The Bill Simmons Podcast - Draymond vs. KD, Embiid for MVP and the Rise of Podcasts With Malcolm Gladwell and Chris Ryan | The Bill Simmons Podcast (Ep. 442)

Episode Date: November 14, 2018

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Chris Ryan to talk about the Kevin Durant-Draymond Green argument, the rise of the Clippers, and Jimmy Butler's new team (2:50) before sitting down with Malcolm Gladwell to discuss his "grand unified theory of ethnic basketball," NBA thoughts, Gladwell's new music podcast with Rick Rubin called 'Broken Record,' and more (31:45). 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. You know it's not smart. Tipping a podcast that leans into the NBA at the very top right before a full slate of NBA games on Tuesday night. That's all right. We're going to do it anyway. You know what else is the smart job sites that overwhelm you with tons of the wrong resumes? Luckily, there's a smart way at ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. They find people with the right skills for your job.

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If you're not going to either, you're hurting my feelings. Ringer Podcast Network. Niffy Kyle, we got Dual Threat this week, House of Carbs. Both of those. One Shining Pod. Yeah, all happening. Yeah. Today, tomorrow.

Niffy Kyle's producing some of our pods. A whole bunch of good things. We have one big pod coming, tomorrow. Niffy Kyle's producing some of our pods. A whole bunch of good things. We have one big pod coming, though. Villains by Shea Serrano is finally dropping on Thursday, first episode. So if you haven't subscribed to that, check that one out. Villains. Tate Frazier kept Shea. I mean, this is like one of the darkest ringer stories we have for two years.

It's a saga. Could be a documentary. It was just a feud between those two guys. Kind of like what you read about the Hatfields and the McCoys growing up. And Tate just wouldn't let Shay have a podcast. And then finally we had to get them in a room. That's actually not what happened.

Shay just could not come up with the right idea. But now he has the right idea. Villains, subscribe to it. Now coming up, we are going to talk to Chris Ryan about some current topical, if we didn't talk about it right now, it would kind of go away, NBA stuff. Warriors, Sixers, Jimmy Butler,

a little bit late on that. And then Carmelo Anthony. And then a big deep dive conversation with Malcolm Gladwell. This podcast, I know it's long, it's two hours, but sometimes there's no other way. It's November. There's a lot going on.

That is all coming up first. Our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, Gladwell's coming up a little bit. Chris Ryan is here right now. We want to talk. There's some time-sensitive NBA stuff we have to get through. Chris is the editorial director of The Ringer. He's the host of The Watch. He's on The Ringer NBA show.

We're going to talk about the Sixers and a Carmelo theory that I have in a second. But Draymond Green suspended by the Warriors for one game without pay for an incident at a game that I went to last night that even as it happened, it felt like a little bit of a bigger deal than maybe some of this usual stuff.

We were taping this 3 o'clock Pacific time. So if anything else happens tonight, I don't know what to tell you, but Chris Ryan is here. It's going to happen. Given what happened last night, I have no idea what could happen tonight. I went last night. I want to talk about it with somebody. I need a live body on the sofa. Let's do it. A thought leader like Malcolm Gladwell. That's me.

Yeah, well, he can lead our thoughts later. I went. It was an awesome game. The Clippers have the most fun team they've had in 12 years. I guess Lob City was fun, but the nine-man rotation wasn't fun. This team, it's like people just keep coming in. They're like,

oh, I like that guy. Oh, Wallace. I kind of enjoy him. Oh, Harold. He's fun. Lou Williams' Mariano Rivera act is really fun. It's great. What was interesting was the Warriors were playing really hard and really wanted to steal it. And they had a lot of fans there,

and they were really feeding off this non-Curry, all their fans. And then they don't get it at the end. Katie's mad. And then you could tell they were yelling at each other in the huddle. And then Boogie Cousins, Peacemaker. I try not to overreact to this stuff because I think in basketball, you should yell at people every once in a while. I played a lot of basketball in my day, Chris Ryan.

Sometimes you get mad at people. Yeah. Our friend Dave Jacoby. There were a couple times where we just yelled at each other at a court. I still love them. So I don't want to overreact, but it did feel like there was some deeper stuff going on in there. I studied the videos last night, like the Zapruder film.

Yeah. Especially that wide shot of KD. And Draymond was yelling at him. And KD's reaction, it was almost like something hit too close to home. And then it gets reported today that Draymond brought up the whole free agency thing. Yes. So my first question is, do you believe that? I personally believe that he did bring that up.

You do not believe or you do? I do. Oh, I believe he brought it up. The question is whether or not, how seriously the Warriors and KD are taking that, whether Draymond was just kind of trying to stick it to him. So now we also have the announcement that Draymond's sitting out tonight.

He will not be playing tonight. Against the Hawks, which is curious because Steph Curry is also sitting out tonight with an injury. So now they're leaving themselves pretty shorthanded. Yeah, they play three and four. So they had game last night, Hawks tonight, and they have the Rockets on Thursday. So it's a busy week for them and Draymond's coming back from injury.

But it does feel disciplinary. I was wondering what was going, when this could bubble a little bit because there's been so much Durant is this is his last year buzz. And you know, Draymond and I are wired a lot of the same way. I think we think a lot of like, and if like you're both undersized force. Yeah.

Well, if nephew Kyle, there was all these rumors about his free agency in eight months and he never squashed any of them. And he's just saw the New York is getting to the Clippers and it's just constant. Yeah. if Kyle was going on at One Shining Pod and being like, look, I'm just going to be transparent. Last time

I was holding stuff to myself and this time I'm just going to go through it very publicly and be honest. I just want to be honest. And Kyle never said the words like, I love the ringer. You'd want him to be like, hey Kyle, be honest. Say I'm re-signing with the ringer. Yeah, or like, I just love it here and I'm really grateful and I'd love

to keep this going or whatever. But if he didn't say anything, I would kind of be like Draymond and the first time we would have strife, we'd be like, why don't you go to Barstool then, you dick? Like, I would just get mad. And I think that's what happened last night. I think there was like bubbling, little bubbling stuff that

popped up because this KD thing is the elephant in the room. And I think he's nuts. They could win five straight, I made this case. They could win like five straight titles, maybe six. I don't know how you leave that. Then again, as KD has said on this podcast, don't tell me how to live my life.

It's my life. And I just want to have the best environment. I just want my, what's my next challenge? And if he feels like he's not challenged anywhere, but this is. Yeah, here's another little tidbit about this.

Playing with Draymond is probably a pain in the ass after a while. Maybe it is. Yeah. I don't know the guy personally. I'm just saying that like, Draymond is like a lot of people

who get short-term results and long-term wear and tear. Yeah. He's not somebody who's going to be playing at age 39. Yeah. I think he's going to, he's going to be playing at age 39. I think he's going to

flame out a little. The intensity that he plays night to night is not sustainable for like a 15 year career. And I think he's hard to play with just in general, but I think his teammates love him. Yeah. It was really weird watching Boogie as the peacemaker. There was a couple,

now all the people saw the clips, but then there was like, there was a foul shortly after OT started and they were both under the thing and they were still like kind of talking under their breath at each other. And the crazy part was Bill Russell was on that basket and Jerry West.

And I think both of them were probably like, what the F's going on? But, you know, that was part of last night. The Clippers got decked out. They brought up Bill Russell and Jerry West. They brought out two of the 10 best players ever. Was it a little bit of a car show for KD, you think? Felt like it, yeah.

But Ballmer had them right under the basket that the Warriors were going to shoot in the second half. He was next to Russell. West is three seats down. The Clippers have spent a lot of time this summer in the first part of the season. It's a new Clippers. We're different now.

We have all these, we have a smart front office now and we're putting our logo all around the place and all these different parks. And then even like during the games, the games are much more festive now. I've been going since like 04. So it's like people are shooting half-court shots at the timeouts

like three times instead of once. And Balmer has a video now where he gets the crowd fired up. It did not work. Just for the record. He's like, come on, everybody get up.

He's not exactly Gerard Butler in 300. Yeah, and the problem- Developers! No, he was- Which just wasn't working. But the problem is the Clippers have

not great fans. I hate to, but like their home crowd is not like... This isn't Buenos Aires. It's hard to get two team fan bases in one city. It's just really hard. And all due respect to the Clips fans that love the team, but you know, last night was a great

game. I had an awesome time. There's two minutes left. Everybody's sitting. And I'm sitting next to Tolan, the guy I shared tickets with. I'm like, should we just stand and see if we can get other people to stand? It felt so it was such an intense game. I wanted to stand and everybody's just kind of

sitting and there's always fans from the other team. Yeah, very interesting. It was like 75% Warriors fans. Yeah, it was definitely half and half. It's a testament to how strong the league is and especially what an attraction the Warriors are that probably in every gym they go into there's going to be that kind of like a little bit of disparity they are they are new Lakers where I think anybody who's 12 and isn't like I've just you know I'm being indoctrinated into being a Bucks or a Bulls fan they're probably like I like the Warriors because they have Steph and KD and Clay you know I mean so

you can't really knock it. The Clippers have always been like, when you read all this stuff about Kevin Arnovitz and the people who came out of that early 2000s, late 90s Clippers thing where they were like, yeah, you just go. You pay 20 bucks. You could move down two and a half sections. It was basically

like a basketball laboratory where you could just hang out and watch a game. That's not really the NBA anymore. I bring all that up because if you're trying to impress KD, the crowd, it's such a difference with the intensity

and kind of the history and all that stuff that I think that's the one big obstacle. Because I think LA makes a ton of sense. I could see him being the face of that franchise.

They have a good nucleus. SGA is, I think has a chance to be special. I have incredible SGA jealousy. Oh that franchise. They have a good nucleus. SGA, I think, has a chance to be special. I have incredible SGA jealousy right now. Oh, my God. I was so into it. I was just watching the way he was just walking around during foul shot breaks and stuff.

Just like, man, that guy's got it. You just tell. Really nice feel for the game. They really lucked out. That was a great pick. Once again, the 10th pick in the draft. Just over and over again. I'm a little salty about lottery picks these days, so I don't know if you

can tell. Well, we're going to talk about that in a second. So anyway, I think this situation is worth monitoring because I'm sure the Warriors are probably deep down like, well, fuck that guy. Then he should just leave then. We'll win a title without him.

You know, and whether it goes that direction, then he should just leave then. We'll win a title without him. Whether it goes that direction, but this is a classic Phil Jackson would call the get the reservation together and make sure everybody's on the same page moment. I do feel like it was a bigger moment. How did Kerr and Brown and Silver Fox Bruce...

Yeah, because the coaches were all walking away. Durant stormed back and he did his whole thing and then it kind of kept going. Look, the thing I would mention is just, I know you used to knock them about this last year, but Kerr was kind of putting it out there, what a mental grind it is for them to be defending,

to go into another long campaign like this and just getting it up to play every night. That seemed different this season. They seemed to be like, we're just going to score 140. Everybody's healthy. Much more intense. They're just like, they looked really good.

Yeah. Even playing a little shorthanded. I think, I don't think they're as deep as they were last year. No, but, uh, no,

I thought last night they played hard. This was the first time that that reared its head. Like that. Maybe these guys are getting a little tired of each other in some ways, but maybe that's a good thing for this team. Perhaps. I think it gives them a little extra edge. When Steph's out there, it seems to all click.

God, Clay was amazing last night. Clay is... I used to have this list back when I used to write, when my fingers worked, about guys who are so much better in person than they are on TV. Plug your ears, fantasy. Yeah, plug my old career. But like Josh Smith

was a great example. Josh Smith in person was so much better than Josh Smith on TV. Young Josh Smith. Yeah. When he was like, you know, blindside blocks and just alley-oops. And it was like, God,

this guy should be the best player in basketball. The, the Clay Thompson experience in person is always more impressive. Last night he just decided, well, I guess I have to be Steph now. Yeah, well, it's not just the offense though. He's an incredible defensive player.

He really is. To me, he's like in, you know, you have Kawhi. Who's second? Of the defenders? Yeah, right in perimeter defenders right now. Kawhi. Would you put Jimmy in there, please? Maybe?

When he's healthy? I think I'd put Clay second. Yeah. I'm probably missing. I know I'm missing somebody. But anyway, he's in the conversation. Paul George? I still like Clay because Clay was guarding Gallinari last night,

but he could also guard Chris Paul. He has like a 14-inch disparity. So he's weirdly underrated. And I do think he likes when Kerr's out. Yeah, let's talk about Butler really quick. Anyway, watch the Warriors situation because my spidey senses say there's more meat on the bone than usual when we try to make a big deal out of nothing. I do feel like this is a big deal. I think the Warriors are like, are you fucking staying or not?

And it's starting to hit that point. Jimmy Butler, I talked about on the pod the other day, you talked about a ringer NBA show. Now he's there, but it's kind of overshadowing this incredible Embiid season. It's overshadowing. Embiid is in the MVP conversation, I think. Yeah. So I'm working on my trade value list. And every time I redo the list, as I procrastinate from actually writing it, Embiid moves up like a spot. Yeah.

So now all of a sudden he's in like the top seven. I think I kind of take it for granted because I watched so much Sixers. It was only after last night when JJ was like, this guy's trying to take people's heads off. Like he is dominating the league right now. And I know that there's a little bit of, like, is Embiid a little bit more of a flat track bully?

Like, I know we've kind of joked around about, like, he likes to take off. On Drummond or Whitesider, guys, he's better than, but he has to go out and beat a better team one of these days. Yeah. You can only beat what's in front of you. I think he's having an amazing season. Also, like, yeah, he'll still get winded on a second half of a back-to-back,

but he seems a lot more in shape he can hang in there for 37 minutes if you need him to it's just it's amazing it's also so disorienting

to watch a big man dominate a game now like this with the real attitude to the point that out of all the guys in the league I actually feel bad

for some of the other guys like I felt bad for Andre Drummond last week I was like oh man can you cool it down? Andre Drummond's a nice guy. You're hurting his feelings.

It was like Whiteside yesterday, same thing. Come on, man. The Whiteside has a family. Be nice. But Jordan was like that. I'm not saying Embiid's like Jordan from a talent standpoint, but he does want to rip people's hearts out. That's a mentality that Jimmy Butler will feel a lot more comfortable with than he did with Townsend Wiggins.

No question. Now, my question for you as a Sixer fan, Sixer watcher, Sixer chemistry brewer, there's always been a little, are we sure Simmons and Embiid? Are we sure those guys are brothers? Are we sure they're aligned? Are we sure at some point this is going to be a Stringer-Avon situation? And now you have Jimmy coming in. What if he picks a side?

What if he's like, Embiid's my guy. I fucking love this guy. This is what I wanted all along. And Simmons is like, I'm right here, mate. He's like, that's not a knife. You want to put a strip on the Bobby? Ben Simmons is not a shrinking violet. I don't think Ben Simmons is going to.

Also, he's so specifically good at these specific things that it's not like, oh, we can take or leave Ben Simmons' skill set. It's like Ben Simmons is fucking incredible. You know what I mean?

Your four best are really... Like throwing Redick in there, it's a really nice four and you don't have the fifth yet. And I don't know who... We were talking about it yesterday in the office. The fifth guy to me

is like a better Bellinelli. It's like a Bellinelli with size. It's like Evan Fournier if he was better. It's just like a six foot six, a guy who could have 50 one night and you wouldn't be shocked, but he also could have three points and you wouldn't be shocked.

Yeah, Elton Brand's splashing the pot a little bit today at the press conference. He's like, we want to make a real impact with this last roster spot, like what we want to get here. You need your fifth guy. But once you have the fifth guy, that's if you can keep him beat healthy, which seems realistic. And then the only question is,

is Jimmy Butler just a huge asshole or not? Because now he's... The thing is, now he's our asshole, right? I mean, he fits in Philadelphia in some ways. So I was thinking about that since I did the podcast. It was the one point I wish I had made on the podcast three days ago. It's kind of like,

kind of the right city to embrace somebody who's got this personality. I mean, he's not going to, we're not going to be 29th in attendance. You know what I mean? Like people aren't going to turn their backs on him. And I think that he talked about that today in the press conference. He was like, I think that the city matches with, like their ethos matches my ethos.

It's hardworking. They're going to like my competition. They're going to like my spirit. I think that there's just, he actually just does certain things on the court that's going to disrupt the basketball chemistry of the team. And it could be for the better because I think the Sixers are just like way better

than the teams below them, but not as good as the teams above them right now. And he's coming in to change that. First of all, the price you paid is outrageous. I like Sarge, but that trade that was 40 cents on the dollar just for one year. Yeah. If he leaves, maybe not as great of a trade. Sure.

If he stays, that's a steal unless he is the all-time cancer. But one thing I liked about this trade that I forgot to mention two nights ago, and this is something I've been passionate about. I was passionate about it with Durant and Westbrook that year in like 2011. And there's these moments where you're just kind of ready to win the title potentially. And you can't just be like, ah, someday we'll win the title. Like when you have it, you have it. Cause you don't know.

You never know when you're going to have Westbrook's 2013 injury and then Durant's 2015 injury or whatever the order of that was that. But you just don't know with health, bad luck, lucky breaks. And the reality is if you have two of the best 15 guys in the league, you have to go for the title. There is no more process. This is the process. I said on Heat Check on Sunday, it's the right trade, it's the wrong guy.

For me. You know what I mean? Like, I would have preferred a couple of the other guys that have been bandied about over the last 12 months. You know, whether it was Kawhi, whether it was Paul George, whoever. Yeah, but Kawhi, I mean, we're seeing why Kawhi now was available for DeMar DeRozan. His last three games,

he started to tail off a little. I still have my suspicions that he can play 100 games this season. So you don't think he's fully healthy? He's got a body that is too susceptible to injury like that. I don't want to say frail. Yeah, I don't want to say fully healthy. I just, there's certain guys where,

I'd say like, is Giannis going to play 100 games if they make the finals? I'd be like, yeah, unless something weird happens. Like if he gets mononucleosis or something. But that guy will be here for eight months. Kawhi, I'm less sure. And I think athletically, he's, from what I've seen, a little up and down.

Right. Well, I don't want to take I think just to go back to your original point about guys being ready and going for it when you have those top 15 guys I think that one of Butler's main objections was Towns and Wiggins not understanding their talent and not not embracing that moment and Jimmy's a guy who like probably had to fight for every minute that he's gotten on an NBA court up to a certain point in his life and he doesn't think that those guys are like understanding that. And when you see Towns,

not trying to kill the guy by taking his quotes out of context, but when he's like, well, I'm not the most important guy on this team. I'm just like a member of the team. It's just like, that's not what Joel and Ben say. Ben has been built in a lab to win basketball titles. And Joel thinks that he's the best basketball player

of his generation. Like even whether or not he's right or not, those guys are out of their minds and they, they kind of need somebody like Jimmy in a vacuum. Now I just don't know if Jimmy's exact game fits with like the way that Brett plays. Yeah. And we're not also,

I also just watched like the games that I watched Jimmy Butler play in Minnesota looked like a guy trying to sabotage a basketball team. Well, we're not sure Brett Brown is a hundred percent the right coach either. Are we? There's, there's a divided opinion about that. Can you see him holding the trophy up? Uh, I couldn't see Ty Lue holding the trophy up. I still can't see it. Yeah. I mean, I, I, Ty Lue kind of changed that a little bit for me. I was thinking, I was watching TV last night. I was watching the Lifetime Network. Don't ask why. There's some

terrible movie on. And they had a commercial and it was Lionel Hollins for some blood pressure drug. On the Lifetime Network? And it started out NBA, former basketball coach Lionel Hollins, or basketball coach Lionel Hollins. And he was coaching this fake team. And I was going to, I was actually going to go downstairs and get my phone to videotape it so we could run it on the ringer. And I was like, I don't feel like getting up. I think there might be a website where they put videos up. Maybe.

YouTube. Yeah, maybe YouTube has this. Check this out. Lionel Hollins' blood pressure commercial. But I was watching it. I was thinking like, there was a moment where people thought Lionel Hollins was a really good coach in Memphis. He almost made the finals. And these different coaches will have these moments where we're

like, that guy's a great coach. And then, like Frank Vogel, he makes the conference finals two years in a row. It's like, Frank Vogel, guy's a great coach. Now he sucks in Orlando and now he's out. And I guess my question is... What about... That just changes so fast.

But I'm not sure Brett Brown is a good coach or not. But the question is, is this Sixers team so good that he could have a moment with this team? And then five years later, be like, remember when Brett Brown, when they almost made the finals? Well, here's the thing also with NBA coaching right now, especially in the mid-season stuff, because it's so hard to get somebody of quality

to replace any coach. I'm kind of like, who are we going to get? Who would be the Brett Brown replacement? Do you know what I mean? Luke Walton. No, but it's like people talk about Jay Wright last summer. I think before Colangelo people were talking about, oh, Jay Wright might come

Spoh. Spoh. What about Fultz for Spoh? Who says no? Fultz and Brett Brown for Spoh. You want to believe in faults? Here's Brett. Can I ask you one more non-sixers thing before we go? Yeah.

You know how we were talking yesterday and your sample size is too small or whatever. But can I ask you, are you excited about the Kings at all? SAC? Yeah. Did you watch them last night? I didn't see it last night because I was at the game.

Fox looks so good. That's another lottery pick I wish I had. Fox could be a culture changer. I liked them in college. But last year was unclear if he was just so young and in a bad situation or how much kind of upside was there. Yeah. I was a believer, but I just noticed from the trade value drafts I'm doing, he just keeps climbing. Yeah.

Now he's in the top 30. But he just looks like a guy who should be the best guy on a team. Yeah. And just plays with a certain spirit to him that I think is pretty enticing. You have him, Colley Stein, whatever,

is he in a contract year or restricted free agent year or something? Yeah, but he's playing out of his mind. He's playing out of his mind and they have some scores and they've also been picking the top eight for 15 years.

So at some point, they're going to have a good start. I'm a little dubious of it though, because I do think they haven't had, like the Celtics just had this gauntlet trip that they had. That was just the worst possible time of the season. The Kings have had kind of the opposite version of that schedule. Playing at home a lot.

I want to see them on a road trip before I really believe. Before we go, Fultz quickly. Sure. Is this kind of the point where you don't want to talk them on a road trip before I really believe. Before we go, faults quickly. Sure. Is this kind of the point where you don't want to talk about him anymore? I don't know what to say. What do you want me to say? What was up with that foul shot last night? I mean, like, it's either medical.

I honestly don't know, man. I don't know what to say anymore. It's even like, even if he made those free throws, every night is pretty much the same it's 2 for 6 3 for 5 3 for 6 of the line gets about 11 points

Do you think he has trade value? Is he tradable? Not right this second he sure doesn't after last night You would know better than I would I mean is there any team like if you're that's the thing is that

how embarrassing would it be for them to unload the number one draft pick a year and a half later? I would trade him to Phoenix for Josh Jackson, who I think is equally disgruntled and having an equally bad time. I like that trade for you. Because Josh Jackson just becomes a useful,

like, Swiss Army knife wing. Jimmy Butler is like, we're starting the motherfucker club. I'm in it. You're my first lieutenant and we're going to be motherfuckers. And that'll be it.

And they'll go. Before we go, I wanted to give you my theory that I gave on the emergency episode of Desktop. I wish I had a take about Markel.

I don't. It's sad. They're going to have to trade him and he's going to have to go to a team that is basically the Spurs. It has to be that kind of situation and he's going to have to go to a team that is basically

the Spurs. It has to be that kind of situation. It's got to be infrastructure. You're almost breaking him down and starting over. You're just completely breaking down all the damage that's happened. I have to assume that that has been part of the process here in Philly. I mean, I'm sure you're right. But think about how poor of an organization they've had

the last couple years with Hinckley getting just shit-canned right as he's about to have the fruition of this and then the freaking, what's the Game of Thrones fan with the Lannisters? What was the guy who ran the head Lannister dude? Tywin?

Tywin. Tywin Lannister comes in aka Jerry Colangelo he's gotta bring in his kid and and it's just a mess the whole thing is an absolute

shit show it's amazing that we're this good yeah well you have two possibly transcending guys yeah

Simmons wanted a tiny bit more from him I have a triple double bet from him oh you do that I was yeah I'm focused on it.

Last thing, I went on an emergency desktop today and talked about my theory that Carmelo Anthony is just going to go back to the Knicks and retire. Here's the case. They're really no happy chasing the title stories other than Mitch Richmond with the like Oh one or Oh Lakers. And that wasn't happy at all.

He barely played. He can't feel that good about that ring. GP on Miami. Oh six. Probably the best hanging on. I can't say Jason kid was chasing a ring and hanging on a Dallas. Cause he was actually really important for that. Yeah.

That was not was pretty shocking. Yeah. PJ Brown on the Celtics was certainly not somebody as good as Carmelo. Carmelo's a future Hall of Famer. He's actually now underrated the way people shit on him. I think it's outrageous that people are now pretending he wasn't one of the best 10 players in the league for like

9 to 10 years. But I don't think he should go to Portland or the Lakers. Portland's way too good to take Carmelo. I wouldn't bring him on. He's going to have a third situation where it just might go horribly

and it's like yet another wah, wah in Carmelo. Yeah, this is the last one. I think this Houston thing had to be the last one. So I think the move for him now is to go back to the Knicks. So I jokingly tossed out the Spurs as the only, not contending team, but decent team.

Because you did pop? Also, they play mid-range a lot. It's an offense that I think he could actually just be himself in. Clearly, he doesn't want to be Olympic mellow. I think Olympic mellow is the worst thing that ever happened to him. Because it just became like now he has to be a 3 and D guy, which I don't really think he is. I think the Honey Nut Cheerios thing was the worst thing.

That probably was worse. Yeah. That's probably the worst. Yeah, the Spurs would be fun, but I continue to think he's just not good anymore. And that was my case last summer. This is the end of the Knicks. Well, because I thought he was in a really good situation in OKC.

He got wide open shots. Yeah. He was playing with two really good guys, and all he had to do was make open jumpers and go to the free throw line and rebound and he couldn't do any of it. Yeah, I think also just as their games became more high intensity,

his defense just became a complete absolute liability. So if he goes to the Knicks... He can just be himself. Just be New York Carmelo. And then the Knicks fans, they're tanking anyway. Yeah, but the New York... They just embrace Carmelo.

I feel like the narrative about Carmelo is a franchise ruiner, which he's not doing a lot to combat, comes from New York, right? It's all those guys who are like, we have a bunch of Knicks fans on our staff that are just never forgiving him for forcing the trade. This is how he wins them back. Last four months, he helps them get the fourth pick of the draft by shooting 22 times a game. Showing Kevin Knox the ways of the 11-foot jumper? Yeah. Here's what you do. No, no, don't go to the draft by shooting 22 times a game. Yeah. Showing Kevin Knox the ways of the 11 foot jumper.

Yeah. Okay. Here's what you do. No, no, don't go to the line. Don't draw a foul. Step back 20.

Kevin Knox. No, dribble a couple more seconds. Yeah, dribble a couple, pound the ball. Get comfortable. Make sure everybody's standing in place and then fall backwards.

I can't wait to see what happens. Chris Ryan, we can hear you in the watch. Yeah. Three watchables. Sure. We're doing one more before you leave? When do you leave?

I leave Saturday. A lot of collateral rumors. There's a lot of talk. A lot of social media push. Chris Ryan and I, our plan for the rewatchables is always 10 for them, one for us. We're almost at the one for us stage of this. We really are. When we get to Black Hat.

Well, Black Hat will be like, that's when- We'll do Black Hat the night of the 2020 presidential election. Black Hat will be our version of House of Cards season where Robin writes the president. Well, we're pretending Black Hat's rewatchable. It's just like, how do we get another season out of this? Chris Ryan, thank you. Thanks, man.

All right, we're going to get to Gladwell in one second. First, if you're frustrated with your company's travel management program or lack thereof, look into TripActions. They take the pain out of corporate travel. TripActions is the first travel management platform designed from the ground up with the road warrior in mind. Book your company's business travel from the app or desktop with 24-7 proactive support around the globe and incentives for employees to save on travel expenses. Companies large and small see over 90% adoption and save up to 34% on travel spend. Companies from Lyft to Sara Lee's Frozen Bakery trust TripActions with their business travel. They reward travelers for saving their company money. They'll reward you just for checking them out. Reshape your company's business travel today

with TripActions. Go to tripactions.com slash BS. Complete a 30-minute demo with the TripActions account executive and you'll get a $100 Amazon gift card. Kyle, you should do this. Can't wait. You love $100.

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We taped this 24 hours ago, but it's as fresh as a daisy. All right, Malcolm Gladwell is here. You're one of the only people who can demand to come on the podcast, and I'll actually agree. I did. I did demand. I actually sent you an email saying it's got to happen. Didn't I even stipulate the time? You were like, I'm in LA these days.

I'm coming on the podcast. I'm like, okay, I'll have mics ready. You know what this is called? In Hindi, this is called a darshan. A darshan is where the kind of loyal acolyte demands an audience with the guru, with the swami. That's totally not what this is like. It's not what this is like at all.

I requested a darshan with Bill Simmons. I've been thinking about you lately because I'm just not writing anything. You've stopped. I haven't written anything in like five, six months. I mean, our company got really complicated in a good way. We just have a lot of stuff going on and we have a lot of people. And I don't know whether it's an age thing or what,

but the whole thought of just disappearing for five hours and staring at a blank doc, I can't know whether it's an age thing or what, but the whole thought of just disappearing for five hours and staring at a blank doc, I can't get it going. I actually had something that was due this week that I flaked on, which I never do. When you were 24, my guess is you despised the sports guys who just were like talking heads. And you were like, I'm the guy sweating behind the typewriter. The rest of the guys were mailing it in.

Now you've become that. No, no, I didn't. I despised the people who I could tell didn't like writing anymore, but were still turning stuff, just mailing stuff in. Oh, you mean the Rick Riley phenomenon? I mean, I didn't say that. Why? I can't believe that.

When I was 24, Rick Riley was really good. At this late stage, you are sensitive about like, you know, piling on Rick Riley was really good. At this late stage, you are sensitive about piling on Rick Riley? I think the thing for me is I still love sports the same way I always did. But I wrote so many words. I can't get motivated to sit in front of a computer and just type anywhere. You do need to update the book of basketball, though. That is the one imperative.

Well, especially I was thinking about the last, since 09, just all the ways the sport has changed. It's like a natural update for everything. Like not only all the legacy shit and LeBron's impact and how the league has shifted to the players and how fans now root for players over teams, which I'm just continually fascinated by. By the way, I have a great idea. When you do the second edition of Book of Basketball, I have this great marketing idea. So you're going to revisit the top 100, right? And then certain players are going to get kicked out

of the top 100. It's like a nightclub. Yeah. I think you have to invite the people you're kicking out of the top 100 on the show and inform them. Oh, they're done. You got to sit down with like, I don't know who's not making it.

You're like, well, you know who's going to take a tumble is Mello. You got to sit down with Mello. You got to say, I'm sorry, man. You're out of the top 100. I don't think Mello ever made the top 100. You had him. No, I had him as like next generation.

No, really? No, yeah, yeah. I thought you had him high. No, next generation. LeBron was high. Who's out of the top 100? Actually, that's too hard. Who's out of the top 50? Well, yeah, yeah. I thought you had them high. No, next generation. LeBron was high. Who's out of the top 100? Actually, that's too hard. Who's out of the top 50?

Well, no. The guys who are getting bumped are the guys in the 90s. Because we've had, since 2009, a bunch of dudes just blossomed into top 100 guys. Like Durant, Westbrook, James Harden. I think Anthony Davis kind of has to be in the top 100. And then some of the guys from the previous decade who weren't sure, but then a couple more things. I think Pau Gasol's in the top 100 now.

Is? Yeah. I thought he was the finals MVP in 2010. And had an 18-year career and was basically an 1810 guy forever. So who's a good example of a nineties guy who falls out? I'm talking about, yeah. In the ranking was in the nineties. Oh, I see.

So like, yeah, I forget. I haven't seen the list in a while, but it's like the Kevin Johnson types are in trouble. You had Kevin. I remember you had Kevin Johnson in the eighties. Maybe that's what it was. Yeah. And I thought that was too low at the time. I always thought he was on, he was just a completely unstoppable player. Well, there's

another thing, like if Kevin Johnson's in the league now. Yeah. Where there's no hand checking and you can go wherever you want. He's, he's basically the most unguardable guy in the league. Yeah. It would be, it would be like Kyrie, but like a stronger Kyrie. Yeah. So I don't know, I have to figure out all this stuff. You could do, there's all kinds of really fun. Clay Thompson's another one who's in. Oh yeah. Who's got to make, yeah. You could do these great lists of wrong era

players. So I would love to see the top 10 players from earlier eras who would have just destroyed the league if they were playing now. It's mostly the shooter types like Maravich. Maravich was like, they didn't even have the three-pointer in the year

it came to the league. He was like, it was his last year in the league. But by all accounts, he had like 30-foot range. I mean, he was basically Curry

before Curry. Yeah. And maybe not as good of a shooter. Doesn't Bird's career look completely different if he plays now? He jacks way,

way more threes. A lot more threes. And he becomes like even more unguardable. Am I right? I don't know. I struggle on whether more threes. A lot more threes. And he becomes even more unguardable. Am I right? I don't know. I struggle on whether the threes are... The current generation of fans and media loves the three

because it's their generation. Like, this is better. There's more scoring. Not convinced it's better yet. Last night in Portland, we're taping this on a Monday. Portland was playing Boston. The Celtics had a two-on-one. All Jason Tatum, my third child, Jason Tatum.

I have my son, my daughter, and then Jason Tatum. All he had to do was just run a straight line. He gets a layup. So two-on-one, the dribbler's on the left, the guy's in the middle. Tatum just fills the lane layup. This is how you play basketball. Instead, he just veers to the corner so he could take a three because threes are worth more than two.

It makes total sense, but missed the three. I would have rather heard the layup, especially at the point of the game it was. But my point is the way these guys are playing now, they're trained now to veer to the corners on fast breaks. So I look at somebody like Bird, who was such a good inside-outside guy. He would have shot more threes.

But I don't think he would have given up the inside stuff because that was such a big part of who he was. You know, I think Barkley would have been a catastrophe. I think Barkley would have jacked up 12 threes a game. His whole style would have changed for the worse. Some guys wouldn't have changed at all. Like Karl Malone, I think he would have jacked up 12 threes a game. His whole style would have changed for the worse. Some guys wouldn't have changed at all. Like Karl Malone, I think he would have stayed the same. The bigger problem for those guys is the pace.

The pace of how they play now, I think it really would have been tough for some of those guys as they got older. Like Karl Malone played an extra eight years because the pace had slowed down so much. Or Shaq, people like that. It just would have been rough. The pace is the most fascinating thing to me this year. Bird, though, once again, isn't he, I think you told me,

there's a handful of, as a runner, I'm always interested in this, of NBA players who are really good runners, and Bird is one of them. Right. He was. A superbly, like really, really superb aerobically fit guy. Which is weird because I think he might have smoked cigs during the summer. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Bird, even the advanced metrics and all that stuff are very favorable for him. Barkley is another one. There's certain guys that you can kind of project, you know, if you just tweet their game certain ways, what it would have looked like. Now there's other guys that I just can't figure out how they would have translated. Like, what is Dennis Johnson in 2018? Like, his range was 17 feet.

You can't play guards now who can't shoot threes, really. So, weird times. Weird times for the league where you have the Wade, Chris Paul, Carmelo, LeBron generation is basically out the door now, except for LeBron. Like Chris Paul's really started to slip this year.

So now it's that Harden, Westbrook, Durant, Steph Curry, that generation. It's now their league, like through and through. The old guys are now the old guys

even though they're only 33, 34 but they're like the old guys it's like Carmelo Anthony it's like you're 16 you can't play anymore you're 15

whatever wait so to return are you gonna are you gonna update Book of Basketball I mean I should the answer is I should

I just I don't know I do like I like, I don't know. I do like, I like the idea of you breaking everyone who gets demoted. You had to break it to them personally. This is, it would be like you're, you would go to their home, you would hold their hand, you would offer them some Kleenex. You would say, this is not about you. This is about basketball. You're like, it would be great. You could film it, you know, it's not you, it's the you it's the league bill mb bill mb would break

into tears and you would be like you give him a kind of awkward hug you'd say it's okay bill i don't think bill lambert made it you did i gotta look and see we had to i can't believe you can't remember who's in your top 100 i haven't looked at in a while i i was really fascinated with like Dirk and people like that who, after I wrote the book, made a jump. So Dirk is now like 16, 17, 18, something like that. I think Durant's in the top 20 now. And LeBron has obviously skyrocketed. But other than that, I mean, the biggest one for the top 20 is probably Curry, whether he can put together enough healthy

seasons because you know he's one of the most influential basketball players like every era is defined by a player and now he defines this one yeah and that's a pretty big you know either russell wilt generation you the cream generation then you had bird of magic and then you had mj and then you had kobe for better or worse and then lebron and now it's curry this um since we're talking mba history this is the perfect segue yeah to one of the reasons one of the things i want to talk about yeah my grand unified theory of ethnic basketball yeah is this gonna am i gonna get in trouble for this you're not first of all you're not getting in trouble. Okay. I have road tested this argument on several ringer staffers.

Okay. And no one has- Several ringer staffers? Interesting. Okay. I was going to write this as an article for the ringer, but just like you,

why write it when I can just like talk it? Why sweat it out in front of a computer? Okay, so here's the theory. The theory is that the finest basketball players in the world are Nigerians. And in fact, a Nigerian team, all-star team, all-time all-star team would be the greatest basketball team of all time. Okay, now. What do you mean Nigerians? Like who? Well, hear me out. Okay, here are the rules the rules are we have four teams in this makeshift imaginary league we have the african-american team we have the white american team we have

the euro team and we have the nigerian team all right those are rules they're going to play a full season you can pick anyone from any point in basketball history, and you get their best season. Okay? Full season, by the way, is important. It's not a short series. So chemistry is going to matter on this thing. You've got to play 82 games. And you get, you belong according to your, it's really where your parents are born that matters, that tells you which team you're on.

Okay. Okay? that tells you which team you're on. Okay. Okay. So, and I'm going to play a number of small games with my definition of what a Nigerian is. But I think at the end, you're going to agree that the Nigerians win. All right. I don't think anyone has gotten, has had more fun with being biracial and dancing on the third rail than you.

You love it the most of anyone I've ever met. And before I go any further, let me just say that Nigerians, I have a special place in my heart for reasons I will explain for Nigerians. There's two reasons. I'll give you the first reason, which is my, I was thinking about this actually today. It's hilarious. When I was a kid, my dad was a math professor and he had grad students.

And the grad students in our household were the revered golden children, right? They would come to our house for dinner. My father would talk about them as if they were his own children. And his grad students, his first graduate that I remember when I was like six or seven was a Nigerian. And then he had Indians and Africans basically for his entire career. So as a kid, you know how when you're a kid, your reality is defined by the world you live in. I thought that smart people, the geniuses in the world were all Nigerians and Indians. Yeah.

So, you know, I was sort of, I had a set of racial biases that were a hundred percent different from the world's racial biases. I felt like white people, I don't see any white people in my father's background. Like they're all Indians and Nigerians. It must be that white people are a step slow. That was my sort of feeling growing up. Anyway, so Nigerians, this is, I come by my obsession with Nigerians, honestly. All right. So here's the Nigerian team. Hakeem at his height, right? Fantastic. Andre Iguodala, Victor Oladipo. Okay, those are our obvious Nigerian candidates.

Now, Giannis, let's not forget. Giannis, born in Greece, but under my rule, parents matter. His parents are Nigerian. So now we have Giannis Hakeem. Oladipo. Oladipo and... Iguodala. Iguodala backcourt. Okay. First wrinkle. I had my, I have to make, I had my 23andMe done the other day. And I am 23% Igbo. Igbo being the dominant tribe in Nigeria. Why? Because that's where black people in the West Indies came from Nigeria or West Africa, probably. So I think you can legitimately claim

that anyone from the Caribbean belongs on the Nigerian team. So you're just claiming it's like a territorial draft like they used to have in basketball in the late 50s. Exactly. You're just grabbing everybody. So I can grab, that means I get Tim Duncan from the Virgin Islands.

Okay. I get Patrick, Patrick Ewing. Oh yeah, because he was, what was he, Caribbean? No. Jamaican. Born in Jamaica. Yeah. He's the real deal.

And of course I get, so wait a minute. So think about my team now. I've got, my front court is Giannis, Hakeem, Patrick, and Duncan. Now Patrick's coming off the bench on that team. He's coming off the bench. And my back court right now is- Odipo and Iguodala. Iguodala.

Now you say I don't have shooters. I don't have shooters, right? Yeah. So I need a shooter. Where do I- Let's just think. Oh, wait a minute. One of the greatest three-point shooters of all time, his father is Bahamian.

Oh, Klay Thompson. Klay Thompson. I got Klay. Okay, so now this team is starting. I still don't understand how you went from Nigerian to you're just grabbing all these other countries that end in I-A-N. It's legit.

By the way, talk to, I know this is, because whenever I speak to Nigerians who have been to Jamaica, they all say the same thing. Or Jamaicans who have been to Nigeria. Like I was talking to this Nigerian recently who had just come back from Kingston. He was like, I got the plane and I was like, this is Lagos.

It's the same thing. It's the same culture, just it's in two different places. So this is totally legit what I'm doing. So now you say so. So now we say, okay, so this is becoming a very good team. It's a pretty good team. I like your size. But I'm not done.

I'm not done. So now I think the last move I want to make is I think it's fair, because Nigeria is just one little country, for them to also lay claim on neighboring African states. I think that's fair. So who can I add by neighboring African states? Well, who grew up next door to Nigeria? Joel Embiid, right?

You got a lot of centers on this team. I got to beat. But now, so what am I missing? I got to, so now I got- You have no point guard. I need a point guard, right? So where am I going to find a point guard? I don't know. Just keep adding countries to the end of point guard. Bill, this is a good question for you. This is a creaky question. Where am I going to find a point guard from sub-Equatorial Africa close to Nigeria? One of the greatest point guards in the game. Who's that? You don't know? No. Steve Nash. Born in Johannesburg. Oh, wow. So I got, listen to this, listen to this team and tell me, I defy you to come up with a better team than this. I have a starting backcourt of Clay and Nash, both in their primes.

Yeah. And I have across the front, I got Duncan, Giannis, Hakim, and Patrick and Embiid coming off the bench. And I haven't even mentioned DeAndre Ayton. I could do him. Iguodala. I got Iguodala coming off the bench for D and Oladipo.

You might as well get Serge Ibaka as the 12th man in the Congo. Can you go to the Congo? Do we even need Ibaka to get in the court? Why didn't you just

call it African? Why is it Nigerian? Well, because the heart, its heart is Nigeria. So it's the capital. I mean, this is really, this is about Nigerians owning the fact

that they can put together the greatest basketball team of all time. I don't think you can try, just try and come up with a team that beats that under my category. So part of the theory is you feel like Nigeria in general is underrated. Completely underrated. As an athletic powerhouse. Completely underrated. Look, look what I've just done. With Nigerians, near Nigerians, and transplanted Nigerians. I put together,

first of all, defensively, think about this. I can put on a court. It's a long athletic team. I can put on, yeah, Ikedao at his height is what,

and Klay Thompson, two of the greatest lockdown defenders in the backcourt. And then I have Hakeem, Patrick and Duncan

and Giannis. And Giannis. How is anyone scoring on that team? It's pretty good. I still feel like, so the foreign team you could grab. So what qualifies as foreign since you just grabbed 100 countries? No.

You grabbed all the countries with I-A-N at the end. No, no, no. The entire continent of Europe, for example, is open. So what would your European team be? See, I think you should have more countries slash regions in this and it should be like an 18-week. Well, this thing is no one else can compete, right? Europe can compete. But you need a couple also, Rance.

You do the Europe and you have France and Spain and Germany and you can actually put together a pretty good team with that. Once you add... Is Argentina? No, that's South America. Yeah, but there's one great Argentinian player. Well, I'm trying to think. Well, by your rule, we just take South America and put it in Europe. Okay, since Manu is...

His family is historically Italian, we'll give him to the Euro team. But I don't think... Is that true? The name Manu Ginobili, like tons and tons and tons of Italians in Argentina. His family clearly came from Italy sometime in the last... But you have no proof of this.

You're just guessing. I don't need proof. It's like, what do you know about Argentina? So maybe we put Benu in because he seemed kind of Italian. You're not playing the game. Let's construct the Euro team. And I'm going to prove to you my Nigerian team. Oh, your team is going to be better.

I'm just saying the Euro team could have a chance to be pretty good. Okay, who's on it? Well, Dirk Nowitzki's on it. Nowitzki. He's like the 16th best player of all time. Parker is the point guard. Parker's on it. Drazen Petrovic.

Italian Manu Ginobili is on it. Manu Ginobili. You know who's on this team? Gallinari. It's Peja. Peja's on it. Oh, yeah, you get all the Croatians and the Serbians, right? Of course you do.

You get the Nurkic's and the Nokic's. Do I get Russians? The Donkic's. Yeah, why not? But you're going to get Sabonis, the father. So I get early Sabonis. Early Sabonis. But that's a game changer.

He was one of the best centers of all time. He's not better than Akeem. No, but he's at least, if I get 1986 a bonus, I have something. You get that. And you just have a problem with defense on that team. If you're going to start Peja and Drazen Petrovic and, you know. We'd have team chemistry problem because who can trust the French? You have team chemistry problems because you're going to be mixing.

Aren't you mixing Serbians and Croatians? I think you are. Yeah, but this is a whole parallel universe. Everyone's getting along in this universe. There's no war. No, no, no. No, this is legit because I think this is the, I think, wait a second. Petrovic, am I wrong? Petrovic is Serbian.

No. I should know this because we did a whole 30 for 30 on this. Yeah, it was, no, Petrovic was Croatian. Vlade was Serbian. Oh, it was. No, Petrovic was Croatian. Croatia. Vlade was Serbian. Oh, I see. And that's when they split up.

That's why it broke up their friendship. It goes nasty. That was one of our best 30 for 30s. I've never seen that. I like that one. It was a good one. No, the chemistry thing is what dooms the African-American team because you're going to put Jordan and LeBron on the court at the same time.

I don't think that works. Jordan and LeBron? I would say having Kobe barrel into it wouldn't be. I mean, you have like, but can you, I don't even know what would happen if you had LeBron and Kobe and Jordan in their prime on the court together. That would self-destruct. How does that go? But that team also has Bill Russell and Will Chamberlain. And I don't know, That team's pretty loaded.

I would bet on that team personally. You'd take that over my makeshift Nigerian team. Is makeshift the word we're using now? I would say illegal. It involves an expansive definition of the term Nigerian. I think this is like the seventh different time we've had some form of this conversation. You love the racial basketball league. It's like your favorite thing.

It's the favorite thing ever. Well, here's why it's interesting though, because Africa, think about Africa and China. You have two countries where basketball is an emerging and powerful. And the talent pool, I've already, even now where 99% of young athletic Nigerian men are not playing basketball. However, even given that, I can assemble a group of Nigerians who are pretty formidable. Imagine if basketball ever takes hold in Africa, in West Africa, in a big way, that the available pool of talent for the NBA just goes to the roof. Well, Embiid, it's funny

because Embiid has become such a personality now. Yeah. And he's been in our lives for a while and people don't realize how incredible his story is. But he was the biggest basketball, what's it called? Basketball without borders. He was the biggest success story of that.

They found him in some program created to find people like Joel Embiid and to target people who were good athletes who might be able to. And then now he's Joel Embiid. He's an MVP candidate this year. Yeah. I still feel like Hakeem is the all-time. I wrote about this in my book, that he's the freakiest. I can't believe that happened story in basketball history.

Do you remember where you had him in your? Yeah, I had him like 11th. Hakeem was unbelievable. He slipped through the cracks. Yeah. I think of history. Some of these guys, you know, depending on whether they were on TV or whether they constantly get compared to current guys,

then they kind of live on. Like somebody like Barkley, who I think, you know, is probably not even in the top 20 anymore at this point. He's probably right on the fringe, but he's been on TV for 18 years. He's in our lives. Shaq's in our lives all the time. But Moses Malone disappeared and then he died.

Moses Malone actually had a better career than Shaq. You're going to have to break it to Charles Barkley. He's out of the top 20. That's going to be really emotional. He was right on the fringe. He'll get mad when he's out of the top 20. That's going to be really emotional. He was right on the fringe. Yeah. Well, he'll get mad when he finds out Durant jumped him. Did Hakeem go back to, is he still in Houston?

Do you know? Where is he? Hakeem's in Houston. He's in Houston. But Hakeem, to take somebody who just played soccer and then his body grew to the point that he was just too tall for soccer. Yeah. And then just was like, I should try point that he was just too tall for soccer. Yeah. And then just was like, I should try this other sport,

but had all the soccer footwork. And we're not seeing that again. It's a complete fluke. Yeah. The growth spurt combined with somebody who probably would have been a world-class soccer player if he had just stuck with soccer.

The soccer- Have you seen Zion yet? I saw, I just seen clips from that first Duke game. Hold on, we're taking a break. Quick break to talk about our friends at Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans, America's premier home purchase lender. Let's talk about buying a home. It can be one of the most important purchases you'll ever make, but today's fluctuating interest rates can leave you with higher payments,

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in all 50 states. NMLSconsumeraccess.org. Number 3030. I haven't been this excited for a college player. I was really excited for Ben Simmons, but I think at least a part of it was that he had the same name as my son. Durant was the last one I was like out of my mind. I really watched a lot of those games. For me, Duke is can't miss television this year.

I've never seen anything like what Zion did last week. Can I point out that the second best player on Duke? Is probably Zion. No. Oh, who do you think is the best player? R.J. Barrett's unbelievable. I just love Zion the most, but R.J. Barrett was unbelievable. Oh, so you're like R.J. Barrett.

Where do you think R.J. Barrett's from? Canadian. Yeah, more than that. Jamaican. R.J. Barrett's Jamaican? Yes, of course he is. Where do you think Jamaicans go? We all went to Canada.

That's like our first stop on the... Why did Jamaicans end up in Canada? That is actually... I asked my mother this many questions. I was like, many times, of all the places for Jamaicans to go, why on earth would they pick,

not just Canada, they all go to Toronto, which is like winds, like this kind of windswept flats. Like it's the exact opposite of Jamaica. And there's hundreds, there's 200,000 Jamaicans in Toronto now. I've never made sense of it.

There's gotta be some reason though. Well, there's a formal reason, which is that Jamaica is part of the Commonwealth and they were preferential immigration patterns. But beyond that, my mother has shivered every winter for the last 40 years. And you say to her, what are you doing in this climate? She's like, I have no idea. I don't know how it happened. Your dad wanted to come here, like that kind of thing. We're reduced to like, no, it's, it's the whole thing is because the other places, I mean, there's lots of Jamaicans in Miami. Makes sense. But then tons of them end up in New York and London and Toronto,

which is just crazy. It's always funny when people end up in bad weather locations with no explanation. Yeah. Like when I finally left and came out here and I was like, oh, okay. I get it now.

I get it. Nephew Kyle, you were like that. Amazing. I haven't shoveled any snow. Upstate New York. But wait, go backwards. What were we just talking about right before this? The Jamaican?

Oh, RJ Barrett and Zion. RJ Barrett. I get him on my team. I add him to my team. You understand? He's my rookie. I have Aiden and RJ coming off the bench. My rookie's off the bench.

Well, he could potentially back up Nash. The Zion thing's really fun because I love when basketball players have just crazy, one-of-a-kind bodies that we've never seen before. Yeah. You know, like when you look at the Barkley footage, especially young, young Barkley, when he was carrying weight in the way he, he's only six, four, and he could, was jumping over seven footers for rebounds and was just this pogo stick. But he was built like, I don't know, like a, like a penguin with long leg. I

don't even know what his body was like. Yeah. Nobody wanted to take a charge from him. It was just nobody like him. I was like, what is this guy? And Manute Ball was like that. And you saw Manute Ball in person. You'd be like, what the fuck is going on? This guy's 7'6". How is this happening? And I think the Zion thing is like that too. Where he's 285 pounds. He's so phenomenal.

He's got ballet feet. And he's got a 45-inch vertical leap. And he just seems like the kid in Little League who's too big, and everyone's asking for the birth certificates, but he's in college. And he can't be. He can't be. How old is he? 18?

Yeah, he's a legit freshman in college, whatever year that is. So he's going to keep growing. He's not done. He can't be done. Well, that's the thing. So if he's 285 now, but he's not fat, he's just one of those thick, thick dudes who should be a tight end in football. But you add stuff, he's eventually going to be 300 pounds. That is just unbelievable.

And he'll probably be over 300 pounds. I think it's going to be one of the most fascinating things. This is a minor version of this, but some time ago, I was on a panel. And one of the people on the panel was Warren Sapp. And the panel was in this like kind of we're doing this thing in this restaurant. It was a thing about concussions. And it was a really crowded stage. And there were all these kind of chairs everywhere and there were big boxes. And he comes from the other side of the stage and he kind of i watched him and he kind

of pirouettes around one obstacle leaps over a box does it kind of spin around he it was like a ballet dancer right and the but his horns sat late feet he's 300 feet or 300 pounds and light feet and he's just like that that idea i've got, that image is still in my head because I've never, I just, you never expect to see someone that wide. And he's, you know, he's like a wide guy, that big. Have that kind of delicate, it was, he moved with delicacy. Yeah.

It was just, it was. I like seeing though, Giannis is like that too. And Giannis is having a moment this season. But when you see him in the Nigerian, I would like you to refer to him as the Nigerian superstar, Giannis is having a moment this season. But when you see him in Nigeria, I would like you to refer to him as the Nigerian superstar, Giannis. Okay.

He's having a moment this year. But he's one of those guys like you have to see him in person. Yeah. And I think the NBA has an inordinate amount

of guys like that this year for some reason. You know, I think Curry is like that. All guys that if you're a real basketball fan, you just have to go once just to see it. And Giannis is outrageous in person. And has the same thing that young LeBron did.

He has that shrink the court thing. When he gets a steal in midcourt and it's like two steps and he's dunking and you're like, what just happened? Did the court get smaller? I don't understand the Bucs at all this season. Is it really the case that changing your coach can turn you from? Yeah. Yes.

I was saying this last spring. They should have beaten the Celtics last spring. They were terribly coached. And now they have a coach who is saying basically, oh, we should play our best players together. Oh, we should play faster. We have the greatest athlete in the league. So who was the old coach's name? Well, it was Jason Kidd

got fired. Oh, Kidd got fired, but... And then poor Joe Prenti took over and he was... So neither of those two guys should really ever get a coaching gig again. Since now we know how... Probably won't. Yeah. How extraordinarily they...

It's just awful. When you have great athletes, you just have to let them be great athletes. And when you have five good players, you should play them together. They made a couple of good signings too, though. They had Brook Lopez. It's one of those things, just the first year,

I noticed that a lot of the stuff people were expecting for teams to make the quote-unquote leap, everybody kind of had the same teams. And even Vegas was doing the over-under for wins when Sal and House and I were trying to do the things. And the number was higher than we wanted it to be. It was like people knew. And I just think we have so much information now about pace and players and contract years. And you can kind of just throw it on a stew and stir the stew. And then sometimes it's like the Celtics right now,

where they have so much talent, everybody thought they would be awesome. And then it doesn't work. So basketball still keeps you on your toes. Yeah. Cause ultimately it's a chemistry sport. It's a bit early to say it doesn't work. What?

In Boston. I mean, it's now they just. It's a bit early to say it doesn't work. What? In Boston. I mean, it's... No, they just have to figure out which players to play in the right... Yeah. It's the old too many guys thing. It's fascinating. When the Rockets won 22 straight in 2008 with TMAC,

they had this team that, if you look back at the team, it makes no sense. It's like, why did this happen? I think Yao Ming or Dikembe got hurt halfway through the streak, and by the end of it, they had seven guys. But they were just playing really well together. Everybody knew their roles. And when I

was trying to make the wine cellar team in my book, it wasn't an all-star, the greatest of all time team. It was like, how do these guys all fit together? I think the problem make the wine sour team in my book. It wasn't an all-star, the greatest of all time team. It was like, how do these guys all fit together? I think the problem with the Celtics is the guys don't fit together yet. And they don't, they haven't figured out which, who their best five is. Should Hayward come off the bench? And then also like jacking up threes, which is this illness for NBA teams now.

They take 40 threes in a game and nobody goes to the basket. Meanwhile, they have seven guys who can get to the basket anywhere they want. It's a weird time for basketball. I'm not as euphoric about it as some other people. I think the talent is fantastic. But I still feel like just watching teams

jack up threes all the time. Do you worry sometimes, Bill, that you're turning into your dad? You become this like cranky old, I don't know about this newfangled three-point thing. Well, I worry that at some point, it's just going to be everybody shooting 55 threes. I mean, isn't that like the most logical? Once you've accepted the logic of shooting 20 a game,

then 50 is even more logical, is it not? You're going to need the actual talent to win the title, but you can get in a situation where Houston was almost able to steal it from the Warriors with threes in defense and one guy who could create a shot. Yeah. I don't know. I just, I don't like anything where the style just becomes the style every single team does. I would still like a world where some people did that style,

but other people said, hey, no, no, we're going to pound it down low. And, you know, like different forms of basketball in the same league versus just everybody plays the same. This reminds me, I have this friend named Roger Martin, who's a really brilliant guy. He's a huge basketball fan. And he has this totally, did I ever run this by you,

this totally crazy idea about how to fix basketball, which is that he thinks, you know, in hockey there's the continuation rule on a penalty. He thinks there should be a continuation rule in basketball. In other words, instead of stopping the play on a foul, the guy comes off. No, no, no, no. Because, you know, in hockey, I'm sure I'm botching this, but the play continues until a turnover, right?

So he's like, why is it the case that a foul in basketball has to stop the play? Why not have the ref put up his arm like in hockey and the play continues until some... Well, what if somebody's like on the court, lying on the court because they just got hacked? Well, no, you can have some, you know, that would be logically one of, I'm assuming... Continuation from basketball. No, no. Think about it, Bill. You have a game which is premised

on that kind of spontaneity and freedom of movement. And yet, because of the role of the referees, is reduced to these little stops and starts. It's not soccer. The thing that's so appealing about soccer and hockey is the continuity of the play. If basketball solved its continuity problem, it would be even more electric. And what he's saying is that this is a way of doing it, that you don't need to assess the foul at the point of the foul.

You could hold the foul in your back pocket and assess it when the play stops. So if I'm driving to the hole and I got fouled, I get, you know, not in the act of shooting, fouled on the way, but I keep going. The ref puts up his arm, signals that a foul has been committed. And then everyone just keeps playing. And lets the play continue. I kind of, I mean. But what happens if the other team scores? It doesn't count. Then it becomes more confusing. Those are, Roger's worked up the details. I don't know the details. That's an important part of the detail. No, my point is,

basketball has one flaw, I think. Particularly, you know, the end of games, particularly in the playoffs, I mean, it's unwatchable. There are some games which just the last five minutes takes. And at some point,

you have to think about ways of fixing it. And people various ideas but this is one way of fixing that of saying that a foul does not necessarily uh and it also changes the the the uh concept behind intentional fouling right takes it off the table well maybe that's they could try it in the g league and see if it works yeah i'm excited for the souped up G League where we pay anyone right out of high school 125K. You don't have to go to college. The fraud of college is now over. Just come here. If you want to compete with college,

wouldn't you have to pay more than 125? That's been the running joke. I mean, I think you got to do better than that. But anyway. You think you'd bump it to 200? Would the league sponsor be Cadillac so you can just supply everyone with an Escalade

and like get it over with? They might have to do that. I want that to happen because I think college is ludicrous at this point. And I fight with Titus and Tate who do our college

basketball pod about it. But like, like Zion's going to be in college until March 30th, April 4th, however long they last. And then he's going to drop out to work for the draft.

To work out for the draft. So he's going to be in college for six months. What's the, how is that, how is he a college student? Yeah. He is not going to be in college

on April 8th. Why? Everyone else will be in college doing final exams. Guess what? He's not going to be taking final exams. He's not taking final exams. So why is he in college? What are we doing? Yeah. Yeah. We, we discussed years ago, this idea, which I think

deserves re-airing that, uh, a player can be drafted at any time and can remain in college. Right. And the baseball style. Yeah. The team just puts his salary into escrow and it doesn't count against the cap. So if you want someone could use another two years of Coach K, you draft my fellow Canadian Jamaican, and you say, you want to spend another year at Duke? By all means, we're putting your, what is your rookie salary? How much is it? Whatever it is.

I mean, it's a couple million. We're putting it in escrow. DeAndre Ayton's going to make like $8 million this year. We're putting it in escrow. You get it when you come out. I think it's unconstitutional. I've flipped my opinion on this a hundred times, but after watching those Duke guys last week, all these guys should be

in the NBA. All three of those guys because Reddish was really good too. I don't know. What are we trying to do now? These guys and I think the last time we talked about how much more polished these guys are. In the old days, that whole rule was kind of to protect the guys from themselves

because they would come in and they were so raw. I still remember T-Mac as a rookie going to a Celtics-Toronto game and he was hurt and he was just wearing this big, giant talking head suit that he obviously thought was a good purchase. And he had an earring on, and he was 18, just this kid from South Carolina who all of a sudden is in the NBA.

Living in Toronto, by the way. Living in Toronto, and he just was so desperately trying to seem cool. And everyone's like, oh, look how adorable he is trying to look like an NBA player. These guys now come in and they're like finished products. All of them. So, you know, I think from what they're exposed to, I have a lot of theories on this actually. Because I think they learn from the previous generations too. Like you learn from the mistakes of your elders, right?

So they learn from all like the 30 for 30 we did broke they've learned that less than 100 different ways they learn oh don't don't do stupid shit on social media don't take instagram videos with some girl at six in the morning and that might happen like all these lessons they've now learned and they come in and they're pretty polished and they've been in front of cameras yeah they give interviews like they already know how to do this like freaking generic talk speak stuff will you be teaching your son these lessons will you sit him down at one point and say all right no instagrams yeah my son my son's beyond hope he's really he's he's yeah he's gonna be he's gonna be doing his thing wait he's gonna yeah, he's going to be, he's going to be doing his thing.

He's going to drop in the draft because people are going to be worried about his ability to handle success. You, um, is it, am I remembering correctly that Vince Carter and T-Mac were cousins? Yeah. Have we done the 30 for 30 on that family? I mean, are there other, do they happen to have a, you know, a couple of other all-time athletes in there? They were like legit cousins too, because I think we see somewhere they're like third cousins, eighth cousins. Yeah. I actually think they were like legitimately cousins. That is, I make those kind of, you know, there's the McCaffreys.

There's that family, which always fascinates me, where, do you know what the McCaffreys? So McCaffrey. Christian McCaffrey. Christian's dad, Ed is in the league. Yeah. His mom, I'm like,

remember this correctly. His mom was a world-class athlete. His grandfather, I think was either the world record holder in a hundred meter dash or, uh, close to it. Yeah. Maybe in the med.

I mean, it's one of these bananas families where everywhere you look and then not only is, so the dad's side has got, maybe it's the mom's side but i just love like it's not enough that your grandfather was a olympian then you go and you marry you know some insanely some equally insanely great athlete this is something my buddy bish one of my oldest friends from high school, we were always obsessed with great athletes marrying each other. It's like one of my favorite topics. We had a friend of ours, Hopper.

His sister was like this really good track athlete. I think she competed in the Olympics. And then she married a star football player. And we would just talk like, oh my God, they're going to have super kids kids have you checked in on them i they i haven't checked in to see what happened with the kids but um but i was i always loved the concept of these awesome athletes marrying another awesome isn't this what yeah was was it yeah yeah yeah was like an arranged marriage his parents weren't that one was like strategically engineered yeah they like found the seven footer in this province. China does some weird shit. Yeah, they do some.

I think I would be quite, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if the East Germans were doing the same thing in the 70s. Like, you know, they were doing so much stuff. They were doing so many other things that you would have thought this was a natural extension. They were doing so much of that. They couldn't help themselves. Let's take a quick break.

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purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com slash BS. Offer code BS. Back on families and athletes and genes. Serena and Venus being sisters is kind of underrated though. It is. Serena is probably the greatest women's athlete of all time. She's, it's athlete of all time. She's, it's actually an interesting topic.

But Venus is also probably one of, I don't know, the seven or eight best women's tennis players ever. And they were related. And they were sisters. And also very different kinds of tennis players. Totally. Yeah.

Completely different. Yeah. Yeah. But I don't think, I think a hundred years from now, when somebody is looking through, assuming we still have a planet at that point, somebody would be looking through like, wow, they were sisters. That's unbelievable. But we knew them as the sisters. So we just kind of grew up with it. But like, there's no basketball

brothers like that where one guy's a four-time MVP and the other person made all NBA four times, doesn't happen. Wait, let's think about this. What are the greatest sibling pairs? Well, in basketball, it was like nobody. It was like the Grant brothers. The Grants? Yes. The Gasols.

The Gasols. The Gasols are probably the best version of this. Probably the best. Yeah. Neither of them won the MVP. Yeah, yeah. The Gasols are probably the best version of this. Probably the best. Yeah. Neither of them won the MVP. Yeah. Yeah. It would be like if,

if Pau Gasol was Tim Duncan, that would be like the Serena Venus thing. Going back to the, to marriage, to marriages, we missed the greatest one of all time, which is Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf. Right.

And the kid ended up playing baseball. Because Steffi, people forget about Steffi that she was an amazing runner. She was a quarter miler. There's a legit claim that she could have, if she focused on track, could have gone to the Olympics in track. So we're talking about some epic genes from her

end of the conversation. Yeah. I would say if you were going to put the two together, right, and you're trying to figure out what's the perfect mix, you would want one of the people to have incredible hand eye. Yeah. And then you would want the other parent to just have like the perfect structural awesome body.

No, I think you want one parent to be a total kind of grinder, like one of those, which you want, you need to have some, you need character. We're engaging by the way in the most reprehensible form of like genetic generalizations but nonetheless no i'm just thinking what's the best blend of those two but i'm saying the blend you have the blend has got to be athletic ability but you also you want you want like someone who you want the kind of like stick-to-itiveness conscientiousness discipline, discipline up at 6 a.m. kind of thing.

But I don't think that can come from a parent. I think that's actually like luck of the lottery with a kid. Because why is Steph Curry, why was Steph Curry like that? Like, I don't think it was because like, I don't know if his parents passed that along, but I think his parents passed along this crazy hand-eye coordination that Del Curry had. Somehow that transferred to Steph.

Yeah. Because he was, you know, a great shooter in his own right. There has to be some DNA in that. How good a shooter was Del Curry? He was great. He was one of the original, like, great three-point shooters. We don't imagine that if he was around today, he would be as good as his son.

Or do we? Are we not seeing how great he is because they just didn't shoot a lot of threes i think his son is by far the greatest shooter ever yeah be interesting to ask what's interesting is people know he's the greatest shooter ever but i actually think he's by far the greatest shooter ever you don't think anyone's in the conversation yeah i actually don't even think it's a conversation i think it's like the bob beeman long jump compared to like all the other long jumps for 20 years. That's the kind of distance. I actually think he's a legitimate genetic freak with his hand eye.

The shots he can make, when he can throw them up, I actually think he might be a genius without a shoot. The angles that he sees and and how fast he can release shots you can't compare it to anybody yeah like atlanta's like trey young he's gonna be our step curry trey young he's been good i've been impressed he's not gonna be steph curry yeah like it's it's not even close steph curry they they do that drill before the games or not drill but like in the pre-game warm-ups he does that thing where he does this crazy hop step, and then he throws the ball up like 50 feet in the air, and it swishes as a layup.

Like he's honestly David Copperfield. Yeah. He's like David Blaine crossed with Reggie Miller. Yeah. That's another one, by the way, Reggie Miller and Cheryl Miller. Yes. That's a fun sibling combo. And I was thinking of the joiners.

Jackie Joyner, Kirstie, and Al Joyner. Al Joyner was- Were they related? How were they related though? Are they husband and wife or they're brother and sister? I think Flojo, they married into each other, right? Oh, this is a really good question. I thought Al Joyner was the brother.

Al Joyner, one of them married Al Joyner, I thought. Yeah, Jackie Joyner and Al Joyner are brother and sister. Al Joyner was one of the married Al Joyner, I thought. Yeah, Jackie Joyner and Al Joyner, our brother and sister. Al Joyner was one of the greatest triple jumpers in the world. And she's in the conversations being one of the greatest female athletes. I would love to see a list of the greatest female athletes ever because I was saying to you, I think Taurasi's on there, Cheryl Miller. I ride hard for Abby Wambach, which is the most controversial opinion in the greatest female athletes ever

because the way she played was so unusual for a female soccer player where she was like six foot, all in the air, all headers and physical. And like she scored most of her goals on headers. And we're just never going to see that again. I don't think there's going to be a next Abby Wambach. She's like a one-on-one.

So I, for me, she's in there, but it's a good, it's a good list. There's a good list. There's going to be some MMA. There's going to be some female MMA fighter who is going to be like

outrageously ridiculous in the next 10 years. Like a Ronda Rousey kind of like a, like a better, awesome, badass Ronda Rousey who will win a couple things and then immediately go do movies. I refuse to jump on the M&A bandwagon. If we have increasing problems with football

because of the health effects, why are we so excited about basically something that takes all the worst parts of boxing and football and combines them in one sport? It's just like you're watching people bludgeon each other and create lasting brain damage. It's a fair point that I think people have glossed over.

It is funny. We worry about the concussion crisis in football, and then people are like, ESPN's got it in boxing with a brand new rights deal. And boxing and MMA, people are trying to get their rights

left and right. The goal is to knock the other person out. I saw the most chilling football concussion thing I saw. It was a paper. I forgot by whom and in what medical journal, but I read it a couple months ago. One of the ways in which you measure the onset of dementia is in a decline in what they call lexical complexity. So the word choice, the variety and number of words that you use in normal conversation, and you can map it quite precisely. And what happens when you map lexical complexity in adults is that it increases over time until you're quite old. And then it goes into,

so your speech is much more complicated now than it was when you were 20 years old, for example. Oh, I don't know. But maybe you're the right example. I feel like my speech is worse. In general. So what this guide realizes is that in football, we have this incredible, and you need,

in order to, I should say, in order to judge lexical complexity, you need to have a database, quite a large database of your speech. So you need a number of hours of you speaking in order to get a good sample. So it's like, where can I get a number of hours of someone speaking over many years and use in a place where early dementia might be an issue? And he thinks, oh, press conferences in football. Because you have going back for 20 years, in the case of some players,

you have literally every week an hour of them talking. So he collects all of that data and he compares football players with their coaches who never played and he charts their lexical complexity. And he shows that football players particularly, and he used as an example, a quarterback who's been in the league 15 or more years. I don't know who it was. I don't want to

speculate, but I had some ideas about who it was. And he shows that these players whose less complexity should be increasing is decreasing dramatically relative to controls to their coaches. And it was was terrifying because you're realizing these are players who have no other symptoms, who are still playing at a high level, who we think of as being normal, and we're already seeing in their 30s the effects of playing in the league for that long.

Wasn't our first real exposure to this was Ali in the 70s? Yeah. Who was one of the most eloquent athletes we ever had. And by the time he's fighting Spinks, he's a different guy. I remember one of the documentaries, they put how he talked in the early 70s versus the late 70s, and it's like a different guy. Yeah. Now, I don't know why that study was the most disturbing for me.

Maybe it was because the, but it kind of, maybe it was because the idea that this kind of thing would manifest itself really early and that it would affect the way you speak seemed to be incredibly heartbreaking. So the people around him on some level must be aware that this person who was so bright and intelligent and articulate at the age of 20, now at 33 and still playing in the league, is speaking not in a more sophisticated way, but it's regressing weirdly. Do you feel like podcasts have replaced talk shows? Who? Yeah. If you're going to interview somebody would you rather interview them for seven minutes or for like an hour and a half an hour and a half i don't think there's any

there's any question i think the the rate i don't understand why radio i mean radio seems to me with the exception of like local news which is clearly has a reason to uh function i don't understand how it survives in the current climate up against um uh a medium which has so many other advantages i'm so fat i know you are too you with the whole movement of where audio and where everything's going you have a new podcast i do yes rick rubin coming yeah we've called called broken record it uh comes up this week it's our music podcast and uh it's basically me and rick and my friend bruce talking to musicians and having them play for us and but i don't there's no that show we're doing is broken record it's not has no analog in

radio like it doesn't exist you wouldn't even occur to people to do this in um and this it's that show we're doing is broken record. It's not, has no analog in radio. Like it doesn't exist. You wouldn't even occur to people to do this in. Um, and this, it's like the, this new medium is so kind of, um,

has so many, uh, possibilities, uh, that I don't see how radio competes. Why would you listen to top 40 radio when you could listen to the same artist playing for you and talking and, you know,

and talking and engaged in conversation about what they're doing. I don't know. I think radio still has the immediacy. So especially with sports radio, like this trade happened, this game just happened. This coach just got fired. What do you think?

It's more than 50% ads. True. After about 10 minutes, you want to shoot yourself. Like you, it is all like, it's just, I,

I find it complete. I don't understand how people on a day-to-day basis listen to this thing. When, when there is, when there you have to, you're waiting like 10 minutes to get three minutes of, you know, whoever's holding force.

I'm always amazed. Like just with traditional radio, how little it's changed over the last 25 years. I swear to God, this is true in Boston. When I lived in Boston in the late 90s, the big all-sports station, WEI, which we always had a love-hate, mostly hate relationship with, but they had these three shows, the morning and the midday and then the afternoon. And over the course of whatever, things changed. But now they have the same three people in the different slots

are the people from when I lived there in 1998. Yeah. The morning guy, the midday guy, and then the afternoon guy. It's all the same people 20 years later doing basically variations of the same show, which is kind of nuts when you think about it. Yeah. It's the medium that seems to change the least.

Like Mike Francesco's show right now isn't much different than the show he did with the dog. It's still, you know, coming up, we're going to talk to this guy and they talk to some coach or some player. But the experimentation, I think, has really hurt radio more than anything. Here's the other big difference.

And I thought of this because for example, you guys have been doing that thing with the podcast with David Chang, right? Yeah. Chang is someone, same thing with me doing broken record with Rick Rubin, David Chang and Rick Rubin are two people who would never have been on the radio under any circumstance,

unless once in a blue moon they were interviewed for something for five minutes they would and it wouldn't even have occurred to them to be on any to do any kind of media in that way and now the whole point about the podcast is it's drawing in all these people whose voices you never heard so the old there's not just that the format is stale in old radio. It's that the, the people involved are also stale. There's a certain kind of radio person who you heard. Now it's like, you know, A-Rod's got a, got a podcast and David Chang, you know, you can hear from a chef who in a million years would, you know, and on and on and on.

That's what. But a lot of people have been given podcasts that shouldn't have gotten a podcast. Like within, from a celebrity standpoint. I think one of the reasons like Chang's a really good example, right? He is a great hang. Yeah. And usually that translates like if you and I were going out to dinner and we

brought Chang, we would have a good time. We would talk the whole time. That usually translates to a successful, successful podcast, my opinion. But when we started working with Chang and he'll talk about this, like it was,

it was high comedy, like him trying to do the intros and that he would just get in his own head and try to be a radio guy. And we would, we must've done the first time he must've done eight takes of the first two minutes of thing. And, and he's like,

he was going to write it down. I'm like, what are you doing? Just be you. And he was so in his own head about it. And then by like the fifth episode, he's got it. And I was listening to one it down. I'm like, what are you doing? Just be you. And he was so in his own head about it. And then by like the fifth episode, he's got it. And I was listening to one of them. I was like, I called him. I was like, you figured it out. And he's like, yeah, I figured it out. Yeah. And, but he's a great example. Like he's, he's into food, but he knows all these celebrities,

but he's really passionate about these different topics. And I don't know. I just feel like it's so much more interesting than traditional radio now. What I noticed with Rick is that because he's this guy who knows all the musicians and has worked with them for years and is a sort of legend in the industry, when they come, well, I did a show with him. It hasn't aired yet,

but with Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend. Yeah. And so he comes, Ezra comes up to Rick's studio and he knows him and he trusts him. And so the conversation that ensues is a totally different kind of conversation that you would normally have between a journalist and a artist

where you have spent all this time establishing ground rules and whatever. Koenig just completely relaxes and starts playing and starts talking about in an incredible sort of personal way. And Rick's questions are different because, you know, he's worked with him and he's a musician as well. You know, this isn't, it's just a, it's a,

it's a completely different kind of interview that you would, that we're used to because we're used to the context of the interview being so being journalistic. And it's not, the interviews we do with Rick, they're not journalist interviews. They're insider interviews. Yeah. And I find that so much more interesting. It's like flying, the mics are flying the wall for a conversation that would happen anyway.

Ezra, in this interview, he starts, he picked one, it was some song he'd been puzzling over on the latest Vampire Weekend album. And he just, he picks it and he starts, he's explaining why it was so hard. And he would never, I tell you, if I was interviewing him, never have done that. He did it because he worked, I think because he worked on, or was going to work on a song with Rick or talk to Rick about it. And they were like, it just became as if I sort of melted away. And the two of them were puzzling through it. Why was that hard?

And what were you doing? And like, he picks up his guitar and he starts like playing you the different versions. It's just insane. It was like, I was just like a fly on the wall. And that's what you always, it's what you always want as a listener is you want to be in the fly, a fly on the wall, right? That's what you want. Right.

Like when you talk, when you come up with some new racial NBA draft, you would have done that at dinner and it wouldn't have been any different. We just happened to record it. Can I just say that your lack of enthusiasm for this idea. How do you say I had a lack of enthusiasm? I was completely engaged. You were like, whatever. No, I'm just, I'm just a white guy. And I had whatever. I'm just a white guy and I had

2018. I'm just scared at all times now. You're like a little bit... The millennials have spooked you. I don't know why. Come on, Bill. Listen, I asked you whether you could at least volunteer some names for the all-time white team.

You're a white guy. They're your people. I don't see you. You didn't come up with anything. Well, the names are like... Well, first of all, if it's the all-time white team. You're a white guy. They're your people. I don't see you. You didn't come up with anything. Well, the names are like, it's, well, first of all, if it's the all-time white team. It's just going to be Boston Celtics, basically. No, it's tough because you can't use the foreigners and the Europeans and all those people. It's got to be like the American white guys.

Yeah, so do it. It's not a great team. It's not a good team. Well, you have to go back into the 50s and 60s. You really have to go backwards with the coups and people like that. What a sad commentary on American whiteness that we got to go back to 1955 and Bob Cousy for our starting point guard. You're like, let's have a point guard who was born in the 20s. Well, one of your big things was you wanted a biracial team.

Because then that had like Jasonason kidd and that opened up a whole bunch of things too an argument could be made for having the all biracial team and then that gets super complicated because some people have conflicting right and we have to decide we never really figured that you gotta figure that that's getting super tricky and i would have to convene i have to convene like the national council, national biracial council, which I'll nominate myself for, um, to do some rulings. You're at least on the board of directors. One, one incendiary, uh, suggestion was that, um, we give the white team a chance. Remember in the, remember in the racial draft in Dave Chappelle where the white team drafts, uh, Tiger Woods,

do you remember that? Yeah. So one suggestion was that, that we allow the white team drafts Tiger Woods. Do you remember that? Yeah. So one suggestion was that we allow the white team to do a version of that. And so that Karl Malone could be on the white team. He lives in Utah. He lives in Utah. He's an honorary white guy. He hunts and he fishes. He's a member of the NRA, probably voted for Trump.

I mean, at a certain point, you just have to throw up your hands and say, let's give him to the white team. They could use him. He wouldn't be... If you played on Utah for that many years, it's fine. You know, he's not going to object.

Do you find you're watching as much sports as you used to watch? Bill says, changing the subject. I had that question for you. Do I watch less or more sports? I watch a lot less NFL football. I watch weirdly more college football. Okay. And I watch the same amount, if not slightly more NBA. I watch more NBA than ever, which I didn't think was possible. Yeah. I don't know how you do, but how do you? I watch football every Sunday. Yeah. Unless I have to drive my kids around.

Yeah. And then I have to, there's some, the great way, it's really easy to cheat now with like the iPhone and being able to. Can you answer a question for me? So I will say in a moment of fanboydom, that I listened to all your podcasts. And invariably you're doing a podcast

and there's a moment where something comes up obscure movie or television show comes up and it turns out you've watched all of them yeah so i i sort of do the math in my head and i'm like all right he has a full-time job yeah he's got two children and a wife he's got responsibilities he drives his daughter to soccer games in ventura county And yet you simultaneously have time to watch some of the worst TV and old movies of anyone. How do you sleep? I sleep like five,

six hours a night. Yeah. I usually get my, my movies done at like a late night, like 11 to two half asleep. And I just have a weird memory for certain things, but then a terrible memory for other things yeah because like my my uh my buddy from college jacko he'll he'll always say like

remember that time we went and i'm like i can't totally remember that but then i can remember some stupid celtic game that happened i don't i didn't ask for these weird powers or lack of whatever whatever or illness, whatever it is. I wish I could remember more things that happened in my life and less about sports. Yeah. But I think some people's brains just work certain ways. You have an enormous appetite for watching things on TV.

Yeah. Well, I mean, partly it's my job. I never wanted, especially with the pod, like Sal and I can't do that football pod if we didn't watch the games. Yeah.

You know, and if we weren't paying attention to what's going on and things like that. And I think especially, and you found this out too, when your profile raises, if you're trying to cut corners, people are going to massacre you. So you can't do it that way. And that was, I used to hate 20, 25 years ago when the people who were in positions of quote-unquote high platforms or whatever you want to say.

And you could tell they were cutting corners. Rick Riley. Where is Rick Riley? He did a great career. Cashed out. He's doing fine. He's doing fine. It's tough though it's I think you know especially

one of the things that's tough when you get older as a sports writer I think and you're not and you have to go into locker rooms and interview people you're almost at a disadvantage after a certain age thing that's something I've always watched out for even with this podcast because we've had a lot of NBA players

but I've always been able to get along with them. But at some point, I'm just going to be really old to those guys. Maybe that point is even right now. I was listening to you the other day talking about how LeBron has such difficulty relating to all those young Lakers. I was like, LeBron's 34. It was like, wait, how old are you?

We're both a lot older, yeah. I think in the NBA though that is a real thing I remember talking to Nash about that as like he was on the Suns like 2010 range in the locker room he was so much older than the guys in the locker room and even though

he wasn't that much older age wise he was still he was like a dad almost teaching them like what to eat you know i do think what do you think the generational what is it like about seven eight years for generations because i've thought about it like with people that work for the ringer i've noticed that i think the big difference is like right around age 28 29 right now because anyone under 28 cannot remember a single minute when there wasn't the internet.

Yes. So if you're... Kyle, how old are you? 24, about to be 25. Do you remember any moment of your life without the internet? No, dial-up is the hardest I ever had it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you do remember dial-up.

Oh, yeah. Have you ever worked at a rotary phone? Yes, I had grandparents Tommy how old are you you don't want to say how old you are what are you like a model oh my god

Tommy the man of mystery Tommy's the man of mystery the biggest enigma at the ringer Tommy Alter he's stealthy you gotta

you know you gotta respect it but then and then there's another part there's the generation that's probably, like that works in media, that I'm going to say is somewhere between like 32 and 35.

That's old enough to remember from like 06, 07, 08 when things crashed in media and everybody knew somebody got laid off or it was real insecurity and whatever. Those people have a different reservoir of how to regard media than I think people 25 and under. Because if you came out of college in the last three, four years, you've only seen, for the most part, a pretty positive head up.

I mean, some sites have gone under, some things have gone not so well. But for the most part, this is a really nice time to be in the content business. There's a lot of ways to go. I had this, I had a little glimpse of this and I still remember this. I once, I did a podcast episode on this. I gave a speech at Pan a couple of years ago about their football program

and how they had a kid who committed suicide and it turns out he had CTE. And I told this long story and then i talked about this and i said you know that they had a responsibility to boycott football at their school they should you know this kid died because of football football is not central to the culture of pen they should stop going to games and they should protest and everything and then we had q a and all the kids big group of kids like a couple hundred of them, maybe more. And no one was particularly interested in boycotting the games, which is fine.

I was like, well, why not? Was it because they're big football fans? No, they didn't care about football. It was because, and this is what blew me away, it was because they didn't want to attack the school. So they really liked Penn. They were deeply invested in the Penn brand name. They paid big money to go to Penn. They were super proud they got into Penn. They weren't going to protest

and be perceived as attacking Penn. In my day when I was in college, all we wanted to do was attack the school. Like the school was our enemy. Like that was, we were completely 100% antagonistic to the school. And the whole fun of being a college student was just, you know, needling people in positions of power at the school. These kids had no interest whatsoever in doing that. I was like, that is so weird. That's bizarre. I would have protested in a, when I was in college, I protested, tested things I wasn't even angry about just because it was really fun i remember in high school i remember i organized a boycott with my friend terry of the school

and i we just made up a reason we didn't have a reason we just thought it would be fun before we got school like just because that's what we were our job was right as 17 year olds but these kids were like super serious i'm i'm i'm a member of the pen community why would i do that so that's not when i was in college we were getting rid of scholarships yeah and they were moving to the picture scholarships that holy i'm one of the reasons i went to holy cross was we had really good sports like we had gordy lockbaum two years before i got there who almost won the heisman trophy you know and we were competitive and we were did one basketball and then they moved to the patriot league and they were the whole plan was basically to get rid of scholarships and we had the two people that

were in the school was father brooks and father father murky and i was like ripping them in columns for the newspaper and i called them father crooks and father malarkey. And they, one of them called me up and I had to meet with them and I was like, I'm, but, but that was the thing. But going back to your point is that's just what you did. That's what you did.

Everyone was, the administration was the enemy. Yeah. It's weird that that's changed. Yeah. It's really, I was blown away by that. I was like,

I was like, I, the end is I don't understand. I don't really understand you guys at all. That's at this point, you know, and it's, you know, my, and maybe they're right and I'm wrong by the way, but my reflect, I still have my reflexive attitude that someone in a position of power has something wrong with them. It needs to be, but apparently it's different now. Yeah.

I've been watching a lot of 70s conspiracy movies lately. I've had a run because we watched all the President's Men. I just watched Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Capricorn One. It was like this whole era of just everyone distrusting power. And entire movies built around the premise of things aren't what they seem. Don't trust whoever. And I wonder if that's going to come back now. I'm hoping that all the stuff that's happened in the last two years politically,

which we don't need to go into, is going to drift into art in the right ways. Because it just hasn't happened yet. And I want it to happen. I want new conspiracy movies. You know, like we have to get out our anxiety about all this stuff in some way. It might as well be art. It certainly has.

Music's been disappointing so far in this respect. Yeah. What's interesting is the decline in the notion of, I mean, what we're really talking about here is the idea of iconoclasm as an end in itself. In other words, that you, regardless of your reasons for doing, for idea of iconoclasm as an end in itself in other words that you regardless of your reasons for doing for being an iconic class you just have a duty if you're 17 to be as weird and individual as you can that was taken you know in the 60s 70s that's

sort of taken for granted yeah and kind of like so like in 1975, if Google and Apple and Facebook and Amazon existed, we would be very angry with them just because they were this big. I mean, you could argue we should be way more angry now with Facebook. Oh, I mean, absolutely. Like really, really like people just deleting it from their phones and all that stuff. All that stuff should have happened. I got, I recently, I was thinking about how pathetic, even my own iconoclasm has declined dramatically. I realized, I got very upset by the notion that I realized,

oh, I have an iPhone and I have an Apple computer and I'm completely owned and operated by the Apple universe. So I got rid of my Apple Mac, MacBook, and I replaced it with a Google laptop. That is like how pathetic my iconoclasm is. That was your way of rebelling? That's right. I have traded in one monopolist for another and I've considered myself somehow better off.

Unbelievable. Yeah. I remember 20 years ago when people were saying someday, and it's not going to be that far away, you'll be able to buy everything on your computer. Remember? You put your credit card in there and then some people would do it and far away, you'll be able to buy everything on your computer. Remember? You put your credit card in there. And then some people would do it. They'd be like, I'm not doing that.

No way, man. They'll steal my information. They'll take everything. And that was the attitude for a couple of years. And then gradually people started to do a little. And now the attitude seems to be, ah, we're all fucked. They have everything. They know every place I've been on the internet in the last 20 years.

And anyone can hack my identity at any time. And this is, we're all screwed. While we're on the hacking, I bought this up before, but no one has ever given me a satisfactory answer for this. And here I am going to delicately touch on the politics of the last two years.

Yes. So regardless of your weather of your- Hold on. Let's take this to one quick break. One more break to talk about my friends at Hotel Tonight. Here's a little insider travel secret from my friends at Hotel Tonight. I just told you I was friends with them. There are tons of empty hotel rooms out there just waiting to be booked.

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Guess where I'm going? Hotel Tonight. Start scoring amazing deals at incredible hotels. Go to hoteltonight.com or download the app right now. All right, we're back. Regardless of your political affiliation, you will concede that one of the great mysteries of contemporary American politics is what is in President Trump's tax returns, right? Now, this is, when you think about it, a massive puzzle. Everything else in American life leaks. So some of the most prized crown jewels of the American intelligence community, closely held by the NSA,

acquired at the cost of many billions of dollars. They're all like in the hands of Russian hackers. Russians hacked their, the Koreans hacked their way into Sony. The Russians hacked their way into the, everything's been hacked except for the IRS. Somehow no one has hacked into the IRS and given us Trump's tax returns. How is this possible? Everything, Bill, everything else has been hacked. But what if he didn't even put in tax returns? Well, that's another, but like, so there are several possibilities here. One, they don't exist, which I don't believe. Two, the IRS, lone among all institutions in the world right now, has conquered the computer security problem. Somehow there's a set of geniuses at the IRS who like are laughing into their sleeve and saying,

everyone else out there has no idea what they're doing, but only us, you know, out in wherever they are. Where's the IRS? Somewhere in suburban Maryland. We've like cracked the case. Or I don't know, what's the other explanation do you have another explanation how come they can't get them maybe it's not on computers this i mean that doesn't that just makes it easier okay so it's in a file so some guy at the irs some clerk can't go open the true and just take them and photocopy that's the you have your i don't have a i don't have another explanation isn't it I just find this absolutely baffling. Makes no sense.

And you would be, I mean, you could sell them for a million dollars. I mean, it's like, they're gold. The most baffling thing I heard recently was nephew Kyle's roommate who meets girls all the time. Don't get nervous, Kyle. It's not about me, so that's cool. So now the new thing is they exchange Instagram handles.

That's how you get a girl's number now, or a lady's number. Whatever age range we're talking about. They'll meet somebody in LA, and instead of saying, here's my number, and then you don't have to worry, you have to worry about some dude calling you over and over again, and you

eventually have to block them. You give them your Instagram handle, and then they follow you and you DM, and then if you decide you don't like how the DMs are going, you block them, but you've gotten a follower out of it. And I thought, I thought, if anything explains

2018, it's that. Fear of being harassed by somebody combined with, well, at least I get a follower out of it. 2018, everybody. No wonder we're so fucked up. Oh, my God. Unbelievable. But yeah.

So now it's like, hey, man, can I have your Instagram? By the way, do you Instagram, Bill? I do. I, I am, I have one of the top 10 follower numbers of any white guy over the age of 48. I'm in the top 10. You should actually keep like a, a running list of that. I do. I've actually thought of other old people on Instagram. I am convinced I'm like in the top 12. It's like me and Will Smith. People over 45. I wonder whether they would provide... Who else is on Instagram who's over 45? Any older guy?

No, not just white guy. You're probably in the top 10, but not a lot. There can't be that many old people over the age of 45 on Instagram. No actors or anything. Jack Nicholson's not on Instagram. Matt Damon's not on there. No, he's not on Instagram. No actors or anything do it. No athletes. No, like Jack Nicholson's not on Instagram. Matt Damon's not on there.

No, he's not on it. Oh, you know who, how old's Nas? Nas has a good Instagram. I'm over 45 though. Not over 45. Yeah, so the senior, senior social media tour,

I'm doing really well. I got my long putter. You, that's very, very impressive. I'm really excited about it. I really know how to resonate with those kids. I can't bring my, I can't even. Twitter is as far as I'll go.

And I think Twitter, by the way, I'm convinced it's useless. I really think it's useless. Like, I don't think anyone ever was convinced doing anything on Twitter. It's only useful for like a chuckle or a snarl that goes away within seconds. That's it's entire Twitter. The crazy thing about Twitter is there's like a hundred times more downside than upside all the time. Yeah.

I like Instagram the most. If I had to power rank my social media, Instagram is like just pictures and there's really no way to get, I'm not being preached. I'm not, I'm not, uh, I'm not really able to be a complete asshole. And if I am, it's not like whatever, like it has all these checks and balances to it. And it's just like, is this picture look cool? Did you like this picture? You know, it's a really great test case of this. If the president only Instagrammed and didn't tweet, just think how much healthier American politics would be right now. He would be forced to just have poses of him and like Melania,

you know, we're doing, or him eating hamburgers and drinking Diet Cokes. Like just like really banal stuff. And the whole temperature would be lowered of American politics. I really wish it wasn't a my party versus the other party type thing. And we couldn't just all agree that. Just fundamentally,

he's just bad at leading. Or they could say he's bad at social media. He's bad at that too. California, we have the worst fires. Like it was certainly the biggest natural disaster we've had since I've been here.

Yeah. And truly scary. And at one point, it really seemed like Malibu was going to like burn down and Calabasas and that whole area. And some pieces of it did. And you had not nearly enough firefighters

and people can't evacuate and there's no hotel rooms. And we have no idea if the winds are going to shift and it's just going to basically take out all of Southern California. And by the way, it can't still be ruled out on Monday here. But he comes in, and his tweet is about how they have to get their acts together with the forests and the federal, whatever the hell he said, with the federal government and- Or no money.

Or your money's going to get cut off. And it's like, how is that a leadership moment for you? That's your leadership? Yeah. It's just, I've never seen anything like it. Somebody who consistently makes the wrong decisions over and over again and just had to make a large group of people feel good. Yeah. He's just terrible at it. Somebody who consistently makes the wrong decisions over and over again and just had to make like a large group of people feel good.

Yeah. He's just terrible at it. Not, yeah, not terribly. I was, I honestly, it's incredible.

I think we're going to look back at this much later in life and we're going to be like, wow, that was incredible. How did this happen? I think what's going to happen is, you know, people always talk about how the, there'll be long-term consequences, uh, to this four years of Trump.

I think the opposite, what'll happen 20 years from now is people will just pretend that, uh, that this particular era, 2016 to 2020, there'll just be like a gap. You'll read the history book and like, there'll be a gap. They'll just jump from 2016 straight to 2020. They'll just be like a gap. You'll read the history book and like, there'll be a gap. They'll just jump from 2016 straight to 2020. They'll just pretend that this was like, it'll just be, he'll just be erased from the.

So you'll be like those, those NBA stretches where you're like, ah, the late nineties. Yeah. After MJ retired, that sucked.

Let's just skip forward. Let's fast forward to when LeBron started to take off. It happens. You know, there are, there are periods of where people just, like who remembers, you know, it's a

good example of this. Everyone remembers Vietnam. Everyone remembers World War II. Nobody remembers. Korea doesn't get talked about. No. We just skipped over Korea. We just rather not talk about it.

So there are historical analogs for this kind of selective amnesia. I think we've had a lot of terrible presidents. We've had a lot of terrible things happen. Democrats and Republicans. He happens to be the most terrible leader we've had. He has no interest in even appealing to anybody that is in his base. But I think it's easy to forget how many bad presidents we've had and how many bad things have happened.

Like LBJj not a great guy yeah i mean yeah mixed i mean we we've had he did some good things and did some did some terrible things but he did some terrible things nixon not a great guy yeah i'm not sure bill clinton you know some of the stuff he did during his presidency is like i don't know it just seems like that office once people have that much power i think it makes people crazy a little bit we are one of my working themes i will say if i might if i might toot my cleaning horn for a moment yeah the if you want to talk you want to talk about sort of leadership qualities. Canada, in the last 50 years, has had the number one coolest leader of any, I think almost of any country in the world. Pierre Trudeau, late 60s,

early 70s, was a world-class intellectual, an extraordinary athlete. He drove a Mercedes Gullwing. He dated everyone, Barbra Streisand, and then married this unbelievably gorgeous woman. He was hilarious. He was like an amazing dancer. He dressed fantastically. He was like, you couldn't even dream. He made Kennedy look like a wallflower, JFK. He was like, I don't know if you know this about, this is Justin Trudeau, the current prime minister's father. It's like an epically cool guy. I have in my house up on the wall, just a huge photo of Pierre Trudeau. I worship the man. Well, you think about the, all right, so the NBA is a parallel to the presidency, right? The commissioner is basically the president of the

NBA's universe. And most of the commissioners of the NBA were horrible leading up to Stern. And Stern did a really good job for about 22 of the 30 years. And the last five or six, he was horrible. He was terrible. I was killing him left and right in my column. He did so many things and he was so arrogant and such a hypocrite with stuff like the saving basketball in New Orleans, but just completely effing over everyone in Seattle.

And he was just all over the map. And then Adam Silver came in. And then it was like, oh, yeah, this guy knows what he's doing. This is cool. Whoa. And then things make sense again. And I just think it's really hard to be in charge of a giant company. I even saw that at ESPN with Skipper.

That job was so big, it swallowed him up. And he talks about it pretty openly now. Yeah. It's not necessarily a slam dunk that whoever replaces Trump, whenever that is, is going to be like, oh, thank God, breath of fresh air. This is going to be awesome. It might just be somebody else who's terrible. Yeah.

From either party. The bar will be lowered. True. It's going to be, it'll be easier to look good. It's like always. True. You'll want to,

if you ever want, if there's ever someone you want to follow, it would be Trump. Trump, there's, the one thing is the handshakes I've enjoyed. The handshake kind of... You saw the famous Justin Trudeau. Oh yeah, did you see

this stuff this week when he was in Europe? No, I didn't see it. Were they circling each other? Somebody he'd had a handshake with before that was a really ferocious one and it was like the rematch. The handshake rematch. I was like, alrightatch, the handshake rematch. I was like, all right, this is pretty good Trump content.

This doesn't make up for the other stuff. I was going to talk about this with Tommy. If Beto O'Rourke hypothetically would have win the Democratic nomination, then at the debate, it would be Beto and Trump. And Beto is like big guy, right? How tall is he? Six four. So he's taller than Trump. He's six four? Oh, that's good. So the hands tall is he? Six four. So he's tall.

Six four. Oh, that's good. So the handshake is going to be epic. It's going to be like in four parts. There's going to be, it could go on for minutes. See, I think if he's actually going to run, because I do think one of the biggest things with Trump is how physically imposing he is. Yeah.

And he uses it to his advantage, most famously in the debate with Hillary when he stalked her on the stage like a psychopath. But if Beto's going to really run for it and get the nomination, he's got to go train with The Rock. He does. He needs to actually be physically more opposed. They can win a fight. And then Trump's like this six-foot-four guy in his mid-70s who's high blood pressure. And here's Beto who's like, who's like.

Beto's got to spend some time in Miami, if you know what I'm saying. Oh yeah. He needs to get involved on one of those. Yeah. One of those, what are they? What was the thing A-Rod was in? The Biogenesis Clinic scandals. That's right.

Beto. What's the machine they all claim is responsible for their fitness? The one in the gym the climbing ladder yeah yeah Beto's gotta get himself a quote climbing ladder oh yeah what's that thing called

it's Jacob's Ladder it's called Jacob's Ladder isn't it called Jacob's Ladder no it's like I know what you're talking about I tried one at the gym the other day

and I was like Ursaflex or something yeah so he needs to be like 6'4 245 yeah and just ripped yeah and wearing like

wearing those shirts where he's wearing the man's medium shirt even though he's 6'4", 245. Yeah, I think so. And just ripped. Yeah. And wearing those shirts where he's wearing the man's medium shirt, even though he's 6'4", whereas his sleeves are just coming out of it. That's the move of Trump. You need to beat him physically. Yeah, a lot of this is about pecs and abs. I think your chest has got to be bursting at the seams

to get the proper kind of manliness. Because Trump in three years, remember he's going to be in two years from now, he's going to be in even worse shape. Probably put on some more weight. He's just lying around like eating junk food and watching Fox. I mean, it's not like he's hitting the gym.

So you can really put some distance between yourself and him. Yeah, I always wonder about that, him from a health standpoint. It's not good. It can't be good. Unless he's not a human being, which can't be ruled out. He might be. He's burned every day. It can't be good. Unless he's not a human being, which can't be ruled out.

He might be. Is that true? There's a lot of burgers. Plays golf. Got cheeseburgers and Diet Coke. Meanwhile, Beto's like in Austin, like having like a, you know, a poke bowl and like lots of kale. He's not eating cheeseburgers. He's like. That could actually cause the civil war if it's Beto versus Trump.

That could be it. Is Beto, have we had, who's the, who is the, there was a great thing that this running magazine that I love did where they said if there was a 5K involving all presidents in history, who would win the 5K?

It's JFK's last. He could barely move. He could barely move. And I think the argument was that Lincoln would be a surprisingly good—the obvious answer is Obama, because he's half Kenyan. Well, and also stayed in good shape. He stayed in good shape, and he looks like a runner. Bill Clinton would probably pass out halfway through the thing

but the the stealth choice so there's two recent American presidents who are W W was a very good runner and Jimmy Carter wasn't bad

he at least trained and he was like a he was like a remember he's like a he's a Navy guy like he was not he was in shape he ran road races

remember he famously collapsed in a in a road guy. Like he was not, he was in shape. He ran road races. Maybe famously collapsed in a road race once when he was president. But W would be, is the kind of dark horse. We think he could probably run a 21 or 22 minute 5K, which for a president's pretty good.

But if Obama- Well, didn't Reagan play football? Do I get young Reagan or do I get older Reagan? No, I think you get, it's the same rules as, same rules as my- I get apex athletic Reagan. I get older Reagan? I think you get, it's the same rules as my- I get apex athletic Reagan.

So he would have been good. Do I get- You get him in the prime. Do I get FDR when he was healthier? Yeah, I think you get him everyone in the prime. Because I think he might've been a good athlete too. George Washington, I think might be a surprising, he's a battle hardened-

Well, Teddy was a great athlete, Teddy Roosevelt. Yeah, he's not. Remember that? He's not built like a runner though. This is 5K, he's not. Oh, that's true. Teddy's barrel chest. He might knock some-hardened. Well, Teddy was a great athlete. Teddy Roosevelt. Yeah, he's not. Remember that? He's not built like a runner, though. This is 5K. He's not. Oh, that's true. Yeah, yeah.

Teddy's barrel chest. He might knock some people over, though. You got to look for the skinnier guys. You know who wins? Who? Nixon. Figures out a way to cheat. Yeah.

He's like, he Rosie Ruiz-es it. It's like at the last second. Wait, Nixon's winning? Where was he? We had cameras the whole time. He's just limping a lot. Anything else you got to plug? Just had cameras the whole time. He's just limping. Look, uh, anything else you got to plug?

Uh, just my podcast, broken record. Subscribe now. What happened to a revisionist history? It's coming a second season or pardon me. Fourth season is coming in, uh,

in the spring. I'm working, starting on that, working on that now. You not, you not interviewing me for any episode of that is one of the great insults of my life. Come on. I give you time. You did one for me where we of that is one of the great insults of my life. Come on. I give you time.

You did one for me where we did like some sort of something. You interviewed me at my house and then you like scrapped that episode. My feelings were hurt. I'm holding it in reserve. Oh, it's like backup. It gets released in the box set. It's like a B-side podcast. I'm looking for an episode worthy of you.

I can't just squander you on any old idea. Maybe why somebody's brain only remembers certain things and not other things. I can't remember anything from my junior year in college, but I can remember all the sporting events that happened that year. My five-part series celebrating Nigerian athletes. Maybe I'll bring you in to give some commentary. I just don't understand why that wasn't African athletes. Because it's way more- It was like you were the head of PR for Nigeria with some other concept. No, I am in the tank for Nigerians, first of all. But more than that, it's not interesting if it's

all of Africa, because then you're like, duh. It's only interesting if you pick a discrete place and you make an argument that it's better than the, right? And also because Nigerians are so, they're hilariously chauvinistic. They're like the most patriotic people you've ever met in your life. And they will just, their joy in this being called the Nigerian team is just, you know, I can't deny the man. Are we seeing a sub two hour marathon in my lifetime? Not well, so didn't somebody do two Oh two or two Oh three. Kipchoge has now gotten us very, very close to two Oh two. Um, but it's one of the most

astronomical athletic feats of our lifetime. If you didn't watch that Berlin Marathon, it's just an extraordinary thing. It's really hard to believe. And we were witnessing right now someone who's probably the greatest distance runner in history. So he probably can't do it. So we have to have another unicorn come along. And two minutes in the marathon is a long time, right?

That's two hours. No, we're two, we're two minutes. Oh, they shave two minutes off. Shave two minutes is not 60. So you got to shave off two,

two and a half seconds per mile, basically. Uh, no, four seconds a mile, uh, 26 miles. So four seconds a mile.

Um, yeah. So that's, boy, that was miles. So four seconds a mile. Yeah. Boy, that was embarrassing. I got like a 690 on math on my SATs. Somehow mangled that one. You, the, yeah, so it's not, I mean, it probably will happen, but maybe when we're really old, I don't see it happening anytime soon. I'm prepared for anything with sports.

I think someone will dunk from the three-point line in my lifetime. It's probably going to be Zion Williamson. Oh my God. Just jumping off somebody. All right, Gladwell. This was fun. This was very fun. Thanks for coming on. All right. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to go to ZipRecruiter.com slash BS.

Thanks to Chris Ryan. Thanks to Malcolm Gladwell. Don't forget to check out his new podcastruiter.com slash BS thanks to Chris Ryan thanks to Malcolm Gladwell don't forget to check out his new podcast thanks to TheRinger.com and if you like The Ringer check out the new video we put up

the One Shining Podcast video I think it's really good the season preview it's really good Nephew Kyle makes an appearance I think everyone in The Ringer made an appearance Chris Ryan MVP

yeah we're back later in the week Conan O'Brien finally came in we actually taped that one today and it's great. I can't believe he hasn't been on the pod before. That's coming up later this week. We might do four pods. I'm not sure. Stay tuned until then. I don't have a few years with him on the wayside

on the first I never said I don't have