he'll just disappear if a shot's not going in and he doesn't have the impact. And you would have thought like, especially in that Luca game on Sunday, that he would have been looking at it going, I've got to get more involved.

I got to help out. I'm, I'm going to be just flying around like an athletic maniac. And he just wasn't. And that's, that's where it gets confusing for me with him as where this is a guy who I voted for third for MVP last year. I thought he was incredible. And I don't understand why it comes and goes with him like that. He's the only elite player that you would say

you just don't know what you're getting game to game. See, my thought with that is, I think this is a test of Kawhi's leadership, right? You chose this guy. He's your number two. You're the star. Can you build him up, right? Can you give him his confidence?

Can you create easy shots for him? Can you just talk to him, right? Kawhi has always gotten to be Mr. Quiet Guy, do my own thing. Y'all are pros, figure it out. Well, right now, your number two guy is dying out there. You've got to be the leader. You've got to get him going.

And yeah, like, Paul George should go to the lane. The Mavs don't play defense. Get to the rim. Distribute the ball. Finish inside. Get to get him going. And yeah, like Paul George should go to the lane. The Mavs don't play defense. Get to the rim, distribute the ball, finish inside, get to the foul line, get to see some shots go. And then you get your threes, right? If your shot's not falling, go inside. And he has the ability to do it. He just has to do it.

So to me, yeah, like Kawhi Leonard said, I want Paul George. I'm trading like eight first round picks for him. He's my guy. Well, if he's your guy and he's struggling, build them up and get them going. That's the test of like a real leader, right? You want to be a champion.

You gotta get the rest of all your teammates. Don't let them just die out there struggling. Paul George and, and Zubats for Embiid. Embiid was not great in these playoffs. I'm worried about Embiid. I'm too. I would be,

I'd be shopping him. Like if I was Philly, I'm keeping Simmons and Embiid, I'm getting them out of here. I think. We're still, and I, we litigated that on Sunday.

We, that was the decision we came to pretty quickly that it's the safer bet to trade Embiid that he's not going to come back to haunt you. The Simmons. I think. Yeah. I think Simmons has way more hauntability potential. For sure. With Embiid

too, I think he has to get traded to wake up. Be like, alright, I got to stay in shape. I got to be serious about basketball. I think he needs that kick in the pants of being traded somewhere else. I think if he stays in Philly, all these bad habits will never change. Well, there are a lot of Popovich rumors flying around, which have been flying

around, honestly, for two months about him in the Nets, him in the Sixers, maybe. It's the perfect time. I think the exit plan for Popovich, if he left the Spurs, which I think he should, because I think that team, he took them as far as he could go. 20 years, all that stuff. And maybe he finagles it so Becky Hammond is the next coach

or however he does it. Like, I'm sure he'll have some awesome exit from there. Him going to Philly would be so reminiscent of when Phil Jackson took over those super disappointing Laker teams in the late nineties. When, you know, I think they got swept two of the three years. They owe it. The season's always ended badly. People are always disappointed in Shaq for whatever reason. And then Phil Jackson came in and immediately righted the ship. And I wonder like Popovich and Philly, could that be the one way you save all this? Cause from a contract standpoint, they're fucked. They either have to

trade and beat or Simmons or just hire a coach and hope the coach can fix this. But Popovich taking over that team, what a, I mean, if he actually pulled off the Philly thing and got in and beat engaged and turned him into the dominant guy that we think he could be game after game, that would be as impressive as all the titles in San Antonio. If you were pop, would you do Brooklyn or Philly? You could choose. I wouldn't go near Brooklyn.

I just wouldn't go near Kyrie. I wouldn't go near him. I just feel like with KD, if you have KD in him, you always have a chance. He's just so good. If I can get him, the rest of these guys will figure it out.

I would do Philly. Good engaged fan base. I have two of the best, like 16 or 17 guys in the league with possible trade opportunities. I feel like they can dump Horford. I think they can take somebody else's problem back. The more I look at it, it's going to be somebody else's shitty contract,

but at least you can flip it. So you can take somebody else's bad thing back. And it's not somebody who plays the same position as a bead. But to me, if I'm Popovich, it's like, I would be looking at it. It's like, if I can unlock and bead, I have one of the three guys that matters in the league going forward. To me, if I'm Popovich, it's like, I would be looking at it as like, if I can unlock Embiid, I have one of the three guys that matters in the league going forward. Luka, Giannis, Embiid third.

I feel like if I'm Pop, though, I could say, if I could get KD going, I could have the number one player in the league next year. If KD can come back somewhat healthy, forget two of the top 15, he can be the number one guy. If I have the number one guy and some talent around him, we'll make it work. But then you're like,

I'm going to do a Kyrie deep dive. Let me make some calls. You start calling around. You're like, oh, really? He did what? Wait a second. That happened? Over and over again.

I just wouldn't go near him. I don't think it's worth it. He's too old, too. I'd worry about Pop's health coaching Kyrie. He aged Brad Stevens by like five years last year. I'm telling you coaching Ben and Joel is no joke either though. Speaking of trades, you threw out Ben Simmons for Denver, which I loved, which was the other reason I wanted

to have you on other than to talk about how Lou Dort is one of the best five players in the league. Um, you were saying, you were saying Ben Simmons with Denver solves a variety of problems for them. Um, expound on that. Okay. So my thought with Denver is if you have Nicola Jokic, you know, this guy is realistically never going to guard anyone like, right. You've got to hide them on defense all the time.

So that means if he's going to be hidden constantly, you got to have somebody who's going to be able to defend centers, defend power forwards, defend point guards on switches. You basically the best defensive player in the league next to him. Well, is Ben Simmons, not a top three defender.

And so that alone makes it worth it. Right. It's having that. So you're saying like it's for offense, Simmons for defense, kind of a combination. So like the Utah series, you'd put Simmons on Gobert.

Yeah, for sure. And now they can't do the Mitchell-Gobert pick and roll. Exactly. I think they've run it 200 times and have scored on 198 of them. Oh, yeah. So I had the stat in that when Mitchell goes at Jokic in the pick and roll, he scores more points than J.J. Redick

catch and shoot threes unguarded. Like, it's automatic money every single time. They've got to change up. Well, I liked Utah in this series. The Conley thing, I was ready to bet on them before the series. I couldn't

believe Denver was favored. I didn't really know what Denver was. And then Conley missed the first couple games. I got scared off, so I started betting a game-by-game. I just don't think Mike Malone's a very good coach. Um, I, the stuff that they're, some of the stuff they're doing, especially defensively in this series, like you, you wrote in the ringer piece, which I think is a really good point. Yoko just has to be on the worst player on the other team all the time. You have to put him on race O'Neill because he's, he's Utah's version of Paul Millsap. He's the guy you put,

you put somebody on if you either he's in foul trouble or you're trying to hide them. Yeah. And they're not doing it. And I watched that. I watch how they kind of missed the boat on Porter jr. This year, who I think we both think is really talented. He never got enough reps during the season. And then the playoffs, he looks lost, which I can't say is shocking and they lose out this extra candidate. And the reality is Murray had to like career games in the first four to

career games. And they're still, they still fell behind three to one. So to me, that tells me, regardless, we're taping this before game five today, but to me, that tells me that they just, they're not going to win this series. Well, it's what you were saying about Malone, right?

Like getting Jokic on O'Neal is a game two adjustment. This is game five. Now he's doing it. He wasted three games. Like you got to make a faster adjustments. Like Scott Brooks is telling him adjust faster, please. Like, come on. Ben Simmons for Jamal Murray. You threw that out there. It's weird, but I think Ben Simmons has more value. I really do like Jamal Murray with Jokic.

And I think he's young enough that you could grow into that. If I were them, I would be doing everything possible to get the third star while keeping Murray. But if Philly's like, we want Murray. That's the guy we want. We'll do Simmons for Murray, throw in Bol Bol and like a pick.

I think Denver would have to bite the bullet and do that. I just look at it like like you can't have your best two players both be really bad defenders it just puts a ceiling on your team so to me like you've got to have a little more balance around Jokic if he was a good defender you can have Jamal Murray out there whatever

but he's so bad on defense Murray's probably never going to be a very good defender you just got to switch that up for the synergy of your team I think you got to do it. My dream Ben Simmons scenario as a, as a Ben Simmons truther in the sense of I want, I just want Ben Simmons to have his own team that's built around somebody who's like,

we're going to just going to do every possible thing to put Ben Simmons in a position to succeed. I like the thought of him going to new Orleans with Mike D'Antoni and like a Drew Holiday and Lonzo and whatever else for Ben Simmons. And then D'Antoni joins him and he's basically like, here are the car keys. I am turning you into a Ben Simmons testarossa. We are going, going, going, going all the time. Let's do this. Let's go. Question is, is Simmons and Zion in the same spot, right? Because they're both non-shooting bigs who want to attack the rim.

Oh, you just threw water on me. That's the question, right? Because you want Zion to be Simmons too. They're both kind of in that same spot on the floor, like getting to the rim. Could you play them as like no other centers, anything, where it's just basically like those are your guys in charge of protecting the rim. Could you play them as like no other centers, anything where it's just basically like those are your guys in charge? You'd have to take the rim. Yeah. I think you could do that part. Question was Zion. Like he hasn't looked as good. He didn't defend at all this year. He was grand

defense in college. I'm worried about him a little bit, just physically. Hopefully he's okay. I'm writing this year off for him. Yeah, that makes sense. Gets hurt before the year. I think he fell out of shape. I think they had a weird coach situation. The pandemic happens right as he's getting his feedback. And he looked completely out of shape to me in a disturbing way.

And to me, him and Embiid are my two guys where you just, you just want to put your arms around them and try to explain to them, you know, especially me, I'm 50. Like, hey dudes, I've, I've, I've been down this road before with NBA stars. I like, like you guys got to get in shape. You just have to. Yeah. Yeah. Embiid's exhausted in the third quarter of a game three of a playoff series. It's like, what are you doing?

What did you do for the last five months? Before we go, even though this is before Clippers, Mavs, game five, so God knows what's going to happen today. I was talking about, I think the ceiling for Luka, for me, officially, is this guy has a chance to be one of the best 10 or 12 guys ever, which is not something I would say flippantly. I just think he's hit. I laid out the whole case on Sunday. He's at every checkpoint you'd ever

want to hit. He's doing things we've never seen from anybody at this age before. When you're, you're in Texas, you've been watching this, you were going to the games. When did you realize that that was in play with him? How, how long ago? I mean, I, I feel like I always thought that going back to Europe, but when I knew for sure it was actually game one against the Clippers, when he pushed Kawhi out of the way at the rim, I was like, oh, it's

over. If this guy at 21 can bully Kawhi, who's guarding him? No one. That to me was the last thing I needed to see, was Luka dominating the best defender in the world. When he can do that, to me, this series, it reminds me of the 07 Piston series when LeBron had like 50 points in game five.

It's like, I'm here. I'm unstoppable. It doesn't matter who you are. Get out of my way. I'm scoring 45, 50 points a game. Yeah. And the thing is, he's not even really that good of a three-point shooter yet.

If that ever comes, yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. When you start thinking, he's not even really that good of a three-point shooter yet. If that ever comes, yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. When you start thinking, you start doing the math of how he gets better, because there's no way somebody peaks at 21. It's impossible. He should peak like 26, 27. But if he gets to, if he becomes like a 50, 40, 90 guy on top of the way he sees basketball, he's going to be, in my opinion, the best offensive perimeter player of all time, because there'll be nobody who can, he's basically combining the best skills of like three all-time guys, you know? So my, my thought is like, he's got LeBron's kind of strength and all, all around game with Harden's offensive skillset.

Right. So imagine if LeBron could hit step back threes regularly. Right. And I would throw in the bird magic passing gene. Cause I do think he has it. I think he sees stuff that for his age is, is just completely unusual. Like the creativity he has with some of these plays, you're talking a handful of guys in the history of the league that some of the stuff he sees and the effect it of guys in the history of the league that some of the stuff he sees and the effect it has on his teammates too. I think that's the part people miss with great passers is when you're playing basketball and you're one of the other four guys and you feel like

you're in the play, even though it doesn't seem like you are, that's when it goes to another level. And I think when Dallas got bogged down this year, it would be when Luke, when they fell into that one on five stuff or Lucas and everybody's just kind of standing there when they're running a little action and, and people are moving around and it's a little more unpredictable.

That's to me, that's the future of that team. And I think Houston in heart and I've realized that a little bit too, that if it's just one on five with everybody standing there, eventually the other team figures it out. I mean, I think for Dallas, like it's a small thing, but having Trey Burke, having a second ball handler that just destroys the defense because against Dallas this year, it's always Luka dribbling, four guys jump shooting, but having that second playmaker Luka can play off

of a little bit, then it's unstoppable. Like sometimes if you can get a guy who can give Luka open shots, he can play off the ball maybe like 10% of the time. I think that's the final step for Luka is just playing a little bit of one-two action. Because really probably KP's at number three. He's a spot-up shooter post player. I want one more guy

who can clear off the dribble to give Luka easy shots sometimes. I'm psyched that Seth Curry realized his full potential as like a valuable role. Oh, he's killing it. I've liked him for, I never understood why he wasn't playing three years ago.

And in general, like when somebody can shoot like that and he's a little trickier around the rim that I think people realize he's definitely not, you know, like some of these guys, they can shoot, but around the rim, they'll just get their shit blocked.

I mean, Steph, the same thing. Those Curry brothers got that, that gene for sure. I think, Steph, the same thing. Those Curry brothers got that gene for sure. I think with shooters, they seem to mature. You know, you're basically like,

you have somebody like Shamit, right? Who's young. Yeah. But I think if you look at the history of how these shooters go, they really kind of figure out who they are and what they are and the little tricks. And there's just these subtle things

from age like 27 to 29 where they go up a level. It happened with JJ too. And JJ was an amazing scorer in college, but it took him years and years to kind of harness that and figure out all the little tricks and stuff. Even somebody like Doug McDermott on Indiana, who nobody kind of knew what to do with forever, but now it's turned into a role. I was going to say Bradley Beal Bradley Beal gets better every year like

for like four or five years and I keep well he but he's really good though I yeah I'm yeah okay I'm a pure shooters okay that's interesting I'm talking like everybody's looking for the for shooting in the league but but for some reason these guys can hit this kind of purgatory where they've

been around for a couple years and people kind of think they are what they are, but really the history says year five, year six, year seven, year eight, they'll make a leap. And it definitely happened with Curry. Curry was sitting there for everybody for a week in free agency, right? The Mavs targeted him pretty early because he was in Dallas three years ago.

It's actually kind of funny. So I had a big feature for Seth like three years ago in Dallas. Then he gets hurt the entire season. We had to kill the feature. He goes to Portland, gets himself healthy, has a big year last year.

Dallas gave him, I think, four for 32. So they knew he was good. And with Seth, it's like, you got a shooter with handles. A shooter with handles is unguardable, right? Can get that shot, you got to guard him. Then he can dribble three or four times, get a shot again.

There's a guy in the draft like that. I've been doing some draft homework. Oh, nice. Who's your guy? Well, the guy from Stanford, I think, has potential like that, right? That's KOC's guy. He loves him. Tyrell Terry. That's KOC's guy for sure. He's

6'2", so the knock on him as well he's 6'2 and it's like this guy can already fucking fill it now I think the Carson Edwards is kind of the cutoff line for because I watch it with the Celtics like he's just too he's too short like you have to be like one of the greater shooters of all time to overcome he's probably like 5'9 5'9 and a half Dana Barris was able to do it, but Dana Barris was somebody who scored at every level. He came into the pros and he was able to do it too. But, um, yeah, uh, I like the Stanford kid. I have a favorite guy though. I'm just, I'm going to announce it on the podcast for you. Oh, here we go. Who you got? Who you got?

I love Halliburton. That's my guy. Love Halliburton. He's great. But he should be the guy Minnesota takes, and they won't. They'll probably take Edwards. And be like, oh, we got Edwards and Russell. Look at the shooting we have.

And it's like, they should just take Halliburton. Halliburton, so I did a big profile on him before the season. He's like a freaking genius. He's one of the smartest I ever talked to. One of his coaches told me, it was just kind of a weird quote he said, Tyrese Halliburton,

he'll be the president of the union one day, the players union. That's the kind of guy he is. Just unselfish, super smart. That's great. Yeah, right? And he's just like, the way he thinks the game is just next level.

He's really big. He has a really goofy looking shot, but it goes in. He's like six. To me, he's like Lonzo. I feel like he's the real younger ball brother. He plays more like Lonzo than LaMelo does. Well, he's 6'5".

Granted, I'm just watching an hour of YouTube clips on him. There's a feel to the game. It reminded me a little of Evan Turner, who I still feel like if he goes to a different team, and I think his career would have been a little differently, gone a little differently.

I think Hal Barron's going to be better than Evan Turner, but same kind of thing where he's tall. He needs the ball. He has a sense of where everybody is but there's an intelligence with him that made me think like man if he ends up on golden state they don't trade the pick i still think they're going to trade the pick but if they don't and you're putting him with curry and clay in these three guard lineups that everybody's doing now but you have somebody who really sees the floor who knows what he is who's great passer. That would be such a fun wrinkle for those two guys, right?

With Halliburton, so last summer, he played in the team, the under-19s, with all these great younger guys like Cade Cunningham. And he had one of the most efficient, I think I had the numbers on it, he had the most efficient U-19 ever in the history of the tournament. He was like at 65% shooting

because he's playing with other good players, playing off those guys. He's so smart. The question of the jump shot, it's kind of goofy. Do you believe in that? If you believe in that, it's going to be great.

But, you know, it's got a weird looking shot. It didn't jump out at me too much. It's a little weird. You know, it doesn't look like Bradley Beal's jump shot, but he seemed comfortable shooting it and didn't have like that false hitch

or anything like that. I was okay with it. That was the Lonzo question too. You believe in the shot? Lonzo shot. I've never liked, I've never felt like that was a normal shot. And you know, I know it was one game, but what was that game? Who's the guy who kicked his ass, um, in college when he went against somebody? De'Aaron Fox in the tournament. I never got over that game with him as much as I liked Lonzo. I never understood. I remember they would inbound the ball to him,

and he kept giving it up because he didn't want to dribble up against Fox. And I thought that was so weird. It was so like an anti-AlphaDog thing. And Fox was just like, I'm better than this guy. And he carried himself like that the whole time. See, I love watching those games for college guys. Let me see your game against the best players. Forget against the average college players,

the other NBA guys. That's what tells the whole tale, I think, a lot of times. I like the other KOC guy that I'm down with is Vassell. He's good. He's a very solid player. Here's the thing With the way the draft is There's too many guards at the top

It never works Not everybody's going to need guards And one of these teams will prioritize just having a wing And they'll take them three spots higher Okay, so I got a sleeper for you, Bill My sleeper is Vassell's teammate Patrick Williams of Florida State I think he's got a chance to be a really special player.

I'm doing a big profile on him. He's like 6'8", 230, really athletic, pretty smart, decent jump shot. I think he has the tools to be really possibly one of the top players in this draft in two years. He's also the youngest player in the draft, which is also a plus. Who do you think Minnesota is going to take? My guess is Edwards. I think they can't ignore the tools he has, the flashes he has. I bet they just go for it. If the new owner called you and said, sharks, who should we take? Who would you tell him? I think I would do Edwards

knowing it's a risk, but he's got so much talent. He's really young risk, but he's got so much talent. Like he's really young too, but he's got so much talent. I think I would go for it. He's so big. He can shoot it. I would probably go Edwards, even though I know it's a risk.

It seems like he makes more sense for Charlotte to trade up to one and maybe give up like some small asset. And then if you're Minnesota, you could still end up with Halliburton at three. See, my thought with Edwards, I think it'd be like Jalen Brown in Boston, where he goes somewhere where there's two other good players. He plays off those guys for a year

and kind of commits to defense and grows into a bigger role over time. Because at Georgia this year, he was just jacking shots constantly. He was like, one scout gave me the Deion Waiters comp, and I was like, oh man. So you think playing with Towns

and D'Lo would be a great outcome for him? He'd get a lot of space. Play with Cat, you can get to the rim very easy. D'Lo can give him open shots. He's a decent enough point guard. I think that makes sense to me as a third option with two guys who can shoot. Because at

Georgia, they had no spacing around him, so he was constantly just jacking jump shots. He had nowhere to go. In Minnesota, no one will play defense, but they'll score a ton of points. He might fit there. Maybe. Okay. All right. Well, we'll have you back on as it gets closer, but so who's your big sleeper? Patrick Williams, Florida state. Okay. I'm in

on Hal Burton. Hal Burton. If you're listening, I'm in on you. Charks. Pleasure. We'll see you on the ringer.com. Thanks for having me on. All right. We're bringing in Seth Meyers in one second. First during this time of social distancing, connecting with friends over a beer today may look a little different. As the original light beer, Miller Lite, has always been there to bring people together through Miller time.

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for everybody, but staying connected is just as important. I did this a couple of days ago, actually had a, had a couple of drinks with some friends of mine. We were just on zoom, gotten used to it, kind of surprised how I've gotten used to it. I've gotten, but it was a great time for Miller time from online, happy hours to social distance picnics and every 500 piece puzzle in between. We're enjoying new ways of spending time with our friends. Miller Lite, great taste with only 96 calories and 3.2 carbs. However, you and your friends are enjoying Miller time

this summer. You can have the original light beer delivered by going to MillerLite.com forward slash BS and find the delivery options near you. Celebrate responsibly Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces. All right. Seth Meyers is here. Um, one of the big winners of the pandemic, people writing pieces that I saw on the internet about dear Seth Meyers, please keep your hair was an actual title of a vulture piece. Your hair has been a breakout star of the pandemic. I mean, it's the longest it's ever been, but did you expect this? No, I didn't expect, you know, and early on, I tried very hard to tame it, to make it look shorter than it was. And full credit to my wife

who said, look, you know, it's the last week, let it fly. Let people see exactly what you've been working with these past six months. And, uh And a very, very kind piece by Meg Wright over at Vulture. And we're not going to let it, we are going to cut it, but we're going to keep it a little longer than where we usually start it. If you had a baseball cap, you would look like one of the dudes in Everybody Wants Some, the Richard Linklater baseball movie from the early 80s, I think? Yeah. The best movie, the most conflict-free two-hour movie of the last decade? 100%. We've been circling it for the rewatchables for a while.

It's probably going to happen. It's just like an enjoyable romp. The best thing about that movie is they go to that like the drama kids party, and you just, having watched movies from the 80s, you know The best thing about that movie is they go to that, like the drama kids party. And you just, having watched movies from the 80s, you know, when the jocks go to that party, something goes wrong and everybody just has a perfectly fine time. Everybody gets along. It's great.

It's like Mark, with the baseball cap, it's very Mark Fidrich-y. Oh, yeah. It like flies. It gets very wingy. So you must have been like us, right? This, the pandemic hits. You're like, well, how am I going to do my job? Yep.

And then you kind of try to figure it out on the fly and it's fucking weird. Yeah. But then eventually you kind of figure out how to do it. When did you, at what month did you figure out how to do it? Well, we had a weird thing where we, first we sort of had to figure out how to do it? Well, we had a weird thing where we first we sort of had to figure out where to do it. And we popped around a little bit in that first couple of weeks. And then we ended up in my attic, which ended up, especially with two little kids, ended up being the best place because it was the hardest for them to get to. And of course, you're doing it in the middle of the day and they don't have school. And then we moved again for the summer to my in-laws place.

And it was easier the second time to, to figure it out, but it was also kind of good for the creative juices to not get too, you know, in a groove. You never want to get in an attic. Um, but, uh, I would say about, you know, two months in, I felt like we had figured out at least how to do it at the level people saw it on TV. Well, and you're used to just staring into a camera and delivering stuff. Yeah, pretty much. The biggest issue is we never really went HD. Like a lot of people gently suggested we make the camera better. And when we tried making the camera better,

the lighting, of course, was way worse because good cameras need better lighting. And when we tried making the camera better, the lighting, of course, was way worse because good cameras need better lighting. And I was sort of a one man band. And so we ultimately decided, you know what, let's just stick with the lower level camera. And I think people at home will appreciate and forgive us for our faults. How did you handle a writing staff where you can't see anybody ever? It was totally fine. I mean, it was like credit to them for doing really good writing. We would do a closer look meeting every day. So we would have FaceTime with that group of people where we would read through it and just mostly just to read through it out loud so that people could hear it. And then we do one writer's meeting a week where people would pitch

new ideas. But ultimately the monologue jokes that is usually a face-to-face meeting where I sit in the room with everybody writes those and we read them out loud, you know, we kind of just skipped that process and the work did not suffer for it. That's good. Well, you've, I mean, 2020, all the weird shit that's going on. A lot of it is in your wheelhouse too, for things to talk about. Like the Steve Bannon thing I saw the other day, that just falls out of the sky.

It's the perfect closer look. The timing of when it fell out of the sky wasn't ideal because we had a whole nother closer look than then. And those things, the first drafts are sometimes, you know, 30, 35 pages. And then Steve Bannon happens at around 1030 in the morning and it's your last show of the summer. And you know, if you don't talk about Steve Bannon now, it's not like it's going to be a story when we get back.

Right. And so we ultimately did decide to rip it up because Steve Bannon getting arrested on a boat with his current haircut. Again, I realize I'm in a glass house here with haircuts, but we did enjoy talking about that as a send off to the summer. His was great because the look he had going was really like about 20 different action movie villains that show up an hour into the movie where it's like, oh, this is the guy in charge of the hostel. Yeah. He's the guy, right. He's the money guy. Like you thought another guy was the bad guy, but he just works for the money guy. And then it turns out he's the bad guy. And then he's, you know, yeah. Yeah. And also you met him early in the movie on the train and he like helped you

look at a map to get to the hostel. And then he realized you liked him, but didn't totally trust him. And then it was right. And somebody, one of the four people in the group said he was friendly. But then you just dismissed it. What do you expect from everything the next two months? Because you know, you're in Kimmel's in the same boat, all the late night guys are to some degree. You're, you're more, a little more hyper-focused on the politics and all that stuff,

but we're about to enter, I would say the most contentious time since we've been alive. We're already here, but it's just going to go up a notch. And how do you handle that on your show? Well, you know, we're not trying to... At this point, I don't feel like anybody is watching our show on the fence about the current administration. Good point. administration. And so we're, you know, basically trying to provide information with jokes to make it a little bit more of a cathartic experience. And, you know, I don't really have much expectation, except that hopefully our approach to how we write will maintain its value. Like, things are going to happen really quickly. And I think, you know, I don't want to

be a pessimist, but I do think it's going to get a little scary, especially when you just see polling about how, you know, and again, I don't know how the question was asked, but do you think 175,000 dead Americans is okay? And you just realize Republicans, the majority think it's okay, which I think is only a thing you answer if you're so smitten with the current president that he can just do no wrong in your mind. So that's a really scary thing to be living through. But the weeks we have the show are easier to get through than the weeks we're on hiatus.

I don't even want to watch the RNC this week because one, we can't tell jokes about it. And without the jokes part of it, it'll just feel like bone on bone. Right. Well it. And without the jokes part of it, it'll just, uh, feel like bone on bone. Right. Well, then you have the other thing of, you know, how do you handle the Biden piece of this? Cause on paper, this is the perfect SNL guy to have a parody guy of, right? This is like every single piece you would want to unleash somebody like Sudeikis on and just be like, just go, man, make them make them super out of it. And then all of a sudden lucid.

And then and but now we're at a point where it's like, if you really care about the future of the country, you don't want to mock the person who is is probably the best chance to change the country and for for the better. I certainly am. That argument is presented to me on Twitter anytime we tell a joke about Joe Biden. The only thing I'd say is if mockery was effective insofar as how it affected people's choices

at the voting booth, like Donald Trump wouldn't win a state, right? It's a great point. You know, it's like, well, you know, look, it's, you're, the refs are home team refs if you're a Biden guy right now, but they're going to, every now and then, a whistle is going to get blown against you.

Like, that's just how it's going to go. And I think we lose all our value if nobody makes jokes about Joe Biden. That's how I feel too. Like I had my buddy Jack on two weeks ago and we were talking about the election and we were joking about Biden. And a couple of people in my life were like, hey, man, you can't really do that right now. And I'm like, well, if we're not going to poke fun at people, then our society is just going to collapse. If, if, if there's just certain segments of the population, certain people that are just completely hands-off and we can't figure out

any way to navigate that. I don't know what happens. Comedy has been part of our lives really since human beings existed. I don't know how we just flip that switch off. And it's one of the reasons why 2020 has turned into such a complicated time because a lot of the people just don't want to have a sense of humor about anything. And I don't know how you navigate that. It is. I mean, ultimately, you just kind of lean into what you still as opposed to, and again, I'm sure Biden people will be angry to hear me say that I don't think he has a grand vision in the way that some politicians would. I think he's saying like, hey, we got to get back to the decency of this country, which I

think is a really effective message when you're running against Donald Trump. And I don't think anyone's making jokes that are, you know, taking issue with that and saying, like, I think when you put them side by side, they're both the same in terms of character. I don't think any of the shows are doing that. And, you know, it would be a really tough argument to make comedically, certainly as well. How would you have handled the Trump thing the last four years if you were the head writer of SNL?

I think it would have been just, I think they've done a really nice job, but I think it just would have been a slog. Cause I think back to the Palin, you know, being the head writer during the Palin times. And, you know, there was that, like, we got out, right? Like we sold high in that we did six sketches with Sarah Palin. And then because she wasn't, you know.

She didn't get elected. Yeah. And she went away and everybody like looks back and goes, oh, those are so good. As opposed to, you know, she didn't get elected. Yeah. And she went away and everybody like looks back and goes, Oh, those are so good. As opposed to, you know, if we were doing our 50th or 60th one, I think obviously the level of difficulty gets a lot higher. Um, but I think they, you know, they've, I've been, I've been relieved not to have had to take that on, especially, uh, you know, I, you know, I think that even when I went back to host, I realized like, oh, this is a SNL is a young man's game. I do not have that fastball anymore.

Yeah. What was that like? I haven't talked to you since you did that. It was so surreal because I think my ego is such that I thought, look, no one knows more about how this place works than me. You know, I was here for 12 and a half years. I was head writer. I was an update anchor. There's no underbelly of this place that I don't understand, except then you look, you do it from a host side and you realize,

oh, the one thing I always underestimated is how hard it is to be a host. Mostly just because you're so busy the whole time. There's so many things to do and you know i mostly retroactively felt all this shame about the times that i shit talked hosts behind their back you know uh because someone would call you in and say you know that sketch you wrote they don't like this joke and you would just in your head think oh they don they don't understand comedy. And then, you know, and you're on the host side

and all of a sudden you realize, I don't really love this joke. And you know, you know that you're going to tell them and then, you know, the ironic outcome of it is they're going to go mutter about you behind their back.

But it was, so it was a really, especially having worked there as a writer, it was the worst week. And then it was absolutely the most fun I'd ever had on a Saturday there. You should have, you should have gone in and done all the things that you hated when hosted.

Like you should come in with three of your own writers and been like, we've written our own stuff. We did like three things. And then every time they pitched me an idea, like lay my idea on top of it. Cause I stopped doing on Tuesday night. I was just talking to Jost about this. Like, I think that you grow into not wanting to meet the host ahead of time. I think you find a comfort where you think, I don't want to explain on Tuesday what I'm thinking of writing for them,

because a couple things could happen. One, they could say, I don't like that idea. And then you feel bad writing it. Or they could say, Oh, my God, that's so funny. I should also do this. And then you feel like you almost have to put their idea in whether or not it fits. So I just stopped meeting with hosts. But when I went back, you know, writers wanted to, you know, meet with you. And it was lovely because I got to meet a lot of young writers and people whose stuff I like. But, you know, they'd say, what do you think about this idea? And I would do exactly what I would do exactly what I would want me to do. And I'd say, whatever you think, just write it. However you think, I will be on board. Um, but ultimately then when that was over, I was like,

I think I just spent four hours, like literally wasted four hours because I, I gave no guidance to anyone in my efforts to be, uh, you know, not a speed bump for the process. Did you pull off the after party? Cause you have two small kids. You're in a different body clock. No, it was, I went, my, my wife went home, my parents and my brother had come. And so we went,

it also was a little bit like, um, a 20th college reunion versus the five. Yeah. The five is the best one. It gets worse every year after that. Yeah. Uh, and I felt like, again, maybe it was, uh, I, I also, you know, again, I feel like I'm really heydaying it here. Like I felt like we went a little harder than the kids these days, either that, or they might be going harder, not at the party. Like they might be like, I'm going to go,

I'm not going to go to the SNL after party. Right. But it was like at a Mexican restaurant and felt a little like not quite, not the joyousness that I remember. As an SNL historian, the Eddie episode, what was your take? First of all, you didn't,

it's something that you'd always wondered what happened probably when you were there for an entire, almost a decade, never, but then you figure like, Oh, that'll never happen. Never happened. And then it actually happened. Did you, were you even thinking leading up to the episode that it wasn't going to happen? Kind of. And then, you know, I think my first reaction once it started, I don't know if you felt this way, was just that relief.

Because again, at the SNL 40th, it was like you couldn't quite tell what his vibe was, right? He like went out, kind of kept fainting towards doing more. He wouldn't commit to it. Yeah, so that was it. It was like, will he commit to it?

And so when the minute started, it was like this huge relief of like, oh, he's committing to it. And then it was just that realization of one, he's the best that ever did it.

And two, you kind of forgot like, oh, all of his characters are in a good mood. Like, I think you think of

his character as just yelling at people or raising their voice, and they're just all so happy. And in that, like, cake boss sketch where he made a bad cake and he was so, he knew it was a bad cake, but he had a smile on his face. And so it was just the nicest, I felt it was, like, the nicest 90 minutes.

And then I thought, I think that elf scene was maybe the last sketch and probably my favorite of all of them just because it was like white hot, pure Eddie Murphy. I was nervous because I just didn't want it to go terribly. Yeah. And there's an alternate episode where it's just awful and it's like, oh man, let's never talk about that again. But it was the opposite.

It was actually really cool that he did it. And, you know, it just makes you wonder like, what was this guy sitting on the last 30 years where he, where he still has all this talent and ability to do this, but just like, nah,

I'm going to shut that switch off. And then he could just turn the switch back on. It's kind of, nah, I'm going to shut that switch off. And then he could just turn the switch back on. It's kind of surreal. Also, it was surreal how well all his characters age. Like whatever was, the core idea of what was funny about all his characters was still funny. I mean, which I guess makes sense

because Gumby was exactly as insane an idea now as it was then. It wasn't like, well, you have to remember. And, you know, in the 80s, a lot of people were talking about Gumby. It's like, no. Right. So, yeah, it was just a delight.

And, you know, again, I keep asking cast members and writers who were there about it because I'm as desperate for Intel as you are. And the nicest thing is everybody said it was like watching, you know, a fighter work his way back into game shape. Game shape, yeah. A little tentative at the table, you know,

and then all of a sudden, you know, calling everybody by name, you know, it's a team effort. Everybody's excited. You know, the writers, you know, again, they had to assign different writers to take on these old characters. And of course, everyone's doing it with incredible reverence.

And I think everybody felt really appreciated and just seemed like, I don't know, it was such an A+. When did you make the decision? What year of your show were you starting to really lean in on using your writers and bringing them on and trying to turn them into characters? Well, it's weird because I think immediately out of the gates we tried it and it didn't work because we thought, oh, we'll bring them on like update characters

because coming from the update desk, I felt, oh, you know, one of my strengths is being like a straight man to somebody like Bill or Bobby or Kate. And the reality was, it was really hard for a writer who wasn't known by the audience to come out as a big character and have people be invested in it. So, and we actually like, you know, pretty, it was one of the few notes we got from the network in the early days was, hey, we really like it to be a little bit more your show. Yeah. So then we leaned into that. But ultimately what happened is we started bringing our writers in to, like, give commentary as themselves.

I would say the only writer who really excelled playing characters was Conor O'Malley. Social media legend. Social media legend. Social media legend. I mean, again, Vine star. Yeah. But Connor was unique in his ability to sort of score as a character. But other than that, most of our...

He became your Chris Elliott, basically, like what Letterman had way back when. I mean, again, if you ever, it should be noted, ifor was on, he'd probably want to talk about Chris Elliott bits. Right. More than anything else. I mean, most comedy writers who get on a late night show are very disappointed at first to find out it's not Letterman 1986. Right.

Or like Conan 92. You know, that's, I think they all, and by the way, I don't blame them, but they all kind of think, Hey, so we can do that really like whimsical, um, I don't know, meta comedy. And it's a lot harder to pull it off now. year, the show you think you're joining versus the show it becomes once everybody realizes the show it becomes is going to be the show. It's interesting how that all plays out, but you know, almost every time the show that it becomes that happens for a reason. I think for you, you had that daily show shadow, the show you knew you should do. You couldn't really do because it, it just would have been too close to the daily show and you kind of had to wait it out and try to do, you know,

not you behind the desk all the time, stuff like that. But then you eventually threw into that and that's when the show took off. Yeah. It was weird. Cause Shoemaker and I, uh, Mike Shoemaker, I produced it. Like I remember when it first started, we'd be like, Oh my God, can you imagine how hard it must be to do the daily show and have to talk about the news every day? And then you realize, you know, we would do the daily show and have to talk about the news every day? You realize, you know, we would do a few things like that. And that would be the thing people would say, Hey, I really like that. And it was, you know,

so it was kind of against our better judgment in the beginning that we thought, Oh, we will never do that. And then, you know, again, ultimately I think these shows, like you said, like they, they ultimately dovetail and meet up with the, the skillset of the people and especially the host. Do people know how close it was to you doing an ESPN late night show? I guess we can talk about that now. It's been a million years later. It was, we talked about it. Yeah. You were, you were counseled during that time. I was like an unpaid conciliary. You were, you were very, I would say that was like an unpaid conciliary. You were, you were very,

I would say that is an excellent definition of what I was. Yeah. It was right around the same time as I got offered late night. ESPN sort of reached out talking about doing a late, cause I hosted a couple of ESPYs and, and had, had good relationships with everybody over there. And those,

I told you not to do this second time. Yeah. And you were right. But it was, you know what, I'll say this. I learned a very valuable lesson. If you're going to learn not to go back to your greatest hits, like the ESPYs, the softest way of doing it, right? Because of that, I learned not to do the Correspondence Dinner or the Golden Globes or any, any like so at least it was at

the sbs and because the first sbs had gone well uh espn let us do whatever we wanted which of course whenever you let comedy writers do whatever they want it's um uh noticeably worse well i remember at that point in time whenever that was you almost, what was that like probably 2011 range? Well, 11 and 12 were my SPS times. Yeah. It was, it was right around the time when I had a lot of sway at ESPN and they were asking me about it. And I was just like, Seth's like the most undervalued guy right now. Like if you were ever going to do this, do it with him. But I could not figure out the scheduling part. I couldn't figure out, like for you, because I wanted you to succeed. And they were like, what's your biggest concern? I said this to you too.

I just, I don't see how you pull off the regularity that a late night show needs. Because everything I knew about late night habits, dating back to even when I worked on Kimmel's show, is that the audience just wants to know. They turn the TV on. It's 11.30. It's 12.

It's 12.30. There's the person I'm used to seeing. I'm in my bed, uncomfortable. Don't take me by too much surprise, but keep me intrigued, keep me interested. And if you don't have that day-to-day where you're not there week-to-week, whatever it is, and it's like, I thought Seth was going to be there.

Why is there a college basketball game on? Yeah. You're kind of dead out of the gate. Especially because the energy, it's one thing if you, if, you know, because of NFL football and NBC, it pushes late night and maybe you like Fallon's on for 11 more minutes. So, but it's still late night show as opposed to like college basketball and screaming fans and things you don't want to see at that hour.

The other thing was that and I think it was the right instinct, which is if you were going to do a late night comedy show about sports, it had to be up to date. And that was I remember it was presented to me that it would have to be a live show. And especially now with children. Right. Worst thing in the world would be if I was doing a live show on the Sports Network at midnight, even if it was out of New York. So it was certainly an interesting offer and the people over there at the time I really liked, but it was nice that sort of NBC sort of started sniffing around at the same time. And it probably didn't hurt, by the way, that there was...

Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, I'm glad ESPN could help as kind of the second, second suitor. That was a really fun time at ESPN. Cause I do feel like, you know, I look back fondly at that year just cause we were doing stuff like trying to hire you for a show and trying to get Nate Silver and they just, they were succeeding in every conceivable way and actually spending the money on good things, you know, and like paying for 30 for 30 and stuff like that. It was just, I just have, there's like a two-year window there. I'm like, man, that was a really fun place to work. It was interesting, you know, because it was also, uh, there was like this saturation of the market. Like there were only so many homes. right? And you just realize that again,

a lot happened with cable and how people look for it. But, you know, I think the other thing about those years was it was the crest of ESPN being everywhere. And ultimately at some point, you can't be in more houses when you're in all the houses. True. Good point. You did the ESPYs for two years with Maura. We should probably talk about her

for a second because that was one of the sad outcomes of 2020 mora man executive producer she uh passed away i guess end of february it was right before the pandemic and uh she was a uh i mean i feel like it's okay to say that she was like a bulldog. She was everything you want out of a producer in that she was so tenacious and especially in advocating for the host. I mean, there were times, you know, because she would sort of go back and forth between the network and me and she just took such good care of myself and the writing staff. And she genuinely wanted it to be a great show. And, you know, over the years, the ESPYs has had some really exceptionally good shows. And it shouldn't work as well as it does.

But I, you know, if you even just like pulled out the comedy bits from the last 20 years of the ESPYs, I'd put them up against any other award show. And the other fun thing about doing that show that she understood was nobody took it that seriously because no one in the audience genuinely cared that much whether or not they won. Right. I think that thing I always appreciated about her,

and I've always clicked well with people like this is she was all in a hundred percent at the craziest level of trying to make something succeed. So like she treated the SBs like it was the single most important two hours anybody was doing on television that year, whether that was true was debatable, but she really treated it that way. And I've always, I've just always enjoyed working with people like that who were just like, for lack of a better word, insane about the work and available at all times. And every year you'd see her after the ESPYs and she, it was like seeing LeBron after a triple overtime, you know, game seven, where he's like, whoo-ho, and she's wearing a cocktail dress, which is completely, you know, she has no energy at all, and she's smoking. And I don't know.

I just, I really liked working with her. the rest of the time she was working contacts from relationships and her ability the day before to say you what about Blake Griffin could I can get Blake Griffin to shoot a thing and that was really amazing yeah I don't know if I ever told you the story because we were I think we were staying we were all staying in the W Hotel um uh in LA and I went to the gym the morning of the ESPYs and Maura was just had the treadmill jacked up at like a 45 degree angle. And it was like as fast as it could go, as high as it

could go. And she was just running. I was like, that's how that's like Maura all the time. Like when she's not that, that's what's happening in her head, which is like just up to here and like running as fast as she could. And, uh, and she did it, you know, she genuinely did it to get the best possible outcome for that show. She was one of the 10 most important ESPN people when I was there because they had, there was no replacement for her. She brought it was, she was like Liam Neeson and taken.

She brought a particular set of skills. Yeah. Nobody else had them. She had all of these connections to show business and all of these and athletes and all of these different people. And it's not like you were like, how do you know, she passes away tragically. And then it's like, well, how do you replace her? It's like, well, you just don't. It's not like you're getting another head coach for an NFL team. It's like, there's no way to replace. You'd need five people to replace all the things that she was doing.

It was funny too, how often, you know, I remember my, I think my first year I shot something with Peyton Manning and I'm just like, he, I, you know, again, I'm probably putting words in his mouth, but you always would say like, how did you end up, thanks for doing this. He's like, oh, I couldn't say no to Maura. And like, like across the sporting world, like you never, uh,

I just feel like there are very few people that across all the sports, um, you know, who can't, you know, we're, I think just out of a place of like work, the relationship and,

and people cared about him. Uh, she got, uh, tons of favors every year and made the show so good. Well, she, she was in that classic wheelhouse of,

you had to return her call because you wanted to, but you also know if you didn't return her call, she was going to call again and get you on the phone and it was going to happen. So you might as well call her back the first time otherwise. And then she'd be mad if you didn't call, you know, the after the second time. So I don't know. I just, it's hard for somebody to earn respect like that from hundreds of people that are in their lives where it's like, she calls like, fuck up.

Maura's on the phone. I got to go. Like I'd be with my wife and phone would ring and I would just show my wife. I'm like, I gotta go. Shoemaker and I, she got Shoemaker's number and there were definitely days where one of us would hold up a phone and the other would understand that the next hour was- You would know right away. She came, I should note that I think

one of the last times I saw her, she came to the, when I hosted the Globes, she came to the after party because we invited her. And it was, I always, I mean, she was the first person who asked me to host something. And I learned, again, those are such unique things. But, you know, as different as an espy is from a Golden Globes, you do learn a process of just like,

when do you write the jokes? How do you try the jokes out? How do you do the bits? And so I always felt in debt to her for that. She was really good at jumping on somebody as their arrow was pointing up. Yeah. And getting in a little bit early and then rightfully being super proud jumping on somebody as their arrow was pointing up and getting,

getting in a little bit early and then rightfully being super proud as their career would kind of ascend and go to a couple other levels and kind of not that she was responsible for it, but just being like, I, I'm just so happy it's working out in this way for this person, because I felt like this was going to happen years ago when I asked them to do whatever. And she was usually right Kimmel and LeBron did it together before before LeBron did

SNL do you think or yeah it was before yeah because I mean that was a I mean that was a I think the first time and now of course I think it's pretty obvious how funny LeBron is but that was seemed very bold at the time and was such a cool choice. The thing that was, the Blake Griffin being funny was something I didn't fully realize until

he did a couple of Grantland things, but then he was on the ESPYs with Drake, I think in 2014. Because I always had a thing about athlete funny. When people say athletes are funny, they're not actually funny. They're just funny compared to other athletes. But then there's a couple of athletes who are actually legitimately funny or, and Blake was one of those guys where it's like, Oh, this guy's legitimately funny. Um, but yeah, it's not a, it's not a long list. I think Shaq is legitimately funny, but it,

I think there's a whole funny side of Shaq that we probably don't see as the public, but, um, it's not a long list. I, uh, Blake and Kevin Love were really funny in this basketball lockout thing we did. And I meant to text, uh, Neil Brennan today that, uh, they were both mentioned as having a very hard to trade contracts on your podcast this morning. Oh, that's true. Well, I mean, everybody over $30 million is, uh, It turns out like that being secretly funny doesn't help that much to help with a big contract. Or maybe it makes teams want to pay you more

because they like having you around. I think it's like, I don't know. I feel like this will be a more fun situation. How do you think about the whole... Like you grew up in this certain era on SNL in the mid 2000s and all of these people from this specific era are all doing these great things across the board and not, not just people like hater, but even like behind the scenes people and people like Mike Schur and all this stuff.. When you look back at that mid-2000s

and all the people you were involved with in some way, did you have any idea that was going to happen in the mid-2000s? I think by 07, 08 there was a sense. The cast got really small and the shows got really good.

I think that only happens when that small cast is as good as they were. And so there was a sense, and also most of us were at the same place in our life, which I think was really helpful. Like most of us were single. We were around the same age. We hung out a lot together outside the show.

And so, yeah, I mean, because I think it was at one point, maybe nine. And when you think it was Sandberg, Forte, Fred, Sudeikis, Hayner, Keenan Wig, Maya Polar, me, I mean, that's a, I mean, it's really stunning how, how well and how many shows have just. But then you also have all the behind-the-scenes people too. Yeah, I mean, Simon Rich.

That all go on to do all kinds of stuff. Mulaney, when you think about the fact that John Mulaney was not on camera and is now as good a stand-up comedian as there is in the universe. Alan Yang was there for a year. Yang wasn't there. Oh, I thought he wrote for SNL for a year. Yang, I think, was at Carson to know for a year. Yeah. I think was it a Carson daily? Uh,

it didn't have you. Not when I was there. It felt like he was there. Gotcha. I'm gonna give him credit anyway, even though he wasn't a wonderful guy. Uh, but yeah,

it was a, it was a nuts group. Paula Pell, who's really funny. And John Lutz who writes for us now. And I mean, yeah, it's a,

it was a very, uh, very deep really funny, and John Lutz, who writes for us now. I mean, yeah, it was a very, very deep... It wasn't that deep a bench because there weren't that many of us, but it was a very strong group. And, you know, the Lonely Island, the fact that Akiva and Jorma were there with Andy. Andy, now major movie streaming star.

Did you see Palm Springs? I thought it was good. I had him on. I loved what they did because I was so worried it was going to be a Groundhog Day ripoff, and it wasn't. I think the nice thing about a movie with that structure is, I feel like this is going to make me feel curmudgeonly. I like an 85-minute movie with no B-plot. Just give me two leads that I care about.

I don't need to see like other people finding love because they were adjacent to this. Right. And I just thought it was great. And Emiliani was so charming as well. I mean, I sort of live in perpetual charm of Sandberg. So it was nice to see the two of them together. Yeah, we did Caddyshack for the rewatchables last week.

It's like 97 minutes and it just flies by and it's over Yeah And then the golf course blows up and it's done Yeah It was just refreshing to see it So what do your next five years look like? I don't know I mean, I kind of went into

I remember when this show started thinking Oh, let's just get through the first five And now February was six And I mean, hopefully just, you know, continue to do this I'm really happy with the gig oh, let's just get through the first five. And now February was six. And I mean, hopefully just continue to do this. I'm really happy with the gig and I like the people we work with. And it's nice to do little side things with people like Bill and Fred and John,

like documentary now. So hopefully finding space to do something other than late night. But ultimately, I don't have any complaints. Well, you have two small kids. That's like having a torn ACL and a herniated disc in your back as an athlete. You're just that you're never the same. They also, uh, I feel like when I go back to the office, cause they now are, I feel like, especially the four-year-old is acutely aware that everything I said I had to go to work for i've been able to do at home right so now she's suspicious of you yeah he's just spends the whole day saying like wait okay all right but the ratings were the same right um so we'll see

that must have been awesome though because i know it's been awesome for us mostly to to be at home with our kids a lot but to have that with two young kids when you would have been on the go and at work all the time like it's just all this time you never would have had yeah and especially out of necessity we had to film everything earlier because you know basically i was just sending it via in-home internet to us you know to basically the graphics people and and you just had to build in more time to make sure you could get it to the networks in time to put it on TV. And so most days I was done by 4.30 or 5

as opposed to 8, 8.30. And I never finished the show before my kids are in bed. So it's been, you know, I know it's that weird thing of constantly having to couch. Things have been, there've been a silver lining

in this awful time we've lived through. But, you know, it has been a special time with our kids. Before we go, any last words for Tom Brady, your guy who kicked your ass for two decades? I'm not upset he's gone. I mean, I

wish him nothing but the best. Again, he only met him really that one week when he was just a delightful SNL person to be around. First of all, I don't believe you. I don't think you wish him the best. I think he caused a lot of pain and heartache for you and the other Steelers fans. That reflects badly on me. Like I now I wouldn't wish him the best if he was still on the Patriots.

And I wish nothing but ill to Cam Newton now. But I realize that that is a bad reflection on me as a person as opposed to anything bad that Cam or Tom used to do. I feel like to me, Tom is, you know, one of those people who worked for Trump and then left and wrote a book. And now I'm trying to, you know, accept that he's seen the error in his ways.

So now you're directing your sports hatred for Cam Newton now. It's hard. He's now the new guy. But again, you know, I would like to say there's a very easy way for Cam Newton and the Patriots and any of the Patriots to escape my iron, which is just to be a mediocre football team

for a year or two. Everybody else does it just a year or two so I can start feeling bad for them. But as of right now, yeah. What are you expecting from Ben Roethlisberger? Good things? I mean, there's nothing. Do you really expect good things?

Like deep down, really? Yeah, I do. I, yeah. Okay. Again, eight and eight with Duck Hodges and mason rudolph right so I kind of if we had if we'd gone four and twelve I wouldn't feel that good but I do think we have a really good defense and I I do expect good things and there's so little there's so little to be optimistic about right now like I'm about to go back to a studio with no audience right part of

me is like just give me the one thing i mean how if if i mean you would just be gutted if football fell apart right if all of a sudden they were they called it off i'm i still have my guard up i have not done any fantasy football homework yet or anything i just think they're gonna plow through it yeah and if if there are covid um people that pop up they'll just kind of move them aside. Like, like on the injury cart, when they're carrying an injury guy off, it'll be the big picture equivalent of that, where it's like, yeah, they lost 10 guys, wheel them out, bring in 10 more and just keep the money train going.

I think is going to be the attitude, which is a bummer. Um, but it's, that's how we know the sausage is made with football. They don't care about their players. They never have. So I don't see why this would change. No, my conflicted feelings about the NFL are made no easier by this moment we're living through. 100%.

Yet I cannot, I would be lying through my teeth if I said I would be gutted. I i mean i would be so gutted if it fell apart listen if we were going to quit the nfl it would have happened already exactly this is kind of the terrible spouse we have but i will say though like i've been shocked by the baseball thing and i i don't really know how to reconcile that and i I know you're a red Sox fan. Yeah. Um, I don't, I don't know if it's cause we won four titles, the team's bad. It sucks to watch baseball without fans,

but this is the first red Sox season of my life where I, I'm just not watching. Yeah. I'm literally not watching at all. I barely know what's going on and I don't really feel bad about it. Yeah. It does feel again, we got really spoiled and all the itches

were scratched. And now like just the combination of, of Mookie and how it looks and how they're playing it, maybe it's helpful to take a breath and, and, and just let them win us back. The Mookie thing's making it worse for me. It's like pouring gasoline on an open wound. Cause I, you know, it was so horrible when it was happening and now he's doing great. And the Dodger fans love him and I have to fucking live here and see the t-shirt jerseys. And it's just every day it's worse. And then the Red Sox are sellers already. They've already traded two relievers, including their closers. And they're acting like they're the Kansas city Royals. And it's like, what happened? We, we used to spend top five most money and that, and now we're the Royals. Where did we go wrong?

We, you, I bet you are. I mean, obviously you're engaged with it. The NBA has done a very nice job. And it's been great, but I think the NBA thing is almost shown that fans as part of the TV spectacle, we're probably a little overrated. Yeah. You know, where the only time I really felt it was yesterday when Luca made that shot. Thinking like, oh man, that would have been cool if Dallas fans were there in Sunday's game.

But for the most part, they've been able to replicate what it sounds like to have a crowd. And in a way that makes you think like, oh yeah, this was kind of, a lot of this was forced anyway. Like a lot of the musical cues, a lot of kind of telling the fans how to behave. Yeah. Whereas like with the stuff I grew up with,

where the crowd, we basically had an organ and the organist played some fight songs and other than that, it was just fans applauding and booing and that's it. And now everything is kind of orchestrated. So the fact that they could replicate that, I think was kind of weirdly disturbing. Yeah.

I was watching, uh, as I was watching the Celtics series at no point did I think I'm, I'm less, I care less. I cared the same. I felt like that was an accomplishment. Well,

ironically, you're going to probably feel it with your show when you're back in the studio with, with no people reacting. I don't, I've watched some of the Bill Maher shows and it's so funny how he's trying to do his thing. And he's got, it's almost like in wrestling, like the professional wrestlers, when they do the entrances and they're playing off the fans who aren't there. And he's just, he's like, I'm just going to do it the same way I've always done it, but there's no people there. And he's turning the left and the right and he's looking at like a plant.

It'll be weird. I mean, it's one thing like not having an audience in your attic is fine because there was never an audience in your attic. So I think that will be the weird thing is going back to the room. There was an audience in and figuring out. Because I feel like we did figure out how to perform without an audience in our makeshift studios. The real question will be, how do you perform without an audience in the room where you're facing the empty seats they used to sit in? You'll be fine.

What's the best movie you watched during the pandemic? I really liked Palm Springs. Just rewatched Bugsy. Really enjoyed Bugsy. Bugsy, wow. What else did I really like? I feel like I haven't watched a ton. I mean, I May Destroy You has been the best thing I've seen.

And Normal People was a really good horny show. A lot of people my mom really liked Normal People which I thought was disturbing. Right. I think it's like that. At one point I didn't know. I was like, is this just the OC that I think is classy because they have Irish accents?

But I think it was better than that. And I'm trying to think of I like the old guard on Netflix. I thought that was better than that And I'm trying to think of I like the old guard on Netflix I thought that was fun times What else am I missing? What was your big one? What was your

I caught up on stuff Like I had never watched Ozark Oh yeah Like a month into the pandemic I was just already feeling weird And then cranking out Ozarks and just going to a dark place. My wife is re-watching

I mentioned this on the show, Dawson's Creek, which is a show I never watched. And I have like, I'm like, it's jarring to like now find out like how much about sex that show was. I think I just had a very good idea of what that show was about I think I just had a very good idea

of what that show was about. I did because I was trying to replace all the sports stuff I used to watch, especially in the mornings because I would wake up, do emails, and put some game on that I had tipped in before. Was doing like Melrose Place in its place, first couple of Melrose Place.

MTV The Challenge was throwing that on there. Like anything that was kind of interesting, but not really, but not too interesting. You try to find that wheelhouse, but yeah, I'm running out of stuff. Yeah. It's getting dark and no good movies are coming out. It's basically all like these straight to videos with, with a few exceptions. And it feels like they're stacking them. They're waiting until like December and all of them are going to come out at

the same time. And it's going to be like, what the fuck? Like we're going to have a hundred of these. So anyway, good luck in the Emmys next month. Thanks buddy. Good luck back in the studio in a couple of weeks. It was good to see you. Don't cut your hair. We'll talk to link later about working you and everybody wants some too. Maybe a cameo. Got to rewatch that. That was the best. All right. Good seeing great. We'll talk to Link later about working you and everybody wants some too. Maybe a cameo. Got to rewatch that.

That was the best. All right. Good seeing you. Thank you. All right. Great seeing you too. All right. Thanks to Spotify.

Thanks to Seth Meyers. Thanks to Jonathan Charks. Thanks to Raja Bell and Logan Murdoch for their little cameo at the top of the pod. Don't forget about the rewatchables, which we had 40 year old virgin. That's up there already. And then Wednesday night, dangerous minds as part of teen movie week on the ringer.com. I hope you're enjoying all the pieces that we did for that and the bracket vote

for your favorite movies. Go to the ringer social feed right now, and we will see you on Thursday night. Looking forward to it. On the wayside I'm a bruised soul I never was And I don't have To ever forget