The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 139: JackO on World Series, Kevin O'Connor on NBA, and House's Week 9 NFL Picks

Episode Date: November 3, 2016

Bill Simmons and JackO break down the greatest baseball game of all time (Game 7 of the World Series) (2:30). Then The Ringer's Kevin O'Connor joins the show to talk about early NBA season surprises (31:40). Plus, Joe House gives his Week 9 NFL picks and things to watch in tonight's Thunder-Warriors game (58:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's special Hell Froze Over episode of the BS Podcast, brought to you by SeatGeek, our presenting sponsor, the only fan-friendly app for buying and selling tickets for sports and music. It's October. There's baseball, hockey, basketball, NFL, and college football, and you need SeatGeek. Drop your old ticket app, use one bill for 2016, buy tickets, and enter stadiums on your phone. Download the free SeatGeek app or go to SeatGeek.com. Today's episode also brought to

you by Stamps.com. Stop relying on the post office. Just buy and print official U.S. postage using your own computer and printer. Sign up for Stamps.com right now and use promo code BS for a four-week trial plus a $110 bonus offer that includes postage and a digital scale. Go to Stamps.com, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage. Type in BS. Don't forget about any given Wednesday. We had Paul Pierce and Jay Glazer this week. It went against Game 7 of the World Series.

I guarantee you didn't see it. But you can catch the re-airs all week and this weekend on HBO, HBO2, HBO Go. It's available. The Paul Pierce stuff, if you're an NBA fan, is really, really good. He had some great KG stuff. Don't forget to check out TheRinger.com. Subtly redesigned this week. You'll be able to find content a lot easier.

Don't forget to check out all the other Ringer podcast feeds as well. And one last thing. We have some new music for the Bill Simmons podcast. Tupac had a great run. Thank you to him. Thank you to his estate. We are moving forward in our second year. And this is pretty great, especially given the timing this week with the Cubs winning the World Series and how much Eddie Vedder loves the Cubs.

Pearl Jam. We're going to be using music from them from a concert, two concerts actually, they did this summer at Wrigley, ironically enough. They're embarking on PJ25, their 25th anniversary together, and they're going to do a whole bunch of fun and exciting things over these next few months and through 2016, 2017. For all things Pearl Jam, check out pearljam.com. And right now, we're going to introduce one of the many opening themes that we have for this podcast, thanks to the Pearl Jam Wrigley concert. Here we go. All right. Jacko and I have known each other since 1988.

And way back when, before we even knew what a podcast was, I looked at him one night at 4.30 in the morning after he'd had 28 Guinnesses, and I said, if the Cubs ever win the World Series, we're doing a podcast the next day. And Jacko said, what the hell is a podcast? I was like, just trust me be it's going to be amazing you you won't even believe it uh so we have that but also people who remember this podcast from way back when it was on espn when it's called the bs report there's a guy by the name of anthony rizzo who is a red sox prospect there was a trade where the Red Sox got Adrian Gonzalez and gave up these prospects, including Anthony Rizzo.

And it became a running joke on the podcast as you made fun of Rizzo. And Rizzo went to the Padres. He was terrible. Can you believe out of all people, that was the guy who had all these big hits and then was the guy who pockets the baseball in the 2016 Cubs World Series?

Bill, I'm not here to talk about the past. I'm invoking the Mark McGuire defense. No, it's actually funny, and people have not been shy about reminding me about that incident on Twitter. At the time, I was making a joke about how the—well, not a joke. I was angry that the Red Sox had hijacked Adrian Gonzalez from the Padres for next to nothing, and I was alleging a conspiracy because Jed Hoyer, Theo's right-hand man, was now in San Diego. I think it was Jed Hoyer, right?

Yeah, it was. It was some former Red Sox right-hand man of Theo, and so I'm like, he's just giving away their best player, the guy that the Red Sox desperately needed, Adrian Gonzalez, for nothing. And you said, no, they gave up Anthony Rizzo. And I'm like, Anthony Rizzo? Who's Anthony Rizzo? I said famously, I won't be bouncing my grandkids on my knee telling them about Anthony Rizzo

someday. Yeah. And Cubs fans have not been shy about. And poor Joe House got dragged into this yesterday because somebody tweeted at Joe House saying, you idiot. Remember when you said you were going to bounce Anthony Rizzo on your knee? You won't be bouncing your grandkids on your knee talking about Anthony Rizzo. House was like, I don't remember that, but I could have said it. And so I, you know,

being chivalrous, I jumped in and took the heat. That was nice. I didn't want to have House dragged into this. Nice job. You know, really in retrospect, what I should have been making fun of you for a blow these eight years ago, or however many years ago was, is that the Red Sox idiotically gave up Anthony Rizzo for Adrian Gonzalez. You know who looked nice on the Red Sox right now? Anthony Rizzo.

Exactly. Because then they couldn't wait to get Adrian Gonzalez out of town and had the Dodgers bailed him out and got him off the hook for that contract, but in retrospect, he should have been wiser to hang on to Rizzo. But it all worked out for Theo, who got rid of Rizzo and then ended up with him back. And he ended up with Jed Hoyer, too, the guy who traded for Rizzo.

And then he went to the Cubs, and they just jumped in together. So really, everybody had a happy ending except for you and me. So I guess it all worked out. I was happy for the Cubs. I was having a lot of 2004 flashbacks. But, you know, speaking of Rizzo, I thought that was one of Francona's two biggest mistakes last night. The first guy gets on before Schwerber.

Rizzo's up. Schwerber on second. They intentionally walk Rizzo. Now, we already have established that Rizzo Is the most nervous guy in the stadium Because they showed the dugout thing He has that clip with David Ross He was a glass of emotion or whatever

He was like I'm about to shit my pants And even after When Zobar said that hit And Rizzo was on third base He was reacting like the guy When the Grant Hill to Leitner pass Thomas Davis on the Duke bench I probably would have pitched to Rizzo was on third base, he was reacting like the guy when the Grant Hill to Leitner passed Thomas Davis on the Duke bench. I probably would have pitched to Rizzo. I think he was super nervous, but that was weird.

And then the other one, I'll never understand. From a personal standpoint, I was very happy because I could just see Rizzo hitting a two-run homer there to win the Cubs their first World Series in 108 years. And the Cubs fans who were already flaming me on Twitter would have gone to an exponentially higher degree, and I would never live that down, because I literally would then have to bounce my grandkids on my knee and talk about how Rizzo broke the 108-year curse.

I'm happy for the intentional walk. The other Francona thing I just didn't understand, and it was the all-time over management. By the way, Francona, great, unbelievable performance for five weeks. Game seven, weird stuff happens. When he took Coco Crisp out for... Yeah, for a guy that has a one-shot deal to throw somebody out at home, right? Yeah, where they had somebody sending a ball to him, like 3%.

This is something that Francona used to do with ortiz sometimes and it would drive me crazy where he would take ortiz out in these games where you know for a pinch runner or something and be like wait a second what if he comes up again and of course you know if coco crisp is he had three he had three at bats in the postseason i think his name was like martinez or something right yeah they said he's one of the worst hitters who's ever come up in the World Series or something. He was a 150 hitter, but man, that was amazing. Although those moves totally build out Joe Madden, because I still do not understand the Javi Baez bunt with two strikes with a guy in the third and one out.

That was awful. I was incredulous at that. I couldn't even tweet about it because I was just like, what is he doing? I mean, that would have been one of the all-timers right there. That and pitching Chapman in game six in the 7-1 game when he's already running on fumes. I mean, that would have been second guess from here to eternity, both of those moves. If that had been the Red Sox and Chapman came out for the ninth inning when we were up 9-2, I think you would have just had to take me to the hospital.

It was crazy that he pitched anyway. If you don't trust your bullpen enough to protect a 7-2 lead for one or two more innings. Joe Maddon. Then the other one, I thought he took Hendricks out way too early. Didn't understand that one.

I didn't like that at all because then you had to bring in David. Although it worked out, obviously David Ross hits the home run. But then right away you have the play with Lester where he bounced it off of David Ross who falls over. And it immediately leads to two runs. So right away you're like, oh my God, did he just gag here? I didn't understand taking Hendricks out at that point at all. I thought I kept waiting for an internet meme last night of the Cubs celebrating and Chapman

holding his left arm up like it was a torch, like it's off his body, he's just holding this amputated arm like it just fell off and now he's celebrating with it. Chapman was dead. Chapman's never going to be the same, and they don't care, because he's not going to be on the team next season probably. They're probably not going to resign him.

Right, because, well, I'm happy because now the Yankees get him out of discount. You know, he gets four months off of rest, and his arm will be fine by spring training. I think he'll still be throwing 105. Although it'd be proved in the postseason that if you're throwing 105 but there's no movement, guys will cheat and, you know, get an early swing on it. You can put it in play. Yeah.

I may not be as high on Chapman as I once was, although he was lights out for the Yankees. Ironically, the guy that made me more nervous was Miller and their roles got basically reversed in the postseason where Miller was unhittable until last night and Chapman was very hittable or at least a little shaky. Did you feel like the Yankees

had a small piece of that World Series with Miller and Chapman yesterday? I did. I was happy because there was Red Sox everywhere between Theo and Francona and Ross and Rizzo and Lester. I mean, there was Red Sox everywhere. So I was happy that, of course, Miller too, but he was most recently a Yankee.

So I was happy that Yankees had a little piece of it. Somebody on Twitter, I saw a joke and it said, oh, this is just the way the Yankees wrote it up in spring training, like first Miller and then Chapman and closing out the game. So it was kind of funny, and people were killing me. Oh, well, the Yankees gave away these two guys. But the Yankees were not going to the World Series.

The Yankees were not winning the World Series this year. So when you have only two commodities, two assets, and you can trade them for future players, it was a smart move for Cashman. I have no regrets. It was a little weird because I was so fired up in spring training with their bullpen. It really did work out. They were keys to a postseason run just for two different teams.

The blueprint was the process. You know, the only person who should be getting killed on Twitter is LeBron James for doing the 3-1 cookies. Yes. At the Halloween party over the weekend, which I don't think they won another game after he did that. And wow, is that an unbelievable karma switch. Not to mention, he was a Yankee fan until like eight years ago.

I thought he was a Yankee fan until last night. I mean, wasn't he wearing Yankee hats at games as recently as last year? I've seen him wear a Yankee hat. I don't know. I can't prove this. But I know I've seen pictures on the Internet of him in a Yankees hat more recently than eight years ago, no? Yeah, probably. Did his return to Cleveland, did he just erase everything now?

Is he all in on the Browns and the Indians now, too? Yeah, he's like you with Rizzo. He's not here to talk about the past. Because I'm not like a Skip Bayless where I'm going to light up LeBron. I'm ambivalent about LeBron. But it's like if you're wearing a Yankees hat all the time at different baseball games, and now you're in a box and flexing when Cleveland, when Rajai Davis hit the tying home run, you're all in on Cleveland.

I get it. He's from Akron or whatever. He's Cleveland's native son, Ohio's native son. But, you know, okay, I get it. If you're just going to embrace that and everything. But, you know, I don't know i like when you little pseudo the skip bayless thing that's the hottest seat in sports jacko right now you're sitting in it yeah uh i just i've never seen that show but just to watch those they had you know beating us over the head with commercials for it skip bayless

is totally committed like how he can sit there with a straight face. I don't follow the NBA, and nowhere near, obviously, your following of it, but to sit there and say LeBron is now the top five NBA player, is he just committed to that nonsense? I love it. Does he really believe that, or he just knows he's going to wear that as an act now? I think it's performance art. Yeah, I mean, honestly, anybody with two eyes, you cannot say LeBron is not one of the top five best players in the NBA. I think he's... Yeah, I mean, honestly, anybody with two eyes, you cannot say LeBron is not one of the five best players in the NBA.

I think he does believe it. Jesus. Wait, we have some questions. We have some questions for you. Was that the biggest baseball game of your lifetime? Well, I can't say that for my lifetime, because the Yankees weren't involved. I mean, the biggest game of my lifetime...

No, no, I'm not saying personal. I'm not saying personal. I'm saying the biggest baseball game of our lifetime. Well I mean, the biggest game No, no, I'm not saying personal. I'm not saying personal. I'm saying the biggest baseball game of our lifetime. Well, yeah, from a historical standpoint, you'd have to say so. With 108 years on one side

and what was it for the Indians? 78 years on the other side, right? 52? Yeah, it's like 68 years on the other side. I mean, you know, two tortured franchises to go into extra innings

and then have the rain delay. Like, I couldn't, you know, I felt nervous and I really couldn't care less about either team. I mean, I'm ambivalent about the Cubs and the Indians. I don't have strong feelings one way or another. So just as a fan of sports, I was nervous and you found yourself getting wrapped up in it. I can only imagine if you were a fan of one of those teams. So, yeah, given the history and the caliber of play and as good as the game was, yeah, probably the biggest game in sport, yeah.

Well, Miracle on Ice is the biggest one ever, but in terms of baseball, yes. We didn't, but when Miracle on Ice happened, first of all, it was tape delayed. Yeah, right. And I was 10, 9 or 10, so. Yeah, and we kind of retroactively realized the stakes. Right.

Or realized that in the game it was. I was too young to understand it, really. Yesterday, just going into the game, I'm thinking, like, I thought Mets-Red Sox game seven, 1986, was the biggest baseball game because it's coming off Buckner. There was a rainout. The Red Sox had this curse, which was ironically 68 years. And it's New York and it's Boston.

How can this game be bigger than that one? Maybe it could be as big. And the more I'm thinking about it, I'm like, of course this is bigger. This is 108 years against 68 years. Somebody has to win. Two things we never thought we'd ever see in our lives. Right. I mean, when you really sat down and you're like,

either the Cleveland Indians or the Chicago Cubs are going to be the World Series champion tonight, it's like a lot to get it just seemed like it was logical and maybe the game would just never finish. It would rain, it would rain, the world would end, and life would end with it being 6-6 in the ninth. It was a distinct possibility, yes. I thought the rain delay was just an unbelievably fortuitous moment for the Cubs. Oh, absolutely.

Because you've been there with your team. When you have it, and then you blow it, and it's like the snowball rolling down the hill, and you can't stop it, and the momentum, and the players have deer in the headlights, and there becomes an inevitability. I would have bet anything the Indians were going to win. And then that rain delay happens.

25-minute regroup. We come to find out Jason Hayward's Al Pacino on any given Sunday, apparently, in the locker room. It's all about the inches! Exactly. Turn the whole season around. He justified that $100 billion contract or whatever with his 230 batting

average. He's there just to give locker room speeches. He was four for 98 in the playoffs, but gave the greatest speech that's not been in a sports movie in the past 50 years, so it was worth it. Right, since win one for the Gipper. But they totally regrouped.

Yeah. I really think that rain delay was like an act of God. The timing of it, everything. It's like you couldn't make this shit up. You really can't. It's proof once again that God hates Cleveland. Because he made it rain.

It stalled their momentum. You theorized that Chicago, after they won the ALCS, was the drunkest city ever. But we didn't know last night was coming. No, I spoke too soon. I was lucky enough to root for three World Series champions. You were lucky enough to root for a whole bunch of them. Neither of us have ever experienced a Game 7, not a come from behind, but all the shit that happened in that game.

I don't even know how I – I don't know if I would have been standing by the end of that. No, I would have been dead. I mean, you know, I was lucky enough to see the Yankees go on a run in a dynasty in the late 90s, you know, in my 20s into 30s. And in 2003, you know, I had just seen them one four-world series. And in 2003 against the Red Sox, you wrote about this in your book, where I said I was a corpse after the Aaron Boone thing, which that series almost killed me, and that game almost killed me. I'm coming off a World Series as recently as three years before that. So when you have the weight of history, literally,

like people on Twitter, after they clinched the NLCS, I was looking at things and thinking about it, and I'm like, the last time they won, Babe Ruth was 13 years old. My grandfather died 16 years ago, and thinking about it. And I'm like, the last time they won, Babe Ruth was 13 years old. You know, my grandfather died 16 years ago and he was 90. He wasn't born yet when they last won. He lived a full life to 90 and has been dead 16 years. And they still had not won in that time frame. You know, it's before the Titanic was even built, let alone sunk.

And it was before World War, like 10, 8 years before the U.S. got into World War I. It's crazy to think how long ago that was. So then to go to Game 7, extra innings and a rain delay with the weight of, like, your parents and your grandparents and, hell, your great-grandparents never having seen them win. Oh, my God. I would have been dead. I literally would be dead.

Well, and especially thinking that you blew the game in the eighth inning, too, and that Madden blew it with Chapmanman and now chapman's got nothing left you have no other pitcher that you totally trust do you bring ariada ariada in on uh zero days rest like right i can't even imagine i mean i lived through it i guess the closest i came was four and five in the uh in the alcs and then six and seven but specifically four and five in the, uh, in the ALCS and then six and seven, but specifically four and five. And that wasn't, you know, we weren't playing for the world series title. We're just trying to keep the series alive and try to turn the tables on the Yanks.

It was nothing like this. I would say the closest you came probably, even though you'd already won a bunch of times, but Arizona Yankees 2001 was a little like this. Like you had some big come from bad games. I was lucky enough to be at game five of that World Series. And the Yankee crowd was as dead as it could be. They're down two to nothing. And then Scott Brocious hits the two-run home run off Kim Hung Kim in the ninth inning.

The place erupts. I've never been in a louder place in my life. Like hugging complete strangers. People are jumping up and down. It was anarchy. So I have to imagine that's what it was like last night after the Roger Davis home run, but even more so because, you know, you're carrying 68 years of history, a weight as an Indians fan. So it had to be insanity. And then of course, it goes to the extra innings and Alfonso Soriano wins the game. But so if there was, happened to be a rain delay and it stalled all the momentum and luis gonzalez had given some momentous locker room speech right you know i can only imagine what

that would feel like the next day and after you haven't won in 68 years it's got to be just brutal just brutal i was texting baseball really has like like no other sport baseball has the ability to just rip your heart right out of your chest and stomp on it because you live and die on every pitch. And it also brings back weird flashbacks. You know, like last week, I think MLB Network was showing Game 7 of the 1986 World Series, which I don't really think I've watched, and I realized as I was kind of tuning into it a couple innings that I'd blocked it out of my mind, like literally blocked it out of my mind.

We had a 3-0 lead in the sixth inning, which I hadn't even thought about in 20 years. And I'm watching, and I'm just starting to get bummed out all over again that Bruce Hurst couldn't get out Keith Hernandez. And I'm thinking, like, we've won three World Series since this happened. Like, I shouldn't care about this. So I was texting with Mike Scher about it,

and I was like, I can't believe we were up three nothing like i cursed like why can't you get him out he's like he's like i for him he was like uh you know all that pain was worth it because it led to oh four and i'm like yeah totally i i'm with you i totally agree and yet there's still scars there's still scars you know like watching the fans last night watching the Cubs fans in the stands in the ninth inning after they had blown the lead and they kept showing different people and they show Theo

and they show people biting their nails and people just with deer in the headlights and I was just like oh my god you just get these flashbacks of some of the worst sports moments of your life. I think it would have been worse for them to lose than the Indians to lose. I know the Indians fans are dying today, but if the Cubs fans blow 6-3, eighth inning, 5-1, 6 one six three partly because your manager used chapman in a seven to two game for three and it's like i would stop following sports yeah i don't

that's what i was thinking to myself when rajay davis hit the home run and the cubs tied it because leading up to that point basically everybody thought the game was over at five to one even though it was the cubs they're showing all all these scenes of people celebrating outside of Wrigley and all these happy Cubs fans in the stadium. And that's another thing. I couldn't believe the comment on this on Twitter. That was like Wrigley last night. There were so many Cubs fans there.

That Fowler home run in the first inning, the cheers, I couldn't believe it. Everybody in Cleveland apparently sold their tickets on StubHub. It was like a home game. It was crazy. And even Lester commented on that after the game. Yeah. That was crazy. And they kept showing all those Cubs fans,

and they're basically getting ready to pop the champagne. And then when Chapman gives up the game tying homer, I'm like, if I'm a Cubs fan, I think I stopped watching baseball. Why would I put myself through this again? I felt that way after 0-3 for like a week. The Boone homer. I really had – I went through like a week when the Boone Homer, I really had, I went through a whole series of steps in my head like, I don't know if I can do this

again. And then you snap out of it after a week or so and you're like, what am I doing? Of course I should. Well, I remember right afterwards, that's when they started talking about trading for A-Rod. And I was like, oh, A-Rod, all right.

And then it's like you're back. But there was a week post-Boone where you really go through all the steps of whether mentally it's worth it to go through this. Do you think that was the best baseball game of all time? Well, I mean, I don't know. I didn't see it, obviously, because it was 19 years before I was born but you know the Bobby Thompson shot heard around the world you got to put that up there just because those are two rivals I know it wasn't the World Series but so much riding on it and two teams that hate each other in the same city yeah that was pretty big time you know that's a huge

deal but last night was it was a good game. You're happy it wasn't won on some bonehead play. Nobody booted the ball. There wasn't a Buckner situation. It was good, clean baseball, and the better team won, I think. You can question moves here or there, but you can do that about any game. So it was a very good game, and given the circumstances, given the history, yeah, it's hard to argue. That's a good point.

Thank God there wasn't a GOAT. I'm glad. I hate when there's GOATs. And can Steve Bartman be welcomed back in the community of Chicago now? God, bring him back. They should put him on a float, for the love of God. Seriously. They should have had him throw out a first pitch or something.

Or they should have him throw out a first pitch at the game when they raised the banner. That's what they should do. Maybe they didn't want to taint him if he threw out the first pitch and they blew the series or something. But he should be welcomed back. Nobody's gotten a worse rep. And had opportunities to cash in on it and refuse. He's just like a complete hermit. Yeah, I was going to say, I love how he's handled it.

He's like, I'm not exploiting this in any way. I'm a giant Cubs fan, and I'm in real pain from what happened. Even 13 years later. Just leave me alone. Yeah, they should let him throw out a first pitch when they raise the banner. That would be a good thing. It would have been amazing if he had done a Facebook Live during the game.

He's like, oh my god, there's Steve Bartman. He's live on Facebook. It would have been the biggest Facebook Live. I think it was the greatest game of all time because of the histories of the two teams, the game seven, the twists and turns. It had a lot of elements of great games from the past, like the managerial screw-ups,

decisions earlier in the series affecting how this was going on. The Rajay Davis homer in the eighth was like about 10 great historical homers like very the bernie carbo homer and game 675 and all the way through it just had all these different pieces and even in the 10th inning they take the two run lead very similar to the game 6 1986 where the red sox go up by two in the top of the 10th but yet the you knew that the other team didn't have their best relievers anymore and that there was a chance for it to come back and um i don't know i just i it's just i don't think we're ever going to top that game i don't see it you know they and fox tried hard last night to jinx the cubs because

they flashed that like it said the last you know last time there was a two-run lead in the 10th was a game 6-86. And then the Cubs, it wasn't in the World Series, I guess, but the Cubs-Marlins in 2003. So you're like, oh my god, what's going to happen here? But they gave up the run and then they shut it down.

And I know the Cubs fans were complaining about Buck a little bit, but history will remember his incredible jinx on Chapman in the eighth inning when he brought up the domestic violence scandal right before, right as the Rajay Davis at-bat was about to happen, and even as it was a couple pitches in. And when he did it, I was like, oh, Joe Buck. Joe Buck making moves.

You never forget he grew up as a Cardinals fan. He's a Cardinals guy, so you've got to respect that. Yeah, it was something. Just very quickly, and then we have to move on to Kevin O'Connor. Are we going to have a President Trump? What do you think is going to happen? I do not think we're going to have a President Trump. I think we're going to have President Clinton Part. All right. I think we're going to have president Clinton part two.

That's my, that's where I bet my, my put my money, put a lot of it on that too. Actually. How excited are you for this election to be over? Oh my God. I'm so excited.

I, I just, it's, it's, oh God. Yeah. I get amazingly excited for it to be over. You and I have known each other forever.

I don't even, I don't even text you about the election anymore. I know this is one of the most traumatic non-family moments of your life. I've pretty much checked out since the last debate. It's too depressing to even read political Twitter or whatever or go on. For a while, it like fun to bash Trump and make fun of how crooked Hillary is and all that. But it's just so, when you really think about it, like, you know, what I said before the game last night,

like, wow, either the Indians or the Cubs are going to be World Series champion. Like, on November 9th, either Hillary Clinton or Donald J. Trump are going to be our president for the next four years. And when you really have to sit down and contemplate that, it's really, really depressing. Well said Johnny, a pleasure.

Depressing. I know you have to go and this will be quick, but can we talk about the bigger scandal that's hanging over both of our heads? What is it? The Gordie Lockbown bobblehead gate. Now the Holy cross, our beloved alma mater, of course, has probably three really great athletes in its history. Koozie Heinsohn and Gordie Lockbaum, who came in, what, second or third in the Heisman? He was the last guy to play both ways.

Yeah. You know, from a small school, made huge noise. And so Holy Cross, about a month ago, I followed their athletic department on Twitter. They tweet out that they're going to give away 1,500 Holy Cross bobbleheads at their football game. And I retweeted it and said, oh, I really, really want one of these. And then you went over the top and said, me too, or something. And then because it was, you know, there was some delay in the shipping of the bobbleheads, it was actually postponed to the following week.

And then I kind of forgot about the bobbleheads as much as I wanted one. And then you came way over the top and sent a text to Joe House and I, what, like a week or two ago? Yeah. With a picture of your shiny purple and white Gordy Lockbaum bobblehead that the school has sent you on your bookshelf. Yeah. I mean, it just really, really tainted our relationship. I really wanted a Gordie Lockbown bobblehead, and then you got one and just taunted us with it.

So really, I think to save our relationship, you have no choice but to send that to me. I have great and incredible news for you that I was going to tell you on the podcast. They sent me two. Oh, my God. Thank God. Do you have the podcast. They sent me two. Oh, oh my God. Thank God. Yeah.

Do House and I have to like arm wrestle for it? No, you're the one, you're the one who tweeted it. House just doesn't get it. Yeah. They sent me two and I'm sending it to you. So yeah,

our relationship's great. This is great. I feel like I just had a third child. I'm so happy. This is good. House is on his own. He's got to get his own Gordy Lockbuff. Well, thank you, Bill Bill I'm glad to say

that we can continue to be friends I still appear on the podcast headed toward our 30 year anniversary Jacko always a pleasure

talk to you soon good times take care bye bye alright we're going to call Kevin O'Connor from The Ringer to talk a little

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Offer code BS. All right, let's call Kevin O'Connor. All right, I hope you've read him on TheRinger.com. He's one of our lead NBA columnists. Every Monday, he writes a weekly column that includes a lead and then another segment called Seven Segments or Less. And he writes a whole bunch of stuff during the week. And he's a Boston guy. I don't know how we hadn't met before this year.

Kevin O'Connor, how are you? Bill, I'm happy to be with The Ringer and with you on the podcast today. All right. You've been doing great stuff for us. I wanted to check in with you every once in a while on the BS podcast to figure out what the hell is going on in the NBA. You're on The Ringer NBA show with Chris Vernon sometimes, so I'm kind of on his corner, stealing you every once in a while.

But what is your number one storyline right now? We're nine days into the season. What has surprise, shock, delighted you the most? So for me, it's Joel Embiid's early season performance. The way he's performing right now is kind of what I expected from him in February or March towards the end of the year. But he looks like the guy that I think everybody kind of dreamed up. There's not a lot of guys who are 7'2 and as nimble as he is. Brett Brown called him Shaq with soccer feet, and that comparison makes a lot of sense in

some ways, just how he flat-out plows through people. Marcin Gortat, his nickname, the Polish Hammer, for good reason, but Embiid made Gortat look like a very small man. It's not just the brute strength. It's the advanced moves that Embiid uses on the post. Never mind the post, it's the pick and roll. There's just not a lot of guys that, when he set the clean screen, who can finish with power at the rim or with finesse,

but he can also pop and shoot it. I just think he has incredible potential, and we're just seeing flashes of it right now. It's just surprising that we're seeing it so soon. So in the spring of 2014, I watched him work out. They invited me. He was working at some tiny gym in Santa Monica, and I wrote about it. I was staggered.

I was like, what is this? What am I watching? The 7'3 guy who moves like a guard. And it was like somebody took Hakeem Olajuwon and stretched him out, but kept the athleticism. And I left that gym and I was like, this guy has to be the number one pick. There's no way he's not the number one pick. This guy could be a once in a generation center. And he got hurt like a week or two later.

And you knew how talented he was because he still went third. The Celtics were trying to trade. They had the sixth pick that year, which ended up being Marcus Smart. They were trying to trade the sixth pick and the Brooklyn pick to move up to three to take Embiid, even though he was hurt. And then you see what happened over the next year or so. And you think, oh, man, this is Greg Oden all over again. But then watching him him I had the same reaction you did I was like oh my god you know and and for what kind of where the league has gone

from a style of play he's kind of the perfect pick and roll center right because if he's going to roll and you lob the ball up and he's seven foot three with those long arms and his athleticism I'm not positive how you stop it I don't know what the answer is what do you think no exactly and if you drop on the pick and roll and you try to prevent the lob he can his athleticism, I'm not positive how you stop it. I don't know what the answer is. What do you think? No, exactly. And if you drop on the pick and roll and you try to prevent the lob, he can still pop and shoot threes over you. And if you close out on those threes,

he's nimble enough that he can drive the close out and get to the rim. Right. He's just one of those guys that I think no matter how you defend him, it'll be difficult to stop him. And I know he hasn't had many assists early this season, but at Kansas, he really was a good passer towards the end of the season. So I think that'll be unleashed at some point. And so down the line, if you're going to double him, he's going to beat you with the pass too.

What was your reaction in that first game when he was facing up against Steven Adams and beating him off the dribble? I didn't know what the fuck was going on. I was like, what is happening? Yeah, I mean, exactly. I guess it was Gortat. Like, Gortat's a tough guy, and so is Steven Adams. And yet this guy who hasn't played an organized game besides preseason

in over two years is beating up Steven Adams. Even on the shots he missed, he was getting good positioning. And it's kind of a process. No pun intended because that's his nickname, but it's the process you look at with Embiid. Right now it's just a matter of him getting up to NBA speed and adapting to the game, the physicality of the game. That will come over time.

When you consider what he was at the beginning of his freshman year at Kansas, he did not use the Hakeem Olajuwon dream shake on the low post. He was really raw on the defensive end. But by the end of the year, the dude was a stud. So I'm wondering if he experiences the same rate of improvement as a rookie in the NBA as he did a freshman at Kansas. One of the reasons we hired you, because you're a hardworking psychopath who did a giant college draft guy with all the prospects.

So you were, you were monitoring all this stuff. You're not nearly old enough to remember Hakeem Olajuwon. There was a 30, 30 recently five slam a jam, which dove into the Houston teams that he played on. Didn't really go into Hakeem nearly enough, in my opinion, because a little bit like Embiid, Hakeem was a freak. He had started playing basketball when he was 15. He'd been playing soccer his whole childhood and just kind of picked up basketball and the waves of improvement that he made year by year to the point that he became the number one pick

over Michael Jordan and nobody said anything. And even now you think like one pick over Michael Jordan, and nobody said anything. And even now, you think like, oh, Michael Jordan wasn't the number one pick in the draft. That's crazy. Nobody's ever criticized that pick. And I think with Embiid, just watching him, I went to that college classic when Kansas played. Kansas was there, Duke was there,

the Julius Randles team, Kentucky. Remember that one? It was like a doubleheader? And Embiid was so raw in that game, and even during the season watching him get better. I don't know what the ceiling is for him. Do you think he has the highest ceiling of any under-25 player in the league, or would you go with Towns or Davis, somebody

like that? I think he's a better prospect than Towns, and I think Towns might be the second best prospect above above davis i just looking in beads upside on both ends of the floor yeah town towns is incredible um but i think in bead has that other dimension where you can put him inside as well i think he's a better low post player than than towns is and granted the low, the low post doesn't have the same importance in today's NBA, but in B, it's 7'2 with his quickness and his strength.

Maybe it does have that level of importance that it did in the past with him, whereas it doesn't with other guys. Do you think they have a responsibility to get an above-average point guard to put with him? Because I think it's unfair when you have a young big man like this who has this much promise to saddle him with guys who don't

you know who aren't above average and they have the trade assets they have okra fur they have no well one of those guys needs to go anyway especially if ben simmons ends up coming back in january they have a natural trade to make we could go through all the rosters and figure out a point guard. But don't you think they have some obligation to get him, somebody who knows what he's doing? Yeah, I think they absolutely need a traditional point guard. I mean, Simmons will probably be their quote-unquote point guard, but I still think they need a smaller guy in the traditional role

to play the position, and if you could spot up shooter that way he can play off of them and because simmons them involved all i don't think will be very good uh... at least to start a career right but it's about finding the right pairing with that roster i think they have a lot of the pieces that you look for would have been star it's a like rashaun holmes a lot maybe trade okra for for point guard down the line. I like Robert Covington.

Really, I think that's I don't want to say the final piece, but it's one of the main pieces they need to look for. Well, it all comes down to crunch time. And what five guys make sense together? This is something the Thunder never figured out during the Durant-Westbrook era. They never figured out that

fifth guy to put out there with them. It's the same problem the Clippers have had for six years. Who's the fifth guy? And you look at Embiid and Simmons. Can you play Sarich with them in crunch time? Could you have those three guys out there? I'm not positive. I think you need two shooters and you need a point guard.

If you're going to have Simmons as the point forward, then you need some sort of point guard who could play off the ball, right? You need somebody who could space like a George Hill type, not Utah's happy with George Hill, but somebody like that who can guard the other team's point guard and yet play off the ball offensively. I think that's a lot of pressure to put on Ben Simmons though, Because what if he's not a point forward? What if he's just a power forward? I don't totally know what he is yet, and we really haven't... We saw him play, what, 25 LSU games, and it was a mess, and we haven't seen him play this year. I don't really know what we have with him. What do you think we have with him? Well, I think you're kind of touching on what will

eventually maybe be the conversation with Ben Simmons, is the fact that he could be your point forward, and he might be a super effective pastor and playmaker for your team, especially in transition, but he still is a complete non-threat off the ball. I can totally see teams defending him or giving him the Tony Allen treatment where they just ignore him when he doesn't have the ball in his hands. And that's going to give problems to the Sixers down the line when they're trying to win games. I mean, they are trying to win now, but especially when they actually have a competitive roster, it could be the type of thing where down the line we're saying, oh, why is it that they're

better without Simmons in the game? It doesn't seem like they should be better, but they are. And I think that unless he improves his jumper which can't rule it out i don't necessarily think it'll happen for many reasons but i i think it's very possible that down the line we're thinking about how for some reason the fixers are just better without simmons like so many teams have been better without rondo over the past couple years right well i i think it's really hard for me to write somebody's jump shot off when they're 20 kawaii is a really good example kawaii fell to the what the 15th pick because couldn't shoot

allegedly and then it turns out he spent all summer in the gym and he's also a robot and they just repro reprogram the chip in his back and all of a sudden he could shoot i i'm not ruling out simmons being able to shoot i think they're in a really tough spot, though, because when you have too many people at a position and the other teams know you have to trade, and then on top of that, you're in a sport now where people are only playing one big man. And maybe there's 30 big men

that really need to play 30 minutes a game in the NBA at this point. And I don't know. I think if this was 1986, they'd have a lot easier of a time trading Okafor. I also think you could steal Okafor right now. You know, I don't want to get something for him, but I think he's going to be the odd man out. The more Embiid's still on a minutes limit, at some point that's going to change. And Okafor is going to be the loser because I don't see how you play those. Do you see any way you play those two guys together?

I don't necessarily see it working. But Okafor, do you see him as somebody that, I mean, you mentioned in the 80s it would be easy to trade him. It probably would have been maybe even just 10 years ago. But today, do you see him as somebody who can really beat up benches, like the opposing bench? Because there's not a lot of necessarily great defenders off the bench, and he's a great low post player.

Right. But it would minimize his defensive weaknesses, using him as a bench kind of weapon. Well, I think the model is Kanter, right? Yeah. You think like how OKC uses Kanter, and he comes in for these nine-minute stretches per half, and he shoots 65% and, you know, gets to the foul line, all that stuff.

I would think that's the model. Now, that's not great if somebody's the number three pick in the draft, especially when Porzingis was the next pick. I think we can already say they kind of whiffed on that one because I would much rather have Porzingis. And I think when you look at the Hinckley era, that's one of the moments, even though the process, like the spirit of it, I think, was the right thing,

they still whiffed on a couple picks. And if you care only about upside and you don't care about results, I just think Porzingis, you know, there was a real case to be made for that. Now, I think if they had taken him, I think people would have gone apeshit if Okafor dropped to four. So it wasn't as easy as it sounds now. I really wonder where Okafor goes. I think the Celtics would make a move on him.

I do feel like they're kind of watching that one. And that's the kind of guy... It's definitely possible. Yeah, that's the kind of guy. They don't have somebody like him. There's a couple other teams that I think he makes sense for. Minnesota, I think he would make sense for. Houston, I think he would make sense for.

There's 10 rosters that could use a guy like him. But it's going to be hard. They're probably going to have to take picks back. I don't think there's a match for a player. You mentioned the pick by Hinky. I wonder how much of that was, was him making the pick? Cause it doesn't seem like a Hinky pick to me based off his track record or

how much of it was ownership going with the safe pick, which you could understand, like you said, because they would have went crazy if it was, was for saying yes. By the way, I, I think Okafor is a great value.

I would totally be trying to trade for him if i was a gm we don't we have no idea how good he is that team he was on last year was uh was a dumpster fire you know coming out of duke everyone's like hey we don't know if he's if he's going to be liabilities defensively but this is a guy who can score in the low post period there's seven of these guys in the whole league so i wonder you know if he ends up on a different team and he ends up thriving that also looks bad for philly the the fear of having somebody come back to haunt you in a trade ends up prohibiting almost all of these trades you know but i i do think there's a world in which because i i think boogie's going I just think we're headed that way.

And maybe there's a world in which there's a three-team deal where Okafor and some other stuff ends up going to Sacramento and Boogie goes somewhere and then Philly gets pieces or something. You had three other storylines you were going to talk about. Let's run through them quickly. So the second one is just the start of the Chicago Bulls. I thought they would be just terrible out of the gate, and I was dead wrong. They're 3-1 right now.

I'm not confident they'll sustain this success, but they added two ball-dominant players, Rajon Rondo and Dwayne Wade, to Jimmy Butler, who's already a ball-dominant player, and yet it's working. They've actually been really impressive. They're moving the ball. They're top five in assist percentage. They're actually executing Fred Hoiberg's motion offense um the rondo wade butler lineup has actually outscored opponents by nearly eight points per 100 possessions i don't know if this

will sustain i really kind of still don't think it will but i never thought that they would come out with the start that they have. Right. Rondo, aging Rondo, and he's not aging, but I guess second half of his career, Rondo or whatever, is going to be a really interesting player because he's so freaking smart. And you look at some of the teams he's been on the last few years, he hasn't been on a team really since those 2010 through 2012 Celtics where he had other high IQ guys on the floor with him. And I guess you could say, all right, well, what about Dallas?

That was a mess. Like, you know, you had Carlisle barking out plays from the sideline and, you know, Rondo playing off the ball. That was never going to work. Once you watch five games of it, you're like, oh, this is a disaster. I'm really interested to see how he goes during this season. It's a guy who in game four of the 2010 Cleveland series, when they're down 2-1, what did he put up?

Like a 29-17-18? And he was the best player in that series. This is a guy who was the best player in a series that had LeBron James in it. That wasn't that long ago. No, no. And he's somebody who, he's such a good athlete, it's hard for me to believe that he's just going to fade out at the tail end of his prime.

I do think he was a really interesting free agent, Campbell, and somebody that really depended on what team he went to. What do you have for your third story? So, kind of just the start of the Lakers. I'm really impressed by Luke Walton installing his system so early. Guys are really buying in in the half court. I don't know the numbers, but I would imagine they're at least in the top half in offensive efficiency in the half court.

The young guys are performing really, really well, and I think the Lakers can be a lot closer to being good than people think. It won't happen this season, but maybe one free agent signing away from being a pretty competitive team with their young guys, the rate of improvement we're seeing from D'Angelo Russell. Julius Randle looks much better this year. Larry Nance is still awesome to watch. They've been really fun to watch early on this year yeah larry nance is still awesome to watch that they're just they've been really fun to watch early on this year did you love ingram coming out of college what were your

thoughts on him so i had ingram ahead of simmons yeah primarily because i just think he was a generally an easier guy to build around because he doesn't have the weak jump shot and i think he's a much better passer and playmaker than he gets credit for. So I had him one. So I did like him a lot. Obviously, he does have his weaknesses, and he's very thin. He's going to take a while, but I think long-term, he's going to be a really, really good NBA player.

You know, and Randall was another one that I think people just forgot he was good. You know, he broke his leg. It happens. Yeah, game one or something, right? Yeah, yeah. What do you have for your fourth storyline? Kevin Love. They're using him like a superstar.

I thought maybe this would be another year, the third year in a row, where he was kind of just the third wheel. But this year he's actually second on the team of the big three in usage percentage. They really are feeding him the ball. I think it's nice to see. In some ways, it seems like they've kind of figured out how to use him. I don't know if this will happen over the course of the season, but early on, I'm liking the way they're using him,

and I'm very interested to see what happens. That was the biggest reason House and I went for the over on Cleveland for 57 as one of our locks. Because I don't think people realized, Kevin Love, the dislocated shoulder, was it broken, separated? What did he have, dislocated? It was dislocated, right? Dislocated.

Yeah. And he wasn't able to work out all summer. And he lost too much weight and i remember roy hibbert we were doing uh test shows for my hbo show and talking to roy hibbert about different things and he was just saying like for some reason we're talking about kevin love he was like kevin love he just lost too much weight i could shove him around and you know it was like four years ago i couldn't push him out of the paint like he get, he would sneak around you and you just couldn't get rid of them. And now you just shove them out of the way. It was clear. He wasn't right. Uh, he was basically a supporting piece. I think the way he handled it was really

impressive, but, uh, you know, everything I read this, this summer and this, and, you know, heading into the season was this guy got an awesome shape again. This guy put muscle back on. This guy can't believe how much better he feels now that he can work out. You look at that, and then you look at LeBron, who I still think, I think there's an MVP run in him that's gonna center around the totality of the stats. And I think he's trying to every game

do the 20-10-10 or the or the 2012 and 12, things like that. And Love is a big asset for that. You know, he can ride Love and Kyrie and set those guys up, be a little point forward. I'm with you. To me, the safest bet for the highest win total this year is the Cavs. Don't you think? Like, I've totally flipped on that. I agree.

Yeah, I thought the Warriors were going to win 68. Now I think with the way this Cavs team looks and how comfortable they are with each other, I'd be shocked if they didn't win 65 games. What would you say? What would your number be right now for them? I'm on the same ballpark as you, Bill.

You mentioned LeBron kind of taking on more of that 20-10-10 role. We're finally seeing him kind of do that. We're seeing him take on the Magic Johnson role, where he's more of a playmaker this year. And, I mean, fun to watch so far. And I'm very interested to see if that sustains, though, just because in the past it seems like Kevin Love has always been the guy

that's gotten pushed out. And I just wonder if at some point it reverts back to that. I hope it doesn't, though, because I'm really enjoying watching this edition of the Cavaliers. But I'm in the same ballpark with you, Bill, as the win total. It's way too early to really make a proclamation about anything with the Warriors, but I do worry about Klay Thompson being the one that's going to get pushed out here. There's been signs early.

That team was built around Steph and Klay for three, four years. And now it's built around Steph and Durant. And everybody's like, no, no, Klay's going to get his shots. And it's like he's Kyle Korver. He's there to space the floor. And I really wonder how he's going to handle that if it keeps going that way. It's just going to be amazing to see how the shot distribution or even the playmaking distribution kind of falls out with them.

Because early on this year, I expected to see more pick and rolls run with Kevin Durant, but they haven't done many of them at all early on. Will there be a point where they do kind of unleash that Durant pick and roll with Curry setting the screen? Because we haven't seen much of it at all early on. I don't – the Zaza thing, I just don't see lasting. He was somebody who really played poorly the last four months of last season. And it's hard for me to believe that that's going to be the solution

in May and June for them. If you remember that first Miami year, I think Carlos Arroyo started at point guard the first couple months for them. Joel Anthony was playing big minutes. And then eventually they settled into the nucleus that they had. And those guys weren't big parts of it. It's hard for me to believe Zaza is going to be heavily involved with this whole thing. And I really think their destiny has to be Durant and Draymond as the two big guys.

I think that the quote-unquote lineup of death, it's going to have to be Durant. And Durant's going to have to protect the rim night to night in ways that he's never really done it before. We've seen him do it in playoff series. But Draymond and Durant are going to have to be the rim protectors. And I don't know. It makes me a tiny bit nervous for the Warriors.

What do you think? The difficult thing is, if their center isn't on the roster right now, what do they give up to find that center? And is that center out there on the market for them? You know, Jarks did a piece on Dwayne Dedman for us on the ringer. That's somebody that, he killed the Celtics in a game once. Those guys seem to be out there kind of looking for a team from time to time, you know?

It was like, who is this guy? This guy is something. Why is he the third-string center in Orlando? And, you know, it's like they need somebody like that. They were lucky enough to draft azili but uh i don't i i don't feel like this warriors roster that we're watching right now is going to be the nine man playoff rotation that they're going to have in june i think there's two pieces they don't have yet and i don't know where they're going to get those pieces and i don't know how ambitious they're going to be they might they

might wait too long but I think they know it. I think McCaw is somebody that you liked him in college. That was one of your sleepers, right? Yep, I like him a lot. That's somebody they're going to need. They need that one more. And the other thing, I haven't heard a lot of people talk about this,

and we'll see tonight what happens if Westbrook catches fire. But I'm not positive Iggy's in his prime anymore. I think he's at a different stage of his career. And if they can't rely on him to guard the other team's best offensive player every two nights in the playoffs, that's another obstacle for them. It's super early, but, man, I didn't think I'd have this many tiny question marks about this team. Did you?

I had concerns about the center position. That's maybe a little bit more concerning for me right now than I expected it to be. I thought Zaza would be a little bit better early on, but as you said, last four months of last season, he was really, really bad, and that's just carried over. I don't know what the answer is for them. Part of me wonders if the answer could be Damian Jones, their rookie center from Vanderbilt.

Long-term, down the line, he's a versatile defender. He can switch pick and rolls. Maybe he's the guy by the end of the year, but not right now, right? Not early on in the season, but he's the guy I kind of, if they don't make a move for somebody, that if I'm a Warriors fan, I'd be hoping that Damian Jones gets an opportunity just to see what he's got. Well, this is a good season to need somebody who can protect the rim because there's, there's somewhat of a glut right now in the league. I think they're going to be able to find somebody. Kevin O'Connor, check you out on the ringer, especially your Monday column. That

is going to be the signature column you write, and then a whole bunch of other stuff, and we can also listen to you on The Ringer NBA show. A pleasure, as always. Say hi, everybody, to Massachusetts for me. Thank you for having me on, Bill. All right, we're going to call Geo House to do the Callaway Part 3, but first, please stop wasting money on an expensive takeout. Please? Can you stop you stop please what if you signed up with blue apron for less than ten dollars a meal blue apron will deliver you all

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All right, last but not least, the man who predicted in 1987 that the Cubs would win in 2016. No, he actually didn't do that. Joe House, how are you? Yeah, it's a good thing I didn't have anything to do with the Cubs or any prediction because my current stink streak, I would hate to be responsible for any continued bad luck befalling the Cubs.

I know you talk. Go ahead. I was going to say, I should get a World Series ring. I got some TMZ guy came up to me when I was getting a sandwich a couple days ago. He was like, who do you think is going to win the World Series? I was like, I don't know, the Indians? They have a lead?

They have better pitching? And I think it was a nice reverse jinx I put on the Indians. You're welcome, Cubs fans. You also invited me to join a small wager that I was happy to participate in. Oh, the Indians bet. On the Indians, right, because I feel like I did my small part also to make the Cubs. It was the right bet. We didn't know Kluber and Miller were going to finally run out of gas,

which I guess if we had talked about it long enough, we could have expected it. As it turned out, everyone ran out of gas. There was just no gas left in any of the tanks. I'm fine with that. That game was exactly everything I could have hoped for. It was actually way more than I could have hoped for. Is that the greatest baseball game of your lifetime? Yes.

Okay. Without a doubt. Without hesitation. Yeah. Every week we do the Callaway Par 3 for football. We changed the format last week and we teamed up. You do a pick. I do a pick. We do a group pick. We went two and one. We're the format last week and we teamed up. You do a pick. I do a pick. We do a

group pick. We went two and one. We're one under par and we're going to try to get to 10 under par by the end of the season. I was proud of us last week. And by the way, you, you, you, you cost us our one bogey with the chargers, but that was a great pick. They first down and goal to go from the two. And I don't know. They were right in the game. It came down to the last two minutes. They're getting, what, five and a half points. That was the right pick.

I have no regrets. Yeah, my only regret is putting anything into the hands of Mike McCoy. I got a very bad feeling in my stomach when, on first down, Phillip Rivers is lining up in shotgun from the one yard line. Why do teams do that? Just have the quarterback under center, spread the receivers out, and do a handoff against a six-man front. I don't understand why they overthink it like this.

And they threw every down on that series. But, all right. Water under the bridge. I watched, and I didn't enjoy it. Give us your, you get one, I get one, and then we make a group one. Give us your pick for week nine. This week, I like very much the Denver Broncos.

I've seen it a couple different ways. I've seen them getting one point, and I've also seen it as pick them. I think it's going to settle at pick them. At least that's the way it's looking at the moment. I have Raiders by one right now, so let's stay with that. Oh, that's even better. Yeah.

The idea of Denver getting points from the Raiders. The Jekyll and Hyde act that is the Oakland Raiders this season, they've been, as we recognized last week, we talked about taking them, perfect on the road, but very lackluster at home. Denver owns Oakland in this series. 9-0 straight up, 7-1-1 against the spread over the last nine games. And I just think there is very little home field advantage for the Raiders.

It's been demonstrated. Not because the fans are bad, but because for whatever reason they don't play well there. Denver's the better of these two teams. And in a pick-em or Denver getting points, I feel pretty good about taking the Broncos. And the other thing, the Raiders, as lovable and exciting as they've been, and I really enjoyed them, and I think Kevin Clark wrote a piece in The Ringer this week ranking all the red zone channel teams. Had them number one.

Not a surprise. Week after week, they're super exciting. Last week's game was a classic. The problem for them, they're just sloppy. They make mistakes. They get dumb penalties. They had 23 penalties last week, which was a record. The Broncos are kind of the opposite.

They're like the technically sound boxer that doesn't make mistakes, doesn't get hit that much. They have a very good defense. They control the ball. They try to control the clock. I think for that reason, it's a bad matchup for the Raiders. It's just that the wrong team for them to play. Now, if the Raiders win this, I think they're a legitimate contender in the AFC because I don't love the Patriots defense, as you know. But I can't fully believe in the Raiders unless they win this game.

And I'm with you. I don't think they will. My pick is going to be the Pittsburgh Steelers, who are laying one and a half points against the Ravens. Sal and I did the podcast on Monday. At that point, the Ravens were favored by two and a half points. I made my case for how there was no way Ben Roethlisberger wasn't playing in the game. He has shown over and over in his career a tendency to be able to come back way earlier than people expected from injuries ranging from really bad to somewhat bad to not that bad. He always comes back early.

I think he's going to play this week. I think Vegas thinks he's going to play this week because the line swung four points, and the Steelers are now one-and-a-half-point favorites in Baltimore. I don't like the Baltimore team. I don't think they have any really above-average-skill-possession guys at all. I don't like the way Flacco's played this year. They lost to the Jets two weeks ago before they had a bye week. They've already changed their offensive coordinator. And, you know, it's in a weird way, a little bit of a must win for the Steelers because they're only four and three. They have Dallas the next week.

They still have an Indianapolis Thursday game. They're at Buffalo. They're at Cincy. They have to play Baltimore again. They can't really screw around anymore. I think this is a playoff game for them, and I just think they're better. What do you think? Yeah, I'm right there with you. I love playing the Joe Flacco, is he elite game. So far this season, Joe Flacco, not elite. And I feel like, you know, speaking of Jekyll and Hyde, Pittsburgh, you know, the last couple seasons has had a couple of those stinkers in its back pocket.

The stinker that it broke out against the Dolphins, the stinker against the Eagles. But then they come out in games like this and get rolling. The only thing that gives me slight pause over time, Baltimore has owned this series at home, the Ravens. But I don't fear this iteration of the Ravens. You just made the point. There's nobody at any skill position that you say, wow, the only thing that, again, would give me pause is the defense and how personally the Ravens take this rivalry,

which always makes for a good game between these two teams. But we both love the idea of a basically even matchup here. Even Pittsburgh giving one, one and a half, that's fine. I'm in on Pittsburgh with you on that one. Yeah, I screwed up. That was our joint pick. I still have my pick. So before I give my pick,

why don't you tell us about Callaway for a second? I'm actually, you called me today. I'm in San Diego. I got to experience the fantastic collaboration between Callaway and the San Diego Padres, the Lynx at Petco Park. There's going to be a ton of media coming up

over the next couple of days and then on into the following week, showing you how cool this conversion of the baseball stadium into a nine-hole golf outing. And there's a lot of cool themes. I actually played.

I played with a couple of ringer guys yesterday. I heard you won. I was happy. I mean, you know, among that group, I think I'm the only one with a golf podcast. So I'm glad that. Right. You had some street cred to protect. Exactly.

But it's a really cool thing. So check out the Callaway Media and maybe, you know, there's talk, maybe this thing can go to some other venues. I mean, it would be a pretty

unbelievable place to do this. I'm going to guess you're available for any venue it goes to. Me? Yes, I'm always available. Okay. You sound a little hungover,

by the way. Anything you want to tell us? I'm in San Diego and I played, you know, two rounds on two rounds on the length of Petco Park. It was wonderful. And then you watched the World Series? I don't even want to know what happened to you last night. I did watch the World Series.

Here's my pick. Eagles, plus two and a half at Giants Stadium. I like this Eagles team. I thought they really did a nice job against Dallas, and they had a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter against a very good Eagles team. I thought they really did a nice job against Dallas, and they had a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter against a very good Dallas team. Their defense is excellent. Amazingly, they're number one in Football Outsiders DVOA,

even though I think they have the 23rd offense or something. It's been a really wonky DVOA year, but their defense is very good. They have a very good pass rush. I've watched this Giants team. They've had trouble protecting good. They have a very good pass rush. I've watched this Giants team. They've had trouble protecting Eli. They've had trouble running the ball. They've had trouble making plays. They've had trouble moving the ball and scoring points. And I don't really think the Giants have a home field advantage. I think they're like the Raiders to me. It doesn't

seem like it matters where they play. And if anything, they're sometimes a little bit more effective on the road. This has all the makings, all the makings of the Eli stink bomb. I feel it. I can smell it from 3000 miles away. I woke up this morning. I was sniffing around like, what is that? Did one of my dogs poop on the floor? No, it's the Eli stink bomb. I think it's coming. I'm taking the Eagles plus two and a half. What do you think? Well, you didn't even know. You know I like to dig out these nuggets. Your Eli stink bomb is right on the money and backed up by the analytics. Eli Manning one and eight. One and eight

at home against Philadelphia. Both straight up and against the spread in the last time matchups. So you know, you could smell what the Eli is cooking, and it does not smell good. Quick, give me one basketball thought before we go.

NBA season, it's like nine days in. One thing that jumped out to me. We're recording this on a Thursday. The Russell Westbrook World Domination Tour arrives at Arco Arena tonight for the matchup against… It's not Arco Arena. It's notup against... It's not Arco Arena. It's not called... Oracle. The Oracle. Oracle Arena. Oracle. Goodness gracious. So old.

If you have a Bloody Mary or something. He's taking on the traitor Kevin Durant. It's going to... I mean, anything's possible, right? He could score 75 points tonight. I think he's going to take a lot of field goal attempts would be one of my takeaways for this game. That's your prediction? Yeah, I think he's going to take a lot of field goal attempts would be one of my takeaways for this game. That's your prediction? Yeah, I think he's

going to have the ball in his hands and he's going to be full speed. I'm not positive he's going to come out. I think 48 minutes is in play. This OKC team is flawed as hell. They can't shoot. They just traded for another guy who couldn't shoot.

And yet, they have a bunch of competitive adults who play really hard, led by the completely insane... I've been loving them. Yeah, they're led by the completely insane Russell Westbrook. Adams has gone to another level. Oladipo is going to be a hit or miss, but he plays hard. Everyone on this team plays hard. And night to night to night to night,

I think they're going to be good. I've enjoyed them, too. I'm surprised. I was flicking back and forth with the Bulls, and I was surprised by how professional they looked. It was an off night for them from a shooting standpoint, but

their defense is much better this year. The team seems to fit. Remember we had so much trouble in the over-unders trying to figure out whether the Bulls were going to be good or not. I think the Bulls are actually going to be good. I think they have a chance to be a top four seed. Not only did we talk ourselves into the Bulls, and then just on the point you made that it's a professional basketball team, the Butler playing with Rondo and Wade and Wade

as a natural alpha dog there lends a semblance of stability. You know, that's just the basketball IQ of the whole team goes up by having those three guys playing together, and it offsets whatever the Hoiberg effect may be. I actually invested a decent amount of capital in the Bulls over. I ended up loving the Bulls right as the season began, and I feel like that's not a bad pick. I mean, they lost last night because Amir Johnson made four threes. I'll live with that.

And one thing I think we underestimated, it's starting to trickle out this week already. They're all talking about how much better the locker room is. How the chemistry is better. I think Rose and Noah, I think that was a real problem last year with Butler. And I bet that starts trickling out more and more as the season goes. It just seems like a happier basketball team. What's been your favorite league pass team so far? The Lakers.

I just have been so stunned by the energy, I guess, is the only thing I'll say. We talked about it just a smidge last week as well. Luke Walton, it's only thing I'll say. We talked about it just a smidge last week as well. I just, Luke Walton, it's a whole different basketball team. It's like they dropped it. They took a team from Mongolia and dropped it in L.A., a brand-new human beings with no history or anything. Right. And it's just such a different feel altogether.

I just like watching. They're fun to watch. I agree. The Baby Lakers have stolen the show in the first nine days. It's like they went through a chemistry car wash. And you know, we loved Julius Randle in college. We did. He broke his leg in his first NBA game.

And I read a story about him last week, actually, about how that broken leg, to no surprise, really effed him up. And it took him two years. I guess he jumped off his right leg. Some people jump off their left. Some people jump off their right. And he was jumping off both legs last season because he didn't feel totally comfortable

in his bones yet. And he said this year he's jumping off his right leg, and that's why he seems so much more explosive but man they have some good basketball players and you forget they've been picking in the top and they you know randall was i think the seventh pick russell was the second pick brandon ingram's the second pick like when you're drafting blue chippers for three straight years it's probably going to translate into some success so is larry jess lar Larry Nance Jr. going to be a revelation? Yeah, I think he's good.

That might have been a steal. Yeah, I'm with you. The baby Lakers. All right, House, we'll talk to you in more detail next week. Safe travels. Good luck nursing your hangover. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks, buddy.

All right. I'm a person never lost And I don't have to Thanks so much to Stamps.com Stop relying on the post office Just buy and print official U.S. postage Using your own computer and printer I just did this And I printed out a stamp From Stamps.com

Sign up for Stamps.com Use the promo code BS for a 4-week trial plus a $110 bonus offer that includes postage and a digital scale. Go to stamps.com. Click on the microphone at the top of the homepage and type in BS. Thank you so much to Callaway. And thanks to Pearl Jam. Check out pearljam.com. They are celebrating PJ25, their 25th anniversary, all year. And all next year, most of next year, too.

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