The Bill Simmons Podcast - Embiid for MVP, Tiger’s Future, Taylor Swift, and ‘Boogie’ With Joe House, Nathan Hubbard, and Eddie Huang

Episode Date: March 5, 2021

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Joe House to revisit the NBA MVP discussion and Joel Embiid. They talk MVP odds and some predictions for after the All-Star break (3:00). Then Bill and House are joined by Nathan Hubbard to discuss Tiger Woods's serious car accident and his future in golf as well as the PGA Tour (40:00). Then Bill and Nathan discuss the new Ringer podcast 'Every Single Album: Taylor Swift' with Nathan and Nora Princiotti, as well as Jay-Z selling Tidal to Square (50:00). Finally Bill talks with writer-director and renowned chef Eddie Huang about his new film 'Boogie,' Eddie's inspiration for the film, sports movie structure, and working with Pop Smoke (1:07:30). They also discuss the state of restaurants a year into the coronavirus pandemic, as well as the New York Knicks making fans proud again (1:29:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sunday night on the Ringer Dish podcast, we're premiering a brand new podcast. It's called Every Single Album. It's going to be running twice a week on Ringer Dish over these next five weeks. Nathan Hubbard, Norm Princiati, breaking down every single Taylor Swift album as we head toward the re-release. Nathan's coming up in one second to talk about it. Subscribe to the Ringer Dish right now. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gang's here. You're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great

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age. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back what you think in those first few weeks and then zag the other way, if you were wrong, you could bet on new and fun markets on FanDuel, like to catch your pass, same game parlays, highest scoring game across the Sunday slate, offensive TDs, the next drive. They have so much

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to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. We're also brought to you by TheRinger.com as well as The Ringer Podcast Network. Hey, R2C2, CeCe Sabathia, Ryan Rucco, they had Gleyber Torres on the podcast. That must mean it's baseball season

when Yankees start popping up on R2C2 because it looks like they had Brett Gardner as well this week. They have to stop. Enough with the Yankees. I don't know what we're doing. Maybe working a Boston player for every three Yankees.

I have to talk to CC about that. But check out R2C2, CC Sabathia and Ryan Rucco. Coming up, I'm going to talk to Joe House about the NBA MVP odds and the favorite, Joel Embiid,

at the halfway point, as well as what's happening with Tiger Woods. We're bringing in his fairway rolling host, co-host Nathan Hubbard to talk about that. Then Nathan's going to tell us about his new podcast about Taylor Swift on the Ringer Dish podcast network that launches Sunday night. And then Eddie Wong has a movie coming out, boogie, sports movie. And he hasn't been on in, I think like two

years. So had him on as well. This is an action-packed two hours, a lot going on. What do I have for you? I have basketball, I have golf, I have music, and I have movies and some food. And then Eddie talks about the Knicks at the end. I can't do better than this. First Pearl Jam. All right, taping this a little after 4 o'clock on Thursday. Joe House is here. There are some NBA games tonight, and then we head into a quick all-star break. And it seemed like a nice time to look at the MVP race

as we hit the halfway point. The reason House is on, other than we haven't seen him in a while, we love talking basketball with him. House has somehow managed to bet on every single MVP candidate. I don't know how you did it, House. I think you lose the money no matter who wins,

but you could say you had the winner. Congratulations. No, that's not true. I have a question for you before we get going. Yeah. What do you think the over-under on vodka soda lemonades that I had this afternoon was? Wait a second. This is Drunk House?

Drunk House is here? I'm not. It's Buzz House. Buzz House. Because I had to drive myself home, but it is getting warm here out on the East Coast. Yeah. And golf season, you can officially start entering scores on March the 15th, so I'm revving up.

And I was out on the golf course from out with a couple of buddies. Got to have a drink. I loved how you told me you had to start late because you had some work stuff. And you did have some work stuff it was just on a golf course with some vodka tonics it really was work I hosted some lawyer guys that I need some business out of

that's how we do the business brother alright so let's go backwards who don't you have for MVP alright let's just go through it you have Embiid I have Embiid you have LeBron You have LeBron. I have LeBron. Do you have Luca? I do not have Luca. I'm out on Luca. I was out. I didn't like

the price at the beginning of this season. I don't like the price now. I, I, you know, maybe you have to twist my arm. If they reel off, you know, if they go 18 of over the next 20 games, they go on a crazy winning streak. Maybe I'll count and it's it, but I'm not on Luca right now. Jokic. Yes, you have some Jokic, right? I have a taste. I don't think I have any Jokic. Honestly, I don't think I have Damer

Curry. No, neither one of those. You do have Durant who is out of the rent. I bet Durant twice once before the season started and then once inant who is out of the race. I bet Durant twice. Once before the season started and then once in the first two weeks of the season just because the price was great before the season started

and then he came out and started playing great and I felt like, oh, I should just go ahead and neither one of those bets were big bets. It was just the odds were in the 12 to 14 to 1 range. So go ahead and grab him. And you have LeBron who we mentioned here, the odds right now. I have Anthony Davis. That's the other one that I have.

I forgot. We had a whole Anthony Davis case about how- That was before the season. That was like a LeBron hedge just to put that in place. Because one of those two guys is going to be in the conversation. We talked this through before the season started. I don't regret doing a little Anthony Davis. those two guys is in the car going to be in the conversation. We talked this through before the season started. I don't regret doing a little Anthony Davis. Here's where we stand now. Odds courtesy of FanDuel. Joel Embiid is our favorite at plus two 10. LeBron trails him at plus two 60 Yokeage plus four 20 Curry, 12 to one Giannis, 18 to one James Harden, 18 to one. Look at Donchik, 18 to one. Dame and Kawhi are both 21 to one.

And the only other mildly interesting one is Donovan Mitchell at 65 to one, but the jazz went a little tailspin the last week. All right, house, here we go. I have a question for you before you get started though. Yeah. I want to know,

is there any Phoenix player on that list? I'm interested in, I want one Phoenix player. Devin Booker, 85 to one. Okay. So that's worth $50. No, it's really not. Please don't do that.

Just set the $50 on fire. Devin Booker's now, he didn't make the all-star team. What if Phoenix ends up with the best record in the West? No, that's not happening either. Stop. All right. Why isn't that happening? It's not.

They're not. A Phoenix Sun is not winning the MVP. Booker would have to score 35 again the second half of the year. Here's who's going to win the MVP if he stays healthy. Joel Embiid. Okay. He, once again, on a huge stage, a really fun league pass battle on Wednesday night, Utah and Philly.

He hit a game tying three. That was a high degree of difficulty game tying three. He was awesome. What did he end up with? Like 40 plus points, 19 rebounds. 40 and 19. 40 and 19. So for the season, he's 30, 12, three assists, 30 and 12, basically. 52, 42,86 shooting splits.

Like kind of closer to the 50-40-90 club than I was prepared for. 11.6 free throw attempts a game. He's averaging only three, three point field goals, which I know that was an issue for you. So he's kept that down. It only takes three a game. 31.2 PER.

I'm going to tell you this, House. Here's the complete list of centers, NBA history, who have gone for 29 and 12 and shot 10 plus free throw attempts in a game. Will Chamberlain seven times. Shaq twice. Moses Malone once. That's our entire list of centers who have done this which leads me to my big point

this is like a vintage Shaq season now for Embiid statistically impact wise he's having these overpowering nights like that night against Chicago where he just completely destroyed them the difference between him and Shaq is that

you can actually go to him in the last two minutes of a game. He can actually create a shot, get to the free throw line. He's a good free throw shooter. Or in the case with Utah last night, they're down three with 10 seconds left. He dribbles out three point line, double pumps and makes a three with a hand in his face, which raises the point. Who's a better person to shoot an end of the game down three, three than Embiid because seven foot three, you can't block it. You might foul him. I've seen everything I've needed to see so far from him.

The only thing would be the games. He's played 30 out of 36. But other than that, to me, he is hands down the MVP. It's not an argument. So you and I are in violent agreement, but I want to have one quick quibble, one quick point of disagreeance, which is let's not use Joel Embiid's name in the same breath as Shaq. Let's not do that yet. Yet. I'm saying yet.

Okay. So, so here's the case why we can't do that because Shaq for three straight playoffs annihilated everybody when three straight finals MVPs. And when the real money was on the line, took it to another level and became like a 35 and 15 type guy. We have no idea if MB can do that yet. I'm saying regular season and bead has reached regular season Shaq potential. We have 30 games, finally, 30 games of the potential of Joel Embiid. Like a really great run. We finally scratched the surface of what this dude can be about.

We've been begging for it. You, me, Rosillo, everybody across the whole ringer board. Every Philly fan. every Philly fan. We've been begging for it for Christ's sakes. Get this guy, the ball in places where he can do some work. Don't let him settle for the easy, lazy shot. Let's get to the free throw line. And by God, that's the thing. That's the stat to me. That is the most compelling, the real thing that distinguishes him. The real thing that, that puts him in position as the front runner of the MVP. It's getting to the free throw line, the way a guy with his tools

and his advantages should. It's what we've been begging for and he's doing it and it's great to see. And, and I love it. He's played 30 games. He's been in the free throw line 348 times. Awesome. And Shaq has some, Shaq was like 10, around 10 and up free throw attempts every year. And then he spiked because hack of Shaq started and he was in the 13, 14 range. The difference between him and Shaq is he's a much better, uh, free throw shooter. He's in the mid eighties. Shaq was in the mid fifties. So when you foul him, especially at the end of games, and it's a little like Zion's not as good of a free throw shooter, but same thing. Cause Zion at the end of these games is figuring out, just throw my body, be athletic,

throw my body into people. I'll get a call and beads getting these calls. He's actually getting superstar respect. It feels like in Utah had a little hissy fit on Wednesday night about it. And it happened against the Celtics earlier in the year too, where he's getting like touch foul calls and he's seven foot three. And it's like, all right, if you're going to call him that way, let's just hand him the title there. You're not going to be able to guard him. But I don't really have any argument with that. I mean, that is the, the big guy prerogative. This is like, you know, he has a skillset that distinguishes him from everybody else. When he asserts his will, when he's down in that low post, he's getting hit.

There's no question that he's getting hit. Shaq had this prerogative Shaq. They could have called, you know, uh, another 25% of, of the times that shack was in the low post, he definitely got fouled and they didn't call it. So, you know, this is, and in the era that we are in where, you know, it's, it's, uh, uh, spread five and, and, and motion kind of offense, seeing a giant guy with the ball in the low post or near the basket, it sets it up as an easy call for the refs. And this, you know,

there's been a lot of complaining about the refs through this first portion of the season. All deserved. Yeah, sure. But like, and B makes it easy. He gets the ball and he gets hit and he's down low. That's not a hard, you know, foul call to make. The refs don't have a hard decision there. It's not a giant judgment call. And the Sixers do outpace their opponents night in and night out and get into

the free throw line. That's a good strategy. Doc is a good coach. Darryl Moore is a good GM. They're smart and he's doing the right thing. Well, he has more spacing too. I really liked that crunch time five and sometimes it'll change. Sometimes thigh ball being there, but when it's, it's Curry and Simmons and Embiid and Tobias Harris, who's been really terrific this year. And then they either put a shooter in the fifth spot or they'll play thigh ball if they really need offense.

But just having Curry out there, sometimes shake Milton too, if he's feeling it, whatever. But, um, it just seems like Embiid has more space and look, we don't have to pile on Brett Brown for seven hours, but the reality is Embiid last year in that, in the bubble, in that Celtics playoff series for the amount of talent he has, it was an embarrassment and he he was in, for what his talent was, it was a bummer that it felt like we left last season going, he might not get there. He has the talent, but he can't seem to figure out,

get in shape, get to the free throw line, stop dowling 25 feet from the basket, overpower people. I feel like he's overpowering people. And comparing him at least to regular season Shaq, look, they had to literally change rules for Shaq. I don't think Embiid is at that point. They change basketball rules to try to make it easier for teams to defend Shaq. We're not at that point yet, right?

No, and we got 30 games out of Embiid. But I deliberately... But there's the overpowering piece. Right. No. And we got 30 games out of MB, but I, but there's the, the overpowering piece reminds me of Shaq. And to be honest, wasn't sure I was going to see it again with the center in our lifetime. It felt like Shaq took this. It felt like Shaq took the center position with them when he kind of faded into whatever he became in Phoenix and Cleveland. And it was just never going to be that position again. Well, this is what's going to be fascinating about the career trajectory of Giannis, of the freak. What if the freak decides that the most efficient way for him to be an incredible basketball player,

he's already incredible, but what if he wants to get to the free throw line 14 or 15 times a game and be around the basket? Yes, exactly right. That's a fascinating thing for us to keep an eye on as his career develops. I do have a quick question for you. Do you have any appetite for some Utah slander tonight? You have any any any interest or desire in any Utah slander? No, I think they are what they are.

I think every year there's a rabbit team and we get excited about them, but you saw it in that Phil Utah game. There's a lot of times in these last three, four minutes where they're just not going to have the best part in the court. And, you know, there's 10 teams that they could play where they're just not going to have the best guy in the game. So that's a hard one to overcome.

I don't want to make jazz fans mad at me. Please don't. They're vicious. They're like those little dogs that just... Don't pet the dog. He's really friendly, but just don't pet them. I mean, the Gobert Defensive Player of the Year thing. Everybody in social media, amongst our friend crew, everybody in the sporting public is like look what mb just did the defensive player of the year yeah i'm just over it like can we can we just stop with gobert as the defensive player of the year like for me it's ben simmons i i think he's done the

most interesting stuff night to night on the defense i i understand the analytics and the support for gobert year over year the impact that he has in the regular season. I just can't get my mind around the idea of a guy who gets a league award defensive player, the best defensive player in the entire league. And he can't play against certain teams. He flat out can't play against the Houston Rockets in the previous iterations. Yeah. And, and, and Utah has Phoenix has made the Clippers did that. Yeah. They made it to the second round twice in the last handful of years. Like I just, it's just a tough one. I'll leave it at that. Simmons is my defensive player of the year so far. Well, did you see what he did against Mitchell last night?

I mean, I was very aware of it. You mean when Donovan Mitchell went 12 for 34 and took horrible shots down the stretch because he had a six foot 10 maniac guarding him? That's right. So the Embiid thing, I think it's such a thrilling development. And you know, it's been this

weird season, all these COVID things. We had two huge trades. There's been a lot to keep track of. But Embiid blossoming into this dude when, you know, we sit on these podcasts or in the studio shows and we talk about, ah, if this guy only did this, if this guy only did that, this is the guy. I remember going to that workout in LA in 2014 for the draft and coming out of it going, this guy has to be the first pick for, I can't

believe what I just saw. This guy's an incredible athlete. He could shoot threes. His footwork was amazing. He had awesome hands. Like how is this guy not the number one pick? And then he got hurt. Um, and then it seemed like the rub with him was always going to be, can't stay on the court. Or if he does stay on the court, doesn't seem to get the whole concept of, I need to be able to play all four quarters. I just feel like he gets it. And then there's this wow factor with him in some of these games where you're just like, wow, that three he hit last night against Utah. That was like, wow.

I can't think of a single center in the history of the league who hits that shot. In the history of the league. I mean, come on. Who? Hakeem? Maybe Hakeem? What do we call it? Dirk DeWiskey was never a center.

He was a power forward. Yeah, he's a power forward. I'm saying a guy, a 7'3 guy dribbling backwards, knowing he needs to get off a three. Two guys draped all over him, and it was fucking money. It was awesome. It was awesome. That's it. That's it.

That's what you want in you on your, uh, MVP resume is a wow moment. A wow shot. He gave it to us right at the midpoint of the season, set us up perfectly for this conversation. he sent it a few times cause there was a Boston game. He ripped them apart.

Yeah. Bulls game on a Friday night and ESPN. He's had a couple of like big spotlight games. Yes. Well, I just, I, you know,

it's exactly what we want and you know, I'm knocking on wood loudly. Stay healthy. Get laid. If he gets to what's, what's the minimum number of games that we feel comfortable with him getting to, to give him the MVP.

Great question. Uh, 72 game season may, might be 71 in a couple of cases who knows. And so this is the Harden question, right? Harden's only played 23 games. His stats are great. He's switched teams. He's played 23 and 37 games. I think you have to be in the high fifties to realistically be considered. That's, that's, that's pretty generous. Harden can't win it because you can't do what he did to Houston and win the MVP.

It's all fine. He came back yesterday. He waved at everybody. So all is forgiven. They're going to put his jersey in the Raptors. It should have a knife in the back. Shaq's best season or Shaq's MVP season

2000, he was 30- 14, 57% field goal, 54% free throw, 3.0 blocks a game. We didn't even mention Embiid's defense. I mean, he's one of the four or five most important defensive players we have too. He's on the list. Finally. Somehow we talked about it for 15 minutes, didn Didn't mention that Shaq got to the line, 10.4 free throw attempts to gain that year, 30.6 PR and beats 31.2 PR. My point is, look,

they're, they're different players and they're playing in different eras, but the stats are similar and the impact feels similar. And I'm really psyched. I'm psyched for the Philly fans. I have a lot of Philly fans in my life that I have a love-hate relationship. But this was this frustrating guy

that you felt like he had been handed the keys to the kingdom and he didn't totally take care of it and he had some bad luck too. Now it seems like he's taking care of it. So we'll see where it goes. I have a question for you. Well, can you wait till we're going to take a break

and then ask me the question? Great. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember.

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with basically dismissing Giannis? We mentioned a bunch of other names, but you haven't talked about the freak. I want to get to that right now. I think there's three and a half other people who can win the MVP. Okay. One is Jokic.

27, 11, and 9. He's a borderline. I mean, fuck. 57% shooting, 42% from three, 89% free throw. He's a borderline 50-40-90 guy. So he's basically Dirk Larry level. How many games can Denver win? How many games does Denver have to win to take him seriously?

That's the thing that's giving me trouble. Denver's a seven seed. They're 20 and 15. And we met, I forgot to mention earlier with Embiid. They're the one seed in the East. They're 24 and 12. He's the biggest reason why. And that's why he's the MVP candidate.

No brainer. Denver, the thing with Jokic, it's not going to happen if that's why he's the MVP candidate no-brainer Denver the the thing with Jokic it's not going to happen if they're not one of the top four seeds it's conceivable they could be but um his uh he's got a 32.1 PER and again flawed flawed metric I still like it and when you look at the league leaders of all time and PR, it's all the best players in the history of basketball. So to be over 31 on top of all the other stuff is almost averaging a triple double. And he's been betrayed by his team. They have no bench. They lost Grant and Beasley from last year's group. They traded Beasley before the bubble, but two guys that could come in and, you know, off the bench and

do some stuff, their bench feels really weak. The Porter thing seems to go up and down Murray. I know he's had, you know, a couple issues. Um, and look, it's a weird season. They played right up until the bitter end of the bubble last year. All of a sudden they're playing again, but Murray has been disappointing for where we thought he was going to be. And it does feel like Jokic is kind of carrying them to a 20-15. Yeah, they're right now on pace in a normal 82-game season

for around 47 wins. Which is not doing it. I mean, the only guy in recent memory that did that was Russell Westbrook. 46 wins for Oklahoma City in the year. The darkest moment in recent MVP history. You know how I feel about it. So then Giannis who everyone has decided we can't vote for him. He can't win three in a row. We're just not gonna let it happen. He's

still averaging 29 and 12 with six assists shooting 56%. He's getting the free throw line, 10.4 times 29.1 PR. And his team right now is the three seed. They're 21 and 14. He's heated up the last two weeks and there's a world in which he just gets hot for three weeks. All of a sudden there are one seed and we're like, wait a second, what are we going to do here? Well, in their last 17 games, he's over 31 points. He's 12 and a half rebounds. He's over six assists. He's almost one and a half steals and he's almost two blocks. That's fucking insane. Those are MVP MVP numbers.

And he did, you know, basically drag Milwaukee up to the, to, to, to the three seed because they were, they were, you know,

the, the, the, the holiday injury really messed with them. They really were, you know, the holiday injury really messed with them. They really were not. Now they're 5-5 over their last 10 games. But they need him to be superhuman to drag them up into that top tier where they honestly belong. I mean, they still, differential-wise, they're the top team in the East at plus 6.4.

Well, they're averaging 119 a game. They're the highest scoring team in the East at six point, you know, plus 6.4. Well, that average in one 19 a game, the highest scoring team in the league. Yeah. He's eight. Again, he's 18 to one to win the MVP. And I think he's either, I might,

I might have to throw something at that. Well, he's either second or third right now. And we're going to get to the LeBron media. Cause I'm just saying, if we're just looking at this objectively, when you throw in his defense and everything he does, he is the second best player in the league right now.

I agree with you. And I have Jokic third, and then LeBron's fourth. And the irony with the LeBron season, he's 26-8-8, which is right around where he always is. Statistically, with the advanced metric stuff, it's kind of his weakest advanced metric season that he's had really since his rookie year, his PR is only 24.4, but just in general, like shooting 51%, 36% from three, 69% free throw, um, not getting the line, even six times a game.

He's taken almost seven threes and the case for him is the durability. He's played 36 to 37. They finally rested him the other day and, you know, he could reclaim at least the number two spot in a week. If he had three straight good games. My question is why, why, why he, all he cares about his titles. He's got to get to the Jordan six. Why would he care about these last 36 games? Well, he, he, he cares because I mean, I care enough to make like a real MVP run and to actually put the work in to try to win the MVP. Isn't the answer to that question, the body of evidence of the previous 35 games. Why is he playing all those minutes in the first half of

this stupid season? He played, he just played in the finals to the only obvious answer to me. And I don't know if it's obvious, but is he has designs on this MVP award? Like it doesn't otherwise make sense for him to put on this additional mileage. We've been talking forever, and God, this is the thing that makes him so gosh darn incredible, is that durability, the endurance, his able to bring, he's just, I mean, so it would be in a season where there are a lot of different candidates,

if the Lakers re-ascend to the top of the West, which they could easily, and they could, and Davis comes back, then it's like, you know, it's a split boat kind of situation and you give it to the OG because the OG average 35 or 36 minutes across 65 of the 72 games or whatever it is.

And, you know, the Lakers have the best record in the, in the NBA or what, you know, close toakers have the best record in the, in the NBA or what, you know, close to it. And you just say all hail the King. That that's the argument, right? Well, the issue for him is it's not a split vote season. It's Embiid has taken control. So he, for the path for him to win the MVP is Embiid doesn't ends up playing 55 to 72 games. Like just doesn't have enough games. The Lakers do better. Second half LeBron stays healthy. LeBron plays 70 of 72 games right now.

The league leaders in minutes, Randall at 13, 16, Jokic, 12, 56, Van Vliet, 1249. And LeBron is fourth at 1245. I think that's insane. I honestly don't know what they're doing, but I think, I think he really wanted to win the MVP, which is why he was doing this. But at some point the ring has to matter more than him playing all these minutes.

He shouldn't play 2,500 minutes. I don't disagree with you, but what if he can do both? He keeps on keeping on. The thing that has hurt is Davis went out and they went on into a mini tailspin and they don't, they, they,

they didn't look good in those games. I mean, I watched the entirety of that, um, wizards Lakers game where the wizards, uh, beat the Lakers in overtime. And this,

I'm sorry, it was reminiscent of the Lakers of like 18 to 24 months ago where they don't have any, uh, offensive firepower. They just can't score, uh, unless he goes out and,

and, and creates it. And that was lackluster. It's tough. I mean, Davis is, I know the seventh best player in the league, the eighth best player in the league.

So, yeah, but I mean, we're going to give the MVP to a guy who can't, they lost four, four in a row or whatever it was. We're not. The best thing he has going for him is the LeBron media mafia.

We'll come out probably with about 15, 16 games left. And there will be a whole campaign about he's the best player every year. He deserves this. We've got to make up for past sins. We're still, and I broke this down. There are no past sins. You're so cynical.

No, the only one you can really complain about is the 2011 one, his first year in Miami. That one might have been a robbery. It was 10 years ago. None of the other ones were robberies. And the way Embiid is playing, he's going to win. And honestly, Giannis is having a better season than LeBron. We may not want to admit that we may not want to like it, but it's a fact.

I'm sorry. It doesn't mean he's a better basketball player. It means he's having a slightly better regular season than LeBron James's period. Different things that we're talking about highly different cases to make. So that's your, those are your four it's Embiid. And then it's a Jokic Giannis LeBron kind of lurking underneath. But what's interesting is the odds do not reflect that. Embiid's plus 210, LeBron is plus 260, because they're already factoring in the mafia. Nicola Jokic plus 420, and then Giannis is 18-1. And the Giannis thing, honestly, those odds are ridiculous.

They should be lower. So then we go to the next group I think the sleeper would be Luka who's averaging 29.89 he's got his threes

up to 36% that team's starting to win and he just every year coming out of the all-star break somebody averages

like 35 like last year was Bradley Beal your guy. Yeah. Somebody all of a sudden puts up 35.3 points a game and just goes nuts.

I would say he's the most logical candidate to do that. So let's mark him down. Kawhi at having a really good Kawhi season, 27, six and five. Honestly, his stats really aren't any different than LeBron's. And he's a better defensive player. But just if the Clippers, if there's a path for them,

right now they're a four seed, but they're only two games out of the two spot. But I just wanted to mention him. You have Dame and Curry, who I almost feel like cancel each other out. But they're basically having the exact same season. I think Dame's done it with a little less help. And then

let's, the Harden thing, he's missed 14. If he played every game the rest of the way and averaged a triple-double and Brooklyn won the East, we'd at least have to have the conversation, which would end with both of us going, no, no, fuck that guy. We're not voting for him. You can have that conversation

with somebody else, not with me. I'm out. I'm out right now, and I'm not changing that guy. We're not voting for him. You can have that conversation with somebody else, not with me. I'm out. I'm out right now, and I'm not changing my mind. So that's it, House. Those are our candidates. My advice, and I'm not allowed to bet on this, but I think Embiid still being a plus favorite. So that's where I'm at.

Plus 210 seems stupid to me. He should be like minus 180. I got him early in the season at 20 to one odds. Wow. I just got, I didn't go crazy on it, but now I'm going to go crazy on it. I'm going to throw a giant number on top of that 20 to one thing. Cause I went big on LeBron when LeBron was still plus numbers two weeks ago. So you have, you say you'd have the top two cover.

That's it. I mean, and I'm not going to bet on something's good. Dramatic will have to happen with Denver to get me to touch Jokic. I'm not messing with Luca or Dallas. I mean, they're just. You sure you don't want to consider the Giannis 18 to one? Because the path to that would be holiday comes back and, and all of a sudden Milwaukee wins 15 straight.

But will the voting public, this is a question to you. You're in the voting public. Will a voting public get around the idea of three straight Giannis years? Because the thing that holds him back, and this is absurd. And I know that that's drives the analytics folks. Absolutely insane is we are factoring in what we've seen, what our eyes have seen of the Greek freak in the playoffs and Milwaukee in the playoffs, even though it's not a playoff award. But when do we see the leap out of Milwaukee in the playoffs that convinces us that we're not being dumbasses by putting,

making three straight MVP awards for a team that can't get to the finals. I'm going to make three predictions for the rest of the way here, because MVP conversations are like podcast catnip prediction. Number one, Milwaukee will have a winning streak followed by everyone having a reckoning about whether it would be okay to vote Giannis for a third straight year.

And most people decided, no, I can't do it. Followed by a round of vote shaming, voter shaming from the people who are like, hey, it's a resume. It's the resume. Last year doesn't matter. It's who had the bet. And there will be some

Giannis voter shaming. I predict that. You know we'll be hearing from the LeBron Media Mafia. I can't wait to find out what they have in store for them. It'll probably start with a really long feature for somebody about how LeBron has given more

to this season than any in the history of his career, in the minutes. When career. I can't wait. When do we get to name names? I need to be drunk so we can start naming names. Yeah, you're drunk. How he can't believe he hasn't won the MVP for eight years when he's been the league's signature player and makes you wonder.

And he'll have a couple of quotes. I can't wait for that. That's going to be amazing. That's prediction. Number two prediction. Number three will be, I think James Harden is going to continue to be absolutely awesome for Brooklyn. And at some point we're going to have to have a reckoning with that.

And that will be another three day conversation where we have to go, wait a second. Can a guy who took a shit and forced his way out of a city to get to a better situation, can we then give that person the MVP for what he did for the team that he forced himself to? My answer is no. Won't that resolve itself when Katie comes back? I've been believing that Katie could have played any one of these last, honestly, like four games there. They've been deliberate and measured in keeping him out because like, who cares whether or not they win any of these last four games. They've been deliberate and measured in keeping him out because who cares

whether or not they win any of these last four games. They've been on a great role. The chemistry between Harden and Kyrie is really coming together. Who would have thought those two guys would play well together? I gotta say, I'm shocked by that. Look, Harden and Chris Paul played

great together for a little while also. They were unhappy though. Chris Paul was never little while also. Yeah, they were unhappy, though. Chris Paul was never happy with it. Ultimately, they were. But for a while, there was a good symbiosis that did work. And the KD not playing lets all these role guys come to the fore. The Bruce Brown thing is fucking incredible for Brooklyn. And that's a function.

He was my 10th candidate. I forgot to mention Bruce Brown. Are Bruce Brown's odds on this? Is he the best role player of all time? KD not playing means there are more minutes to spread around and that's very helpful for Brooklyn. Their, their ambition. So Kate, whenever Kate Katie comes back, it will, I think diminish Harden's case. And we won't have to be talking about Harden for MVP. I don't think any of any of the nets are going to be candidates for the MVP, even though they might end up with the best record in the whole NBA. Katie Carden, Kyrie, Joe Harris, and Bruce Brown might be the greatest five of all time.

I love it. When you do that shit, Bruce Brown might be the greatest five of all time. I love it when you do that shit. Bruce Brown. Bruce Brown is my favorite new player of like my new guy. Who's he's not new, obviously, but new guy who's now in the mix. You put him ahead of Pritchard, your boy Pritchard up there in Boston.

You have Bruce Brown ahead. It's like when they had the best newcomcomer Award and the MTV Movie Awards. Oh, I thought you were going to talk about the Best Newcomer and the AVN Awards. Or either that. Bruce Brown, it's like, yeah, he made a couple movies before this year, but what an emergence by Bruce Brown.

Who knew he had that magic cock? Bruce Brown, he plays like they're telling him, if you guys don't win this game, we're murdering your family after the game. So it's up to you. You can decide whether we murder your family or not.

That's like the level of intensity. He's like the loss and tip that Kavupo brother. All those, all those, uh, 10, they cool. Like their life depends on it.

It's awesome. I love it. I love Bruce Brown. All right. So he's number 10. All right life depends on it. It's awesome. I love it. I love Bruce Brown. All right. So he's number 10. All right. We are going to take another break. We're going to come back.

We're going to bring houses fairway rolling partner, Nathan Hubbard on to talk about tiger really quick. All right. Houses fairway rolling co-host Nathan Hubbard is here who has a new podcast that we're debuting on the ringer on Sunday, which we'll get to in a second, but wanted to talk about Tiger quickly before we let buzzed house go, uh, Tiger, Nathan, does he ever play golf at a high competitive level ever again, from what you've read, what you've seen? First of all, please let me know when house is drunk

so that I can show up in the same state next time. Uh, no, he doesn't. And that's okay, but he doesn't, it's over. And we've been talking about this for probably six months on the pod that it's time to pull the needle. The Tiger Woods needle has got to come out of the arm and we have to figure out if golf is good enough to exist as a sport without a hero has I disagree with Nate um I think there is some percentage possibility it might be single digits it might be like you know in the 20 range but I think there is some possibility that he because of of his DNA the competitive DNA the way that that guy is wired. He just says, you know what? Another thing in front of me where people say, I can't do this thing. Fuck that. Watch me. And maybe it's the case, like it's still pretty early in the information around how injured his

leg was, what the timeline might be for coming back from that kind of injury. What if he says Jack Nicklaus won the masters when he was 46 years old, that gives me a full calendar year. He's 45 right now. He has a full calendar year to rehab himself, to get himself that whole year will be good for his back. And if the leg is not as jacked up as it seems, then that's another competitive challenge for a guy driven in a way unparalleled banner in all of professional golf to come out and compete in the masters at age 46. The only thing that would hold it back to me is him confronting something having to do with the leg that's a big-time Alex Smith kind of thing. And he says, fuck it.

I just want to spend time with my kids. He's got the shaft of three of his irons in his leg at this point, keeping it together. There's no chance he's going to be anything other than a Masters honorary starter. I know. We just let him go. We just let him go. We just let him go. He played football because look at our alternatives. No, but that's not the point. The point

is he worked himself all the way back. He was on a football field and had Aaron Donald on his back in the first three games. But he's not 45 years old. Yeah. On a scale of one to Alex Smith, how bad was the leg injury? Because he didn't have any of the staph infection stuff that Alex Smith had. So far, it doesn't seem like. I don't know.

This is the thing. We're only two weeks into this injury. No, one week. A week and a half into the injury. I don't have any great inside information. Nate, what do you think? The ankle is shattered and the multiple bones were sticking out of his leg. I think it was worse. He won't have to deal with the infection, hopefully, but I think the core piece of the injury is worse. But let's not forget, we talked about this house. I saw him at the RIV on the Saturday before the Tuesday accident, and he could barely walk. He went on TV on Sunday with Nance, and it just was as puffy as he possibly could have been and basically told us his back is barely healed. You know what doesn't survive a multiple rollover car accident particularly well

is a just surgically repaired back. We haven't even talked about his back. Well, he's had five surgeries on the back, and that's the thing for me. This is why I hope he comes back, and if anybody can leverage all the medical science we could ever possibly devote to something like this and all the best people would be him.

But we were talking, I went on your pod before this accident and we were saying basically like the ship probably has sailed with him because physically the masters that he won seems to have become more and more amazing as the years pass because physically, how did he do it? How did this guy who'd been operated on so many times and had a fucked up knee and all these things, how did his body come together for that, you know, little stretch there that allowed him to win it. And all of us thought his body probably will never be able to get back to that point.

Now you throw in the car accident, the leg stuff, I guess it's house. It's better that it was his right leg than his left leg though. Right? Yes. And, and the point you just made to me is exactly the point, right? If you're going to try and have a glass half full point of view on this, it is, can he grab a four to six month window where his body works. Like that's really what we had when he won the 2019 masters. He had a window of about six months where his body did not betray him. He was able to, you know, uh, play pretty consistent competitive golf, the events leading up to that. It wasn't like he arrived at the Masters as the odds-on favorite because he was burning the courses down.

He was kind of middling, but it was clear looking back that he was protecting himself physically. So we'll have a better feel for this at the end of this summer and into the Ryder Cup when we get some indication of how his right leg is responding. And then, obviously, all of the stuff that we've said in these last eight days.

Thank God he's alive. Thank God it seems like he has a chance at walking, that he didn't lose his leg. Yeah, thank God he's alive. Thank God he's not crippled. That's right. But I think he is. But he might be.

He might be. How was our Michael Jordan experience on the bullets? Hey, he scored 50. He did drop 50. Look, my problem with all of this is we have to stop pretending it's going to continue. It's bad for the game that we both love. Like, the tour has to figure out how to survive without Tiger Woods. I hope he does come back, but, like, we have to move on.

And right now, we don't have a hero. We agree. We agree. And those are two different ideas, though. We do have a hero. It's Brooks Koepka. That's my hero. It's not, though.

It's your hero. He's kicking ass again. Brooks Koepka is out there kicking kicking ass again Nate Who has a better chance Of coming back Tiger Woods Or you bringing back The guys from Creed And going on

One more concert tour Me Me bringing back The guys from Creed And going out Can you take me higher Like I can do it

Can you take me higher? I got to say, if I was the judge listening to your two takes, I think House had a compelling point there about if anyone is going to be like, oh, I can't come back from this, watch this. It's probably Tiger. I can't get over the back thing, though, because we know five back surgeries that we know about

and then a car accident rollover situation that as somebody who has a bad back who has been as bad as Tiger's back, my back hurts if I hit the right bump on the road. I can't get you to play golf for shit. There's no way

Tiger's going to be like, yeah, let me go just be in pain. I think you said it, that's moment is gonna mean more than ever as will and house you pointed this out when he played the pnc with charlie in december that was he knew at that point he was getting that surgery but he went oh interesting yeah and that's why i was uh like an emotional weekend for him i think i think that's exactly that's the note he goes out on i mean mean, you know, we weren't factoring in a goddamn life-threatening car fucking crash,

but he did know he was going to get that surgery and, you know, a way to hedge his last moment on the competitive golf stage. How about, you know, him going out with around with this kid? That's pretty great. House, what are the odds of you betting on Tony Finau at 27-1

in the Masters? I'm going to go have another vodka after as soon as we hang up here. And then there's a decent, then we'll see. It'll be the third vodka. How about Jordan Spieth at 16-1? You got to like Jordan. 16-1, 6-1? Oh, I hate that.

I hate that. How about our guy Brooks at 10-1? I hate those odds. I don't like them. How about Victor Hovland at 29-1? Now we're talking. Now we're talking. Yeah.

I need guys in like that 30 class. I'm not 16-1 for Jordan Spieth. Jordan Spieth hasn't done shit since 2017. How about this? Why don't you book everybody's bets on Phil Mickelson at 80 to one? If he doesn't win, you keep the money. I think that's the best way to win on the masters. I'll do that. I'll gladly, but anybody who wants to bet Phil Mickelson hit DM me on the Twitter. I'll, I'll book every single one of those bets. I'll go. How about this? I'll give you,

I'll give you a boost. 120 to one, the house booster. House booster. I know I'm going to bet on Tommy Fleetwood 50 to 1 and I already hate myself. You're a Fleetwood whore. Tommy just understands me. And then he hurts my feelings. And then it's like, Tommy, I thought we were supposed to meet here at 730. What happened?

You get right on your knees for that little guy. House, we're going to bid you adieu. Enjoy the rest of your day. It was great to see you. I'm glad. It's a good time for me to leave because you guys are going to talk about Taylor Swift and I am not in a condition to talk about her right now. See you, buddy. We'll see you, House. Okay, see you guys.

Alright, so on Sunday night, we're releasing the first episode of a new podcast that we're going to have. That's going to be on the ringer dish feed is about Taylor Swift. The podcast is called every single album. This is season one. And we've been kind of dancing around this.

You've come on my podcast, talking about Taylor Swift, nor Prince Yachty has come on and talked about Taylor Swift. And it was a little bit of a showdown with you two. And it could have been a frenemy situation. It could have just been outright enemies. Instead, you joined forces and you're going to break down on the Ringer Dish podcast starting Sunday night. Every single Taylor Swift album, starting with the first one, going all the way through and then making a little room for the re-release, which is coming out later this month or next month? April 9th.

April 9th. So there you go. I set that up correctly, right? You did. It's your fault. You don't know this, but Nora was driving to Foxborough to Gillette, listening to your pod when she heard you and me talk Taylor. And that was before she joined The Ringer and that convinced her that she absolutely wanted to do it. So you set us up. We built up this little relationship during quarantine. She lived through the Taylor experience as a teenage girl. I'd lived through it as an exec in the music and the tech industries. And we just connected on that level. We have like a 20,000 word text thread over the last year as Taylor mailed in one of the great years as an artist of all time. And so the point of this was to publish the thread because like more than any other artist, each of her albums represents a distinct era, like a portion of her career. And so we're just going to go album by album and track by track and drop in a bunch of music. And we're going to deliver 12 hours of Taylor Swift content to you, Bill. And when you dive into the Taylor Swift vortex, there's a large sizable fan base that is very protective of Taylor Swift.

We feel like we are equipped to people who really appreciate the Taylor Swift career for all the right reasons, who have put a lot of thought and time into what has made her succeed and what makes her so unique. This is, I don't want to say it's a positive podcast, but it's an appreciative podcast because, and you've been saying this on this pod for a while, you feel like she's a one-on-one, that nobody in the last 15 years has had a career like this. Yeah. It's a story about a musical artist. It's a story about a pop culture icon and the internet in the 2000s. And it's a case study in business from one of the best entrepreneurs and brand builders of her generation, period. She has run the business of music better. She's really our first star who is native to the internet, right? She's like, she's not to overplay it, but she, she, she used the internet not to just build her brand, but to understand her fan base. Like she's basically Jeff Bezos of the music world,

right? She has an obsession with her customer. Her dad called me in 2007 when she was opening for Brad Paisley and amphitheaters and was like, I had no idea who Scott Swift was, but Scott Swift was calling going, my daughter's opening in your amphitheaters and the lines are too long for the bathroom and there aren't enough food options. And the experience of the people on the lawn is too packed together.

Like they were thinking holistically about the fan experience when she was 14, 15, 16 years old. And she has done that every step of the way. And we talk about Madonna as being somebody who constantly reinvented herself. Taylor really evolves. And that's the fun part of overlaying the musician, the celebrity, and the businesswoman all in one story. It's a little like the LeBron career, right? Where you kind of look back and you go, wow, that shouldn't have gone this well. You think like you're basically a child star or child celebrity, and there's a huge spotlight on you from a really super early age with some controversy. I guess for Taylor, the whole

Kanye thing was the equivalent of LeBron and the decision, right? This thing that happened at kind of a formative time that she just got through and it made her stronger. You would have thought that that would break her. I mean, we look back at, here we are in the heels of the Britney doc in the past couple of weeks. There are very, very few human beings who get out of childhood stardom alive, much less in decent mental shape. And I think she is such a driven human being in the best way that that drive and sort of vision for what she wanted to be and how to manage her career and how to take all of these songs that she was creating and turn them into first country music songs,

but then something bigger, kept her through it. But you're right. I mean, that moment at the 2009 VMAs when Kanye grabbed the stage could have broken her. Instead, a few months later, she won Album of the Year, beating, by the way, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, and never forget Dave Matthews' band Big Whiskey and the Gru Grucks King album, which somehow got nominated for a Grammy. What? Yes, that was nominated for Album of the Year in 2009. Sometimes we get it wrong. The Sasha Fierce album by Beyonce had Halo, had single A's.

I mean, you look back and you put these albums together and boy, it was a murder's row of albums. But one of these things was not like the other. I think it's crazy that, you know, I think like comedians and movies or pop artists, we've talked about this before. It's usually like a seven, eight year peak. And she's on 15, 16, 15 years. It's just, yeah, that part doesn't make sense to me. It feels like she's more relevant this year than probably she's ever been. Well, so you edited a piece for me in 2015, where I made the case that Taylor had mailed in 2015, one of the four best years ever submitted by an artist. And we compared it to Elvis Presley in 56, The Beatles in 64, Michael Jackson in 83.

But this year, she might have topped it. I mean, she put, if you really look at the last 18 months, she's put out four albums. Lover came out in 2019. Then she dropped

Folklore Out of Nowhere in, it really was the quarantine album. Yeah. Then she dropped the Disney Long Pond Lives thing of Folklore. And a couple weeks later, she dropped the Disney Long Pond Lives thing of folklore. And a couple weeks later, she dropped Evermore on top of it and then said, hey, by the way, I'm also

re-recording all my stuff. So she really was the artist of the lockdown and quarantine and just had a hell of a year. And the re-release thing, so Love Story, which she re-recorded, probably her most famous song or at least one of the top three. Yeah. And it sounded the same, but there was like a maturity to it. Zoe Simmons walked me through it. Yeah. She can do it.

There was definitely, it was the same song, but in a weird way, it sounded like slightly more polished, I guess. Yeah. Her voice is now a legit, powerful instrument. And if you listen to the albums in order, you can feel it go from this nasally high-end kind of weak thing, which by the way, I don't know what my voice sounded like at 14, 15, but I hope nobody has tapes of it, where they were really mixing it and producing the music to not disguise it, but to sort of cover for it. But you listen to it as it evolves through these albums and suddenly, really around the red years, maybe even earlier, she just locks in. And we know behind the scenes she did a bunch of work on. I mean, there's a story about how Bob Lefsetz, the music industry sort of gadfly blogger, wrote about accusing her of using

autotune. And she reads everything that's written about her. She called him and argued with him, wrote the song Mean about him, which became a huge hit that absolutely eviscerated him. But you know, in that moment, she went to the gym and became an absolutely terrific singer. And these last couple of albums have basically showcased her voice in addition to the songwriter that she is. And it's just, there is such a progression. So now her challenge is going to be how do i recapture what i felt like at 14 and 15 and 16 when i recorded these albums and not lose that youthful energy because she really was just giving voice to a generation of teenage girls who were coming of age at the time of the internet when it was super hard to be a teenage girl everything you do wrong is saved online forever and you know stuff that thank thank God,

we didn't have to deal with. You and I have to deal with it through our daughters, right? But she captured that energy in her vocal. And the nice thing about it, about this re-record is that we know those songs already. And so they're sort of burned into our minds already in the way that they sounded. But what we get is, in these new versions, a much more mature and interesting voice.

And so they seem to settle in. It would be fun if you could do it in sports where LeBron's like, I'm going to redo the 2011 season. I know. Watch what I have in store

for J.J. Barea in the low post in the finals. But even these re-records show what an incredible business person she is. If you go right now and search for Love Story on Spotify, one version says Love Story, and the other says Love Story in parentheses, Taylor's version.

And they both pop up together. And if you are a fan, she is re-recording this catalog because she wants her rights back. She wants the rights to her master recordings back. She couldn't get them. They were sold

to somebody else, sold again, and she said, the hell with it. I'm going to go re-record this stuff on my own. And now, anytime you're even

a remotely casual Taylor fan, if you go into Spotify or wherever you listen to your music, and you search for one of her songs, Spotify, and you search for one of her songs, Spotify, and you search for one of her songs,

you're going to see Taylor's version. Every fan's going to click that one. And so what she effectively did is took back the rights to her songs without having to spend a dime to buy them. That podcast is launching Sunday night. It is called Every Single Album. It's on the Ringer Dish feed where you can also find

me and Dave Jacoby recapping the challenge on Wednesday nights, which has been unbelievable this season, as well as Jam Session and Tea Time, two of the OGs on that feed. So before we go, I have to ask you about Jay-Z's sold title.

And it was one of those kind of nebulous was for stock and cash. And you got the feeling it was a lot of stock and maybe not a lot of cash. Was Tidal a failure? No. For its expressed purpose, it was. But any entrepreneur's job out of the gate, no matter what, you know this. You got to land the plane. If you don't have Facebook, you got to land the plane. Sometimes you make your investors a lot of money when you land the plane. It can be a 2x, 3x, 5x money, but you got to land the plane. And what Jay-Z did today was he landed the plane. That said, I do think there's a method to the madness here, which is we have all of these artists, like the Taylor Swifts,

like the Jay-Zs of the world, but also all of the smaller artists that the Spotify's of the world have given birth to, who don't have massive fan bases. But because the discovery algorithms are getting so good and you can fingerprint each individual user, I as an artist can actually build up a smaller but sustainable fan base. The problem is that while all the other brands in the world from retail are going direct to consumer to try to get around Amazon and build that direct end relationship with the consumer, the tools for artists to do that today aren't very good.

And I think both Jay and Jack understand that. And it looks to me like the point of this acquisition is to create kind of a Shopify for artists, which is a technology platform or an operating system that lets the artist build direct relationships with consumers. That's what Square has done for all the small businesses and farmers market sellers and, you know, little store shops that use the Square software effectively as their operating system. I think the idea here is to pivot the platform, not make it a competitor to Apple and Spotify. That's over. It is, can we use technology to build a direct channel between artists and their fans. Do you think he would have been better off never doing Tidal and just having his music on Spotify and Apple with everybody else? I think in this transition that we've gone through from physical to digital that started in the mid-2000s, again, along with the rise of Taylor Swift,

we document the way that she handled that through time. She stepped in some holes. She made some really good decisions. I think you have to cut artists a little bit of slack for trying some things. He's going to make money on this thing, and he's joining the square board, and it looks to me like he's gotten even more power

as a businessman, you know, I should say, he's a business man, than he ever has. So this is a win. So you're giving this the W for Jay-Z. For Jay-Z, I give this a W. For Square, it is TBD. They still have a lot to execute on. But I do think the vision is real.

A lot of the coverage of it today was like, well, this is because Jay and Jack hang out on yachts in the Hamptons. I'm sure the conversation started there, but I think there's a purpose to this. Did you do one of your things where you do like 12 straight tweets like a thread about the thing

or was this original material? 5 a.m. I did that. You did that? Oh, I didn't even see. Good. So it was regurgitated original material. No, only a couple tweets on it because you could see the hate coming and I think there's a bigger picture. Artist businesses are becoming more valuable than ever. There's this intersection of artist, influencer, and entrepreneur that's happening right now. And it's going to dramatically transform the music business over the next couple of years. We're going to see more moves like this to try to help artists just go direct to consumer.

And that's what's so interesting about the iconic artists like Jay-Z and Taylor. They have the chance to do this and set the bar for everybody who's coming up. Before we go, are you excited that we spend our weekends on a soccer field again? It almost seems like life is normal, except for the masks and the inability to recognize any other parent. It's going to be really fun. I'm going to be at two games this weekend. Look, I just hope everybody stays safe. Where are you going this weekend? I'm going to Camarillo. Oh, I got a little Temecula.

You do? Oh, Temecula, the horse farm. You have fun. You got to step through a ton of horse shit to go watch your kid play soccer. Yeah, Listen, we're going to be outside. Golf has fans. Football has fans. Our daughter's soccer should

have fans as long as everybody's being safe. There's high school soccer is allegedly coming back. This is amazing. I couldn't be happier. Neither can I. What have we been rooting for all year? These are our favorite sports teams and we got to go root for the home team. Unbelievable.

All right, Nathan Hubbard. Every single album. New podcast premieres on Ringer Dish on Sunday night with Nora Princiati. Good to see you as always, my friend. Thanks, Bill. All right, we knew this guy on this podcast before he became even more famous.

Eddie Wong is here. He made a movie. My feelings were hurt that he didn't reach out to tell me I need to come promote my movie. knew this guy on this podcast before he became even more famous eddie wong is here uh he made a movie my feelings were hurt that he didn't reach out to tell me i need to come promote my movie i started doing reads uh on this podcast for the movie and i'm like i i gotta get eddie on so i watched it last night you made a sports movie you didn't even fucking tell me you went out you made a whole sports movie what the fuck i will show you the receipts This is the first choice pod I wanted to be on. I told Focus and that's where the signals got crossed. Thank you for having me, Bill.

This is the number one sports podcast in the world. I'm more hurt that you made a sports movie and I wasn't even like, not even like a text. Just be like, hey, give me like two thoughts for a basketball movie. And then you didn't need me as it turned out

because you hit all the marks. But I'm here because you know what? Honestly, what inspired me is a Boston film, right? Which one? Good Will Hunting. Good Will Hunting. Everyone's been asking me like, how'd you come up with the idea for this movie?

Why'd you want to do it? And I've been telling them, I came up in a family with a lot of violence, like a lot of domestic violence in my family that I was not able to talk about. Um, I would never talk to the cops or social workers when they came, but my aunts, uncles, everybody knew what was going on in our house. And so I watched Good Will Hunting with my aunt and, uh, that movie changed my life because I realized you could talk about these things. And I had of nowhere in Orlando can relate to this and feel seen. And I decided that moment watching Good Will Hunting, I'm going to make a movie like this one day

and interview with the guy that writes page two. There's more than a dash of above the rim. You grabbed a tiny piece. Yeah. A little bit of that. There's a little like finding Forrester type of, you know, the transfer stuff in there. I don't want to step on it too much because I want people to see it. But the Good Will Hunting thing, that makes sense to me.

And the other thing is you're embedded into, you know, New York. Like sometimes people wade into, oh, I'm making a New York basketball movie. But there's maybe not the authenticity you were going for with this thing. Yeah, you really need New York to be an authentic character that hits all the grooves and all the corners. And I just feel New Yorkers will watch this and feel very seen, especially because it's in New York

that has changed a lot pre-pandemic. You know, we finished shooting October 2019 and then boom, you know, here we are. So, you know, the obvious, the Jeremy Lin comparisons. And you get it out of the way in the movie in 10 minutes. I can step on this. I feel like the character kind of trashes Jeremy Lin. It's like, oh, okay.

All right, this is what we're doing. Yeah. You know, I don't want to make it a thing, but like, you know, just because you're the same race as somebody doesn't mean you feel represented by it. You know, like when he was with the Knicks, I loved it. When he wasn't with the Knicks, I honestly couldn't care less. Yeah. You know, because he's just, he's just very different than me.

I felt it was a good thing. Cause I know a lot of Asian basketball players and after the insanity, you go play basketball and everyone at the court is like, Hey Jeremy, Jeremy. And so your name is just Jeremy. And like whether you like Jeremy or not, that was a frustrating thing to be like, Hey yo, your name is now Jeremy. So it's more about the frustration of being like, if you're Asian and you play basketball being defined by this guy that you have

no connection to, just annoying, you know? Yeah. And that's kind of a sad reflection of Asians in basketball, right? That Jeremy Lin will probably be the go-to reference for, what do you think till like 2025 to anyone who's playing pickup? I mean, I mean, unless Boogie tries out and makes a team, you know, I definitely think our lead Taylor Takahashi could play in the G league. You know,

the G league kind of tight right now, but he's a real ball. He's an all time leading scorer. Alameda high school. Yeah. Really, really ball. I was not surprised that you took particular care of making sure that the

actors actually knew how to play basketball. Cause you're a legit sports fan. You know how important this stuff is. You can't do the, the guy who can't really play and you have to cheat it and you do the quick, quick cuts, all that stuff. You did not do that in this. Yeah. I mean like we got some dribble handoffs and things like that. We had warriors at the top and it was funny. Cause you know, the producer was like, do you need to play this combo? I'm like, dude, come on, man. Is this is the way kids play basketball now is at the top And it was funny Because you know The producer was like Do you need to play this I'm like dude Come on man

This is the way Kids play basketball now At the top of the key And they're running off Each other I want to talk about The basketball in a second Back to the

Jeremy Liv thing For one second You I don't feel like I'm spoiling this But you tap into Michael Chang a little bit Yes

And I don't want to Give away the scene Because it's great But I thought it was Really interesting That you played it that way Because you tap into Michael Chang a little bit. Yes. And I don't want to give away the scene because it's great. But I thought it was really interesting that you played it that way because, you know, you and I are both friends with Chang. Yeah.

I've been at some dinners where we've talked about, you know, greatest Asian sports moments of all time with Chang and Yang and Chen, Cho, all those guys. And the Chang one is the one that was the, the one that has slid through the cracks. Really? No, just like that. I think in history has kind of been forgotten

how unbelievable that was because he beats Lendl, who was really the biggest villain out of any individual sport guy of that era just because he was so freaking boring to watch. He's got the cramps. It's like a sports movie and they're watching it and the thing, and it made me actually after the movie go queue up the YouTube clip just to watch some of the points and stuff. And it's like, how did this happen? Why wasn't this actually a bigger deal than it was?

It's amazing to watch. It's an incredible one. I've been trying to, I've been talking to the guys at 30 for 30 for two years now being like, yo, let me get the Chang doc because I'm a rabid Chang fan. Like I used to read about him in Sports Illustrated for kids. I mean, like collected like African cichlid fish, you know, like he collected freshwater fish from Africa.

He's just like an interesting dude. And the reason why that moment is so important to Asian Americans is the day before with Tiananmen Square. And that's what people forget is that, you know, if you were Asian and especially if you were Chinese in this country, that was probably our most shameful day. Like you really didn't want to go outside.

And for months after you were just embarrassed. And I remember all the way up until high school, it was like funny to call us communists. Do you know what I mean? Like commie jokes were funny, like in the late 80s, early 90s, I mean, you got Rocky IV. And like, the thing with Tiananmen was that we aren't in this country necessarily by choice. You know, like, especially my family's journey is we lost the civil war in China. We had to flee to Taiwan. There's a lot of pride and that were kind of detached from our country and then had to live in Taiwan. We then grew to have pride in Taiwan, but we're still by blood Chinese. And then I was born in America. And when Tiananmen happened, it was like, man, will we ever get to go home? And will we ever be proud of our country and our culture and our history again business beating Yvonne Nunn. He had no business

even being, he's 17 years old and watching him with the cramps, watching him serve underhanded, looking at how small he was. It was just like, we are all like, we're all Michael Chang. And he gave us something to be proud about. And if I didn't have that moment as a kid, I don't know if I'm as proud to be a Chinese Taiwanese. Honestly. Also, one of the great endings, I think, ever to a tennis match, if not number one, where Chang

on the second serve moves up right to basically the bottom of the box just to fuck with Lendl. And it works. Lendl double faults. It's unbelievable. It honestly is like a sports movie. It is.

It would be the greatest sports movie because he's the biggest underdog and he doesn't win necessarily with the physique. He wins with his wit. Yeah. And the crowd. And the crowd turns on Lendl

and starts rooting for him and the whole thing. It'll never happen again. I'm greenlighting the Michael Chang doc. Let's do starts rooting for him and the whole thing. It's, it'll never happen again. I'm greenlighting the Michael Chang doc. Let's do it. Bro, I would love to. No, I'm not kidding.

Let's really do it. We're making history right now. This is the first doc I've ever agreed to do during a podcast. We're doing this. Thank you. We got to do this.

It's too good. And also, it's in a very important time. And I'll tell you something, Bill. It's like, I've never been an American evangelist. Like, America number one. Like, I love America. And I'll tell you something, Bill, is like, I've never been an American evangelist. Like America, number one, like I love America,

but I was at my issues with America. You're liberal too, we got our issues. But I spent the pandemic in Taiwan, 11 months, and living in a more monocultural society, even in one that I love and feels native to me, man, there ain't nothing like America. There is not an experiment going on in the world like this country where me and you can talk. I can meet Pop Smoke. We could do something together. Like the diversity is what

makes us strong, what makes us amazing. And like, that's the story of Michael Chang. Do you know what I mean? Like anyone can do it here. Well, I love that you hit that part. You also, the food, I wasn't surprised, but you nailed it. I checked with Chang just to make sure. I was like, Eddie nailed the food in this, right? He's like, oh yeah, he went deep a couple of times. He mentioned a couple of things I didn't even really understand.

But you were able to sprinkle that stuff in. I mean, your favorite stuff is food and basketball. So you figured out how to pull everything together in a movie. Food, basketball, rap music. It's just like, hey, it's a party. Unbelievable. So I intentionally read nothing about this movie. Because I just wanted to watch it. I didn't want to be affected by anything. All I knew was the ad. Yeah.

Well, I like to do it that way too. I don't read reviews. The only time I'll read reviews is if I come out of a film and I'm like, whoa, that is a polarizing film. Now I'm curious what other people think. But usually I read, I maybe read two reviews a year. Yeah. So I had done, you had a couple of ads on the pod and it was like pop smokes in it.

Yeah. And then I'm watching it and I'm like, wait, pop smokes though. They did like a little bit of the Tupac above the rim where like, he's going to be the villain in this, like, holy shit. And, and he's really good. And of course this ends up being his last movie, but, uh, man, it's, it's crazy that I feel like he could have done this. Yeah, no, he absolutely, he did it. And he would send me texts when we'd talk. He's like, yo, big dog, Hollywood, we got to do that. He wanted to act, and this was a crazy thing. I had been talking to Columbia about remaking Last Dragon, And I was like, yo, you know who the best show enough would be?

I was like, Pop Smoke, that's your show enough. You know, and unfortunately, he got taken from us far too soon. But, you know, I really want to celebrate him because, man, he's, I've met a lot of talented people. You know, like, you know, like Tony Bourdain always comes to mind as probably one of the most talented people. Tony Bourdain always comes to mind as probably one of the most talented people on the net. But even Tony, and if Tony met Pop, I swear he'd feel the same way. Pop is the most talented person I've met in my life. He would go record for six hours in a studio and then come shoot and do an overnight shoot and then do it again the next day. And even when we weren't shooting, he's just eating gummy bears, making them dances.

And he's like, you big dog, check this out. Ooh, you know, like he was doing all his dances and he just had unstoppable energy, undeniable charisma, a real toughness, but under the toughness was like a real kind heart. And I'll never forget, we're standing on the sideline in between shots. And he really understood the script and the Boogie character. And he understood why Boogie acts the way he does. And he said to me, he said, yo, big dog, you know, I was a good kid. I was like, you're still a good kid, Pop. He's like, I used to get good grades. Right. That's amazing.

I mean, I wouldn't not believe you, Pop. I'm sure you're a good kid that got good grades. And he's like, you've seen that Worldstar video? And I was like, I have seen the Worldstar video. And the Worldstar video was when Pop was about 14 or 15. A group of kids circled him in the neighborhood and slapped him. And the video went viral and everyone was like, yo, that's that kid from the floss that got slapped and embarrassed. And that, that followed him. And he said to me, he said, I never wanted to be treated like that

again. And that moment made me a monster. We would talk about that for Boogie. And he would talk to Boogie about that. And he's like, you don't want to be picked on anymore. You want to fight back. And Pop would really poke Boogie when we were shooting. scenes, we would just throw new insults at Taylor Takahashi just trying to get under his skin and get the performance out of him. But Pop was really my coach on the floor for the basketball scenes. He's just phenomenal. It felt like Dwayne Wade rookie year with the Heat. And he was, he used to play basketball, what, to like 15,

16? And then I remember vaguely in the stories about him way back when he had like some heart thing or something. He was a high school recruit. I don't know. He went to jail. I know he went to jail and that got in the way, but I don't know if it was a physical ailment,

but he could really play ball. What kind of, what kind of game did he have? What NBA player? Who's his comparison? You know, what's funny. It's,

it's, it's, uh, he's very much like UNLV LJ, Larry Johnson. Interesting. Yeah. With a jumper, you know, modern day, every kid got a little bit of a jumper, but he really reminded me of Larry Johnson, huge shoulders, like pops back is huge. He, he really strength. And, you know, he was just tough. Like, I played him a few times, three on three in the post, and you can't stop him. He's very much like Anthony Mason.

Anthony Mason. How tall is he? He's about six feet, you know? But one of those strong, deceiving six-footer who plays bigger than that who's that other Iowa State kid that was real big

up top big shoulders ended up in the league Marcus Fizer yeah a little bit yeah yeah like a little bit like his body

was huge up top you know Eddie I hope you enjoy your last three years of pickup basketball before your body completely falls apart at age 43

because that's how it's going to go trust me I lived it you have one last nice run 39-40 41 your body completely falls apart at age 43. Cause that's how it's going to go. Trust me. I lived it. You have one last nice run. 39, 40,

41. It starts to kind of go sideways a tiny bit. Yeah. And then by 43, it's done. Unless you do like, you know, hyperbaric chamber, all that shit.

You might have to. Joe Rogan was telling me he's like sauna four times a week. If you sauna four times a week, it decreases the, the potential of all diseases by 40%. I didn't know. What? Yeah. Dr. Joe Rogan. I mean, Joe Rogan knows everything. Like all my vitamins is vitamins that Joe told me to buy. You know, like Joe is insane. One of the things I liked about the Pop Smoke character in this, cause it's, it's, it's on the Tupac corner above the rim, a rapper.

It's a villain. There's streetball, all that stuff. But above the rim, it's very cartoony, as much as I love it. Yeah. It's cartoony. And Tupac, his character in that is a cartoon villain. Yes. The character Pop Smoke plays in this.

What's his name? Monk? Monk, yeah. Much more ground. He's pretty ground. Yeah, he's a villain but it all feels authentic. Even the ways he tries to get under Boogie's skin are normal ways

somebody would... He's not doing anything crazy. He doesn't have a razor blade in his mouth. Yeah, and you know, people want, in the process of development, not the studio, but the producer I work with at times wanted him to be more of a villain and more set up like that. It's like man it's not it's not like that you know like this is just basketball it's just two guys going at each other and that's why it's so important at the end pop comes over

and it's like you know says this thing at the end of the at the movie to boogie you know did you feel the weight of the the vortex of asian people in in America who love basketball and rap, 100% of them will see this movie. And basically you have to come through. They're almost going to not trust it. Like, oh man, I hope this doesn't get fucked up. Could you feel that weight? I always feel it, but I welcome it. I'm like, I'm that dude that's like, look, if my team needs 60, I'm gonna go get 60. And, and, you know, I, I felt the way about fresh on the boat. And it's funny. People thought I was like a real dick for saying this once. I was like

the only person to hold Jordan under 30 was Dean Smith. And I was like, that's what fresh off the boat was. And I was like, you should just give me the damn ball, man. Like, I'll go for 60. But that's just me. That's my personality. Like, I love pressure. I like fighting and boxing, you know? One of the things I like about you is you just are like, fuck this.

I'm doing it. Yeah. And it doesn't matter what it is. It's like, oh, cool. I'm going to try that. Yeah, I'm going to do that. And it's like, yeah, I'm going to make my own movie and get it funded. And I'll write and direct it. And I'm going to do that. And it's like, yeah, I'm going to make my own movie and get it funded and I'll write and direct it.

And I'll even be in it and it's going to come under budget and I'm just going to do it. Yeah. That's what I did. I delivered it about 500,000 under budget. You know, I'm not surprised. I was guessing. I,

you don't, you don't seem to me like the type of person that's going to be 10 days late from shooting and a million point five over budget. You're just going to get it done because you were you're a chef. Yeah. Chefs can't fuck around. It's like you got to whatever. Yeah. We don't have margins to mess around. And then also as an immigrant, it's just like you come from a family that worked really hard. Like my family made money, but it was all through work in a restaurant. And we just There's nothing extra. You got to save everything. You got to make it all work. People say, this is the budget. That's

the budget. If you'd sent me the script, you deliberately left me out of all this, but had you sent it and you said, give me one piece of advice, here would have been my piece of advice. You forgot to write in the cameo for a famous NBA player who shows up for a pickup game, something, because first of all, you get that guy and all these guys think they're actors anyway, right? But then you get their social.

Now they're tweeting it. Come see me in boogie. And that, that I think, So when Boogie 2 happens, you've got to figure out how to work Kyrie into it or one of those guys. Well, you know who I wanted was because this is before he got drafted was I wanted Zion because we were shooting in 2019.

I was like, yo, we need Zion for this film. I wanted Zion to play the Dennis Thompson character. Right? And I was like, that would have been spicy. Yeah. Spicy. Or even if you had gone underground with a little John Morant, something like that.

Oh wait, John Morant's in Boogie? What the hell? So Boogie 2, I think when we go to... I don't want to spoil the ending, but the natural ending for Boogie 2, I think somebody's got to be in there. We need that. We need that.

Or the kid in the G League right now, Green, his name starts with a J, Green. Hey, Elena, who's the kid in the G League that's really popular right now? I had no idea there was a popular G Leaguer. Yo, he's like the— I really got to bone up on my G League. Yeah. He plays for that team. I think Brian Shaw's coaching. He's really, really good. Um, all right. So the movie comes out on Friday. Yeah.

If you like sports movies and you like Eddie, I'm going to, I'm going to go out on a limb and say, you're going to really like this movie, but I thought it was, I really liked what you did. And I thought it was, it had the right level of quirks. It felt like you. Yeah. You had some hidden stuff in there that I thought was really smart. I don't want to say too much, but I would recommend it.

Tell me what's going to happen with restaurants. Well, I had to close Bauhaus this year because of the pandemic. But it's not, I'm not sad. I got a 10-year run. I'm very, very grateful to all of our customers. And it's just, you know, I know I've been bouncing around between jobs, but directing film is where I wanted to be. Like, this is absolutely the craft where I will cast down my buck. I'm going to work on this.

This is what I want to do. So I'm just happy to be writing and making films and making television. Tell me what happens with restaurants as a whole. You know, I'm kind of... By the way, you talked about... Chang, when did you guys do that? Like in April or May on his podcast?

Like what's going to happen going forward now? It's been nine months. Like where are we right now with restaurants? Yeah. The thing with restaurants right now is that I'm really disappointed also about like what's going on with the debate over the coronavirus bill. You know, like I thought we had the majorities that we needed to push things through that we all fought for. And I'm like, yo, let's go. But I really think there needs to be a restaurant relief bill. Because restaurants to me are their libraries or their museums. And these are the things in our communities that are charged with distributing culture. You don't have to read a book. You don't have to watch a movie. But if you go eat in an Ethiopian

restaurant or a Lebanese restaurant or Korean restaurant, your kid is going to learn about that culture and not just through the food, but in the way you're served, the way they treat you, the way they talk. Like that's how I got to know a lot of people. And that's how I felt. I got to travel around the world is going to different restaurants, but all of these mom and pops, all of these small restaurants are closing. And that's like, that's like our neighborhood mothers, you know, and like without them, I don't know how we're going to get this culture. And I think it's really an issue we need to like think about. Yeah. It's the one-on-one restaurants that are just seem to be falling by the wayside,

left and right. And in LA where we had this. It's like franchises, you know, they get big money because they know how to apply for it. But man, we got like the little ones in LA. LA, before all this happened, I thought the LA food scene was the all-time most exceptional. I just couldn't even believe I lived there and how many amazing one-off restaurants there were, you know, and, and obviously talked about it here in this pod a bunch of times and on Chang's pod and stuff

like that. But it really felt like it was the epicenter of the food universe here into New York and a lesser extent, but man. Yeah. I've been saying it since about 2017. I was like, the best food cities in the world are LA and Toronto. You know, they're really the best. And people would think I was crazy because they don't sound exotic, but I'm like, yo, they have the biggest immigrant populations and then spread out in kind of an urban sprawl way. Would you tell somebody to be a chef now?

Like somebody who's like 20 years old, who is great at it and wants to open a restaurant, put the 10 years in like you did, would you even, would you talk them out of it or would you tell them to do it? That's a really good question. Uh, and I will give you a, the most honest answer. It depends on what other skills that kid has. Uh, if you have something else that you're really good at and you can tell your story and feels in your voice, I don't think there's a harder job than opening a restaurant. And I'll tell you a funny story. I was definitely nervous about being a director. I sold it in and I fought for it. But then once you get it, you're like,

fuck, now I got to do this. And a DP that I interviewed for the job, Sam Levy, ultimately we hired Brett Yukowich, who was the choice, and I love him. But Sam Levy said something very interesting to me. He said, I live next door to Bauhaus when you opened it with your brother. And you don't remember me, but I used to come in and I watched. You guys work seven days a week, 16 hours a day, back to back with your brother. And he goes, there's going to be a lot of people in Hollywood and on this production. They're going to tell you, you don't know this and you don't know that. And that's why

you're going to need me. He said, don't trust a single one of those people. You know, everything you need to know. And I saw you do it. And there is no way this is going to be harder than opening that restaurant. And I was like, you're crazy. He's like, no, I'm not crazy. You'll see. And he was right. He was right. You know, cause on a movie set, yeah, it're crazy. He's like, no, I'm not crazy. You'll see. And he was right. He was right. You know, because on a movie set, yeah, it's hard. And it's hard mental work and psychological working in a team. But you got a driver that picks you up in the morning with a green juice and drives you back at home with a box of food.

And you got an assistant. You got things like, yeah, there's a lot of pressure, but you physically can do this. The restaurant, it's not just the mental and the financial stress, but it's the physical on your feet, 16 hours. Well, and then getting up the next day and having to do it again. And there's no, you know, it's like being a professional baseball player across with a doctor. Yeah. Yeah. And it's the, it's there. I've never met a restaurant owner that wants their kid to be a restaurant owner too. I have a feeling every restaurant owner gives their kid the same speech

Vito Corleone gave Michael Corleone. I never wanted this for you. Yeah, go be a judge, you know, honorable Corleone. You know? So that's it, you're never cooking anything again. You're not even making mac and cheese. No, I just put your Postmates and caviar.

That's it. You know, you know, the date, date, date, you know, I don't get,

I'm not going to get by dating and not cooking. Do you know what I mean? Like when they, when they know you got that in the bag, like, like, yo, if you don't cook,

then you don't like me. So I got to cook. But yeah, that's true. That is part of your arsenal.'t cook, then you don't like me. So I got to cook. Yeah, that's true. That is part of your arsenal. What's your number one dish right now? My number one dish is, you know, I really like to make a high man chicken, right? High man chicken is really nice because I do a very good chicken rice where I toast the rice with chicken schmaltz.

And then I cook it with chicken stock. And then I put the chicken on top. It's very nice. It's a famous Singaporean dish. So that's always a go-to. I make a really nice ceviche. So that's good too.

But then I make a good Sunday gravy. And those are all dishes that I like to bust out every once in a while. How much NBA? How long were you in Taiwan? Like 11 months? uh, 11 months.

Yeah. 11 months. I woke up every day, 7am to watch basketball. I'm not surprised. Yeah. I kind of, I gotta say,

I'm, I'm, I now remember bubble basketball. Finally. I really did. I really do look back. I'm like, man,

that was really fun. It was amazing. I don't think it was fun for the players. It, the pandemic, not fun at all, but I just look back at the quality of some of those games. I don't think it was fun for the players. The pandemic, not fun at all. But I just look back at the quality of some of those games. I'm like, man, I really kind of enjoyed that.

I loved J.R. Smith posting the food that he had to eat. Like, yo, bro, what is this? I'm like, dude, you may be in the bubble for 10 days. Don't worry about it. Right. Yeah, there was a lot of comedy coming out of the bubble. How are you feeling about the Knicks I'm so happy

You gotta be You know on the west coast the best thing is you watch three games a night You know when you're growing up on the east coast When you have like a triple header You're like this is the greatest day of the year I got a triple header on NBC Saturday Now every night is a triple header

Like 4 o'clock, seven o'clock. You know, I got games coming out of my ears. But like the Knicks, we're back, Bill. The Knicks are back. We're playing

bully ball. We're rotating on defense, help defense. You know, we don't even shoot three-pointers. It's amazing.

It's amazing. Yeah, they, I'm amazed how they pulled it off. They went for specific types of guys. Um, half of whom seem to go to Kentucky, but I think they knew from their Kentucky connections,

like Kentucky recruits certain types of guys. Yeah. And they just try to all put them together with a coach. Who's like, uh, roll up your sleeves, hardworking coach. And the guys all kind of make sense together.

It's, I was saying to somebody the other day, it's, it's kind of a shame they don't have a crowd because I feel like the MSG crowd would have loved this team. Going crazy. This is an amazing team that you want to love. It reminds me of that Jamal Crawford, David Lee,

Nate Robbins team, Trevor Rees. Junkyard, Ronaldo, Balkman. We got so excited about that team, Nate, yeah. Team Trevor reason like junkyard, Rinaldo Balkman. You know, like we, like we got so excited about that team, even though we were really going really fast to nowhere. We love that squad. But,

um, this, this team, it's like, if you came to somebody with an idea though, and said like what you just said, Hey, we're going to get as many Kentucky players as we can get.

And then we're going to hire Tibbs and teach them to play the best defense possible. You're like, that makes sense, because Cal ain't teaching them to play defense. Cal's rolling the ball out and just like run. Right. Well, they tapped into whatever with Randall that I had given up on.

Yeah. I just thought he was a black hole who's going to get his stats, but your team's never better. And now he's a complete player. Yeah. I thought, I thought that, uh,

Julius Randall was basically going to be like a shittier Zach Randolph. Yeah. I did see him at summer league with the diplomats t-shirt last year. And I was like, there's a bad man in here. We just have to bring this out. And who knew he was the EBT Joker. You know, this guy is the broke man, Nikola Jokic.

And then they got, uh, I Robinson got hurt, but I liked what they were doing with him where he was always like talent headcase, but they were able to get the talent part. And then quickly, I think is a legit keeper. One of my favorite guys in that draft. And I think he's somebody that really would have fed off the crowd if there was one because that dude just plays hard. I really like him.

Quickly is so funny, too, because he has that funny, like, flat-footed Gilbert Arenas jumper. But it goes in, and he does that thing Gilbert loved to do, just shoot from five feet behind the arc for no reason. Like Curry does it because the defense extends. Hibachi was just like, I'm going to just shoot from here because I like it. Yeah. Quickly is the same way.

He just stays out there. I love quickly. And, you know, let me ask you, I want your opinion on this. Okay. If you're the Knicks and you redraft, I wanted Tyrese Halliburton originally. But do you take Tyrese Halliburton or do you take Obi Toppin?

I loved Halliburton. He was my second guy in the draft. I personally would love to have Halliburton and Quickly on the same team because I think they would play really well together. So that would have been my preference. Yeah, I still would go Halliburton. But there's something about Obi Toppin where I'm like,

this wasn't a wasted pick. This isn't Frank Nilla. I agree. No, I agree with you. Cause especially if he can turn into like a 38 point or 38% three point shooter, he could just be good.

Not, not even great, but good combined with the inside outside stuff. There's something there. The thing though, is I think if they knew Randall was going to do this, you kind of wouldn't have needed topping, right?

You would have just taken Halbert. We have a log jam now and that's the issue. And people I remember were talking, trading Randall early in the season. And I really thought about it, but now I'm like, no, this guy is a legit number two guy on a squad.

We need a bad man. Number one, like a Bradley Beal, something like that. And then quickly is a legit number two guy on a squad we need a bad man number one like a bradley beal something like that and then quickly is a great i think he's going to develop into a number three rj i think is the problem and i love him because he's a nice guy you know and he plays really hard on defense um he started to hit some threes recently but rj is a black hole going to the hoop he cannot go over the double team. I don't know if Tips is talking to him about this, but I'm just like, he never realizes New Orleans Noel is just waiting

under the other side of the hoop every single time. By the way, he did that at Duke, too. I still like him. I'm still buying everybody's RJ stock because I think he's going to put in the work. I think he will will himself into being a really good player. What's a good comp for RJ you feel? It's tough.

It's because it's for what you said. He's not good at creating shots for other guys. Yeah. Whereas like you look at somebody like you would say, could he be, this is a weird comparison. They're nothing alike. But let's say, could he be like Manu? Could be a six man off the bench who creates offense, get his own shot Southpaw and all that. But Manu was such

a good playmaker. Like he could create shots for other guys. And that's what I haven't seen from RJ yet. I feel like, wait, what you said, he's, he's, he's not a black hole, but when he's going to the basket, he's thinking about him versus I'm going to pull this guy over and then I's going to the basket, he's thinking about him. Yeah. Versus I'm going to pull this guy over and then I'm going to find this guy in the corner. Like he's thinking about his own shot. Yeah. Like I think low end worst case, he's an aggressive Evan Turner, you know, which is.

Oh, that's a good call. Yeah, I like that. He's like an aggressive Evan Turner. And unfortunately, I don't love that. And then top end, I'm like, I mean, maybe he can kind of be like Danny Granger or something like that but like it would require a wet three point

shot and just an ability to see at least the first pass not even the second pass I don't even need you to see the corner or the wing but just the pass in front of you you know because he's not seeing that well you're in good shape and I think Randall has to be kept.

I think your keepers ultimately are Randall and Quickly and Robinson. And then RJ's three and a half right now. Yeah. And then, and I do like a big man rotation of Toppin, Robinson, Randall. I think that that'll work and we can work with that again for next year. And then if Toppin really starts to develop, then you have a, you know, you have a James Harden situation

on your hands in New York. Very possibly. Could happen. I thought they could have tried to get James. I don't know why the Knicks weren't in that. Yeah. Why not? I think it's just that James,

he didn't want to play for the Knicks. He's going to play for the other team. I know, but kick the tires. Get the fans excited. I will say they've done an amazing job of not saying anything to anybody. When you think like this is the biggest franchise in the biggest city and their guy who's running it, Lee Ed Rose, has given one interview in like a year.

Nobody knows what he's thinking. He doesn't leak stuff to people. He's not interested in doing anything other than just quietly running the team and then having all the contacts of everybody else, which I think it's impressive he pulled it off. I didn't know somebody could run the Knicks and disappear like this.

Yeah, I love it. And he feels very old school and just very like, I don't care what anyone thinks. It's about winning. And it's a very like New York mentality. And you got Tibbs is just such a bully. Like he he's, he's very much kind of like a Joe Torrey of the NBA. You know what I mean? It's just like, run this guy's in

the ground. I love it. I was hoping that they would say, fuck it and trade for a piece and try to get like the four or five seed. Actually make a run at this. I guess the question is, who's the piece? And I think it's a swing. I think it's kind of a 2-3 hybrid who could create his own shot and play D. And I don't really know who that player is because none of those guys are available except Beal. Can I pitch two ideas? Yeah, let's what it is. I feel RJ to the Kings for Buddy Heald.

Well, I would send RJ and then Nick's pick for Buddy Heald and their pick this year. Oh, like a pick swap. Yeah. So you're going to have poor RJ playing with De'Aaron Fox and Hal Burton? I mean, they're just going to throw the ball out of bounds. All right, what's your other idea? I'm vetoing that one. And the other one would be RJ to the Hornets for Terry Rozier.

Interesting. Yeah. So if I'm the Hornets, Rozier's 20 points a game this year. I actually really like Rozier this year. I do, but you have LaMelo. I mean, they can play together. LaMelo and him can play together. I mean, they're pretty good with LaMelo, Rozier, and Gordon Hayward,

and P.J. Washington, Miles Bridges. That's like a nice team, but I'm like- That's my favorite league pass team. How dare you try to break them up? But I would kick the tires to see how, you know, if they're stupid. You know, like, will they move Terry Rozier for R.J. Barrett? You know, because you may sell them one.

Let me throw this one at you. Yeah. Because you have some cap space, too. You guys can work some shenanigans with these trades. What about a deal that the centerpieces are R.J. Barrett and Kyle Lowry? So that would absolutely make us the four or five seed, right?

In Toronto, RJ Canadian. Yeah. Spicy, spicy one, right? Very spicy. But I feel like Lowry,

Lowry, maybe one of those guys like Andre Miller that can just play forever. And he kind of, he's, I think he is. I do think he could be exactly who he is right now for like three more years. I think Chris Paul's kind of like that too, right?

Chris Paul's like 45 years old at this point, still chugging along. I do think Kyle Lowry, watching him play, he has three more years and he plays smart and he's strong and he's got a three-point shot. So I think he can last, but I feel... Well, also you left out this part. That was the big Knicks

what-if, right? Where they almost had the Lowry trade, and then it turned into Bargnani, which turned into them eventually losing an awesome pick. Remember that hole? Sliding doors? Not even a top 10 worst Knicks moment of the 21st century, but where it was like Dore was Kyle Lowry, Dore B was

Andre Bargnani and a pick. Yeah, that was terrible. I mean, we would be good. Lowry Lamello would have been nice. It's a sneaky what if, because then Toronto doesn't win the title. They don't have enough. They don't trade for Kawhi Leonard. Who gets Kawhi Leonard?

A lot of sliding doors. Alright, so your movie's coming out. You're doing a ton of press, but I knew I would be able to get the A-list version of Eddie on a podcast. I wasn't worried. You guys are all the smoke. I really like a lot. Oh, I appreciate that. Let me know

next time you want to come on. Let me know when you're in LA. Best of luck with the movie. Check it out. It's called Boogie. Was there any sort of... Did you have to check with DeMarcus or no? No, no, not at all. Cause you know, guys at the court always be like, Oh, he boogied on him. You know? So that's kind of weird. Okay, good. I was fine with it. Um, yeah. So it's out, check it out on demand.

Uh, no theater premiere though, right? Uh, we're premiering at a drive-in tonight in Vineland. Oh, that's fun. Industry city, you know, true detective season two. Oh, that's fun. Industry City, you know. True Detective Season 2. But, uh, yeah, and then it's in theaters tomorrow, everywhere.

Okay. Good luck. I'm proud of you. You made a sports movie. This is awesome. Way to go. We'll make the Changok next, man. That's it.

People heard. We have witnesses. You got to do that with me. All right, I'll talk to you. Later. All right, that's it for the podcast. We will be back on Sunday night. Probably, um, All right, I'll talk to you. Later. All right, that's it for the podcast.

We will be back on Sunday night, probably after the All-Star game, which God only knows how that's going to be. But we will see you on Sunday night. Enjoy the weekend. Stay safe. See you Sunday. I don't have.