The Bill Simmons Podcast - Featuring Andre Iguodala, Van Lathan, and Bakari Sellers. Plus: RIP, Tom Seaver. 

Episode Date: September 4, 2020

The Ringer's Bill Simmons reacts to the Raptors' last-second victory over the Boston Celtics to bring the series to 2-1, as well as the Rockets' Game 7 against the Thunder (1:13). Then Bill is joined by 3x NBA champion and Miami Heat member Andre Iguodala to discuss joining the Heat in February of 2020; playing with teammates like Duncan Robinson, Tyler Herro, Bam Adebayo, and Jimmy Butler; the toughest NBA players he ever had to guard; pausing the playoffs and the large player meeting that followed; and the U.S. Open, PGA Tour, and more (15:38). Then Bill talks with Bakari Sellers and Van Lathan about the 2020 presidential election, fighting for social justice in America, the coronavirus pandemic, and more (1:06:20). Finally, Bill remembers the great Tom Seaver by reading an essay he wrote about him in 2001 titled "Do I Have Anything Left?" (2:05:50) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Coming up on this podcast, in one second, we're going to be talking to Andre Iguodala, bringing in Bakar Sellers and Van Lathan. Then I had a few things to say about Tom Seaver. So that is the agenda. I want to talk about basketball really say about Tom Seaver. So that is the agenda. I want to talk about basketball really quickly here at the top. So it's Thursday night. I was going to put this up earlier, but I needed two hours to recover from a devastating Celtics loss. Just devastating. They had a chance to sweep them. They're better than Toronto. And now it's 2-1. Toronto has life. Toronto throws the kitchen sink at the Celtics. They play Lowry 46 minutes.

He's got five fouls most of the fourth quarter. Van Vliet plays, I think, 43 minutes. They're just running those guys in the ground because they know the moment they come out, they're not going to be able to score, which is smart. It's exactly what Coach Budd didn't do with Milwaukee the first two games where he's playing Giannis like it's January.

And meanwhile, they're down to nothing in the series. Nick Nurse is like, I can't survive without Lowry and Van Vlien out there. Rides them. Totally works. And yet somehow the Celtics still go ahead with 0.5 seconds left. Great play by Kemba. And now it looks like the Celtics are headed for a sweep. Brad Stevens brings Taco

Fallon to guard the inbounds pass. I will never understand that one. Nothing I hate more than an ice cold guy coming on the court. I always feel like it's a bad omen. I can't explain it as much as I love Taco. And they have a defensive lapse, miscommunication. All of a sudden, OG Ananobi's wide open in the corner, somehow takes a three in half a second. And instead of up 3-0 with the chance to be cruising, 7-0 in the playoff bubble, the Celtics let the Raptors back into it. Now, they didn't really play that well today.

Other than Kemba, nobody was making shots. They kept letting Toronto hang around. Toronto really, really, really threw everything they had into that game today, though, and barely won. So if you're looking for silver linings for the Celtics, they still haven't played a great game in this series. Toronto did everything they could, and barely, barely, barely, by a miracle shot,

were able to avoid going down 0-3. And I think the biggest thing is Siakam has just stunk. And they seem like they think he can post up Jalen Brown. He just can't. They can't get him going. They can't unlock him. So all of their offense is coming from these two guards. And I think as the series goes along, especially once we get to game six, game seven, if it gets there, the tendency of that as the guards, the legs start to go and it just becomes harder and harder for them to create offense. But that backcourt was tremendous today. And, you know, the Celtics, they're up for a

couple of times there with like a minute and a half minute left bad possessions. And then it still felt like they were going to steal, steal a game there, but man But man, to let Toronto off the hook, just brutal. So that was one thing that happened since the last time we had a podcast. The other one is we had a game seven with Houston in Oklahoma City. And it was one of those games where there were really no winners other than Lou Dort, who ended up being the guy who got his shot blocked with the season on the line at the end,

but he kept them in that game. Chris Paul, Jonathan Sharks wrote a really good piece on The Ringer about the last 12 years of Chris Paul and just over and over again, even though he carries himself like he's this guy, he's the alpha dog. We talked about it, me and House on Tuesday night, the game six performance he had.

These deciding games, these huge moments, he just doesn't have a huge, huge positive resume in these situations. And obviously neither does James Harden. Harden made that block at the end, but this was another head-scratching Harden performance where he talked afterwards, like, I couldn't get my shot to fall.

It's like, well, when has your shot fallen in a big game? Cause I'm hard pressed to remember the time. I don't know whether the moment becomes too big for him or he tries to do too much or what happens, but he just couldn't get it going as usual. Sorry to say, sorry to be a dick, but as usual, couldn't get it going in a must-win game. And the Rockets were still able to pull it out. But with the Chris Paul thing, it's interesting. I was thinking after that Sharks piece. We've seen these small guys in playoff games over and over again

not be able to get over the hump. And there's been a variety of reasons. Iverson, the closest he came was he made the finals in 2001 and was able to pull out one game. But, um, other than that, his playoff resume was, was just not good. I mean, over and over again, just getting knocked out pretty early, usually round one, Steve Nash was another one, two-time MVP. When got to the playoffs, it just becomes harder and harder for a guard to become the dominant guy

on a team that wins four straight rounds. They take a bigger punishment. Defenses can either collapse on them or if they're a distributor like Nash was, kind of force him to try to score too much and take away all the passing outlets, things like that. But if you go on through, even going back to Bob Cousy in the 50s before Bill Russell showed up, where Bob Cousy was the best guard in the league, the first great guard in the

history of the league, and could never get over the hump until Bill Russell showed up. This is why I value Isaiah Thomas so much historically. And this is, you know, as advanced stats and all this stuff, people start using the numbers to judge guys because they didn't see them and they weren't there. Not to be an I was there guy. But I think the thing that made Isaiah so special was what a closer he was for his size. It was so unusual for a small guy. He was 6'1".

He's my, he's probably my height. Over and over and over again, he could close big games and, and was just, you were just terrified of him late. He could always get a shot. He usually made the right play with the rare exception of the Birdsteel in 1987 but that's why I hold him in such high esteem and that's why the stats when you're talking about Isaiah and his place in

history and people like Chris Paul is the best point guard of all time Isaiah to me is still the best little guy I've ever seen and the reason is he could have averaged 27 to 29 a game if he wanted to. I think any situation you wanted from him, he would have been able to deliver it. If you wanted him to have a 2001 Iverson season, he could have had it. He understood pretty early on to use his skills, his playmaking, all the things that made a team win to get everybody involved and then take over when it matters. He understood that balance better than anybody. And I think Chris Paul is the logical successor to that. Chris Paul's a guy, he's just, everybody is probably better off if it's the right kind of basketball situation where he's going to just make everybody around him better.

You saw it in OKC this year. But that closer thing with him, which he was able to do in game six and which he did really well during the regular season in the playoffs, just hasn't been there consistently. And there's so many, you go through his postseason history, 2014 and 15, I think, are the biggest black marks against him. 2018, he gets hurt against the Warriors. But he just never really had that Isaiah moment where Isaiah, that team should have won three straight titles. I think they would have won in 88 if Isaiah didn't sprain his ankle.

They win in 89, they win in 90. And he was, out of anybody, able to find that balance between um running a team getting everyone involved and then taking over when it matters and you know i think i had i had him when i wrote my book i think i had him like 22 something like that in the pyramid he's probably dropped a couple spots since just because some guys jumped him. But when I think about the best pure point guards of all time, I still have to start with Isaiah. I don't care about the PR and the efficiency and the true shooting and all this. Not to sound like a fucking dinosaur, but I just think people didn't value stats like that back then. And honestly, the efficiency, nobody had efficiency like that back then. What Isaiah brought to the table was he could do all of these different things that so

many of these other great point guards were able to do. Nash, Jason Kidd, Chris Paul, Gary Payton, you name it, but could also close and could be the best guy on a back-to-back championship team. That matters. I know he had some great players in that team. You know, Rodman was on there, Lambeer, Vinnie Johnson, Mahorn for the first one, Mark Aguirre, but that was his team. And his place in history, even saw it in the last dance, doesn't get the Olympic team, things like that. Not to turn this into a whole Isaiah monologue, but I think when I look back at Chris Paul historically someday,

the stats are going to look fantastic. By every single metric, he was awesome. But yet the playoff thing, it matters. I'm sorry, it just does. It matters that in the last two minutes of that game seven, yet again, he couldn't make those one or two plays that swung the game. And if anything, like that last play,

they basically, they're daring him to drive into a bunch of people, which he does. Then he whips the ball off Gilgis Alexander, who then gets it. And then he just kind of recedes from the play. He needed it, is my point. He really, really needed that moment. You know, now he's 35 years old. We've never seen a guard his size really succeed past this age. And I think that was probably his last chance.

And it would have been an amazing story for him to stick it to the Rockets, the team that traded him. Look, I still think he's one of the best 30, 35 players ever. But if you're asking me who's on my all time list, do I have, would it, would I rather have Isaiah Thomas or Chris Paul for one series? Um, I just would rather have Isaiah Thomas. I was there for it. The guy was a killer. And, um, when he missed, you were shocked. So, um, So for the little guy championship belt, for me, it's still Isaiah.

And Chris Paul, you can throw all the stats at me that you want, but disappointing that he was never able to get over the hump. Now Harden's in a situation where had they lost that game, that would have been catastrophic. But now he's going to this Lakers series. They're the huge underdogs. In a weird way, it's a good situation for them. No pressure at all. They're supposed to lose. They have this weird, goofy team with no center and a broke owner. Davis is going to get 40 points a game. LeBron, as soon as he goes by one person, it's going to be a layup line for him.

And in a roundabout way, it's kind of a nice spot for Harden. The spot that he hasn't been great at over and over again over the course of his career was a spot like game seven the other night. They're the favorites. The world comes crashing down if they lose. And you kind of look to your guy and you're like, hey man, if you want to have one of those

39 point games where he hit nine threes, like tonight's the night. and you kind of look to your guy and you're like, hey, man, if you want to have one of those 39-point games where he hit nine threes like tonight's the night, I think about Steph Curry last year in that Houston series when they lose Durant, and it really seems like the title is, the back-to-back-to-back is teetering, and he stinks in the first half, rallies, and has that incredible

second half best game of his career, most important game anyway. And Harden just needs one of those. And honestly, Chris Paul needs one too. And, you know, it's unfair to just say, because of these seven games, you weren't as great as this guy. But I think the difference is you really find out who's great when there's just an incredible amount of pressure and the highest stakes possible. And unfortunately, that's basketball and that's sports. It just is. So we'll see how James Harden does with not a lot of pressure on him this round.

But I was bummed for Chris Paul because I really do like watching him. It's frustrating that he just couldn't have a moment. And I think if you go back, you think like that Spurs series when the Spurs are defending champs and the Clips beat him and he was great that series. He had a really nice seven game series against the young Warriors team before they won the titles. He went toe to toe with the 08 Spurs, took them to seven. But for the most part, it's been disappointing. And I don't totally blame him. I think it's really hard. NBA history has shown over the last 70 years, if you're six foot one or under point guard as your best player, it's hard to win four straight rounds. It's hard for them physically. It's the science and geometry of the game just for whatever reason makes that really hard.

And we even saw it with Dame Lewick recently where the bubble MVP goes to round one against a really good team in the last three games. There's just little guys, just harder. It's a harder road.

So when I think about Isaiah, people always ask, well, you overrate Isaiah. Look at the numbers. He wasn't even that good of a three-point shooter. I think about Isaiah, people always ask, well, you, you overrate Isaiah. Look at the numbers. He wasn't even that good of a three point shooter. Well, nobody was in the eighties, but that's why I quote unquote overrate Isaiah.

That dude was a fucking killer and he won two straight titles and he should have had three. And in any big game, he was there, he was showing up and he was going to be either the best part in the court or the second best part of the court. And that's who he was. So he still has the title for me. All right. We have a lot to get to first, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, before the playoffs,

I told you guys on this podcast, Miami and the Clips, 40 to 1 odds to meet in the finals. That was my big bet. I thought everyone was sleeping on this Miami team. I know as a Celtics fan, I do not like the matchup for the Celtics. You just have this weird

team of all these guys, different skills, very malleable. Andre Iguodala, you were just sitting at home until late January, hoping for a good playoff situation. This is the best possible playoff situation. I was doing more than sitting at home,

but I understand what you mean. I just was trying to get a good gauge of a good situation for myself and what I wanted to do the next year or two. It was always the team that was

on the radar. It's funny, I had read Pat Riley's book, Winning Within, about six, seven years ago. I don't even know how I came across the book, but I had a pretty good idea of what he was about and the organization they had built there since 95. And it came all of a sudden. It was really fast how things develop.

But it was just things like know, things like that. When you stay patient, they come about and try to take advantage of a unique situation. So just trying to take advantage of it right now. Did you feel like you were in proper game shape? 90%, 80%? Like, how do you even gauge that when you're not able to be in an NBA season?

Well, that was pretty funny. You know, the team's, the culture here is pretty big on body fat when you're not able to be in an NBA season? Well, that was pretty funny. You know, the team's, the culture here is pretty big on body fat and wanting to be in top conditioning shape. And I came in, I've been working out a lot. That's something I do just on a regular. And I tell people all the time, regardless of, you know, whenever I decide to retire, I'll probably be lighter. You know, I'll be just as good as shape.

You know, I'll still be fit. It's just kind of the genes that I've been blessed with. But they took my body fat and I was around 6% body fat, or maybe it's five and a half. And I know coach Spoh was like, how much time do you need? And I'm like, you know, I haven't played a game since the final. So, you know, give me some time, a week or two, maybe we'll see. And I get my body fat took and he was like, oh, you're ready to go suit up next game.

It was pretty funny. Wow. For you right in. When did you, when did you know this was a contender? Cause I really started to feel in the bubble before the playoffs that I was like, man, this team, especially for like a team like Milwaukee, the way they can always have three shooters on the floor, all the guys they can throw at Giannis. This team's like a problem, but it didn't seem like most,

it seemed like the nerdy basketball fans saw it, but not everybody saw it. When did you know? I think when I got to the team and I was seeing little spurts here and there of what we can do. You know, the name Duncan Robinson has become more and more of a household name,

but I hadn't really seen him play and I hadn't had a chance to practice against him. So I started seeing him and I saw the work ethic of Tyler Hero. And I was like, whoa, you know, this kid's this kid's different. You know, you know, you can see guys who are really talented and you see those kids who just have a knack for just wanting to be really good and they really have a joy in working hard which is a very rare trait especially nowadays with you know the way that AAU has kind of disrupted the game you know kids aren't earning they aren't earning it as much as they used to uh but you know he's one of those guys who he's earning it. And then playing with Gorin, knowing what he's been able to do. And then

Jimmy was kind of in and out early on when I got there. But just seeing it here and there, Derrick Jones, it's just all up and down the lineup. You're just seeing so many different things. I always knew Bam Adebayo was this good. Because Sean Livingston had been telling

me about him for about two years he's like yo this is kid named bam out of value in miami he's legit so i always kept an eye on him and then when i got to see him i'm like whoa like he's superstar level yeah so the interesting thing is we never played together as a complete unit uh before uh COVID hit before the season was shut down right we always had like 80 percent of the team whether it be Jimmy was out or Warren was out or uh I don't think Bam was in the game but uh Tyler Hero was out uh for he I didn't play like one game with him before it was shut down it It was the last game against Charlotte. So we never played with a complete unit. Myers Leonard was out the entire time.

So I just saw so many different lineups like you've been talking about. I'm like, yo, we got, we can do something special because I can see it here and there. We just haven't been able to put a complete team out there. The Tyler Herro thing hurts my feelings. You know about the coin flip, right? I do not know about the coin flip.

Celtics and Miami last draft, they tie for the 13th pick. Coin flip. I do remember that now. It should have been like leading ESPN. It should have been shown live on ABC. Celtics lose. They get 14. Miami, and then he's dropping.

He's going to go somewhere between 10 and 13, and he's sitting there at 13 just like please don't take him 20 years old but there's a fearlessness to him and I think your whole team has that I would describe it other than the lineup how malleable you guys can basically play

handle any type of situation there's a fearlessness and there's a toughness and I thought that really surfaced in especially game one. Milwaukee wasn't ready for it because there's a loose ball. You guys were getting it. There is a rebound. You guys are getting a hand on it.

There was just an intensity that you could see them trying to adjust to it. I thought they adjusted better in game two, but you've been on tough teams before. I would say that, obviously, the Warriors, that was one of the hallmarks, but from a playoff toughness standpoint, doesn't that have to be there? Can you win a title without that? I definitely think you have to have it

in the teams that... I definitely think if you finish first in the regular season, you have a toughness to you. I definitely think we have a toughness to them. So, you know, I definitely think he has a toughness to him. You know, but historically, you go back, you look at Pat Riley's teams, you know, he's just injected that into the DNA of wherever he's at.

You know, you go back to the Lakers teams, you definitely go to the Knicks teams. That's all they were about. Oh, yeah. That was the epitome of the Knicks, you know, in the early 90s. And you saw it once he got to Miamirian you know that that was the epitome of the knicks you know in the early 90s and um you saw it once he got to miami you know ron cycling and you know you got alonzo morning um you got some pretty tough lineups out there the damn marley's you know tim hardell pj browns uh you know you got some gritty guys so it's always been in that dna you know udonis

haslam is the epitome of it. You know, his career with the team the last, I don't know, 18, 17, 17, 18 years. Honestly, Wade was like that too when they took him fifth, you know, and that's as tough as anybody. Right, right. But I mean, people don't even see that in Dwayne

and in Dwayne's game, but that's something that was just there from the beginning. You know, you saw him as a rookie getting through the first round and him going after people. And then him, what he did in the second round against Indiana his rookie year, you know, you just kind of see that in guys. And, you know, they call it the – that's a heat guy. You know, they identify those guys early on.

And then even if you're not on the team, they're identifying those guys on other teams that they go up against as potential acquisitions. Look at you. You just, that heat Kool-Aid, you chugged it. They cleansed the Warriors Kool-Aid out of your system. They put the heat Kool-Aid right in there.

I just pay close attention to, you look at teams like, the San Antonio Spurs is the same thing. They do the exact same thing. And I know a little secret about them. It's like there's one particular player that they're looking for that doesn't quite fit the mold, but fits the mold. I know what that player is.

So those teams that have longevity with success, they've built a great culture, and there's certain things that they're looking for, certain tangibles they're looking for, and they can make the most of that and make great teams around it. And that happens in football too. I think the Ravens and the Patriots are like

that. There's specific types of players and when they get them, they're like, oh, that makes sense. That's a guy who should be in it. And Miami's definitely like that. Was there a specific moment where you were like, holy shit, we could actually win the title with this team? I don't think it was a specific moment where you were like, holy shit, we could actually win the title with this team? I don't think it was a specific moment. I think it was just gradually happening.

Yeah. Because even the first championship I won with the Warriors, like, I didn't, it wasn't like, oh, we got a chance to win a championship. Like, I honestly didn't know that we were going to win a championship until JR stopped making threes. Right. We're up like nine until JR stopped making threes. We're up like nine and he keeps making threes.

And it's like, he missed the last one and we throw the ball in the air. And it's like, it's like, holy shit. Like we're about to win the championship. Like you kind of like felt it throughout the year, but it was like, you don't know until you actually do it. It's like, that's the incredible feeling, feeling about winning your first championship. It's like, you don't know it's real until it actually happens. So with this team, it's like little things happening here and there.

And it's like, okay, okay. And then for me, it's just identifying that void. Like, okay, what are we missing? Okay, what could another team exploit? It's like the art of war. You try to find your weakness before your opponent does. And then you're like, okay, cool. I know it was an area of attack a team could try on us. And then how do we defend that or how do we shield that?

So that's really been, you know, that's really kind of been my calling card, you know, later stages of my career. Just trying to fill that void and then make a team pay for trying to exploit it. It's the ideal 2020 blueprint because you can make threes. So you're never out of a game. You can defend wings, interchangeable, multiple guys. You never don't have somebody who can guard wings, which is, it's impossible to really succeed now in this day and age without these things. And then you guys are tough, but the Butler piece,

nobody was sure, including myself. Like I always feel like you need a superstar to win a title. The Butler piece is like, is he a superstar? Is he one level below? What was the biggest misconception you had before you played with him that you were surprised by? I don't think I really had any misconceptions about him.

You know, you compete against a person, and there's certain guys you develop a respect for, just how hard they play and just the way they compete. And I don't want to compare him to CP, but CP's got this thing where people, I mean, he may rub his opponent the wrong way because of his competitiveness.

So people have an issue with CP because he wants to win. And I always tell people, I wouldn't want to coach a different type of player. That's the kind of guy I would want to coach. A guy that's going, you know, if it's a game seven, we got to get a win. Who's the guy you're looking for? And I'll tell everyone who's ever had an issue with CPM, like you're, you're picking him in a game seven and they all say, damn, you're right. I'm like, I know I'm right. Like this guy's, you know, I talk about, you know, we're kind of like the AAU era has baby, the really talented kids and superstardom and the fame and all these things that come with the game.

They don't work as hard for it. Not saying they're not working hard, but they don't have to go through those mental grinds. They don't have to work as hard for it. Not saying they're not working hard, but they don't have to go through those mental grinds. They don't have to work as hard for it. They don't have to go through anyone doubting them. They don't have to go through, you know, there's a team that they can't get over the hump. And people wonder why, you know, now they're getting to the point where it's like,

well, why can't this guy have success in the playoffs? Or why can't this guy get deeper into the playoffs? Or different things like that. But they're a superstar. And it was like, if you go all the way down the line, all the way back, MJ had Detroit. And LeBron had to go through the mud to get it. He really had to earn it. And I talk about a lot of wings in my era.

All those guys had to, like Paul Pierce, he had to go through the mud and get it. Like, Kobe had to, you know, Utah was kicking his butt. He had to go out and, like, he had to get it. He had to get it through the mud. Like, the game, I'm hoping the game doesn't change too much, you know, where we're giving these guys passes or, you know, they're getting to the line too many times. And it's like they're not really struggling to get over that hump, which every great player has gotten over. And back to the point, somebody like Jimmy, he's one of those guys that has been through the mud.

He's been through some really tough series. He's been on some teams where, you know, the cohesion may not have been there, but he's just trying to figure his way through it. And he's just gotten to a great situation now where he's got, you know, he's got some killers right next to him, and they don't have any fear. You know, they want that pressure. You know, they want the heat, you know, for lack of a better word. You know, they want that.

They want all the smoke is what we call it. You know, they want all that that comes word, you know, they want that. They want all the smoke is what we call it. You know, they want all that. It comes with, you know, going through tough times and having to get over or get a game through the mud to win a tough playoff game, you know, similar to a game two. You know, you have 1-0 against the number one seed. You know, you know it's kind of like a desperation game for them. You got to get that win or a series even,

and we were able to pull that out. It says a lot about the guys that are around him, says a lot about him. And it just shows kind of like the culture that we, that the team, you know, Pat and Spoh, they've been able to build.

Yeah. It's an old school playoff team. Cause like that game too is a good example, right? Desperation game for Milwaukee. I can't say you guys played amazing. You know, even you look at the points,

a bunch of guys scored, but there was no, you know, you know, like the Celtics snuck out game two against Toronto because Tatum was amazing. You know, even you look at the points, a bunch of guys scored, but there was no, you had no, you know, like the Celtics snuck out game two against Toronto because Tatum was amazing. Right. Marcus made five threes in the fourth.

Nobody else played well, but they gutted it out because they're good defensively and they were able to get two guys going. You guys can win these games where it's like, who is the best part? I'm not even sure, you know, which I think for,

especially as you go deeper in the playoffs, those teams are really tough because Milwaukee, they have the best player in the league, the two-time MVP. And it's like, you could just keep throwing so many guys at him, including yourself. I got to say, I wasn't expecting you to defend Giannis as much as you've defended him those first two games. But, you know, different strategy.

Well, I think it's just, you know, it's that Swiss Army knife. It's almost like you need to have, you have to have now in order to go deep into the playoffs and try to make a run at it. You know, we have a couple of guys, of those guys, you about it, all the way down the line. Jimmy, Jake Rodder, myself, Derrick Jones Jr., Bam Adebayo, Solomon Hill, but you know, you talk about a guy who I could talk

basketball with all day who gets it. We can throw him in and he'll be ready to go. And then we got a guy no one's ever heard of, Stanford, I call him Stanford kid, Kz acapella i don't even know how to say his last name yet yeah um kz my fellow nigerian brother but um he's been uh kind of like you know the the honest in our scout team and you're talking about somebody coming full speed full force at you he's you know six eight can handle the rock and full force at you. He's 6'8", can handle the rock, and full force, and he's strong, and

he's wiry. We were laughing and joking about suiting him up one day. We just got a lot of different, like you said, pieces. We can simulate a lot of different things, which in turn enables us to switch up how we want

to play the game. We can go outside. We can go inside. We can throw a defense lineup out there. We can throw a defense lineup out there. We can throw an offensive lineup out there. We're very dynamic in our combination of lineups. Last thing on the Giannis thing. You've guarded LeBron at his peak.

You've guarded Giannis close to his peak. Are those the two best athletes you've ever tried to defend? Or would you put somebody else in that conversation? I'm just talking athletic specimen, super duper coordinated, explosiveness, strong, like just every single check mark is a 10 out of 10. LeBron's probably the top because his IQ, his athleticism is superb. And him being one of the – he might be one of the best passers of all time.

Like, you put somebody that athletic with that IQ being able to put the ball in spots for a teammate that you wouldn't imagine. You know, him being baseline and a poster behind a back pass. Yeah. He puts it behind him in the opposite corner on the money. And then he can see, like, you know, that's just next level. So, LeBron. But I think one guy people tend to forget about is Vince Carter.

I had to guard Vince in his prime when he was in Jersey. And I knew Vince as like this ultra athletic guy, but I didn't realize his shooting capabilities and seeing him shoot from half court. Like it was just a regular jump shot. And like, you know, we call them Katie makes when the ball goes into the back of the back rim straight down, like it just hits straight down. You don't have to rebound. You stand in the basket.

And he had those makes from half court. I'm like, whoa. That's a different type of guy. And then I came in that era where there was a lot of – that wasn't three-pointers. It was a mid-post for wings, isolation. The stackhouse game. The stackhouse game.

And you would get embarrassed. You almost had to hate guys because you had to go with that mentality because a guy will get 40 if he could. Yeah. In that, you know, early 2000s era. So, you know, just, you know, and then it was, now the game is a little bit more open. It's not as physical. So, you know, you're not able to, you know, bump a guy off his block. Well, back then, you know, we were bumping guys.

And you still had guys being able to go up and over you and finish and crazy dunks. You know, Brown's one of those guys. And Vince is one of those guys. You know, you had some pretty athletic players back then. Your coach, Steve Kerr, we were talking on this podcast about Kawhi versus Pippen. Because I always thought Pippen, when I was growing up

and in my 20s, I was like, that's the best perimeter defender I've ever seen. And then some of the stuff Kawhi was doing the last five years, I was like, Kawhi's I think on that level. And Kerr quickly jumped in. He's like, so is Dre. Dre has to be in that conversation with those two guys.

So if that's three, who's the fourth in that Mount Rushmore for you? Oh, that's a great question. Because it's got to be somebody who can guard guys of different sizes, who has the athleticism and the defensive IQ and the hands, I would say would be the package. Or maybe it's just three. Maybe we haven't had the fourth guy yet. No, we have a guy. I just got to put my thinking cap on.

That's a tough one. All right. You don't have to answer. I'm here to throw tough questions at you. I have an answer in five minutes. All right. Can you tell me what the last couple weeks were like in the bubble I know you were heavily involved last week

with you know once the Bucks boycotted that game and the ball room and 250 people in there all that stuff you were one of the lead voices you're one of the respected veteran stars in the league what was your role during that day and when you came out of that, that night, did you think there was going to be basketball? Oh, that was an interesting, uh, interesting times, but I remember doing an

interview and I was like, you know, it was really been, uh, like thought provoking. Uh, it was like a breath of fresh air and i enjoyed it and they were like how could you enjoy that and i always say how many times do we get that many nba players in the room at the same time you know it's always you know around labor negotiations and you know there's a fear the checks might stop coming in and everybody rushes in you know really quickly you know you rush on the flights and everyone gets to New York. Even then, I don't think we get that many guys. So that was a beautiful thing to see. It was very emotional. It was tough because people don't understand, you know,

we have to shoulder a lot of the responsibilities to right a lot of the wrongs that have been done to our people. And, you know, the spotlight's been on us lately. And historically, athletes have been punished for speaking out on the social injustices that happen within our communities. You know, we all know the history of that, you know, specifically Muhammad Ali's and the Jim Brown's and, you know, Tommy Smith's. So it's been, you know, you always trying to, as an athlete,

you always get the juggling of how do you perform and capitalize financially on your career, but at the same time stand for something. It's like you want to be Michael Jordan, you want to be Muhammad Ali. And there's pressure from the media, there's pressure from your agency or your management team because they want you to check every single box.

Because in their mind, it's not necessarily what impact you really have. It's just the economic value that you can create, not just for yourself, for them too. So there's a lot that goes into it. And then you got friends and family members. I don't know if I've ever seen so many proposals and so many things to take to Congress or the Senate, you know, get laws changed. And I'm like, you know, I'm not an expert. And we always talk about this. We're not politicians and we're not coming from a political standpoint. You know, like I said before, it's a human, it's a human agenda,

it's a human organization. And, you know, when you're seeing people who look just like you being treated the way that we've been treated, and this isn't something new for us. We've always seen this. But it seems as if, you know, we're told you made it out and you've escaped that, you've been blessed and you've created all this wealth for yourself. Leave it alone. That's another hard thing to swallow, knowing that you can make a difference. So all those things coming into place within like four or five hours and it's like can make a difference. So all those things coming into place within like four or five hours and it's like, make a decision. I mean, I'm on the board of a publicly traded company and we have quarterly board meetings and it takes hours upon hours and days upon days and

weeks to make a decision and resolutions and- Have an agenda. All these things going to place and everyone's saying, okay, this happened. Just shut it down right now. You know, what other company or what other CEO says, I'm not going to work today. Um, because there's this issue, you know, there's, there's different ways to go about it. And for us just trying to come up with the best way and trying to be proactive and trying to be proactive and trying to be about action uh it's just a lot that goes into it so i was really proud of us for the way we handled it the way you know we might have had a disagreement but we were able to say

let's take a night relax clear our minds get some rest come back and have another discussion about it and then have another discussion we know with, with our governorship and the commissioner on the task force or things that goals we have in mind moving forward, you know, things that are immediate action and things that are going to be put into action as we continue to get further into, you know, the agenda. So it was a lot, man. It wasn't much sleep, having a lot of conversations, a lot of texts, just trying to shuffle through so many ideas and so many people wanted to, I think their head was in the right place in terms of how they would help

but not understand it. You're one of 200 people with a PowerPoint presentation on what you guys should do. It also seemed like you had some, rightfully so, genuinely discouraged people who felt like they had made real sacrifices here to go in the bubble and there were going to be all these good things that came out of it. You're using your platform.

And then all of a sudden you're back to square one after Jacob Blake. And it's like, well, why are we here? That seemed to be just watching this happen, sitting here in California, that seemed to be their current theme. It's like, well, why are we here? That seemed to be just watching this happen, sitting here in California. That seemed to be their current theme. It's like, well, why are we here?

Why are we doing this? Well, since, since the Brianna Taylor situation, you know, I think we counted, uh, and correct me if I'm wrong.

It was about, it's been about 30 police shootings since then, you know? And, uh, I think what we're trying to understand is knowing it's going to happen and trying to put something together where sooner than later, there's something in place where we can address them right away and we don't have to shut down as soon as something happens.

Yeah. Okay. These happen, shut down. This happens, shut down. I mean, we would never exist. We can't exist that way because the system is set up for our people to be oppressed, you know, systematic oppression. And it goes all the way back to, you know, I don't want to be a historian, but it goes always all the way back to slavery and, you know, slave catchers were the first form of law enforcement or police, you could call it. And there's been this vicious cycle of politicians when they're given a campaign. So, you know, the fear tactic, you know, getting a large group of people to think that fear is the way to get votes and to get put in place. And, you know, you've seen it in the Reagan administration. You've seen it around, you know, the freedom fighters and the Black Panther Party and the counterintelligence program.

All those things have been put in place as a way to keep a class of people, people to be fearful of them and then keep them in a lower class. So it's just something that us as African-American community have to continue to grow. That's why we're a group economics on the back of my jersey. You know, it's all about every majority of communities or a lot of communities. You know, they have a system in place where they can help their people, whether it be with loans, growing businesses, you know, public school funding in these areas are well funded. You know, you see a lot of suburbs don't have private schools because their public schools essentially are private schools. They're funded well.

You know, they have state-of-the-art facilities, whether it be for theater, arts, sports programs, all those things put into place. But for us, you know, with the redlining keeping us out and, you know, we're dealing with the bare minimums, we haven't been able to create a group economics where we're investing in our own communities and we're owning our own property. And we're you know, we have the highest spending dollar out of all communities in the world.

You know, we have the strongest spending dollar consumer spending dollars. Yet our money is least recycled among within our own community. So a lot of that is dealing with systematic oppression and people don't understand that. So when we address it, people think we're attacking a particular race or we aren't being American, but it's just trying to get people to understand

and have this education because me personally, I had to go out and seek it myself. The public school didn't teach me any of this. You know, so it was just a, it's another, another, one of the struggles, uh, being an African American, uh, who has some type of knowledge, not all the knowledge, but some type of knowledge of, uh, what's occurred historically in the country and then trying to spread it to

the other players and they're juggling so many other things. This is very complex. I call it a mean cocktail. Just so many things thrown in to kind of throw you off. Well, think about the league you walked into. What was it, 2004? Yes, 2004.

Did the Suns pass you or did you go right before? Oh, the Suns traded the pick. The Suns traded the pick. You could have been on the seven seconds or less Suns. They basically sold the pick. Yeah, that was tough. Yeah, the league you walked into basketball players. But now you have the Jalen Brown generation coming in who are walking right away being like, let's change stuff now.

I mean, that's got to make you guys feel great. Yeah, yeah. With Jalen, I'm a huge fan of Jalen. And, you know, teaching the guys about leverage, teaching the guys about, you know, and I'm trying to find the correct way to put this. And it's like, you know, figure your way out your first couple of years, because the window of opportunity is very small and you have to, you know,

you have to maximize your earning potential as well. Like I said, it's that juggling act. So you, you, you kind of have to silence yourself your first year or two and just kind of, you know, be PC, play the politics, learn the game. Take it all in. Take it all in while you're developing your game, solidifying yourself and who you are and creating value for yourself, you know, as your own entity, as a basketball player. And then from there, you know,

now you're gaining some power, you're getting some leverage, you're able to speak out on things and you're growing as a basketball player and then from there you know now you're gaining some power you're getting some leverage you're able to speak out on things um and you're growing as a person you're maturing you know at 22 23 you don't have a clue but you can go out there and you can start molding yourself and not depending on others to to mold you and you see that happen a lot with a lot of the management and agencies. They're trying to mold players, whether it be through Instagram or whatever's the vanity play at the moment. Now it's tech investments or a player investing in some product that's an athletic product and having ownership of a company. And I invested in this. And then the Instagram thing and how you interact with fans.

You know, a lot of shoe deals are done now, not just based on how good of a basketball player you are, but your impressions. You know, the impressions you have through social media. And I think there's a false sense of security within the area as well. So we've got to be very careful. That's why I'm really proud of a guy like Jalen Brown who has a sense of self, knows what he stands for, and it's more than just the fame and the fortune. He's been an amazing Celtic to root for. I'll tell you this, just in case you play Boston

next round, Tatum, don't believe the scouting report, Tatum and Brown, they can't shoot threes at all. And really bad athletes. They have this reputation for being athletic, but I don't see it. So I would just take it easy on those guys because they're not a problem at all. Marcus Smart is one of those guys who I'm thinking of going back to Scottie and Kawhi. I won't say

myself. I rarely give myself any credit as being good. I'm just okay as a basketball player. But I got my fourth guy. Marcus. You're going to be surprised. It's not Marcus, but Marcus is close. It's not Marcus. I've seen this guy guard Steph Curry very well. Steph still scored, but it's the best I've ever seen anybody guard Steph.

And I've seen this guy guard KD. And when I see him guard KD for 40 minutes, I say, whoa. But I already knew because we were teammates. Yeah? Drew Holiday. Oh! Yeah. Drew Holiday should have been defensive player of the year two or three times.

He should be first team defensive player every single year, but he'll never get that household name credit. Like I said before, it's kind of like not to take anything away from Giannis. I don't want to do that because he's solidified in who he is, but I'm starting to get afraid of that.

We're handing out superstardom. Drew's the guy that's got it through the mud and Drew Holiday is that guy. Took out Dame in a playoff series. Really, Gart was in his jersey. Yeah, I'm with you. We saw Dame shoot from half court, and he was the MVP of the bubble.

And you saw Drew. Just go back and look at that tape and look what Drew Holiday did. Drew Holiday took out the whole team because he had to guard CJ, too. Quick break to talk about FanDuel. We are teaming up with FanDuel again this football season, and we've got something new this time around.

All season long, you can play the free ringer mega contest on FanDuel. Here's how it works. Pick five NFL games

against the spread including one double down pick. Shout out to Gus Ramsey who created the double down. Get one point for every correct pick and two,

if you hit your double down pick, FanDuel will add up your score every week. You finish in the top 100 on this season long leaderboard. And guess what happens? You make the playoffs and you compete for a share of $25,000. It's that simple. I do not know what my picks are going to be this week. You're going to have to wait for Guess the lines with cousin Sal on Tuesday, because I actually have not looked at the lines yet. I try to stay true. Sal cheats. He's looked at every line. He's going to pretend, Oh my God, I didn't realize the jag. I am not a cheater like Sal has. I have not looked at the lines yet. I'm not going to look at the lines until we do guess the lines. When we do, I will give you at least my double down pick

on Tuesday night, play the Ringer Mega Contest for free every week, only on Fando. Again, it's free. Go to Fando.com slash Mega Contest to make your picks today. Once again, that is Fando.com slash Mega Contest. I bet you can't beat me. Back to

Andre Iguodala. I have you over time. Do you have three minutes to talk golf before you go? You know, I got all the time in the world for golf. First of all, are you playing golf in the bubble? I play a little bit. Not as much as I would like. I shot 80 one day on a tough course.

80? It was a tough course. And I doubled 18 because I decided I couldn't hit a straight tee shot. I've been drawing all day and then I hooked it in the hazard and got a double. It was an easy 78. Should have been an easy 79 and I doubled it. I was pissed, but I took 80 because I haven't been able to work on my game. So I haven't been able to dial in, but I was happy that day. I personally don't think anyone over 6'4 should ever shoot an 80 because I just don't.

The moving parts and the torque, it just seems like such a high degree of difficulty. So I'm really impressed even by the 80 that you were upset about. Curry, are you better than him? Who wins when you play? Well, I don't think people understand there's different levels of it. You compare me and Steph to a three-point shot.

It's not even close, right? Yeah. In terms of us shooting threes, it's the same thing in golf. It's not close. Who has the edge, you or him? No, he can really play on tour. Oh, you really think that? Oh, no, for sure.

His Korn Ferry tour now was a Web.com tour back then, but he's played on that tour. Oh, you really think that? Oh, no, for sure. He's playing a Corn Fairy tour now. It was a Web.com tour back then, but he's played on that tour. He should have made the cut, I think, his second year. He had one bad hole, and that's why he missed the cut. He would have made the cut against guys who was doing his 411. See, he has the craziest hand-eye coordination of any basketball player I've seen other than maybe

Bird. Just these two guys that there's just something different going on. So the fact that he would be great at golf is like not shocking to me. No, this dude's good. I mean, he may not have made the cut. He didn't finish last, that's for sure. But he was shooting even or under par through that two rounds on a legit.

Cameron Champ, he was playing with Cameron Champ they're in the same group like think about that wow steps right there but this guy like he wasn't like training for it like I remember the day before uh we played together and I took him to my course uh back in Cali and he had two balls he was like I just need to tee off two balls every time. I just need to figure out what ball I'm going to use. And I'm like, this is your practice? Like insane, right?

He's got it. He's good. He's good. He's like a plus one handicap. And you're like, you're like a big, big, big,

big fan of the tour. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, I'm in, I'm in a fantasy league. All that. Fantasy league.

Yeah. I'm in a fantasy league. Do you do daily fantasy too or no? It's like nine of us, uh, in a group league all day fantasy league yeah i'm in a fantasy league do you do daily fantasy too or no it's like nine of us uh in a group and uh it might be more it might be 12 now and uh it's one and done so you pick one golfer every tournament you only get to pick one guy per season oh so it's almost like survivor that's a good one right so whatever your purse is that week that's the money that hit that guy's a good one. Right. So whatever your purse is that week, that's the money. That guy's purse goes into your pot.

And then your percentage of the entire purse at the end of the year, that's how much you get at a pot because everyone puts in like 500 bucks. It's like the most you can lose is 500 and the most you can win is 500. So it's like... So you have like John Rahm this weekend, but that's the only time you could take him. Well, the U.S. Open and the Masters got pushed back so we still have those two tournaments

left those are only two tournaments left and then we don't do Eastlake because it's the playoff finale and then that purse is too complex and crazy to put into this pot so we don't add this week, but we do every other week.

So last week I had DJ and asked Scotty Scheffler because since the COVID, we picked two guys a week, but normally it's just one guy a week, but on the majors, we pick two guys, every major and the fifth major. The players. The players. We pick two guys, too. And then you have a golden pick.

So if you get a golden pick, so one time a year, you pick a guy, you call, this is my golden pick. And whatever that guy makes, his double. So whatever he makes, you double it. Oh, a double down guy. That's great. Yeah, yeah. But if your it. Oh, a double down guy. That's great. Yeah, yeah. But if your guy gets cut, that's zero dollars.

Gotcha. So you have to be really strategic on like which guys play well at which parts of the season. Like I know Roy plays really well like late in the season. So I'm picking him for the Masters. And then you got to know like

Brooks only plays in the majors. So you pick him in the major. He's a really good double down guy because he'll be to get Brooks only plays in the majors. So you pick him in a major. He's a really good double down guy because he'll get a top 10 in the major. If he's healthy. Right, if he's healthy. I'm worried about, I think there's some neat thing going on with him. You're right. I should text him.

I've gotten pretty cool with like, I got like five guys that we regularly talk on tour. Oh man, that's an advantage for the fantasy league. Yeah. And then three of them, I don't ask them any Fantasy League questions, though.

I've learned that they don't really like talking about golf as much. Like, JT likes talking about golf. Justin Thomas. Yeah. Who he could be,

he can win it all. Like, he's one of the guys that can win it this weekend. And then Brooks doesn't like talking about golf much. He's just, you know, he's like chilling, shooting

shits. Um, All right. So who's, who's winning the U.S. Open? The U.S. Open's in the, it's in East Coast, right? No, it's in New York. New York, yeah. Uh, the U.S. Open. JT's got a chance, man. Uh,

Justin Thomas has a chance. John Rahm's playing really well. Jon Rahm's been like the breakout, almost like Dame Lillard in the bubble before the playoffs. He's always been good, though. He's only like 26. Everybody was waiting for him to have the year he's having right now.

It was coming. The thing about him, he's like 6'3", 6'4". He's like 230. Like, he's a solid dude. And he doesn't have a crazy swing. So it's like longevity is going to be good for him. Yeah. And then he can putt it.

You can see he can putt it what he did last week. Well, he figured out up here a little too. He'd get too mad when he had a bad shot. He would take him out for like three holes. Yep. Yep. Yep. I think he's got a good calm. What basketball player is he? Oh, that's a good one. I was going to say Jimmy. I was thinking Jimmy.

Jimmy's got this mean thing where he can't play unless he hates something. He has to find something to hate. He needs to find an enemy or something. Yeah, yeah. Spoh's like, Jimmy, I love the anger, but let's just try to

control the anger where it doesn't drain you as much. Jimmy's playoff, Jimmy's been amazing. He got to number one this year, though. Jon Rahm did. He got to number one in the world he's been lights out

yeah he's good he's got it if you end up making the next round and then playing the Celtics if they end up making the next round the Celtics should just say

super nice things about Jimmy for like the three days leading up just everybody paying tribute to what a great player he is what an honor it is to be in a series

against him just try to diffuse all the anger so he's not mad at anybody. But he'll say that they're patronizing him and then he'll be really mad. They'll flip it around. Who do you think is the best golfer in the world right now? Would you say Brooks?

If your life depended on a tournament, who do you have? My favorite golfer is Rory. Yeah, I'm a Rory guy. If everyone was playing their best golf, I'm going with Rory. The most talented golfer is Rory. Yeah, I'm a Rory guy. If everyone was playing their best golf, I'm going with Rory. The most talented golfer is probably DJ. I agree.

DJ is like on another level. DJ is Tracy McGrady. He's got all the things you would ever want in a player. DJ is T-Mac. I don't know though. T-Mac couldn't get over the hump in the playoffs

for a long time. He couldn't get out the first round. But DJ has a major under his belt. That's true. Very fair. But DJ doesn't have a FedEx.

He should have a FedEx under his belt. DJ always seems like the sleeping giant in these tournaments that the other players are just kind of waiting for him to get involved. Because they know. What did Kevin Kisner say? He was like, when DJ's playing like the sleeping giant in these tournaments that the other players are just kind of waiting for him to get involved.

What did Kevin Kisner say? He was like, when DJ's playing like that, I'll stay out of his way and just trying to add to the bank account. Like, I'm just trying to get second or third. Like, I don't care about first. I think that golf has worked the best out of all the bubble sports, but the basketball has been way up there. I forgot to ask you what it's like to play without fans

because you probably hasn't had that happen since you were like in eighth grade, right? No, you got the world championships. When you play in the world championships or the Olympics, world championships more so has that vibe. In 2010, we went to Turkey, Istanbul. Yeah, KD.

That was KD's coming out party. That was probably the most fun I had playing basketball. And then like the seeding games, the playoff or the seeding games to get to the, the, the metal rounds. Yeah.

It was similar to the bubble. Now it's very similar with the lights and it wasn't, it wasn't that many fans in there. There were a few, but you know, they pipe in the sound and they were a lot of fun though. So it was kind of like, you know,

you play playing on a stage when it's on TV. We played at Radio City Music Hall, too, getting ready to go overseas to play in that. It had a similar vibe, too. You play basketball at college and in these different tournaments, you can play pretty much anywhere.

I kind of love it. Do you get to watch the other games or no? I'm going to be honest right now. You may not like what i'm gonna say i don't really watch basketball that much i watch and i'll watch it as work so if i know it's a matchup that i'll have in the future i'll watch student yeah so i'm watching like tendencies and then i'm obviously i'm watching like what the next round could be so i'm keeping keeping, you know, up to date on that. And then there's only like one or two guys I really like. So I'll watch them sometimes too.

Well, don't watch any Celtic games. Just listen to what I said. They can't shoot threes. Not athletic at all. Then the young guys get tired really. In the fourth quarter, Tatum just wears down. He's got nothing. Marcus Smart. Marcus Smart, five threes. I'm watching him closely. He has a

huge, large print on the game that people don't see. Those are the guys I like a lot, too, because that kind of reminds me of myself a little bit. I forgot to ask about your ankle. Your ankle's okay, I assume? Decent? It'll be where it needs to be when it needs to be there. That's a good answer.

When you're at that age you're at now and you have an injury like that, what's the recovery time. When you're at that age you're at now and you have an injury like that, what's the recovery time versus like when you're 22? I mean, when you're 22, I was, you know, you're back in the game. Like Luca. Luca's like, I have my ankle sprained up. I'll see you in game four. He's fine.

Yeah, you'll be fine. But as you get older, it's not even really the ankle. It was something else hurting from the ankle. And it was like, oh. Yeah, you know how it works too like as soon as it happened I'm like alright it's not hurting right now but in about two minutes I hope it doesn't blow up and this is going to happen you know all the pain is shooting

you in the back it was like alright this is happening I know what the x-ray is going to say before it says it I've been through it you know so many times Corver apologize to you send you a text I'm really sorry? No, we were teammates. So I'm totally fine. We were teammates.

And then he was a big help too. His name hasn't been said in terms of... Oh, in the ballroom? Yeah, in the ballroom. He was a big help too, man. We had a lot of discussions too. And he was on the board of the executive committee with the union. So we've been doing a lot of work together.

So Kyle's my guy. That foul is tough. Cause I think two thirds of the time it is completely 100% unintentional. The guy's just trying to block a shot. Yeah. It's unintentional, but I think they still have to protect him. Um,

it was great to talk to you. I hope you do more of these, you know, down the road as you, as maybe a little golf podcast or something. Um, if you ever want to come on our golf podcast as maybe a little golf podcast or something. Um, if you ever want to come on our golf podcast, just tell me.

Eric Anders Lane. He has his, uh, he has a great, uh, he's built a great golf community. He's called, uh,

the random golf club as well. Uh, it's like a line of golf clothing and, we talk a lot and he's telling me to do it too. So. See how easy it is. You just turn your computer on, you got a zoom,

you're ready to go. But it has to be very relatable to a large audience. It's like tech to tech world. You start small and then you scale out. You got to find a way to get a large listening base just for golf.

Because you can get your base, but it's large enough to get a Bill Simmons type of deal. No, you have to eat a bunch of stuff. Yeah, yours would have to... Yours would have to... I got that. You know, I'm right.

You have to have like... No, it would have to have like five, six pieces to it. Okay, yeah. So I wouldn't know what to expect. Like I might get a US Open preview one day. I might get you talking about what's going on with the tech stocks. I might get you with some investor. The stocks got beat up bad today.

It was going to happen. You knew that was going to happen. One of my stocks got hit by like 28% too. But I'm staying in it. Now's the time to buy. I tell everyone that. When you see stocks get hit 5%, 10%, buy, buy, buy. And they're like, what's going on?

People sell. It's the opposite. You know, when get hit 5-10%, buy, buy, buy. And they're like, what's going on? People sell. It's the opposite. When it shoots up and everybody's happy, that's when you sell. But when everything looks to be gloom and bleak, that's when you buy. It's a rewound. This could be part of your podcast. Thanks for everything you did last week. Thanks for all

the enjoyable basketball over the years. I really enjoyed watching you play. I thought that 2017 Warriors team, either first or second best team I've ever seen in person. That 86 Celts, that would be the other one. I know everything about Scottie Pippen. I know everything there is to know about Scottie.

Scottie's one of my favorite players in the world. I don't know if I've seen a person that can guard Kevin Durant, and I'll just leave it at that. I mean, you guys were like 120 a game, and you could get stops. Yeah, crazy. And anytime you're down 10, you could come back in a minute and a half. So I don't know.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Being down eight with a minute was like – Yeah. Yeah, that team was really good. All right, great to see you. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. Appreciate you, for real.

Yeah, thank you. I always enjoy the good conversations, so thank you for that. Appreciate it. Take care. All right. Great to see you. Thanks for coming on. All right. Thanks for having me. Appreciate you for real. I always enjoyed a good conversation. So thank you for that. Appreciate it. Take care. Thank you. Take it easy on the Celtics. I'll try. All right. We're bringing in Bakari Sellers and Van Lathan in one second. First, during this time of social distancing, connecting with friends over a beer today might look a little bit different as the original light beer Miller, has always been there to bring people together through Miller time. And right now it's a world where you can't always be with your people.

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And if you don't know their podcast, Bakari hosts the Bakari Sellers podcast, which has been awesome. Van is hosting Higher Learning with Rachel Lindsay, as well as The Wire way down the hall where I actually went on last week. Anyway, here they are. All right. Since the last time this guy was on the BS podcast, he launched his own podcast, the Bakari Sellers podcast. Another BS podcast. And he is trailing me, but gaining on me in the standings of most in-house recording fuck-ups for getting to record. I lead the ringer.

I think I have like nine, but you've three already. I have three already. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have three already, and we're just getting started. My goal is to not catch you. I forever want to be number two. That's the goal. I just can't.

I can't help it. I can't help myself. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And then there's a Van Lathan cameo. I know. He just pops up. I sent Van the Zoom.

Hey, Van Lathan. Van Lathan is here as well. Does he just pop up in everybody's show like this? Is he the podcast angel? The dark angel of the Ringer podcast? The dark angel of the Ringer podcast family? The dark angel of the Ringer podcast family. Wow.

That's my new nickname. What's up? How y'all doing? We were talking about all the things that have changed since Bakari was last on my podcast, including we have a VP who I think you predicted when you were on this pod, right? You said it was that, was that ever not going to happen or was it always a lock that it was going to happen? So I believe that, uh,

vice president Biden in his heart of hearts wanted Senator Harris for a long period of time, but I'm also very cognizant that there were some people who wanted to give him choices. And so, uh, you know, we had big Gretch, who's a great governor, Gretchen Whitmer, the great state of Michigan. We had Susan Rice, former NSA, probably will be the next secretary of state, who were in the final running. But at the end of the day, you know, the familiarity with the family was Kamala Harris. And I speak to, you know, my daughter to go down a rabbit hole. But about a year ago, September 1st, my daughter had her liver transplant. And this past week, we were at Duke, shout out to Duke University, their medical team, for her one-year biopsy that went extremely well.

Her liver was perfect. We're thanking God every day for that. But my wife was on the way to the hospital to take Sadie. The first person to text me at 6.15 in the morning was Kamala Harris. I mean, that's just the type of person she is. And so I'm really happy for her. You know, it's just this is a fun time. This is going to be whatever the polls say, this is going to be an extremely close election, extremely close election. We don't have blowout elections in this country anymore. The difference between this election and past elections is that not many people are undecided. Shout out to the one person in one of the most recent national

polls who said they had never heard of Donald Trump, that one black woman who, when the question was asked, said she had never heard of Donald Trump. I wish I could be her. So it's going to be close, but here we are. We're ready to rock and roll for 60 some odd days. That was like when they were doing the OJ trial jury and they found like eight people who didn't know who OJ Simpson was. We never know. Some people just don't know what's going on. Van, what you don't know is that me and Bill are doing a show

dedicated to OJ Simpson theories. Wow. Yeah. Did you forget about that already, Bill? to O.J. Simpson theories. Wow. I firmly believe, yeah. Did you forget about that already, Bill? Because I've been researching. I've written. As soon as basketball's over and it doesn't come back for like five months

as they figure out whatever the hell the next season is, I'm ready to do all kinds of weird shit, including that. I'm so ready for the O.J. pod. I have something to say to the Ringer audience here. There's no such thing as a political rumor that you hear from Bakari Sellers. If Bakari Sellers has a hunch,

if Bakari Sellers, if he has a hunch, he knows. Book it. Bakari, like, Bakari is, he's not just in these rooms. He is these rooms. He's on the wall. He's the plaster. He's the light fixtures. If you hear from Bakari,

if there was betting on this, he'd be like Ace from Casino. He's never going to lose. If you hear from... He knows. When he was telling you guys, he was doing the whole thing. He knew what was... Bakari, you knew. You're like the woosh.

He's the woosh. He's the woosh of political rumors bakari knows his tweets are better than mine by the by the way shout out to scotty pippen for the best tweet of 2020 uh 20 i don't know if you all saw that recently but scotty pippen just uh flamed richard jefferson but i digress uh i will say that i i i i know i know a lot of things that are going on in this arena. But back to what we were talking about real quick. I firmly believe, Van, to fill you in, that O.J. Simpson's son had a lot to do with this. I brought this up to Jeffrey, too. Save this for the O.J. pod.

I am. I'm just saying. You're giving away free stuff here. You think O.J. Simpson's son killed Nicole and Ron? I'm not getting sued on this podcast. So that's what I'm not going to do. But I do think there's some alternate theories that we have to examine. And I want to have a pod with Jeffrey Toobin and Bill Simmons and myself.

So we can go down some of these rabbit holes to get to the bottom of this. Wow. I can't think of a better way I would want to spend my time. I was completely obsessed with this trial and then when it came back a second time

with the Ezra doc and then with that awesome FX show, I went right back in. So I'm always ready. I think the Ezra doc, it was that awesome uh FX show I went right back in so I'm always ready I think the Ezra doc was it was it was sobering for a lot of people because I remember when we you know back in the day here's the thing about it we didn't want to believe that OJ was guilty at least the the community that I come from in South Baton Rouge when the doc came out we had the benefit of the time some people people had had kids. Some people had put themselves in different positions where they was like,

I don't know, man. You know what I mean? I got a lot of calls. It was like, yo, bro, you think OJ might have done it? I'm like, yeah. I think those are the odds that he actually did it. It was just tough. A lot of people came to Jesus when that 30 for 30 came out.

The DNA is tough 20 years later because we didn't really understand it in the mid-90s. Yeah, but we also have to look at, there's a huge, first of all, California and California trials and California law are vastly different. There's a nexus between O.J. and Michael Jackson and the way people reacted to it and the cult following of it. And Rodney King, all of those things kind of play a role in this in this really perverse way that we as individuals look at justice. We're far down somewhere. We probably don't need to be but i will tell you i will tell you that i am uh i i am interested to talk about it because i think that there are a lot of that was the why and that that mini series was just was just special and to be able to my relationship with jeffrey tubin where i'm able to ask him off the wall questions there's

nobody who knows more about this than jeffrey so he's gonna be phenomenal if we can make that happen all right so we're heading we're heading toward the six month anniversary of when the pedant the pandemic really kicked in everything started to get shut down and then we passed the three-month anniversary of the george flo when the protests started, all that stuff. Where are we as we head past Labor Day here and into September and into football season and toward the election?

Where are we? Are we in a better place than we were three months ago? I think we're not. I think America's having trouble reconciling things. I think that the Jacob Blake incident was a reminder that these things aren't, this wasn't a reflection of a bad time in the history of our country.

This wasn't an unlucky period where you had Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and then George Floyd all in that period, right? It wasn't because we were all sitting at home. There's a systemic problem that exists in this country. And there's not going to be any corporate platitudes that are going to get us out of it. There are not going to be any Instagram movements that are going to get us out of it. There's not going to be anything except for a very sobering look at the fabric of our society that's going to get us out of this perpetual, cyclical dehumanization of black folks. And I think that a lot of things that were done over the past six weeks, they were done with good and full hearts by people, but they were done to make themselves feel better in a lot of ways.

And look, there's a little bit of that in everything that somebody does. When you go out and you volunteer at a soup kitchen or something like that, you're doing it for the people, but you also want to feel like you're a good person and you're adding to the light in the world. There's nothing wrong with that. But I think there are people all over that are still living with the same realities. And this is going to keep coming back until we deal with it. So I think Jacob Blake, a reason why we saw the response to it is because it took the wind out of a lot of people's sails and reiterated that we're at the beginning of changing this. This is the start and it's going to take a lot of real work moving forward. So I just hope everybody's ready to roll up their sleeves. Yeah, I think that

when you look at it in the context that you laid it out, Bill, and I'll push back on the framing of the question, because for many of us, it's not just a three-month period or a six-month period since a pandemic or George Floyd. It is a decades-long, centuries-long period of institutional racism and oppression and systemic injustice. And so we don't look at it in those three- or six-month periods the way that I evaluated it is over the totality of this time. You know, what was sobering for me was when I was sitting on TV covering the funeral of John Lewis as he was crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge for the last time. And I was just thinking about how I believe that was a Sunday morning. The Saturday before would have been Emmett Till's birthday. And Emmett Till and Joe Biden and Donald Trump are all within

two or three years of each other in terms of age. If Emmett Till was still alive, I mean, he could be running for president right now, right? So the nexus of trauma and pain, and when you ask, you asked a very good question. And with a question that you're asking is one that's rooted in simplicity, but it's necessary to answer, which is how far have we come, right? When you ask people that question, they're like, oh, that's a simple-ass question, but it's necessary to answer, which is how far have we come, right? When you ask people that question, they're like, oh, that's a simple-ass question, but it's a very complicated, nuanced question to answer. And so I think that we, I don't, as Van said, I don't want to disrespect or, you know, Bloomberg just gave $100 million to the four historically black college and university medical schools.

That's going to help create that many more black folk in the medical profession. When you talk about the investment in COVID research, et cetera. So I think that we've made progress, but we still have so far to go. And to answer your question directly, I think that while we are at a standstill when it comes to what justice reform and criminal justice reform should be from our elected officials, whether or not a state, local or federally, I do believe that some people are beginning to have some sense of empathy, which is what we've been missing for so long. Because before you can get the policy changes, people, I'm not trying to say we're going to change hearts or minds, but you at least have to be more empathetic. And that's what I believe we're getting towards now. And I think the death of George Floyd and the gruesome nature thereof and the inhumane nature thereof has rocked this country and has us catapulted in the right direction. You know, I think one of the most interesting things about

the last three months specifically is the education aspect of it. And I know it's been for me. I feel like I'm a pretty well-read guy. I feel like I know a lot about a lot of different things. And I learned so much just over the last three months, things that maybe I had taken for granted, things that I thought I knew and I didn't know. And like I had DeRay on last week and we were talking about, you know, when the NBA players, just to use them as an example, and they're trying to force change, what does that look like? And I think all of us are now seeing like, it's not like this big, giant, overreaching policy that everybody can just grab onto. It's actually way more localized than I think I understood in any capacity three months ago. And like, when you're talking about,

all right, how can the NBA teams make a difference? It's not the league collectively. It's actually the teams in their different cities, right. Reaching out, making a real impact, man. Do you feel like that at least has changed from an educational standpoint? People are starting to get now, it's localized impact as much as it is a national impact. I think the important thing about the education is that people are open-hearted to being educated. See, there's not a book that you could read

that would tell you about my life experience in South Baton Rouge, Louisiana. But when I tell you about my life experience of growing up in South Baton Rouge, Louisiana. But when I tell you about my life experience of growing up in South Baton Rouge, Louisiana, if you approach what I'm trying to articulate with you with privilege, and you tell me about the racism or the police brutality that I've never experienced or how it was in my mind or how,

well, did you just try to do it this way? Or what about this? Or does this happen other places? Or what might've been in the guy's mind? When you don't give me the benefit of the doubt of the truth of my experience, when you stay in your silo and you try to push me back into mine, then we cannot move forward. So I think what's happened recently is that people have begun to realize that the truth is being articulated to them. People are fed up. People are angry. People are beaten down. They're discouraged. And they're not making it up. It's not in their heads. And it's not just happening to them. It happened to their parents. It's happening to the other people that they know that live in these neighborhoods.

And if we don't stop it, it'll happen to their children as well. And I think when you start that conversation of saying, okay, here, tell me what's going on and I'll listen to you. I'll believe you. And I'll try to get on the same page as you. It empowers that person to give you the fullness of who they are. And that's incredibly important because when I'm standing at a place and I'm looking some guy in the eye and I'm saying, yo, this is real fam. This is the way that it goes. And they're saying, no, no, no. Well, then I start to look at that person as an enemy to my truth. And then we can't go anywhere. So the first thing that's kind of broken down is the conversation is being had back and forth. And I think people are at least, at least they're feigning that they're down to talk, which is what Bacardi was

saying. The empathy portion of this is very important. It's not enough. It's not even, it doesn't even begin to be enough, but we got to be humans first. And then we can start dealing with some of these systems that aren't working for so many Americans. That really, by the way, when we capitalize on the people that grew up in communities where I'm from, you're going to see a better country. You're going to see a more productive country with people that are contributing to the economy more, right? That are contributing to the political process more. You're going to see America flourish in ways it hasn't before. So it's good for everyone, but you have

to believe in the merit of those people and in what's happening to them, what's going on in their neighborhoods. What do you think, Bakari? You said the word merit, and I get you. I would sub out the word merit for humanity. On the very basic level, this is

a conversation about giving people the benefit of their humanity, right? And I did a podcast the other day with Cedric Maxwell. One of ours. Louisiana. I didn't know how dope he was. 1981 Finals MVP, I swear. Yeah, yeah.

By the way, when he introduces himself, he reminds you of that. So when he sent me a DM to get me on the show, he was like, you know, this is former NBA player MVP. I was like, okay, I know who you are, by the way. And he was talking about his son being a lifeguard, and the first black lifeguard that was in Atlantic Beach, and how there was a 100-yard fence in the middle of the fucking ocean a hundred yard fence to separate the blacks from the whites when they this i mean and we're talking about somebody who is maybe not me advanced

contemporary but you're pretty old bill so it's like you're contemporary right so so like this is this is not a couple minutes a little shot a little shot i like that mccarty give him a little jack no no you gotta what you realize when you're on cable tv you gotta hit people subtly with the I can't compliment. Little shot. Little shot. I like that, Bakari. Give him a little jab. No, no, no. You got to, what you realize, when you're on cable TV, you got to hit people subtly with the smile, right? Make sure they're awake. Make sure they're awake. That's right.

Before you cut somebody, you always say, my good friend such and such. And then you cut them. But no, and you just, I remind people all the time that this isn't like generations upon generations upon generations away. This is something that's right here, something for us to confront. But I just, I firmly believe, and Van may say that I'm having, maybe not Van, but there are people who may be listening and be like, man, you got way too much faith in white folk, which there may be something there.

But my, I believe in what Abraham Lincoln called the better angels of our nature, right? So I think that right now, although you see the polls, and I'm a big poll watcher, you see the polls dwindling for Black Lives Matter, right, in terms of the approval thereof, but you saw the polls skyrocket for NBA strikes and NBA protests. I just firmly believe that there are enough good people that when educated, we can begin to change. But the willingness has to not be on me and Van. The willingness has to be on Bill Simmons, if that makes sense. What does the election cycle have to do with all this? Because we're under eight weeks now. All right, let's say eight weeks. I mean, imagine there were two ideological juxtapositions, like 180-degree difference, and I got to dump a billion dollars worth of advertisement down your throat from each one of them.

That would make you crazy, right? That's where we are. We're at the brink of this country going utterly insane because of the dollars that are being spent. The number one story, we lost over a thousand people yesterday to COVID. The number one story this week on Facebook, do you have any idea what it may be?

I hesitate to ask. It's Nancy Pelosi getting her Dominican blowout in San Francisco, where there are COVID regulations that prevent people from getting their hair done. That's the number one story. You know, I talked about this before with Ben Shapiro and others,

but there is just so much that this election cycle is just pulling us further and further apart. And what we all do, what all three of us are guilty of, and Craig is as well. You can't see Craig, but he has this little weird stubble on his face. What we're all guilty of is retreating to our silos. And what happens is we only get news from and reinforce news that we want to hear from our friends. We no longer meet people and have conversations about different ideologies,

which is why we are so vastly apart today. A couple of things. Number one, I thought you said Cedric Richmond, by the way. I was like, Cedric Maxwell is not from Louisiana. I was going to let you have that because I didn't know. Cedric Richmond. I thought you were talking about Cedric Richmond. I'm talking about Cedric Maxwell. Maxwell was talking about... I'm talking about Cedric Maxwell. Maxwell. Okay, first of all. Okay, so there's a couple of things there. Number one,

I agree with you in terms of getting information from all over places or talking to different people. That has to happen on a personal level because so much of the information that you get in certain places is completely useless, wrong, and propaganda. There are certain news organizations, not to talk about them, where all they do is lie. And so if you're a halfway intelligent person,

you can't go to your news to those places because you're not going to get facts that are actually actual that are actually actionable because they're just lies all right all right secondly i'll say this i don't think that you have too much faith in white people i couldn't say that but i would want to know why you have the faith that you do have not specifically in white people, but in those people that Abraham Lincoln discussed. Because since Abraham Lincoln made, since he spoke about that, it's been a little bit over 100 years, right? But like almost 200 years since he's had that. And I'm watching videos today of black people getting lit up by state-sponsored terrorism.

You asked a legitimate question. And you know, my answer is simple, because I refuse to lose hope and lose faith. Now, I see what my eyes see, right? And I understand what my heart and mind understand. However, and this is a very, this is an interesting approach to take, but I just feel as if when we came into this country, we were stripped of absolutely everything. All we had was hope and faith. That's all we had. When black folk came here, that's it, right? And right now, I just feel as if there is a time where we're at a precipice. And I'm not necessarily giving the benefit of the doubt, but I'm extremely hopeful. And I'm extremely faithful.

And I believe that if there are good people with good hearts, then we can finally turn the corner. Because I refuse to believe the antithesis of that, right? Hmm. If you... Well, okay, I'll just say, this is the last thing I'll say about that. I don't think that people are bad or good. I think they're blank. And I'll explain what I mean by that. America framed capitalism in a specific way.

Capitalism became a virtue. Me and you have had this discussion about capitalism. Here's the thing. Capitalism became a virtue. Capitalism is not good or bad. It's like anything else. What it's used for can be good or bad. People are not good or bad. They are blank. They will go where they are dragged. And if people are dragged in a way by a system that supports the exploitation of people, they'll go there. If people are dragged to a system or pushed in the realm of a system that is more equitable and equal for everyone, they'll go there. But it's the people who are controlling the systems. Hope and faith has been around for black people for a long time. We need to develop some other virtues. Oh, I mean, I'm not saying that you do that in absence thereof.

Right. So I'm saying all of this, everything that we're talking about, I agree with you. And I haven't lost faith in humanity either. I think people want to be in the best situation that they want to be in. But I think it's very easy to convince them that the situation that harms others around them is the best situation to be in. And for Black people here in America, we have to develop thick skin to communicate our real experience in this country, which has been exploitation for as long as we've been here. Now, if America's uncomfortable with having that conversation, I don't really know

what to say to them, but that's the real of it. And that doesn't mean that you have to feel bad about it, about what happened in the past, but you would certainly have to feel bad about what you allow to happen in the future. That's all I ask. If you're white and you listen to me, you don't got to walk around feeling bad that you're white. You don't. But I'm telling you right now that there is a back and forth, a push-pull in this country where your privilege and your access to things directly, directly influences my inability to access those things. And I'm asking you, are you comfortable with that?

And it's yes or no. And if it's no, we got a big problem. Like that, that's all I'm saying. And I don't think, I think if the shoe were on the other foot, it would be, if we lived in a society where those things look different, you'd have to have the same conversations. And so that's all. So Biden, these next eight weeks, running for president, Bakari, between the theme that he hit pretty hard during the Democratic Convention of, I've had two families that got broken and I fixed them. And now this country is a big family that's broken and I want to fix them.

So he's got that, the language of that, the way he did that, I thought was smart. But then you also have this other piece where you're running for an election and you're trying to undermine the other candidate, which is, this is the easiest candidate we've ever had to undermine. What is the balance between being positive and being negative if you're him? The balance that Joe Biden has to walk is one, unlike any other candidate has had to walk in recent history. This is different. This is just, I mean, this is a unique circumstance. Joe Biden right now has to do two things, and they're not diametrically opposed, although people attempt to make them be. There is a theory by my good white friends on the left

who we got to go out and win every suburban white person we can find every college educated white person man every they went from being you remember the grizzly bear moms or whatever they would call it sarah palin to like the soccer mom yeah yeah soccer moms and the hockey moms and we got to go win all of them right and every college educated white man we got to give them a reason. So that's a theory. And I mean, I am not an either-or. I'm a both-and guy.

So yeah. But I mean, again, there were also a large swath. There were 4.4 million people who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 who did not vote. It's not that they didn't vote for Hillary. They just didn't vote at all in 2016. Over a third of those were black. So, I mean, if we just do simple math and say if Joe Biden goes out and gets a quarter of those people, I'm a lawyer, so all I do is count by thirds. So let's do a third, by the way.

So that's about 400000 people. Right. 500000 people that you win the race that way. Right. The unique thing. And this is more this is more when we get Harry on the show, Harry and who does this type stuff in his sleep. This is more in the weeds. If if Joe Biden only wins the popular vote by one to two points, there's a likelihood he would lose the electoral college. A high likelihood. Yeah, yeah. In fact, he's probably only, I think I saw it's only a 46% chance he'll actually win the electoral college. The more he gets to three and four points, five and six points, the greater it is that he'll have a chance to win. This race literally boils down to Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia. Not a big fan of Georgia being a swing state.

That's about like Texas being a swing state, but I hear you. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan. That's where the election is won and lost. And every poll that you see has him, the fundamentals of the race, he is immensely stronger than where Hillary Clinton was. And you have fewer undecided. And giving black folk a reason to come out and vote and telling white independents and people in the middle of the country that I'm not a threat. And so it's a really unique dance he's trying to play. But one, to this point, he's been highly successful. And the unique thing about Donald Trump and why in the most nonpartisan

statement I can make is that Donald Trump will go out and be on message. He will hit a message for an hour. He can give an hour and a half speech on message. Now, he may sweat. And in them little platform boots he wear, he may trip walking up a ramp. But it's going to be on point. And it's going to have Republicans and everybody else saying, this is why we're voting for him, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then the next morning, he'll step on that message. The man has no, I mean, he is, Donald Trump is Dion Waiters. I mean, he will go out and give you absolutely whatever you need, but then he just has absolutely no discipline. He'll be popping gummies on an airplane across the country.

Yo, if I'm Deion Waiters, the next time I see Bacari Sellers, you got to put your hands up. Yo, if I'm Deion Waiters right now, stall him out, Deion. Stall him out Dion stall him out the lack of discipline from Donald Trump the only person the only person I can equate that to is Dion Waiters

Dion did you feel that in your back down in Orlando did you feel that dog did you feel that in your back like whoa don't have

don't have me on a zoom call with LeBron apologizing to Dion I'm just telling you that's but the lack of discipline there man Whoa. Don't have me on a Zoom call with LeBron apologizing. I'm just telling you that's, but the lack of discipline there, man, is like, it's ridiculous. And so that is a political scientist analysis of Donald Trump, not a partisan one at all.

Hey, Van, is the bigger threat people voting for Trump and supporting Trump or people who are voting for Trump because they hate the left so much this is the way they get their revenge? I think those things are starting to become one and the same because I think Donald Trump's reason

for voting for him now is hatred of what he's deemed the radical left. I think, whereas when Trump first came in, he ran on some things, those things were grotesque, but he hasn't really run on anything, or at least from what I've heard, other than, hey, if you don't elect me, the country's going to become a radical left cesspool. You're going to have Antifa in every Starbucks. You're going to have people, you know, rolling down the street. You're going to see

all of these scary black people come to the suburbs, all of these scary white kids who are out there on the street with the black kids in your local elementary school. I haven't heard very much because really, to be honest with you, there's not much else to run on. Like Bakari said, there's a thousand a day dead from COVID. The economy is in a terrible place. Our sort of reputation internationally, he can't run on that. He's fractured the intelligence community. He's taken apart very vital parts

of what Americans thought that they were, right? He basically is stock market and UFOs. Yeah, exactly. I'm the president who brought UFO intelligence to you. Right. Which I don't know. But, but we do know that just recently at LAX,

the pilots noted that they saw somebody with a jet pack. Yes. Guys, don't rule it out, Bill. Was that Bill? Was that you, Bill?

I would do it. If there was a jet pack, I would try it. Right. So, so, you know, so I think that that's i think he ran on fear the first time but he also ran on i i guess giving money back to the middle of america and the border wall and all of those things like that the border wall is an abject well the clinton's thing was a big piece of it like really we're gonna do the clinton's again

don't you want something different but that's when I talk about the fundamentals of the race, right? We're talking about the electorate. We're talking about the candidates. The fundamentals of the race in 2016 were different. You had the two most unpopular people in the history of the country. By the way, I love Hillary. Hillary's one of my homies. And for those people listening, we did have Hillary Clinton on the Bacari Sellers podcast.

Sad. Saw that. So, you know, we, I Hillary Clinton on the Bacari Sellers podcast. Side note. Saw that. So, you know, we, I just, you know, that's different. I mean, Joe Biden is Uncle Joe. I mean, he's well-liked. I mean, he went through. He's got some red in his ledger, though. He what?

He's got some red in his ledger, too. Oh, there's no question. But he doesn't have since 1991 being vilified by the right as being something that he or she is not so i agree with you i mean i i've even pushed him on his past i mean we're not saying that he's perfect or being good on every issue by any stretch but you don't have the unpopularity factor that you have today and i mean that you that you had in 2016 and now there's just so many people whose minds are made up that's why this is Bill, let me just tell you what's going to what. Let me not tell you what's going to happen, but let me tell you what is the.

Well, you are the woes. He knows when you say what's going to happen. I believe I believe you know the answer. Let me just tell you what people fear, what people fear is this is called a red mirage. And you're starting to hear about it more and more. But the red mirage is that on election day, because Democrats don't really turn out on election day with the same fervor and velocity that Republicans do. They vote early, they vote by mail. But on election day, you have a map that looks as if, and I'm not going to say he won, but it looks as if Donald

Trump is the leader and Donald Trump declares victory. But when all the ballots are counted, because the most amazing thing about this discussion is that you have certain states like Florida, like North Carolina, Georgia, who are able to count ballots before election day. But Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, they can't start counting their early ballots until election day. So it's a very good chance that you will have a president like Donald Trump, who has no guardrails, declaring that he won, when in all honesty, all the ballots haven't been counted. And that's one of the larger fears that most people on the left have.

That makes sense. Is this the last time we have an election with two choices? No. I mean, no. We're fundamentally built on a two-party system. That's the funniest. That's the biggest red herring ever. People are always like, let's go out and start our own party. Okay, cool. I mean, that's not, it just doesn't, it doesn't have, it's like the XFL. That's what the Green Party is. The Green Party is the XFL. Like, it never, it never works. That is, go compete against the NFL if you want to.

But it just won't, it won't be a thing. But you said earlier, though, these two sides are so far apart now, it would seem like if there was ever a time in history for a third party to be like, hey, we're the side that's not with either of these two sides. Come this way. It's not completely unrealistic. Yeah, but it's like starting a league without Tom Brady, starting a league without LeBron James, starting a league without any athletes at all. Like, you're not just going to drive up the middle without having that caliber of dollar and talent. It's just so hard to do.

I mean, maybe The Rock will prove me wrong. Maybe in a year, we'll run this back and say Bakari was full of shit. I doubt it, but maybe. And so I just don't believe that that is not something that will happen. I think that I am a strong believer in somebody who wants to tear down systems and reimagine them within the boundaries. Van is somebody who thinks outside of the boundaries, which is why we get along so well and we push each other to be better. I just think that within these boundaries, you have to make the Republican Party and the Democratic Party better than they are and better than they have been. What do you think, Dan? Well, obviously, I disagree.

But I think it's interesting that we're taught that competition is great everywhere except in politics, right? So competition in economics is what saves you. But in politics, we should kind of not have that, right? We should have a situation where we are perpetually reforming two different sides that really we have to come to the realization that there could be a point if this republic, if this empire, whatever this is, is to last for hundreds and hundreds of years, that there's a chance that we outgrow the two-party system. That the American electorate becomes so diverse, not just in ethnicity and culture, but in thinking that the old way just doesn't work anymore. Do I know if we're there now?

No, I don't know. But what I do know is that people are asking questions of their government that they've never really asked before. And they're not asking these questions based upon who's popular or who's unpopular. They're asking these questions based upon whether or not these structures or systems work. You know, we talk about the income inequality.

We talk about political power. We talk about all of these things. And Americans, black, white, red, and green all over the country, the people in the Appalachians don't know that they're the people in Baton Rouge. They don't get it. All the kids there that have Mountain Dew mouth that are in the Appalachians, they don't get that they're the people in Baton Rouge. They don't understand it. They don't understand it. They don't have an economic say in their government. They don't get that they're the people in Baton Rouge. They don't understand it. They don't understand it. They don't have an economic say in their government. They don't get that they don't have,

that even some of the guys that they might support politically don't have their best interests at heart. They don't understand. Amazon is not in their town. They don't get it. The question is, as things change in the country,

what do Americans want? Can the Democrats deliver on that as presently constituted? Can the Republicans deliver on that as presently constituted, right? And is there enough willingness to reform inside of those two parties, all right, to bring them to a point where Americans feel empowered by them. Well, watch this, Bill. Watch this, Bill. If I was on TV with Van right now, I would be like, but you believe in AOC, right? Sure. AOC is a part of the new burgeoning portion of the left. Rashid, you got Rashid, you got Ayanna, you got this whole, you got the whole new squad. You got Cori Bush. You got all of these individuals. You know, I'm a fan of Hakeem Jeffries, et cetera.

So you do have the party that's adapting to that. So, I mean, maybe this- But what happens if the party doesn't move left enough for those people? What happens if, because remember now, once again, even in this election, the Democrats and the electorate had a choice between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. They chose once again. What happens if the party and the structures inside of the party don't move left enough for AOC? Don't move left enough for those people.

But we got to be 100, though. Who chose Joe Biden and not Bernie Sanders? The base of the party chose Joe Biden and not Bernie Sanders. Sure. My mama and them. black women in particular. But I'm just saying that, I hear you, but I'm saying that for every AOC on the left, there's a Dan Crenshaw on the right, right?

Right. And Dan is not, I'm not a fan. I rock with Dan, but I'm not a fan of him politically by any stretch, right? I'm fascinated by him. Yeah, that may be a better word, fascinated by him. And so you have these competing iterations of what each party will be. And all I'm saying is that in the realm, and going back to your original comment and what Bill's question was, in the space of competition, sure. I just don't think there is an organism out there. Will it

happen in the future? Maybe, but there ain't a whole lot out there right now to compete with those two. That's like telling me that there's another league that will compete with the NFL. You can't tell me that there's one that exists. You can't tell me where they'll get their talent from. You can't tell me what day they'll play on. You can't tell me the purpose for them being there. So I mean, like there is, there has to be that. And I just don't think that exists right now. Will it ever happen? Maybe.

Once again, all I'm saying is that the evolution of the American political mind, like the kids that I'm talking to, the kids that I'm talking to on both sides of this, they're disillusioned. Even the younger people, a little younger than me, they're disillusioned. And movements in this country are what shaped this country. And I think the ideas of Americans have to shape America. I get that there are political structures, but we'll see. You never know. Bakari, what's your biggest fear for the next eight weeks? I'm not going to tell you my biggest fear, but I'll tell you my second. My second biggest fear is, you know, you mean in terms of, let me just take my second biggest fear. Heading toward the election.

My second biggest fear is one that ties into that. But I just fear the flu will meet coronavirus in a way that we're not prepared for. Did you see the latest report by the Big Ten doctor who stated that 30 to 35 percent of the players who contracted COVID-19 have, I forget what the heart ailment is, mitocarditis or something like that? Yeah, exactly. And so while people, even those individuals who are quote-unquote healthy who don't have symptoms, this virus is still so very deadly that it affects different parts of your bodies and attacks different organs in ways they don't know. So my biggest fear in the election is that we have a flu, which, by the way, I just got my flu shot. So particularly everybody go out there and get your flu shot and black men and particularly get your colonoscopy because if cancer kills black pantheon kill your ass too um and so i just want people to understand that if this flu meets this pandemic then people are going to be really hesitant to mask up and go vote and it can cause a very real

impediment to i mean i'm not talking about georgia just illegally throwing 200 000 people off the voting rolls which they just did. I'm not even talking about the limiting the absentee ballots. I'm just talking about people who usually go out and vote saying that I'm not going to die and risk my health to go out and do it, which is real. And that's probably one of my larger fears. The other fear that I have is a very real fear that I don't really, I know that Donald Trump is a little bit less, is a little bit looser with protocol. I know Joe Biden is very loose with protocol. And I don't want either one of them to get sick between now and then over

the next eight weeks. They are both of an age where I don't know what the fallout would be from either one of those things. And so I just want both of them to stay I don't know what the fallout would be from either one of those things. And so I just want both of them to stay as healthy as possible. What about you, Van? I'm scared of it all, I'll be honest with you. It's hard for me to step back and not see the sharp decline in America happening before our eyes. And it's chilling. So the reason I would say for people to go out and vote and be a part of the change that needs to happen in November is because, you know, a lot of times you talk to

brothers and sisters in the community and they go, Van, no matter who's in that White House, who's ever in the state capitol, I don't see any difference in my life, right? Now, I would say to these people then, this, my people, back in Baton Rouge, wherever, do you want there to be a community? Do you want the opportunity to change things that are going on? Do you want there to be an America? I assure people there doesn't have to be one. Study your world histories. Empires break apart all the time. You're fighting for the soul of your country right now. It doesn't feel like you are, but you are. Look around you. It's all falling apart in a very real way. COVID really pulled the masks down. It pulled the veil down. It exposed a lot of things that weren't working. So I'm telling people to get involved.

My fear is that the message isn't being given to them that desperately. Like, it seems like I am like, you know, Stuart Little. I'm not. You know what I mean? Not Stuart Little. Who's the Chicken Little? It seems like I'm Chicken Little. The sky is falling.

I'm not. I'm looking at how things are going. I'm looking at things that look like civil war in Portland. You know? I'm looking at people antagonizing each other, basically standing off. This is not Jack Kemp versus, this is not Jack Kemp and Bob Dole versus the Clintons

and Newt Gingrich, you know, for the contract of America. This is your side on this side of the line, my side on this side of the line saying, yo, do something. Do something. Do something. So people can get live. Like, look at that. And understand whether or not the guy in the White House right now is for it or against it. Whether or not he is being a beacon of a guiding light, at least to get America back to some sort of civility

where we can discuss these problems and have a chance at it. If you think that that's the guy, go out and vote for him. But I'd ask you, what the fuck is wrong with you if you think that that's the guy? Like, I am afraid that we're in the end times of the country.

And I think right now, the only way to make sure that we're in the end times of the country. And I think right now, the only way to make sure that we're not, and this is not me being a shill for the left, this is not, I'm an independent, is to change who's at the top. Because fear is the weapon there. And look, I'm sure you have people on the other side that feel differently about it.

But I don't see the other side saying hey if you got a gun you go out you shoot people up you're cool i don't i the president hasn't hasn't denounced won't speak on kyle riddenhouse the kid who murdered three people over there like it's weird man so so like the thing is like like even if you think in your heart of heart of hearts that that kid is some sort of perverted patriot that went out and did something even if you think in your heart of hearts that that kid is some sort of perverted patriot that went out and did something, even if you know that we cannot exist in a point where people are taking up guns, taking them across state lines, and shooting at other Americans. We can't have that. You can't want that. But it feels like they do.

That's what I'm worried about. So I think that when you think about voting, when you think about getting active, when you think about being a part of all this stuff, think about whether or not you want your country at all. Flaws and all. Imperfect at all. Do you want America? Because you might need to vote like America depended on.

Man, this got heavy. Yeah. Bakari, how much time do you have left five minutes i got five six seven minutes yeah all right let's let's cheer it up we can end on a on a more cheerful note van do your pitch for the wire movie oh my god you guys are gonna love this i have an idea bill i have the best idea so i watched the best idea. So I watched the Breaking Bad movie, right? I watched the Breaking Bad movie. And the Breaking Bad movie, I can't remember what it's called. I think El Camino or something like that. Surprisingly good. Me and Jemele Hill right now, or should I say Jemele Hill and I, she's a much bigger star than me. She drives a Maserati. We are doing the best wire rewatch podcast in history. It's called Way Down in the Hole,

Mondays and Wednesdays here on The Ringer. We're doing the Wire rewatch. We have just come to the end of season three. We're only going to see Avon Barksdale one more time in The Wire. This character that we've all come to love, this guy who has so many things going on, Avon Barksdale gone.

What happened to Avon? Starting to ask myself. Breaking Bad movie gave us the answer to what happened to Avon? Starting to ask myself. Freaking bad movie gave us the answer to what happened to Jesse. This is my idea. The movie is called Avon's Home, a Requiem for a Kingpin. All right? Think about it. Avon goes away. Let's say he goes away to do the probation that he got on the case with the guns which Stringer gave him up and all of that stuff. Then while he's inside, he tries to pull another hot shots deal to get him out,

but this time he gets caught so they give him more time. What I want to know is what is Baltimore like when Avon Barksdale, the former king, has to come home? All right? We get to catch up with all of our old wires favorites. What is Bubz doing? What is McNulty doing? Where are all these people? But specifically, we get to look at themes like recidivism, like how hard it is for a guy to get reacclimated to society. Avon's haunted. He's haunted. He looks around the corner. He thinks he

sees Stringer, right? But Stringer's dead. He's haunted like Michael Corleone was haunted in Godfather 3 by the fact that he had Fredo killed. It's the same thing. He's trying to repair his relationship with his sister, who is now the only person he has to live with, while she believes that he had something to do with killing her son. This is a big deal. Where's Bunk? Is Bunk okay? Where's Lansman? Did he even survive? Looks like heart disease.

You know, so the whole deal is, the whole thing to me is, this is what happens to Avon when he comes home. Is he doing DJ Vlad interviews about like how he was a kingpin back in the day? All of that stuff. I'm telling you, this could be an HBO event that could come on.

But how does it end, though? Well, you left out Cudi is the biggest boxing promoter in the United States. Cudi is made good. Now, guess what? He's Dana White now. He's by Dana White for boxing. Guess what? We saw where Cudi had to go to Avon.

Now, guess what? Avon has to go borrow money from Cuddy. Right. It's the same thing. All of these things. So what happens? Like, does Avon go back to the top of the dope game? Is he back to being a hero?

He doesn't want to right away, but then that's what happens. He has to. Does he run for mayor? Oh, yeah, of course. Oh, but we're also thinking about Baltimore. We're talking about a post-Freddie Gray Baltimore. People are trying to get Avon Bars. Oh, not only a post-Freddie Gray, but a post-Martin O'Malley, too.

The whole deal is just fantastic. And by the way, here's one thing about the HBO guys that might not want to make this movie, and they got to make it. You have to make this movie. Think about where the Wire fan base was at the end of the series to where it is now. 12 years later. 12 years later. You take this, you make this movie, you dominate.

I know Wood, down. Wood. Man, put this on the bringer theme. Wood, I know you want to do it. Wood, that's my man. Shout out Wood Harris. I know Wood want to do it. I know they down.

Andre Royal, my man. All of these guys. I know they do it. Come back and do the movie. It's a great movie. You left out a key part of the pitch, which is he doesn't want to get back in the game, but it's one last job. Come on. What are we doing

now? We're doing the score? It's just one thing he's going to do, but you know it's going to be the gateway to him actually getting back in the game. It's just one thing. Somebody calling a favor with him. He's got to do, but you know it's going to be the gateway to him actually getting back in the game. It's just one thing. Somebody's got to call in a favor with him. He's got to do it. I would watch this because I still think that

I still think the two greatest shows of all time are The Wire and The Sopranos, but I think that The Sopranos ending makes it number two behind The Wire. Oh, you downgraded it. I like that. I really thought when Van told me this idea and I got super excited, I like that. Yeah, yeah. You went down. I really thought when Van told me this idea

and I got super excited, I was like, yeah, do my podcast. But we hadn't tested it on another live human being. I got to be honest. I wanted more from Bakari. I thought he'd be more excited. I mean, I just think that

I'm not, I'm not. Avon's back. Yeah, cool. I'm interested to see. Couldn't care less that we're not going to do it. Like, he just killed it. He killed the idea.

I'm just trying to see, I'm trying to see where it goes. Like, what's the job? Like, he gets back and like, we talk about recidivism and all that. Does he knock somebody off? I mean, does he go back and get. It doesn't happen. With the El Camino joint, Jesse ended up getting away. We don't tell the ending.

He doesn't have to go anywhere, but this is about Avon being back on the street, getting used to not being on the top and trying to put the pieces of his life together to go out and live life as a regular dude.

I think that him putting his life back together is decently boring. Him putting his empire back together from the bottom, that is... You know what? Y'all want to see Avon go back to jail? This is what I'm talking about right here. No, I don't want to see Avon go back to jail.

I thought we were trying to make a good movie. You know what? You know what? Put it on Lifetime. Put it on Lifetime. And you have a good time with it, okay? It'll be just fine. If you wanted to go on HBO or Amazon Prime or something,

let the man rebuild his empire. Let him come up. Isn't the whole point of the Avon character, which we discussed on your pod last week, he says, like, to Stringer, your blood runs green, my blood runs red. It's about the action. It's about the power.

It's about controlling the corners. I don't see that going away for him. He's not going to come out of jail and be like, oh, I'm a different person. He's been in jail. He's been in jail for 15 years. I don't care.

He is who he is. So what is he supposed to be when he comes out though? Like he's supposed to go and teach. Yo, he could at the school with Presbylowski. Is Freeway Rickoss still dealing drugs is is a first of all we're not gonna sit here and start snitching on people on this show ain't nobody snitching i'm saying these guys aren't i'm saying they're doing different stuff they changed yeah i hear you

but this is a movie right have you seen the freeway have you seen the freeway ricky ross movie yet no okay exactly so we're making a movie right so right kind of kind of right kind of kind here's my prediction we gotta have a takashi 69 character in this because what he needs to see is when he gets out takashi has blown up on the streets it's contrary to who avon really never heard of that guy i'm sure you have it right so it's antithesis to who avon wants to be and let me help you flesh this out me and you will get some jameson we'll sit around and we'll make this out are they a sponsor of any of our shows yet so if not we need that we need to reach out to them but we're going to sit around three of us, and we are going to make this a hit. This will be after me and Bill do our OJ special. If Bakari writes this movie, you know what Avon's going to come out and do?

Be a political organizer for Joe Biden. No, no, no. Avon's going to- No, no, no. He's going to- Yes, he will. Mayor of Baltimore. He's going to own the mayor of Baltimore.

Because what Avon is going to realize is when he was back there, that the true power was political power. So he's going to come out and he's going to be making donations. He's going to be making all these donations to these city officials, etc. He's going to play the game different. He's going to make sure that what you call it, that Stringer gets murdered. It's going to be. I have two predictions. One is that Bakari is going to be texting you at like two in the morning his gets marked. It's going to be. I have two predictions. One is that

Bakari is going to be texting you at like two in the morning his time tonight being like, hey man, I can't stop thinking about the wire movement. I have set up ideas.

Two, Avon's Home is just a killer title. Avon's Home. That's the name. I can see the poster. The Wire. Avon's Home.

The Wire. I mean, it sounds like, no, it sounds, it sounds like that goes on Disney+. We'll come up with a different name, too. Disney+. What are you talking about? Avon's home. What are you talking about?

You're just hating on me now. Avon's home. The Wire, Avon's home. That's dope. Everybody's watching it. Let's just call it The Wire, a movie. No. My theory with all this stuff is

if I saw the ad for it, would I give it a chance? And if there was an ad and it was like The Wire, Avon, something, I'd be like, when is it? What day? I'm definitely watching the first 10 minutes. During this time,

all of these movies are $6.99 and they're streaming on demand, right? You still have the movies. What are they, in theaters now that come right here since nobody's going to the theaters, et cetera? It has a chance. I just think we got to flesh it out a little bit, though. It's going on HBO Max.

Yeah, Bacari's coming around. Three of us. Exactly produced by the three of us. Bacari, you're doing debate podcasts, we should mention. We are doing debate podcasts. I have mention. We are doing debate podcasts. I have my good friend coming on the show. I know that he has an interview and his wife with Tamron Hall. That's going to be dope.

Coming up. Andrew Gillum is going to be my co-host on our debate podcast. We're doing four debate podcasts. So immediately after it's like the NBA finals, as soon as the debates are over three presidentials starting September 29th and one vice presidential. Me and Andrew Gillum are going to be chopping it up and telling you what happened, what to look for,

how they messed up, how they could get better from two people who actually debated. It's going to be fun. And Van, you still have Higher Learning and on the wire way down in the hole. Higher Learning is an incredible podcast, by the way. The wire way down the hole, you're heading into the best,

my favorite season in TV history, season four. Season four. Big guest. Big guest on Higher Learning today, too. Stacey Abrams on Higher Learning today. Who is it? Stacey Abrams. Ooh.

On Higher Learning today. So we'll, like, that'll be out on Friday. Big guest. Big guest on Higher Learning today. All right, great. It was good to see you guys. Peace. Thank you for coming out. Thank you for having me. Thank you. I mean, eventually guess on how I learned today. All right, great. It was good to see you guys. Peace. Thank you for coming out.

Thank you for having me. Thank you. I mean, eventually this is going to be the second best BS podcast. So thank you for, you know, understanding roles. Well, and we got to put the OJ thing way down the line. Let's do that. If the country stays in shape. Thanks, guys.

Thank you. Have a good day. Peace. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gangs here, you're tailgating outside the stadium. It's game day. All the gang's here. You're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the

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Miller Lite is the light beer with all the great beer tastes we like. 90 calories per 355 mil can. So why not grab some Miller Lights today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance.

Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers,

host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. One last thing before we go. Tom Seaver passed away on Wednesday, 75 years old. One of the best pictures I ever saw. I have some Mets fans in my life. He was the guy for Mets fans. He was the ultimate hero, including for my buddy Gus, who I had known since I was in 10th grade, and his dad, who was my English teacher in 8th grade, my basketball, 8th and 9th grade at Greenwich Country Day. And he was just the guy. And he intersected in my life in a crazy way, which ended up being something I wrote about for Page Two the first year I was there in 2001

in a column called, Do I Have Anything Left? And I was going to tweet this out, but I thought it'd be more fun if I just read it because this podcast has a big audience and it's just kind of a crazy story. And I think you guys will enjoy it. So I'm going to read this right now. Here's that piece. You probably don't remember Tom Seaver's

aborted comeback in 1987, but I remember probably because he hummed the fastball at my head. I will explain. Seaver was one year removed from playing in Boston, where he would have pitched in the World Series if his right knee hadn't given out during the 1986 pennant stretch. And you can drive yourself crazy thinking about these things. But please remember, a healthy Seaver would have started game four of the World Series against the Mets. And I will go to my grave believing that the crafty veteran would have submitted one of those flashback starts to make baseball so special. Maybe something of the seven innings, four hits, two earned runs,

and six Ks variety against his old Mets team. And a chaotic Fenway crowd would have been rocking with every pitch. And maybe, just maybe, the Red Sox would have captured the 1986 World Series with a healthy Tom Seaver pitching game four instead of Al freaking Nipper.

Nobody can convince me otherwise. Seaver probably felt the same way and it probably nodded him. And even at 42 years old with nothing else to prove, 311 career wins back when wins actually meant something, 3,640 strikeouts, three Cy Young Awards, one World Series ring, even the title of best pitcher of his generation. Seaver couldn't walk away from baseball, not yet. Determined to end his career in New York, he spent all winter waiting for a phone call from the Yankees that never came.

And naturally, everyone assumed the old man was finished. But here's where fate intervened. At the beginning of spring training in 1987, the Mets offered a crushing blow when Dwight Gooden submitted a dirty urine sample, But here's where fate intervened. At the beginning of spring training in 1987, the Mets suffered a crushing blow when Dwight Gooden submitted a dirty urine sample, went to rehab. Suddenly the light bulb over Seaver's head started flickering. And then David Cohn and Bobby Ojeda,

they suffered season-ending injuries in May and the bulb was officially beaming. Did Tom Terrific have another season left in him? Was the risk or the potential humiliation worth the reward? A memorable final chapter to a Hall of Fame career. In a nutshell, did he have anything left? At the same time Seaver was mulling over his secret comeback,

he was involved in a business deal with the father of my buddy, Gus Ramsey, a longtime friend of mine from Greenwich. And since Seaver also lived in Greenwich, and since the business deal brought him to Gus's house a few times, Seaver befriended Gus, a diehard Mets fan who was only 19 at the time. And eventually Seaver popped the following question. This actually happened. I brought my glove with me. Do you feel like throwing? And after prying his own tongue out of his throat, Gus answered yes.

And he headed outside into his own front yard with one of the seven or eight greatest pitchers of all time for a friendly game of catch. And within 10 minutes, Seaver was working up a sweat. He was starting to put some mustard on the ball. And five more minutes passed. Gus could feel something in the air. And given that Seaver was standing about 60 feet away, give or take a couple feet, Gus simply squatted down like a catcher because it just felt right. And Seaver didn't mind. He was ripping off pitches and punctuating them with different questions.

You can catch a curveball, right? Pop. Okay, if I throw a slider? Splack. Your hand starting to hurt yet? Kapow. And as soon as he realized that Gus could catch everything, and more importantly, that Gus was willing to remain in that squat for the next three to four years straight, Seaver

stopped talking and he concentrated on his mechanics. And they stayed there like that for 10 more minutes All you could hear was the sound of the ball popping back and forth between two gloves and seaver grunting With every pitch and when it was over Seaver dropped the bombshell He confessed that he was considering a comeback with the mets. He didn't want anyone to know not yet He asked if gus would have a problem catching him over the next week or so. A clandestine testing of the waters, if you will. It needs to say Gus quickly agreed before passing out with joy. Here's how random this whole thing

was. Pick your favorite athlete of all time. Then imagine the entire sequence of aforementioned events somehow unfolding with you and that athlete. Seems unbelievable, right? Couldn't happen, right? I'm telling you, this happened. So over the next few days, Gus's new 42-year-old Hall of Fame playmate kept dropping by his house to play catch. And I immediately started stalking the house, dropping by more frequently than the mailman, just hoping for one Seaver sighting, no dice. Gus was on a break from college, but I was still attending high school, and Seaver's visits usually happened during the early afternoon when I was stuck in class. It just was not fair. And then one afternoon, right after I had gotten home from school,

Gus gave me the call. He's coming over right now. I shattered the land speed record getting there in time for Seaver's arrival. He seemed friendly enough when we were introduced, despite the fact that I was staring at him with one of those, holy crap, it's Tom Seaver expressions on my face. We made some small talk, and then it happened. Hey, Seaver asked me, why don't you grab a bat and come outside with us? You can pretend you're a batter. I want to gauge what it's like to pitch with somebody standing there. Well, that's what he probably said. All I can really remember is the hey part in the next 30 seconds were like a minor blackout. So we headed outside and I watched from the sidelines as Gus and Tom warmed up. They started out playing long toss, just firing the baseball back and forth like two outfielders between innings. And eventually Gus bent into his crouch as Seaver kept throwing soft fastballs and loosening up.

And then finally Seaver barked out, All right, I'm ready. And it wasn't like he went from throwing 60 to 80 in two pitches. It was more of a slow, steady progression, almost like he was adding one mile an hour to every pitch. And now his body started to get involved. The earlier throws had been all motion, a rock back, a rock forward, a twist of the hips, a flick of the wrist. But his motion slowly became more exaggerated. And

within minutes, he was bringing the ball over his head, rearing back, whipping forward, firing the ball, with his left leg swinging around for the finish and his right knee inching closer and closer to the ground with every pitch, the Sievert trademark. Nobody had a better mechanics than him. Quick interjection. Witnessing this evolution in person was simply incredible. It was like seeing the birth of a child or something. I'm not kidding.

For whatever reason, we take athletes for granted. We lose ourselves in the minutia of sports. We rarely take time to marvel at the day-to-day stuff, the little things, like the way Robbie Alomar effortlessly starts a double play or the way Randy Moss finds that extra gear and breezes by an unsuspecting quarterback. And it's not our fault. You watch enough games, you become immune to these things. But to see this 42-year-old man round himself into pitching form over a 15-minute span in my buddy's front yard, I'm telling you, it was amazing to watch. One of those watershed moments in your formative years that you don't forget. Anyway, once Seabrook was ready for me, I ambled over and stood in my imaginary batter's

box in front of Gus, who looked poised to lose control of his bowels at any moment. The previous summer, Gus and I played a 162-game simulated microleague baseball season between the all-time Mets and the all-time Red Sox on my Apple computer. In a related story, both of us were single at the time. And the stat version of the 1973 Tom Seaver won our imaginary Cy Young award. And now nine months later, he was pitching to us. Doesn't get any weirder than that. So I dug into the imaginary batter's box, unveiled my finest impersonation of Carly Ostrzymski's stance, rigid posture, bat circling above my head. And I stood there as Seaver chucked pitches past me. Sss.

That's what every pitch sounded like. Sss. Like a hiss. And every pitch was accompanied by the barely audible grunt from Seaver and the ball smacking into Gus's mitt. So it really sounded like this. Huh. Sss.

Splat. Seaver. Fastball. Huh. Split. Splat. Seaver. Sliderat, receiver, slider, splat. And if we were only throwing fastballs, I probably could have gotten my bat on one of them. Believe me, I was dying to take one Reggie Jackson level cut. But the sliders and curveballs, they were a different animal. The slider looked and sounded exactly like a fastball, only it suddenly and inexplicably

darted down and to the right. I mean, how does anyone hit a slider? Yikes. Sievert threw two types of curveballs, the standard curveball, which resembled a slow fastball heading straight for my head before it miraculously swerved across the imaginary plate. And then the lollipop curveball, like the one Bill Lee threw to Tony Perez in the 75 World Series that Perez cruelly deposited on the Mass Pike. Sorry, Red Sox fans. I possessed no illusions about hitting the standard curveball, but the lollipop curveball looked inviting as all hell. I felt like I could hit that one. I really did. During one stretch, he ripped off five or six in a round. By the last one, I felt like I had the lollipop curve timed and everything.

I think I could hit that one, I yelled out to Seaver. Oh, really? He said, smiling. Why don't you dig in there and wait for it again? So I did. Wait a second. That's coming up my head. Good God, run for your lives.

Splack. He actually in that fastball about a foot over my head, but I got the message. I would not be digging in for the lollipop curve ever again. Gus giggled. I pulled my heart out of my stomach. Seaver smiled, a thin smile, but a smile nonetheless. And he waited for Gus to toss the ball back to him. And after 20 more minutes, Seaver called it quits and everyone went on their merry way. And as it turned out, Gus and Tom only played catch one more time

before the Mets finally contacted Seaver, setting off a round of comeback talks that kicked off for real in June. It was a big deal in the Big Apple at the time. Tom Terrific was coming home. And of course, since Gus and I shared a secret all along, we held an enormous stake in the whole thing. Maybe that's why I hurt so much when Seavers

come back sputtered during his rehab stints for New York's AAA club in Tidewater. During his final simulated start, the Mets hitters gave him a bigger beating than Apollo Creed received in Rocky IV. A no-name catcher named Barry Lyons even went six for six against him. Six for six. Seaver abruptly called it quits the following day. It was over. Gus donated his catcher's mitt to the clandestine Comeback Hall of Fame. I had a lively Seaver threw a fastball at my head story to tell my friends, and Tom Seaver had his answer. So why am I telling you this? I was thinking about Seaver last Sunday as David Cohn gritted his way through another

six-inning effort at Fenway Park. The 11th straight time Cohn pitched past the fifth inning and yielded three runs or less. Red Sox fans didn't expect much from the 38-year-old righty after his disastrous 2000 campaign for the Yankees. Yeah. Coney has evolved into a clubhouse leader and bonafide good luck charm. The Red Sox have won each of his last 11 starts as well as a potential number two starter in the playoffs. And there are some eerie parallels between Cone's revival and Seavers aborted comeback 14 years before.

Both accomplished just about everything possible as a starting pitcher. Both peaked in the biggest city possible. Both enjoyed cups of coffee with the Red Sox in their latter years. Both waited for one last phone call for the Yankees that never came. And both felt the nagging need to return one final time. Not because of the money, not because of the situation, but because they needed to find the answer to one question. Do I have anything left? And invariably you either find out the hard way by Barry Lyons rocking you for six hits and a high school punk telling you, I think I can hit that. Or you keep chugging along and you keep staving off father time.

And maybe even getting a groove, almost like a musician or a writer, and you tune out everything, and you reach that elusive zone where everything falls into place, and you're painting corners, and you're keeping hitters off balance, you're playing them like the cello, and you're reaching back for that extra oomph for your fastball, you're somehow finding it.

And even though you're on a 95 pitch count, it feels like you could throw 300. That's what it feels like to be David Cohn right now. Unlike Seaver 14 years ago, Cohn has something left in the gas tank. He has something left. He has his answer. And in a memorable Red Sox season full of more twists and turns than a John Grison novel, that's been the most pleasant surprise of all. Cohn's back. So that was the piece I wrote about Tom in 2001. It's been a story I've been telling people

for the last however many years. Almost 35 at this point. just one of those things you never forget. Also an incredible pitcher and a great ambassador for the Mets. Rest in peace top