The Bill Simmons Podcast - CP3’s Future, the Next Big NBA Trade, Netflix’s Swoon, and the Stream Adultery Epidemic With Kevin O’Connor, Amanda Dobbins, and Chris Ryan | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: July 18, 2019

HBO and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Kevin O’Connor to discuss Chris Paul’s future in Oklahoma City, NBA summer league takeaways, Kawhi’s two-year deal, and more (1:55). Then Bill sits down with Chris Ryan and Amanda Dobbins to discuss Netflix’s regression, the looming streaming war, summer TV, and more (58:25). 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 ZipRecruiter. The best teams start with great talent like the Boston Celtics in 2019-20, Kemba Walker and Ennis Cantor. You know how that came together? Danny Ainge, he's a guru. He brought them together. Now 67 wins in our future. No one knows the importance of talent more than ZipRecruiter. They deliver qualified candidates fast. They learn what kind of candidates you like. They invite more to apply. So effective. 80% of employers who post

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At Ringer is where you can find it or hashtag Big Little Live. It is presented by Buick. It features Amanda Dobbins and ESPN's Mina Kimes, who wrote a great story this week about Baker Mayfield for ESPN, the magazine, by the way. They're going to be there right after that show ends. What's going to happen? How's it going to play out?

Who the hell knows? We're going to talk about that show much later coming up with Amanda Dobbins and Chris Ryan. First, Kevin O'Connor's going to be on and talk NBA. Then we're going to talk with Chris and Amanda about Netflix and streaming and subscriptions and where everything is going. And then at the tail end, we're going to talk about favorite summer TV

shows, Big Little Lies, Euphoria, a whole bunch of them, and also the concept of Netflix cheating. So be ready for all that. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, Kevin O'Connor is here from The Ringer. How many days were you in Vegas? Four days. Five days. Five days. You were there when the Kauai trade, when all that stuff went down, you were there, right? I was leaving the building as it was happening to go back to my hotel to record something about Zion Williamson.

So I was actually in my hotel room as the trade happened, leaving the arena as the earthquake happened. When Mark Fishel from the NBA was like, Kevin, stop. I was like, why? Why? He's like, there's an earthquake. So I stopped, felt the lasting rumbles, and then went? He's like, there's an earthquake. So I stopped, felt the lasting rumbles, and then went back on my way

to record the Zion thing and then the Kawhi trade broke. Was that scary in the building, the earthquake? I wasn't in the building, though. No, but for people there, were people saying they thought the scoreboard

was going to collapse? It's like Pat Muldowney, our peer at The Ringer, he had recorded this great video of the loudspeakers shaking and the jumbotron, little movement. It sounds like it was scary.

Anything could have fallen. Unbelievable. I'm thankful I wasn't in there. Between the earthquake and then all the Kawhi Paul George stuff, it overshadowed how disappointing the Zion thing was. He played nine minutes. Yeah, Zion, Zion, Zion, and then he's just gone. We want to talk about a bunch of stuff. We have some mid-July agenda stuff to get through.

And then basically, it feels like the NBA is going to quiet down. I know you're writing something for Monday, but Chris Paul's staying, it looks like. Does seem like he's staying. They did a nice job of spinning it where, oh, yeah, you know, everybody's roster set. It's so hard to trade guys. He's actually warming up to OKC, and we're going to keep him here. My intel is that they had so hard to trade guys. He's actually warming up to OKC and we're going to keep him here. My intel is that they had no place to trade him.

I would say that's accurate. There's nobody available partially for that reason, though. That rosters are locked in. I think 35 or 40% of the league can't be traded until December 15th. Minnesota could have done something, though. That was my question. Why not Minnesota? Before Westbrook was traded,

I sort of tried to find out if they were a team that would make sense for Westbrook in, because Gerson Rosas, the new general manager of the Timberwolves, had said publicly, like, I'm going to be aggressive. We need to maximize Karl-Anthony Towns' window. So I'm like, oh, maybe they're a team, after missing out on Russell, could go for Westbrook. I was told no, that they are not interested...

Go for Chris Pa. No, for Westbrook. Oh, for Westbrook, okay. That they were not interested in Westbrook. I was told no, that they are not interested. No, for Westbrook. Oh, for Westbrook, okay. That they were not interested in Westbrook as an older player. So perhaps they also wouldn't be interested in Chris Paul. That's insane if they weren't interested in Westbrook. Because how are they getting free agents otherwise?

I think they wanted a younger guy that helps them but fits the timeline, which is why Russell was perfect. What timeline? Zach and I talked about this earlier in the pod. I feel like they're on the clock now with Towns. I know he's got five years left, but if we learned anything this summer

is that every team is on the clock 24 hours a day now. You can't ever feel safe about having a star, I don't think. You don't have to trade Towns, even if he's like, I want out. You don't have to trade him. That discontent, that anger can manifest and hurt the rest of the team, of course. But I think for Minnesota, if you trade for Chris Paul,

it's the type of thing where you need a lot back. And I think for Oklahoma City, that's been the topic of conversation now, where it's like they'd be giving up a pick to Miami to get a deal done. If I'm OKC, I'm looking at Chris Paul's production this past season, and you're like, yeah, he got a little bit worse. His at-room finishing is worse. He still can't stay healthy. His first step isn't quite what it was before. But with James Harden off the floor

and he was still given the keys to run the offense, he still averaged around 22 points, 12 assists per 36 minutes. So he still produced at a high level when he was really empowered as the playmaker. So with Paul, so often we focus on what he's lost as a player and the age and the salary instead of like what he still is and what he can contribute to a

contending team. So for OKC, I think it makes sense to wait because if he comes back with OKC this year and they're playing well with their core with Gallinari, Gildas Alexander, Steven Adams, if you're Miami or another team, you're like, oh, we can add this guy and maybe increase our championship odds in this wide open league this year. So I think it makes sense for OKC to wait. You know, I agree with you because I made the same case. I guess the counter would be if you want SGA to play, you also have Schroeder there who's still got two years left on his deal. And there's a... Don't let Schroeder be a factor. Well, but there's a chance there's an unhappy vibe, though,

where Chris Paul's not totally happy because he didn't want to be there in the first place. SGA is not playing enough, which is the only guy you really care about, probably in the... I think... Who else did they care? Ferguson, maybe? Who else did they truly care about on that team

who's going to be there three years from now? They're a big pile of assets. Yeah, that's it. They're middle school players right now. That's who they care about. And Shea. And Shea. And Ferguson, too. He's got potential.

Ferguson has a chance. He's solid. Great athlete. I think they should keep him. I thought that always made sense. I also think they might be better than maybe people think. They're going to be good. They could get to 43 wins, potentially,

if Chris was able to stay healthy. And I'm with you on the whole, could Chris have one good year left? So, here's the counter to that. He could have more than one good year, though. So, I looked up, you know, you love the Basketball Reference Play Index.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course. It's pretty great. Basketball Reference, though. What a really good website. Really good website. Thank you to Basketball Re. What a really good website. Really good website. Thank you to Basketball Reference. I looked up

the old saying is small guys don't age well. That you go like 6'1 and under. The history just isn't there. I've said that on a pod a bunch of times. And I was like, I'm actually going to look this up. How many guys, 35 years and older who are 6'1 and

under were actually really good NBA players, or even good or decent. So, I put in the play index. This seems conceivable, right? 11 points a game, 5 assists a game, 25 minutes a game. So, this is a low bar

we're talking here. This is the lowest bar I could come up with. 35 years and older, 6'1 and under. Who's even hit that? Gotta be like... It's two guys ever. Only two guys ever. Did they have multiple seasons?

It's John Stockton and Lenny Wilkins. I was going to say Stockton, of course. Did not think of Lenny Wilkins. Only two guys. Lenny Wilkins, at age 35, played 39.6 minutes a game and averaged a 28 on the Cavs. But I think he was also coaching them. Interesting.

But a lot of minutes. The league was also, at that point, the ABA was really in there. It was a real talent glut, I think, for the league. So it was probably a little easier for him to do that. Enabled him to get that playing time. Enabled him to do a little better maybe. And then he did it the next year too. He played 33.6 minutes, 16 and seven.

So then Stockton, really the last five years of his career, when they were keeping his minutes between 28 and 31 minutes and he was still able to get to like 12 and eight. That's it. That's our entire list. So I wonder,

and I think Houston looks at stuff like this. I think they look at historical comps. I think they try to figure out how many miles somebody has left, but then also factoring in 2019, the advantages, all that stuff. I think they just looked at it and said, Chris Paul would be making history by being a good player.

For sure. This has not happened in 45 years. We have to move out this contract this year. They had no other options to get somebody back who could help them continue to contend other than Westbrook. But I was shocked by those numbers. That is surprising. It's only two guys.

I would have expected one role player in there. Even Andre Miller to hit that threshold. Someone like that. But in regards to Houston, for them it makes sense. Westbrook's a better player. Despite all his flaws, he provides that team, someone like that. But in regards to Houston, for them it makes sense. Westbrook's a better player. Despite all his flaws, he provides that team with a higher ceiling. It could sour, it could get worse, but for

them with Harden and Paul and how much those guys didn't like each other, it made a lot of sense for them. And for OKC, it's like, with Gallinari and this core they have, they're going to be competitive, like you said. And I think that's going to provide CP3 some type of platform to show what he still has. Because right now we're focused

so much on what he's lost and what he doesn't have and what he might lose in the coming years instead of what he is today and what he can provide to a team like Miami. They could have arguably the best backcourt in the East with Butler and Paul. You could even look at a team like Milwaukee and think, what if they decide to flip Eric

Bledsoe, George Hill, and Erson Iliasova in a package with maybe a pick for Chris Paul? What does that do to their sailing? I like George Hill, though. But do you like him more than Chris Paul? I don't think so. I don't know. I just extended the search to 6'2",

and it's only 1974 Jerry West was our only addition. This is not good. It's not good. But also, Chris Paul is one of those all-time great point guards, though. So he could easily be one of the guys joining that list. Yeah. And he could have better numbers than some of those guys, because of the nature of the game today.

His stats did go down last year. I mean, I remember looking at this stuff a lot when I was doing my book and even after, like writing columns and stuff. There is a point of no return sometimes statistically where there's a decline that you can actually see with field goal percentage minutes played PR. Like there's all these factors. I remember when I,

the first time I really remember writing about it was with Jermaine O'Neal. Remember when he was like, Jermaine O'Neal was probably one of like the best nine or 10 players in the league at some point when he was on the Pacers. And then he got traded to Toronto. And then I think he ended up, or maybe Miami first and Toronto, but teams kept taking chances on him.

But his stats had dipped past the point where it was realistic for him to be a 2010 guy again. And I remember looking up that stuff then and just being like, can you pass the point of no return as a productive guy? So I guess we're going to find out with Chris Paul because his stats were way lower than they'd been in 10 years.

And that's where we entered last season with Carmelo Anthony and Dwight Howard. Those guys just don't have anything left to give. And I remember I had talked to an executive last summer before those guys changed teams. And I was like, well, hey, man, like maybe on a low salary, those guys can still offer something as a role player. They don't.

Carmelo Anthony won't accept his role as a role player. He will not maximize his other tools. He still, like Chauncey Billups said, cares too much about scoring 30 points. And then Dwight Howard just doesn't have it anymore. But Chris Paul's not even close to that, though. That's what I mean. It's like he's not close to that.

Unless there's something with smaller players where if you lose a half step or two-thirds of a step... He can still produce, though. ...physically, it's all know-how at this point. Listen, I'm not ruling it out. I'm just saying he'd be... This has not happened since John Stockton where we've seen a guy be able to navigate this.

I mentioned the Bucs, though. If you put Chris Paul on Milwaukee in the postseason this last year that makes them a better team over over George Hill and Eric Bledsoe so this year when the league's a little bit even more wide open you're pairing Giannis Antetokounmpo with still one of the best passers in the league to me that's something that makes sense for Milwaukee so for OKC it's like okay maybe maybe at some point Milwaukee is like, we can add a guy in Chris Paul. Maybe even a team like Phoenix is like, okay, let's get desperate here, man.

Let's try to maximize this. DeAndre Ayton's getting better. We need a guy for Devin Booker. I don't know why that team's not Minnesota, though. I keep making the case for them. It's like, it actually seems perfect for somebody who could make Towns and Wiggins better. It's not really a long list.

You mentioned Carmelo. So he's a good example, right? He was really good those two Knicks years. I think Carmelo gets a bad rap in general for, I think he was better than people realize. Like 11, 12 season, 12, 13, like those years. He had two seasons in a row, 13 and 14 combined, where he's basically 28 a game, 7.5 rebounds, 45% field goal,

39% from three, taking six a game. He's getting to the line 7.3 times. That's a really, really good offensive player. That's like 90% of a Durant season. And then it started to tail off. And he had that last year at the Knicks in 17. He's 22 a game. Now he's down to 43% field goal. Now he's down to 36% three-point. Now he's getting in the line 4.9 times instead of seven. And it's like the seeds are there. And then all of a sudden it craters the next two years. So I do wonder, I guess the thing that surprised me the most,

as I keep thinking about it, is that Daryl traded for Chris Paul in the first place. When there's some pretty obvious stuff where you're looking at the miles on somebody, injury history, the fact that he's never been in amazing shape, that he said, I think I can win the title this year if i do this trade i'm all in and they almost did yep but he had to know the day of reckoning was coming yeah of course and it is coming for chris ball at some point i just think like you can't look at the

raw numbers with him you need to look at the circumstances in the context i agree with chris paul i mentioned the per 36 numbers earlier where he averaged like 12 and, 22 and 12 per 36 without Harden on the floor with Harden. It was like 14 and six. Like he just didn't have the ball on his hands to produce

in a way that you would expect him to. Well, and that's, but that's a key point for somebody like him where he's had the ball since he was age five. Yep. And now it's like stand over there.

Of course. And that's not an easy adjustment for a guy to make. It's like the mismatch with you and Chris Vernon. If we took the mic away from him half the time, he wouldn't know how to kind of pick his spots. No. Me and Bruno have developed pretty good chemistry. Better than harder than Chris Paul, thankfully.

That is definitely true. Thankfully. Yeah. Nobody's threatened to demand a trade yet but with Chris Paul though like there's still something there so for OKC

I think beyond some of those teams Milwaukee Miami Phoenix I mentioned one team like I'm looking through you can eliminate

virtually 25 teams because most teams don't need a point guard instantaneously but one team that doesn't need a point guard but makes a little bit of sense

what about San antonio popovich near the end of his career oh wow you could package like a patty mills with a bellinelli a damari carroll's uh two-year deal and i think one other piece in a trade and then suddenly you have a a big three of the r, Paul, Aldridge. And that's not the most appealing core. What a fun threesome to watch. Chris Paul yelling at everybody, Aldridge sulking. Yes, but for Greg Popovich,

having still one of the better playmaking boy cards in the league, it's quite intriguing. I'm not saying I would do it if I'm San Antonio. I wouldn't. I would stick with this younger core growing over time. But if you're able to add a Chris Paul to that core, maybe you can maximize the end of Greg Popovich's run. So you're saying they basically say, hey, Patty Mills, Rudy Gay, they expire a year from now.

And we'll throw in Murray as a restricted free agent. No, I wouldn't do that. I would not throw in Murray. No young guys. You're Mills and Gay, that's it. Maybe like a second round. I. I wouldn't, no. You wouldn't do that? I would not throw in Murray. No young guys. You're Mills and Gay, that's it. Maybe like a second rounder. I'm talking like Mills, Carroll, Bellinelli.

I don't think you need to put in Carroll. Like something like that with a pick. I'm not giving up DeJounte, Murray. I'm not giving up any of the good young guys. How about the rights to be turned down by Marcus Morris again? Second time.

Sure. Go ahead. Take it. Take it. Take it. Okay, see. I don't know, but point being, it's like...

Can we agree that it would have been more fun if Minnesota traded for him? Yeah. I'm just more interested in that team at that point. No doubt. I think it would be. Teagan Dang, who expires a year from now for Chris Paul. Like just, what are we waiting for?

Let's just go. You don't think there's a chance they're playing a little poker here and pretending they're not going to trade him, right? That could be. That could be a possibility. Or right now they may not want to. And at some point they changed their mind. Maybe Towns is a little disappointed mid-season. Pretending they're not going to trade him, right? They could be. That could be a possibility. Or right now, they may not want to.

And at some point, they change their mind. Maybe Towns is a little disappointed midseason if they're a 10 seed, 11 seed, something like that. And then you're like, damn, got to trade for Chris Paul to maximize this guy. Because by the way, to me, Chris Paul is a better fit on paper with Towns than Russell Westbrook. I think Westbrook is somebody who I would have loved Towns for Westbrook. I wouldn't have loved Westbrook. I think Westbrook is somebody who I would have loved Towns for Westbrook.

I wouldn't have loved Westbrook for Towns. I think Chris Paul is somebody who can enhance Carl Anthony Towns undoubtedly because of his off-ball ability.

You can still go to the post with Carl Anthony Towns and Chris Paul can play off-ball. But Minnesota does not make as much sense to me as those other teams that I've mentioned.

Not Phoenix. I would not trade for Chris Paul. Are we sure he makes sense for Miami? Why not? Why doesn't he make sense? Where are they going? Are they going to win the title? Why am I taking on three years

and $110 million of Chris Paul? You're giving up other crappy salaries. That's why. But if I'm OKC, why do I want to take back crappy salaries? I'd rather just have Chris Paul. And that's the thing. Maybe if they expire earlier, you do it. But right now, they'd be giving up a pick in order to do it. I would not just have Chris Paul. And that's the thing. Maybe if they expire earlier, you do it.

But right now, they'd be giving up a pick in order to do it. I would not trade Chris Paul now. I think if you're OKC, you need to take this into the season and play it out. See how your team performs. Maybe you decide to ride it out for the full year. Maybe this team clicks and suddenly you're like, oh, let's add a guy. I gotta say, I kind of

like Miami's situation. Right now? No, just for where their roster is and the options they have. Because still they have Dragic at 19 million as an expiring. They have Olenek, who's 12.6 this year and 13.1 next year. I kind of like Olenek. I think he's not, to me, like a dead salary cap number. He's somebody that could be an eighth or ninth man

on a good team. And then they have Winslow, if they want to try to get a superstar. a dead salary cap number. He's somebody that could be an eighth or ninth man on a good team. You know, and then they have Winslow if they want to try to get a superstar. But if I'm Miami, I would rather wait until December,

keep the Dragic contract now, and kind of wait to see what happens in the league and who becomes unhappy. Bradley Beal pops up, something like that. What if Ben Simmons popped up in a year?

It makes sense for all these teams to wait. It's in Miami's best interest to wait. It's in Oklahoma City's best interest to wait. Milwaukee, they can't trade for him now. It makes sense for Washington to wait too, I think, because if they're going to, as Joe House always says on my podcast, insurance pays for 80% of the wall.

If they can just make sure Beal doesn't spin out before February, at least kind of wait it out before you decide you're going to reboot. Absolutely. Bradley Beal is really the next guy. Seems like it. The next guy that a bunch of teams are going to target. And maybe that happens by the trade deadline. Could one of those teams be the Boston Celtics?

What's Boston giving up? I mean, that would be... Jalen Brown. that would be Jalen and the Grizzlies pick would be the two headliners in that one right are you willing to to risk that but Bradley be able to stick around I'm with my dad my dad who's watching the British Open this morning and just devastated about Rory was really upset that Rory just completely tanked in his hometown. But my dad's in on the Celtics team. I think a lot of Celtics fans are just like, this seems like a fun group of guys to root for.

I kind of want to see it. From the press conference, Enes Kanter joking about Kyrie at number 11. Yeah, so it was weird. So Kemba picks number 8, which was Antoine's number for years. And we're going to get these Walker. It's almost like Kemba should be on the back of the jersey, not Walker. I know.

And then Cantor takes Kyrie's jersey, which is kind of like the haunted house jersey. I would have retired that, but more like burned it, not retired it. Evan Turner, right? Evan Turner, who's worn 11 in Celtics history? Oh, there's been a lot of 11s. I think Sam Vincent way back in the day, that used to be his. It's been kind of a jinx number.

Okay. Interesting. Do you think all the Kyrie stories have come out yet, in your opinion? Of course not. Will all the stories ever come out? Who writes that piece, you think? And does that piece ever get written? Or are the Celtics, they want to seem like they're good guys?

I think it's going to fade. I think it's going to fade away. My feeling is they're keeping their heads high on this one. Yeah, I think so. A little bit. What about Westbrook OKC? When is the when is Sam Presti's Pravda machine going to ride through the terrible Westbrook piece? With his well-fitted

suits and his perfect hair, right? I don't think that's going to happen. You will release the Westbrook piece today. I've heard, I mean, I put this in my article on Monday. I've heard OKC was very unhappy about how everything unfolded. And maybe they're just putting up that front when they're actually ecstatic about everything that they got in return. That's how I feel.

But I think from a human level, you're probably disappointed. This guy that you've spent this entire decade with, you've been through so many highs and lows, and he's getting recruited away by a free agent, by a guy and a competitor uh and james harden and then you have paul george getting recruited by kawaii leonard you're probably not happy about that um on a human level and then from a business standpoint as a small market team you're not either uh but from from your own perspective now 15 first round draft

picks over the next seven years is pretty damn good dude with shea gildas alexander and the amount of flexibility you have with the guys you currently have they are one of the if you're choosing teams that you want to start a franchise with okc is up there right now suddenly i would had new orleans first but then zion looked like he was out drinking with nephew kyle and eating pizza at five in the morning and doing that whole thing zion get on a treadmill what are you doing i have a photo don't show up fat for the season please i have a photo of him. Don't show up fat for the season, please. I have a photo of him from a Duke game earlier this year

when I was there for All-Star Weekend. And he's wearing his tank or whatever after the game. And he's looking thick, but not chubby. He looked chubby. He looked chubby. He looked chubby.

It's fine. It's a good learning experience for him. Guess what? Show up in shape. I mean, it worked for Luka Doncic last year where he was probably, I would say, 10 pounds doughy. But at some point, all these guys have the light bulb go up. Zach. I mean, it worked for Luka Doncic last year where he was probably, I would say, 10 pounds doughy. But at some point, all these guys have the light bulb go up.

Zach and I talked about when we're going to have that moment with Embiid. I think Zach and I, I talked about it with somebody. It was either House or Zach. That moment with Embiid when he puts the Instagram picture up and he just looks like an Adonis and everybody goes,

holy shit. Do you think we'll ever have that? Yeah, I do. I did too. Wasn't there a photo posted recently of him? I'm not there yet. That wasn't the one

you're looking for more? I want the Giannis in the Nautos machine with the giant bicep photo. How about the Markel Fultz picture? Remember pre-draft the big muscle photo of him? Remember that one?

Is that Photoshopped? They Photoshopped out the Chick-filultz picture. Remember pre-draft the big muscle photo of him? Remember that one? Is that Photoshopped? They Photoshopped out the Chick-fil-A sandwich. What is going on with him? He was the donut champion at True Handlers. Oh my God. What's going on with him?

Is he unsalvageable? I haven't heard anything specific with Markel Fultz. Just what's been said publicly. But it seems like the same old, same old that was from his time in Philly.

Oh, he weighs away. You know, not ready yet. He's working hard. Though it isn't noteworthy. What a bummer. Caron Butler, who shares an agent with Markel Fultz, did say, you know, and this might be hyperbolic here. He's like, Markel Fultz is ready. He's 100% healthy.

And he'll be starting from the magic. He's the only guy who said something like that. But they share an agent. They share an agent. But Butler was also the only guy who had the accurate injury diagnosis prior to anybody else. Just something to keep in mind. Isn't he still like 21?

Yeah, he's young. Worth a gamble for Orlando. And then if he stinks it up this year, you can decline his option, or you can keep it for a one year uh expiring contract in the coming year so that would be the 2020-21 season so you get a two-year trial with a former number one pick why not like markel markel even without a jump shot can still become a guy who if if he embraces like the sean livingston mold and just grinds on defense and becomes a guy who maximizes his playmaking he can be a productive player but he needs to embrace that

if he doesn't have the jump shot he doesn't need to be the guy that we all expected him to be some type of james harden-esque player he can be a productive player it's just about embracing that and changing his mindset and accepting that i'm not sure if that'll happen i i hope he doesn't have to do that um but there's a strong possibility that's that's what it's gonna have to come down to i remember the obviously the celtics we going to have a high pick in that draft, really watching a lot of YouTube stuff on all those guys. And one of the things that jumped out with him was how silky his offensive game was.

It's hard for me to even fathom two years later, we're worried about his jump shot. It didn't seem like a Ben Simmons type of situation. It was the opposite. It was like, oh, man, that's a butter his jump shot. It looked easy to him. It didn't seem like a Ben Simmons type of situation. It was the opposite. It was like, oh man, that's a buttery jump shot. Yeah. I mean, it was a little unorthodox, but it just kind of looked...

It worked. It just looked smooth and like he could make a million of them. You know, with Fultz, it was the type of thing where you felt confident he'll at least be an above average shooter. You didn't worry about anything like this ever happening. But this is a variable that you never could have predicted.

With this injury or whatever you want to call it, whatever this issue is, you couldn't have predicted this. And there's still a foundation there for him to have success. Which is why it makes sense for Orlando, right?

I mean, look at the rest of that roster. It's a young team. It made sense for five or six teams. I thought Charlotte, any team that's hopeless, why not? I'm a bit surprised there weren't more teams,

at least from what we've heard, that were in on faults because of that exact reason. I think the buzz was bad. Yeah. Coming up after this break, KOC is officially going to give up on Mo Bamba right after this. Hey, doesn't it feel like most phone plans

just weren't made with us in mind? Between bad coverage, paying too much for data you won't actually use, crazy roaming charges. Come on. Google Fi is a phone plan by Google made with features that people like you and I actually want. Free international roaming. Yeah, you'll never have to worry about calling up your provider to let them know you'll be traveling.

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Bill protection. Yeah. Welcome to bill protection. I'm Bill Simmons. If you ever do use a lot of data, your bill is capped at a reasonable amount thanks to Bill Protection. Learn more at fi.google.com.

fi.google.com. Switch to Google Fi, a phone plan by Google. All right, we're here. It's July 18th, 2019. It's a dramatic day. KOC giving up on Mo Bamba. I can't believe it. You're giving up on him.

I'm not giving up on him. You're not giving up. He's a second year player. Let's chill out. Not giving up. Not giving up, no. Though I will say the situation's bad for him. It's a bad situation for him

with Nikola Vucevic getting the money that he did with Jonathan Isaac. And I don't think they can play together, do you? Aaron Gordon, all these big guys, all these forwards and bigs, it's not a good situation for Mo Bamba for his development.

Is there a Celtics possibility with him? They've always liked Mo Bamba. I know. They love him. They're like a big guy short. They have some stuff. Makes some sense.

I have no idea what his trade value is because he did not look good last season, but he was a rookie. He's probably one of those quote-unquote untradeable guys where there is no value. But he's very valuable.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, sure, he might be, but how do you value a guy that has not performed yet at the NBA level and also barely played summer league? He played, what, 12 minutes this year? Where do you stand on the whole thing about overrating draft picks

and this new era now of teams just want a star and now everybody's ready to pay $0.150 a dollar? Or do you think this was just a fluke with the last couple of trades? I mean, to me, draft picks have always been something I've considered as ammo. They're ammo to get the next star. And I think we've seen that manifest in multiple ways. We've seen teams just rack up draft picks to get the next guy. Boston being one of those teams, sometimes it works for them,

sometimes it doesn't. And if you keep those picks, great. You can get great young players that still remain either keepers or assets that you can use to get that star player. But I think we've seen draft picks have devalued in the sense that players are no guarantee to be a 10-year guy for you. they're no guarantee to be a 10 year guy for you. They're no guarantee to be a 15 year guy at this point. So with free agents,

they were high costs, low risk. There's, there's a high amount of certainty in what they can provide you as a player. Whereas for draft picks, it is low costs, higher risk.

You don't know what they're going to turn out to be by the time they're productive. It could be their second year, second contract where they're more expensive anyway. So in that sense... Well, and then on top of it, you have to overpay or else they're going to explore the market

or be pissed off. But then you're in a situation where you're paying Jamal Murray, Ben Simmons, $170 million for five years. And you're not even positive they're the best player in a team and on top of it they could be unhappy in a year and for sure all that stuff and we may see that as coming summer with brian and ingram depending on what's out there in the market for

him and where you're not quite sure what he is but he's going to be paying for what you hope he is so i think jay went's another one that jay went's a really interesting contract extension thing. And if I'm him and I saw Murray got $170 million, I'd be looking at Boston and being, I'm at least $120. Yeah. I mean, you're looking at it like I just haven't had the opportunity to do what Jamal Murray has done to prove that he's worth that money. I almost made the finals. Jamal Murray didn't almost make the finals.

Game seven. Yeah, game seven. One game away. One quarter away, really. So for those players So for those assets, I do think they've declined in the sense that there's more appeal in getting that guy who can help you immediately. He might be higher cost. He might be older.

He might be somebody that doesn't have quite as many years left. But guess what? Draft picks have become something where you don't have the guarantee of those 10 years anymore. It could be six years, seven years, and that's it. But only of those seven years, how many of them are going to have you

in that real playoff contention, championship contention level? Three? Something like that? So that's all you're getting. He was year three. He was the second best player on the team

and kind of decided their fate game to game and couldn't really do it for an entire two-week series. And that was probably the biggest reason they lost. Draft picks still matter, though. They still matter a lot. I agree. They are ammo. That's what they are.

They are tokens to use to trade for a guy who becomes available. I just wonder if the Celtics trade that they made for Kyrie, which was two summers ago, and now you look at... Yeah, they gave up the Brooklyn pick. They gave up Z Brooklyn pick. Yeah.

They gave up Zizic, Crowder, and Isaiah. That was really it. You know? And I think nowadays that's three first round picks. I think that's the biggest thing that's changed. And we thought maybe the Celtics gave up too much for Kyrie. They were getting two guaranteed years of him. He was, you know, a top 10 to 15 guy both of those years.

Forget about the off-court stuff, but I don't think that's a conceivable trade anymore because I think everybody's kind of looking at it the same way. This is a 30-team league. There's 20 guys that matter, and if I can get one of those 20 guys, I don't care what the price is. I think it's a little dangerous

to look at what happened this year, though, and think that's going to set the bar for the future. So you think it's a little dangerous to look at what happened this year, though, and think that's going to set the bar for the future. So you think it was a fluke? Sort of. The Clippers thing was a fluke because they're also getting Kawhi. Because they're also getting Kawhi. And with Anthony Davis, he's one of the best big men of the decade, of the century, and he's only

26 years old. I think with Anthony Davis, he's an isolated case where he is a superstar-level player with a Hall of Fame path in the future for him. So how do you explain the Westbrook trade? Then with Westbrook, I think, again, sort of a leverage standpoint there where he is a top 20 guy. I think

the way you said it on one of your pods recently was he's a top 20 guy trade for like the 45th best player or something like that. That's the price you pay. And you're dumping Chris Paul's contract. Sure. By the way, I forgot to mention with Chris Paul, you mentioned Milwaukee and how maybe there are a chance for him. That would set up probably the most

depressing basketball scenario since LeBron left Cleveland and they had to have their first home game the next year. Mo Williams was the final guy yelling into the jumbotron, which was the previous most depressing. Giannis leaving in 21.

Oh, God. And then two days later, Chris Paul has decided to exercise his player option for $47 million or whatever it is. And the Bucs fans are like, oh, my God, what just happened? Oh, geez. I mean, this is like another sliding doors thing,

as you like to say. The other side of it is Chris Paul wins two straight championships alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo. And then Giannis re-ups long-term. Chris Paul eventually fades into the sunset, retires,

or maybe fades into the snowy lands of Milwaukee. Well, you know who's rooting for that trade? State Farm. State Farm. Yeah, true.

They're like, hey, Chris, can you talk to Giannis? Does he care about State Farm? Could we shoot some videos of him? I liked to Giannis does he does he care about State Farm can we shoot some some videos of him I liked what I liked what Giannis said about how he did not

want to be called the MVP anymore and then he started an MVP chant it's over it's over I'm worried about next year cause the crazy thing

about Giannis' MVP season is I don't feel like he's I think he's probably scratched 80% of the surface of the player he's, I think he's probably scratched 80% of the surface of the player he's going to be.

He said he's at 60%. Yeah, well, that's what he said. What do you think? I would say like 75 to 80. It depends on how much you value the jump shot. I think 60% is accurate

if you heavily value the three-point shot. Just think athletically. So I think a good parallel would be LeBron. His passing can get a lot better too, by the way.

Like that is something that he showed potential pre-draft, showed potential early in his career running point, but the passing can still reach a higher level with some of those more difficult passes, cross-court kickouts and stuff like that. That's an area for him to improve even beyond the jump shot.

So LeBron peaked, I would say, three times. The first time was 0-9 when he won his first of the back-to-back MVPs in Cleveland. And he was incredible that season. He was incredible in person. I remember writing a column about him in 09 because he'd come in to just kill the Clippers. And it was like, oh my God, LeBron has arrived. Giannis, I think, hit that version of himself this year with some of the stuff he was doing,

especially during the regular season. The next step for him would be the 2013 LeBron. After they won the first title, him in the regular season that next year, he just kind of went up a level. Remember, we were wondering if he could shoot 60% in a season, all that stuff. So I think Giannis is still kind of in that first peak. The jump shot, I think, will take a couple years.

If anything, I would like to see him really just become lights out in low post, back to the basket stuff. The jumper, I think, is going to take. I just don't see him having one next year. So how confident are you that he has one at some point? When I say have one, I mean like a 36, 37% from three on catch and shoot, 31, 32% on full-up threes.

So you are confident. Because I think he's one of those guys that will be in the gym every day until he gets to that point. And will just keep doing it, doing it, doing it, doing it until he gets there.

Yeah, I think with Giannis, there's, in order to improve, you need to have the willingness to do it, and that's what he has maybe more than anybody in the league, just that will to get better. I think he also has the coaching staff there that has a history of player development, some of the Hawks guys that Budenholzer brought over.

So I think for him, he has the people around him, he has the will to do it. But to me, I look at that free throw percentage, which is quite low still and i and i do question that is more of a historically strong predictor of future three points good place and that's where like i'm a little bit hesitant and feeling super confident his development of his jump shot but if he is where he is now and that's it that's fine like that's obviously just one freaking mv MVP you know with a below average jump

shot that's why I like the development of the post game as you said beating switches Kawhi figured it out that would be his best case

scenario right Kawhi turned into everybody says Kawhi though but he is like what he is the most extreme outlier case of somebody who had

like an average jump shot and became a great jump shot I guess I was thinking of it more from I think it's just harder to have

a good jump shot when your hands are gigantic I of it more from I think it's just harder to have a good jump shot when your hands are gigantic. I think there's been some studies that push against that. What are the studies? I mean, I don't have them in front of me,

but there's some things Who had giant hands who had a good jump shot? Kevin Durant's big hands, right? Does he? I don't know. I believe so. I don't know.

Dirk and Ripsy Can this be if this is on a website somewhere, tweet at KOC because he reads his replies. Yeah, I do. Yeah, I would love to know the definitive study of this

because I remember, who's the guy? Oh, Dr. J. So Dr. J always had kind of an iffy jump shot. It was the, if you go back and watch the late 70s, early 80s,

teams are five feet off him in the fourth quarter. I shook hands with him once because I think he did my podcast. Yeah. And my whole arm just sunk into his hand. His hand was like, it went all the way up to like midway up my forearm. And I was just like, how the fuck did this guy shoot a basketball? How about Boban? He has a good jump shot.

Does he? Good free throw shooter. Boban. Yeah, he does. He shoots. He's a good mid-range shooter. Great free throw shooter. He's not bad.

Brooke Lopez. Brooke Lopez is a good one. All right. So if people have the hand sizes out there, do you think Taco could be Boban? No. Because he doesn't have the jumper he's a horrible free

free throw shooter he's a little more athletic though yeah he is but he's also like I like to watch him move up and down the floor like a 40% free throw shooter so there's the hack a taco

thing that you can do hack a taco that sounds unbelievable you can do that when he's on the floor with Boban you can't do that can I make the case for him

sure as a 15th man yeah yeah he sells a lot of jerseys that's. Can I make the case for him? Sure. As a 15th man? Yeah. Sells a lot of jerseys. Here's the case for him in a nutshell. I had my son and another little kid at my house on Saturday, and Summer League was on, and both of them was like,

is Taco playing? And they watched like 10 minutes of it because he was out there. I think he would be the biggest cult hero the Celtics have ever had off the bench, ever. I mean, I would say the previous cult hero the Celtics have ever had off the bench ever. I mean, I would say the previous guy was probably Terry Dourad, who when I was a kid, they had this guy. He's from Detroit. He was just this heat check, garbage time guy.

And we would be up by 30 and the crowd would start going, dude, dude, like pushing for Dourad. And he would come in and make a shot. Everybody would go nuts. I think Taco, anytime they're up 20, the crowd's chanting for him. I think he goes to every community service, school, hospital, all that stuff. That dude's like a fucking magnet. Like, how do you not have that guy on your team?

The 15th guy, who cares? It's the 15th man. What's he going to play? No doubt. Yeah. I think he's like the new victory cigar. He's the new Gino time. Maybe better because there might be a moment where, you know, somebody's

driving to the basket over and over again. Like we're going to put in taco and take that guy out for two minutes. And it actually works. Look, I think he deserves a shot. He can move a little bit. Could they teach him how to shoot threes? No, I don't think he has any touch. No way? Four years at UCF, he'd not get better as a free throw shooter. So I just don't see

that in the cards for him. Would you rather have Taco or Mo Bamba? Those two are friends, you know. Taco Fall and Mo Bamba are tight. They've known each other

for a long time. I know Ben Simmons' Instagram says Taco Fall is the best player in the NBA. My son Ben Simmons. Instagram bio, first line.

My son Ben Simmons. My son's favorite athletes are Taco Fall and Bartolo Colon. I can't believe Bartolo Colon's still actually pitching. How old is he now?

Oh, he's 100. Man. Wait, I have two more questions for you, and then we have to go. So why would Kawhi sign only a two-year deal with the Clippers? I still can't figure this out. So a salary cap enthusiast, as he calls himself, Albert Namad.

Oh, yeah. He had some traction. He's one of the big winners of the summer. There were a lot of losers this summer on Twitter, but he was one of the winners. He's a big winner. He tweeted this earlier this month. He said,

Kawhi Leonard's 2 plus 1 contract with the Clippers preserves his ability to opt out as a 10-year veteran after two years and sign a 35% max deal in 2021. However... That could be with anybody. Yeah, with anybody, yes. However, he'd only have his early bird rights with LA at that point. So it would only project to be five years, $196 million,

or four years, $188 million with any other team. So I think he would have to opt into that third year to get the full bird rights with the Clippers. So it just gives him that amount of flexibility at that point. If he wants to bounce in two years, he can leave or he can opt in and then sign

his long-term deal afterwards. I would have loved to have been in the room with Balmer and Jerry West and Lawrence Frank and all those guys when Kawhi's agent

is on the phone or Uncle Dennis, whoever it was. Hey, are we ready? What's going on? It's like, hey, so the contract, we're thinking two years

and an out for year three player option. And they're like, what? We just traded six first round picks. And Shade Judges Alexander and Gallinari,

like what the fuck are you talking about? Kawhis can't play that unbelievably well. They were assassins. They assassinated the Lakers. By the way, that was 100% intentional when they strung the Lakers along.

I was talking to somebody at Summer League who told me, somebody within the Clippers organization told them, so this is, you know, degrees of separation here, like they were worried all week that they weren't going to be able to get Kawhi because they didn't think there was any deal possible

until Friday night. And I had heard from somebody else that the Lakers thought as of late Friday they were going to be able to get Kawhi because they didn't think there was any deal possible until Friday night. And I had heard from somebody else that the Lakers thought as of late Friday, they were going to get him. Rich Paul and Clutch thought they were going to get him. Lakers thought they were going to get him

Friday night. And he dicked them along the whole time. And then the deal happened. Unbelievable. Then the deal happened. Kawhi's their so-say. Mm-hmm. A couple readers sent me that joke.

So you don't think he would have went there? You don't think he would have went to the Lakers? I don't think he wanted to go there. don't think he would have went to the Lakers I don't think he wanted to go there I think he was playing them the whole time I don't think he had any interest in going there

so in other words he was going to go back to Toronto for two years or go to the Clippers anyway I don't know if that but it was a leverage play to get what he wanted I think he always

wanted to go to the Clippers and they they just struck out on everybody the Russell thing is the one that I'm the most interested in because I don't think that whole story has come out yet. That is odd, isn't it?

It seems like he was headed to the Lakers, but then the Warriors figured out a way to jump in before that even became a possibility. You mean Minnesota? For D'Angelo Russell? I'm saying the Lakers. Okay, the Lakers too. Interesting. I think they were saving their money initially for D'Angelo Russell.

I know, I've heard he was actually meeting with Minnesota as the Golden State agreement happened. D'Angelo Russell, that is,

which is very odd. That's what I mean. Like, I feel like there's more layers to be unpeeled with that story and we haven't

gotten the whole story yet. I've been fascinated by the reporting around that. I remember, like, I think it was hours after it happened, Mark Stein reported

that, like, he's a candidate to be traded by the Golden State Warriors at some point, like, as soon as this season. So, like, if you're D'Angelo Russell and his agent in his circle, like, why would you go to a place that may have intentions to trade you? But with that said, I think that's the case anywhere, though. Any team can trade

you on December 15th. Like, that's always a looming risk. For Russell, it's California. I'm buying Warrior stock. You're buying with Russell. I'm just buying Warrior stock. I think people have crossed them off. And meanwhile, Russell was 23 a game last year and his arrow's pointing up, not down.

Curry, I think, will have a little chip on his shoulder. I think Klay could come back with a month to go with the season, potentially. I like that they brought back Looney. More importantly, they have the infrastructure. We saw this in 94 when MJ retired.

It was like, oh, well, they're going to suck. They had this infrastructure of winning, of intelligence, of a really good coach, and just kind of guys who knew what to do, who stepped up. They literally could have made the finals that year without Michael Jordan. I'm not saying the Warriors are going to do that, but I don't think they're a cross-off. I think they're a playoff team.

No doubt about it. I think with the Warriors, that's what I wrote about the week after the finals, where the Warriors want to become the Spurs. And how do you become the Spurs? And what they needed was that next guy. I mean, Curry's their Duncan. That's how you start being this guy. Curry's their Duncan,

and Thompson can be their Manu Ginobili, and Draymond, we'll see what happens with him. But Russell was that guy who, he could reach a higher level with this roster. And I think with D'Angelo, so much has been focused on his pick-and-roll, on-ball potential, and what he did last year with Brooklyn.

But so much of what made him an appealing prospect when he was at Ohio State, and has been early in his career with the Lakers is his off-ball ability. And I think we're going to see a lot more of that with the Warriors, using him on off-screen actions, handoffs, just with their free-flowing offense. And to me, that's really exciting because he can do that on-ball thing that we just saw in Brooklyn, but there's a lot that he can do off the ball that playing alongside Curry and eventually Thompson is going to really empower him

and really raise him to another level. So I think for D'Angelo, he's a keeper. I agree with you. He could be a keeper. I really like him. I actually, if I were the Nets,

I would have rather have invested in him than Kyrie after watching that Bucks- You don't get Katie though. You don't get Katie. Yeah. I know. Well, on paper.

Maybe you don't. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe you don't. I don't know. Is Kyrie that appealing? He's a deal breaker for KD? I think Kyrie's

not significantly better than D'Angelo Russell, but he's noticeably better. But you're getting all the other stuff with him, though. That we just saw sink an entire Celtics season. But is that always

going to happen, though? Is that going to happen in Brooklyn necessarily? I think he's four years younger. That's at least an argument. But is D'Angelo Russell ever going to be better than Kyrie Irving,

a guy who has done this on the biggest stage, he has performed on the biggest stage at the highest level, come up in the biggest moment. He has the pedigree to, to potentially be in the ballpark, right? Russell. I mean,

he's the second pick in the draft. I don't know. I really liked it. What do you think? What's his, what's his best possible season in the peak of his powers look like? I mean, 27 a game? I don't think so.

But he's at 23 this year. I mean, D'Angelo Russell, he is somebody who drew free throws at a historically low rate for high volume scorers. That's my biggest favorite. If you go into basketball reference and play index, if you look at guys who attempted over 18 shots per game all time, D'Angelo Russell has the second lowest free throw rate of anybody, of anybody,

all time in NBA history. And he is somebody who, in high school, didn't get to the basket a ton, in college, didn't get to the basket a ton, in the NBA. 2.5 last year.

That's brutal. And the free throw rate makes it even more apparent how low it is. And so, getting to the line, drawing free throws, that is the key to

reaching that upper echelon as a scorer i know like to draw and you mentioned this in regards to jason tatum that's one of your one of the reasons why you're a little bit that's souring but you're you're not quite sure i think it's a concern now for any young guy i think you want especially for forwards i i want my forwards to get to the line and that was always the thing with paul george as well paul george was somebody earlier in his career did to get to the line. And that was always the thing with Paul George as well. Paul George was somebody earlier in his career did not get to the line a lot, and he has improved that over time. And that's going to be the stage for Russell. That's the

next step for Russell. I don't know if it'll happen. It never has. But he did show little bits of improvement towards the end of the season that at least is a little bit encouraging for him moving forward and maybe now surrounded by better teammates in Golden State that can help him out. He was 21-7 last year.

He wasn't 23. One of the reasons I like it for them just, first of all, preserves their chance to be competitive next season. But I like that he can either handle the ball or play off the ball. And I think those types of guards are really hard to find. And he's good at – he can be involved in a game without having the ball too much. When I watch him, I never understand why

he's not going to the rim more. And that must be just, like he's so happy 23 feet from the basket. Sometimes 15 feet from the basket too much. That's one of the things that you hope evolves for him. I like him more than you. I like him a lot.

I like that he was a good teammate too. There was times when he just wasn't out there in crunch time, but he was really supportive on the bench. So with that Warriors team, it's going to be a weird situation. It's also possible he could go there and he's getting compared to Klay Thompson the whole time and it could go badly. And they're trading him in December.

Sure. I'm ready for anything. And that could always happen where he's a valuable asset. Last question. Which franchise would you least want to be right now? I have my answer. Charlotte.

Charlotte is the unequivocal number one. It's not even close. There's a lot of franchises that you would want to be now. There's not a lot I don't think you would not want to be. Charlotte is clearly number one. The fact that they're hard capped with the team they have is...

It's an embarrassment. When I have the Atrocious Owners Summit, if I ever read it, it's really going to be one of the... Jordan might give the keynote speaker. I put together a 22-win team and we're hard capped. It's never happened before.

Terry Rozier, $60 million. I'm like, look, Rozier can be a solid player, but dude... That was awful. Who's your number two i wouldn't want to be that franchise franchise so like who's in the conversation washington washington because of the contracts phoenix i wouldn't put there because of devin booker i know you and i don't see i like that booker i also i think eight they have two real assets um but who's

even close though besides washington the Knicks aren't in the conversation? No, they have flexibility moving forward, and they're a big market. I think that's Barrett more than most people. Better than who? I think Barrett's pretty divisive. I mean, you and I, we've talked about this pre-draft. I was happy in our Slack as everybody was slandering him.

You jumped to his defense. You were like, settle down. We did this with Trey Young last year. Stop. It happens all the time in Summer League. It's like Stanley Johnson

looked like a superstar in Summer League and then he's been an average player. We've seen guys struggle like Trey Young look garbage in Summer League and then turn out

to be pretty good as rookies and then eventually really good in their careers. With that said, Carson Edwards looked unbelievable. Oh my God. Big Carson Edwards boner.

You're just putting everything, you're selling stock everywhere else and into Carson Edwards looked unbelievable. Oh my God. Big Carson Edwards boner. You're just putting everything. You're selling stock everywhere else and into Carson Edwards. That guy's a ninth man. Yeah. I don't think... He's a spark plug. There's a chance he will never successfully

guard anybody in the league. He can be like the next Eddie House. He can get the ball. He can go up. You can give him one pick and he can make a 26 footer. That guy is always successful in basketball. Yeah.

There's always a place for that dude in the league. Yeah, he has the tools to be a spark plug. He could be a better Eddie House, right? Definitely. Because he can at least handle the ball a little bit. No doubt. He knows how to use the screen. He needs to learn how to pass, though.

That's something he still hasn't developed. That's why he's a ninth man. Of course. He's a spark plug. I thought the Summer League was particularly good this year, and I watched way more of it than I thought. Mainly because... Really liked it this year. Despite the lack of first-round picks

playing. You know why, though? Because there were a lot of guys who could kind of handle the ball and create shots. And I think Summer League ebbs and flows depending on how many of those guys are in. Interesting. But even... Who's the dude on New Orleans? Nikhil Alexander Walker.

Exactly the guy I was going to mention. Can we give him an acronym? Because I'm never going to be able to say his name. Nah, N-A-W. Nah. Like, nah on New Orleans. No, but that dude. Not sure that works,

but we'll roll with it for now. That dude was like creating offense. Nikhil's a good first name. Yeah, he was. I was impressed. And I've been, I don't want to like step on an oracle idea I have, but it's like with him, like he was doing like hardened step backs, hardened sidestep moves. And like, that's something he did not do at college in college. So

that's something he's clearly been working on. And with Alexander Walker, he's going to be like a secondary playmaking type who can score a little bit for you. But if he's developing those moves and masters those moves, maybe there's an upper level to his potential that we may not have predicted or anybody in the NBA may have predicted in scouting him at the college level. So seeing that, even though it wasn't always successful for him,

he's in a learning stage now. And I'll be curious to see in October when preseason starts if that looks any better with those sidesteps and stepbacks, those Harden-style moves. Yeah, there seems to be a trend now of they're not pure point guards, but they're guards. Guys who can play two guard, but also can kind of run stuff,

not in a totally conventional way, but are able to just kind of create shots. You can run a high screen with them and they kind of know what to do. And there's five guys in that draft who are going to come in the league and be able to do that right away. And I wonder if that's like the wave of the future.

I mean, you got to be able to play off ball in today's league with the on emotion and movement and shooting and big guys handling the ball. Now it's not just tiny point guards. It's any position can handle ball and bring it up. Centers are empowered to take the ball coast to coast, even if you're not a initiator of the offense.

So yeah, you do have to play off-ball. If you're a young kid playing the game, you need to have that ability. You can't just be a ball-dominant guy. Did Garland, was he in there? No. Would have liked to have seen him. A lot of guys didn't play,

which is why part of me didn't love it. Not worth it. It was nice seeing a guy like Jackson Hayes look a bit better than expected, another New Orleans pick. Jared Allen looked better out there. His three-point shot wasn't falling for Brooklyn, but some of these younger guys, either guys coming back for their second year

or third year or some of the rookies that did play, it was a good summer league. Good summer league. I watched the entire quarterfinal Celtics game and I was actually really rooting for them. I felt like they froze out Carson Edwards a little bit near the end.

Feed the man. Let the chef cook. Let him cook. Send him a pic. How about Tremont Waters? Fan of him? Yeah. He's a little...

He's small. He is. Tiny. He can pass. It's tough. Carson, at least, he's not tall either, but at least he's like

freaking rock. He's built like a running back. That's what he looks like. Maybe a safety. He's impressive. That was good. I was glad to interact with him. All right, KFC.

What's up for you this summer? Going to be going home. Yeah. On Sunday, going to go hang out with my parents for a little bit. Hang out and see my old friends. That'll be good. Fenway? Could go to Fenway at some point.

I'll be doing something. Encore Casino in downtown Boston? Yeah, I have not gone. I'm not much of a gambler. Six to five blackjack odds for some reason. I'll be going there. I'll be going to Fenway at some point. I know I'll be doing something with the Jimmy Fun Radio Telethon in August.

Oh, cool. Yeah, so August 20th, 21st, I'll be going to Fenway one of those days. You're going to be the new morning guy in WEA? Yeah, they just got rid of their morning show. It's a cleaning house. Yeah, it seems like the cleaning house a lot. Jerry Calhoun finished his show on a Friday and an hour later, he was gone.

I remember. But they're 20 years. I remember mornings getting driven to school listening to their show sometimes. WEI, it's finally flipped. It only took 25 years. KOC, a pleasure as always. Thanks, Bill.

All right, We're going to bring in Chris Ryan and Amanda Dobbins from The Ringer in one second to talk about all this crazy Netflix stuff, as well as streaming subscriptions, the future of everything. And then we're going to talk about summer TV and how streaming has ruined relationships with couples. That's all coming up first., Helix. They create personalized mattresses to fit your unique needs because you're unique and you should have a mattress that fits you. Other mattress companies will say they work for everybody. That's not possible. They'll say they're soft and firm at the same time. That's not possible. Helix Sleep has a quiz that takes

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When you sign up at luminary.link slash Simmons, after that, it's only $7.99 per month. Luminary.link slash Simmons. Two months of free access. Cancel any time. Terms do apply. And speaking of podcasts, we did a Rewatchables. We did Inglourious Bastards this week.

I was not on that one. I'm on the one next week, Reservoir Dogs. So be ready for that one. Tarantino's movie's coming. We're excited about that. All right, Amanda and Chris coming up right now. Amanda Dobbins and Chris Ryan are here from The Ringer. We have just a lot to talk about.

No major stories. FaceApp has taken over America. We're a little worried about that. We're worried about you. Yeah, because I did it yesterday. KGB's own Bill Simmons. I got to say, rarely do I see something hit my kid's funny bone like that app did, as we did all of the members of our family in there and it was

just kind of everything they wanted from an app my son was immediately demanding to download the pro version let's get the pro okay so someone in russia definitely has your identity right now no question but but that's okay because it was for the kids we were just joking around about what kind of deep fakes could be made out of bill's face app submission. And I just think you being like, Sam Presti is very good GM. James Hodgson trade number one. Like the Russian version of Bill. Yeah.

I feel like they already have all my information already. Just in life. I just feel like they already have all of us. We're already gone. What don't they have? I think the three of us have, there have been enough pictures of us on the Ringer rewatchables account. Yes.

Oh, yeah. Someone did it on a picture of me, but I did not consent to that. Oh, really? Yeah. I remember in the late 90s when the first time the whole paying online thing started and people were like, no way. Never putting my credit card on there. And that was probably justified because things were a lot looser and less secure.

But 20 years later, I think people just have given up. They just assume they're going to get hacked. They're just like scanning my red dot. They're taking everything. Speaking of hacked, I thought my stocks app was hacked today when I saw Netflix post

what do they call the things? Their quarterly earnings. Their quarterly earnings. And Netflix dropped like 45 points and everyone freaked out. They had like a decent quarter, but a bad month. Yeah, they promised way more subscribers than they ended up with. They actually went backwards in the US for the first time ever. I think they thought they were going to get like 5 million plus.

They ended up with 2.7. And it relates to the. I think they thought they were going to get like $5 million plus. They end up with $2.7 million. And it relates to the price hike, right? And we've all been watching this. And it's kind of inside baseball, but I also feel like it's not. Look at Kyle's. Is it a price hike? Yeah, Kyle. Yeah, check your credit card statement, Kyle.

Stay with us, Kyle. Kyle's got Russian Netflix. He's good. I do feel like this is the rare case where business really does kind of matter with pop culture. Yeah. I never really cared about, Oh,

that box office wasn't great for that. Like ultimately who cares? Somebody gets fired and it's going to go the other way. But in this case, everybody is lining up for this battle Royal Netflix, the Disney things coming. Amazon's putting more money into prime. Apple's making content and we're heading for like a battle royal.

And this felt like the first match in Netflix field. It's about how we watch TV and how we watch movies. And how we want to pay for TV. Yes, exactly. And it brings in aspects of cord cutting and bundling. And when you go to the movie theater and what you watch at home and all of these decisions that were made a long time ago by seemingly

abstract corporations are now it's it's all coming to a head and it's all affects like what you do on your phone and what you do in your house and how you consume stuff yeah i think honestly like i'm very interested in watching the the netflix versus disney plus story but i actually think that the real story is whether or not Disney's introduction in the fall and the HBO Max rollout and whether or not that along with the Comcast and the Warner Brothers streaming, or Warner will be HBO

Max, but whether the Comcast streaming app, whether that really does sound to death now of cable. And also, yeah, there's that, but then also, will all this stuff work? Disney's like racing to get this app out. As we've seen with just about every one of these video apps that launches, it's a disaster when it comes out and they end up changing stuff, tinkering stuff.

The original HBO was not exactly seamless. I think it's gotten a little bit better. The HBO app. Yeah, the original app. Yeah. So I look at the whole Netflix thing as they were given a five-year lead. It's easy to catch up with them from a content standpoint and from a library standpoint. But the biggest thing about the lead is the intelligence that they've been able to gain these last five, six years.

As they have tailored like Nephew Kyle's feed, they look at his habits of what he watches. And if you go on kyle's feed it's like stand-up comedians action movies clerks and shit like that yeah and like in 90s and they just kind of know him so then when they have something new it's like they put it right in his feet he can see it and then they're also gaming the system for what is everybody like what's missing oh people keep going and looking at late 90s rom-coms we should make some rom-coms oh they really like horror let's make a latin horror movie and that is i think going to be the toughest thing for somebody like disney to catch up on yeah it's fascinating and they they claim that no one show

takes up uh more than 10 of like of their viewership right so that there is not like a blockbuster netflix thing that everyone on netflix is really watching even the shows that are hits whether it's narcos or stranger things or catalog stuff like office or friends they're like it's actually like it's way more evenly distributed than that at least that's the suggestion yeah so it's it's kind of a different you have to think about them in a different way you have to think about them almost like as a library rather than a bookstore in some ways. It's not like stuff is getting merchandised.

It is more for Kyle than it is for the conversation, if that makes any sense. We get frustrated because Netflix shows come out in a bunch, in a bundle, and we can't tell

when people want to talk about which episode or for how long they want to talk about them. But Netflix doesn't care about that. They care about Emmys, but they don't care about like, wow, Stranger Things dominated the summer. They could have dominated the post-thrown summer if they wanted to.

And that's not what they're interested in. But we all think they made a mistake actually not deviating from that with Stranger Things. Because for a site like ours, we would have gotten eight weeks of content out of Stranger Things. And instead we got about, what, six days? I think so. I think we're also finding that people come listen to the podcast and the coverage as they finish watching the show. And also, if you watch Stranger Things, like we did podcasts, we did coverage. Please go to TheRinger.com and listen to it. But I'm saying it was all crammed into a six, seven day content. That works for them because, as Chris said, they don't really need

the conversation, which you can tell by the way that they only give out specific ratings information and they own, you know, what they need is the habit. And I think they're five or six years ahead,

as you said, on data and understanding how people use stuff. But they're also five or six years ahead of just being the place where people go to watch something. And you may go to watch Friends and you may go to watch watch something. And you may go to watch Friends

and you may go to watch Stranger Things and you may go to watch a teen rom-com, but they're so far ahead just in audience behavior. And they just have such a head start in terms of being the default technology that so many people use to just stream stuff in their home that I think that will be hard for a lot of places to catch up with. Yeah, I don't know the numbers at all. It's so hard because what happens is you start to, because they don't give you the numbers, you start to just infer based on your own experiences.

So my assumption is that a lot of people have cable and Netflix. They have cable because they want to watch sports. They want to watch the news. They want to have stuff that is live that they want. And then the add-on that they have is Netflix. They have cable because they want to watch sports. They want to watch the news. They want to have stuff that is live that they want. And then the add on that they have is Netflix. Maybe they have HBO and they have an HBO go log in or whatever. I imagine that I'm wrong and that there are a lot of people out there who just have Netflix. That's certainly the experience Amanda and I've had with the staff that we have that are younger than about 30. They're like, I have 35.

Yeah. And they're like, I have Netflix. I have someone else's HBO login. And then I either watch sports through like YouTube streaming or other means, right? Like that they're, they're watching it online. And then the early thirties people are the tweeners. Yeah. They kind of belong to both generations. It still makes sense for them to have cable, but some of them might not have it. But that had a conversation earlier today where I was talking about a show that's on Amazon to two of our podcast producers, Kai and Evan. Kai, who produces The Watch, and Evan Campbell. And I was talking about Too Old to Die Young. And I was like, Evan, I think you'd get a kick out of this show. And he's like, what's that on? And I was like, Amazon. And he looked at me for a second.

He's like, I think my parents have an Amazon login. And that was it. And that is a really high bar to set for people trying to reach other people for their shows, their content. It's like, well, maybe your dad has an Amazon Prime login. That's not the way it was when it was like LA Laws on Thursday at 10. You just have to turn on this box and it will be there. Well, what Amanda said about habits, I think is a really important point and it took them a while to get there, but I just look at my kids are 14 and 11 and their habitual places they go are YouTube, Netflix, and Apple. And those are their three places. They don't go to cable. What do they do on Apple? They just like to see what the new movies are and, you know, whether there's some movie that's come out that they didn't, that they've been waiting for to come out. Like when the Lion King comes out on Apple, that's how they'll know it came out.

Which is just fascinating. We don't need to get into the movie part of this. On Amazon too, I left out. Sean Fennessy and I regularly on The Big Picture just have breakdowns about how Netflix has just come. And that, and what you just described is why no one goes to see the movie goes to movies anymore and there's just a box office crisis right now which is because of the same the habit of people are just like well I'll just look on Netflix I got some stuff on Netflix I can watch so I don't need to go to the theater I guess my kids are a bad

version of that though because they also go to the movies that like your kids might so but I don't know if they're an anomaly but that they're in both worlds that behavior thing is fascinating though though, because my wife and I have this funny thing that happens where we have a bunch of shows that are weekly that we like watching. And oftentimes, the couch is uncomfortable or whatever. So we want to watch it in bed on the laptop before we go to bed. And the annoying part is that if you know, say, a show like Superstore is on on Thursdays, but it doesn't go up on Hulu until the next day. But you know that it exists. It's kind of weird. And that's the thing with movies.

It's like, you know that Spider-Man exists now. And you could see it if you just got a sitter or drove over to the movie theater or whatever you had to do. But like you could just wait and it would be in your house in a few months. You know what I mean? And that is. And it'd be easier and cheaper to do. But like you could just wait and it would be in your house in a few months. You know what I mean? And that is. And it'd be easier and cheaper to watch. I did that with us, not because of the cheaper thing. I just didn't feel like seeing the theater. And then it came on Apple. But if your kids don't care about waiting or they don't even think of it as waiting because they're like, you mean I get to see it at half the cost, like and pause it every five seconds to look at my phone? that's like a

completely different way of interacting with popular culture the funniest thing about that is that you think kids care about cost i was just my uh my kids somehow are on my amazon and my amazon has like a credit card notification thing and all of a sudden I was like, Amazon download $8.99. And then it was like another download for $8.99. I was like, did I get hacked? And I'm like,

Ben, are you ordering something? What was he watching? They were ordering all the seasons of Jesse because this kid on Jesse died and they couldn't find it. And they just started

ordering stuff and it led to him no longer having access to the Amazon. Unfortunately for him. This happens at my house, but it's my husband. Just ordering weird action movies that I don't want to watch. What are you ordering?

But to have a thing with Netflix, I've noticed in the past year or so, even me on like a Thursday, where you're like, oh, tomorrow's Friday, Netflix will have something. And it's always, whether it's a new movie, it's a new something. It's always at least one thing. Sometimes it's two. And I think my kids are trained now to know like on Friday is like kind of a Netflix day. There might be something on there. Tuesday is the day the movies are released digitally on Apple or Amazon. And now that's kind of where we think. So I don't know how Disney is going to move into that, but I think that's something to emulate. Well, Disney has a day.

Well, they need a day. But I mean, the thing that Disney has is they just have a library. They have the library to end all libraries. And I don't have children, but I have a lot of friends who have small children. And they're just like, that's going to be a game changer because you can't get the you have to buy the Little Mermaid or you have to buy the Lion King. And it's just that's where everything is going to be. And Disney still has that brand name recognition. There are a lot of people who want to see, especially children, want to see the movies that they make. Yeah, and if Disney bundles their Disney Plus with Hulu with ESPN, it's a wrap.

Yeah, I keep waiting for them to announce they're going to do that, but it seems like they're holding off. I think they want to see what happens with this Disney thing first. If they're like it's $13.99 a month for Disney, Hulu, and ESPN+, that's a really significant development. The way it's been explained to me is Disney is going to be basically PG and under, and then Hulu is going to be PG-13 and up. I know nothing. This just seems logical to me. If you took FX and you merged it with Hulu is going to be PG-13 and up. And I know nothing. This just seems logical to me.

If you took FX and you merged it with Hulu. That's what they've already announced. They're shutting down the FX standalone app and putting that stuff into Hulu. But I'm saying Hulu is FX. You're using that mentality that you have with FX to just become the Hulu mentality. And Handmaid's Tale basically becomes an FX show, even though it's an FX. It's just they're synonymous with each other. You know what I mean? There's going to be like a couple of years of sticker shock with that, though, because I think even today when they announced that there's going to be a Gossip Girl reboot on HBO Max. I was like, HBO doesn't make Gossip Girl.

Like that's not what HBO does. And I actually had to like do the, oh right, because Warner is now under this, it's like the HBO Max is actually the umbrella of all Warner IP that will go into here. And it's like, there will be DC shows on HBO Max and all that stuff that you have to like. I thought that was weird

that that's what they settled on for a title. I think so too, but I do wonder if that's a little bit us. Like we did spend much of last week, not by we, I mean, people who pay attention to this stuff being like, wow, HBO Max, that's the name. Doesn't aren't there some brand implications? And I watched this announcement today of Gossip Girl reboot on HBO Max and everyone at the ringer just is immediately jumping to do we need a new Gossip Girl reboot on HBO Max and everyone at the ringer just is immediately jumping to, do we need a new Gossip Girl? Does this like betray the sanctity

of the original Gossip Girl? And that was one week from us just like interrogating the existence and the existential questions of HBO Max to people just being like, yes, well, of course, they're going to reboot Gossip Girl on this streaming service.

And now I need to argue about this. It moves so quickly now. I think mining old IP, I don't know who started that. Was it Fuller House? You mean in terms of Netflix? Just everybody. People going, no, but now it's like a move.

It was really the only successful YouTube show that they had was the Cobra Kai show. One of the best things I've seen this year is the new season of Veronica Mars that they're putting on Hulu. You're a big fan of that. I I liked Veronica Mars but and I thought the reunion was like sweet but like this new season which is like just a new case a new a new mystery is actually just like legitimately good and it's like the best possible uh like take on okay so we have like the stuff that people love and they actually like grew the character up

it's darker it's really it's pretty edgy it gets into some pretty interesting stuff it's like a really good crime show now it needs like reboot almost isn't the right name you're taking a show that existed in the form that we remember it and you're advancing it into 2019 20 in the old days when they rebooted something it was they'd make it completely different. Right, and recast it. The Charlie's Angels movies. It's Charlie's Angels, but now. Lindelof's calling the Watchmen show that's coming on HBO in the fall

or whenever, he's calling it a remix. A remix? Yeah. Essentially taking elements of the comic and the inspiration points and influences and using it as like kind of the color palette and then going to paint something else.

That seems like a very complicated way of just being like, I want you to know that it's The Watchmen but different. Yeah, of course. But you do need

that level of recognition to get a lot of people to watch the show. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing we talk about on The Watch all the time is like there's, there's a, I can't even remember who told this story,

but it's basically like, if you go into a studio office and you're like, I would like to make like an action adventure movie, they'll say no. But if you go and you're like, I would like to make an action adventure movie set in the world of the Jack Daniels, like whiskey bottle, like shared IP,

like they'll be like, well, it's interesting. What can we do with that? And then you get all sorts of strange stuff happening. Well, you and I have been working together since 2011. It feels like in the last year, Netflix was able to drive content for our site in a pretty unusually consistent way versus even where we were two years ago.

The Ted Bundy documentaries, multi-part documentary thing, which Nephi Collin and I watched in Sundance instead of actually going to the theater to watch it. But there you go, right there. That's the success of Netflix in one anecdote.

It became a thing for, I don't know, two, three days, the Fyre Festival things. We've seen these streaming services now can just pop up with something. And it's actually in the conversation. I don't feel like that was happening three, four years ago. It would be like with a house of cards show where they would promote the shit out of it. It wasn't organic like it is now.

I don't feel like. Well, I think the challenge going forward is what do you do on season two and three? Because season one, people discover these things and there's no pressure. So they put up a show on a Friday and then maybe you saw a trailer and you watch a little bit of it or you come in next week and somebody's like,

God, you know, I watch this show on Netflix. It's called Ozark. It's really good. You got to check it out. And word of mouth really works for this. And then people can watch it at their own pace and as many as they want. And if they get hooked, they binge it.

But then when you do season two, when you do season three, and you have something like Stranger Things, you have something like Narcos or Ozark or whatever. There's a degree of anticipation. And then there's like this anxiety of like, well, I guess I have to watch all of it on Friday night or it'll get ruined for me. Or I don't know when I can go and start talking about it because some people have watched all of it and some people have watched half of it. So we don't really have like a rule of thumb for how to watch. That's been a weird outcome this decade. Don't tell me. Don't tell me.

I'm an idiot. No, no, no, no. But that wasn't the problem with Stranger Things season one. People were like, oh, shit, this is really good. I got to check this out. Right. And part of the experience is the discovery. Yeah.

And this idea that you found this thing or something. You're like, oh, my God, this is great. Do you know about this? This is also great. And it's hard to replicate that sense of discovery on the second and the third time. I mean, think about The Crown. Think about like the way that the first season

of The Crown played out versus the, like the anticipation for the third season. And even when the third season, this will not be an issue for you because you will just be- Yeah, I was gonna say this is not a personal- You will have like a crown drip going straight into your jugular the night it comes out.

I'm available now. If Netflix would like to give me the screeners now, we can insert it. Let's go. I think I've actually maybe disturbed the people at Netflix with the very precise email that I sent that was like, I just want to let you know

I am the target audience for Mindhunter. And if you would like to send me the screeners, it was real, puts the lotion in the basket email I was wandering the Sunset Gower lot for two weeks looking for anyone to talk Mindhunter with you may know me as the person who stands outside of Netflix

the sign that says release Mindhunter I don't remember when this started though I guess it was with House of Cards was the first one where they released something they promoted it and it was like oh they're doing tv shows now they have a system in place that reminds me a little like hbo saturday nights way back when it'd be like oh it's saturday night hbo is gonna have something be a boxing match it'll be the release of a new movie and they just kind of have that down. What I've noticed, though, is the library of movies is,

it seems like that's dwindling a little bit, and in Amazon Prime, that seems to be their game plan. Like, we have the movies. You can either rent them for $3.99, or it's on Prime. But any movie you want to rewatch, we have. And then you can do a pretty, I don't know what the cost is, but you can add HBO stars time where you can find Breaking Bad on Netflix and The Office on Netflix and an Aziz Ansari comedy and this and that.

And a Marvel movie. You have to go to Disney to get this and Comcast to get that and Warner to get that. Will we just be like, you know what? I watched Seinfeld. I don't need to get another subscription

to another service just to have the nightlight of a sitcom from the 90s on in the background i do think that that could get impacted that's a bigger issue for warner amanda made the key point about the disney thing everybody with kids has to get the disney you just have to it's and especially $6.99 a month is pretty fair so if you're going to subscribe to two or three things, I would say that's a number one draft pick. Right. Though, if they're not doing Hulu and ESPN right off the bat, I will not be signing up for Disney.

Because I don't have children and Chris can tell me what happens on The Mandalorian. Because I don't personally need to watch that on the first day. And Simpsons is going to be on there. I think it will be on from Fox, yeah. So that's how they get at least some of the people from kids, not to mention all their other library stuff. I wonder

at some point and this goes for print too, at some point, how many subscriptions is a tipping point for the amount of subscriptions you're going to have? You might have Amazon Prime anyway because you have Amazon, but just having Amazon, Hulu, HBO, Showtime, then HBO Max, and then Disney, their app, and then Netflix.

All of a sudden, I'm up to 10 different apps to watch TV. That's basically cable just carved up differently. I think we're getting there. Alison Herman wrote a piece about this in The Ringer recently. This idea, and I think the Netflix subscription thing was mostly about the price change. But I do also wonder, it's a little bit, if you are a cord cutter now, there are so many things that you can subscribe to. And so even people who have moved away from cable are now being like, well, I have Amazon for this. So I don't need Netflix.

And I can, you know, get this via Hulu and maybe I'll do stars. But you already are. You're seeing that happen already. Yeah. I think it'll get more boutique. It's still look, I still think that people look at cable as a utility and they look at Netflix as a luxury. So they look at I have to have television because I have to be able to turn it on and see like either the Phillies game or the weather tomorrow or whatever. And it also because of the way they work, a lot of the times that's built in with your internet service. So for the most part, you're just kind of like, well, I have the internet and I have cable. And I think that Netflix might be bumping up against the amount of people who can just also spare 15 more bucks a month on that. And they may not even

be calculating the future of when they're going to have to also have HBO Max and the Comcast app and whatever becomes of like AMC and Showtime and all these other things. They might actually just be like, this is just too much money. I don't have this much disposable income to spend just on watching stuff.

To say nothing of the fact that a lot of these places, and this is kind of like unremarked upon, there's not a lot of login security for this stuff. And passwords get passed around. You can just be like, oh, there's an account that has 10 different logins on it. I know that that's been an issue for some of these places, where it's like, Juliette often jokes that

there are 30 people looking at her Hulu account or something like that. But that's not, I bet at college it's like that. One person on the floor has a login. So I feel like that is the... If Netflix really gets worried about the stock price and where things are going, their next move is to crack down on...

Right now, what is it? Five people? Yeah, it's five people for Netflix. On Netflix. But I can also use Netflix on... I know I have it on like my iPad on three TVs. Like it's all over the place. And I just put the same stuff in and then all of a sudden it's activated.

I feel like that's the next thing for them to eventually crack down on. It's just like, this can only be in use with one account. Right. And if two people, if you want to have it with two people, it'll be this price.

So maybe that's where it goes. Here's the counter to that. It's all minutes for them. It's all time spent on the app. And if they're just doing stuff where they're trying to demonstrate engagement, it doesn't really matter.

When you say it's all minutes, for who? What does that mean? And they can just, if Amanda's using my Netflix account and we're watching two separate things, yeah, it screws up my algorithm or whatever.

But like they can still count that as like Amanda watched The Crown five times and spent like 53 hours watching Netflix. That's just more minutes spent for them to go to Wall Street and be like, look, look at the engagement with this thing. What is this thing? We have everybody's attention. I mean, they came out hard

against ever using advertising again today and pretty definitively. But I think that that goes towards their stats a little bit. Yeah, but we don't even know what to believe with their stats. Sometimes they'll parcel stuff out and be like. 41 million people watch this, yeah. 73 million people watch the latest Adam Sandler movie. It's like, how do we have any idea that's a real number yeah there are four people in my house that

watched i was pretty disappointed but that's okay the thing i wanted to go circle back to and i think that amanda and i've talked about this a lot just like socially is the how that that saturday night hbo thing and like what's. It's almost old fashioned. I want, I watched the Aziz, uh, standup special this past weekend, literally. Cause it was staring me in the face and the, the amount that it took me to start it was click.

And that's it. You know where, you know where I was with that? Where? What was the, uh, Frank Grillo? Oh,

point blank. Yeah. As if you wouldn't have lined up at like a theater in Gardenia to go see that. Didn't say I wasn't ever going to watch it. But when you go to Netflix and it's just staring at you and it's waving its hand, it's like, come on, point blank. You know you want it. You know, fuck you.

And then I'm watching it. You already paid for it. Yeah. Yeah. It's there and it's taunting me. Every single rom-com and every single royal related documentary that they have, I'm in the associated content phase of the Netflix recommendations, but they have me. Also, fun fact, I use my husband's account and have totally screwed up his algorithm.

So that's great. That's joy. That's joy for me. The Simmons family is very particular about. You have profiles? Dad, mom, Carrie, and dickhead for my son. It actually says dickhead in the thing. And he can't figure out how to change it so it's hilarious

but yeah my Netflix I go on and they're like got some horror movies for you have you seen this one from 2008 there's a home invasion jail jail shows I made the mistake of clicking on three jail shows

it's like season three of inside bars Jail shows. A lot of jail. I made the mistake of clicking on three jail shows. It's like season three of Inside Bars. Yeah. So your Netflix queue really does say a lot about you. It does. Kyle, what's on your Netflix queue? Office. Stand-up comedy. Stand-up comedy.

Yeah, shooters. How many apps do you subscribe to? I'm subscribed to two, and even then it still fucks up the rent payment sometimes. So I'm on like log- What are your two though? I'm Hulu and Netflix. And my dad- No Amazon. to uh i'm i'm subscribed to two and even then it still fucks up the rent payment sometimes so i'm i'm on like what are your two though i'm hulu and netflix and my dad no amazon no my student account ran out so it's uh looking slow for that this is what we've learned with all of our ringer staffers is it's always stories like that like yeah my grandfather he changed his password i can't get on his amazon anymore it's always like these end around games with family members.

But I get it. We're going to take a break. Hey, turn your dream into reality with Squarespace. They make it easier than ever to launch your passion project, whether you're looking to start a new business, showcase your work, publish content, sell products, whatever you want to do. Squarespace, the tool for you.

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Go to squarespace.com slash BS for a free trial. They have been with this podcast since 2016. Thanks, Squarespace. When you're ready to launch, use the offer code BS to save 10% off of your first purchase of a website or domain. It's actually been 2015. Yeah, they're an OG for us. Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com slash BS. Offer code BS. All right, let's talk about Summer TV. Let's do it. I give the Summer a B about summer TV. Let's do it.

I gave the summer a B plus so far. I've been entertained. I enjoyed Stranger Things season three. Big Little Lies is a train wreck that I can't look away. Euphoria is my favorite show of the summer. The Hills is a train wreck crossed with a car crash.

Bachelor has been good. I really like the Roger Ailes thing. Loudest voice. Loudest voice. What do you want to start with? I'd like to offer a partial defense of Big Little Lies. Okay. We should mention you're hosting Big Little Live.

Yes, and the finale is this Sunday. Please watch after the East Coast airing. Mina Kimes and I will be talking about it. So in the vein of this being summer TV, I think it is still my ideal summer TV. It has been uneven, if you will, but you got six actresses I really love on TV having rich people problems. I can't be mad at that. I'm not looking to commit that much more intellectual energy into my summer than Reese Witherspoon singing the Rainbow Connection on a local elementary school stage. So you're basically, the analogy would be you're on vacation.

Yes. I'm trying. You're happy. You won't let me, but. You were given an ice cream. It's not the best ice cream, but you're also in Cape Cod and somebody's handing you an ice cream and you're just going to enjoy the ice cream.

And it's still ice cream. You're not going to judge the ice cream, it's ice cream. Yes, that's all true. And I think that's great advice for vacation and also for TV. But yeah, it's still, it still feels like fun TV to me. It is also my particular flavor of ice cream, to continue

the metaphor. That's very fair. Also, Amanda, we were talking about this on Monday's watch. I think that our brains got broken by Game of Thrones a little bit this year, where everything is like, what does this mean? And where is it going? And will it succeed in going where it needs? It's like, no, it can also

just be TV. And it can also just be for 45 minutes you watch something and you're like, oh, that was pretty cool. That was a little bit weird. I didn't get that. And then keep it moving. It's like, no, it can also just be TV. And it can also just be for 45 minutes, you watch something and you're like, oh, that was pretty cool. That was a little bit weird. I didn't get that. And then keep it moving. And I think that it really does provide like, like you can enjoy so many different parts

of Big Little Lies without having to be like, what is this really saying about what it means to be human? At some point, it's a show written by David E. Kelly, who wrote a number of amazing shows in the 90s when TV was just, you turned it on every week and there was TV. Well, so I've watched every minute. I've enjoyed it. I still look forward to it. It's just frustrating because first of all, it's not really

clear why the show came back other than season one was so successful. They were like, let's run this back. It's still successful. Yeah. And it's still, what is it getting like 10 million people? I would like to say nothing of whatever gets pirated, yeah. I like to see all the actors together. I like the shots of people staring in the ocean, which, by the way, they've upped it this year. You do. Oh, no, there's just, there's 100 episodes. No, I mean.

It's like Stockholm Syndrome with those shots. All they do is stare at the water. Yeah. But even I, who defended the show, I'm a little tired. I think we could look at the water a little less. I was at the beach last weekend and my wife was like, I need to talk to you about something. I was like, hold on.

I'm just going to stare at the ocean sadly while holding my glasses short. That's like a really funny video idea. It's like Bill staring at the water and your wife comes up like, what are you thinking about? I'm just thinking about how much they stare at the water on Big Little Lies. I'm just thinking about Kyrie Irving. I'm trying to figure out what happened. I just think it seems rushed to me with some of the decisions they made.

Because Reese Witherspoon, her character arc, is just flat out atrocious. I'm actually embarrassed for her. And as the person who put this show together, I can't believe this was the character arc they came up with for season two. I would like so bad. I would like more for Reese Witherspoon, my personal queen. I think the first three episodes are pretty good. I thought that speech on stage with the Rainbow Connection.

Right. And it does seem like there's been a lot of speculation about the editing and how the show came together. Double showrunners. Double showrunners. And it does seem like her character was a victim of a lot of speculation about the editing and how the show came together. Double showrunners. Double showrunners. And it does seem like her character was a victim of a lot of the cuts. Like I was texting with you about this. When they go to the Esalen Institute, her character and Ed to like have their marriage counseling,

it's like 10 seconds. Yeah. I was so excited about that. A full episode of satire of the Esalen Institute and marriage counseling. And it was clear that they just decided not to go in that direction. I told Amanda, I, I thought instead of like Reese's set,

her marriage is ending. And that just basically being the plot for seeing I hear I'm in our, my wedding dress again. And I'm singing this song. We sang, it's like, this is bad. I would have just had her double down on the school and be like,

now I'm going to be really crazy in the school. And I don't like this teacher. I'm getting fired. Now you have more time to devote to being an engaged parent. I really like the crazy parent slash school behavior. Cause that's real stuff that everyone could identify with. We've, we're all in a school where there's that one parent.

We're like, Oh my God, that frigging lady. Jesus. Right. What a bit. Oh no, she's coming over to us.

Oh, act nice, act nice. Like every school has that. And that was one of my favorite things about last year is they were tapping into this psychotic school parent dynamic with private schools this kind of goes back to what we were talking about it's just it feels like it's way more fun to have something new than it is to judge whether or not it's living up to the promise of the first season i just wish big little lies was a tv show i wish it was basically like a really really expensive more thoughtful slightly darker sex in the city like it was just like gonna be on for five years oh like a lot of

episodes and they were just it was just we talked about this i wish it was a soap opera i wish it was just like what are you what are you doing sunday for the next three or four years i'm watching big little lies so like a better desperatewives. I wouldn't be mad at that. And you're just checking in with your friends who also happen to be Academy Award winning actresses. Yes. Like if they've got all the money and everybody wants to do TV because that's where the stories are. I understand that there's this

resistance to like locking yourself into working on a show, the same show for 10 months of a year. Like I'm sure that that's still an issue. But and I know that everybody who works on the show probably has so many other things going on that I wonder if some of the problems you have on the show are just like straight up scheduling

and like what days so-and-so is available versus this person. But I mean, I just wish this was like at least a 10, if this was 10 episodes, nobody would care. Nobody would be like, man, there's too much big little lies. I also think they've really missed out on the humor part of it. Other than Laura Dern, who's just clearly went into the season going,

they're going to give Streep the fucking best supporting Emmy. Not on my watch. But I'm going to fight tooth and nail. They're going to have to go through the media. I will fight. I'm bringing out all the guns. But the show desperately needs a really sarcastic character who just says the stuff you're kind of thinking where the two half-brother twins are playing with the other half-brother

from the sexual assault that they've just met. And you need that one friend to be like, oh, look at this witty pun. Like the Kim Cattrall thing. It's like Pamela Adlin to be on it. Exactly. She's like the new mom to Bill's point that was a little bit the Reese Witherspoon

character in the first season and they cut that out I agree with you I agree that I mean I think the funny parts are really funny I respect to Laura Dern

but again it does feel like they cut some of it out they just didn't think that it needed to be as funny which I don't agree with I'm like Chris I wanted to be funny TV.

The funny stuff was one of my favorite parts. And the Nicole Kidman character, not a barrel laughs. I think we can all agree. So then they look at that and like, you know what else we would need? Take Zoe Kravitz's character. She's even like more of a bummer and a downer

than Nicole Kidman's character and has the mom and just in the hospital. It's like, I hate going to the hospital. I don't want to be in the hospital with characters from one of my favorite shows. It's really true. They were backed into a corner a little bit with that because they basically, she didn't have a character in the first season. Right.

And then they had her be the person who pushed Alexander Skarsgård off the ledge. So they needed to explain that. How about this? Why don't they just all say what happened? That's a great question. It's a great question.

Just, hey, this guy was beating the shit out of our friend and we tried to get him off her and he got shoved down the stairs. Yeah, it is weird that they're trying- The jury's like, you're all going to jail. They're making it sound like they're like covering up the Kennedy assassination. Instead they're just like, he's an asshole and we threw him down

the stairs when he ran at us. It's been fun watching Streep cook. Give the cook some chef tools and let her go. Give her a pot. Let her go. It's tremendous and I've gone back and forth on whether I think that this is the best Meryl Streep performance I've ever seen

or the most extra. Or the most mailed in. Well, the most mailed in are just like Meryl doing a parody of herself. And I think it goes back and forth, which makes it fun for me. The last episode where she's just kind of like standing alone in a living room, like looking like a serial killer. I had some questions, but I wasn't not having fun. She's dialing it up much like

she did in The River Wild. She's like, ah, this is ridiculous. I'm just going to have fun. The teeth are great. If Netflix remade The River Wild right now, would you watch it on a Friday? Oh, yeah. Ten episodes. Episode three, the raft got another hole in it.

Did you talk? Yeah. So, let's go to Euphoria. Okay. Thoughts? Really enjoy that show. Really enjoy it. It's,

it's, it's kind of, it's, it's not what I thought it was going to be. I, you know, I thought,

I think I thought we would just be constantly debating whether or not people were being scandalized by it. But I think that we're losing our ability as a society

to be scandalized so it's now just kind of like I really really really just like watching the Rue and Jewel story and it's just every week I'm kind of like yeah this is chaotic and like you know going in a million different directions but I just kind of like high school dramas

calling this a high school drama is an undersell yeah but I, I, I think it's, I really enjoy it. I've really enjoyed summer TV. I think you just have to accept that it's house. And I talked about it last week in the pod.

It's just, it's the completely over the top version of every fear you've ever had about anything with your kids. And once you accept that, right. That is just like, all right, this is everything on steroids,

HGH. It's just crazy. Once you accept that, it's fine. I am the naysayer. Not even the naysayer. I got too scandalized. The first couple, I was just like, this is a lot. And the experience of watching it was just so intense that I was like, I don't need to

put myself through this every week. It is peak loud noises TV. Yes, which is my least favorite thing in the world. I also realized that I don't really enjoy stories about other people's drug experiences. That's just kind of, I hope everyone's safe and has a nice time and I don't need to hear about it. But it does seem like it's pushed through.

Like I gave up and this is kind of a common theme of TV generally where it takes all television shows a few episodes to heat up. And now everyone's like, wow, it's really coming together as a thoughtful show. The succession phenomenon. Yeah. Though I maintain succession was good from episode one. Sure. Me too. Well, you don't have to focus Ryan on that one. I'm on the billboard.

But it is interesting when you have to give something three hours of your time and patience to find out whether it's worth it yeah you know it's it's it's interesting with euphoria and years and years which i don't know if you've been watching it's also on hbo but uh both of those shows have kind of chilled me out a little bit i think coming out of thrones to some extent stranger things to some extent dark which is a show on on netflix which demands like a ton of attention while you're paying like there are various modes you can watch television in. And I think that like I've been watching years and years and euphoria much more passively, like paying attention, sometimes looking at my phone.

Jacoby's got the great time spent on phone stat, like when you're watching TV, but they, I feel like they are rewarding shows, even if you're not like scrutinizing every single plot twist have you watched years and years at all no but bachelor is in bachelorette is probably my number one most time on the phone as i'm watching shows i don't even think i've really actually seen one scene from the bachelor this year because i'm just my head's down i'm just kind of listening so years and years it has a podcast i don't even need to watch it. Years and Years is set several years in the future in England. But essentially, all the things that are happening are what's sort of happening now here with some twists.

And then it's basically like a family drama set in England in about 2025, I think, or 2026. Trump has been reelected. It's just kind of playing it out forward like that. And this character played by emma thompson is basically like uh not not quite a fox news pundit but a real like straight shooter who rises out of nowhere to become uh a political leader in england yeah and at the end of almost every episode of years and years something absolutely terrible and plausible happens that makes people really upset. So I can't believe that you watch this like plug turned off because I watched it and found it

extremely intense, as intense as euphoria, but kind of in the I'm living in the present moment. I love Emma Thompson. I'm Emma Thompson's number one fan. And it was like literally watching your Twitter feed in real time like terrible things happen and you just it's all this news and because there are so many characters they're bringing in

so many plots simultaneously I found it intensely stressful and it's amazing to me that you're just chilling on your couch looking at Instagram I've really been going places

this year I've just really been pushing myself so I don't know if our standards have dropped or whether we were too harsh earlier

because like my friend Hershey would always talk about this is back to the prestige tv thing and he always be like I'm so tired of b plus I can't take another b plus give me an a minus give me an a just all these b plus shows but now I'm kind of like used to the b plus yeah I don't I don't know if we ever have another. I thought Fleabag was an A plus. Like legitimately, I was like, wow, this is unbelievable. I can't wait to rewatch this again in a year. Well, the thing about right now is that there are so many B pluses that you can find the

B plus that speaks to you. Totally. And then someone else has a different B plus and you can spend, you can fill most of your time watching things that maybe aren't the amazing transcendent fleabag version of a television show. But you're like, you know what? I really like romantic comedies. So I guess I'll watch this or I really like prison shows. So I'll watch this. And it's interesting because, you know, we struggle with it at the ringer sometimes because everyone's watching something different and you don't get those shared moments.

Music's much worse for us with that though. Well, I just think- Music is so scattered with what people like. I think with TV, there does seem like, I agree there's not as much community as there used to be, but- The caveat there- Most people at least have an opinion on each show.

If it's, you know what I mean? People do try to, there are shows that reach a threshold and then there are people like, oh, well, I'll check that out. There's out people like what you did they'll watch two episodes of euphoria I feel like bloodline was the first one of these for me oh yeah but like I watched season one of bloodline and then season two popped in I'm like but season there should not have been a season no bloodline it was an incredible one season of tv and when they were like let's keep

this going you're like how nothing in the first season is replicable. You cannot do that again. Do you have shows that you quit on and you still feel like you're going to get back together, but deep down you know you're not going to? That's how I feel about Billions. Really? It's over?

You guys don't think you guys will make out in the back of a bar at 2 o'clock again? I think possibly. I keep thinking there's going to be a plane ride where I catch up. Plane ride. Vacation. You're going to download 10 episodes and watch it on a plane, but there's always something new. When was that Applegate show?

Oh, Dead to Me. Christina Applegate show? Dead to Me. Dead to Me and I, we dated a couple episodes. And we just had a cooling off period. Right. I don't know if we're had a cooling off period. Right. I don't know if we're going to get back together.

I think it's the age of the B plus show and I think the shows that get lost are the shows that shoot to be A's but can't make it. Like Catch-22,

if it's not the best show of the year, nobody's going to check it out. Right. Even though George Clooney made it and you'd think it would be a bigger deal

but if Catch-22, if I don't come in running to your office being like, Catch-22 is the best don't come running to your office being like, Catch-22 is the best thing I've seen all year, you're probably not going to be like, I'll watch Catch-22. And you didn't do that.

So I literally forgot to watch Catch-22. And I didn't remember it until you said Catch-22. And I was like, oh man. Was that, did that come out? Yes.

It's on Hulu. Handmaid's is on Hulu right now. And they're like, there's lots of stuff out there that's like, I mean, and then you go and you find things that are just completely bizarre.

Like I said, Too Old to Die Young and stuff like that. But, you know. That's a show like they made for you and Sam Donsky and probably nobody else

who's ever lived. I saw the opening shot of that. It's three minutes long. I'm like, this is for Chris Ryan and Sam Donsky and nobody else in the earth. No, it's been on in my house,

I think, since it was released. Oh, and Zach Barry? Yeah. Yeah, but he's him. That's game. Nobody else. No, it's been on in my house. I think since. Yeah. Yeah. But he's like doing slow watch TV. I understand. It's because every time I see him, I go up to him and I like stare Amanda's husband in the eye. I'm like, you got to watch episode five.

And he has. Well, the motto that I think the first time I could remember feeling like that was too short in a long time was Fleabag. No, it wasn't. But it long time was Fleabag. No, it wasn't. But it was perfect. It was perfect. No,

no, no, no. I'm saying like when it was over, I was like, Oh, that's it. You know,

it was like, if you added up those six shows, it was probably less than two hours and 45 minutes. It was like a movie. That was like a perfect eighties album. It was like, just make it 10 songs. All singles were out.

But I don't understand. That should be more of a strategy where people go, we're going to leave them wanting more with this. Absolutely. And no one in US TV does that, especially on streaming where they're trying to take you back to Netflix. They really just want minutes

watched. Big Little Lies could have done it. They could have walk off homeward with the one season and the guy going down the stairs and they just couldn't. Yeah, but that's my B+. I'm glad. I thought they rushed the ending.

By the way, you were very mad about the ending of season one of Big Little Lies. You felt that the last scene when they were just all on a beach and everything was happy

was very unrealistic. Oh, it was terrible. Right. So here you are with the resolution. They heard your complaints, Bill. Season two was their response to how bad that ending was. It was like, yeah, we did it.

We killed them. Pour some rosé. That was so bad. I'm not as mad at that as you are. Do you feel like The Bachelor is more, less, or evenly as popular as it was five years ago? Bachelorette? Either. The franchise.

This season of The Bachelorette is really getting attention. This seems like the most popular season of either in a while. Definitely of The Bachelorette. And I'm not the expert here. I just am a friend of Juliette Lipman's, so I'm speaking from her perspective. Yes, it seems like The Bachelorette especially

has really broken through. And I think you've got to hand it to Tyler. I have name recognition of Tyler without being a regular follower. I mean, I've certainly never, nobody on the show has ever broken out like this. It is funny though, like the OG shows, Riley wrote a piece for us this week about Survivor

and the mistakes they've made. And there's signs now of the finish line might be coming. You don't think? I don't think so. You think it just goes on forever? Yeah, I think it's Jeopardy. You think it's Jeopardy? Yeah, I think it's reliably entertaining TV

that has like a baseline, like the floor is so high for Survivor. Maybe the ceiling will never get back to where it was in the opening season. You think it's Jeopardy? I don't see why not. It's Survivor. It's one of the most recognizable brands

like in reality television history. It's also a habit. It's one of the most recognizable brands in reality television history. It's also a habit. It's been going for so long that so many people know how to watch it. And the updated streaming version of it wouldn't work. Because, you know, the momentum and checking in every week is part of what you do. It's the same thing with the challenge

and everything else. It's just a game. It's just the players who are interesting. Yeah, the challenge is like 12, 13 years old. Riley's mad because he's like, actually, we should just don't mess up baseball. Don't do infield shifts. We can just play baseball. Riley's like, you don't have to screw with a formula

that is actually proven to be so reliably pleasurable. But maybe they're screwing with it because they could see the end in sight. Well, I think they're screwing with it specifically because they have an all-winner season coming, so they want to do a bunch of different stuff with it. So that's the 48th season. I'm just shocked. I remember Bachelor, that must

have been like 03. I was living in LA at that point, and it feels like it's as impactful as it's ever been. Especially on social, and we've seen it with our stuff. That was a show i i never thought would last 16 17 years yeah i think they just cobble together a bunch of different audiences

because there are there are the kyle he won't watch not you but different ages and different it's different locations i think a lot of different types of people watch The Bachelor. There's a community to it that is pretty rare for TV now where it's almost like sports. People have fantasy leagues. You feel left out if you don't know what's going on in it. If people are talking about it, you're like the one person who doesn't have an idea. This actually circles back to what we were talking about when we first started, which is essentially like television used to be a little bit more of a communal event situation. And now it's like basically like this private,

I have my own algorithm. I have my own stuff being served up. I'm going to these specific places to get this specific thing. And when you're talking about something like Stranger Things, which had potential to be a little bit more of an event, I think,

even though I think by all estimations, it was an event. It just wasn't an event for like the people who try to cover TV. The way we're used to it. Yeah. But I think that that's like one thing that Bachelor and Survivor

and to some extent the talent shows that are still on and going, people watch The Voice. They just get together every week and they care about who might win The Voice or who got screwed on The Voice or whatever. And that's something that TV, I think, will always have. I just don't know whether our version of that will exist on Amazon.

Sunday night, my wife took our two kids to go see Rent. So I was home and my wife was like, don't watch the shows. Don't watch Big Ol' Lies. And Euphoria. Wait for me to come home to watch shows. I'm like, cool. Watching Red Sox-Dodgers becomes apparent they're going to lose. And I'm like, I don't, I just kind of want to watch Big Little Lies and Euphoria.

Oh, no. Did you watch the shows? Why couldn't you look at the ocean? You're making their face like you watched the shows. Oh, I watched both. Oh, no. You watched both? And then she came back and she's like, are we going to watch shows?

And I'm like, yeah. So you just did it? I just did it? That was your big little lie. So I lied. And then. Does she know this or is this? No, she knew because we started watching Big Little Lies and I was like on my phone and

not my typical kind of intensity. And she just looked over and she was like, you fucking watched the shows, didn't you? And I do think this whole era now of couple cheating, Netflix cheating, it's like a real thing. I would like to read like a cosmopolitan feature about it. How Netflix cheating ruined my relationship. It's been done.

Yes, many of them. And it doesn't go well for people. So it doesn't go well. people. It doesn't go well. No, just so you know, some people really do take it seriously. There's also the other thing that happens is you start a show together and one person in the couple gives up or wants to give up and then you fight about

I get into this with my wife where I'm like, you got me hooked. You can't take away the supply now. You know what I mean? Like you're my dealer. We have to finish dark or whatever. And sometimes it's just like, it's so boring. I can't do this anymore.

Like you watch it by yourself. And I'm like, I don't want to watch it by myself. I don't want to be the weird guy in the other room watching a show without you. Like when I see you for four hours a night, we're watching a TV show together. Flip side is when one person decides that you still have to watch

it together, but the person is like, I don't know if that's tonight, but I'm not going to release you from the contract. Oh my God! Which I've done. I've been the guilty party in that, but I'm just like, we might watch this at some point, so I need you to abide by the contract. You're reserving the right to watch the show later.

Yeah, we still have not finished Homecoming. My wife and I, we basically will earmark things. There's this horror movie that we really want to watch. It sounds ridiculous, but we're now treating it like Citizen Kane is coming out. What horror movie? I think it's called Trespassers. And it's about two couples who go to an Airbnb Airbnb in the desert and like have a debaucherous night and then like wake up and like they like a stranger shows up at the Airbnb. Oh, those are my favorites.

But we're like treating this like. I love when a stranger shows up. Are you still free Saturday night to watch Trespassers? That's great. You know what? That's romance. But it is it's like the amount of mental space you dedicate to like planning your stuff around when are we both going to be in the right mood to watch x y or z is so funny it was

never an option it was like 24 is on tonight do you want to watch it because we have to yeah it's on live yeah there's one other piece to this is when you start the show and the one person doesn't like it and bails but then way later gets into the show. So that happened to my wife with Killing Eve. Watch two episodes. She wasn't into it. And I really wanted to watch it because all of you guys love Killing Eve.

I was like, we gotta, she's like, I don't like it. I don't like Sandra Oh. I don't like it. Yeah, hot take. I'm like, all right, I'll watch it on my. Wow. I don't like it. Yeah, hot take. I'm like, all right. I'll watch it on my own time. I never do. And then she's on a flight

and she watches six episodes of Killing Eve. Doesn't tell me. Comes home. I come in one day and she's there and she's watching Killing Eve on like the freaking treadmill machine thing. And I'm like, what's going on? It was like I caught her.

What are you doing? And it was like, what's going on? It was like I caught her. What are you doing? And it was like season two, episode four. She's like, oh yeah, I thought I told you. It's like, what are those? It was like I caught her with like the gardener. No, it's not that serious. It's just whatever. No, she's like, I was on an airplane

and I was so mad. I was like, what the fuck? And she was like, you're always working. I think it's like 14 hours that you have to catch up. That's a lot of time that you suddenly are on the hook for to be able to be in the relationship. I get it. It's bad. Anyway, alright. This was fun.

Did we hit everything? We didn't talk about The Hill's New Beginnings. I know because you're the only person who's watching The Hill's New Beginnings. It is the hate watch of all time. It's so pathetic. I quit three minutes in. I can't believe you're still doing it. I can't believe it. I just can't believe it exists.

It's an American treasure. Yeah. It's so bad. It's a bunch of people that were pretty loathsome 12 years ago that are now all back in our lives, but have nothing to really talk about because they're married and have kids. They're recovering from a drug or alcohol problem. And then they all go out and two thirds of the people can't drink. And somebody else has a kid

and they're trying to figure out ways to fight. So it could be a good thing to cut to commercial. It's like, Chris doesn't like me anymore. There's like no reason behind it. It's really bad. Yeah, it's the absolute euphoria. Chris Ryan, we can hear you on The Watch. Yes.

Mina Dobbins, we can hear you on Jam Session on The Ringer Dish. Yes. As well as Big we can hear you on Jam Session on The Ringer Dish. Yes. As well as Big Little Live, season finale, Sunday night, at Ringer, you and Mina Kimes, presented by Buick. Looking forward to it. Thanks for coming on. All right.

Thanks to Kevin O'Connor, Chris Ryan, Amanda Dobbins. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to go to ziprecruiter.com slash BS. Thanks to Buick for doing Big Little Live with us. Our last episode is on Twitter. Go to at ringer right after the show ends or hashtag Big Little Live. Next week, I have a couple good podcasts for you.

Let's just say two A-list actors named Kevin are going to be on two of the podcasts next week. You can figure it out. There you go. Don't forget about the rewatchables of Reservoir Dogs either. I'll see you next week. I don't have feelings within On the wayside On the first summer I never was I don't have feelings within