The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 158: Friday Rollin' With Joe House

Episode Date: December 30, 2016

The Ringer's Bill Simmons and Joe House discuss George Karl's controversial new NBA book (and the anecdotes that surprised Bill the most when he read it) (2:35). Then they rattle off their NBA power rankings for December (33:50), measure Cleveland against Golden State (1:10:50), and pick Week 17's big Lions-Packers game (1:10:18). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And we are off. All right. On the phone for the last time in 2016, my friend Joe House, how are you? I'm outstanding, notwithstanding the continued and really, at this point, impressive performance of the Stink Streak. Oh, in the Callaway Part 3. Yeah, so we're saving our football picks until the tail end of this podcast because it's Week 17 and there are just so few meaningful games. It's almost like a little hiatus until Sunday night. It doesn't really matter if Kansas City or Oakland is the two seed. I guess it matters a little if Kansas City is, but for the most part, Sunday night is the night i want to talk basketball we're going to do the december power poll for the nba we did november last month and kind of skipped over the top nine this time we're skipping over the first 21 and doing the top nine but before we do that i have a little surprise for you joe house oh i'm excited i read george george carl's entire book already yeah it didn't take long it's like 200 pages i didn't know it was out already i

just saw the you know he was he flamed everybody and everybody's mad at him yeah and so i got it last week and was thumbing through it and i saw that pd's part and i was like oh and meant to do this on a podcast with you and i should have realized other copies are going to come out what's annoying to me though is they had mailed me another copy like six weeks ago, which I threw in the garbage. I just was like, what do I care about a George Carle book? I didn't realize that in the words of Al Pacino instead of a woman, he's going to take a flamethrower to this place. And he did. He brought out a big fat flamethrower and he threw flames at everybody on the planet, including

these are, so I made a list of all the players that he coached that he annihilates in the book. Carmelo Anthony, Kenyon Martin, DeMarcus Cousins. Apparently he did annihilate them. And then the book ends abruptly. I think they had to take out all the Sacramento Kings stuff because he must have signed some non-disclosure agreement. It's literally, it gets to the Kings

and then all of a sudden it's like, all right, that's the end of the book. Here are the acknowledgments. It's like, wait, what happened to the Kings? He annihilates Ray Allen, JaVale McGee, Joe Barry Carroll, World B Free, Kendall Gill, and Anthony Mason. Those are the guys he coached at various stops.

Crushes all of them. He crushes Paul Pierce for the 2002 World Championships. He crushes Ice Girvin because he used to practice against him when he was an ABA player in the 70s. And Ice didn't like the hard defense he played. He annihilates bloggers. He annihilates Don Nelson for backstabbing him and taking the Golden State Warriors job from him. He throws a sideswipe at Frank Layden because they had a playoff series and Frank Layden congratulated him before game five for a great season,

past tense, which Carl then passed on to his players and the Warriors upset the Jazz. And then he took a couple sideswipes at David Stern, not including or not accepted for the 93 Suns Sonic Series, which you and I have always thought was one of the all-time fishiest Game 7s that have ever happened. The Suns shot 64 free throws, which George talks about in the book and was not happy. And then in 2001, the Sixers Buck Series against Iverson, which was a huge free throw disadvantage in favor of the Sixers, as well as a bunch of technical fouls, a really fishy Game 5 that I think they've

destroyed all copies on YouTube. And then right before Game 7, a couple hours before, they suspended Scott Williams, one of his centers for the game. So that's just the background of what happens in this book. Are you excited already for all of this stuff? It's incredible. I have two observations. First, there is absolutely no doubt. It's a lock of the century. A thousand percent chance that he had a nondisclosure with Sacramento. Yeah, a hundred percent chance.

That's a guarantee. Not even 99, it's a hundred. He doesn't even mention it. What's funny is they forget to take it in the book. There's all these pictures, right? And the pictures have these little captions. And there's the Boogie Cousins picture. I'm looking at it right now.

And it says, My year and a half with the Kings was interesting, was one of them. And then another picture was, DeMarcus Cousins and I battle for position. A picture of him and Cousins. He won, comma, I guess. That's the only real mention of Cousins and I battle for position. A picture of him and Cousins. He won, comma, I guess. That's the only real mention of Cousins in the entire book.

So they must have taken it out of the text. Anyway. Yeah. Well, the other thing is, and I mean this genuinely, does he not want to work in basketball ever again? The answer is no, because the shots that he takes all over the place. Here's the thing. I 90% enjoyed it. Like I really liked, I liked how candid he was.

He says in the beginning that he designed the book because he wanted to make it seem like you were hanging out at a hotel bar with him. And basically he's telling you what it's like to be a coach and this and that and his thoughts on everything, which is great. The 10% that is really kind of disarming is the stuff about Carmelo and Kenyon Martin. He already apologized for the fatherless comment.

Yeah, it's somewhere between racist and ignorant. Because he criticizes both guys as being totally uncoachable and as part of the background for those comments brings up what their background is and how they were single family guys and hold on i'm gonna find this part here it's page 191 if you're ever thumbing through the book in a bookstore so here's the kenya Martin part. I knew right away that our power forward was one of the most insecure, immature players I ever coached. Kenny Martin had grown up poor in South Dallas, single parent home. His mother worked two jobs. He was teased unmercifully for his stutter and for his skin color.

Then a page later, he's talking about Carmelo. Carmelo grew up poor in west baltimore single parent home his father died when he was two with drugs and violence neighborhood must have been a combat zone this is a theme that comes up a few times in the book is that he seems to think if you don't have a dad you're not coachable and he talks about how important dads are when you don't have a dad people he didn't have somebody in his life back then that would have helped him out and kind of taught him right from wrong. It's, it's uncomfortable. It just is.

Well, here's the thing. He has a body of work that, that bespeaks, uh, you know, that the idea that he has any kind of an underlying, um, uh, you know, bad, bad spirit as it relates to race, right? Right. I wouldn't say it's a bad spirit. I would say he's just completely ignorant. He doesn't seem to realize that by pigeonholing these two guys with the— Here's something he wrote.

Kenyon and Carmelo carry two big burdens, all that money, comma, and no father to show them how to act like a man. Just a weird thing to write. Like so many people have grown up to be successful in this country who had one parent or who were just raised by their mother. It's the kind of blanket statement that people just don't really make anymore publicly, which is what makes it so strange. He apologized for that.

I haven't read the apology. I only saw the headline. And I would be interested in seeing how it is that he explains whatever it is that he meant. The curious thing is how he had the pen. It was his book. He could have, you know, come up with a more nuanced way of describing whatever it was that was in his heart that he was trying to communicate. But it is, in this day and age, and especially for a guy with a 30, 35-year career, mostly successful, right? I mean, you would regard him mostly as a success in the league. So that means he's navigated a lot of complicated relationships with players, with owners, and a whole variety of, you know, he's interacted with folks of varying races successfully.

This thing is just incredibly tone deaf. It's just a very dumb way to make the point. Right. On that same page, he's talking about J.R. Smith. J.R. had a slightly different story. He went straight from high school in New Jersey to AAU, success to the NBA. His father was on the scene and in his life, which is obviously good. But Earl Smith Jr. just sent him to shoot the ball and keep shooting it from the very moment I put him in the game, which is obviously bad. It's just, as you said, tone deaf and also really strange for a book because during a

book process, you have so many different points when somebody can kind of jump in and say, hey man, you might want to rephrase, hey, that Carmelo, it feels weird, the Carmelo and Kenyon section back to back when you're kind of killing them as being immature, partly because they didn't have a dad. And maybe you want to tone that down or re-say it or rewrite it and during this whole process nobody had that conversation with him which you know I can see it in like a podcast or even if he wrote a players tribune thing and the wrong editor wasn't there or whatever but it's just weird and I think he had a lot of damage I can't decide whether he was a terrible person to coach a lot of the people that ended up coaching or whether those people ended up damaging him.

Because another guy he coached was Iverson at the tail end of Iverson's career. When Iverson, you know, Carl's pretty candid. He's like one of the reasons we're able to get him is because he had been going out all the time for 10 years and was a legendary partier and by the time we got him we were starting to feel the effects on his body you know which is what we saw we certainly had heard all the stories and it was no secret but it was interesting to hear him talk about that but um i can't decide if he just had the worst luck possible with the people he coached or whether it was just the era that he coached. Because like, I didn't even mention Sean Kemp, who he liked and said that eventually it became

a real problem when Jim McElveen signed that contract and Sean Kemp took it personally and started to act weird and all that stuff. But, you know, the one person, you go through all these guys, they're all either head cases or people that had reputations as not being the easiest person to coach. The one person that he's really against is Ray Allen, which I was shocked by. Like, you know, does it seem like Ray Allen is the most difficult guy to coach? Did you ever get that perception? Not once, right?

I mean, he had long careers with the teams that he played for. The teams that he played for wanted him to stay with them. The Celts didn't want him to leave. The Heat were thrilled to get him. And the same was true in Seattle and in Milwaukee, right? Yeah, well, here's what he writes about Ray. It was a relief after they traded him in that terrible trade for Desmond Mason and Gary Payton.

It was a relief to see Ray gone. It was like popping a blister. Although Ray and I had a good relationship for a few years, eventually he inhabited a sort of shadow land with the Bucs. He was too good and too well-paid to be under my control, and he knew it, and the other players saw it. The coolness of his personality reminded me of Joe Bear Carroll. Unfortunately, Ray wasn't a negative guy,

but I didn't think his teammates liked him. I knew I didn't. Quote, Ray Allen has been nothing but trouble, I told the press. We had no choice but to get rid of him. So it's always like it was somebody. Yeah, he killed him. It's always like he destroys Carmelo. I mean, too many different, a lot of the stuff has trickled out but he's basically saying carmelo you know use the people around him all he

wanted to do was shoot he didn't want to play defense uh he wasn't a leader like he just he goes through all the way and he kind of kills gp for the first couple years of gp's career and all these battles he had and they said eventually they found some common ground and he was able to kind of get on the same page with them but it's so that that's that's that's a really interesting uh observation by him that's finding common ground because that that's the point that's his job the weird thing the feeling i'm getting and i haven't read one word of this all of this is brand new, that's why I wanted to spring it on you. Yeah, I wanted you to just react off what I was telling you. I love you springing it on me.

It sounds like he took a pair of glasses that, like, are old white guy glasses and put them on and sat down and started writing because he could not have possibly had the success he had with the teams that he had if, indeed, it was the case that he was not able to get to a place where these players would perform on a consistent basis for him. He got the best of Melo, I would argue, right? Didn't he get the very best out of Melo? Didn't Kenyon Martin have some great years for him?

Yeah, Kenyon was up and down because he was hurt, and then he was healthy, he was hurt, he was healthy. Chauncey Billups came in and was the thing that he even says, like that was the best Carmelo ever played that one year. And he kind of glosses over how close they came to beating the Lakers in 09. Remember they threw away two of those games on inbounds passes, and it was 2-2 heading into game five, and then they lost the last two. Yeah, we genuinely thought Denver could win that. Yeah, and Carmelo was playing.

The recipe there was not unsimilar from what happened with Dirk and Dallas two years later. But it's weird. He takes a lot of credit for being a great coach and making everything work when the team's going well, but kind of glosses over a lot of the collapses that his team's had. He goes into detail the 94 when they lost to the Nuggets in game five

and just, oh, that's one part I wanted to read to you, actually. This is page. Dikembe and Robert Pack. Yeah, this is page 108. So they go up to nothing. But he says, I didn't see it then, but in hindsight, maybe we're beginning to crumble Gary Payton and Ricky

Pierce screamed at each other in the halftime locker room something about Ricky taking a shot when there should have been another pass I'm pretty sure they swung fists at each other and I'm pretty sure one or both of them said something about getting a gun somebody

had to step between them Sam made a late three gary threw in a runner we won we won by 10 game was closer than that and then he basically is like things started to fall apart and uh gary yelled at everyone locked him after the game but i'm pretty sure 22 years later i'm pretty sure one or both of them said something about getting a gun. What? I'm flummoxed by all of this. I really am speechless. I'm trying to think about what job he thinks he could do next. It can't possibly be the case that his calculus was, all of the money that I could make for the rest of my career is going to come from this book. So I'm going to write it as though, you know, there are no implications or consequences

whatsoever for my future employability. Yeah, I think he's done as a coach. And, you know, there was another thing that happened with him that was a little racist, which I had forgotten, which got a lot of publicity at the time. I can't remember what year this was, but it was talking about, oh, after Doc Rivers became a coach, he gave this quote. He said, Doc's been anointed and that's okay. I understand that that happens, but it's not necessarily right. Doc does a great job. Now there's going to be four or five more anointments of the young Afro-American coach, which is fine because I

think they have been screwed, but I have a great young assistant who can't even get an interview. And this, so this was 2002 and it turned into a big stink at the time, which I had totally forgotten. Doc Rivers said, George never complained about Larry Bird when he got a job as head coach of the Pacers. Mark Jackson said it was disrespectful, blah, blah, blah. And that was the whole thing. And he got murdered for a couple of days and then ended up apologizing for that. So basically what I took away from the book was that George Carl is like your relative at Thanksgiving who's a little inappropriate. Maybe one out of every 20 things he says,

you're like, oh no, Uncle George, no, don't say that. And that's kind of who he was as a coach. And now it makes more sense to me after reading this book why he had problems with so many players. And I can't believe that he thought after all the ups and downs he'd had coaching enigmatic superstars, that he ever in a million years thought it was going to work with him and DeMarcus Cousins.

Why would he ever think that was going to work? He did, looking back, get probably a bigger helping than you would expect of enigmatic players, right? Like over the course of his career. Yeah, I would say he definitely – the thing is most – And maybe – Most of these guys are, though. That probably created opportunity for him, right? Yeah.

I guess he – Like folks took a look? He had bad luck. I know, but at the same time, he coached Gary Payton and Sean Kemp in their primes for four years. And they played in the finals. There was a great basketball team. And he admits he was a dumbass because he didn't put GP on Michael Jordan until game four.

So he had that team. He had a team that had Carmelo and Chauncey and Kmart and a whole bunch of good guys on that Denver team that easily could have won the title if a couple things had gone differently. He had the – there was one other team. The Milwaukee team was pretty good. Oh, the Milwaukee team was really good. That was a peak Ray Allen year.

He had Sam Cassell. He had Big Dog. He had Scott Williams, Tim Thomas. Like that team, I thought that was the best team that year. A couple more things, then we'll move on. This is just a couple anecdotes. He said to Sean Kemp one time, Sean, I said one day, vasectomy. That's a George Carl quote.

That's not even funny. Yeah, that was just his story about Sean Kemp. This is weird. He had some really good thoughts about cocaine and how it really ruined the 80s in a lot of ways, the NBA, which is all true. That led to his weird comment about

the PEDs, which I'm still trying to figure out what he was trying to say. We'll get to that in a second. But he said a grand jury in Phoenix indicted three current and two former sons for using cocaine. And then Ricky William Bedford was subpoenaed to tell what he knew. Unbelievable. A drug was destroying an NBA team.

It could have taken down the whole league and not just from bad PR. All right. Ready for this part? The press didn't really pick up on the possibility of gamblers and dealers pressing addicted players into shaving points or throwing games. If that had happened, not even Bird, Magic, and Stern could have rescued the league. I read that like 20 times and I can't 100% figure out what he means. What time, what era? This is the Walter Davis Sons 1980s DJ.

That's why the Sons had to trade DJ. They had that cocaine thing that happened. And I forget what the details were. It was like some dealer or something, but it became a big story. And it turned out the Sons had a big drug cocaine issue at the time. So George was saying, the press didn't really pick up on the possibility of gamblers and dealers pressing addicted players and the shaving points are throwing games i've never heard anyone throw that out before and i don't know whether he was just speculating or whether he actually

wondered if that was happening but man that made me kind of rethink everything so then the next page he says he's talking about drug. He's like, we've still got a drug issue, though, a different one than 30 years ago. And this one bothers me more than the dumbasses who got in trouble with recreational drugs. I'm talking about performance enhancing drugs like steroids, human growth hormone and so on. It's obvious some of our players are doping. How are some guys getting older yet thinner and fitter? How are they recovering from injuries so fast? Why the hell are they going to Germany in the offseason season i doubt it's for the sauerkraut most likely it's for the newest hardest

to detect blood boosters and pds they have in europe unfortunately drug testing always seems to be a couple of steps behind drug hiding um blah blah blah i think we want the best athletes to succeed not the biggest richest cheaters employing the best scientists but i don't know what what to do about it it's weird he's all over the place he clearly thinks there's peds but then just mentions the germany thing instead of seven or eight other things he could have mentioned and then just runs away from it almost like the lawyers for the book were like get off this now or we got to take that part out or what happened what did you make of that well that's the first time i've heard it um i think at this point uh we're kind of past the idea so the one thing about basketball that

has always been um compelling to me as it relates to peds nobody's ever drawn a direct line between in you know basketball performance enhanced performance and any of the attributes of any of the so-called performance-enhancing drugs other than recovery. And I have been on this podcast many times. I am the kind of guy that wants to see the best players play all the time, right? So I'm in support of whatever it is that guys need under the supervision of a physician to help them be able to play 82 regular season games and however long the teams might be in the playoffs.

His assessment there is so all over the place that it makes it easily dismissed to me. Like, I don't know what he thinks that, you know, guys are getting older and thinner, or I don't even know who fits the characteristics that he's talking about. And I don't know what he thinks, what advantage. Like, he's so unspecific about what advantage guys might be getting based on whatever enhancing uh drug he might be referring to there that it's it's mostly kind of a useless observation to me yeah i don't i don't totally understand it either and if he was going to bring

it up there are other things he could have said and maybe he should have maybe he did and they took it out but to me it's like endurance and recoverability would be the two reasons to to take peds if you're an nba player and it still hasn't been successfully explained to me why you wouldn't especially when you're playing these nine month seasons and 100 games and you a playoff game every other day and there's stuff that can help you, and you're super competitive. It's hard for me to believe that nobody has gone down that road who's a really good player. I just don't believe it.

Anyway. Well, and what's the problem? I mean, if I pay to go see Oklahoma City, I want to see Russell Westbrook. I don't want to catch them on a night when he might be resting. Now, God bless Russell Westbrook. He's not resting at all. He's out there

destroying the league. But, like, you know, what if you bought tickets to go see that Memphis game after Christmas when LeBron and Kyrie and I don't remember who else stayed home.

Did Kevin Love stay home also? Yeah. So what do you do? I don't know. You don't get a refund for that. You got to poke it out of the stick. Here's another thing George wrote.

Merry Christmas. George wrote this about the 80s because he coached Chris Washburn and talks about just how the guy was a mess from day one. I also discovered that drugs and whores were especially easy to get in Oakland, making it the go-to place for NBA players with those two bad habits.

So when I was at Grantland, we wanted to do an oral history about the Oakland Hyatt because that was like the legendary place where everybody fell apart when they were on an NBA schedule and they would go there and the wheels would come off and they would have to go in rehab after. And needless to say,

nobody was ready to talk about that one. But Oakland, Oakland in the 80s. Oakland in the 80s, incredible. This is a couple more things, then we'll move on. Donahue talks about the whole Donahue thing. Donahue confirmed what I think we all knew. Refs are human. They're supposed to look and act like impartial judges in the bright arena and on TV,

but they make calls based on emotion and they build grudges. Parentheses. Just look up Tim Duncan vs. Joey Crawford and Allen Iverson vs. Steve Javy. So he lost the refs. George isn't coaching again. Not happening. There isn't anybody that

he left off his list. Did he kill, did he go after Ernie Johnson? No, no he didn't. Ernie Johnson and Craig Sager. Somehow he did go after them. Hallelujah. These are the five best players he coach didn't. Ernie Johnson and Craig Sager. Somehow he didn't go after them. Hallelujah. These are the five best players he coached against. He makes a list in the middle.

Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, LeBron James, John Stockton. Huh? Yeah. John Stockton. John Stockton? High praise. Five best players he coached. Gary Payton, Sean Campbell. He coached against Hakeem.

He thinks John Stockton was more impactful than Hakeem? I'm just telling you what his list was. Five best players I coached. Gary Payton, Sean Camp, Ray Allen, Detlef Schrempf, and then in parentheses, do I have to, Carmelo Anthony. Boy, did he hate Carmelo Anthony. Wow. I'm telling you, I enjoyed this book.

It just made that single dad stuff made me genuinely uncomfortable. I just can't believe anyone in his life didn't intervene on that. It just was, I don't know, it just rubbed me the wrong way.

One more thing and then we're going to move on. You keep saying that. I enjoy it though. You can keep going as long as you want. So, I had heard rumors about this and it's one of the great NBA what-ifs,

and I can't remember if I put it in my book or not. But before the 94 draft, so the first full year after Jordan left, when the Rockets beat the Knicks in seven, right? Right. June of 94. The Bulls called Seattle and wanted to trade Scottie Pippen for Sean Kemp, Ricky Pierce, and Seattle's number one pick. George Carl called Michael Jordan and he writes, we talked about minor league baseball,

North Carolina basketball and golf. Then we talked about the big deal on the table. Should we do this? And Jordan said, do it. Scotty can make your other players better. Kemp can't. And then Seattle,

they were like a mess behind the scenes at the time and it got screwed up. They were going to do it. The owner got it. And then all of a sudden they were too afraid because the fans love Sean Kemp. And they backed out. They didn't do it. So that was in Seattle's hands. That trade.

Didn't do it. Wow. That's a big what if. Those are three titles. Those are the 96, 97, 98 titles. But couldn't Chicago still have done that? Which is to say they still could have won, right? What do you mean?

With Kemp. You think they win with Kemp instead of Pippen? The 72-10 team doesn't happen. They probably don't get Dennis Rodman because they can't play him again. That's a giant monkey wrench. I had to go take a walk after I read that. I had to walk around the block. I was like, my God, my brain exploded.

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Watch live football and more for seven days free at sling.com slash Bill Simmons and get Sling TV on your favorite device. Restrictions apply. So my takeaway on the George Carle book is I love all basketball books. I love reading any book that I learned a couple things from. And I definitely did with this. I'm glad he apologized for the single dad stuff.

I just thought it was wrong. But ultimately, I was glad I skimmed through the book and powered through it. I learned some stuff. And I don't know what we want as a society. When people are super candid, then we react against certain things that they wrote and we can't believe what they said and all

that stuff, like an athlete or a coach, whoever. But then if they're not super candid, then we resent them for not being more candid and not having more personality. Basically, these people can't win. That's what my take was. There's a fine line in between. The roadmap for how guys in his position do this,

it's like the Phil Jackson thing. You sprinkle a few nuggets, you throw a few gentle bombs, but you still stay above the fray. I mean, he's a bomb dropper. I think he's really bitter that his coaching career didn't come out better and I think he blames a bunch of people for it and really I think part of the problem was the kind

of coach that he was he didn't put up with bullshit and he didn't know how to cajole people and he didn't really know how to coach difficult superstars and unfortunately for him the NBA is filled with difficult superstars we have a bunch of, the NBA is filled with difficult superstars. We have a bunch of them right now. This is one thing he wrote at the end.

He was talking about his ideal situation. A team leader would be nice, but I've learned they're not absolutely necessary. It's great when you have some coach on the floor guys. I had Chauncey in Denver, Lonnie Shelton and Phil Hubbard in Cleveland, Chris Mullen in Sleepy Floyd at Golden State, and Gary Payton, usually in Seattle.

But it's so rare you can't count on it. Ty Lawson in Denver didn't want the responsibility. I decided that leadership is overhyped and that good soldiers are undervalued. A connected, unified team is superior to a dissatisfied team with a great leader. I think I agree. Okay, that's fine. Yeah, I don't have any argument with that. It is funny.

You just used the word bitter, and I'm getting the, that's fine. Yeah, I don't have any argument with that. It is funny. You just used the word bitter, and I'm getting the overwhelming sense of that again with this whole thing being sprung on me and not having read one word of this. I do think bitter, and I also think it's a weird place for him to be in. That's why I made the observation earlier about it. It sounds like he put on his old white guy, and you use the irreverent uncle at the Thanksgiving table. It's a weird place for him to be in 30 years in or 35 years in. He's accomplished quite a bit.

His job was to take on complicated personalities and try and have them play well, and he had some success with that. So I don't understand the point now to be dropping the big bombs. But, you know, I hope he sells a lot of books. He talks about AAU babies. He calls them how AAUs ruin the culture of some of these guys and the personalities and the ability to be selfless. It just sounds like he doesn't want to admit that this is really how basketball works,

that most guys are impossible that are really good at basketball. And you might end up with Magic and Larry and David Robinson and some of these great Tim Duncan. I think he's really just bitter that he never had a Tim Duncan. And if he had had a Tim Duncan, I'm not sure Tim Duncan would have wanted to stick around with him for that long. Anyway, we got to do the Power Poll. Just blowing through these quickly.

I have five Tankapalooza teams. Number 30, Philly, 29, Phoenix, 28, Miami. I'm putting them in there. I think they make their move soon. 27, Dallas Dallas and 26 the Lakers even though the Lakers on any given night they're fun they have some I think at some point they're going to look at this and and probably try to shop Lou Williams who I think would have some value and start playing young guys more and try to get into the top seven at least.

They lose their pick unless it's the top three. What would you do if you're the Lakers? Try and keep that top three pick. I think that they've demonstrated to everybody what they're capable of. The thing that's most in the franchise's best interest for the future is to get one of these great young players. This draft is supposed to be super loaded 1 through 10, right? Yeah, the thing is...

So anywhere in that top three, it's going to be a great return on investment. Super loaded draft. And the problem for them is they either have to bottom out or go the other way and chase the 8 seed. You know? Why not? If you're going to lose that pick anyway, try to make other way and chase the eight seed you know why not if you if you're gonna lose that pick anyway try to make the playoffs get the eight seed get the experience

of having your young guys go into golden state for a playoff game and get their ass kicked like that's all valuable to me what i would the worst case scenario would be them belatedly deciding they should throw the season away and then they end up eighth, and they give the eighth pick to Philly, something like that. I don't think that would be a great outcome. That's what it looks like. They're kind of poised to do that. They're kind of poised to do that,

but they have some moves. Lou Williams is somebody that has value in the way the NBA is being played right now. No man's land, number 25, Brooklyn, who has the second worst record in the league, and believe me, I follow it obsessively because Celtics have their pick. Actually, their record should be league. And believe me, I followed obsessively because Celtics have their pick. They actually, their record should be better.

They've had some really bad luck in some of these games and they play hard and they have no incentive whatsoever to tank. So we got to put them there. The next five are Dazed and Confused. 24, Minnesota. 23, New Orleans. 22, Detroit.

21, Orlando. 20, Indiana. These are five teams that the nine-man rotations are just really flawed in some way. And I think all five of those teams thought they were going to have better seasons than they are. I don't really know what the fixes are for any of them. You look at a team like Indiana. I watched them last night. We're taping this on a Thursday.

I watched them play your Wizards, and it turned into a Paul George versus John Wall game for a while, and John Wall ended up winning. The Indiana, both teams had a weird vibe. Your team has a weird vibe to it. I don't know if I like it. Well, Beal was out. I know.

Beal was out. Another injury. Yeah. And hopefully, I haven't seen the news today to see what the update is. Hopefully it's not his annual six-week injury. I bet it is. I was so curious to me about Indiana. Do you know that that's the case about Beal?

No, it's Bradley Beal. I just assume when he gets hurt. I just pencil in six weeks. I don't understand why they can't get stops. Indiana stinks at defense. Why do they stink at defense? It's a team that doesn't really fit together. It must be.

They're not quite there yet, but they really have to look at the Paul George thing soon. He can be a free agent a year and a half. I think they were the team we were most wrong about in the over-unders indiana and minnesota were the two teams i was the most wrong on i thought tibbs was going to be able to teach minnesota defense and the problem for him is he just has terrible defensive players in that team there's no way to teach zach levine and i i can't believe i don't know what the deal is with Towns on defense but he's a lot a lot worse

than I thought he was going to be. That team is further away than I thought. They're just young. I don't know what to do if I'm them. Do you panic? You can't panic. The best three guys on the team are 22 and under. Right. And they should be able to play defense the way that we watch Oklahoma City play defense last year,

which is like from one side of the court to the other. You only need three guys. The wingspan basically covers the entire one side to the other, and they're so athletic that they ought to be able to close out on everybody, and Towns should just be able to control around the rim, and it's just not the case right now. It's not good good i'm bummed i wanted that team to be more fun and wiggins has become the most polarizing young guy in the league because the advanced metrics do not back up really anything going on with him but yet when you watch

him in the eye test and he's such a good athlete and he'll have moments and you just have to assume he's going to figure it out but he's definitely the heir to the legacy of those rudy gay tim thomas he has more talent than those guys but those guys that drift during the games and you can't decide whether the light bulb is ever going to go off or not for them. I just don't know. It's so far so early to make a decision on it, but the drifters, those are the guys that keep you up at night. Well, I would say your point is the right one. It's too early.

Let's not weigh in on that yet. I think some of these teams, we'll do a big trade thing next month, but Detroit, Orlando, Indiana, New Orleans can use their lottery pick if they wanted to get better right away, et cetera, et cetera. Then the next category of six teams in this,

trade machine, all of these teams are one trade away from being interesting, and I don't really know what the trade is, but 19 Portland, who has really been a disappointment this year and is just awful defensively and another team where the pieces don't quite fit. 18 Denver, which just has a big man going.

Like they're not even playing Nurkic anymore. I would try to trade for him or for Reed if I was anybody that needed a big guy. 17 Washington. Your team needs to make a trade, but it's impossible because of the salary cap and the fact that you have no real trade assets other than Otto Porter, and you wouldn't trade Otto Porter, right? Not now,

no. I think this is the most unbelievable thing I'm going to say in 2016. I would pay Otto Porter, I would give him a max contract. Oh, wow. Give him more Bradley Beal money. I think he's earned it. If he continues from the beginning of the season through Christmas,

he's earned a max extension. And, you know, that gives you three young players here in Washington. Washington needs a big man. I can't figure out the trade. Now, the big man could be Mahinmi. Good luck with that. Yeah, Mahinmi. Yeah, good luck.

14-minute Mahinmi. But luck with that. Jan Mahinmi. Yeah, good luck. 14-minute Mahinmi. But, right. Anyway, enough about that. Yeah, your team is the least fun trade machine team. There's really not a lot to work with. There's no assets. Atlanta, I have at 16. Sacramento at 15.

I think Sacramento might, just because Boogie is so good. If they were in the East, I think they would be four or five wins higher. They have a Willie Cauley-Stein move maybe to make. They might have a Koufis move to make. They need to improve that Collison-Lawson. See if they can do better

point guard. Lawson's been good for them off the bench. He's found his right role and his right niche there. They need an appropriate starting point guard. Yeah, I was going to say the problem is Collison is also a bench point guard. So you have two bench point guards. You need somebody. And hard to play those guys at the same time too.

But I do think that's a team that could end up maybe doing something. But then I have Chicago at 14, which is another team where the pieces... I don't know what happens to Rondo. The Rondo thing actually makes me sad. It's just... He might just be done, right? He might be done. It's like what happened with Iverson

in Detroit. We were like, ah, maybe this is the wrong team for him. Oh no, he's done. So out of all those teams, Atlanta is the one that has the easiest trade to make because they have it's one of the few teams that has too many swing guys and schroeder i don't think is i don't think he's a 40 minute a game point guard and he certainly doesn't have the leadership kind of wherewithal run the team type thing um the way they were using him last year I thought was better.

Korver is a really interesting trade piece. He has to be in the right situation. They're asking too much of him right now. Yeah, well, he's only playing like 23, 24 minutes a game, but they could sacrifice it and get another point guard that would help the Madelow or Schroeder. Right now they're – I can't even remember the name of their backup point guard. He's one of the worst ones in the league.

The worst thing is they just had Jeff Teague. They had two competent point guards. They turned that into a draft. They traded out of it. What would you think about Kyle Korver for Sean Livingston? Hmm. How does that help Golden State? It helps Golden State because Sean Livingston,

they don't really need a backup point guard anymore. Basically, Durant's their backup point guard. And they play Livingston off the ball a lot. And to me, he seems like the most expendable warrior they have. And if anything, they need one more shooter out there. I thought that would be a fun one. All right, so then last category, lingering, notking milwaukee new york charlotte memphis all these teams are going to make the playoffs milwaukee might have the highest upside if they make the right trade

i was telling you about della vadova and how i thought he was their albatross and then you saw in person a few nights ago but But they need to make that. He's brutal. There's a couple teams that just need to make one spot better. And when you're watching the Crunch Times, you can see it. Milwaukee Delvedova is that guy. Oklahoma City, it's always that Roberson slash Morrow, whoever they have in that spot.

It's just never a good enough guy. And the Clippers, same thing. It's just funny. There's certain teams. They just need that one more guy, and yet it's just so hard to make the right trade and find them. All right, we'll get to the top nine right now. I don't think New York's making the playoffs, by the way. Well,

I just think the poor Zingas Carmelo pedigree. Those guys are really good at basketball. It's really tough for me to imagine them sitting at the playoffs in the East, not getting enough 41 wins. And Rose, as horrible as he is defensively. He's a turnstile and as annoying as it is to watch him at end of the game plays when they do a screen world with him and Porzingis, like they did.

I was just watching last night, whoever they were playing draws both guys over. Porzingis is surging to the lane. He's seven foot three. And Rose just doesn't give it to him. Well, let me just, I want to qualify that. I don't think New York, as currently constituted, is making it. They will make a trade. I hope so. They have to get more out of Noah. Noah has killed them to date.

I've been shocked by how much Knicks I've watched, because I actually enjoy watching Porzingis. Like I genuinely enjoy it. And I think Justin Holliday, they kind of lucked out. I like him too. I like some of the guys they have. They need to figure out the Rose crunch time thing because he's just a ball hog. He doesn't pass in the last minute of a game.

He wants to be the hero. Quickly, I want to throw some initials at you. UNDP. I didn't know what that stood for until recently, but you should because there's still time for your best end of the year donation. UNDP is the United Nations Development Program. UNDP leading the fight against global poverty across more than 160 countries. They have for 50 years been doing this with amazing results.

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Simmons. Alright, the top nine.org slash give. Enter promo code Simmons. All right. The top nine. Power poll. We're going to go into these in a little bit of depth. Flawed but fun. Number nine, Utah. Gordon Hayward's showing a little something-something in his contract here.

23-5-5. They've had George Hill miss 14 games, which has been a problem. Derek Favors has fallen off a cliff, and even though he's only 25, he's been banged up for a few years now. He still has a sore knee. His stats are way down. And I think he has an extension coming pretty soon.

To me, that's the red flag for them because their defense has been excellent. They've lost the Golden State twice, unfortunately. Favors and Exum to a lesser degree just because with the fifth pick in the draft you would think he'd be playing a little more than, or contributing a little more than he is. Obviously he hurt his knee.

But you've watched this Utah team a couple times. Do you take them seriously yet? Yes, and not just a small yes. It's an all caps, capital Y, capital E, capital S, yes. I went and looked before we got on here today to see where we came out on Utah. I think I let you talk me into the under 47 for them. They're good.

They're a team that I could see scaring other teams in the playoffs. The one thing that they don't have yet that they will be interesting to see if they can figure out is inside the last five minutes, you know, how to close out games. But that was their issue last year. That's right. Correct. Exactly. They're still working on that.

But I'm so impressed. They have a very deep rotation. They've stayed above water, even with this continued kind of bad minutes. And I think, you know, if they can get a little sustained health going, they could be really dangerous. They're really good. They have so many different pieces defensively. And if George Hill, I was skeptical about him in the offseason. I treated him as a backup point guard. He played like an all-star

until he got hurt at the beginning of the season. If he returns to that form, they can give everybody trouble in the West. I definitely think they could beat the Clippers. They could beat Oklahoma City. They could beat Houston. They could compete with City. They could beat Houston.

They can compete with San Antonio. I don't know if they're ready to beat them yet. And they can kind of compete with Golden State. But they're impressive to me. I think if Houston's healthy. You don't think they could beat Houston? I don't think they could score with Houston. Well, they don't have to.

Well, what I like about them is how good their D is. They're holding the opponents to 43% which is no joke you know and they've had bad they've had bad luck with the injuries and stuff but they do the same thing San Antonio does

they slow it down the possessions are a little bit lower than in these other games especially in the run and gun games. And they kind of make you uncomfortable and they make you play their pace, which is why when they play Golden State, Golden State's like, no, no, we're going to play our pace. Thanks anyway.

They're one and one with the Rockets so far this year. They beat the hell out of them. They did. They did. I think a lot of it depends on what they get out of favors. I like what I see the rest i definitely underestimated them i underestimated gobert is really what it came down to i didn't realize he was going to make the leap that he made that he had a two or three week stretch where he was you know one of the five best players in the league he cooled off a little bit but uh i had the

celtics at eight I do like my team. I feel pretty good about it. Unfortunately, we're taping this before the Cleveland game, but I'm going to say this very cautiously. I think they will do well against Cleveland. Oh. Is Cleveland playing everybody? The Celts are deep, and they

figured out a really important thing early on, because Brad Stevens is very smart. He figured out that he had to stop playing three guards at the same time, and they figured out a really important thing early on because Brad Stevens is very smart. He figured out that he had to stop playing three guards at the same time, and they had to stop playing small ball and chuck it up, and that he just had to go a little more conventional. And basically for the last couple games, he's got Isaiah, he's got Avery Bradley, who's been outstanding this season, and then Marcus Smart is the third guard, and he plays two of those three.

And that's just who they are now. And they play more Jarebko, Jarebko, however you want to pronounce his name. They throw out some Gerald Green. They play a little more Amir and Horford. They elongated the team. They still need to make a trade. But when they have Horford and Isaiah healthy with Jay Crowder healthy and some of the other pieces they have it's a good basketball team it's one it's one of the seven best teams and and Isaiah has been out of his mind he's been out of his mind they're poised to go on a little run here home 15 of the next 20 games well that's the thing they got they got crushed by the schedule they had this really weird schedule where they never had a homestand or a road trip.

It was just like game here, fly here. It was like, they were, they were just never settled and they were never in Boston for longer than a couple of days. And that finally shifts next month. I think they're going to end up being a very good regular season team.

And I feel good about our over. I don't think they're in the class of Cleveland and Golden State, but it's the type of team that you'll look up and there's three minutes left and they have a three-point lead in Cleveland. You're like, oh, alright, LeBron's got to activate. And then he does and they lose by one. Oklahoma City,

I have seventh. And at the time we're doing this, Russ is at 31.7 points, 10.9 assists assists and 10.6 rebounds and a 42.6% usage rate, which is just staggering. I've never seen anything like that in my life, any of those stats.

Five and a half turnovers a game. He murdered the Celtics twice. In Oklahoma City, he took out a hatchet, and he just kind of got us in the kidneys with it a couple times, and the Celtics fell over and died. I watched quite a bit of that. He enjoyed it, too, by the way.

Yeah, it was more—it wasn't an abrupt murder. It was more of like he hit us in a couple spots, so we had to bleed to death on the court. It felt slightly—yeah, It felt a little sadistic. Yeah. In Boston, it was more of just a flat-out beheading. It was just, we were hanging. It was great.

It was great. It was like Game of Thrones. Then all of a sudden, Ned Stark's head was just rolling around the floor. He hit two 30-foot threes with a hand in his face in a row in the last minute. I watched. And ended up with like 44, 15, and 11 or some crazy thing. My dad went to the game and complained that Westbrook got all the calls, but both my dad and Tommy Heinsen,

who are the most crudgy homers that I know, both of them were like, hats off to Westbrook. Oh my God. That was amazing. Jesus. What just happened? I actually think this is now, this Westbrook season is now moving into that 2006 Kobe, 2009 LeBron, 96 MJ. Just a spectacular individual achievement.

Like, forget about where they end up with the wins. It's just the night-to-night, him just going to different cities and beating the living shit out of teams. It's not a hot streak now. This is going to be the season he has unless he gets hurt. It's incredible. Well, the most important thing to me is 31 games in, or 32, however many they've played,

he is only at 35 minutes a game. Now, that's a lot, right? Unbelievable. But, you know, for the usage rate, he's got the ball in his hands all of the time. It's appropriate. There's a huge drop-off when he's not on the floor for them. But, you know, let him have this season. Keep those minutes managed.

And let's just enjoy this whole season of Russie. Russie's revenge. I'd like to see them. They have this one spot. We talked about the terrible spots. The Anthony Morrow-Robertson spot just kills them. Is Alex Sabrine's a possibility? He's been okay. Is that how you say it? Yeah Is Alex Sabrini's a possibility? He's been okay.

Is that how you say it? Yeah, Alex Sabrini's. He's been okay. But Morrow and Robertson are playing 47.9 minutes a game combined, and they're averaging 13 points a game, and they're both under 30% three-point field goal shooting. So to not... Morrow, the only reason you have him is to shoot threes they need somebody in that spot

which is why you know not to bring up kyle corver again but if you if you toss atlanta cameron pain who i still like and still things can be good he's a waste on this team because westbrook has the ball all the time he can't cameron pain needs to have the have the ball if he has a chance to succeed but you put him and morrow and you throw something else in there and you try to get Kyle Korver back. This team needs one more shooter, and they would become really scary in the playoffs. I would not want to play them in the playoffs.

Russ needs one more shooter out there, and then he can just do Russ things. But, man, is he amazing. We predicted this before the year, as did some others, that we thought they were going to be better than people realized because he was going to be on the vengeance spree and they had the rebounders and the shot blockers. But I didn't expect this.

I really didn't. You didn't predict him having a triple-double through 31 games? It wasn't even the triple-double. I think if we had talked about it long enough, we could have predicted a triple-double or something close. Maybe we even did. I don't remember what we said. I didn't predict the night-to-night eviscerations that he's been pulling off

because he was such an erratic outside shooter before this. I just assumed eventually teams would pack the paint and just make him shoot and he would, you know, and that would be the downfall. I think he's the singular most compelling talent in the NBA. He's the guy that when he comes to town, you have to take out the wallet and go see him play. I completely agree. And not since LeBron was doing this at the end of last decade, every night for Cleveland, have we seen anything like this. Now, you could say the Warriors, Curry and Klay.

Curry was incredible for those two seasons but this is like a psychological evisceration you know like the Celtics he broke the Celtics in Boston they were like we're gonna beat Oklahoma City tonight and then he made those two threes and it was like the fans are just shoulder sag going to the exits like we have not we've not seen that in a while. He's got so much swagger. Number six, the Clippers, who are just a mess. Last 18 games, 8 and 10, you could argue that they should be numbered on and Utah should be number six.

We'll save this for another podcast because I want to know when Blake's coming back and all that stuff. They're two big issues. They're three big issues to me. The Pierce, Wesley Johnsonson mabamute like just the fact that those guys combined are giving them 36 to 40 minutes a game is crazy rivers and crawford playing 50 minutes a game together is just not a recipe for winning a title because you're talking about two shoot first guys who don't rebound who don't pass who don't play

defense and you're playing them together i don't rebound, who don't pass, who don't play defense. And you're playing them together. I don't understand that at all. And then, you know, they just have a fundamental issue of who on this team guards Durant, Klay, James Harden, or Russell Westbrook. They've had this problem for years now. I mean, we've been talking about it. It feels like the same conversation we've had for three years. I think it's worse this year, though, because now you have any way a playoff matchup could go. You have a spectacular offensive player going against you, and you don't even have anyone on your roster who can slow them down.

The answer is supposed to be Chris Paul poking stuff in the chest again. Well, he's not doing that at Westbrook. There's nobody i mean not that any other team like at least the celtics when we played westbrook and he still killed us at least we had avery bradley and marcus smart and jay crowder and terry terry roger is too small but at least we could throw people at him to make him work a little bit the clippers don't have even that so and then on top of it, when does Blake come back? There's a malaise with this team, and you can feel it, and you can feel it at the games.

And something needs to happen, and I'm not sure what. What would you do? Let's save it. I think I would ride it out. All right, let's save it. Houston, just quickly, amazing. Like, we had the seven seconds or our sons seven seconds or less sons and their points per game are better their offensive ratings better they shoot 15 more threes a game than the 05 and 07 sons did and make almost the same amount. They, in December, I looked it up today, the splits, 42.33 is a game they're attempting.

They're making 16 a game. They're making 39% of them. Eric Gordon and Ryan Anderson are making almost eight threes a game together in December, shooting 44%. For December, the Rockets are 119 points a game. And Harden is at 28 and 12 assists every night and has a chance to get 800 free throws and 700 three-point field goal attempts, which is amazing.

I'm really impressed by them. We'll see if they can they can uh survive the compel injury but the big thing for me is can they keep gordon and anderson healthy for six more months you know well all those guys do is run three-point line to three-point line and they catch and get open shots there so you know fingers crossed we want the full complement. We want Houston to enter the playoffs completely healthy because we want to see what they're capable of and whether this style, this will be the second true test of the D'Antoni, right? We had it with Phoenix, and now we'll get another genuine try of this theory, this approach.

I mean, is it fair to say that even Steve Nash, at the height of all of this theory, this approach. I mean, is it fair to say that even Steve Nash, at the height of all of his powers, he's a rival to Harden, but would you say that he was better than Harden for this? It's tough. The league is so different. The mindset of the league

is so different now. It's true. It's true. I actually think if you flip them and you put Harden on those Suns teams and he had Amari to throw lobs to, that would have been

kind of fascinating too. I don't know. To me, it's like the evolution of those teams. And it's cool because I thought, you know,

I'm glad that Mike D'Antoni, it turns out that he's a good coach as long as he has specific types of players playing a specific type of way. He's, you know, he picked two bad situations for the money. He did the Knicks and he did the Lakers for the money.

And they were both mistakes and he shouldn't have done them. And now he has the right type of team again. He's allowed. I don't mind. I'm glad that I'm glad to see that he had such a dramatic effect on a player that I really liked from a ceiling standpoint in

Harden, who I didn't like watching the last couple of years. He was just playing one type of way, clear out, everybody's standing around. Now it's like there's logic. No, you only didn't like him last year. And you didn't like him last year because he showed up fat and they were barely a 500 team. But the year before, you loved him. Yeah, you're right.

We thought he was going to be an MVP. We had a one-year regression, and now he's back. I forgive James Harden. Me too. I'll forgive him even more if he wins MVP. It doesn't seem like it's a possibility, but 20-1, I have him so delicious. I know, but Westbrook's winning that thing. If he puts in three and a half more months like this, Westbrook's amazing.

Westbrook's team that thing. If he puts in three and a half more months like this, Westbrook's amazing. Westbrook's team isn't even good. I like the Mustache Brothers. They're fine. They can defend people, I guess, when they need to. I wouldn't put them on the elite category or anything. What he's doing reminds me of Kobe in 06, except it seems like his teammates actually like him, and the team is going to be a little more successful of Kobe in 06, except it seems like his teammates actually like him, and the team is going to be a little more successful than Kobe in 06.

Number four. Their defensive rating is better than their offensive rating right now. They're 10th in the league defensive-wise. I know. I'm going to eye test a little bit on this just from having my team play them twice. I felt like we could get buckets on them when we needed it. Our problem was we couldn't stop Westbrook. Washington had every chance to beat OKC down in OKC,

and it was exactly what you just described, which is we could get a basket every time we needed it. We just couldn't stop Westbrook. Westbrook carried them into overtime and then single-handedly won overtime against the Wiz. They played a lot of close games. And they've done pretty well in them. Number four, Toronto.

So, just a couple quick things. Toronto, I think, still needs to do a trade. And I'm not even positive what that trade would be. But it's like they're one. My issue with them is they don't have enough looks. They have that small ball lineup that they like with Jonas and Patterson and either Ross or Carroll and then the two guards or the two guards with Ross and Carroll, one big guy. But they don't have that bigger, oh, we're playing the big boys tonight.

We're going to get pounded on the boards unless we play these guys together lineup, which is what they missed from Bismack last year. But they're rebounding. I think they're 23rd in the league in rebounding. Now on the bright side, third and three-point, which you can see when you watch the game. They get good, smart three-point shots, and Patterson's turned into a great stretch four. Who would have thought that patterson would be the best player that

rudy gait trade there's they have a plus 8.4 point differential which is really good like i think if you get over six points a game point differential like you're doing something eight is like you know usually that's a 55 winwin, 60-win team. And then Lowry, DeRozan have both gone up a level. And I don't know when they officially mastered that high screen, but do you feel like your team ever has a chance to stop it when those guys do that together? I felt helpless when they did it against Celtics.

You know, they're incredible. I was really impressed last night. They kept coming against Golden State. They just kept bringing it in. Game was over. I'm not – you opened with the question of, you know, what – they feel like they need to make a trade, and we can't really put our finger on what it would be.

I think I might stamp Pat. I think I might just sort of see what happens with Cleveland. You know, I take a look at that team and say, I like stamp Pat. I think I might just sort of see what happens with Cleveland. You know, I take a look at that team and say, I like my team, and I like my team in the East. And, you know, we're one bump away from Cleveland coming into the playoffs, you know, at less than perfect health. Maybe we just run with it. Yeah.

I'm not a huge Terrence Ross fan, even though he's been having a pretty good year this year, but that would be the guy I would look at. I think they have the assets to improve at that spot. I don't know. He had a great game last night. People love him. I know, but that's the thing.

It's like, I think you need a third perimeter guy. I'm just thinking about trying to beat Golden State or Cleveland, if that's your goal. Okay. I need somebody that is better than Terrence Ross in that spot, is where my head's at. Because I'm either going against Kyrie, Kevin Love, and LeBron, or I'm going against

clay durant curry and jaymon and all those guys i don't have enough firepower with just the rosen and lowry i just don't feel good enough about it i need more bullets house that's that's all i'm saying i don't know i'm not there okay they're making me a believer well you do canon is gonna love you i'm not a non-believer. I just, I don't know how different it is from last year. Even with those two guys playing better. I just feel like Cleveland and Golden State are playing better. And I think the cumulative effect, they now are really like a veteran team for this era of the NBA, right? These sustained trips to the repeated trips to the playoffs, and they pay their dues. I'm really excited to see what they're capable of in the playoffs this year.

I'm not going to lie. Canada loves you. I hope you're right. I really do. I hope you're right. I really do. I hope you're right. San Antonio have it three. And it's funny. They slow it down.

They're basically a better version of Utah. They shoot the threes really well. Parker and Mills together, 21 and 8. 47, 40, 88 splits. I saw them in person last week. It's a weird team. And I mean that as a compliment. They have so many different things they can do during the course of the game

and so many different looks that they can throw out there. I actually think it's got to be a tough team to coach night after night. They go big. They go small. they can do whatever really they want. But when they go small, I don't like that small ball team. And I think that's going to be their kryptonite against the Warriors. When the Warriors play that smaller team, I think they're in trouble. Stiney Moe wrote this, I think, in his power rankings. This year, more than any, Pop might really deserve a long, hard look at Coach of the Year.

He might. They have an incredible bench of guys that, you know, Dwayne Dedman and Kyle Anderson and you know, guys that are like... Jonathan Simmons? Yeah, right.

Who's electric. And they come up, we're gonna, we're about to see a nice run with Deontay Murray. We're going to see whether or not, you know, he was the draft darling, right? The draft steal darling. I have a weird Spurs observation. And I noticed this watching them in person. When they play their best five guys and they're all out there at the same time and it's Kawhi, who doesn't speak, who's a robot, has been discussed a million times. LaMarcus Aldridge, who I'm not sure has ever said anything either.

Tony Parker, who does Tony Parker stuff. And then Danny Green. And then pick anyone else. There's a weird kind of mute vibe to the team. It's all quiet fire. I can't describe it. It's just, it's. It's the personality of that team and it's pop.

But the personality is that nobody has a personality. So everything comes from pop. That's the Duncan legacy. That's Tim Duncan. I know, but what's weird about Duncan is his, he, I felt like he did have a personality so everything comes from pop that's the duncan legacy that's tim i know but what's weird about duncan is his he i felt like he did have a personality like he was kind of the galvanizing force remember he always had the arms around everybody and he was the centrifugal force and now it's pop and i guess my point is there's just not a great success rate with

the coach being the emotional fulcrum of the team. Well, it still could be, it's still going to be Manu and Tony when it, when we get to the playoff. Yeah. So those guys are those two guys.

Cause I roll players at this point. It's got to come from, it's got to come from the most sense. It's got to come from Kawhi and Aldridge. And that, that was my issue watching them is like those guys are just doing their jobs you know they just kind of do their thing and and that's it golden state and cleveland are the top two as always the the only thing

i learned from that really weird christmas day game that was incredible and i i congratulate us on our reverse jinx about the Christmas day. Everything we said was great because I think we helped lift the curse. Look, the stink streak applies to basketball. We helped lift the curse. All you have to do is say something bad. We helped lift the curse. I was very proud of us. But the Curry thing, I need to watch it more.

But when he made that three in like the last minute and a half and he kept his hand up and he turned and the crowd everything about the body language doctor was studying very carefully and even rewound the tape

everything about that said to me I won two straight MVPs and I don't get the ball enough that was how I interpreted it as the body language doctor it was like I thought Kevin Durant dominated the fourth quarter. And really that whole game, it was like watching Kevin Durant's Golden State Warriors play LeBron's Cleveland.

And I think Durant, for the first time, I thought he got caught up a little bit in the Durant versus LeBron rivalry and the fact that LeBron has owned him his entire career. LeBron's killed Durant his whole career. He's at every, every step LeBron's been better. And I think his career record against him is like 17 and four, 18 and four. I thought Durant got caught up in it.

I think he took nine shots in the fourth. He, some free throws. He had a couple of turnovers and Curry and Clay took four shots combined. My question to you, does as great as they've been, as high as their ceiling is, as amazing as their stats and everything and the fact that they're going to win 70 games and everything we're seeing, it's just awesome. Do they have the best chance to beat Cleveland if everything is running through Durant like that?

I would say no. I agree with you it's supposed to run through Draymond Draymond's the I think he's out the engine I don't think it runs through Durant now the question is how do you to me it's Curry and Clay it has to be their team I thought Durant was going to come in as the greatest version ever of Harrison Barnes and somebody who could be the backup point forward. But really, he came in as like he's one of the four best players in the league, which we knew. That's still the right role. What you just described is still the right role for him. And I think that they will get there.

I loved the two, the veiled exchange. So Kurt didn't name names, but talked about fourth quarter turnovers and still floppy with the ball. And then last night, Steph didn't say anything other than he made an observation about maybe we need to work some more pick and roll. Maybe it seems like maybe we got away from some of those sets in the fourth quarter. Yeah. So he's not naming names or calling out.

But right, back and forth, right? But that's the thing is, and that's what happened that Cleveland game. I thought it was a lot of one-on-one. It was a lot of jumpers with a hand in the face. It was guys forcing it. It's not what made that team special. And the vibe is slightly different. The reason I want to make a big deal out of it is it's not what made that team special and the vibe is slightly different the reason i want to make a big deal out of it is it's a long season and those guys are so smart

they'll figure it out but as crazy as this sounds it's almost like the rant is too good to just kind of shoehorn in there the harrison bart spot it definitely did affect the team and for the most parts it's great but when you have a christmas day game and the calves roaring back and the fans going nuts and all that and everybody starts going one-on-one it was in the they were in the same issue they were in last year so what i would say is uh maybe they're willing to sacrifice that christmas day game which they had seven different opportunities to win. It was over. The game was done. They had the pass when they got the steal and Iggy threw it ahead to Durant and he didn't throw it far enough and Kyrie jumped in.

But maybe that's a fair price to pay, right? Maybe. I'll tell you one thing that's bad for them. LeBron thinks he owns that team. He does think that. Well, he atron thinks he owns that team. He does think that. He at least thinks he owns Durant. And Kyrie thinks he owns the entire team. And they have nobody to guard Kyrie.

And Kyrie's confidence slash swagger level is off the charts against Golden State. He really feels like he can do anything. He was unbelievable in that fourth quarter in Christmas. Unbelievable. I love it. I love it. I love it.

It's great. I think he genuinely thinks he's better than Steph, and I think Steph's two MVPs piss him off. He's like, I'm better than this guy. Well, let's just root for continued help for both teams until June. All right, quickly, stop wasting money on expensive takeout. Sign up with Blue Apron. For less than $10 per meal Blue Apron will deliver you all the fresh ingredients you need for a delicious

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So in January, those meals change, so look forward to that. Right now, you can get your first three Blue Apron meals for free with free shipping. pea shoot salad. So in January, those meals change. So look forward to that. Right now, you can get your first three Blue Apron meals for free with free shipping. Just go to blueapron.com slash BS. Blue Apron is a better way to cook. All right. Golden State Cleveland.

We can go break that down later. We're going to have six months to break that down. The Kyrie thing. I loved what I saw from kairi i was really proud of him it's just great it was just i that was such a great basketball game i watched it and then i had taped it and i went back and i watched the last 15 minutes again just because i enjoyed the hell out of it that much so we got to the callaway par three uh we'll rush through it quickly because this podcast is already too long. Sorry about that.

But football, basically football has been, uh, has been kind of ruined in week 17. Usually we have all these different playoffs for grabs and spy. And it's really the only, the NFC North is the only must watch game. There's some other seeds in play and stuff like that.

We covered all of it on Sal's podcast the other day. But, House, what is your lock for Week 17 for the Callaway Par 3? Well, you know I've been on this streak. We've been talking about it really all season long. And, by the way, how about what we did to Matt Barkley on Saturday? We ruined his life. We ruined his $60 million contract. He threw five picks.

I really feel like it would be okay for me to reach out to Kirk Cousins' people and ask them for a small slice. He's going to get $25 million. I don't know how much the deal the Redskins are going to sign him to, but I'd like a little taste after what he did, after the performance against Matt Barkley, after what we did. I feel terrible.

And it felt worse to have him on my DraftKings team, although somehow he got to like 19 points. But he just kept throwing the ball to the other team. And I think they dropped a couple too. He did that. Repeatedly. Who do you have for this week? I wasn't upset.

Well, on that same note, obviously I'm taking the Giants plus 7.5. Now, it's too many points. I wasn't upset. Well, on that same note, obviously I'm taking the Giants plus seven and a half. Now, it's too many points. The Deadskins have to win to make the playoffs. If they win, they make the playoffs, barring the extraordinarily unlikely event of a tie between Green Bay and Detroit. The Deadskins, two and five straight up against the spread in the last seven against the Giants. Obviously, I'm taking the Giants because I need the Deadskins, two and five straight up against the spread and the last seven against the Giants. Obviously, I'm taking the Giants because I need the Deadskins to win this

because playoff football is the best, and I need playoff football in my life here in the DMV. So you're just point blank using your Callaway par three stink and putting it on the Giants to try to send your team in the playoffs. Do the Giants have anything to play for? Who? Do the Giants have anything to play for? Who? Do the Giants have anything to play for in that game? They're stuck at the five seed, right?

It's a terrible pick. I hope Callaway sends you a nice bag of... Seven and a half. It's too many points. Callaway should send you a nice bag of 11 irons. I have... I have... I'm going to break tradition in this podcast

And I'm doing a tease For my pick Yeah I didn't know teasers were an option I've decided they are It's week 17 go nuts I'm teasing the Atlanta Falcons Minus 7

With the Kansas City Chiefs minus 6 in San Diego Atlanta home for New Orleans Both teams have to win Both teams six in San Diego. Atlanta home for New Orleans. Both teams have to win. Both teams will win. San Diego season has gone into the tipped over Port-A-John phase of the season thanks to the Cleveland Lions. I mean, literally, they lost to the Browns, speaking of tipped over Port-A-John. Atlanta can lock up number two.

Kansas City can lock up number two as well if they win and Oken loses in Denver, which I think there's a very decent possibility, considering Derek Carr's leg is broken. Poor Derek Carr. I like that tease. I would dare call it a borderline lock. And then for our third pick, we

have Green Bay and Detroit, and I think we're going to go head-to-head on this one, just for the hell of it. Oh, interesting. Yeah, because you like Detroit plus three and a half. I actually like the pack. Okay, good. All right, so we're not going head-to-head because I think Detroit is smoke and mirrors, and Dallas could have had 60 points in them on Monday night if they wanted to.

And their defense just—guys were open the whole game, all over the field. It's only going to be worse against Green Bay. And, man, I just don't see how Detroit can hang in a game that Green Bay has to win when they can throw the ball like they can throw. I don't see it. Well, Lions 0-3 against the spread over the last

three games. I think that's where they're at. You know, finally the all of those early season, you know, snatching victory from the Jaws. Miracle comebacks, yeah. The real Lions are finally, you know, showing their colors. Aaron Relax Rogers said going into Week 12 that they need to run the table.

They're 5-0 straight up, 4-1 against the spread since then. And the Packers kind of own the Lions. They've won three of the last four against the Lions. So I can't come up with a scenario under which the Lions can keep up with Green Bay. And don't think there won't be a lot of Packer fans at this game, too. Ever since the Packers figured out their running back situation, they've been great. I'm with you. Three and a half seems a point low, to be honest.

I thought this was going to settle at Packer four and a half, Packers five, something like that. Three and a half seems doable. It does leave the door open for the Matt Stafford cheapy touchdown, down 11 points, cutting it, two-point conversion, Lions lose by three situation. That's going to happen now. Tell our friends about Callaway heading into 2017

very quickly. I'm actually going to keep this one short. You demand every week that I do it, and then I blow through your request. All I have to say is something epic is coming from Callaway. January 27th, 2017. It is not the debut of

the 27th debut of the Shag. But definitely something epic. That's all I'm going to say about it. So Calloway has something epic in store for us. January 27th, 2017. All will be made known.

Okay. Yep. Callow be made known. Okay. Yep. Callaway's up to stuff. You know, I follow the No Laying Up Twitter account, which I know you do too. You like those guys? The golf account? Love those guys. And they also insinuated stuff's in the works. Things might be happening. Stuff is happening.

Maybe athletes who we tended to associate with a certain brand might be switching to another brand. Who knows? Who knows what's going to happen? I'm prepared for anything. All kinds of possibilities. Tiger Woods is dressing up like Santa Claus.

2017 could be a great golf year. I'm excited to have Shaq House back. Thanks to Joe House. Thanks to Sling TV. The best way to watch live TV on your favorite device. With Sling Orange service, pay just $20 a month. Get ESPN, ESPN2, more top channels. Add the sports extra for just $5 for the SEC network

and more. Start watching for seven days free at sling.com slash Bill Simmons. Restrictions apply. And thanks as well to the United Nations Development Program. This is your reminder. Go to undp.org slash give to make a donation. Your gift will

help fight poverty and help UNDP make a real difference in people's lives all around the world. And it's tax deductible as well. Go now, undp.org slash give. Use my promo code Simmons at checkout to let them know that I sent you. And then finally, thanks to everybody at The Ringer and theringer.com and The Ringer Podcast Network. Don't forget about this sports movie podcast that we launched on Channel 33 House. Have you listened to the sports movie podcast yet? I stored it up. I'm saving. I can't wait.

I'm looking forward to both Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt over the New Year's holiday. Welcome 2017 with the sports pod. And let me know if there's a sports movie you want to break down because people are grabbing spots. People are already trying to make reservations. Thanks to everyone listening out there. We had an awesome year here at the whole podcast network.

We built a whole bunch of them, and this one has gone great. I can't even remember how many done. I think we're over 80 million downloads for the BS podcast at this point. I don't even know what the final number is, but it's been awesome. Thanks for spreading the word, and we will see you on the other side in 2017. Also, thanks to Tate Frazier and Jim Cunningham and Colin Orkett. Who else should I mention, Jim? Joe Fuentes.

Joe Fuentes, I guess I should mention. Podcast Joe. Podcast Joe and our whole team on the video audio side who have been great until then. We will see you in 2017. I don't have feelings within On the wayside I'm a person never lost And I don't have feelings within