The Bill Simmons Podcast - Gambling in Vegas, the Washed-ington Wizards, World Cup Odds, 2019 NBA Champions, and Tony Parker Leaves the Spurs | The Bill Simmons Podcast (Ep. 386)
Episode Date: July 7, 2018HBO and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Dave Chang, Joe House, and Cousin Sal to discuss their Las Vegas gambling experience (2:06). Then, Chris Ryan joins to talk World Cup betting (28:42) a...nd 2019 NBA championship odds (37:37). Finally, Bill and Chris bring in Shea Serrano and Jason Concepcion to react to Tony Parker's decision to sign with the Charlotte Hornets in the twilight of his career and other NBA free-agency news (57:47). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Today's very special Vegas episode of the Bill Simmons podcast live from
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Coming up, we're going to talk to a whole bunch of people.
You just have to listen to the whole podcast because it goes in about 40 directions.
We're taping this from an incredible villa at Caesars Palace.
We're doing a ringer takeover of Summer League.
We have, I don't know, 70 people here, 80 people, 90 employees, or maybe a little less,
maybe around 20.
But we're here for Summer League, a whole bunch of podcast videos.
We're doing a live show at Cleopatra's Barge in Caesars Palace tonight with a whole bunch
of fun guests.
We're going to run that on this feed on Monday, and it's been wonderful.
It was out very late last night.
We're going to talk about that right now with David Chang, Cousin Sal, and Joe House. But first, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, we are at Caesar's Palace in this awesome villa.
Joe House, David Chang, Custis Sauer here.
We have more people coming up later.
We're taping this Friday afternoon, Vegas time.
I did not make the 9 a.m. BS podcast taping today.
I didn't either.
Because I was out with you dudes.
And I was proud of myself, 4.30.
That's about all I have in me at this point.
I'm like Carmelo.
Yeah.
I could still maybe hit some threes, but that's about it.
But 4.30, I thought I was really proud of myself.
House, you went to bed.
Yeah, well, I was up for nearly 24 hours.
I was on East Coast time.
You started making that excuse pretty early.
I mean, hour 20, hour 21.
I know.
I mean, these are all times I haven't stayed awake that late.
I will say, you missed the 9 a.m. BS podcast this morning.
The guy that's sitting to my right here was up with you till 4.30 this morning.
He was texting me at 7.45 a.m. for the 9 o'clock Palace Station call.
Maniac.
And I'll be goddamned if we didn't go over there.
They didn't really go to bed. And it was that good? What'd you get
at the Pal-a-Station? We got the oyster pan roast.
The oyster pan roast. Added lobster. The combo.
Add the lobster. This is making you hungry,
Sasha? Well, they claim they saved
some for us. It better be.
Actually, he was a great friend. He said, I have to
make sure that I save some for these guys. I did it.
We broke a bunch of my rules in Vegas
last night. One was that one of my rules in Vegas last night.
One was that one of my rules is don't have a huge dinner before you go out and gamble.
And we had like the biggest dinner I've ever had in my life.
The best.
Momo in Vegas. So much food.
The best.
It just kept coming.
Cosmo and blanking.
I was laying in bed, like going over with my wife, like what was the best?
And we couldn't narrow it down to five items.
I was stuffed.
And then three more courses
came out
and then we went
and played blackjack
and we were on a coma
for like an hour
and nothing was happening.
We had shots of fireball.
Then the fireball shots
brought us back.
Yeah.
So Cousin Sal
can't,
doesn't really drink?
No.
It's not like you're
allergic to alcohol,
you're just,
it's never really done
anything for you.
I just,
I have enough vices,
you know?
Right.
If I'm fat enough
and if I drink and have no gambling money,
then what am I really? But the fireball shots,
not only do you like, they kind of energize you.
I like glue and cream and I like fireball
when I'm in Vegas. It's basically just sugar.
It's like doing cocaine.
It tastes great. Plus the waitress gets
a little offended when you order it.
And when you call her a waitress.
What was I supposed to call go? I don't know.
Was it to your cocktail?
I don't know.
Cocktail?
Cocktail assistant?
Yeah.
So we got fireball shots that got us going.
And we had a nice run.
We left the table.
We got disgruntled.
Did the whole thing.
We weren't doing well.
Left the table.
Chang got upset, got competitive with the dealer who forced us out,
and went back mano a mano.
Grabbed the momentum. We came back, and went back mano a mano, grabbed the momentum.
We came back, and then we had a big rally.
The book will tell you not to do that.
It's not a great approach, right, to declare you're going to get vengeance on them.
He said, I'm going to break this table.
I said, I'm going to beat it.
It's like Drago.
Yep.
And we made that run. We did. It's like Drago. Yep. And we made that run.
We did.
It was a stubbornness.
Sheer gambling stubbornness proved to win that day.
You were on the beachhead, charging up the dunes.
I was so mad.
We got smoked.
We got smoked.
Simmons was in a great seat. You were in third base, and you had many opportunities to double down,
and it came through.
I think I set a record for pushing on 20.
I felt like an ass having you at first base.
It was your birthday.
I was sitting.
I should have switched seats.
That would have been a generous thing.
As long as everyone's—you cut the cards every time, right?
Most of the time, yeah.
Sal would have 20, and then the dealer would deal herself a five-card 21
and be like, happy birthday!
Yeah, I know.
And it happened like 20 times.
Unbelievable.
But then we rallied back.
So rule number one
we broke, which was leave a cold
table where the dealer's killing you
and don't go back. And we went back.
That's rule number two. We broke
rule number one is don't have a huge meal.
We had the hugest.
Rule number three, we left a hot table.
We were all doing really well.
You were gone. I got smoked.
We got smoked for like four hands.
I think that was wise.
I think that was wise.
That was a lot of money.
That was a lot of money.
No, the jacket, the shoot was done, and we looked at our stack,
and we were all kind of happy with regard to where we had stat there.
And we sort of lost a lot of money that shoot, too.
Yeah, right.
And we cashed
out and chang had some cool chip yeah it was like a white chip oh i did i did well oh so he cashed
out the chip and the lady in the uh the cashier person was on the phone for 10 minutes verifying
the chip yeah and i was trying to get chang riled up. They don't know who you are. This is bullshit.
The racially profiled Chang.
If this were my chip, they wouldn't have done this.
And I was trying to get him mad.
He wasn't falling for it.
He owns this town.
I love gambling.
It makes me genuinely happy
because I don't think about anything else
other than trying to win free money.
But that said, we were ready to turn it in and Simmons made us feel bad.
And that led to rule number four, which we broke.
We went to Caesars and we played craps and Chang immediately talked us into betting the
don't come line.
For people who don't know what that is, when you play craps, there's a come line and a
don't come line.
Come line, you put your bet on when the roller starts.
Whatever they roll first, if it's a 7-11, you win immediately.
If it's 2-3-12, you lose immediately.
Any other number that person hits becomes the point.
So if you roll like an 8, that's your point on the come line.
Then you can back it up with bets.
And they have to roll an 8 before they roll a 7.
They have to roll an 8 before they roll a 7.
Yeah.
So two 8s in a row, you eight seven you lose everybody hates the person that doesn't bet on the come line that
bets that don't come which is basically you're betting against the roller you're betting that
after they establish their point eight six five, whatever, they will throw a seven before they repeat that
roll. And it's like seven
out and the whole table gets depressed
unless you bet the don't come line.
So Chang is there like,
no, no, this is going to be fun. And just
has all these don't come bets.
We're winning and he's
like,
I got these contained celebrators.
You can't tell. It's not like the commercials you see, the Caesars commercials,
where everyone's high-fiving.
You have to celebrate hunched over under the table.
What does it say about your psyche that you revel in the negative energy
of people losing around you as you win?
Well, that's not true, right?
Okay.
Because when we started to throw the dice, it was par ourselves.
Yeah, we bet on ourselves.
Yeah, we bet on ourselves.
But then we pissed off the people on the other end of the table.
They started betting don't come against us, and it was this don't come battle.
It was like a rap battle.
And it got physical, too.
We were actually throwing dice at each other.
I was aiming for one guy.
Whoops, sorry.
It's the most exciting game in the street.
But I was excited to know that I had another brother on the dark side.
Yeah.
I was right there with you.
But you were betting, but you were like, I want to play blackjack.
This is too slow.
Blackjack tax.
Was that what it was called?
Yeah.
It is true.
And you were like, fuck.
Yeah.
I chatted water.
You're right, though.
It was a tax.
But you were doing, you lost your mind.
Sal and I were talking about it today.
I've never seen you like that.
You bet on every single number.
Well, you had a crazy bet.
You're like, hard six, hard eight, 25 and the nine, 25 and the five.
It's going to be hard to explain.
This is going to be really hard to explain. You're just throwing chips
everywhere. No, there was a reason.
This is fourth year craps in college.
So,
the stupid bets,
there's so many bets. You can bet on one roll.
You can bet on every kind of bet.
You can bet on every roll before the roll
even after the point's established.
One of the bets that sometimes I like to do,
particularly when my friends or myself are rolling,
is betting on the all small, all tall, or all.
And the all small and all tall are 31 to 1.
And if you hit them all, it's 151 to 1 odds.
So what happens to win that?
You have to hit two to like six.
Okay.
And then.
Before you get a seven.
The roll has to hit these numbers.
And then we had hit every number except two and 12.
So I was, I had like.
So that's why you're going crazy.
I had so much action.
Basically it was how I had like 12 bets going on the table.
Cause Cousin Seth was on a heater, man.
He was throwing so much stuff.
I went for like 15 minutes.
You stuck it to those dudes on the other side of the table.
Don't come.
Revenge will come.
That's right.
And we made them lose a lot of money.
And I had a ton of money out there.
But I was going crazy.
I did lose my mind.
I couldn't figure out why.
Holy shit.
You were in a frenzy.
I was so close to winning these
31-1 bets.
I was also doing
the single roll bets.
I put $25 down on two
and $25 on 12.
Maybe a little bit more
than that.
We won a couple. We won on the hard six and the hard eight.
Those are dumb bets,
but I just feel like it's just something that happens.
You know what's tougher
than a hard six?
A hard three,
which Bill screamed at
a few times.
No, no, no.
He kept asking.
He's like, hard three.
She's like, you mean hard six.
He's like, you know what I mean.
He's like, no,
you have to say hard six.
There's no one and a half
on each dime.
It's going to be a hard three.
They were mad at us
throwing the chips, too.
Oh, yeah.
I'm basically not coherent in craps. I'm not good at a hard three. They were mad at us throwing the chips too. Oh yeah. I'm basically not
coherent in craps.
I'm not good at any of it.
I'm not good at
throwing the chips
to the dealers.
That's the cool part,
throwing the chips to the dealers.
And then they got pissy with us.
Like, no,
here's my hand.
Throw it into my hand.
Yeah, they gave you
an instruction
on how to throw chips.
I thought they were,
that was not cool.
They were a little salty,
but they got less salty
when Chang started
betting for the dealers.
Yeah.
Yeah, that was. Because at that point you had 20 bets. What's 20 or 21? Why not? That was not cool. They were a little salty, but they got less salty when Chang started betting for the dealers. Yeah.
Because at that point, you had 20 bets.
What's 20 or 21?
Why not?
That's like the best.
That's why craps to me is one of the funnest things you could do.
And well, I wound up losing it all regardless.
Because the real problem is knowing when to pull your bets down on a craps table.
Yeah, they keep saying that.
And I have never learned that.
I've never understood craps because you have the roll,
and then you put more money on there, and then the seven comes,
and it's just all gone.
It's like I was winning for an hour, and I'm even.
What happened?
It's called greed.
I want to hear a little more about the glory and glee of the Cousin Sal
on the don't come because really Cousin Sal is built for the don't come.
As we were talking about it, you bet against buzzer beaters in March Badness, which is
the least American thing that any human being can do.
Yeah, I'm just rooting for it to hit the rim.
That's exciting.
You're basically rooting against buzzer beating joy for four days.
Is it the first weekend?
What is it?
It's the Thursday, Friday games.
Yeah.
No buzzer beaters.
So all everyone is doing is rooting for buzzer beaters and Sal's going against it.
It hit this year.
So the Don't Come was like a rooting for buzzer beaters. And Sal's going against it. It hit this year.
So the dunk come was like a revelation for you.
But explain.
There are no craps tables if the casino can't win when the loser. So always in the casino, you know it's sort of a good bet when the casino takes away the odds.
Not in your favor.
It's more likely that you're going to crap out than hit, you know,
your point. So, and it proved to be true.
We deviated from our plan. Had we listened to ourselves,
we would have won a lot more money, but we got caught up in irrational exuberance
and just bet. I did. I'm talking about myself.
I stuck with what you told me originally.
And I actually made money. And you won money. Yeah.
And I did not. Because you just told me, bet, don't come.
Yeah.
We're doing it again tonight.
We enraged like seven people, though.
Yeah, that's good.
I made a person leave unhappy, remember?
You were like, you got that guy off the table.
Yeah.
I was like, you broke that guy.
You did.
You broke this guy.
But I was so happy that I really believe that you are a genuine gambling savant.
Thank you.
Right?
Thank you.
I don't understand why you didn't know more about craps.
It's like all your weird beautiful mind.
I don't like the opposite.
I like playing the numbers and everything and backing up the odds and everything.
But the opposite is a little confusing because then you have to reestablish on that.
But I'm doing, like, a lot more stuff.
I know.
You're a little older.
I'm also trying to qualify for other numbers
because that's the best bet in the house
if you can back up those odds.
I don't know how you did this after nine cocktails.
That was my biggest issue.
But you understand you could hit people with dice.
That's what the best part is.
You can get out all your frustration,
and they don't really yell at you.
They just shrug their shoulders.
You did it quite a bit.
Don't be so sloppy.
Tonight I am betting the hard three.
They're not stopping me. That's got to come out.
I'm just going to keep betting it.
When I was looking at
Cousin Sal figuring out
the other ways to play craps,
I could imagine it was like
Bobby Fisher. All these
possible combinations.
It was amazing.
The problem is, are your friends this way? Simmons will sit at the same blackjack table for nine hours and just smoke
cigarettes i i can't get people to play a couple cigarettes like two cigarettes oh right two three
pack one or two he swallowed two lighters i think but you don't i don't do you have trouble getting
your friends to play craps are they all blackjackjack players? No, they're all like, they like to do stupid things.
How do you feel about House's blackjack skills?
I don't have any blackjack skills.
What would be his grade?
C minus?
I walk in on brand and as advertised.
I don't know shit.
I play, I come to Vegas once every couple of years.
It's for fun.
It's for the camaraderie.
It's not like you're getting a PhD in rocket science.
There's like five things to know how to do.
I just try and check to make sure I'm not fucking up what everybody else has.
Well, he had his face.
This is what we were introduced to last night, which made you think twice about the surrender.
We played a surrender table.
The surrender was good.
Yeah.
That was an innovation for everyone.
I play a lot of blackjack.
I had 16 against a 10 in the surrender.
I have a friend, my friend John Hopp, who can never meet Shane because if they ever played blackjack,
they would just start punching each other at the table.
Very aggro.
The surrender thing makes him so mad.
On a six deck.
Come on, hit it.
Just hit it.
Well, he's dumb.
It's just a reality.
I actually, the surrender, the 16 against a 10, defensible.
At that point, your odds are are like what, 3%?
Mathematically, the odds tell you to do that.
It makes more sense if you have a six and the dealer is showing an ace or a 10 to surrender and get half your bet back.
And a six deck shoot.
Okay, but if there's no option for surrender and the dealer has an ace, you wouldn't take insurance on that.
No, I never take insurance. But that's the same kind of thing you're playing at a stupid deal. But the deal has an ace. You wouldn't take insurance on that. No, I never take insurance.
But that's the same kind of thing you're talking about.
If the deal has an ace and you have a six and it's not a surrender table,
would you take insurance?
Well, I would never go to a table that doesn't offer surrender.
Oh, really?
Unless it's a double deck shooter.
Well, the other thing, the other trend that's happened in Vegas.
There's been trends in Vegas.
I've been coming here since the mid-90s.
They had the electronic shooter
where you can never get a feel for the six deck whatever.
And that was in the mid-2000s.
And you would walk around these casinos
looking for people that had the natural six,
what is it called, six deck shoot?
Yep.
I get rid of those.
They got rid of those times now.
They got rid of those finally
because I think everybody hated them.
But now this new thing where the blackjack odds have changed.
Yeah.
And it's-
It was six to five.
It was six.
You have to go find the table.
You got to go find three.
Most people don't know what the odds are.
Yeah.
So you get blackjack, you have $100 down, you get blackjack, you should get $150 plus
the $100 back.
And it's a big deal if you're playing for four or five hours.
If you're just sitting down for 20 minutes, you could do it six to five.
So now they're saying it's,
you get blackjack,
you get 120 out of 100,
which is,
and on those tables,
the big thing is they can still draw cards on a sauce 17.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's like total shit.
Let me add this.
It's like,
they're not winning enough on,
on people on blackjack.
They have to like bend the rules more.
Right.
Come on.
I mean,
I would probably do the same thing if I was like,
why, why did you never get into counting cards? Or did you? jacked, I have to bend the rules more? Come on. I mean, I would probably do the same thing if I was a casino player.
Why did you never get into counting cards?
Or did you? Who said that he didn't? Oh, I don't know. I was trying
to do it last night. Yeah, it's hard.
What made it hard were the fireball
shots. My SAT scores
did not... Really?
Yeah, but you have such a mathematical
approach to it otherwise.
I'm trying to get an estimation as to what's happening.
Right.
The way to do it is you just have to keep in your head a general sense of face cards and aces and whether you're either low or high.
And you would announce it.
You're like, a lot of picture cards coming.
That's usually right.
And that's when you see, like, usually you know that, like, I'm trying to calculate something in my head.
Not counting cards. No, never counting cards. know that, like, I'm trying to calculate something in my head, not counting cards.
No, never counting cards.
No, no.
When I'm increasing my bets.
When I started, when you saw, like, oh, Dave's doing something stupid,
it's because I was hoping to catch, you know, a good shoot.
House was counting the cards.
He was literally counting.
One king plus three is 13.
House had trouble with the 14 against the seven?
Just hit it.
You got to just hit it.
But I mean, that's the best way to go about doing it.
If there's a lot of low numbers.
I've played blackjack with you like 10 times.
I don't understand why you can't get the rules.
I play once every two years.
I come in.
I just want to make sure I don't mess up any of my pals.
You are nice about asking.
I ask.
It's like the best thing to do is not.
Although he did. I ask. It's like the best thing to do is not. Although he did.
I stayed on 16.
16 against a 10 and gave somebody else the five, which was the classic.
Everybody just starts laughing.
I gave you the five.
You won.
Guess what?
No.
Yeah, you got 21, you dick.
I didn't feel good about it.
You didn't feel good about it.
They put some money right over to your side.
It screws up the cards.
I didn't realize how hard you like to grind out a table.
What do you mean?
Like, you broke me.
You did.
I was like, Bill, I have to go to bed.
I'm glad we're talking about this.
It's 4.30.
Although, they'll be vacuuming under his feet.
He doesn't care.
No, I do like when the vacuums come out, I know that it's a good night.
The other sad is when you come back to the hotel room and it's light outside.
My contacts are still in.
Yeah, you grenaded yourself last night.
Yeah, I did.
He started pyramid scheming his bets because he was either like,
I'll either just get this stack or I'm out.
Either way, I don't care.
Is that more difficult when you're playing three hands?
Because you were playing three hands.
You were playing a couple at a time.
You kicked someone out away from our table.
Yeah, that's when I started playing three.
So some guy couldn't join our table.
I hate when that happens.
Right, right, right.
You hate having the random person in the mix.
Makes me...
One of my greatest pet peeves in my life is when you're playing blackjack
and you have like bigger bets
way bigger bets and someone's doing the minimum and they don't know what the fuck they're doing
it's almost like if they're betting that don't come against you
that's worse than having a bad dealer or something right well you know the funny thing is, is like my, that was like, karma is one time when I was in Macau.
Good, good story.
Good name draft.
Numbers in Chinese culture are so powerful and symbolic that I swear to God, this is how I interpreted it.
Cause this was my bets.
And there it's different because like, it's probably like three to five people deep because everyone's putting bets on top of bets.
Yeah, I don't like that.
It's crazy.
You did that a little with us.
A little bit.
I loved it.
A little bit.
It helped.
And I just loved the action.
So I was making sure if you weren't going to double, I would just put the money down because I can't help it.
I love the action. But in Macau, I wound up never, I decided I was never going to play blackjack ever again in a predominantly Asian casino because they could have like 14 and the dealer will show 18 and you might have like an 18 or whatever.
Like they're going to stay regardless because they feel it's an auspicious number or it's lucky.
And I'm like, fuck, no, please hit it, please hit it. And theypicious number or it's lucky and i'm like
fuck no please hit it please hit it and they won't do it wow and they're like no fuck you
you don't know what we're doing i've got the gods on my side yeah yeah so that's why i just
wind up playing baccarat if i'm in baccarat so james bond it's great doesn't feel like a real
human being it's slow but essentially it's flipping a quarter yeah but it's great doesn't feel like a real human being it's slow but essentially it's flipping a quarter
yeah but it's similar to craps in that you either play the streak or you go against the streak right
but it's meaningless like if you i mean i'm not the right person to talk about this but from what
i've read it is totally meaningless in terms of the chart of like whether it's, you know, house or the bank.
And it just doesn't matter.
None of it is a pattern.
I thought we could have won last night when you got tired.
I was so tired.
Because we had, it was me and Chang and some happy Russian guy who had like Teddy KGB's accent.
Yes.
And he was a dealer and was talking about how much money he'd won with the dealer.
He was only missing in the Oreos.
And we were all winning, but you were just, you were stacking.
So it was like you would win five in a row, but then lose the six.
I was hoping to like lose.
So you were going back.
He was going back.
And he got so mad at me.
I didn't get mad.
I was winning.
You get very pissy.
I was winning.
But the problem was I kept on like winning.
So the bets had to get bigger and bigger.
And it became more noticeable that I was trying to get out of it.
I like the Russian guy.
Anytime it's late at night and there's weird people at the table
that are good karma people.
He was really a nice dude.
Bill is not pacing himself at all.
It's like he needs to learn.
If we're here for a few nights,
it's okay to use that 4 to 6 a.m. period to go to sleep.
It really is.
I was in bed by 4.32.
All right.
Can I ask without you getting upset at me?
Yeah.
There was like a couple of shoots when we were at the win.
Yeah.
Where I felt that if you had bet,
pressed your bets just like by a third,
you could have left with like a lot of money.
So how's that to me?
I never felt like I always, You could have left with a lot of money. So how's that to me?
I never felt like I do that if I feel like the table's on fire.
I never felt like we were on fire. The dealer was saying to us, wow, this guy's killing it.
Yeah, she did say killing it.
She did.
She did.
She did.
She said it multiple times.
It was Nez.
I was betting two hands.
Yeah, but on your right hand, your first hand, you pulled 21 six times with low cards.
I was like, what the fuck is going on here?
I felt like I had a good thing going.
Sometimes when I press.
I'm not counting.
I'm not counting.
You did have a good thing going.
No, no.
You're getting 21.
Chang tipped more than you won.
It's crazy.
Sometimes when I press, though, it ruins the momentum.
I've had bad experience with that.
But like, I do press. Sometimes when I press though, it ruins the momentum. I've had bad experience with that.
I do press.
I was trying to calculate in my head today how much money you could have won.
Well, physically, the problem with me is physically after that meal you made for us.
No, seriously, I didn't feel like, I felt like I had a torn ACL.
Like I was playing the World Cup with a torn ACL. We were out of it.
The first two hours.
I was like in a half coma.
But Bill also plans,
I'm going to defend him
a little here.
Maybe he didn't press
because he plans on being
at that table
all night.
No, it's a war of attrition.
Yeah.
Just so you know,
my strategy is usually
to press late at night.
That's the worst time
to press.
That's what works for me.
That is the worst.
I usually get up at night.
The last one of mine doesn't work. No, that's good. That's when I take chances. No, no, no. I know, but that's what works for me. That is the worst. The last one of mine doesn't work.
No, that's good. That's when I take chances.
I think the smartest play
is to... Yes.
Smartest play is to do
blitzkrieg. Like fast
hits. I have friends that have
hoppers like this too.
My friend Hopper. He wins a couple of hands
and just goes all in immediately.
It's basically your house. You don't
have any strategy at all.
I'm just there for the fun of it. Chang took
care of it for all of us. He blitzkrieged
himself, and then he's right next to me.
He's pushing me, too. It was perfect.
The problem is, though, if you lose three
or four in a row, you have to say goodbye to the
table and go see the Blue Man Group or something.
You can't hang around because you can't
sustain it.
What was fun about last night was
as near as some of us got to
that,
there was always momentum.
There were comebacks.
We won the dealer back, which doesn't happen very often.
You know why? Because we're the Fireball Force.
The Fireball Force!
The Fireball Force!
That was such a shock. When you ask for Fireball Force. The Fireball Force. The Fireball Force. That was such a shock.
When you asked for fireball shots.
It's so exciting.
Let's take a break.
Hey, summer is short.
Make the most of it in a new BMW.
This week, me and Joe House driving to Vegas in a new BMW X3. I could not be happier
about it. When you're driving to Vegas, it's four hours. You're in the highway. You want that ride
to be nice and smooth. You want to be in a car that everything is in there at your beck and call,
nice radio, good speed. You can put it on cruise control, all the stuff you like.
And then also, you're driving through Death Valley. You want to be in a car that you know is reliable. BMW is the best. It drives the best. I've had BMWs probably for
most of my life. I remember in the 90s, I had a car that I took from 25,000 miles to 210,000.
I'm not making that up. Same car. Drove it back and forth, drove it all around the East Coast. BMW.
I swear by them.
It's my favorite car.
I think my favorite was the 325 in the 90s, just because it was a little bit ahead of its time.
It was a little bit before everybody realized that BMW was the best car.
My feeling is if you're getting a car and you're spending money, get the best.
BMW is just the best. It's like talking about LeBron or Messi or Ronaldo or whoever.
I was thinking about it's free agency time.
You can talk about cars, and cars are like NBA players where it's like,
oh, that guy's a great shooter.
He can't play defense.
Very rarely does the free agent come on the market that just checks all the boxes.
You saw it this year, LeBron, obviously, Paul George,
just the rare guys who could just do
everything. And that's BMW. Whatever you want from a car, if you want the SUV, they have that.
They have the best version of that. If you want the fancy convertible, if you want the sleek,
little, tight, compact convertible, do you want an electric car? All of it, they have the best.
Whatever you want, they can do it.
They can come in all kinds of colors.
You can do New England Patriots blue if you want.
You can do red.
Anyway, they have everything.
I could not recommend BMW any more highly.
Hurry into the BMW Summer On Sales event now
and receive exceptional offers on select models.
But remember, summer won't last forever.
Learn more at
bmwusa.com
slash
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And you could be like me
and just go to the BMW site
and just
surf around
from cars you like.
I am a loser.
I love cars.
I love BMW.
Check it out.
All right.
We dumped David Chan.
Chris Ryan is here.
What a replacement.
Star of my quest. the Jason Concepcion story
on TheRinger.com right now.
World Cup.
We just had Brazil lost.
You were surprised or you weren't?
I was surprised that Brazil lost.
Yeah, they had the best overall team by far in the tournament.
So it's a pretty big shock.
And they were supposed to have redemption
for the last World Cup where they lost 7-1 to Germany.
I watched it downstairs in the Caesars sportsbook.
There were a few very loud Brazilian ladies
who I think were saying things in Portuguese
that would have gotten them arrested
if they had been saying them in English.
But from what I could discern,
very disappointed in their team's performance.
So they were like 2-1 favorites?
Yeah, they were about 180, 190 favorites.
We've just lost some monster teams.
Yeah, all of South America's out of the tournament.
Do you want to hear about Sal's birthday bet?
Let's do it.
So Sal's lovely wife decides, I'm going to get Sal.
Sal's birthday was yesterday.
I'm going to buy him a bet.
I'll consult the degenerate trifecta.
Terrible.
So Harry, who is on like the biggest cold streak probably any sports
game has ever been on, is like,
go get him Uruguay. Oh no!
And she goes in and buys the Uruguay bet
for Sal. Happy birthday.
And I'm going to be up for 20
minutes of this game. My wife told me
the story and she's like, isn't this cute?
She has the trifecta. They told
him Uruguay. I was like, oh, that's a loss.
Can we stop her?
Should we go down?
By the way, I don't want to make too much of this,
but it's my money too.
It's 100%. Yeah, Harry was, you know,
the first few games of the World Cup
don't mean the rest of the World Cup's going to play out that way.
Harry was convinced, well, Uruguay hasn't given up a goal yet.
Yeah, their defense.
But they were playing in the worst group.
That's pretty good.
Thanks.
But don't you think that people thought the same way about Belgium?
They barely survived against Japan.
They were lucky to even win in regulation on the fast break.
The goalie spit on it out there.
And maybe there was a lot of anti-Belgian bias going on.
I think people thought Brazil was going to win like 5-0.
Yeah, right.
Because Belgium has basically like a 36-year-old guy
with one hamstring
as the anchor of their defense.
They have a really good keeper
and then they attack.
They have two of the three
best Premier League players.
I was really impressed by them
throughout the cup.
I was surprised that they were
dramatic underdogs.
They also have a coach
that is essentially like
if you hired Vinny Del Negro
to coach Team USA.
Roberto Martinez is like
a good media guy,
but he is,
as a coach,
is really suspect.
So I thought France
was the best team
I saw the whole cup.
And now it looks like
things have lined up
for them pretty nicely.
Yeah.
So France and Belgium advance.
Tomorrow we have
England against Sweden.
England minus 220 to advance.
And then the Croatia-Russia battle.
Croatia minus 180.
One of those two is going to be in the final four.
I thought Croatia was good, though.
Yeah.
Why wouldn't we parlay England and Croatia?
Is it because of the England baggage?
Why wouldn't we do that?
Minus 220, minus 180.
England shed their baggage.
In the PKs.
Yeah, they won their first penalty shootout in World Cup history.
This is a young team.
They are pretty much playing free of that baggage.
You know, the last time I heard this narrative was the Minnesota Vikings
after they escaped the Saints.
Baggage is gone.
It's a new era.
Then they got killed in Philadelphia.
It's also England and Croatia are fun teams to cheer for.
Sweden, essentially...
Did you guys hear the term shithousery?
No.
That's what they were talking about with England versus Colombia
is that Colombia was engaging in shithousery,
which is essentially falling down a lot,
surrounding the ref and yelling at him.
I like that.
Wasting time with fake injuries.
I thought you were talking about a house for a second.
I'm confused. I'm sitting right here. Shithous you were talking about a house for a second. I got confused.
I'm sitting right here.
Shithousery is what happens after he has a giant dinner.
No, so they were engaging in shithousery,
and they say that Sweden, people say that Sweden does it too,
but just in a more IKEA way, like in a more efficient,
less dramatic way.
But I think England's got them tomorrow.
I think England's going to take it.
My wife had a good observation regarding shithousery.
She should never bet soccer again.
But she did point out that you have Neymar covered with tattoos,
needles all over the place for his whole life,
and someone grazes his toe, and he's in histrionics for an hour.
Yeah, what would happen when he got a tattoo?
He would just have to be medicated?
He would be listening to all the Smiths discography at once,
just sobbing in your bedroom forever.
Who is the flapper of the tournament?
Neymar,
just because I think that's sideline one against Mexico where it basically, he like got grazed and then Mexico was sort of getting back in that game and
he wasted like five minutes rolling around and rolling around like in a way
that is,
you could lie there and just be like, oh way that is yeah so you could lie there like
you've been shot that hurt but it's just like the flipping back and forth like somebody stabbed him
in the thigh what are these referees how many languages must they know or is it all just
they just have to senegal is playing morocco that no one can understand everybody right so
the colombia players complained a little bit about Mark Geiger from the Columbia England game.
And he's American.
And they were like,
well,
he didn't even speak Spanish.
It's like,
I think he got the point.
You know what I mean?
They were surround like,
like I think of the international language of shithousery knows no about
borders.
How many yellow cards before you're suspended for the next game?
Three or two?
And this late stage,
I don't know.
I think that's because,
so a couple of guys
were up against it the last round but i don't know what it is for going i was thinking if they
had this in the nba like this how crazy it would be we saw it once with dream on in 16 yeah right
but he had had how many technicals at that point like 16 right and then wasn't there like a joke
when they got close to the sweep like draymond was like they can't throw me out of this one so i'm
just gonna go for broke
in game four. I'm just going to be
laying forearm shivers in the opening five
minutes. Well, I was thinking
flagrant one, flagrant two is basically
yellow card, red card. Yes, that's right. Would you rather
have yellow card or red card house or would you rather have
flagrant one, flagrant two? I like flagrant.
I think it really emphasizes the point. You wouldn't want the NBA
refs to hold up a yellow card? I think it's cool.
Well, you can do both. I like the holding up the card.
The problem with it is two yellows.
The problem with it is that, like, in separation,
like one yellow in basketball should not get you tossed out of a game.
And doing two.
No, but two could, though.
Yeah, but that, like, that just gets so on the border, though.
It gets so on the border.
Here's what I would do.
If I'm a player, I discreetly hide an even bigger yellow card.
And the referee presents me with one.
I'm like, aha, look at this stop sign, baby.
So whatever happens tomorrow, odds are England, Croatia,
and then we have Belgium and France.
Just looking at this as a casual World Cup fan who watches these games,
I thought France was overpoweringly the best team out of these four.
Why wouldn't we
bet on France to win the World Cup? And what would
the odds be, Sal?
Right now, what are they? Plus 250? We were looking
at it before. France?
You got this, Isaac?
France for plus 200.
Two to one.
Four to one?
Chris is an England fan, we should
mention. The best games, like, how do you justify France beat Argentina 4-3?
That was a great game.
Because Argentina, like, we basically look at what Argentina's defense was.
We were like, it was actually Bill after 4.30 a.m. curtain call.
That's like the central defensive back for Argentina.
Every day. But Argentina scored a lot, too. That's like the central defensive back for Argentina. That's me every day.
But Argentina scored a lot too,
and they hadn't in their previous games.
Yeah, I think it just became like an up and down game.
So what happens is outside of the group stages,
these just become very situational.
So some team might say,
we're going to play 10 guys behind the ball.
We're going to wait for you to make a mistake.
We might even wait to get to penalties
because then it's basically a lottery ticket.
Some teams might say, hey, we're going to try and actually open this up and
see if we can score three and make you need to keep up with us.
I almost felt like Belgium got lucky a little bit today, but what they were
basically doing was running on every turnover.
Yeah, there's a lot of fast breaks.
And they were just counting on Brazil.
That's the soccer I like.
I like the transition.
So I recommend France. I would be surprised I like. I like the transition. So I recommend France.
I would be surprised if they didn't win the World Cup.
So to be able to get a plus bet on them at plus 200.
Are you worried at all that Putin is three goalie poisonings away from winning this thing?
Yeah.
It really could happen.
He probably wasn't going to.
They're 20 to 1, right?
We were saying he probably wasn't going to fix the early rounds.
He didn't realize he, you know, but now that they're close.
It's going to be like really strange.
It's like zero, zero and extra time against Croatia.
If something weird happens. And there's already talk about how they had great stamina.
Yeah.
Imagine the cocktail that those guys are taking.
It's HGH, Adderall and what?
EPO. And EPO, right. It's HGH, Adderall, and what? EPO.
And EPO, right.
The stuff that makes you laugh. It's like Jason Statham from Crank.
Yeah.
They consulted The Rock, Lance Armstrong, Sammy Sosa.
They had a lot of things.
I like France.
So we have, Caesars has these sheets.
Ever since Sal and I started coming to Vegas together,
we'd go to the sports book.
And this was before the rise of online
gambling where you could really get good odds at the
right prices. We would just stare at these sheets.
So many forests. We would go to
lunch and bring the sheets and not talk.
Just look at the sheets and Sal would be like,
Lakers 5-1.
Just not talk for
another 10 minutes.
Basketball is here.
It is?
Before we know what's going on with Kawhi, okay.
Bill was surprised that you could bet the Summer League.
I think that's outrageous.
The spreads are very low.
Can you bet Trey Young to crack 30%?
Will Trey Young's career be over by the end of Summer League?
Because he's wild.
Oh, come on.
Oh, sorry.
The problem with the Trae Young thing
is that all the signs are there
for one of the biggest trade catastrophes
we've ever had.
Like, I already thought Dallas
won the trade convincingly,
and then Trae Young.
I try not to overreact to Summer League,
but when you're bad in Summer League,
I think that's a bad sign.
Trae Young's taken, I think,
is it 52 shots in three games?
He's also destroying the, oh, it's a small
sample size argument. It's a volume shooter.
So, House, you haven't seen the odds for the
finals, right? No, no. What would you want
to guess the Warriors' odds are right now?
You have to pay. I bet they're
it's like, I don't know,
10 to 11.
5 to 8. Minus 1.6.
So you bet 800, you can only win
500 on it.
For some reason, the boogie thing, which I haven't talked about on a podcast.
I guess we should talk about that quickly.
The boogie thing swung their odds.
And people don't seem to realize he's a 280-pound guy coming off this Achilles injury that has been deadly for pretty much every NBA player.
I don't think he even comes back until after the All-Star break.
And if he does, he's playing 17, 18 minutes a game.
Your best case scenario is like Bill Walton
on the 86 Celtics.
Like, comes off the bench, changes the game.
But what's your worst case scenario?
Your worst case scenario is he's running around
with a limp and he's slow and he's not healthy.
And the Warriors still make the conference finals.
And at that point, they'll be minus two.
I'm just saying, I don't think he should have swung the odds.
It was a really good gamble by them.
LeBron shouldn't have swung it that much either.
What would you guess for the Lakers?
You have a boogie thought.
Give your boogie thought.
Well, my boogie thought is what you just described is exactly what's going to happen.
He's just going to wait.
There's no reason for him to play until the All-Star break.
And the regular season for boogie is irrelevant.
The whole point is for Golden state it it tips one more
you know uh to to the left for them in terms of uh getting through the playoffs it may be with
healthy guys maybe tips it pete it's a way the odds made it seem like it was definitely yeah
i think it's like 50 50 he helps them oh yeah and there's also like the added wrinkle of
he's still he's playing for his next contract.
What if he starts getting mad about touches?
What if just like any usual boogie locker room stuff happens?
And two organizations were very happy not to have him anymore now,
which I think is also a bad sign.
I say who cares about boogie?
Those are still good odds.
Minus 160.
We do this with the Patriots in the beginning of the year.
Like, well, they're 4-1.
That's low.
But, well, they're making the AFC championship.
I think winning 4-5 is really hard.
Yes.
And they've had a lot of injury luck the last five years.
They have not had a major bad injury.
Is Iguodala going to be healthier this year than he was last year?
Iguodala is the worst injury they've had in this entire run.
I don't know.
The Rockets are going to step up.
What do you have for the Lakers? What would be your guess? this entire run. Yeah. I don't know. The Rockets are going to step up. Well, let me ask,
what do you have for the Lakers?
What would be your guess?
Well, they're still,
they're going to be silly.
It's going to be ridiculous.
What are they, six to one?
Five to one.
Yeah, it's ridiculous. Which to me is the worst bet on the board
after their summer signings.
The KCP for 12 million was embarrassing.
Why didn't they do something?
Is it that they're not,
this isn't the team,
it's the next year's team?
Like, why not look at Marcus Smart or blow out for Capella?
It seems like they wanted the one years,
but I would have kept,
I just feel like cap space is the best commodity you can have.
And, you know, maybe they had a chance to get Damian Lillard,
who Sal and House and I bet on Damian Lillard
would be the next Lakers all-star acquisition.
Or was it max contract? Max contract, yeah. We bet on Damian Lillard would be the next Lakers all-star acquisition. Or was it max contract?
Max contract, yeah.
We bet on Damon Lillard plus 750.
Wow.
So, but I mean, they had the cap space.
Damon Lillard or if they get a Kawhi Leonard, what are those odds changed?
I think that's why the odds are where they are now because people are assuming.
I don't think they're going to get Kawhi though.
Lillard, if they kept their cap space, they could have traded Lonzo
and Kuzma
just for Lillard.
It would have saved the Blazers like 20 million bucks
and gotten them under the tax.
It's a defensible deal for the Lakers.
I like Lonzo way more
than most people. Where do you guys stand on Lonzo?
I want him to get traded
to San Antonio and then Popovich
has to deal with the old man.
I think that's a great dynamic.
So the old man got heard from the other day.
Did he?
Yeah, he called Rondo the little guy.
He's going to back him up.
He called him Little Rondo.
He had a Rondo dig.
That's not going to go well.
Wow.
He's gone, by the way.
Lonzo is gone.
Lonzo is gone-zo. If I was Milwaukee, first of all, Lonzo is gone. I would trade for him right now. Lonzo is Gonzo.
If I was Milwaukee, first of all, Lonzo would be on my team already if I was another GM.
I would have him already.
I would trade for him.
But if I was Milwaukee, I'd be like, hey, we'll trade you Bledsoe.
He's expiring contract, clutch client.
We'll take back the dang contract.
And then you guys maybe throw in Lonzo.
I don't know. Maybe Kuzma in Lonzo. I don't know.
Maybe Kuzma and Lonzo.
You don't think Magic has-
I would have Lonzo be on my team.
You don't think Magic has reputational stuff tied up and Lonzo working out?
No, he doesn't care.
Okay.
He's all in LeBron.
The funniest thing about those stories was LeBron meets with Magic.
And they have this three-hour brainstorming session on who they should sign.
Which they made it seem like it was the diner scene in Heat.
They're just looking at each other.
Well, now that we've gotten to know each other,
if I have to take you down, I'm not going to like it.
So they have this three-hour brainstorm session,
and it yields KCP, Lance Stevenson, JaVale McGee,
for a combined $18 million next year.
That was what their three-hour brainstorming session revealed.
And Rondo, I actually kind of liked.
The Rondo thing is fine in a vacuum.
I mean, you could defend any of those in a vacuum.
I thought Rondo was good.
With the exception of Lance,
who I think actually is not helpful on a basketball team,
except for like-
Lance is fine if you're paying him like $15 an hour.
Yeah, that's what I say.
You're paying him $4.5 million.
But it's also,
I couldn't tell whether those deals were all made
because they think they have a shot at Durant or Kyrie
or somebody down the line
or whether they were made
because they knew they were trading all the kids for Kawhi.
I think KCP was a favorite of Rich Paul.
Rich Paul fucked up his contract a year ago.
He had like, I think, $70 million from Detroit.
Didn't take it.
Then they go into the
off season, doesn't get any deals. And he did the one year, 18 million. I tweeted, you can go look
at my Twitter. When it happened, I was like, I bet they do a life raft contract for KCP because
Rich Paul screwed this up and it'll be a favor for LeBron in a year. And then like three days later,
18 million. So they give him another 12. So KCP ends up making 30 million for two years. I would say he's a below average starter,
right? Yes. Maybe a good ninth man. Yeah. I think he's like a good stats, bad team.
But I think he's somebody they could trade. Okay. Um, if for in a Kawhi deal,
that'll be a really good litmus test for how much Paul has there.
I just think they really,
I think LeBron is one of the worst GMs of this decade.
Really, the only good signing they had was Ray on Miami.
Are you going to say,
I don't think he's making these calls?
Yeah, I'm going to go on the record again.
I don't think he's making these calls.
I think him and Magic are making these calls together.
Where's Palenka?
I don't know.
He's the GM.
He's probably like in Bora Bora.
He's the GM. He's probably like in Bora Bora. He's probably here.
Is LeBron like, he's like, look, Stevenson,
I don't even care if I play with him.
I just don't want this maniac breathing on me as an opponent.
Let's just sign him so I don't have to deal with that.
Well, they tried to do this ESPN story.
They were talking about this team's going to be unlike any LeBron team.
He doesn't want to be surrounded by shooters.
He wants defenders who can switch. Who said that? That was this ESPN article. Oh, my God. He's going to be unlike any LeBron team. He doesn't want to be surrounded by shooters. He wants defenders who can switch.
That was a CSPN article.
He's going to play in the post.
LeBron's going to move down to the post.
He needs another ball handler.
I like the way Rondo played last year. I thought he was
really good on the Pelicans.
I think Anthony Davis has that effect on people.
Rondo was good, though. He was going at
dudes. I thought that when Boogie went
out, they figured out the perfect way to play around Anthony.
The part that makes me crazy, though, is explain this to me.
If you're going to do one-year deals,
Julius Randle signs two years 18 with the Lakers.
Why not just give Julius Randle one year for 14 and keep him for a year?
Because that guy was kicking ass last year.
And Julius Randle's agent is the same agent as Paul George.
Well, I think the underrated story this year
with the summer was the agency shit.
Yeah.
It was like CAA versus clutch.
Yeah.
And LeBron doesn't think about Philly
because Joel Embiid is there.
He's CAA.
Paul George doesn't think about the Lakers.
He's CAA.
He didn't want to go to a clutch team.
I really believe in that stuff.
I think it's, it's futile.
Hold on quickly before we go.
What do you think the Celtics' odds are?
10-1.
You probably know.
Let Chris Ryan guess.
The last, they're probably like 8-5
to 1. What? To win
the NBA title?
You got a problem with that, House? A big one.
A big one. I want to bet the don't come
on that one. Especially after listening to
Rallabob on your pod.
Philly? What do you think?
10-1.
A little lower. 8.
I like Philly's odds to win better than those
Celtics. Philly's 10-1. Philly did not get
better, though.
Did they get better?
What did they do? They're fine.
They're what they were
a year ago.
A team that lost
them round two.
And you're anticipating
that Ben Simmons
is going to be better
next year.
I want to see
the Ben Simmons
Instagram video
of him just shooting
little baby lefty hooks
for like a thousand
of them
and twirl them.
Have we seen those yet?
No, we've seen him
at the Grove.
He's dunking on it.
Kylie Jenner.
Kendall, yeah.
So you can get, they may not have it here right now,
but you can get a Celtics-Warriors final for about five or six to one.
Ew.
Eh, that's worth.
Let's do that.
I'm in on that.
Rockets?
14.
14?
No, that's too high.
It feels like it.
I would have them higher than both the Celtics and the Sixers.
Well, who asked you?
You did just now.
I guess I did.
I'm an eight.
Damn it.
I did ask you.
What do you have, Chris?
Seven.
Five to one.
Wow.
Yeah, I'm not shocked by that at all.
So here's the Rockets.
We're going to talk about Carmelo with Jason Concepcion and say chase around on a second if Carmelo goes to Houston
I think that five to one should be a little lower I think it should be like I think you're right now
if they can extract a vintage off the bench Olympic mellow season from him and Chris Paul
can build him back up that's I'd rather have that than Trevor Ariza. You look like Pacino when he realizes De Niro's taking his picture.
Okay!
Okay, motherfuckers!
You got that glint in your eye.
We just got made!
Yeah, this guy's good!
Chris Ryan, we need to do an NBA season preview
where we just talk in all heat quotes.
That's Carmelo right now with Chris Paul.
Say what?
Say what?
Ew.
Ew.
Ew, bro.
Ew.
She was my whole life.
OKC, any guesses?
6,000 to 1.
10.
10.
OKC is going to be better than the Lakers next year.
I'd say 14 for them.
60 to 1.
What?
See, I wasn't that far off.
Are you serious?
60 to 6,000.
Did Westbrook leave?
What's the difference?
For a second, I wanted to bet on that.
And then I remember that every time they get to the playoffs,
Russell Westbrook takes 45 shots at an inside game,
and they lose and go home.
So I'm not going to bet on that.
That's it.
Any other teams?
We listed every potential contender, right?
That's it.
That's all of them.
House, do you want to guess on the Wizards?
60 to 1.
Same as OKC.
Same as OKC?
Yeah.
They have to have worse odds than OKC.
The Wiz are 100 to 1.
Yeah.
Wow.
But they could be the third best team in the East.
They could.
I've come.
I'm at the acceptance stage.
What are the rafters?
I've come around on Dwight Howard.
Yeah, this is, we'll end it with this.
Oh, my God.
So, House is off-seasoned in no particular order.
Isaac Lee's least favorite player, Austin Rivers.
The Clippers traded Austin Rivers, and Isaac reacted like Trump got impeached.
He was running around the ringer offices with his hands up.
Like it was the greatest moment in Clippers history.
So they get him.
It's like,
ah,
all right.
I actually didn't mind the Austin rivers.
You defended it in a competent way.
I understand.
He's an irrational car confidence guard off the bench.
He doesn't pass.
My problem is I've seen this guy so many times in Washington. I mean, He's an irrational confidence guard off the bench. He doesn't pass. Who knows who he is?
My problem is I've seen this guy so many times in Washington.
I mean, a guy who just pounds the ball to death
with still six seconds left in the shot clock
and then puts up an awful one-footer.
So there's chemistry issues we heard.
So then they go and they sign Jeff Green,
the most frustrating NBA player of the last 12 years.
Yeah, that's right.
He's from Hyattsville, Maryland.
He went to Georgetown.
Believe me.
I'm good with Jeff Green.
When he was on the Celtics, he would light up the bullets in D.C.
every time they played them.
I only want one out of every five games.
I can't wait.
So House has already talked himself into Austin Rivers.
Yes.
He's halfway there with Jeff Green.
Yes.
And then the coup de grace.
The coach killer, Dwight Howard.
40 pants himself.
He's gotten his last six coaches fired.
I made a mistake.
I said it was the last five.
Let me ask this.
He got two coaches fired in Houston.
I do want to ask you this.
Who's the best point guard that Dwight Howard has played with in his entire career?
He's talking himself into this.
He's great.
Jameer?
I mean, it's of that vintage.
Broken down Steve Nash?
Pat Beverly?
Kemba?
I mean, Kemba probably.
The singular skill that John Wall has that differentiates him from the rest of the league.
Eating?
This is preternatural while eating in the offseason.
But once he's in shape, he loves to feed the big man.
He runs a great pick and roll.
He gets the ball in exactly the right place at the rim.
I think Dwight Howard is going to eat.
Everybody eats in Washington.
That's right.
Everybody eats.
Is Jason over there?
Save your thoughts for this for when you come on.
I know you might have some.
I'm just trying to do the glass half full version of this.
We're taping this, right?
This is great.
I'm so glad we're videotaping this.
The problem is they might be the washed wizards.
They really might be.
The Washington wizards?
They really might be.
The Washington wizards?
They might be.
That's pretty good.
But God damn it.
We were saying that they should change their logo to like an old white guy with Crocs and khakis.
It's no longer the Washington Wizards.
It's just a wash guy.
And a James Taylor t-shirt.
Yeah, exactly.
So you're 80% in on Austin Rivers?
I'm now 100% in on this team.
It's a very mature professional team.
I can't tell you the last time we had across the board like six veteran
professional basketball players in Washington.
Go make a bet on them today.
No chance.
Put $100 down on them.
You win $10,000.
I'm going to bet them to win the Southeast division.
That's what I'm going to bet them to win.
Is that a division?
Who's in there?
Flags fly forever.
Miami, Charlotte, Orlando.
Yeah, a bunch of stink bombs.
Oh, that's a terrible division.
Can we bet on that?
Of course.
And now Charlotte with Tony Parker.
Right.
My thing on the Wiz is their chemistry couldn't get any worse,
so why not add Dwight Howard?
What's going to happen?
He's going to make things worse?
That locker room hate each other.
They almost got in a fight in the locker room.
Well, they should all be used to being stinky in there
because Gilbert Arenas put poop in Blotch's shoe.
Do you think that Ken Burns should make an Ernie Grunfeld documentary?
Ken Burns should make an Ernie Grunfeld documentary? Ken Burns should make an Ernie Grunfeld documentary?
It would feel like watching something from another universe.
It wouldn't make any sense.
Who signed the guy from the Timberwolves?
Philly?
Oh, Bialyka?
Yeah.
That was a good signing.
It was like a better, cheaper version of Ili Sova.
And the Wilson Chandler, eat that.
And House was so upset.
We were driving the car to Vegas history. He was so upset. He's like, Ernie Grunfeld, I guarantee, I guarantee of Eliasova. And the Wilson Chandler, eat that. And Haas was so upset. We were driving the car to Vegas yesterday.
He was so upset.
He's like, Ernie Grunfeld, I guarantee,
I guarantee he didn't know.
I'm doing a tweet about this.
I guarantee he didn't know who that guy was.
I'm doing a tweet.
He threatened the tweet.
And then for the next 10 minutes,
he held his iPhone and he can't see.
And he's like typing these one-fingered
Ernie Grunfeld tweets.
He ended up eating his iPhone.
Yeah.
Do the Wiz get any residual Capitals goodwill? I do believe his iPhone. Yeah. Do the Wiz get any like residual capitals, goodwill?
Like does DC like-
I do believe in that.
Yeah.
Like not only because I do feel like that happened a little bit with Philly this year.
And I feel like maybe just-
Until the confetti game.
Anxiety-wise it gets right.
Look, I'm not kidding.
All joking aside, if they come out hot, if they start off 10 and 2 or 9 and 3 or 8 and 4,
the city will come around.
8 and 4?
8 and 4 is a winning force 12 games.
8-4 barely gets you a bowl game.
I'm just telling you, this is where we're at.
I mean, the last two seasons, they've come out so shady.
All of those go 10-2?
If you see a little juvenation out of Dwight Howard,
I'm telling you, people will be on it.
We're dying for good basketball.
What is happening right now?
Alex spent 22-1 to win
the passing yards title. Wow.
No. Don't come.
Where can I bet that don't come on?
I'm betting on don't come on. I love that you've
talked yourself from the Wizards. Sal?
Yeah. I'll see you at the Cleopatra's Barge
today. Wow. We'll see Chris as well
in-house. Chris, you're staying. We're going to take a break.
Let's take a break to talk about Sonos. I just used Sonos for July 4th. We were
banging out music playlists. You know what's great? Sonos. Sonos Home Theater. Sonos Beam.
Have you heard about that one? It is the newest addition to the Sonos Home Sound System. Sonos Beam is a smart, compact sound bar
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Delivers brilliant immersive sound for movies, shows, and video games, as well as music,
podcasts, and more. So you could just watch TV and nothing will show and you can just listen
to my podcast. That sounds fantastic.
It's only $399 for bolder sound in larger rooms.
Sonos also has Playbar and Playbase.
We've been using Sonos for a couple years now.
They've been kind enough to send us
a couple of the newer items.
But you could pre-order Sonos Beam right now
at Sonos.com and start your smart home sound system.
And while we're here, let's talk about Quip toothbrush.
I was thinking about toothbrush today because I forgot to bring toothpaste to Las Vegas
and I haven't brushed my teeth with toothpaste in about 24 hours.
The good news is I had Quip toothbrush.
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They forget to change our brush on time.
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refill pack free with a Quip electric toothbrush. That's your first refill pack free at getquip.com
slash BS. Let's get back to the boys.
All right, Shane, Jason are here.
Chris Ryan's still here.
We were just talking about Heat.
Yes.
Say what?
Shane's not in on Heat, which really hurts my feelings.
Yeah, I don't like it.
It's got a bank robbery and it's got Danny Trejo.
I don't know what else we have to do for you.
Well, I watched it when I was like nine years old.
That's probably part of the problem.
And then again, I watched it recently at like two in the morning.
It came out a year after Blood In, Blood Out, your favorite movie ever.
Well, Blood In, Blood Out is a good movie.
Heat is like, mm.
Wow.
These are hot takes.
I don't want to ruin the podcast.
Yeah, it's very tough.
I was having lunch with Shea Serrano.
Not that I want to go.
Y'all were doing your Pacino impressions for like 10 minutes before I realized they were Pacino impressions.
They're like work Pacino impressions.
You want to know what they're looking at?
I'll tell you what they're looking at.
L.A.P.D.
Police Department.
I think you have to give it one more chance.
You like Den of Thieves for God's sakes.
That was too long.
Den of Thieves was fun.
I like the guy.
What's the main guy's name?
The main bad guy?
Paulo Shriver.
I like Paulo.
Yeah.
Looks cool.
He's a cool looking kid.
Did you guys see Death Wish? The Bruce Willis version Paolo Shriver. I like Paolo. Yeah. He looks cool. He's a cool looking kid. Did you guys see Death Wish?
The Bruce Willis version?
Yeah.
No, I did not.
It's in the queue.
It's good.
Yeah, it's all right.
It's all right.
Yeah.
It's not bad.
It's interesting.
It's got a death
in the last five minutes
that makes it all worth it
when a guy falls
and it's bad.
Where are you guys at
on Hobbs and Shaw
on the Fast and Furious?
Oh, 100%.
Spinoff.
Idris Elba was just the bad guy, right?
And Vanessa Kirby from The Crown, isn't it?
I got to say, I'm shocked that Vin Diesel allowed this.
I don't think he allowed anything.
I'm just shocked.
Because I saw the numbers for the last two movies.
They made like, it was like $1.3 billion.
That's incredible.
It's not like they're doing well.
They're like making
what Premier League teams
would go for.
And I'm amazed
that Vin had to give
his permission for anything, right?
He's the one guy
they can't lose
from the franchise.
I guess so,
but I think that he gets
a lot of points
on the package
at this point, right?
So you think he's getting
paid anyway?
Sure.
For sure.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
I was watching Fast One a couple weeks ago.
The first one?
First one.
The best one?
It's very like old school, like LA and just, it's realistic.
It's good.
Realistic.
Cars are racing on ice and nobody's jumping skyscrapers.
When's the moment that it became insane?
The tunnel race?
The bank.
Yeah, when they dragged the 50-ton vault.
What's the one where they jumped through towers in Dubai?
That's seven.
Why don't y'all know this?
I'm watching heat too much, I guess.
Six had the prolonged runway, the airplane runway.
It was 95 miles long.
25 years long.
The problem is it becomes like professional wrestling
where you have to keep topping like the hell in the cell match.
Keep doing it.
And I don't know what's next other than outer space for Fast and Furious.
Challenge accepted.
Well, I mean, you're joking,
but I really believe that they will do like a low orbit aerial drop from like a set.
Yeah, like the Red Bull guy who got thrown,
like did like the squirrel jump outside of a rocket.
I think they'll do that.
They parachuted cars onto a mountain and they just landed perfectly.
That was maybe the most unrealistic scene.
It's really tough.
Statham and the Rock directed by the guy did Deadpool 2.
And I think he did Atomic Blonde too.
Like with Idris Elba is going to be.
It's going to be good.
That's tight.
I'm at the point now where I'm just very, very focused on Skyscraper.
Oh yeah.
Wow.
My son who never asked for anything was like,
Dad, do you have connections to see an early screening?
That's it.
I hadn't seen the scene yet where he's falling from the window
and his fake leg
is clicking
he's hanging by his fake leg
what a great idea
I would pay a full price for a 10 minute movie
I guess we know what The Rock's answer to our Jaws poll question was
well The Rock is the one guy that I would consider
remaking Jaws
wow
is he the shark
how does it work
we did the Jaws. Wow. Is he the shark? How does it work? How does it work?
As Brody?
As Brody?
We did the Jaws rewatchables
this week.
We were saying like,
nobody should be allowed
to remake that movie,
but we all feel,
and I know you feel this way,
Cobra Kai,
the success of that
has opened the world
for taking a thing we loved
and now it's 40 years later,
30 years later,
whatever.
So you think The Rock
should be the youngest
Brody child? He's the new police chief
in Amity and there's a
shark and it's the first shark since
the deadly shark from 40 years ago.
I think that The Rock is too swole.
He's too swole. He's wearing a lot
of heavy parkas. But in any
situation, if a guy was that
ripped, was like, hey man, I'm
like this normal job.
I would just be like, what?
He's a former football player?
He's too swole.
So the rock is too big now for normal parts is what you're saying?
Yes, I think that.
Yeah, for sure.
That's why like in Skyscraper, he has to be an amputee.
And then in Fast and the Furious, he had to have his arm broken so he could flex the cast off.
You've got to try and hamper the rock a little bit because he's just too swole.
So who would you have
as the police chief
in the modern
modern Joss?
The updated
2018 Joss.
I think Ruffalo
would do a good job.
Oh, there it is.
Ruffalo.
You always default
to Ruffalo.
That's because
also after
the shark attack
he could say
they knew
and they let it happen!
Mexican actor?
Give me John Leguizamo.
I mean, he's not Mexican, but he's close enough.
He's Mexican adjacent. John Leguizamo is the
Amity police chief? I like it. Yes.
I'd go Ed
Norton. Oh, Jason!
Yes!
Yes!
Can I throw two out?
Sure.
Damon.
Damon.
Matt Damon.
Okay.
No, thank you.
Damon, when he adds weight for the role,
it's like former high school quarterback star.
Now, like, let himself go a little bit.
Yeah, because nothing happens in this town.
It's like Roy Scheider was too fit for that role.
A little bit too fit.
Travolta.
Wow.
With one of his crazy hair pieces.
I think Gotti has officially buried that guy.
You didn't see Gotti, did you?
No, I did not.
Who would you have as Hooper?
Oh.
I told you.
You have to have more minorities in a Jaws remake.
It's an entirely white movie.
So I would probably. Would you sell as Hooper? you have to have more minorities in a Jaws remake. It's an entirely white movie.
Did you sell Buzz Hooper?
I mean,
Kevin Hart.
Wow.
Ruffalo and Hart.
That's a whole different movie.
It's more of a comedy.
There's sharks in people.
We have to figure that out.
4,000 men went into the water?
300 came out?
Let's talk a couple of basketball things.
Tony Parker went to Charlotte today.
Yes.
Yeah, he did.
You lost Tony Parker.
I thought he was going to retire.
I didn't realize he had two more years, $10 million in him.
Is this the first Spur who left the nest?
This is, right?
Manu, Duncan, Robinson.
First one.
First one out of the core guys getting their retired numbers crew.
Yeah, it's a whole bunch of firsts for me these last two years.
The Spurs have really hurt your feelings.
All bad firsts.
Yeah.
I've never, I don't know what this is.
I don't know what this is when I have to watch him in another jersey.
It's not going to look bad.
A washed up version of him. How many titles did Tony win?
Four.
Four.
Yeah.
How many sons did you name after him?
I named one son after Tony, the smallest one.
That's the bad beat.
It's like on one hand you could say that this is more like an NFL thing
where a guy goes to play his last couple years for a better contract or whatever.
It sounds like the Spurs wanted him back, but you guys had such a deep bond.
Yeah, me personally, for sure.
It's funny.
When I wrote my book, I was trying to pick the 100 players.
I did 96 for the pyramid, and then I had like 10 future possibilities.
I never considered Parker as like a possible Hall of Famer or any of that stuff.
He had that in 2013 and 14.
I think he made second team All-NBA one year and third team the next year.
And in 13, I think if he was 100% healthy, I think they win that year.
In 14, he was awesome.
What happened to him in 13? Did he tear like a calf? He had a little calf thing, but he was 100% healthy, I think they'd win that year. In 14, he was awesome. What happened to him in 13?
Did he tear like a calf?
He had a little calf thing, but he was still like their best guy.
He was like their lead creator.
Yeah, if they win the finals that year, he's the finals MVP.
Yeah.
He was the best player on that team.
Yeah.
Is he like the last?
I think he's a Hall of Famer.
Absolutely, though.
Is he the last like Hall of Fame great point guard that we'll see who really couldn't shoot threes?
Like he's just such a slasher.
Interesting.
He got good at the end of his career.
He got good at the end, but he got okay at the end.
He got okay at the end.
Yeah, he's passable.
Yeah.
Those two, the Spurton.
Simmons.
Is Simmons counted as a point guard?
Yes.
So he'll be the next one.
What about Tony Parker as adding into his Hall of Fame candidacy is like the amount of like 50 win seasons
that he led the team to.
Yeah.
Well,
you know,
the other thing,
there's some good lessons
with his career.
He comes in
during when nobody
was really sure
what to make of
the European dudes yet.
And he goes
like 27th.
Even though if you go back
and you read the draft stuff,
everybody's like,
this guy's really good.
This guy was amazing in this tournament,
whatever the Celtics passed on him three times.
We're going to point card.
But then,
you know,
he does well,
but then they almost traded him.
Remember that summer?
It was like 2010.
Trying to get Jason kid.
And sometimes with the Spurs,
the best things they did were trades.
They didn't make.
Yeah.
Like they could have traded the markets last year.
They didn't Parker.
They waited out. They always kind. Parker, they waited out.
They always kind of trusted the process.
And now the process seems kind of messed up.
He was a late bloomer too.
People forget how he got benched for Speedy Claxton in the finals.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
He was like 22 though, right?
Yeah, he was a baby.
After he learned how to shoot though, he was a wreck.
And then when he won the finals MVP in 2007
then nobody could tell him
anything like
alright you're running
shit now
Speedy got a nice contract
from your team right
from the Sixers yeah
I was pretty psyched
about that
that was one of the
we got Craig Claxton man
his name is Speedy
yeah
that was one of the
one of the early
21st century's
overreaction
playoff performance
free agent contracts
which culminated
in Jerome James
when he got 30 million
I was about to say
the Knicks are
absolutely incredible
he was good in like
two playoff games
for the Saudis
he was literally
but against the Spurs though
yeah against the Spurs
would you rather
Parker retire
or go to Charlotte
to be with his French buddy
Nick Batum
retire for sure
yeah
this is a betrayal
what if Diaw goes to Charlotte now
can he get out of the Navy
just get all the French guys.
Like a French national team in Charlotte?
Yeah, what other French dudes can they get?
Do it.
Get all of them.
Gobert?
Yeah, you're targeting Gobert in two years.
But DL, hold on.
DL, we've just learned, is in the Navy.
And I think he's also like a coffee expert too.
Juliet made that up.
Just made it up.
Messed with the podcast.
So you're mad at Parker No I'm not mad
My feelings are hurt
But mostly sad
You're mad at Kawhi though
I'm mad at Kawhi
What do you think about this whole thing
With like Parker was one of the more vocal critics of Kawhi
He's out of the locker room now
That paves the road back to Ty
Like making things right with Kawhi
No thanks
No thanks
Really?
No thank you
And you would never forgive
You would never forgive Parker over Kawhi You would never forgive Kawhi I would never forgive Kawhi Devil's advocate things right with Kawhi. No thanks. No thanks. Really? No thank you. And you would never forgive Kawhi.
You would never forgive Kawhi.
I would never forgive Kawhi.
Devil's advocate, right?
You're Kawhi.
You've got this injury.
It's however bad you believe it is.
And then Tony Parker comes out and is like, it's not even that bad.
I have the same injury and mine's much worse.
Right.
And then everybody, the team basically supports that person.
You wouldn't feel a type of way about that?
Oh, for sure.
I would be upset with Tony if I was Kawhi, but I'm not Kawhi.
I'm me.
What if Kawhi had come back and said,
I heard what Tony said, it hurt my feelings,
but at least I've never had a sexting relationship with a teammate's wife.
And that was it.
Just dropped the mic and left the press conference.
I had an over-under in my mind. I was also waiting. But I was going to be the mic and left the press conference I had an over under
in my mind
I was also waiting
but I was going to be
the one to do it
that's kind of the
buried skeleton
of the whole Spurs dynasty
right
yeah that's one of them
it's just
nobody mentions it anymore
it's weird
it's just slipped under the rug
Greg Popovich
getting Bob Hill fired
to get the job
in the first place
that's definitely
forgotten history
gutting them
it's weird
because they left
some titles on the table.
They won five,
but I feel like
if you go back
over that whole run,
the over-under
was probably five and a half.
Like the Fisher shot.
The Fisher shot was
I think they would have
beaten the Pistons that year.
We would have beat
the Pistons that year.
And the first Miami title.
That's the first
Miami title in 2000.
We should have won
five in a row.
That was the dumbest thing
that has happened
in a playoff game
this century.
The Fisher shot. The Fisher shot is the four-tenth has happened in a playoff game this century, the Fisher shot.
The Fisher shot is-
The four-tenths of a second three-pointer.
I will forever blame the shot clock person in San Antonio.
Forever.
Just let one more tenth of a second go off.
Nobody would have noticed.
I want to see a Mythbusters episode on can you shoot a three-pointer
in four-tenths of a second.
It was a two.
It was a two, whatever it was.
It's still just the way he turned around. He caught it and turned. It's just there's no way that wasinter in four tenths of a second. It was a two. It was a two, whatever it was. It's still just the way he turned around.
He caught it and turned.
It's just there's no way that was four tenths of a second.
The only good thing that comes from that is that the Lakers lost
to the Pistons that year.
Thank God.
God bless those Pistons.
Although that Pistons team was pretty young and hungry.
They were nasty.
They were better than before.
It's one of the strangest teams we will ever see.
That Pistons team?
Yeah.
I remember when that Pistons team,
I think they beat the Bucs
in the first round
of that playoffs.
And I was like,
damn,
they might win the finals.
Like,
they were so good.
No, no, no.
I swear to God,
I have a blog post about this
in like 2004.
Chanty Billups Squad.
Somebody find that.
No, seriously.
And I think,
I was like,
this team is incredible.
Isaac,
go find that right now.
ChaunceyBillups.blogspot.com.
Chauncey Billups blogger.
I think I said that.
Check it out.
Okay.
But you know what's funny?
I think it was the next round they played the Nets,
and the Nets almost beat them.
I think that was the year of the crazy Scalabrini game.
That was a mini rivalry.
Scalabrini made the double overtime,
and then Scalabrini made the threes.
Pistons-Nets was like a mini rivalry. Scalabrini made the double overtime and the Scouts make the threes. Pistons-Nets was like a mini rivalry.
Basketball was just not great
in the 0-2 to 0-7
range. It was definitely very strange. That was a strange team.
You go back and
it just was a league in a talent
crisis and now it's like every year.
Yeah, it's like the kid Kenyan Nets teams.
Yeah, those teams.
The Celtics in 0-2 were
just awful and They got to game
six of the Easter Finals.
That was the Celtics team that annihilated the Sixers
in the first round, right?
Yeah, yes. Yeah. The Jim O'Brien
Celtics? Rodney Rogers?
Tony Delk? These were
guys that were in crunch time.
And now you look at the teams we have.
Sacramento Kings legend, Tony Delk. God, the Warriors
would have gone like 82-0.
So you still want Kawhi to go,
but I have a feeling they're going to drag this out
and get it closer to September, October.
Probably.
Would be my guess.
Carmelo.
What a guy.
I'm coming home.
I'm happy for him.
Where is home?
Home is where the heart is.
I tweeted about this on July 3rd
because everybody was writing these articles
about this crazy tax bill KC was going to pay.
Not one person mentioned the Carmelo buyout,
which was the most obvious thing
that was going to happen of the whole summer.
It still is nuts how much they're going to be paying now
for this team versus the team they could have had.
You mean the-
The Durant.
Like the Harden.
Like to pay this much for Paul George,
Russell Westbrook, Stephen Adams,
and Raymond Felton and whoever else.
When they, the reason,
one of the reasons why they got up off of Harden
was because they didn't want to pay a tax bill.
It was almost like the basketball equivalent of Al Gore
barely losing the election
and then just completely having a career change
and going into the environment
where there's some traumatic event triggered them.
The heart and trade was the traumatic event.
You can be too smart sometimes.
And I think that that's a case where that franchise was trying to be too cute
with it. Cause you don't understand what they were trying to do.
It's like, Oh, save money here, pick a Baca,
pick, you know, and that will be,
we'll save money and transform him into a stretch guy,
and that's how we move forward.
And then it's like fast forward to now,
and they legitimately selected three MVP-level players in the draft.
In a row.
Consecutive drafts.
And kept the worst one.
It's amazing.
It's really startling.
I actually was probably on the softer side of criticizing them.
And then I sort of like even stopped thinking about it that much until you had Bosh on.
And Bosh talking about the Heat saying like, let Russ and KD do whatever, but we have to focus on Harden.
I was like, oh my God.
It's almost like they should have gone on the Reddit team pages for the fans of like the Mavericks, Spurs, and Heat
talking about James Harden.
It might have given them a better window on whether they should trade him.
I'm with you though.
I think they like the trade.
Yeah.
I think they thought they could replace Harden's offense with Kevin Martin
and they got this great pick.
It's very smart on paper, like from a cap perspective.
On the other hand, there's something to be said for
you have all this talent, let's just roll
them back out and spend the money. They should have asked
Shea. Shea, are you afraid
of James Harden? Shea would have been like, yes.
We can't hurt him. Are you thinking
of trading him? You should.
He killed the Spurs. And the Mavericks killed him.
Gonzo about this for the site today, which is basically
like, do you think that the title
windows are getting drastically small?
I think they've always been small.
Yeah.
This is,
this was my case
a couple years ago.
Oh,
with the,
with the,
what team was it?
Maybe the Bulls?
Yeah.
Was it the Derrick Rose Bulls?
Yeah.
I wrote some window column
like four years ago.
Maybe,
oh,
you know what?
It might've been
OKC
the year they made the finals
when they were like, we're the young team.
Yeah.
And they beat that first team, right?
No, actually, you guys, the windows now,
you guys have three potential all-NBA guys.
Like, go for it.
I think teams make the mistake sometimes
of thinking that window's going to be 15 years.
Yeah, well, that's what I was writing about the Sixers.
Yeah, I was saying, I went on the was saying. Yeah. Yeah. I was saying,
I went on the ringer ambition Sunday and I was like,
this is the case for the quiet trade for Philly.
You don't know if I'm beating Simmons.
They're going to be there in five years.
Yeah.
I think the history of the NBA says you,
they might,
they,
one of them might leave.
I think the difference too,
between that OKC team and today is just contracts are shorter.
It's just the window has shrunk a little bit because now you're rolling back guys
for three, four years, maybe one and one or two years instead of five, six years. So it's just
harder. Seven-year contracts that were a Knicks specialty. You missed those.
At some point, the Knicks either gave out or traded for more seven-year contracts than I
think every other team combined.
It was really amazing at one point in my life to look at the Knicks and be like, this is it for six years.
This is the team.
This is what the bill is going to be.
And they're going to win 23 games.
In like 94, 95 or something, ML Carr took over the Celtics.
And it was right when we were trying to,
we were really all collectively starting to figure out the salary cap.
Like, oh, so two years from now, we'll still have all of these guys.
And I remember, and I cared so much more about sports in the mid-90s.
And I feel like I care a lot now, but in the mid-90s, it was like life or death.
And I just remember being like, Sherman Douglas, two more years.
Todd Day, two more years, Todd day,
two more years,
Dina Rajan and five more.
And just like doing the math and be like,
Oh,
we're completely fucked for four years.
And it was such a bummer.
And the Knicks fans had that all last decade.
It was really bad.
I mean,
when Larry Brown pushed for the acquisition of Steve Francis,
when we already had Stefan Marbury,
it was like,
what,
what is,
what?
And you traded for the Jalen contract? It was very tough.
Jerome James? Jerome James,
Penny Hardaway on one leg.
The Spurs, the only really
one that was a disaster was Richard Jefferson.
That was a bad one. Other than that,
they were pretty good.
Philly had that too. Remember when they had
all those bad contracts
and then put them together
in a trade for Chris Webber?
Yes.
They tried to team three bad contracts
into the Chris Webber-Hailberry.
There was a lot of like,
there was also just a lot of
finding someone to play with Iverson stuff going on.
Larry Hughes.
Larry Hughes, yeah.
On Iguodala for a little bit
towards the end of Iverson's stay in Philly.
I do think we don't count that enough
when we talk about the greatest players.
Like Duncan, you never heard a conversation of,
well, we got to find guys who can play with Tim Duncan.
And it was like bird magic.
Like you go through some of the greats
and then you have these other ones where it's like,
well, LeBron needs this team around him
or he can't succeed.
I don't know if that was the case with LeBron.
I feel like he could have succeeded with anybody.
Yeah, LeBron is fine anywhere.
Hasn't LeBron totally proven he can succeed with anyone?
He just went to the finals with Jeff Green.
Yeah, I just think it's one of those things
where if you want to unlock everything from LeBron,
you just have to have a certain mix of shooting around him.
Right.
Allow him to work his pace.
I don't know if that's true.
I mean, it's not true
to the extent of, like,
getting into the playoffs.
But I think if you're like,
what's the best possible team
around LeBron James?
Shooters.
Shooters, shooters, shooters.
I actually think, like,
having Kyrie as, like,
the secondary creator dude
was the best thing
that happened to him
other than having Dwayne Wade
where it's like,
I don't have to do everything.
It's your turn this time.
But that ESPN piece
really intrigued me
about him going to the low post more.
So we've been waiting for that
for 10 years.
You also have to wonder
whether or not he's ever
going to start instituting
like the Chris Paul,
like I'm going to play
30 a game in the regular season
to save myself for the playoffs.
Like he doesn't seem like
he needs to do that,
but that has to be coming
eventually, right?
Especially after this last season where it was like,
he had to drive the freaking plane,
like clean the arena, like end play the games.
I don't understand why he played the minutes he did,
but then some of the rest stuff that came out that like,
who wrote that piece?
Windhorst?
The resting while playing stuff?
Yeah, that made me wonder,
like maybe it's not as taxing
as we thought it was
if he's really just
picking his spots
and he's not practicing.
If you're doing that though,
like he was,
one thing that I love
that he did,
one technique that he used
was if he ever got hard fouled
and he'd go to the court
and fall down,
he'd just stay there
for like two minutes
and just catch his bat.
Soccer style.
It was really smart.
Oh yeah, you're right.
He did do that.
I never noticed that.
But I think that's one of those things where like if you're having to do that,
you're playing too much.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's like too much.
Well, that's what he said though.
He's like, I don't care about how many minutes I play.
The hard part is getting ready to play.
Like all that I have to do to my body over the course of a day to get into like,
and now my body is primed to be at its peak at 7 o'clock
p.m. and we're going to go play.
If I play 39 minutes
or 29 minutes, it doesn't make a difference
to my body. Shea does that. Yeah.
But that's like, some people are like that.
You try to, you treat your body
and try to peak when you're writing for us.
I treat my body with Arby's and Taco Bell.
And I'm ready at 2 a.m.
I'm ready. I have a very important conversation topic.
Okay.
Are we filming?
Okay.
For 30 minutes.
It's been four weeks.
LeBron's basically pretty much broke his hand saga.
Shay, how are we going to remember that? He showed up at the
press conference in
basically a cast.
Everybody let this go. We live in an age
on the internet, 2018,
where we overthink anything, we see
conspiracies, we blow stuff out,
we love blaming people, we love
kind of turning the tables. In this one,
everybody let it go, and I'm still confused
by it. I think you should try to do that tonight.
On Cleopatra's Bar
If you take a bath
in Blackjack,
you should show up
at breakfast on Sunday
with a neck brace.
Yeah.
Like Ted Kennedy
after Chappaquiddick.
Like you guys
didn't even know
when I got a little bit
of a fender bender
last day before Blackjack.
I think I got a concussion.
And then like hours later,
you're like playing futsal
and like heading the ball somewhere.
But what happened with that?
He's a fast healer.
We had in the HBO show,
he's carrying his suitcase
with his right hand
before like game three.
He was dapping like his sons
and numerous people
on the sidelines
after the game.
I don't know what the truth is,
but I know when I tell my sons
about that finals,
he played the whole finals
in a cast.
So the legend grow with it?
Yeah.
For me, yes.
I'm a LeBron guy.
But why do you think the internet let this one go, Jason?
We had fun with it.
You did a whole desktop.
I don't think that anybody's going to give him,
it's like, you're not going to get any credit for it,
but we're also not going to roast you for it.
So we had like a couple of days of fun with it,
but ultimately like,
we're just going to like let it pass because you just got swept.
So it doesn't really matter either way.
When they do the press conference, who is going to be the reporter with the balls?
Like, LeBron, I have a question.
Your broken hand, is that healed?
Can we see the text right now?
Just for the reaction of it.
I think part of it was that, like, as soon as that finals was over was over like the broken hand thing was fine for 48
hours and then it's like okay where is he going yeah is he moving out where his kids gonna enroll
in school what plane is he using to go from anguilla to wherever he's going do you think
that it was like basically like uh misdirection then so that we took the conversation topic off
of are you staying to like did he really have a broken hand? No,
I just,
I,
I don't even understand why,
why that happened,
I guess.
Cause he,
if he,
he didn't break it,
doesn't seem like he broke it.
Cause it would be really weird to have like a super popular pro athlete
complain about a hand injury before a big game.
Is this a Boston dick?
Oh,
yes.
You saw on Tom vs. Time,
there's a giant cut.
There's a giant cut on his hand.
Cut that into the video.
There's a big cut on his hand.
Carmelo?
Oh, Carmelo.
So I think it's Houston or Philly
from what I've heard.
Lakers are out.
What is this Philly crap?
Send him to Philly.
Send him to Philly. Send him to Philly.
You wouldn't want him for $2.5 million?
Yeah.
Spot up shooter.
Is he like an inspirational locker room figure
and like a good team guy?
It didn't seem like it last year.
He's got great hats.
So he's got ties.
Embiid, same agent.
And then Houston, Chris Paul.
Is he also from Philadelphia?
Is it his third hometown?
Oh, Embiid, that's another.
It's near Baltimore.
Yeah.
And Chris Paul is his buddy obviously
and they have the same agent too
Carmelo should get sponsored
by Amtrak
my hometown
is the northeast corridor
it's just like
anywhere along
the eastern seaboard
is
you know I think
Houston could
could Chris Paul
could he
unlock
I'm gonna use a
Fortnite joke for you
sure
give him a little
slurp juice
oh
yeah yeah unlock I'm going to use a Fortnite joke for you sure give him a little slurp juice Uncle Bill
Fortnite guy
little slurp juice
maybe not get him to 100%
but 50%
get the health back up
add a little bit of shield
yeah
maybe get a little ammo
he goes into one of those little huts, gets the ammo.
Sure, maybe, but like at what cost?
They just lost Ariza.
And the formula with Melo is always, has always been,
does he score enough to offset how bad he is at defense?
No.
Right?
And right now, I would say no.
And with Ariza out of the picture.
You don't think it's worth a flyer, though?
A flyer?
Two million bucks.
Would he take that?
Yeah, because I think they're going to buy him out
and he's going to do veteran whatever.
Melo is a Kawhi replacement?
No, thank you.
Oh, boy.
Keep Carmelo far away from San Antonio
so you can get him.
You play Fortnite with your kids?
I've watched them play Fortnite.
I have no idea how to play Fortnite.
I know Thanos was in it for a while.
Thanos was in it.
Which is really exciting.
I have an embarrassing revelation.
Let's hear it.
On Tuesday,
I was waiting for something
to get delivered at my house
and I just decided,
Tuesday,
it was July 3rd?
Yeah.
I was like,
today's the day I'm going to
either make or break myself
with Fortnite. I'm playing it for eight hours. Wow. I was like, today's the day I'm going to either make or break myself with Fortnite.
I'm playing it for eight hours.
Wow.
I played it.
I played Fortnite
all day on July 3rd.
Did some emails
as I was doing it,
but-
Can you email
while you play Fortnite?
Well, there's breaks.
You know,
you're on that giant,
the bus,
the flying bus.
You have some time there.
Solos or duos?
I was doing the solo
because my son had built up.
He's on level 65
did you screw your son's
character up
maybe a little bit
and so I was like
you know I used to be
great at video games
back in the day
but that was
I had a television
Atari
I had all of them
and I'm just not good at it
it's bad
it really hurts my feelings
I'm just too old
for Fortnite
I think I'm there with you
I can't shoot people
what's the highest I had this one thing that if there was videotape of it It really hurts my feelings. I'm just too old for Fortnite. I think I'm there with you. I can't shoot people. I need the ones that go left to right.
I had this one thing that if there was videotape of it,
it would be the most humiliating video ever,
where I just jump in, there's a person in front of me,
I'm shooting, and they're jumping up and down,
and I shot all my bullets.
And then he did the dance in front of me and ran away.
And I was like, this is the lowest moment of my life.
Why didn't you hit him with the backhoe?
With the axe.
That's what I ended up with.
Because I was like...
What's the highest you've ever finished?
I got to number two.
Hold on, Bill.
That's really good.
So I got to two.
Are you guys giving him a participation badge?
Is that really that good? Did you kill anyone to get to two? I had two kills. Are you guys giving him like a participation badge? Is that really that good?
Did you kill anyone to get to two or did you just hide?
I had two kills.
There you go.
Because I had a sniper gun.
He played for eight hours.
Is this actually that good?
Yes.
Can I tell you a secret?
It might have been like 12 hours.
So I had a sniper gun.
I really like the sniper guns.
But so it's two left.
The circle shrinks.
So now it's me and this dude.
Was your heart beating?
I surprised him.
I started shooting at him.
And he started putting up those big ice things.
That's the worst.
And I panicked.
I was pressing buttons.
And I hit my map.
So then I couldn't see him.
And then he just nailed me.
And I was done.
And that was it.
I got it too. Yeah it I got I was done too
yeah
I hope that it was
one of my kids
who that happened to
why did he do that
so
Sean you
it sounds like you want me
to play Fortnite
in the Ringer studio
yeah
I'm really bad
my son
heckles me
he calls me a noob
a noob
he's like you're such a noob dad you're a noobster you're such a noob. A noob. He's like, you're such a noob, dad.
You're a noobster.
You're such a noob.
Oh,
another noob moved by you
and just like berates me
and ruins my confidence.
Do you camp?
Dad,
I do camp.
I camp too.
He calls me a bush camper.
It's just like when you hide out.
When camp is when you like find
like a bathroom or some area,
something inside
and you just hang out there.
My thing is, listen. That sounds super fun. Listen, if you want to kill me, inside, and you just hang out there.
My thing is, listen. Oh, that sounds super fun.
Listen, if you want to kill me, come get me.
I'm in there.
I like being in a high location.
Okay, high location.
I like high location, just waiting.
And then some dude will run to you, and he won't know.
And I'll shoot, and I'll just miss him nine times, and then he'll come kill me.
Do you build?
You sound like not that much fun to play video games with.
Do you build? Do you build stuff?
Are you a builder or you just shoot?
No, I like opening chests.
Chests are fun. And I like sneak
attacking people. I like hiding in the house
where they come up because they think they're saying things.
Do you
talk to people while you're playing? Do you have
a little microphone and chat with them?
Are you like you blast somebody
and you're like, OKC never should have given up on Harden,
I'm telling you.
Harden 10!
Harden 10!
So my son plays,
he FaceTimes his friend
and they play the duos.
Oh yeah.
And they FaceTime the whole time
and he's definitely not going to college.
I don't know what he's going to do.
It'll be one of those things 10 years from now in the ring.
They'll be like, hey.
He might be a pro gamer.
I have a podcast producer for us.
It's my son.
He's never had a job.
Can you teach him how to press record?
He's the 50th ranked Fortnite player in the world.
That's a bad beat for Isaac too,
because he's still recording this podcast.
No, I had Isaac running our whole podcast division
at that point.
Or being on The Voice as one of the judges.
No, my son has the Sonny Corleone.
You can either be Sonny Corleone
or Micah Corleone with Fortnite.
My son's a Sonny Corleone.
Like he sees somebody, he'sleone. He sees somebody.
He's just out.
He just wants to go head-to-head, which I think is a kid thing.
Yeah.
And your kids probably play that way too, right?
No, they're hiders.
One of them's a hider and another one is a storm in the beach.
So what do you think it says about our personalities,
whether you're a hider or a confronter?
I think it means-
I think it says exactly that.
Yeah.
That's exactly what it says.
So there's a window into our personalities.
What if you just never played Fortnite?
Have you ever played?
No.
Oh, we should play on the TV.
You're not a video game guy though.
I was when I was a kid.
Yeah.
I mean, I played up until like Max Payne.
Oh my God, Max Payne.
My problem was,
my problem is I have an addictive personality with this stuff.
And like, I was up till three in the morning on July 3rd playing Fortnite.
And my wife was here. And I was listening to all the Ringer like, I was up till three in the morning on July 3rd playing Fortnite. Wow.
And my wife was,
and I was listening to all the ringer podcasts as I was doing it.
So I caught up on five podcasts.
And my wife woke up and I was there and she came down and she was like,
what the hell?
What are you doing?
And I was like,
I'm giving this one day to see if I can get good at this.
And she's like,
you're such a loser.
Honey,
I'm about to airdrop into retail row.
Can you just give me a second?
Hold on, the lake, they're coming.
Yeah, so Fortnite.
So you're out.
What's your favorite video game, Shay?
We have an old, well, we have a PlayStation 3
where you can download the old games on it.
So I have NBA Jam on there, Mortal Kombat, and NFL Blitz.
Those are the only three video games I still play.
The shooting games, my generation,
they didn't really have them.
It was more like sports games or like
Pac-Man type stuff. They make me dizzy when you're
moving all around. I get nauseous every time.
That used to be my go-to. I played that more
than anything. Perfect Dark. Halo.
Left and right and up and down is
all I can do in a video game. If you ask me
to do something else, it's over.
We have to go, right?
Yeah.
We're wrapping up.
All right.
Thank you, fellas.
See you tonight at Crayon Patch's barge.
You're such a noob, Bill.
You're such a noob.
Thanks to ZipRecruiter.
Don't forget to check them out at ziprecruiter.com slash BSR presenting sponsor.
Thanks so much to Caesars Palace.
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Enjoy the weekend.
Sorry this pod was up a little late.
I planned on doing it at 9.30.
Unfortunately, the cards were beckoning.
But yeah, you have it for tomorrow, Saturday morning, hopefully.
We'll be back next week with
a whole bunch of new ones. Until then, enjoy the weekend.
On the wayside I don't have feelings within.
On the wayside, I'm a person never lost. I don't have feelings within.