The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 30: Haralabos Voulgaris & Joe House

Episode Date: November 24, 2015

HBO's Bill Simmons discusses NBA vs. college coaches (2:00 mark), Stephen Curry's mastery of chaos (8:00), Spurs/GSW (13:00), Spurs' ceiling(21:00), Doc Rivers/Clips (29:00), NBA innovations (39:00), Houston/OKC (47:00) and best rookies (56:00) with esteemed NBA gambler Haralabob Voulgaris. Then, Joe House talks Chinese food (1:06:00), Thanksgiving NFL picks (1:12:00) and Ben Simmons (1:22:00) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And we're off. Yeah. Clear enough for you. All right. And we're off. As promised for weeks on Twitter, one of my favorite podcast guests from the old podcast and now his first time on the new podcast. The esteemed NBA thinker slash gambler slash strategist slash savant, Harala Bob-Volgaris. How are you? I'm good. How are you, Bill? You're calling from a remote location, which we won't name. That's not in the United States. You've been holed up. You've created some crazy TV cave, I'm guessing. You're watching all these different games.

And nothing makes me happier that they've added a whole bunch of possibly overmatched NBA coaches for your Twitter feed. It's just been glorious. How much have you been enjoying this? It's crazy. Yeah, I've been watching the Thunder, and nothing has made me long for Scotty Brooks more than watching Billy Donovan stumble through an NBA season.

It's wild. I don't know what the exact number is and I'm sure it's online, but I'd love to know how many college coaches have come over to the NBA and not just been a disaster in the first season. And it makes sense because going from college to the NBA, from a strategy standpoint, from a speed standpoint, all the different how hard everyone works, the kind of staff you have to have, I get all that stuff,

but they just don't have the background with the teams. You know, like take somebody like Popovich. He's been in the league for, what, 27 straight years, counting when he was an assistant. He knows every person on every team and what they do. And to expect Billy Donovan to go in blind and not have that background is a huge disadvantage. But what else is going on?

Yeah, someone asked me, they said, what's the hardest adjustment that a college coach needs to make to get to the NBA, to start coaching in the NBA? And I said, learning a new sport. Because it's not the same at all. There's no comparison whatsoever. I mean, there's just no comparison at all.

I'd rather see Vivek coach an NBA team than another college coach. Yeah, I mean, at least he'd have the background of having gone to NBA games for the last four years. Because in college, you're playing the same coaches year after year, but the teams are always changing. So everybody has a quote-unquote system that they stick to. And they use this system and they recruit players for the system unless it's Kentucky and it's a one-on-one thing.

But even the gameplay is forgetting all of that, just watching the games. If you were to watch, you wouldn't think you would – you'd be like, what is this other sport called that they're playing i get it it's like basketball but there's the shot clock is different the rules are different the three-point line makes the court so compacted there's no idea of like stretching the floor when the three-point line is like all the way into the paint almost you know it's just a completely different different animal altogether yeah and the players are less sophisticated as basketball players because they're not their hoops iq isn't where it's going to be five years from now let's think about this last night watching my man ben simmons in lsu i know you don't follow college but ben simmons is my favorite college player in nine years not just because we have the last name i mean his last name

was the reason i started watching but um came to appreciate just how different he is and the thing that makes him different is his hoops iq the way he passes like he passes at the level of potentially bird magic lebron like the way he sees the court he's just at a higher level and to watch him stuck in college basketball games where everyone's just jacking up threes and there's no rhyme or reason anything that happens and you have this guy who's at a completely different basketball intellectual level it made me think like god this is such a stupid stupid way to do that sport you know you put this guy in there you can't even totally figure out how to make his teammates better um then you watch something like the warriors and i would guess the warriors are like your wet dream for a basketball situation,

right? It's everything you wanted a basketball team to do. Am I wrong? Yeah, for sure. I mean, there, there's other teams that you have that as well, but you combine just like the once in a generational type talent, like Steph Curry is like, how could you not watch every that's must see TV for me is watching every Warriors game for sure. What do they do that can't be emulated? Well, people are talking about copying their small ball death lineup. And it just, I mean, you just can't, you can't do what they're doing because you don't have Draymond Green on your team.

You don't have Andre Iguodala who can basically shut down the other team's best perimeter player. And then you have a center, your guy playing center, who's actually an undersized power forward playing center, who can also switch out and guard the point guard or guard the shooting guard or bang with the big in the paint. And, yeah, they're just different. And on top of that, they have, you know, when they play that lineup,

one through five are not just great. All of them aren't great three-point shooters, but collectively the group is just a great three-point shooting team. So you can't defend them at all. People talk about what you need is you need a big who can shoot and a rim-running big if you want to play that four-out basketball or the one-down four-out. So you need a rim-runner. And Draymond Greenaymond Green's the rim runner but he's also the guy who

can pop and shoot threes so he's just a really rare player he's like the perfect guy for them um so they just do so many things right but a lot of it is just they're just blessed with like a perfect group of players that can play to play well together yeah i so i saw them in person the clippers last week and which i already talked about on the pod last week with joe house but the the one thing i forgot to mention you know on the face of it you think oh my god another clippers collapse we've seen a million of them i've watched that particular clippers home game 20 times i've been to that game over and over again where they just fall apart. The offense gets stiff. Blake gets that weird look on his face. And I've been to those games. But I do think that when you play the Warriors, the fear of giving up open threes and especially

like the Warriors are so good when it's chaotic. You know, is there a better player in the history of basketball in pure chaos than Steph Curry? Because all of a sudden he's shooting a three and in, you know, in less than a second it can happen. And what I realized as I was watching the game was the Clippers spent so much mental energy worrying about Clay Thompson getting open for a second or Steph Curry or any sort of fast break situation off a rebound. I do think it wears them down mentally. It wears down any team. Because you're playing differently. You're at a different mental level of urgency and fear.

And I think that's one of the reasons that that lineup of death is so good at the end of games. I think the other team's just worn out. Or what do you think? What do you think of that theory? Yeah, I think that's part of it. I think that's definitely a part of it it's just it's just too hard to defend that team because you can't like what teams started doing what what um what what what cleveland kind of started doing was they started just doubling

curry on that pick yeah and then when golden state figured out like oh we can just give the ball it was actually david Lee who kind of started it where he just made the pass of David Lee and David Lee would like kind of drive a little bit then kick to a wide open three-point shooter in the corner. That's kind of how when Cleveland was up two games to one in that series and then they won that game. It was like tied, but they won that game

and you could see that in the third game, Golden State kind of figured out like, oh, we can just do this when they double. And now that's what happened in the Clippers here. They did that. And then there was just wide open three-pointer for Harrison Barnes, wide open three-pointer for Andre Iguodala, wide open three-pointer here and there. And so there really is no way to defend them within the rules that can take away everything. So you just have to, I think in order to beat them, you need a lot of things to go well, one of which is you need the referees basically to just adopt prison rules

where you can mug Stephen Curry, you can hold him. Rivers did that for a little bit, and Paul did that also. If you watch the start of that game, they were just completely mugging him. Oh, it wasn't just the start of the game. It was four quarters, and I brought my daughter, and I kept pointing out to her, look how hard Stephen Curry has to just break. It's almost like watching a receiver trying to break open from a defensive back.

They were mauling him for four quarters. Yeah, I'm not sure what you do to beat them, to be honest. I think you have to be able to crash the boards on offense. You have to be able to play really good defense. And then you just have to get that three-point shot's up. It's a high-variance shot for most teams. It's less variance with Golden State because when someone is shooting, I don't know what step shot from the corner last year,

from the left corner or the right corner, but it was ridiculous. I mean, there's not much variance in his shot. When he like when he takes a shot it's just worth like 1.5 points if it's open yeah so there's not a lot there's not a lot of variance there um but yeah it's uh it's tough to beat them for sure i'm not sure exactly i mean i don't know the answer but even if i did know the answer i don't think i would i don't i don't know the answer so it doesn't matter but yeah i have no idea how you would defend them i guess you just have to you just have to really play that situation where you just hope that steph you can mug steph and you can really bump him and hit him and hurt him everywhere he goes and then just hope they don't make the correct

pass to the big who can then make another pass to another guy who either has like a wide open three or an open dunk an open lane to the basket. Am I crazy to think that DeAndre Jordan just shouldn't play in any relevant crunch time situation against that Warriors team? I was sitting at the game, and I'm not a Josh Smith fan, but I felt like they would have had a better chance if they had gone semi-small with Josh at the five. At least they would have been a little more athletic. I don't see how any conventional center works

against that small ball lineup of death. I think, like, I don't think that... The problem is, like, you have to match up with them, and they're just going to be better at it than you are. Right. Like, I don't actually like Josh Smith at the five. I actually like Blake at the five. All right, do that. So then who are the other four guys that's the problem they don't

have they don't have anyone else to stick after they have they don't have it so they if they had a decent three then who could play four then you could do that but i mean what so let's say you go small and you play josh smith that might work too, but the ideal lineup would be Blake and then four three-point shooters. That would actually be the ideal lineup, but Paul Pierce is a corpse at this point, so that's not going to work. I don't want Jamal Crawford playing. I don't want Austin Rivers playing.

Lance Stevenson, they don't have it. They're not going to beat that team. Chris Paul's got to play out of his mind on both ends, and they're going to have to do it with their standard lineup in some ways because i guess you could play josh smith and just hope that he has like one of those games he had versus them uh when they put you know when he was with houston but i don't i don't know that i would want to i mean i just i just think it's a lost cause that team isn't going to isn't going to be gold yeah that team's not being them but the Spurs are kind of interesting for this conversation

because they could play small ball lineups against them, but ultimately if they threw out Duncan and Aldridge and Kawhi and if Danny Green or whatever two guard you'd want, and then Parker would be the big kind of litmus test guy because he's not the same guy anymore. To say he's past his prime, I think, is totally fair. But with the Aldridge-Duncan taking turns posting up, that would at least make the Warriors work on defense

and maybe use up some energy. They haven't played yet. And I want to see that game more than any other NBA game right now. I want to see what the Spurs do against them. And do you even think they would throw their A game at the Warriors this early? Or would they try to do the thing where they're going to disguise it until the playoffs? That would be the smart thing, disguising it until the playoffs. It's interesting.

I think the Spurs are going a different way. If you look at the way they're playing this season versus how they played in 2014, it's completely different. I'm just speculating, but I feel like maybe they don't seem like a team that would want to set up their roster just to beat Golden State. But if you look at the situation of where their current roster is in terms of the age of their core players, who they deem their core players, like I'm talking about Manu, Tony Parker, and Tim Duncan, they're all pretty old. So if they want one last title run versus Golden State, it's probably not

going to be... I don't know. I mean, maybe they could do it with Diao. I personally think that's their best option. But they went and signed Aldridge, and they're playing a lot of big lineups, and they're playing pretty slow. That could be a function of them trying to get LaMarcus into the fold and figure out exactly what he can do. They just start slow and ramp up as they go. But it could also be that they've decided they're going to beat this team with skilled bigs versus small players and that might be interesting the problem with the spurs is i don't think they have

i don't know i'm i don't think they have the shooting when they play that lineup to actually force a team to have to defend them in the way that they need to be defended it'll be interesting i don't know i i do think that if they that they're going to treat the regular season game versus golden state like they treat every regular season game. It's just a throwaway. Yeah. But I do think it's dangerous if they think they're going to get to the playoffs and not have a two seat because there are other teams in the West

that could potentially beat them in the series and not having at least home quarter, but they're not going to have home court advantage versus Golden State. That's just not going to happen barring an injury. But if they feel like they're not also going to have home court advantage versus some of the other teams in the West, it could be a problem. But the West is kind of – everyone talked about how great the West was. Yeah, it's not anymore.

And now you're watching these teams play and you're like, is Dallas the third best team in the West right now? Who else in the West is good? There's really – Memphis is not playing well. They're not a good team. Clippers are a mess houston's a mess yeah you don't want to talk about houston yeah yeah wait we got to save that i had a point on san antonio i actually think that they just had a chance to get aldridge and they were trying to set up the next seven, eight years here. And this was kind of the weird transition year. And I was guilty of it too. I thought, oh my God, like that's a team that can win the title. And then you watch

them and the pieces don't totally fit yet. Popovich is so smart. He'll figure it out. I'm not sure what their best lineup is. And the thing that I'm going to be fascinated by is whether Duncan's out there on crunch time when it really matters. Because I don't know if you can play Aldridge and Duncan together against that Warriors team they might be able to and it might be the best bet anyone has to beat the Warriors or it might just be way too slow because I'm with you I was I was surprised by the uh the speed difference from where they were two years ago. Two years ago, they laid out the prototype for what the Warriors are doing now in that finals. And the Warriors took that prototype and blew it up and supersized it and did it with a better transcendent offensive player.

But now it's like the team I'm watching when I watch the Spurs now is more in line with the 80s, 90s basketball. Like 80s, 90s basketball, but if they appreciated three-point shooting more. Does that make sense? And spacing. But it's still kind of the size of that team is more like what we grew up with. And I'm not positive that's going to work in 2016. I mean, yeah, I think they've – I don't know exactly what they're doing,

but my instinct is that they've decided this is how they're going to win, is to try. I mean, there is an inefficiency in basketball where if you look at every team is trying to do, not every team, but that's like they call it Mori ball, right? This is the smart way to play. You just take threes and layups. That's all you do is take threes and layups, which is like a great strategy in a vacuum. It becomes less of a great strategy if you tell the league that that's all you're going to do.

It's like if you're playing poker and you're like, I'm only going to play pocket pairs and aces. That's all I'm going to play. And now you're playing someone and the flush comes up there and they're like, oh, well, maybe I shouldn't have told everyone that I'm only going to play pocket pairs and I'm only going to re-raise pre-flop with aces. So I do feel like that's kind of a little bit of hubris. It's a little bit silly to go with this strategy and expect it to work when other teams know that's exactly what you're going to do. And then, so anyways, my point is the Spurs are actually shooting. They went and found, I don't know if that's what they wanted to do um and then so anyways my point is the spurs are actually shooting they went and found i

don't know that's what they wanted to do obviously lamarcus aldridge does more than just hit mid-range jumpers but he's a he's a deadly mid-range he's actually efficient at the mid-range game he's actually good at it yeah his mid-range shots like almost worth a point so um it's it's interesting that they went and found him and that he also happens to be the type of shot that most defenses are willing to give up. Most teams are willing to just give up that open two-point shot now. They're selling out on the three-point shot. And so I don't know, it could be a situation where people are going to be talking about how hot the Spurs run in the playoff series with LaMarcus just never missing a shot from the mid-range kind of like what happened the year Portland beat Houston

um was that two years ago yeah 2013 I think yeah or 14 maybe two or three years ago what we what I yeah what I would call yeah what I would call the 2014 season yeah um they i mean people would be like oh you know uh you know houston portland beat us but man they ran so good on those long twos but i don't know i don't know that they did i mean the shots were open if you watch players warm up in a basketball game before the game starts most of them hit those open shots it's a question of like do you want to have a high volume shooter like marcus aldridge hitting those mid-range shots or do you want someone like demar de rosen who's shooting at like 0.75 or something per shot there's a there's a difference between who's shooting them so it is interesting I don't know if the Spurs are going

to want to play big against Golden State what they're going to do but we're a long ways away from the playoffs and they have a long you know where I really look at the Spurs is I always like to watch that rodeo road trip yeah because that's when that team comes together then you can kind of get an idea as to what they're looking to do and what they're hoping to accomplish because that's historically been when the team has bonded and gone on their runs is right around that time yeah that's a team i don't i don't always hesitant to judge in the first three months of the season because they've proven over and over again they just don't care and they're gonna tinker and they're gonna experiment one thing's interesting though last year offensive efficiency 106.2 defensive defensive efficiency

99.6 so then you go to this year the offensive efficiency is down to 103.4 so basically drop three points but the defense is down 94.1 which dropped five points so do you are you talking about the spurs yeah the spurs so when you watch them do you feel like they're better defensively this year yeah for sure okay um i mean a lot of it has to do with who they've played it's early but just watching them play the individual games they're they're they're happy playing two bigs i mean it's not just lamarcus aldridge they're happy playing like i mean to me their best lineup the year they played the clippers and lost which was last year uh was dl and kawaii that was like kawaii at the four whether it was deal at the five or or duncan at the five but kawaii at the four was their best lineup that was the lineup that was

going to beat the clippers and they never played it at all which was to me like a big fail yeah i didn't like how he coached that series yeah but this year it seems like they're going a lot bigger. Or, I don't know, yeah, it's interesting. They have been a lot better defensively. I mean, LaMarcus is a good defensive power forward. So when he's not playing the five, he's going to play really good defense. And Duncan is still playing at, like, a great level. So they're kind of going back to their old Twin towers type style when they had yeah d-rob yeah duncan it's kind of

interesting watching them zag when or zig when everyone else is zagging it's it's it's definitely a it's definitely will be interesting to see what happens later on here they played the celtics and the thing that they have this year that they just didn't have last year was Aldridge just took over the game and made some shots and the Celtics couldn't stop him. You have that combined with, you know, people made a little too much of it that Kawhi's feeling himself offensively and it's like, yeah, he's going to have more individual games maybe than he did last year. I'm still not sold on him being totally comfortable as a guy

who's going to have to create constantly. And that was, you know, they lost that Clipper series for two reasons last year. One was Parker just played poorly. And the way that offense hinged on him at the point of the career that he was at was probably a little unfair to him. But Kawhi wasn't 100% ready to just take over yet. And he was the one who had the matchups in that series. I felt like going to those games, I felt like he could go by whoever was guarding him anytime he wanted. And he just wasn't quite ready for it. And now I wonder

this year, if he's a little more ready than he was last year, combined with the Aldridge thing, combined with Duncan, who always is going to have those throwback games. If you talk about a seven-game playoff series, that becomes very tough. Now the flip side is, you play the Warriors in a seven-game playoff series. In four games, they're going to shoot the lights out. So what do you do there? You have to win one of those four games. Yeah.

You have to. I mean, it happened. Curry struggled a little bit in the final, so it can happen. Didn't it feel like, I know this is body language and not your forte, more my bullshit forte of basketball egos, but I just felt like they were rattled those first couple games. I think the stage got really big for them. I've seen it happen with basketball teams where you saw in the 95 Orlando,

that stage Nick Anderson missed those free throws. All of a sudden that stage got really big. They had more talent in that finals. But sometimes young teams, they kind of freeze. And the litmus test guy for me with them is Draymond because if he's not strutting around and doing Draymond things and playing with that swagger and doing that alpha dog thing they they they kind of feed off him those first two games he had deer in the headlights sure and it's it's natural if you think of all the

teams that have kind of made the leap yeah usually win the first time you go to the finals I mean it happens no but but usually, and not just that, but you usually don't roll through an entire season the first time your team is dominant and then also win the finals. I mean, the Celtics did it. There are examples. There's plenty of examples.

But remember the Celtics though, how nervous they were the first two rounds? The Cavs almost beat them and the Hawks took them to seven. You know, they were getting tight in those road games. Every road game. Yeah. First three rounds, I think. Yeah, it was going crazy. Hold know, they were getting tight in those road games. They lost every road game in the first three rounds, I think.

Yeah, I was going crazy. Hold on, Bob. We got to take care of a little business here. I know I have trouble finding shirts that look good untucked. I'm not sure about you, but I know I have trouble. And that's been one of the biggest problems in men's fashion for years. Well, not anymore. Untuckit.com solved that problem by making shirts that are specifically designed to be worn untucked,

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Okay. I've given my checkered history with the man. Is Doc Rivers a good basketball coach? I don't know. I think everyone but the best five coaches are bad basketball coaches. I'm probably the wrong person to ask. But, I mean, he's not a strategist by any stretch. He's not like someone who's going to really make a great adjustment in the middle of

a game. I mean, he's like a rah-rah, motivate, get the team going, players coach. But no, I don't think he's a great basketball coach. But hey, there's 25 other coaches in the NBA that aren't great basketball coaches. But just by the definition that they're NBA basketball coaches, they have to be great in some ways because they made it to that level. But no, I don't think so. I've never watched a Doc Rivers coached playoff game and thought to myself, wow, this guy really made a great move there. Wow. I mean even the games they won, you can sit there and rag on Chris Paul all you want.

But game seven, they beat the Spurs. That was just a game where his players just kind of went wild. I mean, I don't know. I don't think his, like I just look at it from an outsider's perspective and I don't know, let's say I don't know anything about the in-game strategy

or anything about the stuff he's doing. I just look at how he's conducting himself on the bench. Yeah. I don't know that that's someone who I would think is like a steady hand who's gonna like right the ship. Like if I'm like a captain of a boat Yeah. And he's just – he's like the complete opposite of like someone who I would think would be like a great leader in that sense. But it's – I don't know. I mean I don't know. I'm not in the locker room.

I don't know what's going on. But I just feel like the whining and the complaining has just actually – he went to a team that already whined and complained a lot. Yeah, and he poured gravy and barbecue sauce on it. Exactly. Yeah, he just poured more gasoline on that he um something happened in that clipper game that i've never i don't think i've ever seen i've been going to basketball games for 40 years i don't even know how many games i've been to in my life but he got a technical it was the second technical the clips

got in the second quarter because they a couple calls went against them they reacted as horribly as they always do. And Doc ended up getting a technical. And Pierce came over and yelled at him. And Pierce was on the court. He was playing. I've never seen a player yell at his coach in a disappointed way. Like, what are you doing?

You just killed us. You got us technical. I was like, wow, I've never seen that ever. I've never seen that. I've never even heard of that before. I want to go back and see that. That's crazy. And then Pierce was so mad at the two technicals when they were shooting the free throws or

they're shooting the technical free throw. He pulled the other four Clippers over away from the Clippers bench on the other side, like where you sit when you sit courtside and just yelled at all four of them. Wow. And that's the stuff. That's why I agree with you, Paul Pierce. I don't know if he's 100% done yet. I think he's going to play himself into shape as the season goes.

I don't think he's in 100% great shape yet. He's clearly on the other side of the mountain. There's no question. But I do think he's an adult on a team that desperately needed adults. But what you were talking about, Doc Rivers, there's two things about him as a coach that i think are i don't know if they set him apart but just make him different in a good way one is that he had the balls to bench deandre in game seven of that spur series last year in the last six minutes and the number of coaches who actually would have had the balls to do that is less than five what do you mean? He just sat him.

You know, DeAndre's in a contract year. He's been playing great. You know you're risking potentially, let's say you lose that game and DeAndre got benched for the last six minutes. But when did he start? But I mean, that's kind of when everyone has, that's when everyone who's coached DeAndre has benched him around that time.

It's like Vinny Del Negro did it too. No, I'm with you. It's just the contract year, I thought it was risky. I thought it had more to do with him being terrified of them hacking him than anything else. Oh, 100% did. He didn't want him to get fouled. But to do that in a game seven, I thought was kind of bold. I don't know.

Sure. The downside was just DeAndre getting mad and leaving you know which actually happened anyway i mean he did leave for 24 hours left and came back the thing about paul pierce is that i think you might be right but he just he you know he had some success last year in the playoffs it was playing the four yeah and i think what it is is he's he didn't play the four at all during the regular season last year very rarely and i think that's kind of the plan this year is just not to have him play the four because he's not going to be able to take the banging of playing, you know, guarding power forwards for an entire season.

No. But in the meantime, in the interim, he can't guard any threes at all. Like he can't keep any, I don't know, any amount of getting into game shape is going to change that. He just doesn't, his brain is telling him to move and his body's reacting a little bit a little bit later he had a scary moment in the end of that golden state game when he drove to the basket and it was like the old guy in the pickup game drive where he jumped up and it was basically threw it against the backboard i i wouldn't i wouldn't have minded if they did the same thing i thought denver should have done with peyton Manning and what Houston did with Roger Clemens in the mid 2000s. You just shelve the guy until the halfway mark of the season.

You could argue Pierce would just be better off showing up in February and just not putting any of these miles on him. The one other thing Doc did that I always appreciated and thought was really smart, was in game seven of the 2010 finals, him and Thibodeau designed this plan to basically, to dupe Colby into playing hero ball, even though they were stacking the deck against him for hero ball. They just double teamed them the whole game, knowing that it was a game seven

and Colby would want to shoot. And that he wouldn't be like, you know what? I'm drawing double teams. I'm going to get other guys involved. They knew it was a game seven and Kobe would want to shoot and that he wouldn't be like, you know what? I'm drawing double teams. I'm going to get other guys involved. They knew it was a game seven. They knew how he was wired. They're like, let's send two guys at him. He's going to shoot anyway. And he did. And it worked. And they were up 15 with two minutes left in the third quarter, you know? And I always thought that was really smart. I don't know if a lot of coaches would have done that. I think Doc is an above average coach. I think a lot of the smart stuff, though,

it's really hard to separate some of these coaches from their assistants. True. And, I mean, when you have a great defense and you have Kevin Garnett in not quite his prime, but the year they won the championship, and then, oh, you have the best assistant, one of the best assistant defensive coaches in the history of the game you know it's it's what what is it what does that say about you as a coach first of all you're not really coaching the defense that's

not your philosophy that's someone else's philosophy yeah um and so yeah it is i mean i don't know i'm i'm harder on these coaches than anyone i think. But I don't put them at the bottom. Right. So how do you fix it? How do you fix that team? Because something's clearly wrong with that team. So what do you do? I mean, the problem with that team is what happened since he got there.

When he started getting the actual ability to be the GM as well, that was the problem. Now it's just too late. Now what do you do? I don't know. You make a trade maybe. I'm not sure who you would trade. I'm not sure what you have in terms of what other players. There just really isn't much you can do.

I think if you look at the – everyone's like, oh, they bolstered their bench. Well, they added Paul Pierce, Lance Stevenson. Who's already out. And Wesley Johnson. And they re-signed Austin Rivers. Yeah. And Austin Rivers is supposedly their best perimeter defender if you believe the head coach he's the backup point guard he doesn't it's the backup point guard he doesn't pass they have it's funny they have like they don't have a backup point guard they play like they play jamal crawford and him together

and jamal crawford doesn't pass no and he's supposed to be the point guard and Austin Rivers doesn't pass and he is the point guard and it's like, I don't, it's the worst combo of I mean, I don't know, there's nothing really they can do they're, it's just they're due for another

epic collapse where I mean, to me, it's a done deal barring injury, Golden State is rolling through the playoffs. They might have a tough time with the Spurs. That would be the only team, and I think it's fair to say that might is maybe an understatement. They might have a lot of trouble with the Spurs, but there's no other team that's going to beat them in the West.

And in the East, Cleveland's really good too. I mean, I hope that Cleveland wins. Let me knock on wood for a second though because we should mention golden state's got incredible injury luck for the last 15 months and i don't know if it's incredible injury luck i mean their starting center did go down uh has been injured forever you see the one of the five most viable guys in that team no it isn't but it's it's it's like, if your best player gets injured, you got unlucky. And if your best player doesn't get injured,

and I guess you could say that they're top two or three players, but a lot of it also has to do with the fact they're blowing these other teams up. True. So they're resting in fourth quarters. They're not playing in fourth quarters at all. So is it really that lucky that that's ten fewer minutes that you can get injured?'s 10 fewer minutes of of wear and tear on your body that you're playing a game um i don't know i mean it's lucky but it's not like it's oh my god they're so lucky i don't mean lucky as like i can't believe i won the lottery i just feel i wasn't really referring

to i was talking to more just like the general no i know the league where oh my god they were so lucky look how healthy they were. Well, okay. The team who wins. Is usually healthy. Yeah. Yeah. There's no question.

Blame them for it. It's usually the team that doesn't win can always point to some sort of bad injury break. They have 90% of the time. The one thing though, the way basketball is being played now, and I don't think enough's been made of this. And this is one of my weird pet theories. I've talked about it before, but going to these games and just watching how they're played now, I think that it's so much harder in these guys' bodies than it used to be. Like go watch any game from 1984. These guys like barely tried on defense till the fourth quarter.

And it was paid in, it was played in a pickup game type base. Now to have to just sprint out as fast as you possibly can on a three-point shooter 30 times a game on top of all the other stuff these guys are doing, it's a different level of intensity. And I don't think it's going to be a surprise that more and more of these guys are going to get injured because I don't think it's good for their bodies. Yeah, it's also like the pick and roll is a violent part of the game. And people are running like four or five pick and rolls of possession sometimes. But there's also been the advances in medicine that is allowed, not just in medicine, but just in analytics that have allowed teams you know put little tracking devices on the back of players jerseys in practice to monitor their loads and yeah and then there's a sport view cameras that are tracking how fast they're moving and hey this player is not moving fast anymore let's let's maybe give them a rest so you know the there's some teams that are actually treating the basketball court like a laboratory

in that sense the spurs being one of them they were the leaders in that and then now if you look at what the Mavericks are doing where nobody's playing at all Chandler Parsons just going to play the first half in this game or the second half of the next game right it has stuff like that has never really been seen before so I think I think like for the some teams it's it's it's tough and then for the other teams who are ahead of the curve they're finding ways to negate that a little bit you know I've had multiple people tell me that this is the great kind of untapped resource that the smarter teams are looking at more than anything right now. Is preventative injury, maintenance during a season, ways to monitor exactly how much energy you guys are expending every game training um different training all that stuff you know you talk about 10 years ago and people were trying to figure out how to change basketball where certain things that you could do to get an edge and now that

seems where everybody the smarter teams that's where they're putting their resources and maybe i don't know who gets credit for starting that. Maybe the Spurs? Who do you think? Yeah, the Spurs would be. I mean, the Mavericks would definitely be in there for sure. Those would be the two teams. I mean, the Celtics, I don't know that that's necessarily what they're doing, but they have a deep team who nobody's really playing a lot of minutes. That's another team that you'd have to say.

And that's one of the reasons they wanted to have a deep team because then if marcus smart goes out you have you know they didn't care people and the old way of thinking about it was you never wanted to have too many guys because everyone's there's not gonna be enough minutes for everybody somebody's gonna be unhappy and now i think people have drifted into this look 82 games it's a long season you're better off playing 30 minutes than you are 36 and stuff like that it's it's interesting I also think the Warriors you mentioned how they're blowing teams out that's good doesn't put miles in their body they also shoot more threes they less free throws stuff like that the way they play doesn't necessarily lend itself to injury like that.

The one thing that would lend itself to injury more is that small ball lineup of death. But they're so smart with the fact that they only use it as the hammer. They don't put those miles on those guys until the six minute mark, which I don't know who came up with that idea, but let's send them a medal because it's really smart. Yeah. I think a lot of this stuff just happened by happenstance. It just started and it kind of worked. And like any great innovation, sometimes it just happens by luck. And then you go, oh, this works.

And then being smart enough to be aware of what is working and sticking with it is part of it for sure. So quickly, Houston, is that salvageable? What are you seeing when you watch them? I'm seeing a team that's not getting any separation at all from their defenders and still hoisting shots. They're shooting so many contested threes. They've had some open ones too.

The problem with Houston is I think they injected a player who they put Lawson in there who's used to having the ball, and they made him like an off guard. This is a terrible idea. Yeah, not really a great floor spacer. And then the other problem is that you have Harden is shooting. His usage rate is even higher than it was last. He's had a career-high usage rate, which means he's using up more possessions,

like the end of the possession, than he ever than he ever has in his in his houston career anyways um or any any for anyone any any his whole career and then he's actually shooting more three-pointers than he ever has his end of his so he's he's he just doesn't look like he's in shape like i don't know what he did during the off season he's not they said when he came into camp that he wasn't in shape yeah i mean it seemed like he did the the etv reality tour summer uh had a great time enjoyed the summer but you compare that to someone like steph who won a championship and came back and improved this game it's kind of disappointing if i'm the owner of that team i would be a little bit disappointed in that now yeah especially when

you were a number two mvp candidate and you Western Finals. And if Dwight hadn't been hurt in that series, who knows? It might have gone seven, you know? Sure. You're pretty close at that point. So I don't know if it's, I mean, it's not a lost cause, but in terms of like, is it salvageable? They've got kind of a miss, they've got like a group of ragtag players. They don't really have anyone other than him who you can say, I mean so you take away dwight and you take away james harden that team wins what maybe 25 games yeah i mean you could make the same case with okc right you and i both are not a fan of the four through 12 guys

in that team right i mean they have that one other player who's good. True. True. Houston, it falls completely off a cliff after Dwight, who's kind of a shell of himself anyways, and out of shape James Harden, who may or may not be out of shape, but who definitely isn't getting a lot of step. He's not getting to the free throw line as much. He's not getting the separation. He's not creating the open shots. I thought when they got Lawson, thought for you know they gave up barely anything

the guy has a variety of personal problems and i thought they were just bringing him in as like look we're gonna ease you back into this you're just gonna run our second unit eight minutes a half and that's all we want from you and once we get to february march we'll figure it out they brought him in and he was playing like 35-40 minutes a game and as you said standing in the corner watching James Harden I also wonder you know

it was a little unpredictable last year when you watched him not unpredictable but it felt new the whole James Harden the offense revolves around him and they kind of mastered that whole style offense now I wonder if the league's just a little more used to it and kind of has more wrinkles to throw at it, you know? Possibly.

I do think that if he performed like he was performing last year, he would be... He'd be the same. Yeah, I mean, the thing about their offense, they have these offensive collapses in the second half and the fourth quarter of games. And if you look at their offense, it's primarily composed of three point shots

and that's that's that's nothing wrong with that that's fine but i do feel like a lot of the threes they're taking in the fourth quarter of games are good shots but it seems like the players just aren't in shape for some of these shots and so like the fact that they're missing is is probably a function of variance possibly a function of not being as open, and possibly a function of them just not having legs early in the season, not being in shape. And you see that more in the fourth quarter. They've had some really epic collapses versus some teams

who have actually played hard against Miami. They just had a huge collapse. They collapsed again last week where they just had like a terrible second half it's happened a few times and i think i think part of it is just if you're gonna have a guy who plays that many minutes and controls the ball for that long in a game you have to make sure that he's able to and i don't think that he's he's physically in the top shape that he should be in and then yeah the lawson thing was just a complete mystery to me i got into arguments with people on twitter like because i think daryl morey's super smart and i was just

like there's no chance daryl's starting this guy yeah there's no chance he's not he's not signing him to start a lot they've got the perfect point guard to compliment james harden and that's patrick beverly who defends where james doesn't have to defend the other great player who can actually hit the open shot who is just like doesn't need he's not like a defend the other great player who can actually hit the open shot, who doesn't need, he's not like a high volume type of player who needs the ball. Why would you give that up for Ty Lawson? And then on top of that, you had Pablo Prigioni and Jason Terry playing the point last year.

How great would it be for your backups? How great would it be to have Ty Lawson play? Right, which is, you and I thought the same thing. 16 minutes a game, he changes the pace, how great would it be for your backups? How great would it be to have Ty Lawson play? Right. Which is, you and I thought the same thing. 16 minutes a game, he changes the pace, he comes in, he does Ty Lawson things, you take him out. Yeah, you stagger him with Harden so that the two don't really overlap that much and maybe you can play a few minutes together here and there. Yeah.

But hey, it's early in the season. They decided to change that. I just feel like it's kind of... But let's be honest, though. If Dwight's not the same, that team's a cross-off. Dwight was really good in the playoffs last year. If Dwight has now hit the other side of the mountain and physically can't play back-to-backs

and he's going to have trouble in the playoffs playing seven games in two weeks, then that team's a cross-off. We don't even have to have a conversation about them. OKC to me is, is the high ceiling, low basement team. We talked about the coach. We don't know if Durant physically is ever going to be the same. Everybody's just penciling him in.

Did you watch him play last night? Did who did? Did you watch him play last night? OKC? No, I didn't see that one. There was Ben Simmons and the Patriots around. What happened last night okay see no i didn't see that one there was ben simmons and the patriots around what happened last night tell me he looked like there's nothing wrong with him at all he hit good he was 10 for 13 uh was unguardable pulling up from three he looked probably better than as good

i mean he just looked awesome so i if you would have told me he was injured and that was the only game i had watched i'd be like what what would what did he injure what was wrong with him i'm all in on durant i just can i see him play two straight months i just want to see two straight months he missed the all he missed all of last year he had an injury that scares the living shit out of me as a basketball fan feet feet worry me with big guys more than anything and and then he hurt tim grover had a really interesting thing on his uh website about why durant had the injury he had this year because of an overcompensation structural thing where you have something wrong on one side of your body and the other side picks up the burden and ends up that's how i get all this stuff i'm not saying durant's never gonna be the same i just want to

see him play at that level again for two months and then i'll feel better yeah i i um i don't know that team just it's just a shame because they have like those two great players and you know i like abaca as well they have three i did too and then they just have absolute bottom of the barrel players filling out the rest of their roster. And a lot of redundancy, you know, for the 90th straight year,

they don't have a perimeter guy who just can play defense and shoot 40% from three. Right. Like the three and D guy, like they should have went out and signed the Mari Carroll instead of resigning Cantor. If they could have, I know they,

yeah, they've cap wise rules. That's different. You can, you can, you can overextend it for your own player, but you can't sign someone else, but I'm sure they could have I know they yeah they've cap wise cap rules that's different you can you can overextend for your own player but you can't sign someone else but I'm sure they could have worked I mean the problem is no one's dumb enough to I mean they have to find like another Billy King or something like that who think who can think that oh Ennis Cantor look at this guy we

can get this guy for this amount of money let's get him um but that those those GMs are in limited supply yeah do you think Portland has any regrets about patching together the bargain basement power forwards and going to get Plumlee and doing those things versus just wasting everything on Enos Cantor? I think I'm actually pretty confident that that was a huge gamble on their part, that OKC was just going to match. You think they're trying to screw him? Because if they were, I love it. I think that's great.

I love it. I really do believe that. I don't know. I mean, look, it's I listened to an interview that their GM, their GM gave whose name is escaping me, which I used to make fun of this guy all the time when he was with the Clippers. He's actually a really good GM. Neil O'Shea. Yeah, I don't know why. He's actually a really good GM. Neil O'Shea. Yeah, I don't know why.

He's actually a really good GM. He is. And he either is now playing it off like, oh, yeah, that was the plan all along, in which case he's being disingenuous, or that was the plan all along. And I actually believe it was the plan all along. I think they thought, oh, Casey was going to match because they have to keep Durant, and they have to keep Durant happy. They don't re-sign players. Durant's going to be sad, and he's was going to match because they have to keep Durant and they have to keep Durant happy. They don't re-sign players.

Durant's going to be sad and he's not going to be – they're going to feel like they're just a cheat. They already let James Harden go and now they've got to worry about whether or not Durant's going to stay. And so I think that was a big part of it. And I think they just felt like Sam Presti was going to match because he thought Kanter was actually a good player i mean this is the same gm who traded for deon waiters and and decided to fill out his roster without andre

roberson and kyle singler so uh you love sam preston the drafter and that's about it yeah and i'm i i think that like picking westbrook and turning him and knowing that he could be a starting point guard brilliant stroke of genius but if you read the piece on espn that was like apparently ben alomar is the one who gave them that information and they they listened to him but he's the guy who actually had that inclination he wrote about it and said that he did that was his his idea uh and so but yeah that and then also finding ibaka and then James Harden, these are guys who not everybody thought were going to be like the slam dunk picks that they picked them at.

You know, it's an underrated, an underrated what if in the history of the NBA, which was always underrated, but now is, is blossoming into maybe top a top 25. What if it might even be a top 15? What if I did a whole chapter on this in my book and I think I would put it in there now is blossoming into maybe a top 25 what if. It might even be a top 15 what if. I did a whole chapter on this in my book, and I think I would put it in there now in the top 20. But they took James Harden over Steph Curry. And in the draft, I thought they were taking Curry.

And I had watched that team because I loved Durant in college, loved Westbrook in college, so it was rooting for them. And they were like, oh, how much fun would it be if you put Curry on this team? I loved Curry when heant in college. Loved Westbrook in college, so it was rooting for them. They were like, oh, how much fun would it be if you put Curry on this team? I loved Curry when he was in college. Right. And I think they thought about it. And I think they actually—I think Presti put real thought into it. And he liked the makeup of Harden as a supporting guy.

He said Harden's one of those guys who doesn't want the limelight. He can fill in a lot of stuff. I want Westbrook to play point guard. It might be weird with him and Curry. But can you imagine if they took Curry? I mean, seriously, can you imagine that? He would have rode the bench and then Daryl Morey would have came in and stole him. Oh, no.

Sam Presti just whipped a drink down. He's so upset. I mean, it's not really his. It's not that. I mean, he's handcuffed by his owners who are you know busy experiencing what happens when you completely rape a entire region's natural resources and dig every last drop of oil that doesn't even exist anymore and pollute so and then not spend on their basketball team so it's like he's you know if he had an owner who was willing to spend he might be in a different situation he's it was five and a half million dollars you realize that

right go back and read all the stories. You know how many, how many wells you have to drill to get five and a half million dollars nowadays with the price and, and how many, how many plots of land you have to buy from unsuspecting farmers so you can stick a, another well in their life.

It's a lot of money. Five and a half million dollars is a small amount. Harden wanted 60 and they offered him 54 and a half. Yeah. And that was it. Um, wait quickly. Cause we have two more things then you have to go okay see are they like a legit contender to you a fringe contender where are they in your head they could i mean they are it's really sad because if they had a decent i mean they've got the two those two guys are like two of the top six guys in the league.

I mean, Durant's probably number, he's in concern. He's for sure. Top four. He's maybe top three, right? He's behind Porzingis. He's behind LeBron and Curry. So yeah, I have them four. Right. So, uh, and then Westbrook is, yeah. And that team could for sure, but then you look at their coach who doesn't understand, like, basic substitution patterns and doesn't know that, hey, we're down six with 31 seconds left.

Maybe we might want to foul here. I don't know. It looks like the players aren't listening to him either. I think the b-ball breakdown guy said that the shot, you know, Russell Westbrook, they called the play, came out of the timeout. This was like a last- second shot when they were down and apparently someone said that russell westbrook said fuck that at the end of the play and ran his own play and shot like a 27 foot three-point shot it was the craziest thing ever he loses his mind in crunch time sometimes

maybe but i think it was like it wasn't like in the heat of the moment. It was like, okay, we've run the play, and the response was, fuck that, I'm doing this. I don't know that a coach can survive that. I do think there's a real chance that 45 years from now, people will be studying. They'll be online reading NBA stats and looking at stuff and reading things, and they're just going to be confused if okc came out of this entire durant westbrook um era with one finals win one one finals game win and that's it that's i mean there's a chance now that that's how this plays out which would be just insane i would say that they're a favorite to to not make the finals again i mean yeah i don't know

that durant's i mean i don't know i feelant's – I mean, I don't know. I feel like him and Westbrook do get along and they are buddies. Well, you know what's going to happen. Durant's going to stay for one year because it makes much more sense for him to time it when Westbrook leaves and give it more of a – it doesn't make enough sense for him to leave next season. I don't know why he would anyway. I don't think he would strand Westbrook i think those guys have been look at the coaches that team is is hired too

like scott brooks wasn't a hire he was uh interim who became a head coach very cost effective right the first coach they hired the first sam prestey hire for coach was pj carlos samoa who played kevin duran at shooting guard by one of his players than he is for anything else right and remember he played kevin duran at shooting guard for the entire season too yeah i remember because i i was like i've talked about it's crazy he was a terrible terrible hire for them awful he was it's just it's crazy and then you look and then the other one they hired now they they went and they got a college coach who wasn't even well known for being a great tactician at college.

Now they've got, it just seems, it just, I don't know who they could have hired, but apparently for the amount of, what are they paying him, by the way? What is Donovan getting paid? Does anyone? I think they might have ponied up for him. But the secret story with this is that

Chicago screwed everybody with how they handled Tibbs. And they screwed Tibbs, too. They put him on ice and waited till all the jobs got taken. And then they did what they did to him. I mean, really, really scumbaggy by them. But had they just gotten rid of him as soon as they got bounced from the playoffs, I think he's the OK okc coach and he's actually the perfect coach for that team you know yeah yeah for sure is he still under contract though with chicago he's still under i can't remember how it plays out but i i think there's a chance he could be heard from this season i think you just would have to then chicago would be off the hook for the rest of the money of course yeah i just meant like they kind of screwed themselves too because they must really hate him if they decided we want to pay this guy. Yeah. Let's work somewhere else. Oh, yeah.

That was real. There was real animosity there. And they also took somebody that I thought they should have traded him a year before. Like they could have traded him to Memphis or whoever and in or Minnesota or, you know, whatever you want to do. One last question. Then I know you have to go. Yeah. I know you don't watch college.

I don't. But the college guys are now in the draft. And I know you watch, I mean, in the league from the draft. And I know you watch the league. What rookie, give me your top four rookies that you've just been like, whoa, because I think this is a great class. So who are your favorites? I only have two that I've got.

You only have two? Yeah. Okay. I've got Towns. Towns is amazing. I love Towns. And Porzingis. Those are the only two players who I have.

I might be missing some. I might be not. Maybe you can tell me and I can be like, oh, yeah, you're right. That guy is good. But I don't recall. You know who else I kind of like a little bit is that guy Phoenix has he can play Booker he can shoot uh well is that his name Devin Booker Tate says that's the only other those are the only three rookies I've seen who I've been like okay these guys are not like massive negatives as soon as they come on the floor and in the case of

Porzingis he's not he's not just a negative. He's a positive. Oh, God, the Knicks fans are just taking off their clothes right now. They're so happy. They just can't even believe it. He's really good. Yeah, I love Porzingis. I will say that one team is going to – some team is going to –

I mean, you can't crash the offensive boards that much and get away with it for an entire season because they should be a really poor transition defense team based on how much he's crashing the offensive boards. But it's worked out well for him because he's not just crashing them, but he's also getting the ball. But I've never seen anyone with a nose

for an offensive rebound like him. The types of offensive rebound he gets too, they're not just like, he's diving over people and dunking on their heads. It's crazy. He's a franchise player potentially. And the other thing is with the threes, even when you run out on him, you can't, he's just going to shoot over you anyway.

He's so fascinating. I love, I really want to see him in person because that's the final stage for me because I just want to see how he runs. I feel like, you know how there's like the ghost whisperer and people who just have six cents for things I can watch NBA players run and automatically know how long they're going to be around I remember watching Bynum and Greg Oden was another one but certain guys you if if they're using their elbows yeah and it's and you just, oh, man. You're like one of those dogs who can sniff cancer.

Yeah. That's exactly who I am. But I'm the long NBA career whisperer. But Towns, I'm excited to see. Towns is really everything you're looking for from a young forward. He does all the things you love, basically. Yeah. And he seems like a good kid, too.

Both these guys seem like, if you listen to their interviews, they seem like they're well-spoken, they're smart, they're just seem like they're really respectful and they understand how much work it's going to take and they understand, like, I just like both of them a lot. Who are some of the ones then that I'm missing that are good? Well, Okafor was put on a platter to torture you. I don't like him. Yeah.

He's got a good offensive game and he's stuck on a platter to torture you. I don't like him. Yeah. He's got a good offensive game, and he's stuck on a team that's – but he's – I don't know. He just seems like a – he's all right, actually. He's got a good offensive game. He hasn't defended at all, and he doesn't rebound, which is kind of bad when that's your starting power forward. You can call him a more – if you want to call him a more polished Enes Kanter, go ahead.

I'm not going to stop you. No, he's not that bad. Okay. No one is bad as him. That guy's the worst. So who are the other guys then aside from Okafor? I think you need to take a long look at the stuff Justice Winslow is doing. Oh, yeah.

Defense and athletic ability. Yeah. I was looking at starters. And yeah, yeah. He's, he's a a i tweeted about him too i tweeted how good he was he's a good defensive player for sure yeah he has a chance to be one of the i don't know if he can get to the kawaii level but i think he can get like one notch below that is his defensive ceiling where just being able to guard all types of players. Like he could guard, go from Steph Curry all the way up to, I don't know,

not Aldridge, not that size, but you know what I mean? Like he, anywhere from six feet to six, eight, he could probably defend. I forgot about him and I try not to watch Miami Heat games just because I, I think the offense that they run is just so painful to watch. It's like the second most painful offense to watch in the league. So I don't, I try not to watch their games yeah i wonder did we might have overrated spolstra a big grantland supporter so it hurts me to say that but as it turns out it just might be really good to have lebron james in his prime on your team if you're an offensive coach might really

make you look better he's a good defensive coach look he was an assistant under under riley and and then under riley's assistance so he's he's he's not an offensive mastermind by any stretch of the imagination but uh or an innovator but the type of defense they play is is good it's locked down but just their offense they just have too many actions it takes them too long to get into like a simple post-up for duane wade we're talking about two dribble handoffs three three weaves and then you've got five seconds left on the shot clock and duane wade's got the ball iso on the wing and it's just it's that times 100 every game every offensive possession of theirs has some function of that just nothing ever flows fast ever i uh winslow is favorite. Hazonia, we just haven't seen yet, but I think he has a chance to be a really, really good. There's some, I like Hazonia. There's some other guys that are

good, but like in terms of like great, we're talking about the ones who really, you think about like, Oh, these guys are next up and coming superstars. I think the only two I would classify in that would be like even Winslow. I'm not going to call him a superstar and he's just going to be a good player, but he could be, he could be the third best player in a championship team i think and possibly even the second best player he's got to be his offense has to get better he could be like yeah like you said like a paul along lines of a paul george or a or a kawaii leonard but i haven't i mean his defense is good i haven't seen much polish for his offensive game yet yeah all right you have to go we can continue this in a couple of weeks. This is great though. Great start for us on the,

on the new BS podcast. Uh, happy to be a part of it. Check you out at her at, I don't even want any more Twitter followers. So don't mention my Twitter. I'm going to give you a couple more at Haralabob. Uh, now I, I feel like over Christmas is when you really get heated up because teams haven't learned from their mistakes in November. And then you just start getting angry and surly and snarky about stuff that's happened. I had a pretty surly start to the season, I will say. You did? I will say that.

I was pretty miserable at the start of the season. All right. Thanks, buddy. Always a pleasure. Talk to you soon. All right, Bill. Take care. All right.

We're going to call my buddy House to get Thanksgiving picks and talk about Ben Simmons for a second. We're going to do that one quick. But before we do that, with so many different bank accounts, credit cards, and passwords to remember, it's harder than ever to keep track of your money these days. Well, that's what makes Personal Capital's free financial tools so important. They show you all of your accounts in one place, making it easy to manage finances,

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Just go to personalcapital.com slash BS to link your accounts, and in seconds, you'll have your own personal financialital.com slash BS to link your accounts. And in seconds, you'll have your own personal financial dashboard. You'll also get three months of free advisory services if you enroll right now. That's personalcapital.com slash BS. And now the man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Joe House. All right. As promised, Thanksgiving picks with my buddy Joe House. This is an abbrevi buddy Joe House. This is an abbreviated Joe House this week because we're taping this on a Tuesday, and we have Thursday, Friday off, so we're just going to go fast this week.

How are you doing? I mean, it's really good that this is abbreviated. Why? Because I don't feel good. What happened? You called me a couple hours ago and said, hey, here's the time we're going to get together. I was like, great, I'm going to go have lunch. Oh, no.

Well, very close to my office, the great chef Dave Chang has opened a Momofuku DC. Uh-oh. Momofuku CCDC. Yeah. So I was like, oh, that's good. Let me go try this. You know, it's holiday week here. Maybe it'll be quiet. Uh-oh. I just like to try everything. I want to see it. I want to smell it. I want to try it all. So can you give us a little more details or no? It's three salads. It's four different types of buns.

You know, he's famous for the buns, the pork buns, the pork belly, the brisket. There was a shrimp one. There was a mushroom one. And then there were seven different types of entrees, a couple ramen soup dishes, a couple noodle dishes, there was a pork shoulder in there, there was even a vegetarian meatball. I had all of it. I am, you know, happy to say there were some leftovers. I didn't eat every single morsel of food.

And this, in anticipation of Thanksgiving. It's like you're drunk right now. But look, it's going to be this way. I didn't know that this was going to happen. The funniest thing is walking in there. You know, I know that you and Chang have a mutual admiration society. Yeah. I went in there thinking I would say hi. He was standing right near the front of the restaurant.

But he was in kind of an intense conversation, so I didn't want to interrupt him. And the conversation kept going. The guy he was talking to turned to walk away. Chang takes a big metal tray, slams it down, big F-bomb. Chang is intense. He is not allowing any half-stepping. He's a D.C. guy, and he's trying to deliver to D.C. his high standards of food.

Big F-bomb. I turned and ran right for my table. No chance I'm going to try and say hi to the great Dave Chang under these circumstances. So I was at a party in September, and Chang was there. We never actually interacted, and our friend Chen was there. And Chen was the guy who introduced me to Yang Chao's. We filmed House Eats 2 at Yang Chao's. It's the best Chinese food place in Los Angeles. I always thought we were all on the same team with Yang Chao,

how great it was. So Chen, Chris Chen, is with Chang. And we're talking about Chinese food in America and his restaurants and I was talking about Yang Chao Chen turned on Yang Chao he's going to deny it to his death but him and Chang

there was like an eye lock and Chen's like Yang Chao's great it's a great American Chinese food he had to throw in the American like it wasn't on the par with like you know the old school whatever i've never been more hurt in my life and i have no problem telling the story of my podcast only a qualified yeah wow how about that

but here's what happened after so i immediately went to our friend hershey about it yep about how chen turned on Yang Chao. Because Hershey, the top three things in his life are his family, the Dodgers, and Yang Chao. And Chen denied the conversation ever happening. No! So now... Come on, Chris Chen! So now my choice is, do I bring Chang into this whole thing to get Chang to confirm that the conversation happened?

Chen's playing both sides of the fence is what he was doing. I don't think he wanted his chef buddy, David Chang, one of the best cooks, chefs, and restaurateurs in America, to think that he liked another restaurant. So the more I think about it, I think Chen still loves Yang Chao's. I'm sure Chen still loves Yang Chao. When we filmed sure Chang still loves, Yang Chao, I mean. Chen still loves Yang Chao. Yeah. We, we, we,

when we filmed The House Eats there, he sat there with us and enjoyed a delicious meal. Of course he still loves it. So my guess is like, Chang is his, is his Asian food wife,

basically. And I was bringing up this other girl that, that, that Chen had been on a few dates with and Chen was trying to make Chang feel better about the whole situation. But really, his heart is still with Yang Chao as well.

That's what I want the takeaway to be. You know what I mean? I bet Chen felt the pressure also of like, Yang Chao has become sort of underground popular. And in the company of a food great like Chang, you can't say, I love McDonald's, right? Yeah, the contrary move there is to look down on the place that's become sort of underground popular. Once it gets that hipster flavor, you've got to look down on it. The only problem with that analogy is that you just compared Yang Chao to McDonald's and I think you should be electrocuted. That's the single worst thing I've ever heard you say.

You just compared Yang Chao to McDonald's. I didn't compare the two at all. He did. You used an analogy that Yang Chao was McDonald's in the analogy. That's what happened. That's disingenuous. In any event, it was an outstanding meal. I'm not sure how long I had before I had to go lay down.

So we should blast through these NFL picks. I will say it was great preparation for Thursday, though. The good news is our gardener is right outside the door. It was a Tuesday tradition on the old BS podcast of the gardener. He's like, where's Bill? Is there a microphone?

Let me get the lawnmower going 10 feet away. Alright. Eagles. By the way, David Chang, Is there a microphone? You know what I mean? Let me get the lawnmower going 10 feet away. All right. Eagles. By the way, David Chang, we should mention. Where are the restaurants? Let's give him a plug. It's right here in city center.

It's Momofuku, D.C. It's called CCDC, city center, D.C. And he's got the milk bar. His legitimate, he's not married to her, but his dessert wife, as it were, he has a place in the same space here, right downtown. And he's got one in New York. Oh, he's got an empire.

He's got it in Toronto. He's got them everywhere. There's going to be some sort of HBO Now something with him. We're going to figure out. I want to figure out a way that, is there a way for him to just keep feeding you until you actually die? Like how close would we have to come for you to actually die without you dying? Like your heart would stop, but we'd revive you. I don't want that.

I'm not interested in that. No, you'd live eventually. It would be like you'd be technically dead. It's like when people die and they come back. I don't want to be any dead. We'd revive you at the end. The whole point would be you'd be revived. I'm happy to enjoy a delicious meal.

By the way, we'd be able to compare notes about our love for the Washington football team who were cheated by the worst officiating crew. I mean, can you imagine? What is going on with the NFL and the referees? The whole weekend was terrible. Did you see the Pats? Of course. It was atrocious.

We had a touchdown call back that nobody knew why there was a whistle. It's not like the league just spent the last year trying to railroad our best player. I'm sure there was nothing in common with those two events. It gives every fan base a conspiracy theory. I mean, the one that's running around here is that because of the name of the D.C. professional football team, the racist slur nickname, that the refs have it in for the locals here. They don't give them any breaks. No benefit of the doubt for the professional football team.

Thursday, 12.30 Eastern Time. Philadelphia is a pick-em with the Detroit Lions. Who do you have? I got Detroit. I think I do, too. And it's going to make me hate myself by 11 o'clock PT. I'm going to be in full self-hatred mode. Why?

You have to talk yourself into Mark Sanchez to take Philly. That's good. That made me feel better. Thanks, guys. I'm with you. I'm not taking Mark Sanchez. You're not taking Mark Sanchez? Thursday game ever.

No. Carolina is a one-point favorite now in Dallas. That line in Dallas was favored for a little bit. Now it's kind of where it should be. I think that ends up probably at Carolina by two and a half maybe, but right now it's one. Who do you like in that? I like Carolina.

Really? So you think Dallas' season is over? Because if their season is over, if they lose that game. Eight and eight is still in play to win the NFC East. Don't think for a second that it's not. Yeah, but they're not winning five straight. It's happened before. The D.C. professional football team did it three years ago.

Five straight and won the NFC East. I like Dallas. It can happen. I think Dallas wins that one. I'm fine with Dallas winning. This narrative of Romo being the savior is too rich. I enjoy it thoroughly. So I don't care.

I hate Dallas. I can't, under any circumstances, root for them. But I was really impressed by Carolina. They put the pedal down. I thought they got a couple breaks. There was two consecutive possessions. What about the random, you know, as a break was when the defensive back popped Greg Olson, the ball went in the air, and he ran for a touchdown.

You were up seven for about a half a second until they ruled that it was somehow an illegal hit, which I still don't understand. That's the Jerome Bogart special. That's what made Dave Chang take that big metal plan, slam it down, and yell F-bomb. That's what I yelled in my living room. It made me so mad it ruined my Sunday afternoon. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

I thought I'm going to sit here watching football, finally enjoy as quiet in my house. It ruined the day. It's like I can't get over this. If one officiating crew calls so many more penalties than anybody else and interprets the rules in a way that the rest of the referee crews don't, and it's clear from the evidence

that I have investigated since that that is the case with this Boger crew, it's bogus, and it hurts the product. Now, on the other hand, Daniel Snyder is the owner of my local team, so I mostly don't care, but still, yeah. Jerome Bog so you get what you deserve. Jerome Boger, just when you see him in the first three minutes, you just know.

You just know. You just know. It's like, oh, okay, got it. I know where this is heading. That wasn't enough for this game in the first half against Carolina. After that game-altering play, Washington had another possession where they were moving the ball, driving, and Kirk Cousins, they called it a great kind of bootleg sweep. He ran the ball all the way down to the three-yard line, a terrible holding penalty on the tight end, 20 yards downfield, both of his hands inside

the chest of the guy, not even close to a holding, took it away, and that was it. That was the game, really. I'm sorry, Hass. I mean, it's so rare that I have an opportunity to give a rat's ass about them, and they were competitive. The game was 14-14, you know, going in halfway through the second quarter. It was like, look, you know, there's a chance.

The good news is Sal and I had a conversation on the podcast yesterday. Would you rather have Matt Ryan or Kirk Cousins? We both picked Matt Ryan, but at least that's a positive. That's a positive. I agree. That's good for you. Cousins and Gruden are kind of made for each other. I don't know what the takeaway is, but they're made for each other.

Third pick is Packers minus nine at home against the Chicago Bears. I'm just telling you what I'm thinking here. Go ahead. I watched the Bears very closely. We had the Bears, Broncos, and the big screen. You can't even describe how bad their skill position guys are. Everyone's hurt. They have guys like this guy.

I watch with Mays, diehard Bears fan. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Who's now at MMQB, right? Yeah, he went to MMQB. Good for Mays. Good for Mays. Awesome.

I love Mays. Yeah. So the guy Mark Mariani came in, who was like a punt returner, a white guy. So I always get excited when I see white receivers slash kick returners because it's like we had so much success with Welker and Edelman and Amendola. It's really Belichick's corner, right? It's like how

Robert De Niro loves black women. Belichick just gravitates toward these specific white guys. That was a funny joke. Come on. I deserved a snicker at least. I laughed. You didn't hear me laugh? Okay. So I saw this mark mariano whatever his name is i'm like oh who's this guy looks like he'd be getting on the pats in two

years and maze is like he's awful he's absolutely horrendous whoa i was like is he like a homeless man's walker he's like no not even that he's not even a homeless man's walker and uh and that was like their lead slot guy in the last half of that bears game and still the bears were in it yeah and still they were in it and probably should have won i mean cutler was bringing them down inside the red zone over and over again and they just didn't have the skill guys to actually make a play they just couldn't make they needed one play and they couldn't make it so i'm'm extremely concerned about them in Green Bay on short rest in a game where they'd have to play from behind.

I like the Packers, and I actually think there's a Packers. Who's the other team? Packers. Oh, there it is. See, I can't throw Andy Dalton in a tease. Forget it. I'm just going to bet the Packers straight up. So it's nine, right? Right.

The only thing that concerns me, it's very easy for me, and I expected it two weeks ago against Detroit. Green Bay at home trying to right the ship. So they waited a week and did it at Minnesota. I'm really mad at them for waiting a week because I got them wrong two consecutive weeks.

For some reason, they all of a sudden have a pass rush. No sacks whatsoever in the three losses and six sacks this past Sunday against the Vikings. They're putting hats on the ball house. I was impressed. I didn't think their defense could do that either, but it seemed like the whole game they were flying around.

Like they were really concerned with Peterson, just taking him out, and they were going after Bridgewater constantly. You know what would be interesting? Go ahead. Packers down to three, Vikings up to eight against Atlanta. Oh.

Anybody against Atlanta. Atlanta sucks. I love immediately. That team stinks. They stink. They stink. They stink stink. That's why you could have a conversation about Matt Ryan and Kirk Cousins.

That's ludicrous. They stink as much as your office is going to stink over the next four hours as you digest David Chang. The best dish that I sampled this afternoon, kimchi stew, which is pickled cabbage. It was an enormously rich dish. It had so many ingredients in it. The basic kimchi is pickled cabbage, but there was beef in there. There was noodles in there. There was all kinds of vegetables.

I mean, that's going to be my go-to when I get sick, when I have a cold. I need to be restored. That's my new restoration dish. Sounds delicious. It was magnificent. A couple other games I like. Monday night, Cleveland minus two and a half against Baltimore. I'm just writing

off Baltimore. I don't think they should be getting less. But they shouldn't be getting less than three points against any team in the league. They have no skill guys left. Everyone's gone. They have starting Matt Schaub, some running back I've never heard of. All their receivers are gone.

Like, it's over. They started with a 53-man roster on the first week of September. And of those 53, seven are left. Yeah, it's like a horror movie. It was a stat I saw. It's been terrible for them. So I have them. I like the Giants in Washington.

I know I'm going to end up losing money on it, but Giants minus two and a half. It has all the makings of the classic Eli just doing what he does, just ramming a red hot poker up everyone's ass who bet on him at a time when the Giants fans trust him and just him swerving the other way like he does. He's like a cat. I mean, it's an NFC East.

It's for the lead in the NFC East, potentially. That's the thing. If it was 3.5, I'd be worried. The 2.5, they just got to win by a field goal. Yeah. So I feel good about that. And then Jacksonville minus 4 against San Diego. I wrote off San Diego three weeks ago,

and they're still getting like a modicum of respect. I'm not sure they should be getting less than six points against anybody. When's the last time Jacksonville was favored by more than three points? We were in college. Have they ever been favored by more than three points? I don't know. The answer has to be yes. Well, probably when Fred Taylor was there.

Yeah, sure, sure. I also like Pittsburgh plus four in Seattle. I like that Pittsburgh team. I like that Pittsburgh team, too. I think they're going to be able to throw in Seattle. Can't you see Bryant and Brown just running amok on the deceased Legion of Boom? And the extra rest should be helpful, right? Yeah.

All right. Quickly, did you see Ben Simmons last night? You just saw the end? I saw the end. Can you watch him tonight? I'm sitting down. I've already blocked it off on the calendar. I've told my wife I have to be left alone.

She'll be happy to accommodate that because I don't smell good right now. Would it be weird if we had the Ben Simmons podcast on the Bill Simmons podcast network where it was just every week people had to talk about Ben Simmons and how great he is? We're going to talk BS on the BSPN. Is that what we're going to do? Could we get a 40-minute podcast every week from just two people talking about how great Ben Simmons is? Well, first of all, yeah, we could because his game is going to evolve. You know, right now he's shooting 15% from mid range. I know he doesn't.

The funny thing is, don't say it's sad like that. He doesn't have the confidence yet because he's, he's a kid. He's a young kid. He's learning. He's going to evolve in front of our eyes. It's going to be glorious. And what I noticed last night that I was just stunned by was people backpedaling when he's dribbling up with the ball.

He's 6'10". It's the same thing. Magic, I could never figure out why everyone was so terrified of him. But something about the way he plays basketball, that defenders are just in constant fear that they're going to get their ankles broken. And they're just moving backwards. Ben Simmons is, he's dribbling forward and defenders are just drifting backwards like instinctively, like they're just scared the whole time. So once he learns how to pull up jumper, it's over.

I'm not, this isn't a hot take. It's just a question. Yeah, don't. Is he already the best Australian basketball player? The best basketball player ever from Australia? Yes. Oh, you didn't even wait. No, he 100% is.

He's the best. Yes. That has him ahead of Dante Axum. It has him ahead of Andrew Bogut. It has him ahead of Patty Mills. It has him ahead of Deladova. I think he has a chance to be the best college freshman. I'm not even talking about pro prospect.

Just like start to finish college freshman season. Carmelo, I think, is the gold standard. Yes, Carmelo is. So he'd have to win the title to match that. Carmelo is still going to be the gold standard. But I think he has a chance to have the best start to finish freshman season since Carmelo. So, we love Durant, but Durant didn't win the title.

Yeah, and he also had a horrendous coach who had no idea where to play him and how to use him, and it was always so frustrating to watch this guy who was clearly this one-of-a-kind freak offensive player. You and I would just be on the phone.

It was pre-podcast. We just couldn't stop talking about it. I was like, oh my god, this guy's 6'10 and he shoots threes and he's like plastic, man. The rebounds was what was so impressive. And that's what with Simmons last night. Not having seen the game,

but reading the 20 rebounds is the thing that's so impressive. Yeah, I mean, the rebounding, the passing gene, which is clearly there. I mean, you wouldn't even have to talk about that. He's also really, some of the things he does in a game, like a rebound is going and he could try to jump over the guy's back to get it, but he's smart enough to know not to do that because he doesn't want to get the foul. It's stuff that 19-year-olds don't know how to do, but he already knows how to do it. Yeah, because he's not athletic enough.

It's a combination of the smarts and the athleticism to go get those balls without getting fouled. Yeah, I guess he picks his spots, which freshmen don't pick their spots. Freshmen run around like chickens with their heads cut off. Even Davis is a freshman. And you and I really like Davis. I mean, not rocket science to like him, but I remember we started talking about him in January. Like, oh.

That's right. Is this guy a little Duncan-y crossed with McHale? We started having those conversations pretty early. I'm much more excited about Ben Simmons than I was about Davis. Well, because Ben Simmons has the ball in his hands, and you trust him to have the ball in his hands, and he's going to be incredible with the ball in his hands in the National Basketball Association.

Right. All right, House. Wait, we have three more lines to cover, the most important lines of the week. What are they? Controversial. Yeah. Sweet potato pie. Yeah.

Minus 125 over pumpkin. Oh. Where are you? I like sweet potato for Thanksgiving. Yeah, how about that? Sweet potato, you know, pumpkin is the tradition, but those in the know, that's why sweet potato is a slight favorite over pumpkin. Here's the problem with sweet potato. Harder pie to pull off correctly.

I agree with that, too. I think people can, anyone can make a pumpkin pie, and it can be decent, and it tastes mostly like the other pumpkin pies. What it really comes down to is basically potato versus gourd, potato versus squash, right? Right. Nobody takes squash over potato. What was your next line? My mom's Italian antipasto at lunchtime, minus 200 over the dinner turkey. My mom makes a spectacular spread of Italian meats and cheeses and olives and

all kinds of other vegetables. The secret in our household is everybody in my family goes crazy for the antipasta. And by the time the dinner turkey rolls around, it's like, ah, it's a vehicle for the gravy and the stuffing and a little bit of mashed potatoes. That's all the turkey is there for. I'll go further. Turkey, overrated. Yeah. Yeah.

You know what? Go ahead. It has stuff in it that makes you tired after you eat it. What's fun about that? The best thing about the turkey is the next day. So this is my final line. Yeah. Five and a turkey is the next day. So this is my final line. Yeah. Five and a half is the number.

Sandwiches I'm going to have, turkey sandwiches I'm going to have on Friday. Over. Five and a half. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah. You didn't even hesitate. The nice thing about turkey the next day is you can put all kinds of stuff on it. I'm going to have a sriracha turkey sandwich.

Yeah. I'm going to have one that's – I'm going to have a turkey sandwich melt. I'm going to make my own little turkey enchilada. I got a lot of different ideas for the turkey on Friday. Turkey is basically chicken if somebody put quaaludes in it. That's my take on turkey. I just rather have chicken. It's too bad we can't make Thanksgiving chicken.

Steve Carell, that's a great line. Thank you. House, enjoy Thanksgiving. I always love any holiday that's built around eating and the thought of you involved in it. Yeah. All right. Talk to you next week. Good job, buddy.

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