The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 79: Joe House and Michael McCann

Episode Date: March 21, 2016

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons brings on Joe House to make sense of March Madness, top NBA prospects in the tournament (11:00), Buddy Hield's balls (14:00), the Pelicans shutting down A.D. (18:00), Spurs-GSW (22:00), Kawhi's athleticism (27:00), and House's new podcast with Geoff Shackelford, 'ShackHouse' (33:00). Then, Sports Illustrated's Michael McCann joins to discuss lessons from Deflategate (38:00), Goodell the sheriff (43:00), Gawker vs. Hulk Hogan (47:00), Erin Andrews (56:00), and the NCAA paying players (59:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the BS podcast is brought to you by SeatGeek, our presenting sponsor and our favorite app for buying and selling tickets for sports and music. Hopefully you used it for March Madness, rounds one, two, and three. I hate that round one thing. Go to SeatGeek.com slash BS to start using SeatGeek. Don't forget to download the free SeatGeek app and our promo code BS. You get 20 bucks upon your first purchase. Today's episode is also brought to you by our friends, The Starters.

That's Skeets, Taz, Trey, and Lee. They break down the NBA every week on NBA TV and on their Friday podcast, The Drop. Head to NBA.com slash The Starters for clips, social media links, all kinds of stuff. These guys know their hoops and they are Canadian heroes. The Starters, everynight on NBA TV.

Finally, today's podcast is brought to you by my new website, The Ringer. Subscribe to our newsletter at theringer.com. I think we've done, I don't know, five of them at this point. Just get it, for God's sakes. Jesus. All right, we're off. Yeah. Clear enough for you alright

yeah ah that's better we're Monday rolling can you picture us rolling house is we're Jamaica rolling house is in Jamaica this is the first time

we've done a podcast in Jamaica and we're going to have I don't know, it sounds like about one-third of a second of delay, so we'll try not to interrupt each other. House, were you able to watch college basketball while you were on the

beautiful beaches of Jamaica? I was. I got to see a ton of yesterday's games, and yesterday's games, I think, were superior to the Saturday games ended up all being chalk, right? Yeah. Yesterday had the biggest collapse I've ever seen in a basketball game.

I have no long-term memory anymore for just individual games I've watched. Apparently there was a Duke game that was really bad, all this stuff. I've just never seen a team fall apart like that, not being able to inbound the ball. Poor Northern Iowa. Oh, my God. They showed Kurt Warner celebrating, and, not being able to inbound the ball. Poor Northern Iowa. Oh, my God. They showed Kurt Warner celebrating, and then it just fell apart in like a minute.

Holy mackerel. It looked like us trying to break a press in intramural basketball at the last 45 seconds. Yeah. I don't know how much the guy who got hurt, how much that rattled them, Halloran, whatever his name was. But it was just insane. And then the foul, they're down five.

The guy drives in, bounces off somebody, but not really. They get the three-point play. That's when I was like, oh, no. I didn't like the call. Oh, it was bad. I mean, you forget how bad the college basketball refs are until you watch March Madness. It's true. You just see it over and over again, calls being blown.

But, man, that was tough. I think that's – I mean, granted, round two, it's not like they're going to win the title or anything. But just on the face of it, that has to be the most devastating collapse in less than 45 seconds in the history of basketball, right? The Spurs heat, I guess the stakes were so much higher with Spurs heat, but it was a five-point game. You know, it wasn't wrapped up. No, and that's professional basketball. It's so much harder to come back in college basketball because of fewer timeouts, and you have to go the full length of the floor.

You don't have the benefit of, you benefit of inbounding from half court. Yeah. I mean, it is utterly unprecedented that A&M came back that way, and it required several steals right under the basket for A&M to even be within shouting distance. You're lucky you get like two of those. I was excited that your son, your son House, the other House,

the one you don't talk about. Oh, Daniel. Daniel House, who, sometime at Holy Cross, he was a one-nighter. No, I love when anytime there's a house, I always subconsciously root for the house. And then my kids love that Flo Rida song, My House.

And at one point, Flo Rida says Joe House. But I think he meant Yo House, but he's like Joe House. But it sounds like Joe House. So I always feel like he's calling you out. Or maybe he loves the podcast. We might have to work that into one of these roll-ins. We might have to roll with some Flo Rida. Flo Rida calls out Joe House.

They're in my house. That's very friendly. The one takeaway for me of that game, that Northern Iowa game, it was a very helpful reminder. Never, ever, ever, under any circumstances, ever gamble on college basketball. Ever. Not ever.

I actually sat out this year. I didn't put in one college basketball bet those first couple rounds. And meanwhile, our friend Cousin Sal, he had the Northern Iowa money line. He said it. This makes you want to kill yourself. He said it was flat out the worst loss of his life. It's flat out. It's tough to argue with that.

What could possibly rival it? I have to admit. Maybe one of those football games, the Golden Tate fake touchdown a couple years ago for Seattle, maybe. I don't know. The Green Bay, Seattle. I don't know. I think Music City, Maricopa is still the worst gambling loss of all time. If you had the Bills in that game.

You had the Bills money line. Yeah. And you lost on just a crazy lateral, like the whole thing, and then it didn't seem like it was a legal pass. That's got to be number one because that had to have had the most people betting on it, right? So it's a wild card playoff game. Yeah, the thing, you and I both did bet in this tournament.

We bet on Holy Cross, the money line, against Southern. That's the only circumstances under which it makes any sense at all to bet. You just bet with your heart on your team. Make a silly bet. Be prepared to lose the money and get on with your life. Yeah, I don't feel like that was an actual gambling moment. We just supported our team. And by the way, we won.

Yeah, we won. Yeah, that was great. Yeah, college basketball, never bet on it. Especially if you at any point in your life do a college basketball tease or parlay. Oh, my God. I mean, people have argued that I have a gambling problem. Even I don't do that. I would never do a college basketball tease slash parlay, anything.

You'd be an insane person. Well, and we're in an era now where there is really true parity among these teams. There really is no difference from 2 to 15 seeds. It's still the case that the 1 to 16, none of those games were close for even a second. But once you start playing 2s and 15s, there is tremendous parity. I watched all of Oregon, St. Joe's last night. There was no difference between those teams.

The one kid from Oregon made two big threes at the end. But St. Joe's was right there the entirety of that game. I couldn't tell you with any certainty that Oregon was the better team of those two. Yeah, we never did a pre-madness mega podcast preview or anything. My big takeaway was or just going into it was it did feel like it had a chance to resemble that year that George Mason

made it. I think we've talked about that on the podcast a couple years. That weird George Mason year where the best players in college basketball were Adam Morrison and J.J. Redick. Everyone was just prepared for weirdness. And this year felt the same way. Well, the Florida team was still there.

Yeah, I talked over you. But the Florida team was still there. I meant just in general. Like, it was this feeling that weird shit was going to happen. You know? And you're right. There's no Florida team this year. But that's why I thought Holy Cross had a chance to beat Oregon

as crazy as that sounds. I didn't think they had a good chance, but it didn't feel like Oregon was a real one seed. I didn't feel like they were intimidating. They proved that last night. They were very unimpressive to me last night. The whole Pac-12.

Pac-12 got all these high seedings and completely underwhelming the entirety of the tournament. Well, one thing, usually, the one thing I look for to decide how weird the tournament's going to be is how many, you know, kick-ass lottery picks there are. And usually there's a couple teams that are just stacked. And, you know, you look at Michigan State gets upset in round one, which nobody saw coming. Everybody liked them.

Just more because of the Izzo track record than anything. Sure. It's not like that team was loaded with future pros. We talk about this every year. At least one of the teams that ends up playing on Monday is always a team that has guys that go on to do stuff. That Michigan State team, they didn't have that ringer. on Monday is always a team that has guys that go on to do stuff, you know? And that Michigan State team, like, they didn't have that ringer.

That's why I think Maryland's interesting because I think Diamondstone is absolutely a lottery pick and Melo's good. And, you know, you got to be feeling good about Maryland. Well, you left out my boy Lehman, the guy whose stock has risen the most because he's had some terrific shooting games the last, at least two of the last three. He's been like 60% from three. He might have played himself into the first round. I don't know. I think I would love for Melo to stay in school one more year.

And the Maryland team, something happened. There's something about like what's going on behind closed doors with that team. They have really underwhelmed and underperformed. But here they are in the Sweet 16 up against Kansas, and they have all the talent in the world, Maryland. And they can run teams off the floor. In the first round of the Big Ten tournament, they played Wisconsin. They ran Wisconsin off the floor.

Now, Wisconsin is different from Kansas. I don't mean to compare the two. But if Maryland's making threes, there's nobody that they cannot beat. It's weird. It's a weird draft because, I mean, it's a weird tournament without these big guns. Like, Ben Simmons just not being in it is crazy. Like, Dragan Bender is going to be the number three pick in the draft. He's not in it.

Jalen Brown was supposed to be a top five pick. He's out. Pulte, Chipotle on Utah, who I really liked, who I talked myself into, got his ass kicked by Sabonis' son this weekend as our dude Jonathan Charks laid out in the Ringer newsletter today, it was a one-sided Creed Drago ass-kicking, and now I think Pote's out of the top. He's at least out of the top six.

Yeah, I have two. Go ahead. No, but like Chad Ford's big board right now. He's got Ingram one. He's got Jamal Murray two. He's got Jalen Brown three and Chris Dunn four. I mean, Ben Simmons is obviously in this too. But Buddy has a chance to play himself in the top three here

with a couple more big games. So that was one of the observations I wanted to make. Buddy has been delivering the goods. I've loved him since that Kansas game that went however many overtimes. That was a double overtime game. He is just a baller. The dude has heart. He wants the ball at the end of games.

He demands it. And then he delivers. 29 points yesterday in the second half. I love me some Buddy. Well, he also, he's not just like a college scorer. He does, he'll have a couple shots during the course of a game that are just NBA shots. Like he had one yesterday.

He drove down to the right, a little past the foul line, kind of up faked, and then just did kind of a really in control turnaround 15-footer. It was a fucking NBA shot. It was like this guy, that's a move that is going to work at the next level. Remember when we were going nuts about Brandon Roy 10 years ago. And one of the reasons was he had,

he had NBA shots and moves in his arsenal already. You could see it. And I feel the same way about Buddy. Hesitation was an NBA. That's right. And, and you know, I said it on one of the podcasts before,

and the more I watch him, the more I confirm it back to myself. It may be confirmation bias, but he looks so much like D-Wade to me. Oh, interesting. That move you just described is a D-Wade move. Well, and he's an alpha dog. And I don't think Ben Simmons was ever really the same after the game when he went alpha dog to alpha dog with Buddy. I watched that game, and Buddy just pulled his genitals out

and was like, here are mine. Let's see yours. And just started making shots and pounding his chest and doing stuff. And Ben Simmons basically just passed for the last five minutes of the game. That was the first time the Ben Simmons thing made me nervous. I blame that LSU situation. It was a bad situation to start, and it ended terribly. The dude couldn't touch the ball.

They didn't run anything for him, and they don't have anything to run for him. It was a clown show, the whole exercise. It's still basketball. It's still like I don't care where you are, whether you're playing with an organized game with fans and a coach or whether I'm just playing pickup with you. At some point, people start taking their balls out, and you've got to match it or you fade back.

And that's what I didn't like. Buddies, look, buddies' balls are out. Buddies, like, here are my nuts. I'm bringing these out every time all in your face I gotta say like you know the Celts are gonna have

like a top five pick so I've been obsessing over everybody and who would fit and what I wouldn't mind it like if they end up with the third pick

and they took Buddy I'm not gonna be like oh why the fuck did we take another guard I'm gonna be like great Buddy's scoring at why the fuck did we take another guard? I'm going to be like, great. Buddy's scoring at the end of games. Like, we have a crunch time guy. We have him and Isaiah Thomas.

Like, that's a team now. Go stop those two guys at the same time. Like, I'd be pumped. With good reason. The thing the Celts are missing is a guy that wants the ball in the last four minutes and can convert. And there you go. There's his name is Buddy.

Let me correct you. The Celts have you go. There's his name is Buddy. Let me correct you. The Celts have a guy. He's just five foot nine. We need a guy who's over five foot nine who also wants the ball. And then if you combine those two, now we have some magic. And, you know, the other guy that's climbing, and I never understood why he wasn't involved, but Jamal Murray, I think now is, is being treated with the respect he deserves and commands because, you know, how many, how many guys in the,

how many NBA teams do we need to see who a guard controls the ball, who can create his own shot and create shots for others? That's the number one commodity you want in basketball right now. It's not a big guy. You want that guy. And that's why Buddy and Jamal Murray, I think, are going to climb. I like Jamal. I didn't like that Kentucky played Indiana in the second round.

I mean, there are lots and lots of complaints to be levied against the selection committee and the arrangement and everything. That was an awesome game, that Kentucky-Indiana game. Did you watch any of it? I taped it. That harkened back to some old-era team just going at it. It felt like the kind of game that would be appropriate in the round of eight or final four kind of game. Yeah, and it was a game that had real dudes in it,

which I wonder as this tournament goes along, we're gonna have games where i don't even know who like the the first round pick's gonna be on a couple of these sweet 16 teams potentially whereas that game had guys my dad is so out on uh labassia he was well labassia needs to stay in school he never never watched him before. He was like, if we end up with that guy, this whole season's going to be wasted. This whole watching Brooklyn Nets games over and over again. It's like, that guy, he only gets rebounds if they bounce right to him. And he has no offensive game whatsoever.

We can't take that guy. My dad, it's like, if they're going to take him in June, I think there's going to have to be paramedics there for my dad. That's true. Your dad's gathering report and is dead on the money. That kid needs to stay in school. It's fine. It's not a criticism.

He's not ready yet. So does Jalen Brown. Both of those guys. Jalen Brown would be great as a stay in another year. 220 pounds, that kid. What a monster. You know who doesn't need to stay in school? Buddy. Come out, buddy. Buddy's ready. Come a monster. You know who doesn't need to stay in school? Buddy.

Come out, buddy. Buddy's ready. Come to the NBA. We're ready for you. You're going to be awesome. And, you know, there's a couple teams that he would be great with, too. You know? Like, I think the Celts, him and Isaiah Thomas, would be really fun.

I think if he somehow ended up in Sacramento, how about that? Oh. Yeah. How about that? Oh. Yeah. How about that? Well, the problem with Sacramento is, you know, anything is possible. I'm not going to need to do a KG, but holy cow. That's true. Another stupid trade.

How about this? Would you like to see Buddy and Anthony Davis playing together? That would be sensational. That would be terrific. How about the Pelicans shutting it down, by the way? They're claiming he had a torn labrum. I don't know if I

100% believe it, but maybe he does. Maybe he does. I thought from the get-go, from the moment that they started out bad, I thought there was some 97 Spurs potential with them. Yeah. Because Robinson could have come back during that season,

and they smartly said, screw this, let's be bad. And they ended up in the sixth spot, and they got Duncan. And there's no Duncan in this draft. But I think people forget with that Duncan draft, it wasn't a slam dunk that Duncan was the number one pick. He was the guy I wanted. Oh, you wasn't a slam dunk that Duncan was the number one pick. He was the guy I wanted. Oh, you don't remember this? Who was rivaling him?

I'm sure they're on the internet. There were some Tim Duncan or Keith Van Horn stories going around in March and April. Oh, no. Yeah. Oh, yeah. They are on Google. You can Google those. People were genuinely wondering if Keith Van...

I don't believe it. Oh, they're on there. And I didn't have a column yet. That was like right before I launched my column. And I was going crazy. It was 1997. I was like, are you... Yeah, I launched the old Sports Guy column, I think, in like late May 97.

And I was going bonkers that anyone was putting Van Horn versus Duncan. I was like, look, Van Horn, it's fun, it's great, but come on. There's no comparison. Nobody saw that. Anyone who says they knew Duncan was going to play for 20 years and be an alien, I think. By the way, I'm adding Nowitzki. Nobody knows that.

I'm adding Nowitzki to our alien suspect list. I think Nowitzki might be an alien. He put up 40 last night. It was sensational. All vintage Dirk moves. Yeah, all of them. Without any signs of slippage. It wasn't like the breaking down, like Kobe having like, we're making a couple threes.

These were like just Dirk running the Dirk playbook on Portland and succeeding. He is statistically on par with any of his great seasons right now. I know. And I've been invested in that team too because the Celtics have their pick, so I root against them. Sorry, Dirk. Dirk, I love you. You're the greatest.

I'm so glad you passed through my life. But if you develop plantar fasciitis right now, I'd be totally happy. I'm just going to be honest. That's not very nice. No, I love having Dirk. It's so tough for me to root against the Mavs when Dirk's doing like an old school Dirk thing. So I've been watching their games and following them and the whole thing. My dad's obsessing over it because if they fall out of the playoffs, it could be like the 11th pick, right? So Zaza died. I don't know what

happened to Zaza. Zaza is a corpse. Zaza is like a white walker. He just died. He had two great months and then he died. And they've been playing David Lee a lot. And it's like all the signs are there for this Dallas collapse and Dirk's just not letting it happen he's just not he's just he's not letting it happen the problem is if they played golden state in round one they're going to lose by 40 points a game so hey did you see that game one game did you see that game

which golden state uh san antonio i'll give you my – Yeah, it was – let's hear it. It's tough to call that thing a referendum because with Bogut, Iggy, and Azealia, it's not really representative of the Warriors. But I want your take. I'm interested. So I thought Golden State really wanted the game. I thought they went all out for it. I think their bench was locked in.

I think they really wanted it. I think they wanted to end the streak, even though they were a little undermanned. Most fascinating thing for me was, and I tweeted this during the game, just because I've watched Chris Paul do this to Curry. Like from the first minute, they're just going to beat the hell out of Curry. And they're going to push him and shove him and bump him and just hands on all the times just in his personal space. And just...

They did that. Yeah. And they put the onus on the refs within the first five minutes of the game. Are you going to call this stuff or not? And they either could have called everything. It was like, it's the way the Patriots used to do that against the Colts, right? Totally. And it's what Chris Paul does every time he plays Steph Curry. He commits all his fouls early and the ref either has to decide, am I going to call this or not? And usually they decide no. And then that's it. It's been established and

you can't reverse it. So they just started. Well, they're definitely not going to call him in San Antonio. Right. So they did that early. It worked. It threw him off his game. There's no question he was terrible. And so that was one thing, which I like that the Spurs, I think everybody was kind of like, oh, no, they're not going to show their cards until the playoffs.

And Popovich pulled a buddy. He just pulled his genitals out. He's like, this is what we're showing everything in this game. Here's what we can do to beat you. And now I think that's got to be in Golden State's head a little bit. They definitely sent a message. The thing that I liked, the game was still

undetermined with four minutes left. San Antonio executed a little bit better at the end. Manu was great and Kawhi was great. I love that Tim Duncan played seven minutes, and you wonder how many games you're going to get both Clay and Steph missing in volume like that. I mean, it was kind of a fluky game. I loved the strategy against Steph. I totally agree with your assessment, and I think it will be exciting to see come playoff time,

other teams try it and how Golden State plans to counter it. But good for the Spurs. The Spurs won the game, too. Can we call out Tate's dude Harrison Barnes? Say again? I'm going to call out Tate's dude, Harrison Barnes? Say again? I'm going to call out Tate's dude, Harrison Barnes, for a second. Yeah. It's Saturday night, and it's on national TV,

and this is one of the biggest regular season games of all time. Just feel free to show up at any point in the game. Three guys are out. When you're going for a $200 million contract or whatever this summer. Now, he didn't have a good game either, and they needed him to come through. I don't personally think, I don't think the Warriors can survive a Curry bad game when they're undermanned against a team like San Antonio,

which is going to be really one of the all-time great number two regular season teams in a season ever. I don't know what the complete list is, but yeah, they're the second best team, and yet they're probably like a top 15 regular season team all time when you look at the numbers. So it's not really that profound. Right, so Golden State can't have its best player not have a good game

against a historically great San Antonio team. Yeah, but with that said, a couple things jump out, right? One is that the way they defended Curry, I think, is really important for the playoffs and is going to become a storyline because I think everybody's going to try to rough him up and defend him that way. And Steve Kerr will start lobbying the refs, which he should, and he'll start lobbying the league, and he'll start talking about how Steph's getting manhandled,

and that's going to become a running theme. So get ready for that. That will replace Hackensack. And a corollary on that, Bogut's the protector. So we'll see some good feisty Bogut down under moves. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a corollary I'm looking forward to. So that's one.

Number two is that LaMarcus Aldridge is one of the top 20 players in the league, and you could even argue he might even be in the top 15. And San Antonio's ability to reboot an entire era on the fly and usher in a whole new era while keeping all the old guys from the previous era in there, it's only happened one other time in the history of the league with the Red Auerbach Celtics. And that was a league that had eight teams, you know?

And it's like, all right, the Koozie, Heinzen, Frank Ramseyer is over. Here comes Havlicek and Sam Jones. Like, this doesn't happen. And they have done this on the fly. I don't want to give them the full credit for the full reboot yet because they still have a point guard position to fill. My point is this era should be over. And when Memphis beat them, that was it.

We're moving now on to a new era. Like, hey, San Antonio, welcome to what it's like to be a lottery team. And they make that George Hill Kawhi trade, which is now moving up the ladder of great trades in the history of the league. And then on top of it, pull off the Aldridge thing when everybody thought he was going to go to the Lakers or wherever. And now they have this new team. Kawhi is one of the best five guys in the league. And Aldridge is still one of the best 15 to 20 guys in the league. And, you know, just really impressive.

Really amazing. So that was my second takeaway. My third takeaway is Kawhi is now, I tweeted this too, Kawhi has now moved to another level of athleticism. He's like, do you feel like he's not getting any loose ball? I just feel like if there's a loose ball, he's getting it. It looks like his arms are 10 feet long.

Yeah, he's Sharktopus. Yeah, you tweeted that. Yeah, he's the Sharktopus. He gets every single 50-50 ball. All of them. He's your 100-ball guy. He gets every single 50-50 ball. All of them. He's your 100-ball guy. He gets 100% of 50-50 ball.

The greatest athlete I've ever seen in person in my life on a basketball court was LeBron in 2008 and 2009. To me, that's the peak athleticism. I once watched him get a steal at midcourt and take two steps and dunk. Now, apparently Giannis can do this too. I have not seen that in person yet. But LeBron did things that just weren't prepared to witness on a basketball court. And it feels like Kawhi athletically is kind of,

he's already on that kind of new wave Pippen level of athleticism, but he's kind of starting to edge toward that LeBron physical specimen lesson. Sure. Level— Level. Level. Yeah. And, you know, a lot of these times playoff series just comes down to who has the best guy. It's at least conceivable that he could be the best guy in a Warriors Spurs series, right?

Sure. We know he's capable of being the best guy. He was the MVP of the finals two years ago. Right. Yeah, he could being the best guy. He was the MVP of the finals two years ago. Yeah, he could be the best guy. Sure he could. But Curry's going to be a back-to-back MVP and is clearly the guy in the league. It's just... True. I don't remember going into an MJ series.

The Lakers series, I guess, when he was going against Magic, he'd be like, oh, you know, who's Magic versus Michael? The next year, people tried to get Drexler versus MJ, which was insulting to MJ, and he ended up almost destroying Drexler's career. Yeah, MJ took that personally. And then the next year, it was Jordan versus Barkley, which was really fun for a couple games until Jordan did what he does. And then it was Carl Malone. It's like, no, no, Jordan. No, no, no.

I hope Curry start – if Curry versus Kawhi becomes a thing I'll be interested to see if Curry goes into that little MJ are you kidding me mode yeah oh really does he have that mode I don't know Draymond Green might have to just

telepathically will him to whatever anyway this is going to be an awesome series. And San Antonio, to me, pulled out all their cards and showed that they are not going to go away. And they are going to be there. No, that was spectacular. I'm knocking on wood. The thing that I really, really love is they're still playing as though they could be the one seed in the West. You know what I mean?

That's another aspect of them putting all those cards on the table. Like, hey, Golden State, you lose a couple in a row. We are here, fellas. We are here. We will gladly take number one seed and play Dallas in the first round or Utah. Anyhow, I'm – The offensive rebounding I'm not going to get too banana-shaped about because the Golden State was missing so many guys.

But, you know, it is a thing, man. If you have Aldridge and you have Kawhi out there and you have a little bit of a size advantage and you're a little bit quicker up front, you're going to get some second chances, and Golden State's going to have to figure that out. I've always felt like teams could offensive rebound on them. I don't know what the numbers say.

Look, health is always a big part of the composition. If Bogut misses a couple more games because of his big toe, and I don't know what the status of Iggy's sprained ankle is, and I don't know how much longer is Ealy supposed to be out, but if Golden State slips a little, the Spurs are right there. I mean, I'm knocking on wood. You can hear me knocking. I don't want any injuries.

I want these teams to be super healthy. But San Antonio's right there. You know what? One thing I want to teams to be super healthy, but San Antonio is right there. You know what? One thing I want to say positive for the Warriors. Look, by the way, this is their seventh loss of the season. Anyone who's like,

Oh, I don't know about going state. Like, don't be an idiot. They just didn't play a good game and they played an awesome team. I love that Clay was posting up a little. I like that. He,

he sucked it up. Very interesting. Yeah. He did a little mouse in the house a couple times, which is what I've been dying for him to do for years. Like, do that. Use your advantages. He's got the body for it.

Yeah. He's got a nice game. Do it, Klay Thompson. Yeah. Do your thing. Maybe he's got some buddy. What if he put his buddy out there? Quickly, who wins the NCAA tournament?

Just like the buddy. Who wins the NCAA tournament? Who wins the NCAA tournament it's like the buddies who wins the NCAA tournament North Carolina tell Tate not to say anything North Carolina no way Roy Williams he'll mess this up we're past the point where coaches

that make that huge a difference I think just lost in the first round so you're basically saying that North Carolina is going to win the title and then is going to be stripped of it that make that huge a difference, I think. Tom Izzo just lost in the first round. So you're basically saying that North Carolina is going to win the title and then is going to be stripped of it two years later. You said that, but I don't disagree. So Carolina will win. They'll get to celebrate the title, right,

before it gets taken away by the NCAA two years from now or no? Sure, sure. They'll hang the flag in there, all of it. They'll hang the banner. It'll be of it. They'll hang the banner. It'll be up there for a year and a half. When they cut down the nets, could they have a couple of the people that took tests for the players help cut down the nets?

Like, here's Rajiv. It takes a village. It takes a village. Here's Rajiv. He took Bryce Johnson's poli-sci exam. He's going to cut down the next one. Oh, I love it. I love making fun of Tate about North Carolina.

Hey, it's not totally corrupt. They've just only been in a couple of, you know, major scandals, but it's not that bad. It's not like Patino bad. So North Carolina against who? I don't have the bracket in front of me. I would say Kansas. I think it lines up that way. North Carolina, Kansas, that would be mine.

I mean, very chalky, but those are the teams that look the best and have the best players. So that's my very unoriginal, uninspiring pick. Hey, House, while you're in Jamaica, I have an idea. I really have an idea. Hold on. There have an idea. I really have an idea. Hold on. There's an idea. Oh, here it is.

You know, you're in Jamaica. You know what works in Jamaica? Sling TV. Oh! Yeah! College basketball is in full swing. Why do you have to watch some illegal online stream or watch some TV channel that's cutting out? You just get Slink TV.

It's a better, cheaper option. Slink TV is the best way to watch the game live. By the way, I have no idea if Slink TV works in Jamaica. Just in my head, it would be awesome if Slink TV worked there. Slink TV does work in America. For just $20 a month, you get more than 20 live channels, including AMC, Adult Swim, and ESPN. And most importantly, for all of this month, TNT,

TBS, and True TV. So you can watch live basketball. Those are the March Madness Channels house. You can also add on channel packs. Yeah, you can add on channel packs like the Sports Extra package for $5 a month extra. No installation, no extra gear.

No annual contracts, no BS. All you need is an internet connection. Start your free seven-day trial at sling.com slash Simmons. For the best of live TV on your tablet, phone, laptop, Roku, Fire TV, or Xbox, restrictions apply. Sling.com slash Simmons. So, House, try this in Jamaica and see if it works. It'd be awesome if it worked, right?

I'll give it a go. Seven-day free trial. Just go online? Sling.com slash Simmons. Even you can do this. Yeah, how hard is this? Let's promote your new golf podcast really quickly.

How about it? I have no idea what the hell happened. Yeah, you have a golf podcast really quickly. How about it? Yeah, we gave you a golf podcast. I have no idea what the hell happened. Yeah, you have a golf podcast. It really is happening. Yeah. You and Jeff Shackelford, we're starting it this week. What day is that launching, Tate?

Today. Today? We're recording today. Oh, we're recording today? We're recording today. Oh, so we're probably putting it up tomorrow. Tomorrow or Wednesday, it's going up. We hooked up with our friends at Callaway, and we're going put it up tomorrow. Tomorrow or Wednesday it's going up. We hooked up with our friends at Callaway,

and we were going to do a podcast that they were very excited for us to do. And we were like, you know who knows golf more than anyone I know and who loves golf and who loves golf secretly more than basketball is Joe House. And we did some test spots. I don't secretly love it more than basketball. I love them equally. I feel bad for Jeff Shackelford. He's a real accomplished person in the sports media industry.

He's been writing and focusing on golf. I don't know what bet he lost that has him stuck with me, but I do love the golf. I'm crazy for the golf. And if you looked at my inbox right now, three-quarters of it is filled with golf-related emails. Many of those might have to do with golf bets, but you know, that's, that's kind of a thing that I like anyway. I like to gamble, so why not? So I was skeptical. I was like, well, you know, house is my dude. I don't want to, I don't want to let house roam off into the podcast

backyard and start roaming around eating different plants and trees. And you roamed into Jeff Shackelford's backyard, and we did a couple test podcasts, and we all liked them. So now you have a podcast, and it's called Shack House. I'm excited for that, too. Shack House. Who doesn't want to come have a hot dog and a delicious red stripe in the Shack House? So the reason we did this was because we felt like the golf podcast market was wide open. We had Joe Fuentes looking around, and we were like, wow,

we could actually have an entertaining golf podcast. So we're going to do it before and after the big majors, the big tournaments, and a couple other times. I think we're doing like 20 or 22 this season. And I am fired up. I'm fired up to have a golf podcast in my life. Congratulations. Shackhouse.

Shackhouse. I'm fired up too. I'm excited. I'm going to do my best not to embarrass Jeff. No promises. Well, I don't think you'll embarrass him. And in fact, I think the golf world needs this podcast. Because I've heard all the other golf podcasts.

It's already the number one golf podcast. We haven't even recorded one yet. House, enjoy Jamaica. We'll talk to you later this week. Legalize it. See you, buddy. Thank you. All right. I've been meaning to have this guy on for a while. He is from Sports Illustrated. He moonlights at Sports Illustrated.

He's really a professor and a law expert, and I've enjoyed his sports law columns over the years, and there's just a lot going on in 2016. I feel like this is the year of Michael McCann. Is it fair to say that? I'll take it, Bill. If you're saying it, it definitely is. Thank you for even suggesting that.

You're one of the only people who wrote intelligibly about Deflategate and the entire world, so thank you for that. One of the only people who could see through a lot of this stuff. And then you ended up teaching a Deflategate course, right? That's right. Last fall, Bill, at the University of New Hampshire, I taught a Deflategate course that looked at labor antitrust, some of the science issues, some of the media reporting.

It had about 75 students in it. Some local residents audited it as well. It was really a great class. And there was an MIT professor named John Leonard who came to deliver a lecture on the science of deflategate, and he really debunked the NFL's argument, and from that, I think that actually played a big role in how the public has reacted to the story. I don't want to talk about deflategate because I've spent too much time talking about deflategate, but just in like 30 seconds, can you explain how flimsy the NFL's case was and how ridiculous this whole thing is?

Well, I think as a starting point, Bill, the science. Why did the balls measure the way they did? And can we even know the sequence in which the NFL measured the footballs? And the answer to those questions are we don't know. The NFL didn't reveal an exponent. The company that the NFL used didn't reveal to the Patriots and Brady how the testing occurred. There are discrepancies.

And then you have an alternative theory that is more persuasive. You have ideal gas law, which looks at air pressure, how temperature affects it. That explains what happened to the footballs. And then secondly, some of the evidence that the NFL has hoisted at the Patriots really isn't that persuasive. There's the one deflator text from May of 2014 that wasn't raised in the context of footballs, and that occurred eight months before a game, the AFC Championship game, that no one could have known the Patriots were going to play. And so it takes a real conspiracy theory to get to where the NFL went,

whereas it takes basic science to conclude the opposite. And I'm going to go with basic science. So the NFL, when they had the appeals here, there's three judges you had to convince. And everyone's takeaway was like, oh, the judges kind of seemed like they were leaning toward the NFL. But then as people pick through what the NFL's appeal was, they misrepresented a couple different things in their argument that didn't actually happen. Could that be enough to throw the appeal out? Well, it could definitely make a big difference because there are discrepancies between what the NFL presented during that oral argument. And I was there, I was in the front row watching it, where Paul Clement, who argued on behalf of the NFL,

he's probably the best appellate attorney in the United States, he relayed what Roger Goodell had concluded, where there are discrepancies. For instance, Roger Goodell misrepresented how Tom Brady testified during the arbitration hearing. Specifically, the reasons that Tom Brady met with John Jastrzemski, who is the assistant locker room person, following the Deflategate allegations. And that's a discrepancy. Then there's a discrepancy about the reference to deflator text.

Now, Paul Clement argues that there wasn't a misrepresentation. But I think, Bill, there are a lot of questions about how the NFL did its fact-finding that for the judges could make a difference. But as you mentioned, the judges during the hearing didn't seem all that skeptical of the NFL. In fact, Judge Shin talked about the case being overwhelming against Brady and the NFLPA. That's not a good sign for Brady, but you never know what's going to happen. And I think there's reason to think that the judges will be skeptical of some of the legal arguments the NFL has made. I'm sure you've read 10 kajillion really super boring legal briefs that tried to obscure a couple things over the course of the brief.

The Wells report, it seems like all the legal experts who read this said that it was written in a way that just kind of either misrepresented certain things or glossed over other things. Why hasn't that been picked apart more in this appeal process? Yeah, Bill, there are a lot of discrepancies about which pressure gauge was being used, how exponent portrayed which pressure gauge was being used, which is a big thing, right? Because if we don't know which gauge was being used, then we can't rely on the data. And then most people would say, let's throw it out. But that's not what the NFL has done. The reason why the facts haven't played a big part in the appeal is that the federal judges are obligated under federal law to defer to the fact finding of the arbitrator. And that fact, and that arbitrator is Roger Goodell.

Roger Goodell, who issued the punishment, who then heard the appeal of Brady, was acting as an arbitrator. And there's nothing technically wrong with that because the Players Association let Roger Goodell have that authority. Whether he should have deferred away from it, given the controversy, is a separate question. But that's the real reason, Bill, is that the judges can't open up the facts. They can't look through the science. They can't do their own studies. They have to take the NFL's evidence as presented by the arbitrator, Roger Goodell, at face value.

Do you think he loses his punishment powers over this whole thing? It seems like, however this plays out, that's probably where we're headed with this, right? Yeah, that's my instinct, too, Bill. And look, if you're Roger Goodell, do you want this power? No. Right, you don't. You lost Tom Brady. You lost that case. You lost Adrian Peterson. You lost Ray Rice. You basically lost Greg Hardy. And then, of course, you have the Four Saints players, Jonathan Vilma, who were reinstated because of an order by form. So you got all these losses. I don't think it's a healthy thing to have.

And if you're Roger Goodell, focus on the good stuff. Focus on the money you're making for the NFL. Focus on the increase in franchise values. There's a good narrative for him, but it isn't through player conduct matters. Yeah, my personal feelings aside, his job is to work for the 32 owners and try to make them as much money as possible and try to make sure that the public perception of the league is disseminated a certain way. I don't know how player punishment—he initially seemed, you know, the way he treated it.

I used to joke he was like the sheriff. He's coming in like, things got out of hand on Tagliabue's watch. I'm going to come in. I'm going to fix this stuff. And I think he overshot, and I don't think he's good at discipline he's just not they've had when you've had like 10 major things and you've screwed up six of them then you're not good at that and they should be an independent party and i also don't see all the stuff they've done just seems like it's antagonized the players union and the players in so many different ways. Like, why do you want to antagonize your labor force like that? Why do you want to have this witch hunt slash smear campaign against one of the five best players who's ever played your sport? I just don't understand it. Yeah. And Bill, it's bizarre to go to court over this, right? It's

clear federal judges don't like this system. Judges who are arguably conservative or liberal, none of them like this power that the commissioner has because it's not something that's really suitable in our legal system. We don't have an appellate judge also be the trial judge who also decides the punishment. It's just this weird arrangement of duties that doesn't match with our expectations. And look, Roger Goodell is not an attorney. He's the only commissioner of the major four that doesn't match with our expectations. And look, Roger Goodell is not an attorney. He's the only commissioner of the major four that doesn't have a legal background that doesn't disqualify him. But to me, if there's one commissioner who shouldn't have this power, it's him. Give it to Adam Silver, a much more thoughtful, deliberate, an attorney by trade.

Yet it's the one commissioner who doesn't have that background who has this power. It seems to be the exact opposite outcome. Well, I promised we'd only talk to Flake 8 for a minute, and we went like 8. So I'd like to apologize to my listeners. Let's talk about Gawker and Hulk Hogan. So Hulk Hogan wins $115 million, which is just a crazy amount. I just didn't even know those kind of numbers could go this high. It seemed like the jury was trying to send a bigger message here that even went beyond the Hulk Hogan thing.

Is it possible that this just goes on for the next eight years? Yeah, it could, Bill. I assume the Gawker has already indicated it's going to appeal. They're also going to ask for the trial judge to reduce the damages. And so there are several steps where Gawker can get this number reduced by a great deal. But unfortunately for Gawker, under Florida law, in order to appeal, they have to post a bond, which could be up to $50 million. Now, it doesn't have to be $50 million, but it could be under the state law. So that's a big concern because we don't know their financial wherewithal if they can pay something like that.

But, yeah, I think this was a message by the jury. It's hard to envision that Hulk Hogan suffered $115 million in damages. I mean, yeah, it was embarrassing. It wasn't good for his career. But where do you go? How do you get to $115 million, particularly when you think about what normally is the amount of damages in cases? I mean, when there's a wrongful death case, Bill, when somebody dies because of the negligence of another person, the average award to the family members is $3 to $3.5 million.

When you have catastrophic physical injuries, we're usually talking six figures, maybe seven figures. But to get to nine figures, I think this was a message. I think this is a jury that probably said they're tired of maybe online media, the hunt for clicks, and that this was some type of larger deterrent being sent. Whether that's the appropriate role of the jury, I think could be questioned. But there's got to be more than Hulk Hogan's embarrassment that gets you to $115 million. Yeah, when you're putting a number like that on the verdict, you're trying to, I'm guessing, it seems like you're also trying to put Gawker out of business. And, I mean, I don't know enough about the legal process

to know whether that's legal or not, but can a jury put more money on a verdict just to make a statement? They can, usually through punitive damages, which is a separate category that hasn't even been determined yet, where punitive damages are about essentially sending a message, the punishment, that the underlying conduct was so bad that it warrants more than just making the plaintiff whole again, but really sending a message. That wasn't part of the $115 million. So if they did that, if they were using that $115 million to send a message, it's appropriate for the trial judge under the law to reduce the damages. And the trial judge could also reduce the damages, as could the appellate court, if they conclude that the jury was inflamed by passion, that they misunderstood their role. So these are arguments that Gawker is going to make in an

attempt to get that number down by a lot. And then the counter argument would be like, you guys played so loosely with the First Amendment for so many years, and you guys use this stuff against certain people for page views and clicks and all that other stuff, and you're getting what you deserve, would be basically the defense's argument on this, right? Yeah, that's right. So that is the theory that, you know, Hogan is going to say, his lawyers will say, look, the jury has a right to decide what's the appropriate remedy. Hulk Hogan was humiliated. Hulk Hogan, you know, his career was harmed by what occurred.

You can't take away the jury's power. The jury consists of the people selected to go among the population pool for a judge to go in there and tell them they got it wrong. That's not appropriate. So yeah. And like you said, it's really about why did Gawker invade the privacy of Hulk Hogan? Gawker has said it's newsworthy to put the video of him having sex with an accompanying story and it was edited, but clearly the jury didn't buy that. And the problem for Gawker is that they, you know, they, they have a 10, 12, 13-year history of using things to humiliate celebrities. And this tape was another example of that.

They posted it, whether they thought it was newsworthy or not, I mean, I don't know, but the way it was framed seemed like a way to mock him. And that, I think, is what the— that's the best thing the defense had going for them, which is, like, they did this to mock him. And that I think is what the, that's the best thing the defense had going for them, which is like, they did this to mock him. And that's how you end up with a 150 mile an hour verdict, right? Yeah. And it was mocking, right? It was humiliating. And you're right. They probably figured that people are going to like this. They got what, two and a half million clicks.

So a lot of people did go on to watch it. And they also probably reasoned if their legal counsel was even involved with the decision, what counts as newsworthy is really broad. It's hard to claim that a news company has published something that isn't the news. It's just there isn't a lot of case precedent. The Supreme Court has made clear almost everything to some extent counts as news. And yet this went too far. This was a video of him having sex in a bedroom. I think common sense, good judgment should have led them to decide

whether or not it's unlawful or not. It's really not appropriate. So when that guy, I don't even know if we ever found out, I'm sure I don't even know if it was a guy, the person who hacked into all the celebrity's iClouds and posts nude photos and nude videos and all that stuff. And that was the one time I remember like mainstream blogs were afraid to post any of those pictures, any of those videos.

People were talking about it and writing about it and kind of a very detached, afraid to go too far with even saying anything about it. And then it got reported as a news story, like somebody's doing this, how do they stop it? Why would people hold back with that, but then not hold back with a Hulk Hogan sex tape? One possibility, Bill, is that lawyers wrote them letters saying, you better hold back or we're going to sue you. That could have been part of the discussion. And I think also maybe their own sort of – their legal counsel played a bigger role in that decision. I wonder with the Gawker – with Gawker putting up the Hogan video, who knows what role, if any, a lawyer had in that decision.

They could have just got it and figured, let's put it up, let's edit it down, let's make it more like a news story. I think with what you referenced earlier with the celebrities, the leak of all the naked photos, I bet in that scenario, and I don't know if this is a fact, I bet their lawyers got together and said, we need to communicate to all of the companies that have these. We're going to go aggressive after you. We're going to go after injunctions. And that may have scared them off. So the Internet has been the wild, wild west basically since it's been created. Now we're at the 20-year mark. Does it feel like this Hulk Hogan situation with Gawker,

however it plays out, however many millions of damages it ends up being, is this the end of an era basically for that stuff? Could be. It could be, Bill. I think websites like Gawker are now going to have to think longer about the appropriateness of putting up a video where a celebrity's private activity, however you want to define that, is put up, especially with kids and things like that, that I think there is now a chance that there will be more caution by media companies in putting up private information about celebrities. But I would say they may also say, let's wait and see what happens on the appeal. There's a chance Gawker wins the appeal.

There's a chance that an appellate court looks at these issues and disagrees with the jury. The appellate court could say, we find it really inappropriate, we find it gross, all of that. But at the end of the day, Gawker edited the story. They reduced the amount of nudity that was in the video. They tried to frame it as a news story. We're not comfortable, given the First Amendment, to take that power away. So I have a feeling, Bill, before there's sort of a precedent of this case, I think some companies will say, let's see what happens with the appeal. So this is a classic to be continued.

I really do feel like this could end up, I think there's a chance this could end up going pretty high because you make a case that this particular verdict and all of the pieces to it are something that maybe the Supreme Court eventually has to decide on. What is the right to it are something that maybe the Supreme Court eventually has to decide on. What is the right to privacy on the internet versus the traditional media? It doesn't seem like we've totally figured that out yet, right? No, you're right, Bill. And you got to think the Supreme Court at some point has to take on that issue because for the reasons we just talked

about that, there are other issues, related issues that come up with nudity, photos, videos. At some point, I think the Supreme Court needs to provide more clarity on our tradition of newsworthiness, sort of a broad perspective of that, but a perspective that's over 40 years old. That's 45 years old. So maybe it needs some updating. Yeah. And you also have a bunch of old people on the Supreme Court who maybe they don't understand that this is the world we live in. I mean, even Reddit. Like, I love Reddit. I like Reddit's NBA page a lot.

I go there every day. I'll see stuff on Reddit sometimes that, you know, it's posted by somebody and they're telling some story about somebody. You don't know if it's true or not. And, like, I don't – is that good? Like, I don't know if we've hashed all this stuff out. I want to get to a place where it's being policed better, I guess is my point. Yeah. And, and what can we even do in that scenario? What we file a defamation lawsuit, who knows how long that takes to play out. Like you said, we can't find the person who said it. And even if somehow we win, the damage is already done, right? The false story is already out there, and we know that false stories tend to be believed even after they've been disproven.

I mean, there have been studies about that, that you can't really remedy the problem. And I think the remedy needs to be somehow that information not being permitted in the first place. Quickly, Erin Andrews, who is a friend of mine, so I'm going to tread carefully on this one, but she got $55 million for a really horrible people thing that happened that played out over the last seven years, basically. That number was really high. Are we headed toward a situation where this is going to become a trend with huge numbers for celebrities who are embarrassed by some way? Or is this just two isolated incidents? I think so far, it's still two isolated incidents, Bill. But I would say that it does have to be a source of concern for obviously media companies. But in the case of Erin Andrews, you have a hotel, right, that really did some pretty

bad things. I mean, it allowed, right, I mean, it allowed this guy to be in the room next to her. I mean, but then the question becomes, OK, they made a mistake. Does it warrant $55 million? And the peeping Tom, half of that's from him, and that money's not going to be paid because I'm sure he doesn't have much of anything. But the hotel operators are on the hook for, you know, what, $27, $28 million. I think it's a fair question to say, she clearly suffered harm. How are we getting to that number, right? Why is that number so much higher than if a

regular person's in a car accident and that person gets a couple hundred thousand dollars in a case or God forbid somebody dies? Again, we're looking at three to three and a half million on average in a wrongful death case for an adult male and female. So this is sort of the argument that people have for what's called tort reform, right? Let's put caps on damages. That has its own set of problems, because then you have situations where the caps aren't fair. It could be that we're getting to a stage where celebrities are treated very differently by juries. But I think at this point, let's wait and see. Let's see what happens with these cases on appeal as well. Both of those verdicts may not hold up on appeal. My instinct, though, is that the Aaron Andrews

case is stronger because you have, to me, clearly negligible conduct. This isn't about newsworthiness. This is about privacy and invasion of privacy and the duties of a hotel to make sure that its guests are being adequately safeguarded from those around them. Is there a case coming up that relates to sports either in a profound way or tangential way that you feel like is going to be, that generate as much interest as, say, the Flakegate date or even the Hulk Hogan-Gawker thing? I think, Bill, if one of these NCAA cases gets to the Supreme Court, whether it's the O'Bannon case, whether it's the Jenkins case, which is being brought by Tom Brady's lawyers,

Jeffrey Kessler and David Greenspan, I think if one of those cases gets to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court has to decide, what are we talking about with college athletes? Should they be paid either for their licensing or for some type of wage? To me, that could be a game changer. And that would attract a lot of interest because it's going to affect schools across the country. Now, it hasn't yet happened, but I think, Bill, if we see a case, one of those cases get to the Supreme Court, that's going to be huge because it could radically change the way we watch college sports and change the way schools fund college sports as well. Well, unfortunately, if it gets

to the Supreme Court, we're only going to have eight people on the Supreme Court for the next 17 years as they hash out all that stuff. Michael McCann, I'm glad we finally did this. I'm making you the unofficial legal expert of the Bill Simmons podcast. That is awesome. Thanks, Bill. Thanks, Bill. It's great to chat on this.

All right. And what's your Twitter handle, by the way, so people can follow you? It's McCannSportsBall. Okay. There you go. Thank you, Michael McCann. Thanks, Bill. All right. Thanks to Joe House. Don't forget to check out House's podcast. What's House's? Oh, Shaq House. Can't even get the name right. Shaq House, starting this week. Get ready for Shack House.

It's going to be good. I'm telling you. People like golf. People want a golf podcast. So we're going to give one to you. Thanks to Sling TV. It's the best way to watch games live. For just $20 a month, you get more than 20 live channels,

including TNT, TBS, and True TV, the March Madness channels. No installation, no extra gear, no annual contracts. You only need an internet connection. Start your seven-day free trial at sling.com slash Simmons for just $20 a month. Restrictions apply. Thanks to SimpliSafe, they'll give you 24-7 award-winning protection for just $14.99 a month. No contracts, no hidden fees. Start or cancel service when it works for you.

Studies show that security systems deter burglars at a rate at 90% for a home security you can trust. SimpliSafeBill.com. You save 10% with that. Thanks to HBO Now. You don't need cable or satellite to watch HBO anymore. Download the HBO Now app

and start your free one-month trial today. Next week, The Ringer will be announcing something that we're doing with HBO Now. Be ready for that. Thanks to SeatGeek, the presenting sponsor of the BS Podcast and Channel 33. And thanks to The Ringer. Sign up for our free newsletter,

theringer.com. Talk to you later in the week. We about this bitch. Anytime y'all want to see me again, rewind this track right here, close your eyes, and picture me rolling.