The Bill Simmons Podcast - Half-Baked Ideas and a Mega-Mailbag With Kevin Wildes and Joe House

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Kevin Wildes to discuss some new half-baked ideas. Then, Joe House joins the pod to help answer some mailbag questions from the listeners. Finally, Amanda Dobbins rants about being a Philadelphia sports wife to Rob Mahoney and Bill. (0:00) Intro (2:44) Half-baked ideas (01:00:59) Mailbag (02:13:00) Philadelphia Sports Wife rant Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Kevin Wildes, Joe House, Amanda Dobbins, and Rob Mahoney Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo NBA 2K27 | Ball Over Everything 2026 Mazda CX-50. Designed for Safety. MazdaUSA.com The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's the Bill Simmons podcast, brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. Wanted to mention we have two rewatchables episodes coming this week. On Monday, we're doing the Italian job from 2003. And then on Thursday, the 40th anniversary of about last night, one of the most secretly important day of these movies ever made with Rob Loew and to be more. So stay on your toes for that, two episodes. I'm going to have one more episode this week. I'm not sure what the day, but probably Wednesday.

stay tuned for that. We have an action-packed one this one. Kevin Wilds is here. We're going to talk about Little Red Sox at the top are really half-baked ideas because he's had a whole batch percolating for a while. I had a whole bunch of mailback questions

that I had to go through with Joe House on NBA and NFL and WMBA, all kinds of things. And then last but not least, we taped the rewatchables last week. And Amanda Dobbins and Rob Mahoney and I, we finished. And Amanda wanted to go on a rant

about being a Philadelphia sports wife. So I'm putting that at the end. Amanda Dobbins is Philadelphia sports wife rant. So there you go. There's just a lot to offer everybody in this podcast. We're going to take a break, Pearl Jam, and then my friend, Kevin Wiles. This episode is brought to you by NBA 2K27.

We just had one of the craziest off-seasons we've had in the NBA, which is perfect for 2K, because every 2K season could be one of the craziest off-season. The whole league shifted in real life. It could shift to an NBA 2K 27. The best place to compete with these new look rosters. And also try to figure out who's on what roster. You can see how new teams and new dynamic duos match up.

You can play Philly, feel what it's like to have all their new guys with the old guys. And you can also take a struggling franchise to the NBA finals if you want because it'll never happen in real life for a couple of the struggling franchises. You know how I'm talking about. Anyway, NBA 2K lets you experience every transaction and storyline right from your home. Pick up your copy of MBA 2K27 right now. All right, we are recording on a Sunday afternoon right after a tough Red Sox loss. I'm right after tough times for Kevin Wilde, so we just went to see the new Spider-Man movie with this son and felt like he was too old. What happened? You know what? I just like a straightforward villain.

I just like, I'm the villain. I've got powers and I'm going to try to thwart the city or whatever. You have to try to stop me. When we're starting to like, I'm in your mind and a lot of, and again, I'm projecting here to other movies that I've seen with my son. I'm always like bouncing around in other dimensions. I'm like, what dimension are we in now? I'm just, I feel like, I feel like.

like I'm getting too old for cinema. I just need straight down the middle. You know what I watched with my wife the other day? Urban Cowboy. Oh, hi. I'm John Travolta. I'm in love with you. We broke up. Now we're back together. But fastball right down the middle bill. That's what I need. We're never in another dimension. That's why I've been enjoying Homeland. Homeland was just, guy came back from Afghanistan. They might have turned him. They might not have. And we just got to figure it out. I'm with you on the multiverse. I don't get it at all.

I don't understand it. I don't like these movies. People get mad at me that I don't like these movies. But even when you go back to the first Iron Man with Downey, pretty straightforward. Yeah. Right? There weren't all these other characters.

We weren't going backward and forward. Anyway, good luck. I'm glad people are going to the movies. Ultimately, it's great. I'm glad your son's going. I'm glad the Red Sox have revived this summer. They lost a series. to the A's who are terrible.

But not, but I, I, we weren't going to go undefeated. No. And I feel like both of these games were, you were in the ninth and you're like, oh, we got a shot here. Didn't work out. But I feel like it's, it's, it's, they're weaning us off the high of, I think there would. I wrote it down, 27 and 5 in their last 32. Just was better than that. It was 31 and 5 in their last 36.

They were, they were 27 to 30 at one point, which like nine teams had done. And my wife, I've been getting along great with my wife. It's been a really strong summer for us. Usually that happens after basketball wins. And she kind of likes when baseball's on. I've been watching basically the Red Sox from the moment the NBA draft ended all the way through. And this weekend kind of pushed it a little bit because it was two day games. And it was like, what do we do?

And it's nice out. And I'm like, well, no, I got to watch the A's. Red Sox are coming on. And it's like, oh, really? Aren't they playing the A's? aren't the A's bad? I know, but we're winning streak. And then today's...

So you actually had like three losses in this series. I feel like I can get it back. It's like a bad at bat. I feel like I can get it back with the next step bat. But right now, I just walked back to the dugout. And it was bad. How's your summer been, by the way? This is the worst month ever for sports discourse.

You know what? This month is traditionally not great. The World Cup really saved us. us because we had a month plus of just excellent sports. So not only was the World Cup great in a vacuum, it also pushed all of the sort of just, what do you think conversations to August? So I'm still fresh on, what do you think?

Like, hey, the bills, what do you think? If you do it a few times, you're okay. If you do it 10 times, you start to drag. But I still got a lot of, we're doing just a lot of, what do you think right now? Hey, Panthers, what do you think? Yeah, we do seven minutes on the, Panthers. World Cup was a godsend.

LeBron decided to take an extra three weeks was great. Thanks to him. Thanks to Rich Paul. Thanks to everybody. Savvy move. I'm involved on that. The Jaylen Brown trade was good content. I'm with you. Like last week was the first football thing I really did on my podcast, which I had to do the QBs,

which usually I do like a week earlier. But now getting into it, I had thoughts on the bills, the new stadium and the uniforms. That was fun this weekend. that somehow they have obstructed views in the new stadium, which I didn't even know that. Possible?

Yeah, it's a big thing this weekend. They built a stadium with obstructed views. There's some obstructed views. Not everybody's covered. And then they brought out these uniforms that looked like they were out of the XFL in the 80s or 90s, whenever the XFL was. I don't remember. I've got a stadium-based half-baked idea, too, about obstructed views.

Oh, I can't wait. We're going to do a whole bunch of. I think has there been a polarizing sports content take football guy yet? I feel like Joe Burrow is kind of on the on deck circle with some Joe Burrow conversations ready to be had. There's some good zags against him where he hasn't made the playoffs in four years. So in three healthy seasons. You wrote that what you were on. Oh, you were on with Mina.

Yeah. And you were talking about Drake and I watched it. And then I got fired up on your behalf. Thanks. Joe Burrow, you were like, Drake's won 17 games. Excuse me, Drake won 17 games last year. Joe Burroughs won 19 games in the last three years. Yeah.

At some point, winning football has to count for something. I know like, Jalen Hertz can win the Super Bowl. And people are like, yeah, I don't know if he can win the Super Bowl. Okay. Well, he won it. Yeah. Yeah. Sam, I know, Sam Donald's putting up good numbers and won the Super Bowl.

Is he as good as Joe Burrow? Like, I know I probably won't go there. But Joe Burrow has to win games. And I like Joe Burrow and he's fun to root for. But you can't win. You can't go five and three every year and be like, ah, if it wasn't for my defense, like, not really, dude. And you can't blame your offensive line because Drake May had no offensive line last year.

It's been interesting. You're a Pat's fan, we should mention. It's been interesting watching people pick apart the last Pat's season. And some of it's just fine. And some of it's not. But like when they talk about the easy schedule, which it was, was easy. But there was a couple teams they played kind of in

the wrong part of the season to play those teams. You know, like they played Miami pretty early. They played Tampa before Tampa kind of had their swoon. We started the Tampa Swoon. We started the Tampa Swoon. We played him off the by. We played Lamar when he was

like, remember he played half the game. We played the Browns were a great defense. The Browns gave a lot of quarterback a lot of trouble. We had no problem. There's one other big game

that we had that I was complaining about. They played Atlanta right before Atlanta did a swoon too. Or they played against Atlanta when Atlanta was pretty good. So yeah. I just can't defend the easy schedule anymore. I'm like, you know what? Then you should be driving a brand new Mercedes then. If you saw how the Patriots were going to win 14 games,

you should have bet it. Right. They were, though, it was right there for you. It was seven and a half or eight and a half, depending on when you had it during this season. And they overachieve by like six wins. AFC is in a weird spot. I don't think the bills are very good.

Baltimore's got a new coach. Chargers, who knows. Denver, who knows. Casey's got Mahomes coming back off the torn ACL on a bunch of upheaval. It's been fun to try to figure out. NFC have more steady opinions. That being said, yeah.

Opening night must win. Week one must win? It is a must win. I don't have must wins in the NFL until November, December. Oh, I have them early. Okay. That is a, that is a, if we get shalacked, it's for my own ego. I mean, not for like how the logistics of the season and how it plays out, but it's going to, it's a must win for me.

Yeah. I can't walk back into the studio after back to back embarrassing losses. It's a must win game. They definitely have more talent than they did last year. They're in the year two of the coaching staff that they have. Continuity matters. And if you're going to ding them, it's that the schedule is harder. And the variable thing, I have no idea if there's any fallout from the soap opera of the last six months.

I would guess no. I certainly don't think the players care, but who knows? But listen, it's half-baked ideas time. We haven't done this in a while. I got some great ones from readers, too. But this is your show. I don't know if you want to give us like a clean up hitter coming out of that. Do you want to get like a lead off hitter?

Do you want to do a clean up here? Where do you want to go? An update to the credit card cafe that I need to get some clarification on. What's here? I dropped Russell off at camp in New Hampshire. Driving back, I stay overnight in the Berkshires. It's like, okay, I'm by myself. I go across the street to the bar.

Get a hamburger. The table behind me kind of right. rowdy group of guys, all of a sudden I hear they're doing credit card roulette. I'm there. I'm kind of like feeling good. I'm like in the woods. It's like kind of nice. I'm like, I'm feeling lucky.

Do you think it would have been a violation for me to be like, hey, fellas, I want in. What do you get out of it? That I want my meal paying for. Oh, you like complete strangers. Let's double this up. Yeah. Just like there was like it was, I think it was a table of. six guys.

Or do you think, like, no, this is our bonding moment. We don't really aren't accepting just strangers at the bar. Honestly, the more the merrier. This sounds like the beginning of an action movie that I would have seen 10 times. Where a good nature guy on his own for the night in the mountains thought he'd make some friends, play a little credit card roulette, and now people are getting shot. People are on the run. He's wrongly accused.

Jason. I think Jason Statham's playing you, or Vigo Martinson. I didn't do it. I felt like I missed out on a bonding opportunity with these guys. Well, we have another update, speaking of stuff from previous half-baked ideas, if you haven't heard. A reader named Bill from Massachusetts said he ate at the new Red Robin where they had the burger towers. We had talked about food towers, and Red Robin apparently is doing different towers for like onion rings, sliders. So the towers, keep an eye on this.

How tall was the tower? Do you know? It seemed like it was five burgers. And it just looked better than bringing him out on a platter, I think. I mean, I'm just much more excited. Yeah, I'm much more excited to see. But it was a tower. It wasn't like a big pole through the burgers.

They were all like on tears. I've got to see it. Yeah. All right. First half baked idea, are you ready? Yeah. You know, male loneliness is an epidemic. It really is.

So we can get. Just guys in general, you just get stuck on your phone. You're just, you know, you're doom scrolling, they call it. So I switch this up. It's called Zoom scrolling, okay? It's part of a application within Zoom. You know when you're in your car, you haven't put your seatbelt on,

and then your car knows after a certain amount of time, it will start beeping at you. Hey, you're putting, this is unhealthy for you. You need to buckle your seatbelt. Well, as you know from driving with me, I never buckle it, and I just wait the minute until it stops doing the noise. Well, you don't buckle your seatbelt ever? Nah, not really. That's a terrible.

I know. I'm not proud of it. I'm not proud of it. I just don't like secrets. I don't. Listen. I know. I'll get skewered.

I'm a bad example. Sometimes I'll put them on. If I'm going like, you know, 95 on the highway, I might throw it on there. But I mean, that's a whole other podcast. I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm not going to defend it.

Most people. Most people think that that's a positive, healthy reminder. Yeah. So here's Zoom scrolling. If there's a certain part, if you're, you know, just mindlessly flipping through your, scrolling through your phone, at a certain point, your phone activates and one of your closest friend, or just someone in your contact, their Zoom will activate. So they come to save you.

You just have to talk to. You just have to talk to them. It's like running into them in the street. So it's like the Instagram restrictions where if you're on for 15 minutes, Instagram will shut down. Yeah, but you're not shutting down. This is positive.

It sends you to a friend. Yeah, we're trying to introduce your friends because your buddies are out there scrolling too. So all of a sudden you're scrolling, scrolling, oh, my goodness, I want to buy that, you know, Mustang. And then you keep on going through. Then all of a sudden, oh, hey, oh, man, it's my buddy Jesse. I haven't talked to him in a while. He's like, oh, hey, what's going on?

You talk to each other for 30 seconds, and you keep going. So you're getting rid of sort of doom scrolling and also fighting the epidemic that is male loneliness. That's pretty good. It makes it more social. There's a prize at the end. Would your friends be able to turn their settings off so they wouldn't be activated to come to say? No. No, it's government mandated.

It's something that the FCC is involved to fight male loneliness because it's an epidemic. See, I was wondering, I thought, I like this idea. I was wondering, because they have these things where it's just you've been online too long, you've reached your limit, get off. They brick your phone or whatever. Yeah, but now that they also, AI is getting better and better. And I wonder if AI could get to the point where somebody could just talk to you, like almost like your social media therapist, but it would be AI.

And they could be like, Bill, you've been looking at Bruins hockey fights from 1970s for 45 minutes now. And you've already watched this Terry Riley fight three. times over the last six months. I just want you to rethink this. These games happened almost 50 years ago. Maybe move on. There's nothing more to watch. Yeah, there's nothing more. You've seen all the Bruins

fights. You've seen every Al Ciccord fight that could have ever happened. You've watched all the stand Jonathan fights. You've seen John Wensink in different brawls. You don't need to go here anymore. It's good. You want to hear my, um, where is my stupid, um,

I have a, um, I have an AI one that will will, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we're a name for it. Okay. Let's hear it. So we were playing, um, we turned our chat GPT into a game show host. I didn't know what you could do is we're like, hey, go into game show host mode and we're just like, um, we'll like name every hockey team. So you get the list of the hockey teams and we all go, we all go around the car. We're like the Bruins, the Rangers. the Red Wings, then eventually you get stuck, and they're like, oh, you have four more,

and we're trying to get it, and the first person doesn't get it, you're out. And you can talk to it, and it will be like a little game show host. So we're going around, and Billy just gives he's stuck. So he just says, the carnivores. And Chat, GPT, of course, says, correct. Next three to go. And you're like, no, there's no team called the Carnivores. words. And Chad Chief E.T. says, oh, you're right. My mistake. I thought there was. You're right. You know, and it's got this weird. I've got the settings on in a weird manner. So here's the issue. VAR automated balls and strikes and, of course, the tennis lines. These things are super accurate. But you still want to boo them. We've lost the John McEnroe vibe in tennis.

who's he going to yell at? The ball was out. The robot said it. You know, you're out. You can't really argue. It was a ball. What I'm supposed to do? Have some element of just total mistakes within...

Within Chad Chi PT. Yes. Within the like, oh, balls are a strike. Oh, he checked it. You caught us. It's out. It's definitely a ball, but it's still a strike. Like, what? And then you can just get light up.

Oh, this is... This tennis ball is on the line, and then it pops up out. Like, what's going on? Everybody can boo. It can be more emotion to it, so it's not so stale. I like it. Introducing an element of variety. You like ABS, right?

Yeah. I, yes, but I also like. I think it's been great. They had one a day where the guy missed it by three inches. It would have been strike three on Durbin. Yeah, that almost, you know, we almost came back. Three inches. fucking get this guy's eyes checked.

You get really mad when the um makes a mistake. But I, if I don't like taking away, like has it reduced arguing? It's a good point. It has a little bit more emotion. Like I haven't seen a manager come out

and kick dirt on the home on home plate all this year. Well, that's why we have the WMBA now. Everybody's just arguing about everything. Every game. Just continuous. It's a sproving. It's a propo show now. It's great.

Goodness. All right. You have one. You've been. teasing one. I have an unbelievable one from a reader. I have a couple good reader ones, but I really have a great one for my wife, and I don't know when you want me to unleash it.

So just before you do that, I want to hear right away. One of the best ones ever from my wife somehow. This, I just want to be honest with you. We've been doing this pod for like 15 years. I've never texted you, hey, I've got a great half-baked idea. and you've never texted me, I've got a great half-baked idea. This is the first time ever. The very nature of the idea, if it is any good, then it's just an idea.

It has to be fundamentally bad. So I feel like you violated the terms of engagement with this. Right. Okay, that's fair. So this, I hope that it's perfectly mediocre, which is the real sweet spot of half-baked ideas. But I do want to hear you. You've been teasing for weeks. I'll give it to you now.

And I really do think it's a perfect half-paked idea because I don't think it can happen, but I loved it. So we went to Hawaii and we were there for a week. And my wife loves dogs, right? We've always had two or three dogs basically since 2005. So like about day three, she said, you know what would be great? I'm like what? She said, if you're away in a place like Hawaii and you could just adopt a dog for like two days, like a hotel dog.

Basically they have like there's a service and they know people are coming in and it's just like, I'd like a golden retriever for two days to join me on my vacation and they'll bring, oh, we'll give you Millie. And then Millie comes in

and she's a six-year-old golden and it's a female and we walk her and she sleeps in the room with us. And then she gets her dog fix. We take her into the ocean. Yeah, she's loving it. And we're paying them. And then we return Millie

near the end of the trip. Like we would, return the car. Like, thanks for Millie was great. We would, we would absolutely run this back with her next time we're here. And Millie, and Millie's having a blast too. She said, everybody wins. We're the person who has the dogs, they're getting paid. Everybody wins. Maybe some rescue dogs. Maybe you end up taking the dog home. Maybe it's a cup of coffee to see if maybe we take the dog back. Maybe it's like, you know, we love Millie. What, how much would it take? Would, we, we just want to sign her up for the Simmons family for the rest of mankind.

Is this too good of an idea or is it a half-baked idea? So I've been at a hotel where they have a hotel dog. It's just sleeping in the lobby. And it's very much like, hey, can we play with this dog? Like, yeah, but it kind of hangs out in the lobby. Can I take it for a walk? This is like when, like, how you go, I don't know if you've ever used Turro. You go in Turro and it's like, oh, I want, it's basically like your own, it's like a rental car.

but it's like you can pick pick like it's a slightly higher level of cars. You can be like, oh, I really want like a Ford Explorer. Gotcha. And it would be the same thing here. I'd be like, oh, I'm on the dog site. I really always have just wanted a great day.

Just two days with a great day. Oh, let's go to the site and be like, oh, when we're in, you know, when we're in Hawaii, we'll get a great day. It's exactly. Like, I don't know if it's right for us, but I really want a St. Bernard. Right.

Or we'll try it. Right. St. Bernard. Maybe we'll get a great day. for two, St. Bernard for two, and finish with the six-year-old golden. I don't know. Yeah. Just keep bringing them back. There's something here, though. I think that's great. You know where they get you, though? The tennis ball rental. True. The tennis balls. It's like $20. How much is the dollar?

What? She, Millie only like specific tennis balls. There's 60 a kid. How much is the chucket? Yeah. No, Millie. You get Millie, $19 a day, but the chucket is $80. It's a great one. All right, you go. You're going to love this one. You're going to love this one. So I like a fan duel, as we all do.

Not a huge fan of losing money. Also, not a huge fan of winning money. So if I win 20 bucks, I'll be like, oh, cool. But if I lose 20 bucks, I'll be pretty furious. We should mention you're not really a gambler.

No. Kevin Wow, it's not like really fun to go to Vegas with. No, definitely not. Definitely not. Not a great time. But I want, but I want, I, I'm, I want to sort of exercise my predictive powers. I want to be part of the conversation, et cetera, et cetera. And growing up, my parents subscribed to Yankee Magazine.

Hmm. Like a New England magazine. Do you remember this magazine by any chance? That was the first thing that ever published me. Yankee magazine? When I was in grad school, I wrote this piece, and the professor really liked it, and I ended up, got in a Yankee magazine. So I think now it's a full, full-size magazine, but it used to be almost like Farmer's Almanac size. And in the back was this throwback where I did some research on it. I think they did this in the late 1800s called Yankee Swap.

And this is where Yankee Swap came from where you say, hey, you know, I'd like a John Deere lawnmower. and I've got a canoe. Anybody interested in, you would call you, if you want this lawnmower, I'm looking for the lawnmower, you're interested in a canoe, so you can trade stuff. Yeah.

But you're not buying stuff. You're just trading stuff that you got. So it's a little bit sort of like polymarket. I want to be able to bet, but I just want to bet some of the stuff that I have versus some of the stuff that someone else has. So you bet like 1984 Sports Illustrateds? You'd be like, I bet all of this.

I've got 10 of them. But I'm looking for a blender. Anybody want to put something up against me on that the bills lose the first game against the Texans? First, like, yeah, I'm from Texas. I've got a big smoker. I'm like, oh, man, that smoker's worth a lot. I've got a lacrosse net that my son's on. You're like, great deal.

Yeah. We punch it in on this eBay type app thing. And then that's the bet. And next thing you know, if I win, all of a sudden this guy sends me this big smoker. Yeah, that's got to be baked in somehow. So eBay would have to use some sort of system to judge a general value for everything that people put on.

Well, no, there's an emotional value too. Right. Yeah, I just want to see I'm taking Texans over bills. I can see who's on the other side of it and everything that they're offering. And then, hey, are you guys interested in this lacrosse net that I'm getting. rid of until someone says yes. So I could say I have the envelope that the Celtics got the number five pick and the 07 lottery. That's cool.

I'm willing to bet this, but I need some big stakes from the other side. Let's go. What do you got? And then somebody's like, I have a Paul Newman jersey from Slapshot. Like, let's fucking go right now. There you go. That's a little more. Head to head.

Yes. That's like high stakes. I'm doing more Yankee swap style or like, you're like trying to clean your garage out. I got a second leaf rusting 25 pound weights. Anybody interested in them? They're covered with rust. Like I'm looking for a weed whacker. Or after you got married,

like somebody gave you an ice cream Sunday maker. You just never opened. Still in the box. I've got a popcorn maker that shoots the popcorn all over the counter. I'll be honest with you. Just what do you want? Just any sort of Patriots coaster. That's pretty good.

So it's basically eBay and Fandul merging. Yes. And becoming like a property swap cross with Ben. I think that's pretty good. That's like a three-fourths of a baked idea. That was a good idea. Yeah, it's solid. Yankee Magazine Fandul.

That's grossed off. You have another one? I've got this one. I have some great reader ones. Okay. Including Matt from Edmonton said he's a long-time listener and joy of hackbait ideas. Oh, thanks, Matt. He wants to create a historical.

historical workplace comedy TV show that focuses on the janitorial staff at the Manhattan Project, and it's called Mappenheimer. No puns. No puns. Halfen. That is. Okay. No,

that felt like a pun. That was. Yeah. Okay. Tommy Leonelli. We just dismiss Mappenheimer. This was great. This might be better than a half-baked.

Okay. He's talking about express checkout or hotel. You just check out your card settles everything. You don't think about it. He said the worst part of any dinner, out isn't the wait for the table. It's the exit tax. That awkward 10 to 15 minutes in the meal. You're flagging down the waiter. Waiting. Totally agree. Meals over. Great dinner vibes fade. You just want to get out. Half-baked idea. You go to the restaurant. You check in.

The bill auto closes on checkout. Receit hits your email. You tip on the phone for the parking lot. Do pre-tip, whatever. Hotels have been doing this forever. Why don't restaurants do it? That's actually better than a half-backed idea. That's a, well, I went out to dinner. We had a show dinner. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm ready to go. I was ready to go. I was done with the dessert. We were like, I'm going to go.

I'm an hour away. You've been sitting in the chair for two hours. I'm just antsy. I'm not watching Spider-Man here, fellas. I'm ready to leave. The conversation has now starting to plateau. Nick Wright's arguing with somebody about Mahomes. It's like it's time to go.

I'm ready to move. I love that idea. Yeah. I love that idea. Somebody should try that. Okay, you go. You're going to love this idea. Kids at camp, no phones, no digital appliances.

Writing letters. We're writing letters to them. Yeah. They're writing letters back to us. It's really nice. Kids letters are usually disappointing. Well, I'll be honest with you. They don't put a lot into it.

I don't know if they're, I don't know. Not a lot of effort. But they're, they're trying, you know, it's not bad, but it's not necessarily what you would expect. Especially the boys. The boys are just, you know, boys are away at camp. Mom's like having a stroke every day about it. And then the, oh, it's a letter came in from Ben. Hey, Mom, hope you're good.

Love Ben. There was a snake in the cabin. That was the highlight. Okay, someone did. Someone mentioned this concept to me on social media, but I couldn't find that their, the Instagram message. So I apologize to this person, but I want to give them credit.

Okay. Because you're about to be an empty nester. And again, even though I don't like puns, this was just a coincidence. And when Ben got into college, did you do the whole click the video and it pops up, you're accepted,

everything's now on the computer, right? No, it was an email. He didn't have that. An email? Yeah. It's even lamer. Yeah. Okay.

This goes the other way. Okay. You go out to the mailbox. Oh, my God. It is a five foot by five foot box and it's making noise. And oh my gosh. I think this is what I think it is. You bring it inside, you open it up.

Holy cow. It is a huge bird cage filled with pigeons, homing pigeons. Ben got into college, and this is how you're sending them letters. The pigeons are from the college. This is where they were raised. Oh, my goodness. So now you have to raise these pigeons for a little while until he goes off to school. Yeah.

And then whenever you're ready, whenever he's settled, like, all right, money, let's go. grab a pigeon that you've been taking care of. You put there, get it nice. Yeah. Attach this letter to its leg and then it flies off. Because kids love, you know, records, although they are very digital savvy. The analog is starting to have a real comeback.

And there's nothing more analog than a homing pigeon. Now, they can only go one way. That's the issue. I learned about this. How far can they go? Oh, my goodness. Then go to South America. Oh, yeah. Okay.

They, they navigate via Earth's magnetism. They're unbelievable. Honing pigeons. Homing pigeons. Homing pigeons. Homing pigeons. Let us say honing. Homing.

Well, they hone in on, they hone in on where they're from. And this is a little bit of like, it's called empty nesters. Yeah. That you're an empty nester, but you have these pigeons. And then when you're out of pigeons, you've, you've, you've, sent your seven letters, that's a sign, oh, we've got to go see Ben. Boom, you fly back out there. And when you're there, you go to the bookstore.

I'll take a dozen pigeons. What happens to the pigeon after it delivers the message? It just goes to live the rest of its life? Well, this, it's, no, you have to go back to the bookstore now. You order 12 pigeons. Yeah. And then you take them back to L.A. And then you're ready to.

Can I fit in the overhead compartment or now? No, you have to, they travel, they travel separate. Right. Next to the plane. Okay. With the dogs. Hold on. Next to the plane.

Empty nesters. Kevin in Minnesota says, no one wants to take the keys from their aging unsafe parents. Great call. Now you don't have to. They take the car for an oil change. You've pre-rangered the mechanic to make the car self-driving. They outfit it with autonomous driving tech response to their actions, but not really.

now your parent thinks you're driving but they're like a child at an arcade machine with no quarters in it world safety your dad drives in the 90s and he wants to call Grahamo home road pretty good Grabo

just I'm like a kid in our just press a bunch she wits for two hours she completely changed the car we're going to take a break we'll come back with more half big

this episode is brought to you by Mazda there's drive And then there's driving with peace of mind. Not just when you drive with me, you drive with peace of mind. I'm one of the great drivers. But knowing you're behind the wheel of Consumer Reports' safest new car brand, that's Mazda.

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Visit MazdaUSA.com to learn more. Have baked ideas is back. By the way, Colin from Portland, Oregon once thinks MLB should do metal bats Sundays. Great take. Just Sundays Metalbats.

It would change the strategy. They'd put their worst pictures in there because everybody's sitting in further. It would probably end when there's a line. Just one day. I don't know if I need every Sunday, but just one day. Field of Dreams Day?

So Netflix, Netflix pays for Metal Bat Sunday. Yep. And it's just the game everybody gets to use the metal bat. Who says no?

That is a home run idea. I'm watching. Okay. And it's a carve-out. Oh, regular old game. Oh, what are we watching? Cardinals, Rangers? No, it's a metal bat game.

Holy cow. Great take. Great take. What else you got? Did I ever tell you a story about my buddy who ran a KB toy store? Have I ever told you that? No, but I used to love KB toy stores.

They had all the cards that they used to buy growing up. They used to have the three packs. Oh, the rack pack. The rack packs? Yeah. All right, so my buddy, Dan, used to manage a KB toy store.

And he came back to the dorms one day. And he said, I got a great idea. I said, what is it, Dan? He said, I know the ins and outs of KB toy stores better than anyone. I said, okay. He said, I know the margins.

I know it all. Okay. This is good. He says, there is a open storefront across from my KB toys. So here's my toy store. Dollar less than KB toys. Oh, almost like a Moka Joe type. thing. Right. I said, Dan, that is going to work. I just loved it. Just dollar less than KB

toys. So a combination of that and my fits furniture concept where we're just, it's furniture that fits in your house. We're just a one idea business. Had to call my bank the other day. Didn't go well. Didn't even speak to a human. what's your bank called? Only humans. Only humans is the idea. Get this. It's incredible.

Only humans. No robots. Boom, right away. Bang, you're talking. Hey, what's up? Immediately. First call. Hey, what's going on?

What's up, Bill? How are you? Hey, how's it going? You're going to love this even more. But no one's calling a chat, right? The first line of the first level, of person that you talk to is what I'm calling

a M-T-I-B-S-level employee. Your call for something, this person, the first thing they say to you, man, that is bullshit. Immediately, you're like, yes, thank you. Thank you, Brian. I can't believe we're doing that.

That is bullshit, man. Yes, it is. That's what I'm saying. That's a double charge. He's like, yeah, let me get you to somebody. So the first level of defense, they're not. That guy's just on your side. He's immediate, yes.

They have no idea what's going on in the bank. He's not suspicious. He's not trying to pull something over on him. They have no training. They never even been to the bank. They have no banking background at all. They are just immediately on your side. And that's our loyalty component.

And then at the next level of only humans bank, then you'll get to someone that can actually help. help you. But you're already in a good mood because someone had heard you out. It's a great idea. I mean, it could run in concert with my idea of no babies on this plane airlines. Everybody's 10 years and older. That's great. That's it. It's just, there's just no babies on this one. We have a baby specific plane. We have a 10-year-old cutoff. It's like an amusement park ride. You have to be over this certain height to get on the roller coaster. You have to be 10 years enough to get on the plane. It's a great take. PAB, he sent his initials as an acronym.

He really liked your half-baked idea about youth sports training to be an intramural champion, which you did in the last one. But he thought you should take it a step further. It's an entire youth sports league built around just the best possible experience for the parents. Wow. All parents who know that their kids not getting a college scholarship, he said tournament locations always coincide with great peaches, great peaches, casinos or sporting events you can attend as a fan.

The hours are set up so you can go out drinking with the other parents at night. No bad weather, bartenders at all events, and you get credit for spending the weekend at your kids volleyball tournament. Take it from there. It's half-baked. Can I add one thing that I think is very important? Yeah. The kids don't try out.

The parents do. So the hockey team. Oh, it's tryouts tonight. The kids are playing hockey, but the coaches are upstairs at the bar watching people interact. Oh, man. I don't think Jimmy's going to make it past the first tryouts. He was drinking before we got here. It's like you're very nervous.

And some people are like in full suits. They like really want to make the team. Yeah. Something I was like, I think you're going to make it. I think the reason this is a half-baked idea is I think people would have ringers. They'd have ringer kids in the league so their kids could dominate. And then they can be like, the wins and losses are

not the point. For the parents, there's still games. You still have to get competitive on the sidelines. It's just the expectations are lower. Or maybe you don't. I don't know. I don't know.

So Russell played in a, like at one point Russell played on somehow four baseball teams in one calendar year. And one of the teams, the games were literally across the street from a house. And we would walk there. Yeah. And it wasn't the highest quality baseball in the world.

It was your favorite league he's ever been in. Yeah. And he loved it. Yeah. He, the kids want to just have fun. Like, I know that's a crazy concept.

He absolutely loved it. I think that's a great idea. I like the parents trying out part. Because if you get on a team with parents that you're not really rocking with, it's rough. It's huge. It's a bar. Like,

uh, hey, yeah. No, yeah, no, Bill is a nice guy. No,

it is a big guy. It is like a baseball. clubhouse. You can have one bad apple parent, but if you have two, the wheels come off. Or the NBA is an even better example. You go away with the one head case, but if you have the two head cases

that can start becoming buddies, wheels come off. Speed round. Speed round. Tell me if you want to stop on any of these. Number one, kids want medium-sized ice creams. Adults want a small scoop. Kitty size should be two scoops and the adult size should be one. World Cup,

grabbing shirts and jerseys. Wait, hold on. So you're saying the kids scoop, when I say a kid scoop now, it's actually twice as much ice cream. And the adult single scoop is less than the kid scoop. Yeah. Why wouldn't they do it that way? I go up there. Billy says, I'll watch two birthday party bonanzas and another scoop of Oreo madness. And I'm like, can I have one kiddie scoop of midship?

Ladies, it sounds ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Do you have any vegan flavors? I'll have the adult scoop. The adult scoop is small and manageable. That's good. One for one. Speed round.

World Cup. Grabbing shirts, jerseys. Everyone should wear skin tight spandex like a scuba diver. You would never be held and you're faster. Number three, a stadium specifically designed to put the crowd into an ornery mood. Number four, 35 pound remote. Number five, loser plane. Again, the loser plane is just when I don't.

don't have this one. This is not probably half big. It's why it's running anchor leg on the speed round. When teams have to fly back, and like, oh, it's going to be a rough, that's going to be a rough plane ride. I don't know if I want to be on the plane, but some sort of misery loves company,

just a miserable, a miserable plane. Wait, can we go back to Ornery Stadiums? Yes. We want to hear the story behind the Ornery Stadium? Well, because I was thinking, like, in kidnap movies. like in Ransom, when they play,

the person in the dark room, they're playing like really terrible electronic rock music. Yeah. Like pulsating music so they can't hear the conversations. Got you. Yes. Are you thinking that?

Like you'd put the fans kind of uncomfortable with the environment? Or what do you thinking? The genesis of this is we went to the Texans Patriots game in the rain. And I didn't realize when we were pulling up, people were in full ski outfits, which I don't own a head-to-to-to-s ski outfit. I just had regular warm clothes.

Or they wear the plastic thing that goes over your whole everything. Yeah. So I just had regular heavy clothing on. We get to the stadium and the seats are soaking wet. Like, all right, well, we're not sitting. I would have liked to sit if it was a sunny day. If I was at So-Fi, if it was Patriots, Texans, I would have sat down at least once. Can't sit down.

My seat is ruined. So I don't know if it's wet seats, smaller seats. Again, I don't know if the technology is there. Occasionally some spikes come up and maybe spike you a little bit. It sounds like they're trying all of this with the new Buffalo Bill Stadium. Obstructed seats, small scoreboard. But I don't buy, this is the central premise. Yeah.

The more comfortable the seat, the less energy you have, that's sort of the point, right? If you're in a nice, huge recliner, you're not going to be fired up. And if you're sitting on the ground and, you know, WW1 in a trench, you're going to be ready for action. So I don't want a more comfortable stadium. I want to be slightly uncomfortable. Maybe that's like old Fenway in me. but I want to be the stadium. The whole thing can be designed.

I don't want to be annoyed, but I want to be ornery. It's a very fine line. I don't quite know how it would balance. Maybe it's like the clips they play in the Jumbotron and they're just stuff that people don't really like. Like it's season, season eight of entourage.

Like, oh, I hate the season. Oh, man, that's a, Vince had the drug problem. Yeah, this season sucked. Yeah, you want another one? Yeah. Hold on. Whoa, let me get you a quick. Oh, this is a good one.

I was going to give you a quick one from Adam. Tattoo QR codes. Great. People have tattoos. You don't know the meaning behind them. There's a little QR code next to it. If you're interested, you just put your camera on it. It's like, here's the story about tattoo.

That's good for people with tattoos as well. When Bill Murray gives you that card, you had an interaction with Bill Murray or whatever, Steve Martin does it. So they don't have to keep on. explaining. I'm all for more QR codes. Anyway.

Really? Not in restaurants. No, no, no. I like QR codes in general. I like when they pop up on ads. But not men. Just outside of menus. I don't want to do it on a menu.

I don't mind the menu. Oh, my gosh. You sit down and there's a QR code sitting like attached to your counter. I would say menus are probably top five most disgusting germ-filled thing that you could probably touch. Number one being the screens. on an airport on the on the seat in front of you those screens i'm i'm convinced they don't have they're not wiping those down every fight well i have number one

the smiley face or frown face on the bathroom exits like hole which i do like that but i'm not touching that it's a little bit gross game that tune okay game that tune so when we watch sports we watch it through a few different lenses. We watch it through an entertainment lens, a sense of history, historical lens, a community lens, friends, family. My kids are watching games through a pure participatory lens. They play flag football. We're watching football. So everything that they're looking at, they are inserting themselves into the game to the point where when we're watching the game, Dad, how tall is he?

How tall is Will Campbell? I think he's six. How much, what's his 40 time? Do you think I could beat him in a race? No, I don't think you could beat Will Campbell in a race. Do you think if I could beat him in a race with a five second head? Like, no guys. But then they start to hurt their feelings.

We start showing them videos of Larry Allen. Look how fast Larry Allen is, guys. You can't do this. Then I'm starting to beat them down, though. Hey, do you think the entire flag football team could beat Khabib in a fight? Probably not. He's going to be bad. Like, how about two flag like enough, guys, enough.

That being said. Yeah. I saw another video. Two pro beach volleyball players versus 20 rec league volleyball players. I was super into it. So it's game that tune. I like that. We'll start with three on three basketball.

Yeah. And the, how you could normally see this idea is, oh, I get it. Three pros versus 10 Joe's, pros versus Joe's. Let's see how it works out. But here's the gain that tune element of it.

Remember name that tune. I can name it in 10 notes. I can name it in eight notes. So on one side, suppose you had Steph, Steph Clay, Draymond, because everything's historical. On the other side, we've got J.R. Smith,

Kevin Love, and Richard Jefferson. Now they are competing to see how big of a challenge they are willing to accept. So they start off to say, all right, we can beat three rec league basketball players, two junior high school players, and five of fifth graders.

I mean, this was the best thing about name that tune watching people up it. Yes. Be like, oh my God, don't do three. I'll see that. You know what? Add two more high school seniors. Holy cow.

They're going to go five on three? Oh my God. Add an 80 year old, like an 80 year old. It starts to get weird. Eventually like, all right, you do it. And then the other team becomes the coach. Because a lot of times it's just a strategy issue. So if Stefan, Drayman, and Clay accept it, okay.

Kevin Love and Richard Jefferson become the coaches of the team. Do it for basketball, volleyball I've seen it work for. I saw there was a Japanese game show was three soccer players versus I think 100, maybe third graders.

Sad they were not coached well. Yes, I saw this. They had no shape. There was 10 goalies, but they needed some real coaching there too. So game that tune. So we can actually I'm like, all right, I don't know if you guys could be Khab.

But now it's Kabeed and another UFC guy. And the UFC would probably, I'll leave that to the side. Maybe non-contact sports. That's pretty good. Game that too. If Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were playing horse for $10 million, 8 o'clock on ABC on Tuesday night, would you watch? Yes.

I would to. One-on-one sports I'm into. I think like things with old people, that we used to love doing something that hopefully won't get them hurt. Like I would just be fascinated. Like Larry Bird in a three-point contest. How many could he make now? Like he's,

he's, I think he's, Bob Cousy. Well, Bob Cousy made all those shots in blue chips, remember? That was great. Are we in danger of

soiling the legacy? That's why it's a half-baked. This half-picked is from James in Nashville. I think, you're going to be horrified by this. Gee whiz, that's a bad way to start. He said there's dumb companies like Cameo that let celebrities connect with the public

where they send you the messages. I thought Camio was a nice company. They're trying to recruit. Well, I'm giving you what James is telling you. Okay. But he says, well, why don't we take a step further? What if you could pay money to get a little bit of a celebrity's blood transfused in you?

For example, he actually mentions Larry Bird. you find out Larry Bird's blood type if it's a match, you could have him donate some drops to put in your body, and then you could tell people you have NBA championship blood in your face. Jesus, God. I don't even know

if that's a quarter-baked idea. I don't know about that one. Yeah, I don't know about that one either. I mean, I just came off a Spider-Man, that's what happened. Oh, is it? Well, me, he's a spider. Oh, and then? That was the concept. I think a little bit of laborers, but it's too weird.

That probably doesn't pass the, it's too weird. That's too weird. This one wasn't weird though. Adam and Chicago said we did speech karaoke. We talked about that on a previous epic idea. It exists. In Chicago, there's a place called Chicago movieoki. And you can go there and you can give speeches from different movies.

Chicago had something. Chicago had something else. Huge old baseball with no gloss. or something. That was from about last night. The 16-inch softballs with the no gloves. Yeah, I wasn't aware of this. Chicago was the answer to all of these.

Chicago's great. Adam said he went there a couple years ago and he did the rushing dragging scene from Whiplash. So does someone else have to... Does someone else need to play the drummer? I don't know. That's just the information he gave. He just kept on doing this.

Not my tempo. That would be fun. I would love that. Movie-oke. Pretty good idea. I think I'm out of half-baked ideas, Bill. All right, I got one more from Craig in Las Vegas. He said he works in an office with several other professionals.

And the family photos, each of us have displayed in our offices. They're woefully out of date. He wants a service that comes to your office on an annual basis. They have access to all your social. And they just update your photos. What do you mean? Like, you have a picture of your two boys, but it's from when they were like in fourth grade and second grade.

Oh. The service comes in as like, wow, those photos are four years. Your kids are older now. Like you need to do photos. And they just kind of come in one day, $25. Just come in and change the photos. Do I, you've already signed up. You can't do anything about it.

But do I need a current photo of my children every year? They go on your social media. They grab them. They have access to your private, your Facebook, your wife's Facebook. Well, remember I had a few. The idea of funeral photos, a photographer that would come on here. I was looking at the obits the other day. And they're putting in these pictures of these old people.

They don't want all of them. Oh, 85-year-old Maude passed away. They took a picture of the other day. That's not what Maude wants to look like. So I think it should be like age 30 or 35. And it's just like it's the standard funeral photo. 25, 30? 25 is too young.

though. You've got to just look like yourself. No, but we just know. It's every time there's ever an obituary photo, the person's always 30 in it. It's just we all make a rule. I just don't want to, if I died and you came to my funeral and I had a 25, like, heck, that doesn't look like that.

I don't know. 35? You know, I think I had the photo in your in your contact. You had a mustache. I just saved it or you had a, I just thought it was the funniest one. Other people should probably pick them. Do you save your friends, the contact photo, do you put pictures of them? So when they call you, there's a picture of them.

I do that too. But then I guess it's the program has changed where you can suggest a photo and it pops up. I'm not into that. No, I like picking the photos. Yeah, I have good photos. That you want to view. No, of my friends when they call, it's photos that I've selected. So when I see them on my phone, it's like, oh. Yeah, I'm laughing at them basically. Jacko. There is. He's having a blast. My guys are always having a blast. Do you have, do you on your, I'm not going to ask you this.

It's too much personal information for me. Phone address book habits of whether it's people in your everyday life. You just have their names. But if you don't talk to them much, but you want them in your phone, I put a Z next to their name. A Z? Yeah. So they're on the bottom.

Brutal. So I don't, but then. I don't go. through the phone book, though. I just type in people's... It's easier to go through. Yeah. You don't think I should do that?

You're treating it like a digital roll-a- Yeah, there's like levels in my phone. So you've got triple A, somebody's triple A. No, it's all double Zs for everybody other than like... There's just two, 75 people. Two tiers. Yeah. No one moves up to A.

Sometimes people move up. They do. Just like, you know what? A period of my life a little more than being a Z-Z. Now they're just, now they're moving up. They hit their full name of my phone now. It's pretty good. Wilds.

You've always been wilds in my phone. Yeah, in a W. I'm way back there. I'm basically one step above the Zs. Yeah, but it's very luminant group as you go through. In the bottom. All right. Football's in a month.

It's going to be great. I just can't wait. Patriots facing a must win. An early fan duel eBay. It's Texans over. bills if anybody wants to bet me any specific thing that they have pitch me what you're willing to trade me and I will go through my garage and basement to see if there's anything that I think lines up to equal value and we can get a bet on the board. Are you going to film a new commercial

for first things first this year where they do the edits where it's like you guys are in different poses and then you're mad and then you're happy? Yeah, the anchorman stuff. I like that stuff. Yeah. I was going to have a production company called head turns and finger points. It's just we would specialize and then reverse it. Well, you know, the best ever at that was 902 and 0. That was my favorite thing was the opening credits. Just because they would do the. It works.

It works. I and Zering, like, had clearly practiced it for months before he was ready to do by season six. Anyway. All right. Wow, it's great to see you. I'll see you before the end of the year for near holiday half-baked.

Love it. If not before then. Good to see. All right. Go Patriots. Thanks, buddy. So this mailbag episode is brought to you by ChatGPT, the official AI sponsor of the Bill Simmons podcast.

I actually used ChatGPT work for, I think it's the third or fourth question that's coming up here with Joe House. You'll see in a second, but it was very helpful. It's a strange question, and I needed the help. So let's get to the mailbag and you'll see what I mean. All right, Joe House is here. We can do some mailbag stuff. House and the ringer gambling crew.

We have changed the name of ringer gambling. It is now Ringer Wise Guys. And on Monday, it's a soft relaunch, but we're going to be available on Twitch as well. In The Ringer, we're reviving our Ringer account. So you can find Ringer Wise guys on the old feed on Spotify and everywhere else on pods on Twitch and on YouTube. And we're doing division previews.

You did your AFC East One on Friday. Rahim passed on two of the teams, which I thought was incredible. He had numbers. His model obviously is telling him some numbers, and he's sharing what the model says, but he didn't have a strong conviction, so he didn't want to, like,

jump in with heavy... Make a lean. Heavy action. I've yelled at everybody. We're going to make actual picks on ringer wise guys. Do you feel good about the name chain? We were ringer gambling show for a long time. Ringer Wise guys is strong.

We've been that for a little while as well. We're going to do a... We're doing a... We're doing Ringer 107 again with a tweak of four picks during the week and then last second picks on Sunday. We'll be excited. Okay. Mailbag stuff.

So I had a bunch of these. Thanks to everybody who sends a minute. I always enjoyed them. I haven't sent any of them to house. Mike wants to know. He was talking about the Adley-Rutchman trade. Oh. And we gave up five prospects for, oh, my God.

We gave up our second, fourth, and fifth prospects for it. And it just seems like a lot. And he was saying how he was 10 years old at the game when Jeff Bagwell got traded for Larry Anderson, which was a famous terrible Red Sox trade. He says, it's taken me 36 years to realize something. MLB trades for prospects are the equivalent

to NBA trades for draft picks. Trading Rutchman for three of our, getting him for three of the top five prospects is like trading a first and two second rounders in the NBA draft for a quasi all-star, right? So I was thinking about this. I think he's right. And I've always been a big get the real guy over the prospects.

But then when you actually see the list and the numbers, it's more intimidating than these amorphous first second round picks. But I think he's right. Like what the Red Sox did basically was they traded an unprotected first, a heavily protected first, and some seconds for a 28-year-old catcher who's really good. And that made me feel better. There are good examples out there. teams, you know, doing that kind of asset collection, getting the prospects. And then once you have that basket of prospects, if the team surprises you at any point, then you have something, then you have real leverage and real currency to do something. And that's kind of the position.

Now, Washington doesn't have. It's like Charlotte with a bunch of first and seconds in the NBA right now. Right. If they want to make a move, they have cab space, all these. these things to do. Yeah, that's right. Do you agree with this? I think football is much harder to football. They have like that whole chart and they're very determined like the chart said this and kick 32 is worth this and they traded 32 for 74 and that's that's all like draft value.

This is like these are human beings. The prospects in baseball are real guys. It's different from in the NBA where now we have, you know, a protected first and three seconds. Well, who are the guys? No effing idea. Right. Or one of the picks, the Celtics got for Jalen was like, well, the quippers, it might be quippers. It could be the Sixers.

It's protect. I can't keep track of any of this. Burridge from Mississippi, he says, in the year of our Lord, 2026, what do Steve Kerr, Dramon Green, and the immortal Steph Curry have to play for? What indignity?

What slow moral rot has taken the greatest dynasty since Kobe's Lakers and dragged into this valley of mediocrity. I asked this not as a wordist hater, but as a student of decline, a man who has studied the fall of empires and finds this one every bit as instructive as Rome's, if considerably less dignified. So I thought that I really poured it on there. I admire the inspired verbiage. It did make me think, though.

And I know we've already talked about this and Curry. Curry's, he's retiring as a warrior, like it's a rap, and sadly the Warriors know this. But we haven't had a lot of these where it was like something real happened for an extended bunch of years of the team that won titles. And then there comes an end to it, right? And so we saw it with the Magic Lakers and Bird Celtics, saw the MJ Bulls, which was abrupt. Magic's Lakers had figured out how to kind of keep it going. They got Flat of Devatch and Perkins, and then Magic came down with the Zee.

diagnosis and that was kind of ended it. Celtics just got old. They never replenished it. The Jordan's Bulls, that was like, we're rebuilding, we're rebuilding and rebooting. Like, we don't want you guys anymore. Like they made the decision easy. And then Shaq and Kobe with the Lakers, that was a Shaq Kobe. It's one of us has to go type of situation.

They had to reboot that. They were able to get the Gasol miracle and get a couple more years out of it. This one's pretty unique. this one's almost almost like the 92 Celtics like that range with Bird Parish McHale except they had Reggie Lewis and Brian Shaw and D. Brown and they had this youth infusion and they kind of

did have a two timelines thing. Whereas the Warriors don't. They're on one timeline. Yeah, how does this go? And everybody signed up for two more years basically. So what happens? None of us think this is barely a playoff team. There's still a trade to be had out there with the Jimmy Butler situation.

And if we're going to be, you know, appropriate about it, they did try. Jimmy Butler got hurt. They were a pretty goddamn good team when Jimmy Butler could play. True. And they kind of were directionally going, you know, arrow pointing up to an additional asset at a trade deadline if Jimmy Butler hadn't gotten hurt. Like they were looking like they could be a kind of interesting playoff team. Yeah, the old guy, Tim.

Yeah. But the Butler injury changed everything. And you can't immediately pivot. It's the, you know, the salaries are complicated. The salary cap is complicated. And so we are wondering what the hell's going on because we didn't see them make what seem to be a genuine effort at Jalen Brown. Okay.

Well, it seemed like they thought. It's defensible. They didn't want Jaylen Brown. Right. It seemed like they did want LeBron. They don't want Jalen Brown at that price. They would love to have LeBron for $4 million or $8 million or whatever it was. And then use that as a way to bring in another player that could actually help them compete.

But they're kind of stuck now for a little while. So the question is, are you stuck forever or are you stuck until December, January? And is there actual plan we're going to use the Butler expiring, especially as it gets close to February, we're going to canvas the league and see what two to three unhappy teams are there situations that went sideways. And we have a better chance to make a good trade then. We can hang around for a couple months. Because listen, these guys, Laco, I think, cares about his standing in the community and going to games and not being yelled at. He's got his kids involved, or at least one of them with the team. I just don't see them rolling over and going 37 and 45 now

for the rest of the career. So I feel like there's going to be a move. So I think we're aligned. I agree. I think they didn't like the moves now. Right. But my guess is December, January, February. If they're around over 500, they go on.

I agree with this. Okay. So it's not as dark as the fall of Rome. I guess it would be a bigger point. Crumbling empires and dynasties. Kyle from New Jersey, you broke out the T-shirt the last time of the of Jamlin Brown on colonoscopy day. Yeah.

He asked, would you say we've gotten to the point where you've had the most famous colonoscopy of all time? My sister got one recently. I still thought of you over her. I guess that's the bar. Not sure if there are any other famous colonoscopies. Kyle, you're dead wrong. I actually went to chat GPT to figure out if there were other ones. Because I always thought of the Katie Kirk one.

That was the famous one. That is the famous one. It's so funny you mentioned that. There's a more famous one. More famous? Chat GPT came up with five. Ronald Reagan in 1985 because they found blood in his stool

and they found a cancer section of his colon and he made a recovery and that was like apparently the first real screening. Katie Cork after her husband tragically died. Kimmel had one in 2018. Yep. I remember Kimmel.

Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mack filmed a whole thing in 22 and Terry Cruz filmed his in 23 and sent it out to all his social media. So there are five. That one worked there. top 20. Those are public health.

The whole thing is about the public health. You didn't intentionally schedule years with a public health message attached to it, but it turned out to be a famous day. See, I think you did more for colonoscopies than me because you've talked about them on multiple podcasts about how great they were and how great

the nap was and you didn't mind drinking the gross thing. You have to drink twice. Nope. I felt the same way. Jeff from Richmond wants to know, Harbaugh and McCarthy won a title of Michigan, but is it possible JJ knew the defense's play calls in advance? And that's why he's looked basically so terrible. As an NFL quarterback that this was a limit all along. And conspiracy bill did entertain this one. Well, remember, when he came into the league, there was some eyebrow raising around where he was

selected. It wasn't like, you know, there was that, that natural question, system guy, guy in the perfect situation, situation guy, coached up properly, you know, the play calling was very solid, or is there, you know, natural talent that's going to jump over that stuff? Intangibles. I got, I got a bunch of questions about the basketball Hall of Fame, which is coming up next week. our friend Doc Rivers is going to make it in as a coach. The question I get the most is like who should be in the Hall of Fame but isn't. And you can go a bunch of directions with that. Seriously?

Everybody's in the Hall of Fame. Who isn't in the Hall of Fame? So the natural reaction is, oh, everybody's made at this point. They've actually, this is one of the reasons I wrote my book a while ago. The Hall of Fame is a mess. The whole thing. There's seven guys who should be in the Hall of Fame and Art. And I'm going to read them to you in order.

And we could talk about them really quickly. Paul Silas, who was on three title teams in 74, 76 Celtics, 79 Sonics, and then played in another finals as well. He was basically 10 points, 13 rebounds a game for the playoffs from 70 to 76, played 1,400 games, was the best defensive forward of that decade other than DeBusher, was the glue guy, most respected locker room guy for that whole decade, to the point that, when the Celtics didn't keep him. Dave Cowns was so mad. He retired for two months. And I think with some of the people we've let in, I would have him in,

especially because he coached too and was just such like a beloved guy. That was one that struck me. When we were growing up, he was an awesome. I would say like a little bit Draymond Greenish as like, not an all-star,

but like important. So that's one. Bill Lambier. Center on two champs and a finals runner up. Five straight Eastern Conference finals, basically double doubles for all of that. For 10 years, was 14 or 11 with 50% field goals.

One was in the mix for rebounding titles. Only missed four games in 10 years and was the most annoying opponent of the last 45 years, hands down. Everybody hated this guy, but he was memorable. I hate making the case for him, but zero All-Star game appearances, right?

zero all NBA teams. Right, but Michael Cooper just made it. That's where it's like, if Michael Cooper's in, like we have to start thinking about Bill and Bear. The thing with Lambert, the three point, the three-pointer was there the first decade, but like basically the three-pointer came in an 80. But I think if he,

if you transported him from 81 to now, he's a really dangerous like 2026 player. He's a classic Mr. Zarra guy. Did you, did you hate Bill Embair? because I think he's the most despised Celtic opponent of my lifetime. I hated him because I hated the Pistons for what they did to Jordan. Yeah. You know, MJ was my guy in that era.

And I was just, you know, enraptured by every time MJ was on the floor in those playoff games. Yeah, they're trying to hurt against the pistons. Yeah. Exactly right. Yes. Tom Chambers, who when I did my book in 2009 was 96 in my pyramid, was just really good. He made two second team all-MBA. He was 27 and 8 for two straight years in 8 to 9 and 90.

Two Western Conference Finals was a part of the 93 finals team. I wrote down the best forwards from basically second half of the 80s through 91. And I think he's in the top 10, Bird, Malone, Barclay, Mullen, Wilkins, Worthy, McAle-Pippen, Chambers, Rodman. I have as the one. Now, you can nitpick with two of those guys. I had in my book, he was the starting power forward on the white guys who played like black guys team. And then there's a whole what if thing with Chambers and Worthy and the Quippers and Lakers in 82. If he's just on the Lakers, his whole run, could he have just been, he wasn't the defender James Worthy was, but would he have been a worthy like offensive player?

Because we saw it on the 87 All-Star game. When he won the MVP and he was awesome. It's easier to project him in not only because of the All-Star and the All-NBA, but the prolific scoring. Like I can see it. I can see. I know what his shot looks like. That helps. I don't know what I can't remember what Paul Silas's shot looks like.

Right. He just played in the deadest of dead era. Right. Chambers is the first two guys that mentioned, I think there's a case. Chambers should be in. I agree. These next five guys are should be in guys because even when I did my book, I had him in the top hundred.

Gus Williams, we talked about in our previous pot. I don't need to do that one again. Gus Williams is outrageous that he's on it. I agree with this. Kevin Johnson is. not in and there might be reasons for this off the floor but resume-wise

belongs. I don't need to go through it but when I had him did my book he was 93. These last two are fully outrageous to me. Sean Kemp, not in. Oh, wow. Yeah. Three second

teams. Second best guy in the 96 Sonics who really kind of threw some punches back at the 96 bowls, who might have been the greatest team of all time. This is outrageous. Basically a 2010 guy in the playoffs. He was 21 and 10, 57% field goal. Al played Hakeem Elijah on in a playoff series, beat Carl Malone in a playoff series, and thrived against Dennis Rodman in a playoff series, and then was one of the most memorable

dunkers of all time, and the Lister Dunk is in the Pantheon, not to mention the Sonnet. It's yet another slight against Seattle fans that he's done it, in my opinion. well and he he he tried to build a legacy by having as many kids as possible which can't go overlooked I should have mentioned that spread the Kemp legacy yeah um I don't need to go to the Hall of Fame right now and pick five guys that I know for sure Sean fucking Kemp is so like I don't want to name names let's not it's not nice or appropriate but Mitch Richmond is in the goddamn NBA Hall of Fame and Sean Kemp is it Right. That's incorrect. That's a mistake. That's a miscalculation.

Yeah, we, I had no platform whatsoever during the 96 finals, but I do remember talking to you on the phone about it a couple of times. And we were like, we couldn't believe how good Sean Kemp was. It was like, where is this going? And granted, he blew it. And, you know, which would be the case for Derek Rose to get into, which is, you know, he's one of those what if guys. Kemp had all kinds of personal issues. But I think he should be in. And then the last one, I can't believe, is not in as Robert Horry, the greatest world player of all time. He's not in? Played for seven championships.

How long has he been eligible? A while. He was on the 94-95 Rockets, 0-0-0-0-2 Lakers and the 0507 Spurs and was huge parts of those six teams, 244 playoff games. He was on 1055 win teams. He was on eight teams of the 700 plus one percentage. he was the first guy with 100 steals, blocks, and threes in the same season, and he had famous game winners, and then swung the 05 finals for real. He had 20, that game, he had 21 of the last 35 points, five threes, and it's one of the great finals games ever played where he swung a title from one team to the other. And I wrote a piece at the time talking about if I called you and I said the Robert Horry games on, you would say which one?

He's not in. He's not in the hall of fan. I am not going to go back. Maybe I will. Maybe I'll ask. We like chat. GBT, that's our AI interface. What's the ballot situation?

Like, has he been on and then gotten to a certain level and not made, like? You play a couple years and there's no ram or reason. You don't know how close somebody got. There's no voting like in baseball. Okay. That's what I'm getting at. He should be in. Because it's crazy.

I mean, and I'm wondering, you know, was he close at different times since he's been eligible. Do you think Derek Rose should be in? That's a really hard one. I would lean toward no, but he did win the MVP. He did win the MVP, though. I mean, I admire the talent. He showed up. He did take the league over that year. It seemed like the ceiling was super high. It just got cut short by injury. Football question from J.K. Collins. He was listening to my QB rankings podcast and was talking about why haven't they ranked players based on how much they move the Vegas line if they're out. It's basically a Vegas war rating or on our podcast, the Fandual War rating. Isn't that the ultimate measure of a player's worth to a team?

So Ben Fox had this on Twitter recently. Talk to 11 odds makers. Who do you think the number one quarterback who moves the line is this year heading into the year? Wow. This is going to be hard. Because, I mean, it was like Mahomes was just the obvious, most obvious. 2026, number one quarterback moving line. Josh Allen.

You are correct. 7.23 points if he's out of the game. That makes perfect sense. Number two, Patrick Mahomes. Okay. 6.3, 2. I mean, no surprise. Number three, Matthew Stafford, 6.16.

Number four, Drake May, 5.93. And then number five was Lamar Jackson, 5.89. Okay. yet another more evidence that Drake May is a top four quarterback. He was top three or four last year and I think he's going to be top four again this year. Okay. Jake in the Bay wants to know, this is a little harsh, but I'm going to read it. I didn't write it.

Can you remember another player of consequence in the modern era with less franchise-specific fan love than Kevin Durant? Is anyone even close? His recent self-induced spat with gold state and clay is just an, another brick in the wall. And I could tell you this much as a Golden State fan, we don't want him and we don't claim his legacy. Joe Lake of might, but Golden State fans certainly don't,

especially if you're going to mess with Clay, who we adore beyond reproach. They might as well just leave Durant's jersey blank when he goes in the Hall of Fame someday. And then Jared P. sent a separate thing about how stupid it is when people have to announce what jersey they're going to be in the plaque,

but ask like, what would Kevin Durant wear if he gets in the Hall of Fame? which he will because he's going to get in the Hall of Fame. It deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. Yeah. And I think the answer is I think he's going to do son. I think he would do Sonics. Oh, wow.

That's incredible. That's the move. Wow. Yeah, and he's like, I love Seattle. I would have loved to have played there. But to honor the Sonics, I'm going to be a thing. It is,

it doesn't have. I went through my top 30. It's pretty hard. Shack's probably the closest. And I think Shaq, the Laker fans love Shaq. They just love Kobe more. Sure.

But it's weird to have. a career that you had like Duran had where there's animosity with every fan base that you played for? Well, it's O KC. I mean, he did play a significant role in that franchise

elevating itself into what you think they'll forgive him in the end. Yes, yes. He won his MVP with Oklahoma City. They're still salty with him when he goes there. I don't know. That's good fandom, I think. I feel like he can still save this as we head to the last part of his career.

How? I don't know. I don't have any answer. I thought you were going to give me something about him going back to Oklahoma City. Or the Seattle expansion team. He goes back there and finishes it as like a start and finish. Brooklyn probably has, Brooklyn's probably the coolest with him just because he did try to win there and then, you know, he beat her down.

Well, that's probably, that's probably Brooklyn fan base. Speaking of Joe Lekub, rancher from the bay said he grew up in the Bayer. I remember reading my column had anointe a fan base in 60 steps about the Warriors after Joe Lacob got booed when I talked about all the shitty things

that happened to Warriors fans three years later they win the title. And he said, that column was the first time I felt the plight of Warriors fans were recognized. But then it all changed. And Steph saved the franchise and turned into a dynasty.

The 2015 title is the most euphoric sports moment I remember. And he asked a question because we talked about this last pod when you were on. I talked about the concept of a baggage handler. And he says, wasn't Steph Curry our baggage handler? So I do have a bag of Chandler terminology. If you missed the last podcast, it's about a team or franchisor said he hasn't won in forever. And somebody comes in and flips it, gives them the confidence. and that's the first person I think of and point to.

Steph was there for six years before they won. If you're drafted by a team, can you also be the baggage handler? It would be my question. I think the answer is yes. Yes, yes, yes. But it's a little different when it's like a messy egg coming in, like your hired gun Bag of Chandler.

No, I agree. No, Steph changed. Steph was native to that situation and he grew up. He matured and then he blossomed. I mean, he was a metamorphose. So Bagu-Champers's Baggage Chandler. Doesn't matter whether you're on the team the whole time or not. No, no.

He became a very different player. He was a radically different player. I do want to chime in. I do have a good pal who sent me a follow-up to the Baguagangler concept and observed just out loud. We don't do college football very much, you and I, because we didn't really grow up with it. We have a college football team. That way of the upcoming season. Yeah.

Well, we also have Holy Cross, but both are on the upswing. college football is a great repository of baggage handlers. And he sent me a list. But the only two that I remember off the top of my head, Vince Young in Texas, what he delivered to that. And Cam Newton in Auburn. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's an incredible one, isn't it? Yeah, that's a great one. Yeah, Doug Flutie. I was going to say Doug Flutie in BC, but he never actually won there. A bunch of people. Maybe like Reggie Bush. the oh the USC P. Carroll. Reggie Bush and Linerd together.

Yeah, P. Carroll. A bunch of people sent this out. I'll give the credit to Kyle Wagner from Nebraska that we missed a Wayne Gretzky of Bag of Chandler's, the man, the myth legend Theo Epstein, who did, built the Red Sox and then went to the Cubs and built them. He double baggage handled. That's incredible.

So the Bagg of Chandler should be called the Theo. Okay. I'm fine with it. The architect of two incredible. Especially the two hardest ones. Most forlorn franchises in the sport. The Red Sox fans, we were actually dumb enough to think we're going to win every year.

The Cubs fans had completely given up. They were like the widow who just assumed the husband was never coming home from the war. We were like, we were dumb enough to think each year was going to be the year. There's nobody like him. Yeah. I'm trying to go red, no, not Red Hour back.

Jerry West I think he's the baggage of Ryan Ben from Central Mass said Aaron Donald's looming comeback Philip Rivers weird comeback last year had me thinking the weirdest

late career comebacks of all time he said Bob Coozy and the Royal Satchel Page on the A's at age 58 Magic on the 96 Lakers Callins on the 83 bucks and of course

Philip Rivers but he picks Bob Coozy who had him played in seven years and inexplicably came back on the Royals, which the numbers are terrible. And then he threw a game in one of the worst or best comebacks ever when the Knicks beat the Royals. But Coosie just became a player coach randomly for seven games.

And it's terrible. And he's like completely washed up. It's weird. I don't think the Aaron Donald comeback is going to be like that at all. I think he's, I'm factoring in in like our projections and stuff for the NFC like that. He's going to be 95% awesome, right? Oh, I agree.

Absolutely. Well, what's the case for him not being awesome? Just that he hasn't played in three years? I would say the flipside of his body is going to be nice and fresh. That's a net positive. Yeah. It's football. There's nothing harder than on the body than football.

You had a bad weirdo come back. The Joe Gibbs coming back was bad. Yeah. That poor Dan Snyder was trying to, you know, taking the swing with that. And it didn't, yeah, it turned out. Just like everything else, everything else that Dan Snyder did. Yeah, because it was partly because of Vermil, because Vermil went to the Rams and it worked.

Remember? And it was like, oh, well, it worked. And then all of a sudden, Gibbs was back coaching your team again. Well, Snyder was flailing. I mean, he needed a reason for the team to be relevant. He needed to try anything to reconnect the team to the fan base here. I don't think that one worked. Rich in Toronto thinks this one will be seconded by Craig Horrell.

back, definitely Joe has. Instead of dancing around the idea of an actor's appearance in the rewatchables, he thinks we should lean into it with a new category called the Milakunus and forgetting Sarah Marshall appearance Apex Mountain Award for is this the most attractive a person has ever been in a movie?

And it could go female or male because we did talk about this during witness with Harrison Ford. I really like this idea. I'm mad at in this to the next one. We're doing a Italian job in the rewatchment tomorrow. Let's just say there will be a Charlize conversation. Oh, Daddy.

Really good suggestion, no, from Rich. And then one more set from 707 on the rewatchables. On Hitch, I was talking about, we were talking about how Denzel never made a rom-com. Okay. That's true. He's never made one. He has an idea that he thinks I would like, the movie starts with a current

71-year-old Denzel at the memorial service for his deceased wife. sitting in a chair melancholy and a young family member approaches him and asks how he met, and then the movie goes back in time using Denzel, becomes young Denzel thanks to CGI and how he met and fell in love with his wife. And we go rom-com. Denzel will never do this, but I thought that was a pretty strong idea. I agree.

You know, the crazy thing is you could talk that whole thing into chat GPT and get a whole script with all the characters. I think that just happened. For the actors and actresses, yeah. Andy from NYC had a question for Consum. conspiracy bill asking if I was watching this Matt Ishpia situation with his United Shorestock, which has been going down fluctuating in the wrong direction. It's fluctuating and not doing well and was asking what are the possibilities of a sale

if he can't make the debt payments. Are you watching this? That's not happening. I think if he needed cash for the team, you would just sell 25%. Right. You would, you would sell a stake. You would value the team at $5 million and get money from somebody. This is a good one for you from Jeff from Texas. He thinks the new Vegas team name should be called the odds. So we could say stuff like what will it take to beat the odds? The odds are against us. The Vegas odds are plus 200 to beat OKC. And then he said, I'm just about 100% positive house will support this. He is correct. He is 100% correct. That is a great name. And it also, You can imagine the cool logos.

I love the four-letter names. They fit perfectly. And you can do front-back. Oh, I'm so all over this. That's phenomenal. What are the odds? I like the odds. The Vegas odds.

I don't know what the other runners in the clubhouse were for that, whether they go Vegas or Las Vegas. I don't know. I haven't been happy with some of the team names lately. Well, I mean, they had this right now, Vegas, the only one that's, to Vegas really is the aces because the knights aren't, aren't anything. And the Raiders are the Raiders.

Right. So it would be good to tie it to the locale. Willie from Rockaway Beach wants to know in the Odyssey, Odysseus' thing was stringing the bow and shooting through the axes. That was like his move. I don't know if you saw the Odyssey yet. He's the only one who could do it. He wants to know what my Odysseus tax is.

wonders like trade machine dumb pop culture sports analogies he had a bunch of a bunch of things I don't have anything to rival the stringing the bow and then shooting it through the thing but I feel like you do

I think your idyllis task is your ability to eat for another half hour at a normal dinner after everybody else is finished eating like that is your version of stringing the bow I will accept that.

You're second and third. Everyone else is playing 18 and you're playing like 54. And you're just going at your pace and then you're looking around and you're like, oh, you're going to eat those french fries. What's going on at the steak? And you're just kind of cleaning up. And I think that's better than any Odysseus thing I have. Here's the secret.

Not, I mean, of course you have to have the appetite and the interest and the curiosity. but when I get to go out to eat with friends and family, I'm eating the whole table. I get what everybody ordered because I know that at some point. At some point, and there's nothing that I can't taste. It's a really wonderful thing that I probably stumbled into it. It's not like a deliberate strategy, but over the years, I've just grown accustomed to eating. If the food arrives at the table, I'm going to eat some of it, either at the beginning of the meal let me go at the end of the meal.

There's going to be, you know, that thing. The other issue is when the restaurant puts in parameters, like this is for two or three people. Oh. It's like a personal insult to you. That's an outrage to me. Yeah. The steak, but you need two or three to finish the steak,

and you're like, okay. Come on. That's ridiculous. Kobe from Oakland, who now lives in Vancouver, was very upset about Katie's comments on the 17 Warriors. And he said he was watching highlights from them and couldn't help but notice the insane love of Steph's gravity in the court, which has been talked about forever. But he said there's so many highlights of Durampering the ball up court, going direct to

the basket for an open dunk because two guys had their backs turned, trying to tie off Steph and forgetting that he had the ball. People just feared the empty. This is why it's impossible to talk about Curry historically compared to other guards because nobody has ever swung defenses like this. And he wants to know as any other player in NBA history had a gravity even close to that. So to me, it's centers.

Oh, that's interesting. It's like when Shaq was really feeling it and had position, the whole team would sink down, the whole defense would sink down him. Just everybody else was open. But I don't remember a guard having what Steph has. Except for Michael fucking Jordan?

I mean, Michael Jordan, all 10 eyes on the floor. I mean, all the whatever, everybody, not 20 eyes, 18 eyes. There's nine other players. They're all looking at Michael Jordan when he had the ball. Yeah, that's, so you're saying the goat of basketball also had the best gravity. Well, I mean, he's in the conversation. Yes. Yes.

He tilted, you know, the, the pistons had to engineer a specific style of, of, you know, you know, thuggery. Right. I've never seen anything in person, like, what would happen to defense's with Curry. Well, because watching them just always trying to figure out where he was. Right. Yeah.

Yes. This is a good one. I do, I do want to say, just as a final thought, we were cheated by not having Michael motivated to develop a three-pointer. We know he could do it. Just didn't matter about that. None of the guys in the 20th. century.

That's right. It was used as a dagger and not as an actual. I'm saying we were cheated. The six that he had against Portland. Right. I mean. Well, speaking of Jordan. The talent is there.

Shahen from London was talking. He thinks the best that in soccer, the best individual player season ever, just based on individual stats, was achieved by Messi in the 11-12 season, where he played 60 games and scored 73 goals, then 32 assists, did not win the league, but made it to was second semis of the champions, one Spanish Cup, Spanish Super Cup, and wants to know what is the basketball version

of a season like that, where somebody's stats are so ridiculous, but you had enough team success, too, to make it relevant. I had three seasons that I'm going to give you. One was the 96 MJ when the Bulls went 87 and 13. He won MVP,

Finals, MVP 36 and 6. The numbers weren't insane compared to the typical Jordan season is the problem. Curry in 16, if they had won the title, I think would be in the conversation for this, but they lost game. But he had 30 a game. He made five threes a game. I don't know if anyone else had even made four. He was like 50, 45, 90, everything.

They won 25 games in a row. That had all of the check marks and then they blew the game in the last five minutes. So sadly, the answer is, well, Chamberlain. Oh, 1967, averaged 24 points, 24 rebounds,

and eight assists during the regular season. The team went 68 and 13, which was the record for best record at that point. In the playoffs, he was 22,

29, and 9. 22, 29, and 9 and beat Bill Russell, and they went 11 and 4. So they went 79 and 17, and he basically averaged 24 and 26. Every game.

Granted, it was 60s, but I think that's the answer. JJ Redick's not impressed. He's not impressed. He's not impressed? And truck drivers. We had less plumbers and truck drivers. What's the answer to Janus's 21 season? Because I feel like he was definitely, he didn't score enough.

Is that the deal? Is that why he's not? Yeah. It's got to be the stats have to be. Yeah. Almost like what Jokic was doing in one of his years. but if the nuggets had also been incredible, I guess. Okay, okay.

Shack was okay, but yeah, it's tough. Like the Wilt stats are like, wow, we'll never see those again. Nathan from Appleton, Wisconsin, thanked me for the El Chippo discussions about the Blazers, but said, we did not mention the Stanley Cup. And he writes, this motherfucker wanted the name of his wife and five kids on the cup. So six people who were involved with the actual running of the team,

that got to the pinnacle of the NHL didn't get their name on the most famous trophy in sports. Awesome. That was unbelievable. Did you follow that whole story? I don't understand. I don't understand. Why they agreed.

Oh, is it his choice of the names? Yeah, he's a list. Yeah, he's like, here's what we're putting on the cup. That's outrageous. Unbelievable. It's so bad. How do they have the room? They don't.

They have like that one, they have like this one thing and they can put as many names as possible and then that's it. James is a Celtics fan and wants to know who was the, who had the washed goat season in NBA history and suggested Trailblazers Mello, Celtic Shack, Ewing and the Sonics, or is it the obvious Wizards M.J. choice. The answer of this is MJ and the Wizards was the wash goat because he couldn't jump. I think he played 82 games.

at least one of those seasons was going against all these young dudes, had him played in a while and was not MJ anymore. He was a show of himself, but he wasn't. Couldn't get him to the playoffs. Did have a 50 burger, though, did remind everybody. He would, you know, once every three weeks, he would drop something. So maybe he was too good for that. Well, they didn't make the playoffs.

It was Michael Jordan. Made like a game winner in the All-Star game. The other one I was thinking was Kareem near the end when he could bet. He was like 42, but somehow in the 88 finals, they're still going to him in the biggest moments, and he's got nothing left. So the answer is probably, Jordan. Conspiracy bill is being summoned again. Christian Ohio, he says when we hear about double agents and teams that might relocate

Nico Harrison, Dallas, all these conspiracy rumors, why hasn't Joe Dumars and New Orleans come up in this? He's out of the league. he's working for the league, makes a bunch of dumb moves last year, and then no moves this summer for Pelicans team going nowhere. Seems like prime double agent material. Thank you, conspiracy bill. I just wanted to get that out there. I don't think it's a conspiracy with that. I think the Polkins are just incompetent. I don't understand how they weren't going after anybody. Isn't that indirectly a kind of like inaction is action, not doing anything?

It makes it a lot easier. It might not even be their plan, but it's a plan. It may not be what they're intending to do, but it certainly does make that that franchise feel very relocatable to me. There's some over-unders on Fandau, which I know you know for MBA. I know people are pumped that it's August 9th when we're doing NBA content. And everybody was looking for that. But there's some of the wind totals were out.

And there were four teams that are basically like 44 and a half. And these four teams are the Lakers, Miami, Indiana, Orlando, and actually Toronto, assuming with Kauai. So there's five teams. If you had to go over on any of those five teams, who would you pick? Indiana, Miami, Orlando, the Lakers, and Toronto. It's the Pacers. And I already have them at 43 and a half. so I'm thrilled to hear that the market moved in my direction.

The combination of healthy Halliburton and Zubububes. See him dancing at his wedding? He looked great. It's back. Healthy Halliburton and Zubat's going to be an eye-opener. It's going to be a revelation. And that team is talented. They have, you know, all of those guys know their roles.

We're going to see it early, I think. Kelly Uber over there. I think more than that. I think it's going to be more than a little. It's going to work. I think it's going to be something. The East is stacked because I was like Charlotte was 39 and a half for their win total.

I was like, I think Charlotte's going to be pretty good. Conspiracy bill question from Ben from Detroit. He wants to know if Detroit traded school bowl to the Dodgers so they could win the World Series again and a drum up support for a salary cap for medium level and low level teams. They're basically trying to stack. the deck because that will help the salary cap argument.

I don't think that's what it was. I genuinely feel like that scoble side made it seem like, we're going to the Dodgers at the end of the year anyway. So he kind of put the stink on himself with the other teams. And teams didn't want to give up prospects to somebody for two months and then they leave. Right? That was my interpretation. All that's credible,

especially if you think that this is the last time you're going to get a whatever hundred million dollars, however many hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah. For a pitcher, right? This is it. I just, would you pay that much for a starting pitcher? I guess you don't, if you don't care about money, you would. I mean, would you pay seven?

I just don't trust. Like, we did crochet and he's already hurt. Nearly 800 million for Juan Soto, and Juan Soto is hurt too. I understand that that's different. I put a pitcher in a outfield or a hitter, but. Jack wants to know, do you think it hurt LeBron that he didn't end his tenure

with the Lakers and sign with the Knicks? Because the Knicks won the title. And that was like the best thing. This Knicks fan base starving for a title, which he saw in real time as they won. They hadn't won. And he goes there as a missing piece, and then as part of that.

And where does that rank among LeBron regrets for his career? Which I think is a really fun topic. He suggested the failed Paul George Kyrie swap, 2017, the Westbrook debacle, Zubats for Mike Muscala. He said forcing Brontein to play basketball instead of being a five-star NFL caliber safety.

It would have been a good safety. He left out a couple good ones. I think the number one, if I'm LeBron and I'm like 78, and I'm just thinking back at everything, I think the thing that would make me the maddest would be the 2009 Orlando Cleveland series. And it wouldn't be a regret as much as, remember Orlando just turned into an awesome team and guys?

We did a, we did a, we did a rewatchables on one of the games, I think from that with a, because I did a Dwight Howard Book of Basketball. But I think you look back at that now and it's just fucking bat shit crazy. That's serious. Those guys was awesome. The shirt Lewis was good for a year. They made every shot that they looked at.

You beat me to it. Those two guys, they were the really the linchpin to it. And Dwight Howard was pretty awesome. And LeBron was awesome in that play. I think he was like 35 and 11 and 9. He like did everything he could. And Orlando was just on a heater. Howard played the best he'd ever played.

And it was just. Who was the second best player on that Cleveland team? I mean, that was that's why he left Cleveland. No. No, I think we're, I don't know if Jameson was there yet. I'll look this up as we're talking. But I, you know, if you remember going back, that was we were supposed to get the LeBron versus Kobe finals, right? The Celtics got hurt.

The stars had aligned and it was going to be like the greatest, you know, star on star series we'd had in a while. All right, I'm looking this up. I have the series ended in six. the second leading score on the Cavs was Mo Williams. Okay, that's why. Followed by Delante West and Zadrunas Algascus. I knew, okay, good. Larry Hughes, I messed up, but Algascus, I remember on that team.

In this series, Richard Lewis shot 48% from three. I was, I was there. He made 15, he made 18 a game. Turqualeu was at 39. Mikhail Pietras was at 51%. percent from three. Oh, no, so 47 percent from three. Ray for Austin, 38 percent. The team shot 41 percent from three. They were 62 for 152 and just

just flipped the series. But I, that would be the one out of all the ones he's had was like, fuck, man, we should have made the finals that year. What I like nothing, none of those Orlando guys ever matched that again. Oh, not even close. Your dumb team was training for Richard Lewis. And he was getting popped for somebody. For PEDs. Yeah.

Right. Tough one. I would say that was a big one. The other one I would say. It was a bad team though. They would have got swept by the Lakers too. The other one is whether if you're LeBron looking back at everything, would you have just gone to the Knicks in 2010?

2010. Instead of Miami. Bring Dwayne Wade there. Go to New York because that was on the table. I think. Who was the gentleman? Would that be a regret, though? No.

Who was the GM at the time? Well, that was the problem. It was Donny Walsh in the wheelchair, James Dolan. No, no, no, no. Me, Riley really deserves the, he gets credit. He's sniffed it out.

He deserves the credit. Stiffed it up. Come here. It will be awesome. The Paul George trade is a good one because I think the Paul George trade, because they were getting rid of Kyrie anyway, and I think it would have, I think that we're somehow getting Paul George

and somebody else good. And it definitely would have been a better team. I don't know if it would have mattered against the 18 Warriors. By the way, I got this from a few Pacers fans because I talked about LeBron's, that awesome Old Depot versus LeBron

when we did the redraftable that series. And a bunch of people mentioned, I said how LeBron had that great block in Old Depot and gave five minute to three. And it's like a famous goaltender, apparently, that all the Pacer fans are still pissed off about.

In the game report, they said after it was a goal 10. And then Ray, Blazer fan, wanted to point out on all the Blazers' conspiracy stuff that the Blazers sale was in a state sale with all proceeds going to charity. Yeah. So they had to actually maximize value. They couldn't pick the owners. It was basically highest bidder wins. So he was saying Adam Silver didn't have a lot of, didn't have a lot of, didn't have a lot of,

elbow room with this because of the way the sale is done, which I think is true. They still have to approve it. Yes. Yes. The league controls who comes in and the estate has to live by the league's rules. Right. The estate doesn't get to choose at the, you know, over the will of the league. Zach brought up something that I'm going to apologize for.

We did the winners and losers of the LeBron signing with Philly and I said VJ Edgecombe because he's going to be pushed to the side and whatever. He said, look, you're the guy who's talked up the virtues of playing for USA basketball being around winners, how it changes guys.

Young, talented guy like VJ, you learn the habits and mentality of one of the game's greatest ever players. Doesn't this set the stage for a culture change? I don't think it's a stretch to call him one of the biggest winners. You agree with that? I sure do.

I think it applies across the board. This is going to be at least by intention and will and attitude, the best version of Joelle and Bede that we will have seen. He really tried super effing hard on Team USA. I think of his Team USA performance as one of the things that goes on his resume. He was healthy. It came at the expense of two more years of terrible knee and injury ailments. and, you know, we will forever be able to make fun of the Sixers for giving him an extension

immediately coming off of that Olympics performance. But that that is like proof of concept. And I think that LeBron, the whole thing, it just adds a layer of, we use that we're going to overuse this, the word gravity. But it makes it, it's a serious situation now. We're not just showing up and effing around. This is a show. And the guys all want to show.

I think it's really going to be interesting. 11.1. They have the fourth best title ads now. I'm just going to wait. Regular season. They're now minus 120 for 50 plus games. I think there's a way that they, they're probably in the low 50s.

Even if you told me 40 MB games and 55 LeBron games, just because the other three guys will be able to care. Yeah, Maxie Edgecombe and J.B. could get them there. I was saving this one for you. Rich from Melbourne, Australia. The Australians always have good emails. We love the Australian. They're fucking crazy people.

It's really like Boston on the other side of the world. How have we never been to Australia? We have to go. We really do. Just have great experiences. You would do a Simmons podcast from Australia. Your enthusiasm for Caleb Wilson got me thinking, who are this year's JIS room all-stars?

I'm thinking it would be Dylan Harper, Concaniple, Jalen Brown, Caleb Wilson, and Wembey. But Caleb Wilson's the captain. I don't think Jalen Brown would be in the JIS room all-stars. I agree. No. That's the only one that doesn't fit. I don't know who the small forward is for the Jiz room all-stars.

Let's let's work a little bit. Maybe it's your guy. Yeah, sure could be. The bouncer. Yeah, your guy, AJ. Could be AJ. You think he's a jiz room first team? What if he starts doing stuff?

He might show us something. First team, jizzer. He's not going to be afraid to show us what we want to see. I know that much, right? You know, it's the Jiz Room All-Stars or all pros in the NFL are already started in the form. I don't know if you've seen any Denzel Boston training camp footage for the Browns. Oh, no. Uh-uh.

Oh, yeah. It's Caleb Wilson-esque. Okay. Yeah, he looks like Terrell Owens, basically. That's a good one of the ball. Cedars on the Seahawks. I think he's really good. I already bet Price Rookie of the Year, just so we get that out there.

Smart bet. Yeah. I didn't understand the Rookie of the Year odds at all. we've been texting about this because I jumped on Boston when he was 45 to 1 but the quarterback situations are going to be weird like I don't think Mendoza I don't see any of the quarterback

the guy in the Cardinals love as they have two other veterans that are there so yeah I like Boston I still think his odds are great need you for this one because I got a I did mean his pod and we somehow we're talking about the NBA comp for Lamar Jackson.

And I was saying it's, it's, I didn't think there was a comp, but there's something Bede in there because you don't know whether he's going to play or not. And just a bunch of people were like, how, how is the answer not James Hardin? Oh, wow. Where it's like you got MVP's, you have a ton of regular season success and then playoffs now.

It's pretty good. The problem is Hardin played. Hardin was durable and was out there all the time. And Lamar, I think, So it's almost like 75% hardened, 25% Embeddede, maybe, the Embed durability. Both of those, by the way, that says a lot about the regard with which we hold Lamar, which is, I think, appropriate. He won two MVPs.

I know. He really broke our hearts, gambling-wise, a couple of times. I mean, really, like, absolute gut-bunches. Not even really him. That lost a Buffalo two years ago. Not Lamar Jackson's fault. Right. A lot of people have asked if this is the end of the process,

regardless of what happens. I keep getting an email about that. Different variations of that email. The process starts in 2013 with the NBA draft. And now we're heading to the 26, 27 season, 14 years later. The process is already at a bar mitzvah. The process has already gone through puberty. And is this win or lose, this is the end of the process?

Do you feel like the process has to end when Embed leaves? What is the official end of the process? I like this and I'm subscribing to it. And I know that I can do a better job I'm going to do right now. But I think LeBron's arrival means that it's over. The process, Philly has become so, you know, they've built themselves into something that's so attractive that the, you know, one of the top three players in history shows that,

team to go to that team to play games with that team. So I think that that is a kind of success, right? Like what are the high since the, since winning in 83, there aren't a lot of high watermarks for the Sixers. They've had a lot of fun players and the high watermark was probably Iverson beating the second best team of this century by himself in a finals game. In one game. and maybe

Embedewaned winning the MVP. I think it's fine declaring the process over. Did LeBron choose the Sixers or did he just not have a better option? Why can't the answer be both? Okay.

Speaking of the Sixers. He clearly, for the money that he agreed to play for, he could have done that for any team in the entire NBA. Right. Every team has $8 million available.

Benson from Canada says, Kauai hitting the game-winning shot again, in the 2019 playoffs against the Sixers. Leading to the Raptors winning the title. LeBron has beaten Toronto like a drum for two decades. There's a fun LeBron versus Kauai

where they went together in the two finals, 2013 and 14. Kauai wins the finals MVP. Good. So you have Toronto fear of LeBron LeBron fans kind of afraid of Kauai a little bit

plus six or fans memory of getting their guts torn out by Kauai potentially them playing being rivals I didn't think about the rivalry part with LeBron going to the east and how fun this is going to be

as much as I probably should have Celtics his biggest long time rival right? Knicks Knicks he's going to live in New York City but they just won the title.

Worldwide West and Leanna are there, his old agents, you got all that. You have Toronto. And then you have Cleveland. Cleveland and Miami, both. And you have Miami. So five teams that he has like actual real history with that when he goes there with the Sixers,

it's going to be like a thing. Yeah. Now, we'll see how good he is. Like at some point, this has to start fading a little bit. But it did start to get me excited. Yeah, that's really it. That's all I got. It's all I have for...

I have one more that I'll read for... Just to keep the El Chippo heat going. This is from John in Austin, Texas. He thinks El Chippo is like Mr. Blind and Reservoir Dogs, Michael Madsen's character in the movie, where he cheaps out in the coaching search, doesn't like two-way... players travel, lays off the employees, breaks up the broadcast team, and now is the city of

Portland tied to a chair in a warehouse, was stuck in the middle with you playing while he dances around with this straight razor, which is the threat of the Blazers moving away. And Adam Silver is Mr. Orange in this scenario that he has to get there before. He slices the Blazers ear off and dumps gasoline on them. I'm only reading this to say, both, yep, these are my listeners. but also this is a credible email from somebody comparing El Chippo, Tom Dundon, to one of the scariest characters of any movie in the 1990s who actually tormented and mutilated a character in the movie that they had to cut away from.

Yes. That's where we've gotten with this Portland situation. A vile depraved torture scene. That's what the Portland fans are living through. The NBA is fantastic. How are you feeling about the, uh, why you feel about the, uh, Washington commander's season. Oh, I would have felt, I felt better 24 hours ago before Laramie Tonsel tore his

tricep. That's like a four-month injury, right? Oh, it's just, I mean, the only thing that I cared about coming into this season is, can we just show up with the 11 intended guys on both sides of the ball more healthy than not? We know that injuries are going to happen. Injuries do happen. That's, it's part of football. but God damn it.

Can we just get to the first game of the season without one of these lynchpin guys? Now, Washington has been, you know, sort of collecting offensive line talent. And they're going to try. This looks like Brandon Coleman's going to be the guy. But they just extended Tunsel because Tunsell was effing awesome last year. And Tunsell and David Blow and JD5 are all on the same page. And man, I'm just, it's a kick in the nuts. Even with Tunsel, though, I do think that this is going to be a tough season for Washington.

Yeah, you did the dig signing a couple days before that. Welcome home. Happy to have digs. Diggs. It's a homecoming. Diggs and the DMV. Buckle up. Yeah.

Well, he went to high school here and went to the University of Maryland. He's from this area. So your regular season wins right now. Six and a half is minus 140 on Fandol and seven and a half is plus. 115 for the overs. Yeah, I think they're going to win eight games. I think they're good enough to win. The defense especially has been completely

renovated, recalibrated. It's a brand new 11 nearly. And it's a brand new defensive coordinator. We got, you know, the apprentice from Minnesota, Durante. And he's also a DMV guy. So I do I think the defense is going to surprise people. It might be the most interesting defense that Washington's had in a decade.

I'll definitely be surprised because I don't think they're going to be good. One of the only things you had is like, well, the offensive line is going to be even better this year. And Daniels and keep them healthy and see how it goes. Yes. Yep. That's all true. I was just reading that Brandon Thorne a couple days ago. He does those offensive linemen rankings.

Yeah. Put all of them out. Tunsel was, I think, his second left tackle. Super high up there. Yeah, that was a good trade. Deservedly so. How much homework have you done? I'm doing it, you know, by division.

So right now I am knee-deep in the AFC North. Did you notice the bundos on the AFC East Pod? The bundo kind of kicked the tires on a soft. Maybe Miami's not that bad. It felt like a zag. I thought it felt like a zag. But I also, it did kind of make. they go, huh.

So there's going to be, last year we did not have the shitty team that came out of nowhere, like with the really bad odds to make the playoffs that actually did. Usually there's like a plus 400 or worse. And last year it didn't happen. Yeah, no. Which means we're doing this year. Carolina to win that division was at 9 to 1 at one point in the season. And Dream did play that.

So they might, they're probably the one that fits. They were the closest. They won the division. So. I'm really excited at football back. I can't wait. Yeah, finally.

Like, honestly. Your listeners feel the same way. Well, this has been a good, you know, the World Cup followed by the Red Sox. I've had a really fun sports summer. But I'm getting ready, getting ready to talk football, wage on football.

Let's do the whole thing. All right, House. Good times. And we have FedEx coming when? The playoffs start. We're talking about professional golf. People,

It's still on. Something to watch through the balance of August. They will be in Memphis. They'll be in Chris Vernon's backyard next week. The first round of the FedEx Cup playoffs underway. The top 70 players on tour. And then they cut it down from 70, I think, to 50 at the next event, which is in St. Louis. But yeah, all the best golfers will be playing golf down in Memphis a week from now.

Has anyone complained about the hotel yet in Memphis or no? that's just NBA the tour guys don't I haven't heard a lot of complaints by the way I forgot to mention WMBA before we go oh my oh no

I've been watching no I've been watching I've been enjoying it yeah and I've even tweeted this about how nobody needs a commissioner more than the WMBA right now the WMBA which is for some reason

turned into the Twitter for you page as a leak and meanwhile has all of these amazing stories going on the league's fucking deep. Even like the teams that aren't good, like Seattle and Chicago, like you watch them,

you're like, they have some good players. You know, it's- You know who's good? Washington. Right. The not good teams

are actually like, not bad to watch. And then they have, you know, the Olivia Miles keeping Minnesota straight the whole time. And now Collier's back.

They're even odds to win the title, but Asia's the best player in the league. She shut down Caitlin the other night. Indiana is really fun to watch. New York. Like the league's like legitimately fun to watch and yet all anyone talks about is dumb shit. And then everyone who participates in this nonsense. Anyone who participates in the shitty discourse about the league, like I think that speaks more about them than the league. But what the league really needs is a commissioner. And I don't I would personally bet anything that we will not have this commissioner next year. I will if that was on Fando, I would be loading up. You'd have to lay an enormous amount of juice.

I'm thinking about throwing a hat in the ring. This league either needs somebody who thinks outside the box or it needs a therapist for everybody. It might need to be, the league might need to get Brunee Brown as the commissioner. Just a therapist, the heal relationships. Not you. Anybody but you. Fine.

Fine. I'll sit up. Not me. I've never seen a league that needs just an adult to help them. adult. Oh, basic fucking situations. Yes,

basic, the most basic situation. People like this league, not to mention, they're on seven different channels,

which was the same case for the NBA, but in this case, like, I never know where the games are. At least the NBA, it's like,

oh, I know this is an Amazon night. They've done such a terrible job of marketing because they had to grab money. God forbid,

they didn't take every fucking dollar they could have. And you go to these games, it's like, I'd love to watch, I'd love to watch this fever game tonight.

I don't know where to find it. And now I'm doing roulette for 10 minutes looking for the channel. Well, I know where Ion is in my cable package now. Ion. Yeah, I am. You know about I am? Right. So the league's like cresting to, I think, a pretty good spot before football.

But now they're all going to go away for like 10 days to do world champions, world championships. A team that somehow Olivia Miles isn't on, even though she's one of the most important people that's coming in the league. I get it. They had practices. There's reasons for that. But I've never seen a league more determined to not push fun stars and fun storylines and fun people. Like this Olivia Miles.

How many times are you watched her? Only a little bit because I haven't caught a lot of Minnesota games. Honestly, you would love her. Okay. And she should be like if this was the NBA, this would be all anyone talked about. Like, have you seen Olivia Miles? She's on tonight. Oh, my God.

Oh, I saw the commercial. And in WMBA, it's like, she's like an annoyance that she's just a good storyline. Like, push your fucking players. Yeah. And then instead, it's all this discourse stuff. And they're just stepping in bear traps left and right because they have no adults in charge of the league. And, you know, I don't know where Adam Silver is either. But look, you're scared even talking about it.

This is part of the problem. I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to say it. Everyone's like terrified to even have conversations about it. The only thing that I will say, the lowest hanging fruit is getting, I don't understand enough. Why can't they get good refs in the WNBA? That is like

more than anything else, that to me. I watched the entire fever the Chicago Sky fever game. Yes, yes. And Caitlin was stumbling into the ref and the ref just gave her a tech

and like, yep, she's going to have to miss the game against New York on Tuesday. It's like, what? It came's out of ESPN. You got to reverse this. So they reverse it. clearly tripped. Now the question is, did she say something? Like, come on, you know, to the ref, like out of frustration about how she ran into the, did

Caitlin say something? No, she said nothing and they reversed it. This is ridiculous. Of course. Of course they reversed it. It was a nonsense tech. Can you imagine late 90s, David Stern for signing over this league? Well, it feels like they would have

some hits and some misses, but I think he would have been a little more involved. I agree. I mean, this commissioner, have now has no relationship with any of the stars. She just seems like she's like a business woman. Yeah, and she just wants to get out. And by the way, she did the thing.

She got them a collective bargaining agreement with the, you know, with the increased revenue that the league has enjoyed since Caitlin Clark arrived. Yeah. And on top of that, you know, they have the CBA in place and they have, you know, TV deals that are, that are dramatically increased from what they had before. Yeah, because they're on 17. channels. They're getting eyeballs that people are interested in the WNBA.

People are talking about it. Here's how stupid they are. Their finals are going to be on two different channels, depending on the game. How stupid and desperate for money do you have to be to agree to that? It's also during NFL season, right? Yeah, that's part too. But, I mean, look, if they got Indiana versus Minnesota or Indiana versus Vegas as the finals,

that's just legitimately entertaining. care if you don't like women's basketball that much. I personally have grown to actually enjoy watching it. I like the style of it. But if those were the finals, that's going to be fucking awesome. And I'm sure they'll bury it. It'll be like, hey, is there a huge NFL game that we can put this finals directly against try to limit the audience because we don't want to make any new fans at all?

Well, they do know that Tuesday night is a dead night. Friday night. I mean, you know, historically Friday night, that kid, you know, people are going to high school football games. right you could you could basically make the two the finals just be tuesdays and fridays to make sure they won't they'll be like oh no it's counter programming okay um it's too bad though because the league they by far have the best collection of players that i think they've had i agree with you and i don't know anybody who thinks they're well run so they have to fix this and i hope they do that's the end of

my rant house you see you got out of this we we stayed out we stayed out of i didn't make you uncomfortable. Not once. Thanks for being on House. I'll see you on Twitch and on YouTube and on Spotify and every other podcast platform for the Ring or Wise Guy show starting tomorrow with Dubundo and Rahim and South. It's going to be great. It can't wait.

Nothing but winners. So that was today's mailbag. It was brought to you by Chat GPT work, helping you work even harder while it works on your projects. You could still call the place so you're always in control. You can put Chat GPT to work on your most ambitious. ideas and projects or even a couple mailbag answers. Try chat GPT work today available to plus and pro plans.

I'm going to throw it right now to Amanda Dobbins, Rob Mahoney, and myself as promised. We just taped the rewatchables. Jalen Brown press conference was today for the Sixers. And Amanda mentioned she's very upset about this. She's married to a six-year. So why are you upset about this? I'm a long-suffering Philly Sports. wife, among my many other.

You're the Kathleen Quinlan of sportswives. Is there any other kind? Yeah. And I, at the end of last season and after the frankly humiliating playoff run against the Knicks, asked my husband and his close friends, who do include Chris Ryan? So, you know, I understand what I'm proposing here. But I suggested that we just renounced the Sixers, that we just take a break. Because I have watched this happen every year. They never have it.

they get there a little bit in April and you think, oh, maybe there's the juice or maybe they rope you in. They rope you in and then they absolutely do not deliver. I have to tell you that the darkest moments of my family life are on a Tuesday in February at 4.45 p.m. When NBC Sports Philadelphia is on league pass. And they're playing like the Hornets. Do the Yeah, the jazz. No, the jazz are good, right? No, Hornet. It'll be like Hornets, Wizards. Do the Orlando Magic still exist?

Magic, yeah, yeah. Okay. And no one cares. Everybody is just shuffling back and forth, trying to get this through this dark Tuesday in February. And we still have to spend our time watching this and investing this and reacting to this. And I just don't think it's a great way to spend your life.

So I suggested this. I was pretty strongly rebuffed. Then the Jalen Brown thing happened. with your absolutely incredible content. No one can do it like you. And I love you and I support you. Thank you. And then I am in my bedroom doing a workout with free weights next to my bed, which is

supposed to be my time. That is just for me. When the door is closed, you don't come in until I'm done with the free weights. And the door opens on a Friday morning, my heart. husband with a shitting grin on his face pops in to say, I just want to let you know that LeBron James is a 76er and walks back out again. And now I got to deal with all this shit for another season. Is it going to go well? No, the man is commuting from New York, which any sane person would do, by the way, because have you seen Philadelphia in February? And I love everyone I know

in Philadelphia. Like, we know that this isn't going to work. I don't know what's going on with Joel Embed. Is he still a 76er? Yeah, technically. Like a third of the time. I don't know who Jalen Brown is except for that he was traded during your medical treatments, which were very proud of you for getting. And it just, it does not seem like it's going to work. It seems like everyone's getting their hopes up again. And I would like to do something else with my time besides League Pass. Thank you. Well, I have some consolation news for you. The Eagle season starts in three weeks.

I don't even want to talk about it. And the Phillies playoffs are coming. Yeah, and they're going to make it to October and then forget how to hit. Like they do every year. Wow, this is incredible stuff. Do you know what it's like living with a Philadelphia sports fan? You don't. You live close to them.

You won a Super Bowl. You're friends with them. And then you want another Super Bowl. Can I tell you something about that Super Bowl? That was also my son's third birthday. And so we had his third birthday party in the morning. And then the entire Philadelphia family was there watching the Super Bowl together and ignoring the grandson on his birthday. That's three is a good birthday too.

Yeah, I mean, he was happy. I think it was also Saquan Barclay's birthday. So he knew that and like got into it. But if he's happy, what's the problem? Well, the happiness never lasts. This is also, Sean is already letting go of the Knicks glow and is starting to bitch about the Mets again. And I just like, I can't. lived like this. I just, I need them to control their emotions, you know? It's, it's tough living around

all of you. Shana had such a glow for like a month with the Nix and the return of movies. Yeah. It's gone. But I'm going to get in so much trouble for all the Philly stuff because I can say whatever I want. Well, I can't. I hear from Zach, but he doesn't mind when I represent his movie takes or our family life or things about our marriage. But anytime I weigh in on his Philadelphia fandom, like the people who threw snowballs at Santa come out, you know? I just need you to understand if you did get him to disavow a Sixers fandom and they did somehow win. I think you're cooked at that point. I know. That is. It is grounds for divorce. And listen, to his credit, I guess, he just immediately rejected it. He wasn't going to do it.

But it's just not how I want to spend January through April. It's not a good use of our time. You're stuck with your teams. You're stuck with your children and your teams. You can get divorced, but you can't divorce your team, in my opinion. I think you can get rid of the kids. If you really wanted to, there are people you can talk. Boyce them off to an uncle. I get it.

But you pick your team and that's it. The only thing is that they move. All right. So that's like my dad was a Dodgers fan growing up because he grew up in Brooklyn, but then they moved. Okay. And then he went to college in Massachusetts and became a book. Boston thing.

Or if you live in Seattle, you were a Sonics fan and they move. What are you going to do? But that, see, you didn't even, you glossed over the LeBron piece of this. LeBron's in your life now. He's always been in my life. No, but now you have to be like a LeBron defender. Your children will have LeBron jerseys. I don't have to do anything.

No, I'm going to give you the playbook for, be like, do you know how many records LeBron has? I didn't know I needed to spam text you LeBron highlights, but now we do. You know, like the- Do you know how amazing in the sky is? I had no idea. It's playing point guard for us this year. Are you, have you talked yourself into the Sixers yet or no? Of course I've talked to myself into it. It's going to be fun.

Oh, no, this is going to be a thing? It's going to be exciting. It's the most fun, it'll be the most fun storyline the whole year. Okay, but that's different than it being fun to watch. I think they'll have moments when it'll be really fun to watch. Yeah. Okay. It's just they'll tantalize people and then it'll be like, uh-oh, and be, where is it?

It's not playing tonight. LeBron. Okay. Bronn's taking two weeks off. Just think of the glow that a good Sixers team could bring to that random Tuesday in February. I think this is going to be great for Zach. I'll never trust it. It could be great for Zach.

I think it is great for Zach. Amanda, what this really is this is the end. This is the finish line of the process, which started in 2013. Sure, I remember the process. We need to trust it. And then throwing away seasons and building around and beat. And now we've now culminated with this somewhat super team. Also, what if he brings my sons into this?

It's going to happen. You know, they're Eagles fans. a bit. They know about the Phillies. I like, they play baseball. It's tough. Mostly the kids gravitate the players. Okay. If they were in Philly, no chance. They're Philly fans. But they live here.

Just don't know. It could go any direction. Okay. They might decide one day, like Darius Garland. And all of a sudden, you're buying, like, a Darius Garland jersey. I think parents have a responsibility to educate their kids about Tyrese and so, like, you're just going to have to bring him into your home. That's a great one. Maxie's great. You know what? We do have.

I have a portrait of Tyrese Maxie framed and hanging in my son's room that was a gift from my sister-in-law. It's a good start. When I tell you, I am living in crazy town, I am not kidding. We have a special name for the Philly fanatic, green friend. I just, you know. You know what this is all really about? The three craziest cities for sports teams are all cold weather cities. Boston, New York, and Philly.

Just fucking crazy. Because there's four or five months a year when the weather is just the worst it could be. And then in the summer, it's 100 degrees for six straight weeks and everybody loses their minds. Only the cold addled mind could have created gritty. You know, like it really takes some divine inspiration. Do we have a stuff gritty? Yes. Do we have a gritty Christmas ornament?

Yes. Do you know what our tree topper is? The Philly Fanatic. That's actually cool. I like that one. It was custom made. But like this is what I deal with. And can the Sixers deliver on that?

And you want to give it all away? See, Rob and I know how this is going to play out because we love the league and follow it religiously. In the second and third round, you have to play every other day, basically. And that's will not be sustainable for 42-year-old LeBron and Joel Embed. But between here and there. Or 42-year-old me, so, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's where it will fall apart.

All right, thanks for checking in with us, Amanda. Thanks so much. I'm sorry, Zach. I love you. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Wilds and House. Thanks to Dobbins and Mahoney for their cameo. Thanks to Cahou and Eduardo as well.

Don't forget two rewatchable's episodes this week on Monday and Thursday, the Italian job and about last night. And I will have another episode for you midweek. So stay tuned for that. See you then. Must be 21 plus in President Select States for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in President D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game and Problem caught, 100, Gambor, or 1-800.

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