The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 27: Chuck Klosterman

Episode Date: November 18, 2015

HBO's Bill Simmons talks to Chuck Klosterman about Chuck's controversial interview w/ Tom Brady (3:15 mark), Grantland's demise (27:45), Bill's President Obama interview(38:33), HBO's Kareem doc (1:00:15) and their revised list of the greatest NBA players ever. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Promo code BS. And we're off. Well, it hurts to have him on under these circumstances. A podcast hall of famer in these circles. And now we're at odds. Tiny bit. Chuck Klosterman. Controversial story in GQ this week.

This month. Tom Brady. You don't really believe him. You don't totally believe him. You don't totally believe him. What's going on? Not too much there. Although this conversation must be boring for you because I'm not the president.

I'm not even a governor. I know. How can you talk to anyone now after sort of, you know, now that you sort of, your circle of influence now sort of moves into the highest levels of world domination. Literally the highest level.

Is there a higher level than President? Well, there's the Bilderberg group. Yeah, I guess. Hey, we should mention, I was really psyched that we're both on the cover of GQ. It's cool. That was a neat surprise. Yeah. I feel like you knew about it before I knew about it.

I got a heads up like last week. It's a good one for the old frame. I may frame that cover. Yeah, I want to talk about the thing I did with Obama in a little bit, but we should talk about the Brady thing first. First of all, the Patriot fans are mad at you, I'm guessing? Well, I am getting some response from the Boston Metro area. Yeah.

That's about it, though. They're a pretty interesting fan base. Yeah. Interesting is, I would say they feel persecuted at this point. You know, I've talked about this before in the pod but the flake eight has um it's really everything new england's about it's the us against them thing personified and there's a real case to be made that that brady got railroaded and and that the ideal gas law i think multiple people have proven that it totally makes sense that if you had the footballs at a certain level of PSI and then they were in cold weather for 90 to 100 minutes that they would deflate below the PSI level.

Oh, it's possible. But I mean, I guess my feeling is this, OK? Yeah. I start by asking my question from the Wells report, right? Yeah. And my assumption is that he's going to give the same answer. But that's sort of the baseline. I couldn't just go and start asking him questions.

I had to go like, okay, so you said you were not – the conclusion was that you were generally aware. You deny this. My assumption was that he would go, yeah, I was not generally aware. And then I could sort of ask the more nuanced questions about his feeling about being put in that position, sort of how things sort of spiraled out from there. But he was unwilling to even answer the first question, which was so strange. I shouldn't say it was so strange. It was strange only because, I mean, obviously I would not have done this interview if I was not under the impression that I could ask anything. I mean, you know, he has the right to say, like, I'm not answering that. But I assumed that he would give the same response that he gave before. And you need to have the, you know, kind of a baseline understanding of what you're

talking about. And, you know, some people are saying, and he would argue that, well, you know, there's ongoing litigation. This is an ongoing thing. I can't talk about this. Well, that's not true if you're giving the same response every time. I mean, it's only true if your response is changing. If you're accused of something and you say no, you can always say no. True. And what's weird is that he gave a better and more detailed answer while he was under oath. It would seem like that is a riskier thing to do than to just do that with with some guy who's writing a feature about him for a magazine and that's the part i don't understand i actually you know i'm i'm friendly with michael mccann who writes who's the legal expert for si.com

and by friendly i just like we've emailed and dm'd a few times things like like that. And I was asking him, Brady took a real legal risk if it wasn't true that he didn't know anything about the whole deflategate thing. Because really what it was is if something now happens after the fact, then he can get dragged back in and stuff can happen to him because he wasn't totally honest when he was under oath.

And I don't think people understand that part. Well, I mean, but in a sense, like, is Rafael Palmeiro in jail? I mean, you really think that they're going to allow basically Greg Hardy to walk the street and they're going to put an athlete away for something he said about a pretty arcane thing. I mean, the whole thing about this is that it's like a real low-stakes controversy that has sort of become a metaphor for something much bigger. Yeah, I agree. The incident itself, even if it was irrefutably proven. It's a negligible difference.

I mean, and the fact that he's played exceptionally well since this, it would seem to indicate that if there had been anything inappropriate, it certainly wasn't giving him an advantage that he couldn't overcome in any other normal circumstance. Right. I guess my point is McCann feels very strongly that there was a perjury risk for Brady if it comes out that he wasn't true and he was under oath. And that all comes down to whether the New York prosecutor's office decided to launch

some sort of investigation. Now, you'd say, well, why would they waste their time doing that? That's the kind of thing that prosecutor offices do do. You know, and you're seeing it now at the fanduel and draft kings thing um with the attorney general getting involved which i guess makes sense but also seems like you know if you think about all the problems that we have in society week after week it seems like a weird thing to go all in on daily fantasy like ultimately who cares if it's gambling or it's not gambling? With that stuff,

it seemed like initially there was conversation, you know, about like, well, is this gambling? How can they argue that it isn't gambling? And it did seem absurd

that they had created this argument that it wasn't, yeah, this loophole that it wasn't gambling. But what difference does it make if it is? Like, why?

It's a strange thing, I think, to say that morally we need to stop this from happening i'm not even really sure what the argument is outside of someone saying that it is wrong to gamble and people should not be allowed to gamble because we have to protect people from their self and they'll they'll wasn't that the argument though like if sport if you can't gamble on sports legally in this country unless you're in Las Vegas,

then why would you then be able to gamble on a team that you put together of players' performances that is basically gambling? It's just sort of like we have this pre-existing law. You have this pre-existing law. You can only gamble on sports in Vegas, and it makes no sense. Wait got we got off track yeah um i i don't want to get bogged down and deflate gate the thing that i'm interested in two things first of all why did brady and his camp agree to give you this interview and tell you that everything was on the table and

and that was what appealed to you about doing this interview it's like oh that's awesome everything's on the table with Tom Brady. I have to do this. And then you do the interview and everything's not on the table. Why would they change their mind on that? Well, it's kind of a complicated thing. Now, obviously, and just to explain this to people listening, when these interviews are set up, GQ has someone called a wrangler.

And the wrangler is the person who makes contact with Tom Brady or Jay-Z or whoever they're talking to. And, of course, the person like Tom Brady is represented by their agent. Well, either the people around Tom Brady or Brady himself wanted to be on the cover of the Man of the Year issue. He obviously thought this would be something that they would want to do. I don't know why, but they thought this would be a great thing, an important thing for them. But of course, in order to do that, they can't just say, we want it. There has to be an interview that goes with it, and I'm not going to do an interview unless I can ask whatever I want. Like I say, people don't have to answer those questions, but I would never agree to an interview with limitations. And I wasn't, of course, involved with the conversation during the construction of this meeting or whatever, but it appears, from what I have been told, that – and I can't – I don't want to go too specifically because, like I say, I don't know the Wrangler.

I don't know the agent. These are just stories that I've been – that have got back to me. That essentially that they were like, this – everything is on the table. This interview will be, you know, like the kind of the ultimate explanation for this entire controversy. Right. So I'm like, great. Well, then I'm going to go there and talk to him in person, and that gets changed.

So you're supposed to see him in person, and then you got the runoff, basically. Yeah, well, first they made sure the photo shoot happened. See, that was part of the weird thing. It's like, I don't know if this is what happened but to me it almost seems as though that they made sure that uh gq had these pictures of of brady in his house and everything was set up for the cover and then maybe decided uh actually or decided or never intended to actually talk about the things that I want to talk about.

And obviously I'm going to ask those questions. There's no way that you can do a piece on Tom Brady and not sort of discuss the most interesting controversy of his career that's still sort of ongoing. Yeah. I'm with you. And I'm trying to think about it from his end. Like if you had told me, and you kept this a secret from me, just like I kept a secret from you that I was doing the Obama thing

because there was all these different concerns that things would get out and all that stuff. If you had told me you were doing this during the season as somebody who's followed Brady since he got the starting job in 2001, I feel like I've met him. I know people who know him. I feel like I have a pretty good handle on how he thinks. I would have said there was no way he was going to say anything interesting to you in that interview during the season.

Like, I think if it was April, you might have had a chance. But during the season, he wasn't going to distract the team, which is so weird that whatever was insinuated that he would give this tell-all interview, basically. There's just no way. He doesn't do stuff like that. Well, sure. Here's what I assumed would happen. I assumed I would ask that first question, which wouldn't even appear in the piece if he answered it the way I anticipated, which is I'd say, like, were you generally aware of this? And he would say no.

Yeah. And then I had a whole bunch of other things I wanted to ask him about from the premise that this is something that he had no knowledge of. And that suddenly he was in this world where his coach seems to be somewhat suggesting that if there's any questions, they should be directed at him. What point did he realize what these accusations were? Why he was talking to the team managers on the phone did he have any relationship with him before this what were they talking about was it him calling them or was it them calling him essentially telling him what went on i had all these other things i was interested in um but

he just was not going to even sort of recognize that this event had occurred and you and your takeaway from that is this is super weird. And it made me, you went into it, not totally having an opinion. It sounded like, and you came out of it thinking, this is really weird.

I wonder if he did this. Well, I guess I assumed going into it that, um, something strange here has happened, but I don't know anything. I haven't talked to the guy. I just,

I know the same things anyone else knows. You know, I watch television and read the Internet and all that. I felt his responses seemed to suggest the responses of a person who was guilty. I mean, I wouldn't – my opinion. I mean, I think I make it pretty clear that this is my perception of this. Yeah. It seems like there's too many weird details here. I guess this is part of it as well.

It's such a strange thing to be accused of that if you had no knowledge, your response would be like, of course not. That never occurred to me. The idea of deflating the balls, why would I do that? I was shocked by it. That doesn't seem to be the way he or the organization are responding to me. The idea of deflating the balls, why would I do that? I was shocked by it. That doesn't seem to be the way he or the organization are responding to it. And I feel like the ESPN, the magazine story, sort of about how this would have happened and how this was, in all probability, some sort of attempt by the NFL to penalize the Patriots for things they were believed to have done, but could never be proven to have done.

I think that's a very probable explanation for this. And we agree that the premise behind that ESPN the magazine story, I think is pretty accurate. I think the way Goodell reacted, I don't want to go over this ground again. It's like I've talked about it before, but I do feel like the way Goodell reacted, I don't want to go over this ground again. I feel like I've talked about it before, but I do feel like the way Goodell reacted this entire time was actually a reaction to eight years of his relationship with Kraft

and how it was perceived by the other owners. I do feel like that was a huge part of this, where it was just owners constantly tweaking him. Come on, man, again? Really? The Patriots again you and craft like why don't you just make him the commissioner and all these little barbs and i think he just snapped i was like i'm gonna show these guys i'm gonna treat the patriots as hard as i treat everyone else yeah i'm i'm i think that's probably very true and i also think someone else uh who

sort of uh i'm not gonna say who because i don't want to give this away but somebody who sort of, I'm not going to say who because I don't want to give this away, but somebody who sort of knows some of the things that have gone on here, said to me that he believes that Brady was just terrified that if he admitted any wrongdoing in the wake of the Colts game, that he could get suspended for the Super Bowl. So he was like, I'm going to do what I can to get to that game. I'll say whatever I need to say to get to that game. And once that had happened, there was sort of no going back. Right. And the larger thing that I'm writing about in this piece is that over time, this is not going to matter.

It's not going to seem the way it does now. It's going to seem like this kind of quaint, almost charming thing that happened during this period of the Patriots' dynasty and will sort of explain why they are such a dynastic institution. I mean, it's just I think that they will go a little further than the other team. Yeah, and the best explanation that I would have as a Pats fan for Deflategate is that I think Brady liked the balls in the low end of whatever the legal limit was and made it clear to his dudes, like, you know, keep it, don't have them too tight. And those guys knew that.

And that was it. And I think he yelled at them, like, what, a couple months before after that Jets game that the balls were too inflated and was really mad about it and that kind of set the tone for how they then treated the balls I just think that I've said this before I don't want to sound like like uh Phil Simms you know Chuck we talked about before we talked about but I do feel like that when the balls deflated maybe a little bit less than what was legal, not a bad thing. Maybe Brady was like, that's fine. But I don't think he was thinking about PSI. I think that's the most complicated job in sports and to think that he had time, that he even had the extra bandwidth to say

to himself, you know what I really care about right now is whether the balls are 10% less inflated than they should be. It's just, it doesn't add up to me. Nobody thinks that he was actually telling these guys, I want the PSI level to be this. To be slightly lower than legal. I think he was just like, as low as you can make it. Yeah, I think he probably did say that. Maybe they said like, well,

like, lower than, he's just like, make it as low as you can make it. Yeah. And that, so like, is that a form of cheating? Well, yes. It is. I mean, in the same way that you know, when the Seahawks play defense,

they basically commit interference seemingly at a hold on every play, knowing that it can't be called every play. Okay, is that a form of cheating? Yes. But, I mean, some of these things are sort of ingrained in the way these sports are played, and we actually kind of reward the people who push those boundaries, and that's going to happen to the Patriots, too. I mean, in a larger sense, you know, I haven't done a ton of interviews this year. I've done, like, four interviews. Brady and Kobe and John Swift and Eddie Van Halen. Yeah, that's quite a foursome. Well, but the thing is, in both cases, they really sort of show the different poles of how you can perceive why you're involved with the media at all.

Like Kobe saw this as an opportunity to be like, I think my legacy really matters. I need to shape it. Brady is, I'm going to give nothing to anyone. And that my legacy basically will be almost an impossible thing to shape because all you'll have are the tangible things that happen on the field. Eddie Van Halen looks at doing an interview with a media person as sort of a way to kind of almost damage the way the music is consumed. In other words, it's like, why do I want to say anything about these songs?

I would rather have just the songs exist so that the consumer has no other filter to influence what they hear. Taylor Swift is more like, well, the songs and who I am as a person are equally important and that I need to intertwine these in order to have it have the maximum effect. So with Eddie Van Halen and Taylor Swift, it's generational. With Kobe and Tom Brady it's more like ideological right it's a tactical move that perpetuates some sort of public image that they're trying to protect and cultivate right I guess I mean yeah that's got to be part of it but it's in some ways it's like it might be even less sophisticated than that. It might just be the difference between thinking my views on myself matter as opposed to I don't even think about myself.

Who cares what I think of myself? Brady almost seems that way. Like he doesn't, he just, it's almost as though he doesn't even really value his own insights into himself because he never seems to give them. I think that's unfair. He might, that's, that's unfair. He, just because he doesn't give them doesn't mean they don't exist. Yeah. No, I don't think he cares. I think he just wants to play football and win games and that's how he wants to be judged. And from what I know about him, that's all,

that's all his life is constructed to do is to win football games. Everything about him. I wrote about this last year when I did the Brady versus Manny piece, like every decision he makes is based on his football career, like for what he eats, to how he trains, to how he sleeps, to what time he goes to bed. And he trains all the time. All he wants to do is play football

and stay good at football and be the best quarterback of all time. He doesn't really have any other hobbies. Well, okay. And that being the case, why would anyone then be shocked by the possibility that a person whose entire life is consumed with success at one thing would not perhaps take advantage of a um uh a little legal advantage yeah succeed i mean that would be like using kobe bryan as an example would it be remotely shocking if we were to find out that kobe bryan had done something mildly illegal to help him be a better basketball player? Now you're speaking my language. I love this conversation.

Let's keep this going. Well, he did go to Germany when it wasn't legal in the United States to fix his knee. Sure, but nobody cares because there's no rule against it. But because of this football thing, because there's this bizarre rule that the teams are responsible for their own football. Yeah. And I suspect, I'm not 100% certain on this, but I strongly suspect the reason that every team is responsible for their own football is probably going back to something that happened in the 60s or 70s where there was a fear that if you gave the home team the ability to control this and you had a game in oakland or whatever you were going to end up with these weird footballs that you know so they were like well we'll let every team sort of keep a track of their own equipment so that uh to create a more level playing field. And then this idea, I got to say, when this story broke, tell me if you were the same

way, when this story broke, the deflacate thing broke, had it ever occurred to you that this might be happening anywhere? No. I had never thought of this idea. Now, that doesn't mean just because I haven't thought of it that it's ridiculous. It just means that it isn't the kind of thing that seems like a... It was so weird. I'm with you. The weirdness almost gave it credibility.

It would be like if I accused you of having a popular podcast because you were compressing the audio sound. And this gave people the illusion that they were enjoying it more than they were. I do that, know, it's- I do that, though. That's actually true. Well, you see- But wait a second, though. The Homer Patriot Fan of America committee is telling me that I'm obligated to mention

that. There's no actual real proof that the balls were deflated, because the ideal gas law explains everything. The balls were tested incorrectly, and you could make a case the Colts also had deflated because the ideal gas law explains everything the balls were tested incorrectly and you could make a case the colts also had deflated like nobody actually knows which balls were deflated what how much they were deflated by the gauges were different like there's it was such a mess it was almost like like how they botched the OJ crime scene, multiplied by a million. Well, you know, Bill, that's a great counter. So I'm curious.

Are you then arguing that you cannot accuse someone of lying without proof? Well, do you think Brady... It's a fair point. Yeah, you're saying... I'm scared. I guess that's true. I guess, are we agreeing that you can never... I mean, guess that's true i guess are we agreeing that you can never i mean maybe that's a reasonable thing to conclude i think with the with the good del thing though i felt like i had way more proof than than people actually had with this brady thing the

problem with the brady story was how it was reported coming out of the gate set the tone for what everyone thought and you saw this happen twice and i actually thought this was a pretty scary sign for just how how media and reporting is consumed in america in 2014 and 2015 where an incorrect report comes out everybody then proceeds as if that report is true for the next few weeks and months and then it turns out oh wait that the report has a million flaws and then when it comes out again that brady quote-unquote destroyed himself on that whole thing then that becomes a narrative for two weeks and then it turns out that that report had flaws it scares me this is this is the problem with the fact that we have such reliance now, all of Western culture really, on the idea of storytelling and narrative. Because whatever is the first story or whatever is the first narrative, just because it's the initial one,

kind of calcifies and galvanizes in people's mind. And any alternative story not only has to supply a reasonable explanation, but disprove the original narrative, even if that original narrative was fake. It's, I mean, and it happened to me last year, which is, or earlier this year, which is one of the reasons that, you know, I've noticed it probably a little more than most is whatever the first thing that comes out is, especially now with how social media works and the snowball mentality of just anything, any news at all. And the snowball rolls down the hill and it becomes this giant snowball.

It's scary. And the flake gate was innocuous. You know, it's freaking stupid. Who cares? But this is something that does seem to happen over and over and over again. The first narrative is always what sticks, and it doesn't matter if it's true or not, and I don't like it. Well, yeah, and the problem is, whatever the first narrative is,

even if it becomes obviously false, every time the story is reported, there needs to be someone saying, well, initial reports, though, did claim this. They keep repeating the falsehood because it was false in order to suggest that, you know, this is something that we got wrong. Right. You know, you know, and it ends up sort of making that the only one that really sort

of remains in people's mind because everything else is just a reaction to it. And then you see this happen sometimes especially when it's an angle that has a little sophistication to it but it's wrong and people repeat it because they don't know any better um not to bring espn into this but there's been this angle for the last few months about cord cutting how this is a huge problem for ESPN. And this is why people like me and Jason Whitlock and Colin Coward were decided not to be kept by ESPN because they had to save money now and all this stuff. If you go down individually,

my situation had nothing to do with money. Coward just got a better offer from Fox, and the Whitlock thing self-combusted. So those three things had nothing to do with money. Coward just got a better offer from Fox. And the Whitlock thing self-combusted. So those three things had nothing to do with money. Olbermann's show just didn't do well. Didn't rate well. And they decided it wasn't worth it. That's not a cord-cutting thing.

Yeah, I know. I know we really haven't talked about this on a podcast. We've talked a little bit kind of off-air. But it is interesting what happened with Grantland. I've got to say that in the 20-some years that I've been involved in the media, this is the first time anything that dramatic happened that had no relationship to money at all. And I just think that the fact that occasionally stories would still, like, I mean, the idea of talking about, you know, traffic. There were, like, this whole idea of, like, the traffic of Grantland. And then, like, did it go up when you were away?

They kind of tried to reduce the numbers. Yeah. But the thing is, like, that was never an intention of the site. If anything, I felt I got uncomfortable with how big it got. I thought it was supposed to be smaller, and that the idea was that when you're a company that large with that much money, you can do things that aren't necessarily profit-driven. And you know what? As far as I could tell, that was the case. I feel as if your relationship with ESPN had stayed the way it was in 2009 or 2010,

Grantland would still be running exactly as it was right now. Nothing would be different. You'd still be there. Everything would be the same. Yeah, we'd probably have a little more, because we were just still figuring out how to do certain things, especially from a social media strategy standpoint and apps and things like that. Yeah, the revenue thing is just something you throw out when

you don't want people to understand like the real reasons why something happened. Because you could pick apart all the revenue sources for ESPN. I mean, they spent $125 million on the sports center set three years ago. When you talk about, I don't want to turn this into a bash, I'm just pointing out facts. They spent $125 million on the SportsCenter set. They paid a ton of money for NBA rights. They spent money in a way that they assume that whatever advantage that they had from 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, they assume that that advantage was going to remain the same for the next four, five, six, seven years.

And they were wrong. And what they didn't count was that the subs that they had were going to go backwards and were going to start going down. And that people 25 and under and even some adults were just not going to have cable and satellite. They assumed that the 100 million subscribers that they had in 2012 and 2013, whatever year they got to 100 million, they assumed that that was going to be the case in 2018. And all of the bets they made in 2011, 2012, 2013

were based on that subscriber number. And now it went backwards. And it continues to go backwards. And cord cutting is a real thing. And for them, it's like, you know, you pay, guess what you pay for ESPN? You're paying 75 bucks a year, I think.

It's like 650 a month. Maybe it's 80 bucks a month. You're worth 80 bucks a month to them. If you said screw it and you just got rid of cable, they lose 80 bucks from you. And what's happening is they dropped from, I think, 100 million to under 92 million subs.

So 8 million times $75 a year, that's a lot of money. And I don't think they ever saw it coming. I really don't. Listen, I was really embedded in there for a few years. I never heard anyone really talk about the subs being a concern until the end of 2014. What are you saying? The subs? What are you talking about?

Subs is like people who subscribe to ESPN. Oh, okay. Yeah, so if you have cable or satellite, you're worth $6.50 a month. Now, somebody like Tate. Tate, do you pay for cable? Tate just shook his head. He doesn't pay for cable. So that's $75 a year they're not getting because Tate's like, you know what?

I'm just going to stream stuff when I watch TV. And I'm going to watch Netflix. And I'm going to watch iTunes. All that stuff. They didn't have a plan for this whole next generation of stuff. And that is what's determining their choices. It's not about a couple people that work for them. This is about they were spending a lot of money.

And now they're like, oh, crap. We're not bringing in as much money as we're spending. But the reality is they're still making a ton of money. They're just not making quite as much money as they made two years ago. This is a problem at ESPN, but it's a problem in lots of places. It's just the idea that if you have a successful business, you're obligated to make it more successful. Yes. You're supposed to compound the success.

I kind of disagreed with the idea of when Grantland was trying to get bigger. I wasn't really sure why. I didn't really understand what the motive for that is outside. Well, what do you mean get bigger? Because it's not like we were adding writers. No. I mean, I think we wanted... It seems as though there was a concern to sort of increase the reach.

No, it wasn't an increase the reach. Because why would you... Like all the mobile stuff like that, that's an attempt to increase the reach. I don't think increase the reach is the right word. Although that is a great name for like a rock band or something. No, it's more a case of you want as many people to read a piece as possible you just want them to be able to access it yeah but that's a semantic thing that's increasing the reach i'm not talking but if you write it if you write an awesome piece i want as many people to

be able to see it as possible just because i like the piece i don't it's not a case of we i mean we never did this stuff like uh the headlines and all that. We just never did that stuff. But so, I mean, but okay, go a little deeper on that. Why do you want that? Why do you want the maximum number of people to see something if you think it's good? It's not a maximum number. It's a case of. Or the largest possible number.

Yeah, if we, but you're still making it seem like we're like McDonald's. I think it's, if you have good content, you want people to be able to know, know about it and see it. And, you know, there's a bunch of different ways you can do that. Um, for us, I mean, I know you're, I'm not making it sound like that. No, no, I know. But what I'm just saying is that I, I, I have found in my experience, that there is a downside to increasing the amount of people consuming your work if you start getting beyond what the natural size of the audience is. Yeah, I agree with that. That there's like a, you know, how many, I mean, okay, here again, I don't want to get off on a tangent,

but okay, like, so, so like, okay, okay, so Brian Phillips covers the Iditarod, right? Yeah. And goes up there and spends a bunch of time, costs money to be up there, writes an 8,000-word piece. You know, it's like an editor, maybe two editors, just a design person. Now, from a traffic perspective, you probably do about the same amount making fun of the Iditarod in your apartment. Yeah, but you don't do that story for traffic, though. Exactly, exactly. So there's a limited number of people who actually want to read an intelligent, sort of complicated story that's 8,000 words long about the Iditarod. And I felt as though that there's just always this goal in all publishing

entities to sort of get beyond the natural size of your audience. And I think that when I- Now, hold on. I'm going to fix this for you because you're actually wrong on this one, but I'm not mad about it. The issue that we had was that we had created a site that was built for desktop computers. You know, everything about it in 2010, 2011 was the concept was you can read this on your laptop or your desktop computer. We did not know iPads were coming. We did not know that our audience was going to move onto people's iPhones and things like that. And what was happening was by the end of 2014, over half of the people that read ESPN were reading it on mobile devices. And we weren't prepared. Our site, we didn't even have an app. We just weren't prepared for that world. It would almost be like if you're a restaurant and all of a sudden the town you're in

is like, hey, half of us are gluten-free. And you're like, oh, crap. Well, we don't have any gluten-free dishes. Sorry. So we weren't accommodating those people. And that was the issue. It was really a mechanical thing. It was a mechanical thing.

Yeah, it wasn't like a how do we increase the reach? Because if we want to increase the reach, there's little tricks you can do. For us, it was just a case of society moved in a direction that we're not prepared for and we have no plan for it. And that's a, that's a different problem. And that, that comes down to resources and game planning and stuff like that. And we just weren't ready, you know, and that's also a situation where you need help from your parent company and you need, you need help from your bosses and you need to come up with plans. And, and that, that was where we were having issues.

So like to not have an app in 2014 is insane. You need something. That's true. Um, so anyway, that was the issue with that. But, um,

I forget how we got on this topic. Oh, I think we were just talking about the Grantland thing. Yeah. You, you, you were, you were,

I don't know. You're a Vulcan sometimes. You were pretty emotional about the Grantland thing. Well, yeah. I mean, that was an interesting period in my life, and I feel like that it didn't sort of work the way I imagined it, but I still felt very emotionally invested because of the period at the beginning and the fact that I knew so many people involved.

Well, you were also, you won't say this, but you were a huge part of the planning with the site, some of the people we hired, the general conceit of what we were trying to do. I mean, you were one of the most valuable people we had, which I don't think a lot of people know. It was an interesting thing. I mean, I feel like the very first meeting we had about that

at that Italian restaurant. Yeah, a million years ago. I really remember that dinner. That was, you know, but so was i i guess i was i mean but at the same time it's like what i can't you know what what how how what am i supposed to do it's just something that happened wait we didn't talk about the uh my obama thing yeah the uh so now, when you were going into that interview, did you say to yourself, like, okay, I almost have to sort of pick a lane on this? as a person tried to really try to get like the person that is unseen as we see the president or did you have any sort of uh i guess plan going into it oh yeah and what was the plan i had a total game plan and it turned out to be the wrong game plan and fortunately we were able to audible

into um i i thought it turned out to have a lot of good nuggets in it, but my initial plan was to talk to him about the era and about leadership and what he learned about leadership. I was really interested in that. Like how did he learn when he was a leader in 2008 versus what he, what in 2015, what did he learn over the course of those seven years about, you know, what would he do differently? Um, what factors came in, things like Twitter becoming a thing, like what changes in society made his job more difficult,

what left him unprepared, things like that. And what I didn't count on was we weren't taping it, either with video or audio, as a podcast. So it was basically just me and my tape recorder. And he used that to his advantage. So the first couple answers were, you know, we edited that. The real transcript of that interview was probably, you know how this works. It was probably like 10,000 to 11,000 words.

And then you cut it into, I think it was a 5,000 word piece. That was the space they had in the magazine. So you basically take it from a porterhouse steak to a filet and you put the best parts in. But his first few answers, he almost filibustered. It was really smart. And I was so mad at myself. I didn't anticipate he was going to do that. Because the last time I had it with him, it was this back and forth, really lively 20 minute conversation. It was a lot of back and forth. There wasn't

any long answers on his part, any of that. This time around, he took his time and he thought carefully about everything he was going to say. And my issue was you're interviewing the president. Normally if I'm interviewing, I don't know, you or some actor or some athlete, whoever, I'd start jumping in to kind of move it along and get more back and forth. But you can't interrupt the president. You know, it's just weird. I'm playing a road game in the White House on his turf. It's a little disarming anyway. You got a lot of adrenaline.

And for about 15 minutes there, I'm like, I have no control over this. He's just talking. And I have this whole agenda in my head. And in the back of your head, you're going, I have probably 45 to 50 minutes total. And now we're at minute 16 and I haven't gotten to anything I wanted to get to yet. And so then gradually I was able to start pushing it in the right spots and but that with that interview I think everything that was in that GQ interview like 90% of it was from the last half hour of the interview and the smartest thing I did was I had a speed how long were you there for I was there for 50 minutes but the smartest thing I did was I had the speed round thing ready to go and I

actually pulled out my iPad and I was just firing questions at him. And now if I had to do it over again, I'm not sure. I think I would have maybe done it, maybe said like, this is going to run out as a podcast at some point. So he would have had to feel more urgency. I thought the way he handled it was really smart. It explained a lot. The guy's just smart. Yeah. I think he comes across very well in it. Yeah, he does. One thing that the piece made me think about, and I'm wondering what you think about this. So you've interviewed Obama three times.

You've interviewed the president three times, right? Twice. Twice? Yeah. Okay, twice. Andy Katz seems like he interviews him every year for the NCAA tournament. Yeah. Obama went on the Zach Galifianakis little Between Two Ferns thing.

He went on Mark Maron's podcast. He did all of these things that no president had ever come close to doing before. There's no, I mean, you know, Clinton went on the Arsenio Hall show, but that was before he was elected. Right. Here's what I'm wondering. These sort of non-traditional media sources, people who are essentially involved in sports or comedy or, you know, is this what presidents are going to do now? Like, is the expectation going forward that when you become president, you will do all the traditional media things, but in order to sort of reach the audience that, for whatever reason, and many of them for multiple reasons, have sort of given up on mainstream media sources, do

you need to do that? Or will this be kind of like an outlying thing, that Obama was different for so many reasons, but he did these things. And when the next president, probably Hillary, but whoever, will they sort of return to the way things were before? Or is this just going to be part of the presidential experience now? I think he's an outlier. And one of my big takeaways from the two times we went there to do an interview with him was the people who worked for him talking about how excited he was to do this. And, and even like,

I know a couple of people that work for him or whatever. And I think he's really, really, really bored by how conventional and polarizing the political media is. And I just don't think he likes it. I don't think he likes how when he has to do an interview, he knows half the people who read it or consume it are going to feel one way about it and the other half are going to feel another way.

And it's going to be the same questions every time. And he's going to have to figure out new ways to inject life into something he's answered a million times. But then when he sees something like me me he's like oh great this guy might ask me about michael jordan i i just think it makes it more interesting for him yeah well i i i think that the thing you were talking about how how the part he doesn't like i think that what he realized, which is not going to shock anybody, but I think that he really realized was the fact that the traditional thing when you address the country, when you address the media, they are completely inhuman interactions. You're essentially, you're giving a set of talking points that

exist so that a portion of the populace can accept them, and a portion can disagree with them, and it almost has nothing to do with you and the way you actually are. It's a collection of compromises you had to make. And in these interviews,

when you talk to him, or when Maren talks to him, or whatever, he's going to be asked a question outside of that where the question will really be about him. And, you know, it's like, I mean, you don't become president unless you have some ego. I bet he probably is like, I want people to sort of ask me about, you know, what I think about Roger Goodell. Like, why did everyone else get to comment on this? And don't? I can't just come out and say these things. If he just, you know, if he just called a, you know, suddenly there was a, you can't call a press conference to talk about something that interests him.

He's just got to wait for opportunities for people to ask questions that are actually about him as a person, which would never happen in a traditional setting. Yeah, and like the stuff I was really interested in, which we got to, which I was excited about was like how his relationship with his daughter has changed his two daughters. And cause I think he's more of a real person than maybe most of the people

that have been either in that office or in comparable offices that, you know, if like we went to, if we went to dinner with him and it was like everything off the record we'll never talk about it in this stuff again we make a pact i think we'd have a really good time at the dinner you know and like i know people have played golf with him and stuff and it just seems like he's actually like like about as normal of a person as you're going to get he's gonna be the president whether you agree or disagree with his beliefs and his stances all

that stuff i don't know if he's necessarily more of a quote-unquote normal person. I mean, like you see that there's a book coming out about the first Bush. You've probably seen excerpts about him talking about things. Now, of course, years later. He seems normal, too. You're right. I think that there probably is normalcy in all of these people, and like weirdness in all of these people. But Obama sees that as an important part of his identity, that people actually know who he is, because he seems to have a better sense of, certainly, he seems to be the funniest president that I can remember.

I mean, the way he delivers information and all. He's like a ball buster. funniest president that i can remember i mean the way he delivers information and all you know he's like a ball buster and uh you know i never things that i would have that i i curious about like you know going before he was elected one of the principal criticisms of him was that he did not have enough experience yeah and then especially during the first half of his tenure there was all that sort of obstructionism. He couldn't get anything through. And I wonder if he now says that he was partially at fault for that,

if some of the ideas about his lack of experience, the fact that he hadn't managed big coalitions like this, I wonder if he would say, well, maybe I wasn't quite ready. Obviously, no one's ever ready, but maybe I wasn't. Or if he would say, that was not my fault. I was doing the most rational thing, and a group on the right just decided to stop everything I tried. He basically said that in the interview. He said that he—I think the point that he was trying to make was was I haven't changed as a person this entire time. I'm as confident as a, I'm as confident right now as I was in 08.

What I didn't anticipate was how hard it was to push things through that I was committed to. And, and he, and now that's basically what you're saying that you're wondering if he felt that way, because I think he was completely unprepared for how hard it would be to get anything done and that's the one thing he wishes he had basically told himself in 2008 this is no matter what you think you're going to be able to do you you might not be able to do it but i think that i wonder though if he's if i mean there's two ways of looking at that one could say that he wishes he could tell himself no matter what you want to do, some things aren't going to work. Or if what he'd tell himself is in order to make this work, these things have to be done. In other words, he says he hasn't changed at all in eight years.

But would it have been to his advantage if he was a somewhat different personality? I don't know. I think I meant like his confidence hasn't changed. The thing that, the one thing I really wanted to talk to him about, and we just ran out of time basically, was I have a feeling, and he hasn't said this yet,

and maybe he'll say it to somebody else this last year. I have a feeling he hates how the media works, the structure of the media, and just how it's either totally one way or totally the other way. And there's no nuance and no middle ground with a lot of this stuff. And what I wanted to ask him was if you could, if you could fix how the media covers politics, what would you do?

How would you fix it? What would be your plan? Because I think he, i think he's ready to answer that question and i just ran out of time and that was but what would even be a possible plan for that how can the president i don't know i see or fix the media i mean i don't think he would have offered a fix but i think it would have given him a window to maybe talk about the media candidly which i think he wants to do. Because, you know, I've talked to Jon Stewart about this.

Jon Stewart was really worn down by that job. And just how it has to be one way or the other way the whole time, and he was just tired of it. You know, you're in that cycle. Just anytime you have any sort of anything that enrages one of the two sides, they come at you really hard. And I just think he got worn down. That was my take from watching. He probably did.

I mean, the problem is, in many ways, that we can now measure things that we couldn't measure in the past. Yeah. You know, I mean, the fact that we have, there's so much statistical proof that people would prefer to consume information that supports their biases as opposed to contradicts them or makes them reconsider them. It's so overwhelming that any institution that is trying to sort of turn a profit is going to, like, is just going to fade in that direction and just start realizing that their viewership does not want to be challenged on anything. Yeah.

Well, I would have loved to have heard him talk about that. I was interested in that um i was really interested in he's he seems like he resonates with celebrities and athletes in a way that maybe some other presidents didn't and like i'd love to know like some of the offers he's gotten things to do um think like what was the most interesting dinner he's had with a celebrity who's just like, come to my house. We won't tell anyone, blah, blah, blah. He just seems like he's in that vortex more than any president we've had. Like when you think about what Obama's going to do after, after he leaves office, couldn't you say that like, would anything surprise you? Like

if I told you he's going to be the football commissioner in four years, would you be shocked? No, but that's a job that he could take. I mean, it's a little tricky when let's say when Bill Clinton left office, people were like, he's going to become an actor now.

But you can't really do that. I mean, it's like, you know, it's such a rarefied thing to be president. But he's young. Obama's young, though. Well, I know, but he still has to sort of, I feel, have a responsibility to sort of respect the position he had. Right.

Like, you know, that there's certain things you can do. He could become the commissioner of the NFL. I think he'd be a great commissioner of the NFL. That's something that he could reasonably do. He could become the commissioner of the NFL. I think he'd be a great commissioner of the NFL. That's something that he could reasonably do. He could be involved. You know, you're not even supposed to be in the spotlight that much. I mean, Jimmy Carter has had what

they say he invented, the idea of the post-presidency that he did the most of anyone. But you can't do that in a real public way. That's kind of unseemly. All right, so let's say Obama, let's say he became part of an ownership of an NBA team.

And they gave him basically like what Magic Johnson did with the Dodgers, but he owns a bigger piece, and he owns the Washington Wizards with Ted Leonsis. Let's say Ted Leonsis says, I'm going to give you 20%. Come be part of my ownership group. Would that be a weird move for a former president? It would be a slightly weird move.

I mean, I wouldn't be against it, but it would be a slightly weird move in the sense that one has to assume that having been president, his circle of influence would still be pretty massive. And for one team to have a former president owning the franchise, that it would seem odd. I mean, I do think that once you've been president, you kind of give up your right to do certain things in a weird way. It's like that, you know, you were the most powerful man in a huge nation, in the most powerful nation in the world, you have to be like, well, okay, that happened, and now I sort of recede into private. So he'll do a foundation, he'll do a book.

Yeah, he'll definitely do. He'll probably write multiple books. He's going to be like John Grisham. He's going to be releasing books every year or two years. There was one other thing that, what did he intimate in that? There was one other, oh, yeah. I asked him about being a Supreme Court justice, and it was the only time I rattled him in the whole interview for like a split second.

Yeah, because you go like, you paused or whatever. He froze. And he's a guy that doesn't freeze. He's used to every question. Nobody had asked him that before. And I got to say, like, even when he answered it and was like, no, you know, that would be about, I, I felt like it was in play. I didn't believe him. Yeah. I mean, that would, that would, there again, that's a, that's, that's the kind of job that maybe, uh, and that's another real big job, but it, it falls in line with, um,

sort of the prestige of the former office. Nobody's been a president and then a Supreme Court justice. No, no. That would be pretty cool. I mean, that puts you on the map. It's like winning an MVP in two leagues. I'm not saying you should have asked this, but I'm wondering what you think would have happened if late in the interview you would have asked him a question about like, have you had any sort of philosophical or personal discomfort with the idea of using drones in warfare? Do you think he would have brought something up about drones?

Do you think that he would have just given a safe response? Do you think he just said like, I'm glad you asked. Here's my response. I mean, it would have been hard for me not to try to ask something like that. The problem is, you know, in my head I'm thinking 45 to 50 minutes total. There's certain questions that you ask him that you know he's not going to answer. And he's just going to filibuster. And he'll waste three, four minutes and he won't actually answer it. And I was trying to avoid those questions.

I think if I ask the drone thing, I don't think he answers it. I mean, do you think he doesn't answer it at all? Or he gives an answer that's just like, hey. He gives a roundabout answer that doesn't really say anything. Yeah. Because even when I was asking him about how his administration changed, which this part didn't make the transcript, but just like, you know, what'd you learn about putting together a team around you? And he went into very careful mode because he didn't want to say anything that would

reflect badly on anyone who worked for him in the past. And it turned out to be this roundabout answer. And that's what politicians know how to do. They know how to give a non-answer, basically. It's something that Belichick's great at. You know, you see sports figures are like that, too. Belichick and Popovich, they just do it more abruptly. They're just like, I'm not answering next.

Yeah, and Belichick's interesting because occasionally someone will ask him a strangely specific question about the craft of defense or whatever, and he'll give the longest, most detailed answer possible. They'll be like, okay, you want to ask this question about how we understand the two gap or whatever? He's like, okay, go into that. Wait, hold that thought for a second. Belichick gave this unbelievable answer last week about Rob Gronkowski as a blocker.

And I think this is the frustrating thing about Belichick, and Popovich too, is that the guys who hate being interviewed the most are also the most interesting interviewers. Because Belichick gave this two-minute soliloquy on how Gronkowski is a great blocker, but if you want to talk about great blockers, it starts with Mark Bavaro. And he goes into this whole testimony about what an unbelievable blocker Mark Bavaro was and how he could just block Reggie White straight up. He didn't need help. And then in practice, he'd go against Lawrence Taylor. And he's never seen a tight end just be able to take out the other team's best pass rusher by himself and blah blah blah and then he brought her back to Gronk and he's like so Gronk's a really good blocker but I still think Bavaro is the best tight end blocker I've ever

I've ever seen in my life but that wasn't the question but I think he's so bored by those press conferences he's just like I've been dying to to make this Mark Bavaro point for five years. I'm just making it. It was fascinating. Or he spends a lot of time watching film and he sees Gronk like a guy and in the back of his mind he's like, well that was okay, but no Bavaro would have done that. He'd have got up to the strong safety too.

It's something he can't stop thinking about. Or he feels like Gronk is 92% what Bavaro was, and he's like, maybe if I throw this out here, I can get that extra 8%. Just dangle this Mark Bavaro carrot. But that's the thing with the Belichick press conferences.

It's like, you know, it's just drudgery 99% of the time. And then there's this moment where you're like, oh, my God. This is easily the most interesting thing I've heard all week from sports. And that's it. I want to talk to you a little bit about this Kareem documentary. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we have time for Kareem. Before we talk about Kareem, Chuck, the holidays are coming.

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So I encourage everyone to listen to Stamps.com. All right, Kareem. So I can't think of a better person for us to talk about. You start. You know, I heard you in the podcast you'd done with Michael Rappaport. I didn't even know this Kareem thing had happened. And I could just sense in your voice that you were a little bummed out by it. It wasn't what you had hoped, and I know that you wanted it to be good, you know, just for

the sake of HBO or whatever, just because you're interested in Kareem. So it kind of lowered my expectations when I watched it, and I did really enjoy it. Like, I guess it could have been longer, and I would have kept watching. I enjoyed it, too. I thought I made that point clear. I did enjoy it. But it was, it's's kind of a flawed documentary. It's kind of like a very good sports century, and you kind of expect a little bit more in this scenario. But there was just some interesting stuff in it.

I thought this isn't even about – this doesn't necessarily say something about Kareem, but just maybe the way all people feel. You know, they're talking about him in high school and, you know, he's sitting there and Kareem is like, you know, you know, everybody said that I wasn't going to make it because, you know, I wasn't a big bruiser, that I was too slight. And, you know, this was in the middle sandwich between him, being on the Ed Sullivan show compared to Will Chamberlain, and then the next shot of them saying, like, every school in the country was recruiting him. But that's how it is. You know, it's like, he's like, everybody said this. What that really means is somebody said this,

and it feels like everybody. And that seems to be, for many people, and particularly at Kareem maybe, that his whole life is kind of defined by that. It's not that there was necessarily all these people criticizing him, but somebody was, and it felt like that was everybody else. And that's an interesting thing to me. Well, and the irony of it is the three most famous high school basketball players of all time were Wilt, Kareem, and LeBron. I would say that. Kareem is the most.

LeBron had the highest profile because he was on Sports Illustrated and stuff like that. But there had been other high school kids we'd heard about. When Will Fender was in high school, his fame, even more so than Wilt Chamberlain. I mean, it was... I think that he probably-

Well, those are the three that stand out. Yeah, yeah. Like, LeBron was, ESPN started showing high school games during LeBron's senior year. I know. That was, I just read Jonathan Abrams' book, and he kind of talks about that whole period. Oh, look at you, reading my boy Abrams. The thing is, though, it's like when LeBron was famous, remember this had been many years since, like, Damon Bailey had kind of been famous as an eighth grader. Like, this had happened, Felipe Lopez seemed marginally famous and all this thing.

I think that when Kareem was coming up, the idea that the average sports fan would know about a high school kid in New York, I don't think that was pretty unique. I don't think there's really any comparison. Yeah, and also the New York high school college scene probably mattered more back then. Yeah, I mean, certainly the chance, if he had grown up in Omaha, who knows? We left that one, Ewing was on par with that too. When Ewing was in college in Cambridge

or in high school in Cambridge, I think he was around as famous as those other three guys. It was a legitimate... That may have been your locality. I felt... I remember

him being the biggest recruit in the country, but by that time that had happened. It seems as though for a long time in college basketball, it was common for people to kind of know, let's say during the 80s and 90s, about one guy every year. There would be a consensus built around somebody, like Marcus Liberty when he went to Illinois or whatever.

A lot of times, or Chris Washburn. It was common that there would be one guy that would sort of represent all of the big high school kids coming out. And Ewing was definitely kind of in that lineage. I mean, he had a pretty major press conference when he picked.

And he picked Georgetown over BC. That was, like him and Samson was another one. He was in Boston, though. I'm sure that was a huge deal. But everyone was saying he was the next Russell, you know? When was Samson on the cover of SI? Wasn't he in high school? He might have been another one.

I don't know if he was. I think he was in high school. LeBron was the first high school basketball player on the cover, I recall. Was he? I feel like that was an acronym that happened, and I remember that being. Maybe Samson was a freshman. I remember Samson being on the cover of SI and seeing that he was 7'4 and just not even being able to process it.

Yeah. It's like, what? 7'4? The Samson thing... You know, there's a lot of great what-ifs in NBA history, and Samson's ranking way up there. Wait a second, we got off track. Kareem.

There was something about this Kareem documentary that I had kind of a crazy idea while I was watching. Yeah, what was it? Okay, so they talk about the period when dunking was outlawed, right? Amazing. Yeah. They had to outlawed, right? Amazing. Yeah. They had to outlaw the dunk for Kareem.

Yeah, you know, and there was that whole period kind of through David Thompson where that was, you know. But now, of course, watching this, to me, it is pretty obvious that, in retrospect, this really played to Kareem's advantage. It was great for him. In the sense that he pretty much had to give up on the idea of just drop-stepping and dunking. He already had the skyhook, but he put together all these other moves, and it really refined his game

in a way that paid dividends for years down the line. It was fantastic. I'm thinking, I'm watching a little bit of Duke in Kentucky last night, and as I've said, it just really bums me out. College game is kind of in dire straits. The mid-majors are still okay to watch, but the big teams, like Duke and Kentucky, they kind of seem like just bad protein.

So I was thinking, okay, it would help the NBA if dunking was outlawed in college because these guys would have to sort of work on, like, different moves, right? It would move the game. They would have to sort of specialize their skills. Plus, when they entered the NBA, there would be huge excitement over some guys, and it's like now we can really see them go at it. Right. huge excitement over some guys and it's like, now we can really see him go at it. I wonder if it would be

in some weird way cool if college basketball outlawed dunking again for the good of basketball as a sport. That's pretty good. I mean, it would be a terrible move from an entertainment standpoint. Are you telling me that Shaq

would not have been a better pro, and he was a great pro, but he would have been a better pro if he could not have dunked in college and all he had to do was work on baby hooks and fadeaways? Oh no, he definitely would have been better. But you could say the same thing

about the three-point line. They should make that thing 25 feet now so that these guys don't get comfortable shooting 20-footers that count for three points. Well, I guess I had... I mean, what's it in college now? 22 feet? They moved it out a little bit.

22. Who was the guy who dunked at the end of the college basketball game, even though it was a technical and it basically started a riot in the... Was it the guy from UNLV? Recently? A couple nights ago, you're saying? No, this was in the 70s. This was when they... Oh well i think it might have

been david thompson there was somebody it was a famous story that got in it was near the end of the game and they were gonna win and it was still a technical for a dunk and this guy dunked at the end of the game and it like almost caused a riot in the arena people went crazy i can't remember who it was i'm pretty sure it was David Thompson. I'm with you though. It does seem like Kareem was a little bit of an outlier because when they outlawed the dunk was really the perfect point of his career for them to do that. And it allowed him to do all these different, to develop all these different weird finesse moves around the rim that made him even better than he was and i i don't see any way that he's not the third best player of all time like when i did my book i was so mad because he was my least favorite player i loved rooting against him and i was so

mad that i couldn't come up to any it couldn't come to any other conclusion than that he was the third best player of all time did you have was, was Wilt six in your book then? Yeah, I had Wilt sixth. Six, okay. So it was Jordan Russell, Kareem, I think you had Magic. Then Bird and Magic. Yeah, Magic was four, Bird five.

And now I think, and Wilt was six. And the LeBron body of work now has probably pushed him past Wilt, I would say. But I think, didn't you also say you thought maybe

Kobe was top eight? Yeah, Kobe. So it's kind of getting jammed. You're kind of like, remember there was that period where Dick Vitale was like that, where Dick Vitale would save 28 guys?

28 diaper gandies for five spots? Yeah. Well, I think what, so Kobe, I think he passed West and Oscar. I think if you're just

talking about who had the best career as a guard, I think he's, I think he's passed those two guys. But I think he passed West and Oscar. I think if you're just talking about who had the best career as a guard, I think he's passed those two guys. But I think Duncan, if you were going to have two decades of Duncan or two decades of Kobe and you could have them right now as a rookie, who would you pick? Well, it's a hard one, but I guess I would take Duncan. Although, okay, but by the same token,

then would you rather have 20 years of Duncan or 11 years of Bird? I mean, it's hard. It's tough. If you're going to use that, if you're going to use the fact that Duncan has been so good for so long as a way to say that he's greater than Kobe – because with this – this seems like an argument that we've probably had 80,000 times. I know. I still enjoy it, though. It always comes down to whether or not we're ranking these guys based on the total work of their career, their body of work, or their greatness at their A-Plex level. Yeah, the ceiling.

Well, it's really the ceiling crossed with the breadth of the career. And you have to balance which one matters more. In Bird's case, he really only had nine healthy years. And then missed a year and then came back and wasn't really the same. And was, you know, LeBron's, this is amazing, but I think Bird played 13 years. LeBron is in his 13th year. LeBron has never really missed extended time ever. And has played more

playoff games, way more playoff games than Bird. Well, I mean, Bird had the back, though. If it's not the back, if it's anything else, he fights through it. Well, he had the heels, too. His heels went on him first. His body broke down. He would have kept playing through those. LeBron... Because him losing

his first step or whatever, there wasn't much there to begin with. Because the back is the end for any of these guys. Yeah, that's true. I would now be more nervous about a guy getting a back injury than an Achilles injury. It's like Dwight Howard. But part of the problem with this argument, and this is something, like I wrote that book in 2009, and this is something that's really become apparent over the last five, six years is the era-specific advantages that these guys have now. It's ludicrous that LeBron could play 20 years at a high level, but it's actually maybe possibly in play.

Even Kobe, until his body finally broke down when his Achilles snapped at the end of two seasons ago, whenever that was, that was like year 17 or year 18 for him. And Kareem was really the only person that had succeeded that late in his career. Now you have Duncan still chugging along. You have all these guys. I don't know what to expect anymore. So now it becomes, how do you rate somebody's career when the modern guys have so many advantages over the guys from the bird era?

But this also complicates the Kobe-Duncan thing because there is a precedent of front court players playing a long time and being relatively effective. I don't know what I don't have in front of me. I bet you'll remember it. I feel like in my memory, the last year Kareem played, he averaged like 13 points a game. Right.

His last year wasn't great. Yeah, but it was like 13.8 for some reason, I feel like. I'm probably wrong. It could be more or less than that. But still, it's like that's pretty late in your life to be sort of out there scoring double digits in a game. What is the precedent for a backcourt player still being able to – I mean, Kobe could score 30 points next week.

That could happen 20 years into his career. Who else is even like that? I know, but you have to throw away – I think you throw away this year and last year with Kobe. What I'm saying is that he can still go – I mean, Jordan, I guess, was like that. Jordan, when he was with the Wizards, still had – what was his biggest night with the Wizards?

Jordan was better with the Wizards than people think he was. If you go back and look, I think he was still averaging 20 a game to the bitter end. He definitely was averaging 20 points that first year. He may have been like third all NBA. There was that one book the guy wrote that kind of made it seem like he was just terrible. No, I didn't like that book. That book made me uncomfortable yeah but the the thing with uh i think i blurted it actually well no because it was an interesting book it was not a book that i uh that i anticipated reading i

mean it's just i you know i i there are certain guys that i i almost read all the books like i read all the kurt cobain books i read all the jordan I read all the Kurt Cobain books. I read all the Jordan books. Right, right. I just do. The thing with the ceiling thing is interesting, though, because, and this is why my new argument is basically when people are like, all right, what's your greatest team ever? You just pick Bird and Magic and LeBron and Jordan as four of your five, and it really doesn't even matter who the fifth guy is.

You know? You're beating anyone else with those four of your five. And it really doesn't even matter who the fifth guy is. You know? You're beating anyone else with those four in any center. But isn't the purpose of the question to have the five guys? Yeah. Like, dude, you're not playing anyone. So it's like you're kind of like, ah, we can throw Artis Gilmore in there. Well, sure, but you're not playing anyone. No, no, I'm talking about there's like seven, eight centers you could put in there that were historically great.

And I'm, I'd be okay with almost any of those guys. Like I personally would put Russell with those four and I, and nobody's beating me, but some other people could say, well, what if I put Hakeem in there? Now I can,

you know, what if I put Shaq? And it's just, you could really put anybody with those four guys. You're going to be fine. I think artists Gilmore might be pushing it. He might slow him down. Who is a greater wide receiver?

Yeah. Jerry Rice or Moss at his best? Or who at his best? Randy Moss. Rice is the best receiver I ever saw. I think that's got to count for... So you're saying for In this kind of magical dream world we're in

For a possession We have one possession Where we need to go Essentially what the Patriots situation They were against the Giants Then you'd want Moss Where it's like run 80 yards And beat the two guys that know you're going to run 80 yards

And I'm going to throw it as far as I can and hopefully we'll connect. Because the thing is, I mean, okay, by any – if we use any kind of, like, body of work metric type thing, well, Rice is not only the best receiver of all time, he's probably the greatest football player of all time. I agree. Yeah. But we also can see that Moss was bigger, faster, equally good hands, very good route runner, kind of supernatural in terms of getting the ball out of the air.

Yeah. better at every quality at their best. I kind of like the argument almost more framed as being who was the best when they were the best. The ceiling argument. Yeah, like in the NBA, I always think that's an interesting deal. It's sort of like the best player in the league isn't necessarily the best player on a given position at their best. Right. You just made the Bill Walton case.

Yes, I suppose. That's what Bob Ryan would say. Bill Walton's best at the center position was the best of any center. But he only got there for a year and a half. Although, if it was Walton at his best against Kareem at his best. Walton took it to Kareem. Well, was that Kareem at his best? Good question.

I don't know. I think Walton was, then you have to factor in what you were like as a teammate, how you affected other players. of basketball and the reason why I you know the six people I have I would all have over Wilt is that they were able to bring out something different from their teammates you know and that's why I'm so fascinated by Ben Simmons have you seen Ben Simmons yet

well you know he's only played one game he's played two he's played two games plus you know he's a two now He's played two games. He's a 6'11 Magic Johnson, basically. Yeah, he wasn't corrupted by the AAU. I mean, he definitely handles himself like a 29-year-old,

but when you watch him play basketball, he's there to make his teammates better. That's what he gets the most joy out of. And we've seen guards wired that way, but so rarely do you see forwards. I think LeBron was wired that way from the get-go. Although I got to say that was initially what everybody said about LeBron, and then there was a period when it was like, he doesn't do that.

And then it was like, oh, he does, because he won the championship. It's like, that goes back and forth. It does. It does, but that situation, though. I could definitely see a scenario where if a few historical details have changed, that Wilt ends up with four championships.

And a lot of the, especially if Wilt had won one early. Yeah, you could make it. There was a couple plays that went against him that had they gone the other way. Here's the problem with Wilt, though. Everybody from that decade killed him. That was the thing when I wrote the whole chapter about him versus Russell in my book. I was just shocked by how many people went on the record with like, Wilt's a loser.

All Wilt cared about was himself. Wilt was selfish. Wilt didn't understand how to be on a team. It was just over and over again, people who played against him saying that. It's like in this Kareem documentary, right? When Kareem is a high school kid,

Wilt takes him under his wing and brings him to clubs. But at the end of their life, Wilt just starts hammering him. And there was some, you know, there was, you know, it's just, you don't like that. Well, Wilt had a jealousy thing with him. And a jealousy thing, and you know, it's just the thing about the guy who's the most confident

is the guy who's the most confident is the guy who's the most insecure over and over and over again yeah and if you look at wilt and you look at bill russell we know now that russell's confidence was real but wilt's confidence was in your face and that's always false it's like there's just there's something about, with very few exceptions, that confidence seems to be what people use as a way to deal with what they fear about themselves. And I think other people saw that. People kill Will, like you said, but it's like him and Russell were buddies, him and Kareem were buddies at some point. It had to be just how he was to work with, I guess.

I think the difference between the two, there were two quotes I remember I used in my book. I don't remember the exact wording, but it was basically like, Russell used to throw up before games because he was so nervous and fired up for the game. And Wilt thought that was really weird and didn't understand it. And that kind of symbolized how different they were. Wilt was like Shaq. Basketball was one of many things he loved to do. Whereas Russell was like, this is all I want to do.

And that kind of brings us back to the Brady thing. It is. Brady's like, all he wants to do is win. He doesn't care about anything else. But it's such a bizarre thing, though, the way this works in the world. I mean, okay, for people we don't know who we just watch on TV, we want them to be like Russell. We want them to be throwing up, like, the four games. And the idea of Will just being like, well, this is one of many things I do that seems, like, unseemly.

But, like, in life, like, what if, like, I went out to L.A. and you said, let's go play golf. And three times during the time we played, I threw my clubs into a tree. And I was constantly yelling at myself. That's what it's like to play with me. Yeah, well, I've got to say, let's not play golf then. I wouldn't enjoy that, right? That's why nobody plays golf with me. No, I don't throw clubs anymore.

But that's why people stop playing golf with me. I think that it's just this real mysterious thing, this idea that, like, the thing we love about Brady is actually, or Jordan or any of these guys, is a little bit of psychopathy that would be really unlikable to be around. But yet we love that, as long, though, as they stay within these strict boundaries that they create. And any time they step outside of that, then it's supposed to nullify everything. Now we're supposed to, like, you know, there are people now who, well, I could see today, you know, I write this story, right? Most of the response are from people from Boston who are like, how dare you do this? But there's also a sliver of people who can't accept the idea that Brady's

the best quarterback of all time, which I say is my opinion, but it is. You know, it's almost how they respond, sort of. It's like, how can you possibly say this? Obviously, he was deflating the balls. It's a bizarre thing, man. You know, think about this from a parent standpoint so what you just described

basically you have the kids who are good athletes the people that the other parents kind of respect and appreciate are the kids that play a whole bunch of different sports right and the ones that are like all they do is play one sport and they're crazy are like all they do is play one

sport and they're crazy about it and they're traveling on the weekends the other parents go boy that's weird boy that kid's not gonna have a life boy what a strange way like why don't they let why don't let the kid that he's gonna burn out let the kid branch out but yet when they become pros it's like oh he's obsessed with winning that's who he is he's a great leader this is awesome yeah you can give up your whole life as long as the middle of your life involves being a professional athlete and then we also assume that the end of their life is going to be horrible because they're going to look back and like nothing matches the crowd you know the guy is you know by himself drinking alone wishing it was still the past you know yeah well i i say that as somebody who uh my son's gonna be a professional hockey

player and i'm all in and i'm gonna drive him everywhere he wants to go because he has to do this for us no i'm kidding it is i am entering the whole hockey parent culture scene which is going to be lead to some fantastic moments of my life i'm really excited for it you can't even imagine how crazy the hockey parents are. Well, yeah. I mean, I come from the north. Oh, yeah. You can imagine. What am I saying? Yeah. We have to go.

Yeah, I suppose we do. We have to go. You can read Chuck's story in GQ about Tom Brady. What else are you working on? The Taylor Swift thing was great, by the way. I really enjoyed it. Oh, thanks. You did a good job with that. I'm having another kid in January and I finished my last book

that will come out next year. So I'm kind of just, I'm kind of being cool for the rest of this year. Alright. Will you watch some Ben Simmons? Oh, I absolutely will. Alright. I have a lot at stake with this one because the Celtics have Brooklyn's pick. He has my last name. There's just a lot going on.

And he has the bird magic passing gene. And I don't know where all this is leading, but I'm very excited about it. But check him out. I think this is the first college basketball player that I'm genuinely excited about since Kevin Durant at Texas, who I watched probably 20 of the 30 Kevin Durant games.

Yeah, but doesn't that feel like you went through a long stretch of not watching anyone? College to me is I'm watching the players. College is a sport now where the coaches are the stars, which is like, oh, great, there's John Calipari in a suit again. How is that attractive to me as a viewer? I want to see talent. I want to see great players.

I want to see awesome. Other than that, I'm just going to watch the tournament. Like yesterday, I didn't really care about watching that Kentucky game. I'm going to watch bad basketball. I'd rather watch NBA basketball. There was also MAAC football on. I forgot about that. Chuck, as always,

a pleasure. Check out Chuck at C. Klosterman. At C. Klosterman. And before we go, the BS Podcast is brought to you by Stamps.com. Remember, it's holiday season, and your post office is about to turn into a scene from The Walking Dead.

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And you can subscribe right now to Channel 33 and to the Bill Simmons Podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, or Stitcher. Thanks, as always. Play something, Buck. We about this bitch. Anytime y'all want to see me again, rewind this track right here, close your eyes,

and picture me rolling.