The Bill Simmons Podcast - Joker’s Wild in Miami, CP3’s Future, CNN Turmoil, and Streaming TV Chaos With Kevin Wildes, Dave Jacoby, and Matt Belloni

Episode Date: June 8, 2023

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by David Jacoby and Kevin Wildes to talk about Denver’s dominating win over the Heat in Game 3 of the NBA Finals, Nikola Jokic ascending to the indisputable best player in the league, and the road map for Miami to still win this series before predicting tomorrow morning's headlines. Later, they discuss the rumor that Phoenix will waive Chris Paul, what’s next for Bob Myers, and a wild day on social media for Zion Williamson (1:10). Then, Bill is joined by Matt Belloni from Puck to discuss Chris Licht’s failure at CNN, how the network can pick up the pieces, and which cable entities can survive the 2020s. They also discuss the current state of media and if the streaming bubble is starting to burst (67:20). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out ringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details Host: Bill Simmons Guests: David Jacoby, Kevin Wildes, and Matt Belloni Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, finals game three. Zion, Chris Paul, CNN, streaming. Got a lot of action in this one. It's all next. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year.

I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back what you think in those first few weeks and then zag the other way. If you were wrong, you could bet on new and fun markets on FanDuel, like to catch a pass, same game parlays, highest scoring game across the Sunday slate, offensive TDs, the next drive. They have so much stuff. It's crazy. The app is safe and secure and easy to use. And when you win, you'll get paid instantly. Plus look out for FanDuel Squares this season. Here's what you have to do. Visit FanDuel.com slash BS to download America's number one sports book. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com

to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gangs here, you're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air?

Moments like that. Or when you want a light beer that tastes like beer, that's delicious. You don't want to load up on those heavier beers and then you only have two of them. Then you feel tired. Your stomach feels full. Miller Lite, it's your friend. It just accompanies whatever else you're doing. You're super happy with it.

Opening an ice cold Miller Lite can signal the beginning of Miller time. Miller Lite is the light beer with all the great beer tastes we like. 90 calories per 355 mil can. So why not grab some Miller Lites today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age.

We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I had a podcast on Tuesday night. If you missed it, this is the Wednesday nighter because game three of the finals just happened. It was a joker-thon. Dave Jacoby, my old friend, Kevin Wilds, my old friend, they both came on and we broke it down. We talked a little Chris Paul, we talked a little Zion. And then after that, Matt Bellany, who hosts the excellent podcast, The Town and writes for Puck. We talked about Chris Licht and his ignominious exit

from CNN as well as everything that's going on in the streaming universe right now. It is all next. First our friends from ProJab. All right, taping this. It is 8.15 Pacific time. Just watch game three of the Nuggets Heats 2023 NBA Finals. My old friends, Dave Jacoby, Kevin Wilds, they're back. The three of us, we're going to do it.

And I think it's so funny we're doing it on this night, Jacoby, because Christian Braun and Kevin Wilds had the exact same basketball game. Did you notice that? That's a really good point. It's Christian Brown, first of all. Including the off the side of the backboard shot. This was the Christian

Brown game. It was the Christian Brown game, except for the part that Jokic had a 32-21-10 and became the first guy everic had a 32-21-10 and became the first guy ever to have a 30-20-10 in a finals game. Now there are five 30-20-10

playoff games ever and he has three of them. Whatever Jokic's criticism, which was ridiculous to begin with and really the last case for any sort of Jokic doubter was, well, he's got to do it on the biggest stage. And Wilds, I feel like he's done it on the biggest stage. So let's retire

that argument maybe. Yeah, I think, I mean, we were discussing if he could win finals MVP, even if he ended up winning. But I think Denver is going to win the staff that I pulled today. Bill said, tell me if you like this, I just tweeted it. Basically I was taking notes for this pod via the internet. When the series was tied one to one, this post season,

the winner of game three has won the series. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven times in a row.

Really? Yeah. Lakers, heat Celtics, heat Knicks, Lakers, and Suns. All tied 1-1. They won game three and they ended up winning the series. So do you think Denver is going to win the series basically? Or do you disagree with facts?

I thought Denver was a better team and I didn't understand really what happened to them in one and two. And today was the Denver team, Jacobs, that I saw in person in those last two Laker games. The team that I thought was lurking inside them. I just didn't think they looked like themselves

totally in the first two games. Today, they looked like themselves. Are you going to counter? I agree with you. However, I thought that the Bucks were the better team.

I thought the Knicks were the better team. I thought the Celtics were the better team. And now, and you watch game two, you're like, I can see a world in which there is a roadmap for the heat to win this series,

but I certainly don't think it will happen, but it is not the impossibility that I felt it was after game one. And the funny thing about Miami, like they're down like 19 fourth quarter. Like I'm not turning this off i've seen them come back too many times they're down 15 with like two and a half minutes left they hit a couple threes malone has to call a timeout and it's just it's fucking michael myers over and over again you're just just trying to get to the last 30 seconds of the game it always feels like like they're in it wild. Bill, did you think Spoh pulled everybody too early?

Not really because I didn't think they were playing that well and I thought they were going to lose anyway. They're playing them in two nights. He probably had that in the back of his head a little bit. From their vantage point, I thought it was a strange Miami game. They were trying

to establish Butler earlier. I think he had 15 shots in the first half, but he wasn't that productive. He was, I don't know, six for 15, something like that. But it just seemed like he was shooting a lot, and I didn't really know what the strategy was with that. I didn't understand it. I also thought Denver was way more careful about not giving up open threes but other than that i just thought denver finally had the right intensity

what'd you see jacob's denver was just much better on defense in this game um yeah i felt like they had enough time to think about it and look at tape and put a game plan together and i thought that they really did a good job of contesting threes not giving up open threes i mean the the heat shot 35 threes and made 11 of them. And I also felt like it just seemed like every time even the Miami Heat did score, it seemed like they worked really hard for it. And I think that over the course of a series,

could go five, could go seven, who knows. But making the Miami Heat work this hard on offense like they didn't in game one and two was really the difference in this. And it also takes the crowd out. And, you know, the Miami Heat didn't really have anybody that truly got going. You know what I mean?

And I really felt that the story of this game is going to be two 30-point triple doubles for the first time in the history of the finals. But that's the headline. But I think the actual story is the defense that the Denver played on the Heat and what the Heat are going to have to do to counter in game four.

Well, the other headline was getting Wilds to stay up past 11 o'clock east coast yeah real low energy right now we're getting low energy like grumpy watch true i'm getting ready it's denver denver game two wilds i also think that like christian brown brown is like he's like some moose away from being a wilds doppelganger. Like a straight up Wilds doppelganger. The face and the body type and everything. The body type, oh, it's nice. It's so funny how much his game reminds me of Wilds. And the thing is

they were always talking about, well, if Gordon can't guard Jimmy Butler, who else on the Nuggets can guard him? I thought when Brown was on him, I don't know, he's got enough size. He's certainly physical enough. Now, probably the next game, they'll call every touch foul on him. He'll have 3000, like a split second.

But, uh, but that was the boost they needed. They also, I don't know if you noticed Reggie Jackson was out there for like about a minute and four seconds. I like that. Dust it off. They scraped the cobwebs off of it, threw him out there. I was like, all right, this isn't nothing. The box score

said he played for one minute. It was a long minute. He got his shot up. Here's the other thing we talk about, guys, minutes. Michael Porter Jr. was basically benched this game. He had a total, he started, he had 21 minutes. Everyone else played.

Joker played 44. Murray played played. Joker played 44. Murray played 45, played 21. So his numbers, or excuse me, his minutes have gone down every time. He can't shoot. And I like Michael Malone pulling him. It's like, you know what? We're not going to play the Celtics strategy. Keep shooting threes, even though they're not going in.

Stop shooting them. In fact, sit down. We're going to bring Christian Barone and have him cook. Two points for Michael Porter Jr. I can't wait till you make that exact point tomorrow on First Things First with just a lot more vigor when you're more awake.

With some caffeine, you'll have a suit on. It'll be great. We said this after the Game 2 pod that I thought the biggest mistake was how much they stuck with Porter in that game because he didn't have it on either end didn't have it today either but this time you know he had other options and was trying different things but i mean one of my rules jacobs is if your best player has a 32 21 10 you're probably gonna win history of the league says that's usually a good sign 230 Two 30-point triple doubles reminded me

of the LeBron Kyrie two 40-point games in the finals. I think two 40, 30-point triple doubles. This triple double from Murray kind of bothered me a little bit because he definitely should have gone out of the game with like two minutes left, but he's sitting there hunting that triple double. It's clearly, he's the only starter still in the game, but whatever, two 30-point triple doubles, historic.

Historic. It's never been done before. It's never been done before in the game, but whatever. Two 34 triple does historic. Yeah. It's never been done before. It's never been done before in the history of the league. And that's going to get you a win. If you have two players that have over 10 rebounds, over 10 assists. And at one point, do you remember when they put up the stat that it was like, you know,

Gage and Murray have scored or assisted on 40 of the nuggets, 45 points. And you're looking at that and you're like, that's probably how it should go. That's how it should be for the nuggets scored or assisted on most of the points. Everything should go through Murray and Jokic. But they assisted to each other.

Nobody else was scoring. I don't know. I'm starting to feel negative about the Denver Nuggets. I like this. I like this. No, Aaron Gordon had 11 points, which he was starting to catch some putback dunks. That was good. Michael Porter Jr.

had two, and KCP had six. That's your starting team. I don't know. I like a more balanced attack. If you're going to get worried if you're the Nuggets, Porter, KCP, and Brown had a combined...

Bruce Brown. I'm sorry. Bruce Brown, not Christian Brown. Those guys had a combined... Bruce Brown. I'm sorry, Bruce Brown, not Christian Brown. Those guys had a combined three field goals, and they were three for 16, and they weren't good in the last game either. So at some point, Spolstra's, you know, he's going to go into his Bruce Wayne compound. He's going to figure out how to change Jimmy Butler's blood again and change Kyle Lowry's blood again,

and he's going to get DNA from Udonis Aslan. And then he's going to figure out some game plan that would just have those three guys take most of the shots of game four. Like let's, let's push the ball toward the three guys who can't shoot. Well, I love this. I want to hear more from wilds about the watching this game and coming away.

Like, you know what? I feel pretty bad about the nuggets right now. This is a great tag. And no, I appreciate this. This is really well done. This is a great tag. No, I appreciate this. This is really well done. This is a really well orchestrated take.

Having two guys do all of your offense is not a good strategy. That's all. I like a nice, balanced attack. So you don't like the 68 points, 20 assists, and 31 rebounds from two guys. Well, we just spent a week saying if Joker scores 40, they lose.

So I was saying, you know what? Once he gets to 39, he should start passing, and he basically did. So I will take credit for that one. Kevin, let me piggyback on your great zag here for a second and just add this, that they should be scoring and assisting on most of the points, and most possessions should go through those two people. But the role players that get the catch-and-shoot threes that are the result of the gravity that those two players suck in the defense to,

that needs to happen more efficiently. They got four points at halftime. Gordon, MPJ, and KCB had four points at halftime. That's not going to work. I picked Denver. I'm just saying. I'm being cautious. I'm locked in. I'm like Michael Malone. Even though we won, we didn't play well.

Miami didn't have the third guy have the crazy wildcard game, which has been a staple of that run. The guy who had it was Christian Brown. They didn't have the Caleb Barton 22-point game, or the Gabe the Gabe Vincent hitting six threes or the Robinson hitting seven for eight of three that they didn't get the third guy, which they, you know, this was like the

luck ran out for the Lakers in round three with the third guy, all of a sudden it just wasn't happening in the same way. And then that was it for them. Um, I don't, I'm not ready to say that with Miami because we've learned their Michael Myers. Jacobs, I have an interesting stat for you. Go for it. We're getting rid of the 3-3 in the bubble. The home teams since the 2018 finals are 12 and 13.

The road team has won more times than the home team. Not counting the bubble since 2018. And I was trying to think, because I've noticed in general, home court seems less valuable than it used to be. You know when I really noticed that? It was when I flew cross-country to watch my team lose in a game seven. I was like, what happened?

In the old days, we won this game. So I was trying to think of reasons for this. Wow, king of half-baked ideas. You might appreciate some of these. One is the officiating. And back in the old days, in the 80s and the 90s, the crowd could affect the officials. And sometimes, let's be honest,

the officials would rig the games a little bit toward the home teams. If you watch those old games from back then, home teams get a lot of the calls. It doesn't really happen anymore in the Twitter era. It's really hard to rig a game one way or have a super-duper one-sided thing. The other thing is the threes.

And I think you can come back from deficits a little bit easier with the threes. But what would be the other reasons? Like the chartered planes, maybe that helps. What would be other reasons that home court in the finals just doesn't matter as much? I remember in the regular season when this sprouted up, I think it was you or it was just a general theory that it was like ticket resale, that home court wasn't loud as it

traditionally used to be because you got a lot of visiting fans in there. But that doesn't seem to be the case in the finals. That doesn't make any sense. Like that place looked like it was 100% Miami. It was rocking. The only other idea is this, like call me crazy, but both the Heat and the Nuggets want to be underdogs.

Like there's something about being an underdog that takes it to another level. Yeah, there's no one believes in us off going on in this final. Yeah, exactly. And then last series for the Heat, when did the Heat start playing poorly? When it's like, wow, you're up 3-0. You guys should close it out.

If you don't close it out game four, certainly game five. And they had to wait until they were underdogs to close it out. If you don't close it out game four, certainly game five, and they had to wait until they were underdogs to close it out. So I know that's like a fuzzy reason of just motivation, but that's the best I can do. Everybody kind of gets a little bit more locked in if you're an underdog. Jacobs, Miami has seven road wins and six home wins in the playoffs this year miami makes absolutely no sense there's there's you can't quantify what this team does or who this team is it makes no sense like the fourth quarter stats make no sense none of it makes

any sense jimmy butler hasn't played well in like two weeks like i have another take like in two weeks jimmy butler hasn't played well like remember he missed the game against the knicks with the ankle thing i really think he hasn't been the same since that. What's your other take, Wilds? My other take is this. Do you think, and again, this is Eastern Conference Finals. Do you think that home court can be a disadvantage if the crowd gets quiet? it's quiet. So Miami gets off to a quick start and all of a sudden the crowds quiet. And now you start to get tight as a player. Like, oh man,

like it's almost easier to play at a, in a neutral place or a way. Like I can deal with the booze. I can't deal with my own fans. Just quietly nervous for me. That's a good theory. Well, think about this.

That's good. good theory. Well, think about this. Jacob's going backwards. The Celtics win an elimination game in game six, and then Miami wins an elimination game in game seven. That was last round. Denver wins two in LA. We've just had the road team win the last two finals games. In the Celtics series, the Celtics won the elimination game in Philly in game six.

The Nuggets won their elimination game in game six. And then the, the, uh, the, well, I guess the Lakers won at home against the Warriors, but I mean, that is a lot. It's an unusual amount of road teams taking care of business. I don't, I, when I was growing up, the home team usually won. And if it's like, we could just get a game seven or we get a big game at home, we're going to take care of business. And that's usually how it went.

And now I don't, like even today, I was going to bet Denver and I already have so much money on Denver in this series. I was just like, nah, I'm going to ride it. But I really, I thought the line was, I just don't think the line should even factor in the home court anymore. Like Denver was like minus nine at home,

but then minus three in the road. And it's like, does it matter? I don't know. Um, let's take a break and then we'll talk more angles. It's almost time to crown an NBA champion. And Fandle wants to be part of the excitement right now.

New customers get a no sweat. First bet up to $2,500. That is $2,500 back in bonus bets. If your first bet doesn't win, we're going to mess around with game four of the NBA finals. And I'm just telling you right now, I'm kind of leaning toward Denver. I know they just won game three, but I feel like the zag pick is going to be Miami and there might be some value. We'll see what the Denver line ends up being, but if it's around even, or if it's Denver minus one, I like Denver, but FanDuel is going to boost that bet for us for game four. So be ready for that. I am excited about that. I'm excited about you betting on Fandle. Great promotions every day. Safe and secure app.

Get paid instantly. There is no better place to bet all the finals action than America's number one sports book. Again, visit Fandle.com slash BS. You get a no sweat first bet up to $2,500. That is Fandle.com slash BS. Fandle is the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Remember, you must be 21 plus in present select states.

Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit theringer.com slash RG. First online real money wager, only $10 deposit required. Refund issued is down with travel bonus bets that expire in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See full terms at fando.com slash sportsbook.

This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me. I can't go a day without sports. I really can't. And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right. There's a new exclusive home for streaming Monday night NHL hockey.

And it's on Prime. All season long, watch Prime Monday night hockey deliver unreal plays, the biggest goals, can't miss moments. Matthews, McDavid, Crosby, the NHL's best. They're all on Prime.

Prime Monday Night Hockey. It's on Monday. It's on Prime. Okay, some smaller highlights. I feel like Mark Jackson has finally discovered Jokic. Like, I'm happy for him. Like, he has some stuff like this guy. I wish we could time travel so he could play Will.

Like, what? He's passing. I would just love to see him against the other big guys. It's like, you didn't vote for him in top five MVP and then claimed you thought it was by position. That was a mistake. It was? It was an oversight.

It was? Have you ever filled out an MVP ballot? It was a mistake? It was an oversight. It was? Have you ever filled out an MVP ballot? It was a mistake? It was an oversight. It was an oversight. Was it a mistake? Whoops, whoopsie. Or was the mistake not realizing that his vote was public?

Was that the mistake? Can I enter the chat here with the backlash against the backlash? Because we had the, like, nobody talks about the Nuggets. The Nuggets are disrespected. Nobody talks about Jokic. But so many people talk about how nobody talks about them that I'm now sick of hearing that nobody talks about the Nuggets. The Nuggets are disrespected. Nobody talks about Jokic. But so many people talk about how nobody talks about them that I'm now sick of hearing that nobody talks about them because too many people are saying that nobody talks about them.

And then it becomes this little badge of honor. Like, oh, well, I've been talking about the Nuggets all season long. It's like, well, they're the number one team in the Western Conference. They didn't sneak up on anybody. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, I'm tired of this. I'm tired of this, like, nobody believes in us. We're the underdogs. No, no, no one believes in us we're the underdogs like wilds is right about the the nobody

believes in us off that is this finals it's just like no no we're the underdogs we have the bulletin board material the media hates us the fans hate us we can't even be shown in our local markets in the miami heat like well we're the eighth seed we had to play and no one believed in us we've been underdogs in all these games it's just like guys you're in the finals you're the best team in the Eastern Conference. We played that out in 3-7 game series. You're the best team in the Western Conference. We played that out in 3-7 game series.

You've got Jimmy Butler, who's a superstar. You've got Jokic, who's a superstar. You guys are both great basketball teams. Everyone believes in you. Wilds, I think I'm going to start doing this with my marriage. Oh boy. I'm going to clean up after I make food. I'm going to clean up after I make food. I'm going to clean up after myself

and put the dishes in the dishwasher. Then my wife will make the sarcastic comment like, oh, you cleaned up after yourself. I'll be like, nobody believed in me. Nobody believed that I could clean up the kitchen, but I just did. The lawn is mowed. You didn't believe that I could mow the lawn.

I went and got the mail. You don't think I can fix a faucet? You don't think I can fix a faucet? That faucet's been dripping for a month now. You really don't think I can fix it? Watch this. That's his grocery shop. Yeah, did it take me three trips to the hardware store?

Yes, it did. In four hours? But I fixed the faucet. It doesn't drip anymore. Yeah, I know that he'd have a chip on their shoulder, and it's well-earned, but they also were 44-38 this year, got killed by Atlanta in a playing game, and we're down in the fourth quarter against the Bulls in the other playing game. So I think we had fair reasons not to believe in them.

I don't know. But you got to do what you got to do when you're an athlete. I know Wilds used to do that on the racquetball courts. Okay. All right. I've never been on a racquetball court. Okay. All right. I've never been on a racquetball. Have you played pickleball yet? How Connecticut have you gotten?

Totally. 100% out on pickleball. I'm not touching a pickleball racquet. I don't want to hear about your pickleball league. I don't want to hear about the injury that you had at pickleball. It is a sport that all of a sudden a bunch of venture capitalists decided to

get into. It feels like a bit of a, I don't want to say scam per se. It's a Ponzi scheme. Let's just say it. Let's call it a Ponzi scheme that it is. This is the sport of the, we're going to have, it's going to be scheme let's just say it let's call it a ponzi scheme that it is this is the sport of the we're gonna have it's gonna be the most popular sport like no it is not it is not everyone's like tom brady just bought a pickleball team in this league i'm

just like what is what is happening what is this headline i'm reading and you're just a short person standing on a ping pong table that's what you are it's ridiculous very very short person standing on a ping pong table. That's what you are. It's ridiculous. A very, very short person standing on a ping pong table. It was on ESPN the other day. It was on at a pretty good Sunday afternoon time, late in the afternoon. I was like, wait, there's a crowd? There's

announcers? Who the fuck is watching this? I can't... They had the pros play it, and it was pretty interesting. It was like agassi and mackinrow that actually rated interesting am i gonna watch for what reason guys do it no i mean i watched the situation play cornhole for like a half an hour i was watching the situation from jersey shore play cornhole. And I was locked in. I was at a sports bar.

They had two concurrent NBA playoff games. They were like getting close to the end and close games. And on another screen, they had like the, the skills competition for the Westminster dog show. And it would be like a crucial possession. And my eyes just went to the dogs. I was just like,

I could not not watch the dogs run around cones and go through tunnels while i should be focusing on the two nba playoff games yeah so you'd have cornhole would you put shuffleboard over pickleball or no no to play or watch either well to play definitely shuffleboards better but with to watch no it's just miniature curling right i'm just i'm talking bar shuffleboard i want. But to watch? No, it's just miniature curling, right? I'm talking bar shuffleboard. I want the listeners just to get a little peek behind the Bill Simmons curtain. And Bill Simmons playing shuffleboard, it's like Michael Jordan level of competition. And he gets so pissed when he loses.

It's odd. I don't really lose, though. It's really odd and uncomfortable. I don't remember what that felt like. What does that feel like? It's odd and uncomfortable. Last time I beat't remember what that felt it's uncomfortable last time i beat you at golden t you just walked out of the bar without saying goodbye and i didn't hear from you for like three weeks that's what i do normally well i didn't first of all you golden t i didn't

like that you had been practicing and then sorry sorry to be dedicated to my craft and then you started talking shit when i hadn't played in like a year. But I don't remember losing in Shuffleboard. I'm glad we all agree on Pickleball. Alright, can we do a little game called Predict? Oh, this almost isn't fair because Wilds is on one of these shows. Predict the Talking Head

storylines tomorrow? Oh, sure. Yeah. Okay. So it's going to be something Jokic related. You guys have both produced tv shows too and you've both been on these shows so i would say the first thing is oh best duo best duo best duo in the league that's where we're going because i think that i think you stopped paying attention during garbage time but like he did get this rebound to get him a triple double so the first time 30 point triple doubles in the finals this is going to be best duo in the league. It's going to be the, the lead lead a block conversation for tomorrow.

That's my guess. Yeah. I would, I would frame it as ready to say Joker and Murray are the best duo in the league. Bill, your take. I like ready to say who is the best,

who are they taking the championship belt from? Because you could have said Brown and Tatum. AD and LeBron. I mean, they're in Western Conference Finals. Healthy AD and LeBron. What am I getting that? When have those two guys been healthy at the same time? Why isn't it Tatum and Brown?

They've made five Conference Finals in seven years. Fine, not AD and LeBron. Kyrie and LeBron. Kyrie and LeBron. No, what about... I would say the other one would be booker and durant i i think would be the other candidates right too new too new too new i think they played 13 regular season games booker and durant's got to be in the two spot there right i like that's the debate. That's a great topic. Great job. It's a great topic. That's my number one talking head point for tomorrow.

Wilds, you're next. Before Wilds goes, can I just point out the beginning of the pregame show before the finals tonight? The first topic was bigger must win for Denver or Miami. And each guy had to say, who is it a bigger must win for Denver or Miami? And each guy had to say,

who is it a bigger must win for? It's game three. My answer is neither. It's game three. You can come back from a game three, despite Wilds' stats. Anyway, what do you got, Wilds? Number two angle tomorrow.

The number two angle would be 10,000 feet ready to give up on the heat. Oh. It's a great run, but we're running out of gas? Yeah. You know what? The clock is, I would say something like, you know, it's not midnight, but certainly the bartender has taken out some Windex

and is starting to clean the bar up a little bit. Like, man, are you still serving drinks? Saran wrap over the bottles a little bit there so the bugs stay out at night. So the bees don't get on it. Exactly. It's getting close. Alright, I get to go. I'm up.

I think this is going to be a Kendrick Perkins specific angle. Oh, okay. Wait, why are you saying okay? Like, I'm going to disparage Kendrick Perkins specific angle. Okay. Ooh, okay. Wait, why are you saying okay? Like I'm going to disparage Kendrick Perkins. I'm just predicting his angle. I love Kendrick Perkins. It's either Kendrick Perkins.

My backup choice would be Stephen A because I've seen him do this too. The hard zag against Jimmy Butler. Okay, Jimmy Butler. You say you belong on the same stratosphere with these guys. Where's it been? Where have you been the last couple weeks? Your teammates have been carrying you. You needed Caleb Barton.

You shouldn't even won the Eastern Conference Finals MVP. And now in the finals, you're getting your ass kicked by Jokic. You want us to call you one of the superstars? Where are you? I can see that being a take i know but i'm just saying i think that's a zag i think that's a hard zag take somebody could take 28 points pretty good though so you don't think anyone's gonna make that point tomorrow no no i think so it's gonna be it did jimmy did himmy butler turn back into jimmy butler that that's

that's gonna be a concise way to frame it. You know what I mean? Where's your Superman cape, Jimmy Butler? Is he the guy who gets you to the finals but doesn't win you the finals? Is he the guy that gets the shot in game seven against the Celtics but misses it? And I would never say that myself because

I think it's ridiculous. I think that he's been just carrying this team on his back for about a month and a half and he's tired. I think it's ridiculous. And he's got a hurt ankle. I really think that's what's happening. I think Jimmy Butler's been just carrying this team on his back for about a month and a half, and he's tired. I think it's ridiculous. He's got a hurt ankle. I really think that's what's happening. I think Jimmy Butler's sort of injured, and he's super banged up, and he's really tired, and he literally does everything on both ends of the floor. He just can't do it all himself. At some point, maybe a team with nine undrafted

players isn't going to win the championship. Maybe. That also does them the best guy in the series. By far. Usually the best guy wins the series. far usually the best guy wins the series any other any other takes we could expect tomorrow i mean i think michael porter jr is going to be a story and i would do a hard zag on michael porter jr expect a breakout michael porter jr game for big breakout game he's, I can do the math

here. Geez, he went 0 for 2 and 3 here. He'll have stretches where he'll rise up for a contested 17-footer and just act like there is no defense. And then the other end he'll get like a help side block and then he'll do something else. And you're like, oh, this guy is clearly a future superstar. And then other times, like, has he been out there for 20 minutes? Because it doesn't even

look like he has been out there for 20 minutes. Because Aaron Gordon is like sort of doing most of it. He's three for 19 from three. Shooting 16%. What about this one? Can I just test one out for you? I don't even know if this is going to fly. We keep saying Eric Spolster is the best coach in the league.

Why isn't it Mike Malone? Oh, see, first of all, you did it. Somebody thrown that one out. The one thing about Coach Malone that i can't get my head around is that he insists on being called michael instead of mike malone it's like dude it's so much easier to say mike like just allow us that please just allow us to call you mike instead of michael malone yeah the michael thing is weird syllables yeah people that force you to use extra syllables are just just like come on guys have a heart have a heart i think that there's

going to be a little bit of um caleb martin back to earth talk too um he should be yeah i mean he carried them in the celtic series and in the next series like he was like he was a legit third option it's like the semi-star in those series and in these three games he's he has not impacted the game obviously he was ill but um you know he he just wasn't himself tonight. And he played 32 minutes. I was on two separate Celtic fan threads during the second quarter after he missed his first two shots. Because I added up his stats in the finals. And he was two for 12. And in game seven, he was 11 for 15 in Boston. So I was like, he's made nine less shots than he did in game seven.

And we're halfway through a game. And then all of a sudden, he scored eight points in like a second uh so i've got one for you bill hold on can i give you another one yeah it's a it's a way because you criticize you know you got to give jokers flowers but you have to make it a little bit debatable so i'm to use the word undeniably. Is Joker undeniably the best player in the world? A hundred percent, not one vote out of the, you get a hundred votes. Are you putting all of your chips on the best player in the world?

Roulette table on Joker, all of them. I mean, this is why Wilds is Wilds. That's, first of all, a great idea. This is what he does. You could also have it tomorrow for your show. I think you can double-dip it. Imagine if he was awake, too. If he was awake, you'd have more. I'd be crushing.

Yeah. I'm crushing. Awake Wilds would have come up with that five minutes ago, but even half-asleep Wilds finally came up with it. I think this is actually, this is almost a turn the camera on Kyle, even though we don't have Kyle today, we have Craig. I think it's actually undisputed that he's the best player in the world now. Because even the bad Jokic game is like a 20, 12, and nine, right? In a game like today where it's like, this would be if basically any other player in

the league, other than, you know, LeBron and his prime or whatever, if somebody just casually threw up the 32, 21, nine or 10, people would lose their minds. Like if Jason Tatum did that, I would be like telling my grandkids, oh my God, this game Jason Tatum had. But Joker, we're not even surprised anymore. So for me, I just feel like he's consistently so good game after game with the ceiling of supreme that to me, he's the number one guy now. Jacobs? Impossible to disagree with that,

but I would say that you can have the conversation, especially about Giannis and Kevin Durant. I agree. I think Jokich is the best player on the planet sailed no i disagree no oh i think that i think that ship's done he's he's too old and too banged up now he's the top eight guy but i i don't he's not in the conversation for me anymore it's i i was thinking yannis when you were speaking but then you said he had a 32, 20 and 10 game. And I just,

I can't imagine a world in which Giannis does that. I would have, it would be Curry's the only other guy for me that is allowed to be in the combo. So do you think there's any recency bias? Because we literally watched the game a half hour ago when Giannis had a closeout game of 50 and 14 and averageaged 35-13-5 to win finals MVP. And then two years later, we're like,

nope, sorry, you held the title belt for 18 months, but now it's Jokers. Great point. Giannis had it two years ago. He had it last year, and I think Jokic took it this year because the last thing Jokic had to do was do this at the highest stage, which he's now done. And I have no questions left. And he also, against Davis and LeBron, swept them and laid it to them in a way that he just couldn't

do a couple years ago in the bubble, right? In the bubble, that was a different matchup. Little younger LeBron, healthier Davis, but still. Can I give you another one, Bill? Oh, so Rudy's asking me, is Jokic number one in the trade value rankings now? Ooh. I think 100% absolutely, yes. You are not trading him for anybody,

anybody on the planet. Yeah, I think before it was Giannis, Luka, and Jokic three, and now I think it's a flip. Because the thing with Jokic is, I just don't see any reason this can't go on at this level for like five, six more years. What's he, he's going to lose speed? I was about to say, was he going to lose speed in athleticism?

He's not. Like Bird, his body just broke down, right? But he was also older when he came into the league. So he was like probably 32, 33 when he really started breaking down. And Dirk, really all the way through maybe 2012, the same kind of like weird kind of body, but he started to slow down a little bit. But he was in his early 30s too.

I think at least three, four more years, Wilds, for Jokic at this level. I don't see why he wouldn't. I buy that. I bet he becomes a better shooter, too. The other question I would have for you, if we're still playing this game, is ready to call Jamal Murray a superstar? No.

That's a great... That's like an 8.30 first take topic. Just get in there. Hour and a half in the show, yeah. It's not in the first hour, but halfway through the second hour um are you go jacobs i'm not ready to answer yet i'm not i think i think superstars is a very different thing than star i think there's like a handful of superstars and i am not calling jamal murray a superstar no just yeah i don't think i am it just it just no

i mean like he's not one of the top 10 players in the league. Just no. Yeah, so how many players are superstars? Probably less than 10. Yeah, seven. Yeah. So everyone has their own. Nick does club superstar on the show.

I think he tapped it at 12, but everybody has their own. I always want to sneak people in the fire exit. I'm always trying to get other people in. Get Donovan Mitchell in. Is John in there? Did Donovan Mitchell get kicked out of the bar after the Knicks series? They sent him home. Did Ja get kicked through metal detectors?

He made a thing. Ja left club superstar. I don't know. He's close. Jamal Murray is just making buckets. He jogged left club superstar. I don't know. He's close. Jamal Murray is just making buckets. He's close. And if you look at his numbers next to Jimmy,

he doesn't have a cool nickname. But if you put him, the numbers, just him versus Jimmy, you know, he's, he's there. Where he,

the thing is, if he was your number one guy on a team, I'm not sure how many rounds you're winning, which I think is the final definition of superstar. But what I think he's proven is he can absolutely be the number two on a team that wins a title, which is probably what's going to happen. So, Jacobs, who do you have? Denver?

Give me a pick right now. Toy gun to your head. It'd be silly to not pick denver because they're a better basketball team but there is a roadmap here there's a roadmap here just just just follow this logic the heat win a tight game four crowds going crazy uh it just kind of breaks their way in the last sort of six minutes the way it sort of seems to always happen lose game five in denver go back and then just jimmy butler has a 40 point game six and then in game seven denver is looking at a loss the heat get up early kevin wilds's theory about sort of the

collective nerves being contagious and affecting the players on the floor and like a quiet like oh my god are we actually going to lose the finals right here on our home floor i can see that roadmap with a game four game six and game seven win for the heat um that being said no chance wow yeah nuggets i was gonna say yeah yeah wow that theory needs it needs a kind of a name and a hook yeah better branding the the chill in the crowd there is it's something because i've felt it it's this moment in the game when there's this weird noise with the crowd it gets super quiet and there's like this little murmur almost like you can hear people having these tiny whisper conversations. And it's like, ah, this is not a good time.

It's like a chicken and egg. It's like a chicken and egg of anxiety. You know what I mean? It's just like, I don't know who started this, but it just keeps going back and forth. It's toxic. Not great. What do you have?

Denver in what? I've got Denver in five. I still have Denver in five, too. I think they do the same thing for game four that they did to the Lakers. Like, oh, you thought we just stole one? We'll take this one, too. So, 2014

Spurs is a good doppelganger for this where they split the first two games in San Antonio against Miami, LeBron's last year. Go back, Miami, win convincingly in game three, a lot like the game today. And I was like, oh, Miami's going to come back, big game. Nope.

And they just, all of a sudden, they won in five. And other teams, the 2012 Heat split the first two in one and five, 09 Lakers,4 Detroit, 91 Bulls, 90 Detroit. It's happened. Especially if you have the hammer in game five if you're home. We'll see. Friday night's a little weird.

The one-day rest, we'll see what they do with the refs. We'll see what they get away with. By the way, we forgot to mention this. The flopping from the Heat tonight in the first quarter was just... I thought, like, first rate.

I don't know. Did you see the one where Gabe Vincent... Oh, I know. Bruce Brown grazed his jersey and Gabe Vincent did the I've been shot in the back. Yeah, I loved it.

I loved it. And then fell into the crowd. It was great. had jimmy jimmy tried to get one on a three where he just like lurched his body and then just ended up just throwing it as hard as he could at the front rim that was a makeup no call sometimes they look like 2010 barcelona just like flopping on every every drive into traffic um oh last thing i had for you jacobs miami celebs that we saw tonight shakira dj khaled and dj cole your thoughts um i think it was j cole and i'm sorry i wrote down dj cole there's always that there's always that lady in the front row that i did a couple djs

i'm counting her as well every miami he came she just wears the most ridiculous outfit in the front row that i did a couple djs i'm counting her as well every miami he came she just wears the most ridiculous outfit in the world everyone knows who i'm talking about um i think that the collective sort of energy and youth and sexiness of the miami crowd sort of outshines the like the 12 celebrities at a lakers or New York Knicks game. So you might beat Miami in terms of A-list names, but you don't beat Miami in terms of just vibes. That would be my counter to that. Wilds, who is missing?

Did you phone Don Johnson out? Maybe game four, Don Johnson? Messi? Messi just signed with the MLS team? So when I saw Neymar, I'm like, ooh, Neymar in Miami. And just the specter of Messi is overshadowing his courtside seat or whatever. And I wonder if Neymar, I guess he's going to go to Chelsea. I just looked it up.

But I thought it would be, imagine if Neymar came to Miami too. It'd be interesting. But I like Neymar. But I thought it would be... Imagine if Neymar came to Miami too. It'd be interesting. But I like Neymar. Neymar at NMLS. Before we go, there was some Chris Paul drama today where Chris Paul, Chris Haynes reported he was out, that they're going to waive him. And then Woj and Shams both said,

no, actually they haven't decided yet. But it is heading towards some sort of decision. He makes, I think by June 28th or 24th, somewhere before July, they can buy him out for less than 16 million. Then they could stretch it for like five years or buy in where he makes like almost 31. They could also trade him before either of those things because then he becomes kind of a sexy asset for a team trying to shed cap, right?

Like if you're Philly and you're like, oh, cool, we can get rid of Tobias Harris. We'll get Chris Paul and then we'll either keep him or we'll just waive him and get rid of him. I find it hard to believe they would just waive him. That was not on my bingo card, Jacoby. Bill, I have a question for you. you're really good at this right this is one thing that you're very good of is when we as the public get the information how did we get that information why did we get that information and who does us having that information serve this is like one of your many superpowers none of them are like particularly useful but

this is one of your superpowers and i need you to do that exercise with this because that's that's the filter i put on a lot of these sort of like strange like why am i hearing this now and who does this serve that's my question for you back to you bill this is phoenix floating it out, that this is the way it's going to play out. Right? It's like a little tester fart in the car before you actually do the real fart that bums out your entire family. That's a great analogy.

It's the first one. Is this going to get this one out? If anyone really complains, maybe I'll hold it for the rest. But if nobody says anything, maybe I'll go a step further. God. Just say trial balloon. Just don't try weather balloon.

Tester fart in the car. I've got a part in Jacoby every once in a while. I've never used a trial balloon. I don't even know what it looks like or what it works like, but I know exactly what a tester fart in the car is. I think this was the Suns not wanting it to seem abrupt that all of a sudden Chris Paul was in trade talks.

So you float this out now. Now it's out. Now all the stories tomorrow will be here. There are options. And obviously this is going to lead toward him not being on the Suns. The question for me, for them, is you have to turn him into an asset. You can't just lose the asset. You have to get a salary back.

One thing I was thinking, Wilds, this will wake you up. I mean, Wilds, people can't see him right now, but his head's actually on his shoulder right now. It's wild. He's got a sleeping mask on. If you're Golden State, is this a good Jordan

Pool exit package? Wow. Yeah. Opt in with Chris Paul for one more year. We'll trade you Jordan pool. We get out of the Jordan pool business. We'll have Chris Paul as an expiring contract. We'll bring him in one more guard, take some ball handling off with Steph. Um, another tough guy trying to chase a ring and let's see how this goes but most important we get rid of the jordan pool salary albatross then if you're phoenix another shooter somebody put with booker and kd oh my god holy shit what if they can rejuvenate him i thought that was a fun one jacobs kind of likes this one he's got a weird look on his face no no no i think if you're frank

vogel you're like i did not sign up for the Chris Paul for Jordan pool trade. I didn't know that was going to be the first thing that happens when I get here. I also don't think it does much for the Warriors either. Well, it's a get out of jail free card with the pool contract. The other one I was thinking was if you were the Spurs, and you're way under. I like this one.

You're way under the cap. Oh, yeah. Like, you know what? We'll take them. We'll bring them in. Got a little French guy named Victor Wembadyama coming in. We'll go spend some money on Austin Reeves. Maybe we'll try to make the playoffs next year.

We'll teach our young guys some winning habits. Chris Paul can do the OKC thing. I guess the question for Chris Paul is like, he's at this weird stage now where even if he does win the title, he's in that kind of Gary Payton 2004 stage of his career. No. If they win the title, it won't be because of him. It'll be a role player.

And at that point, what? Do you put Kyle Lowry in that same category right now? No, but he already won. He won in Toronto when he was one of the best players. So he's not, it's not like he's ring chasing.

Yeah, I guess so. I view him as a nice role player, a nice role playing veteran who happens to have a ring already. But if Miami wins the title, you wouldn't be like, yeah, when Kyle Lowry wentry went you know he's just kind of along for the ride and made some plays so with with chris like go through all the teams like what team is he going to play big minutes for that needs him that actually needs him or what he does like because

normally i would say oh watch out for the Knicks because he has such a great relationship with Leon and Wes. Those are his guys. But it would make no sense to have him and Jalen Brunson. What about sensors? Well, so that was why I mentioned Tobias Harris. If you could flip him into Tobias Harris if you're the Suns. But then you can't bring back James Harden. We've already seen those guys can't play together.

What do you think about if Chris Paul's number one asset is leadership in setting a culture for a team? Celtics? No, I was thinking Memphis. Ja is going to miss games, so he can come in, set the culture, and then when Ja comes back, healthy. Everyone says they need a veteran.

Fresh start. He's the veteran. They don't really have the contract to trade back for him. Boston's interesting because they could put Brogdon in the trade. They could do Brogdon and a salary for Chris Paul. I personally wouldn't do that. Yeah, I don't know. I don't like that at all.

Well, I have some Celtic fans in my life for like chris paul we need a leader we bring him in he's and it's like cool he's he's basically the the player version of the team we've been for the last seven years well here's a here's a question for you is you know i always talk about like we said before like who who benefits from this from this information and how does these these articles read who does it suit and it definitely felt like it came from phoenix because if you read the follow-up articles like they're going to work with his representatives and they talk today and they're going to make sure it's okay and they're also focused on keeping him and explain me explain to me this part bill how do they how do they wave and also keep him because that was that was proposed as like a potential outcome. And I just don't see it.

Explain that part to me. He would have to sign as the minimum, but he would basically take, you know, at that point he could sign with anyone in the league. The thing that I didn't understand, I had Laker fans in my life were like, Oh, Chris Paul, we're going to get them. Yeah. And it's like, cool. That that's like the worst possible team for him. He likes to have the ball. LeBron has the ball all the time.

Chris Paul with LeBron doesn't work. Don't see that at all. Plus, they need a shooter in that spot. Wow, did you actually do Kyrie stuff on your show or did you ignore it? We did a little bit of it. We didn't do LeBron to Dallas.

Because it was the most absurd story of the year? It doesn't make any sense. It's completely impossible. It involves trading Luka Doncic for LeBron James. That's what it involves. But I like the idea of Kyrie going to the Lakers.

I still like that. It's only if it's the mid-level. That's it. The Mavs are going to be like, cool, we get D'Angelo Russell. Thanks. I don't know how much Kyrie is going to take a pay cut for. Oh, you can make $30 million.

What? I have to lose $10 million? I don't want to do that. If you think about a hypothetical conversation about between kairi and lebron about playing together i can understand how kairi could lead with like hey why don't you join me on the mavs even though i'm not on the mavs but i feel like lebron would very quickly counter with there is a way to make this happen for us to be on the same team and it involves you playing for way less money than you feel like you

deserve and i feel like there could be a way that lebron could jedi mind trick kairi into taking that here's the thing lebron's gonna be in la next year you know why because his son's gonna be playing basketball usc nothing is more fun than watching your kids play sports lebron's gonna be like i'm good i'm staying in la next year after that i don't know 47.9 million dollars yeah yeah that's it that would be the other reason but bill you got you got credit for saying lebron to dallas when we were doing half-baked ideas in march or whatever so while i was pitching a removable cauliflower ear, you were in here dropping dimes

of NBA knowledge. What I thought was the Draymond to Dallas and LeBron followed in a year after his Laker contract was up. That was what I laid out. I liked it. I scoffed at it originally, and I'm sorry.

I want to hear more about this cauliflower ear thing as well there should be a procedure for that I've done a 180 on the Draymond thing because Steve Kerr went on his podcast the other day and now I'm like oh he's definitely staying like if the Warriors thought he was going to leave he'd be like hey Steve want to come on the pod and Steve's like ah I'm in

I'm in Vietnam and Thailand for the next four weeks. I can't. And he just wouldn't have done it. But the fact that he went on makes me think he's coming back. Do you think Bob Myers went to Joe Lacob and was like, we should definitely not sign Draymond? And Joe Lacob was like, we're going to sign Draymond.

And Bob Myers was like, you know what? Maybe this isn't for me anymore. I think Bob Myers, who's a very smart guy, who took the Warriors thing as far as it could go, realized this blueprint that Pat Riley laid out in 1990 when he left the Lakers and he took a year off and he went to NBC and he was a studio guy. And he was actually a pretty good studio guy. It was great. But during the year that he was a studio guy, all anyone talked about was, where's Pat Riley going to go? It's a little like Sean Payton last year, right? So we've seen, for

the next three plus decades, people have emulated this where they take a year off and they just gain steam. You just become sexier and sexier as a candidate. And I think that's what Bob Myers is doing. Maybe the job's not there this year, but you wait a year, and now you're going

first things first you're going first things first you got nick right you got chris broussard bob myers the great kevin wilds get in the spotlight for a year have people talking about that wild's up that's the first time wild seemed awake in 20 minutes i think he already signed it with the sbn i think he signed an espn deal already did he really did i didn't see that report bud are you are you bringing news here? No, no. That was reported. That was reported somewhere. He's going to be on with Shannon Sharp. I think I...

Oh, no. Skip Bayless Bob Myers every morning arguing. Wilds, we're going to talk about Zion, so if you want to check out, you can say goodbye now. I'm out. That's my cue. Great to see you. We'll see you on First Things First. Good to see you, buddy. Bye, Wild things first good to see you buddy bye bye wilds you're the best wilds all right we saved this for last i asked jacoby to deep dive the zion williamson story today so let's let's hear it jacob's i intentionally didn't

read anything i wanted to learn everything from you i see nothing about bob myers and espn so the k-man might have gotten a text oh Oh, ESPN interested in Warriors executive Bob Myers. Okay. I understand why Kevin Wilds is no longer on this podcast right now. Because we're about to leave the world where people wear suit and ties. And we're going to go into the NBA after dark area here in into wilds is a p he's a pg superstar he's not a rated r superstar he's a rated pg talent this this goes for this this is an nc17 story here um it involves zion williamson and um it all started with a very well-produced gender reveal video that Zion Williamson and a woman whose handle is Concrete Rose.

I believe her name is Akina Kima. And first of all, I think gender reveal parties are absolute bullshit. It's like you're going to have a gender reveal party for this baby, And then later, you're going to have a baby shower for this baby. I've never been to one. I will never go to one. And then I have to come over and see the baby. I just think as a concept, they make no sense. When you see me next, you can just say, oh, by the way, we're having a girl.

I don't need to drive my car to your house and bring a present and spend four hours there. Like, this is absolutely ridiculous. Don't fill a water balloon up with pink dye. Don't hit a golf ball. Don't explode something. There's no good way to do it. I don't believe in water balloon up with with pink dye i don't don't hit a golf ball don't explode something there's no good way to do it i don't believe in gender reveal parties whatsoever that being said zion williamson clearly spent like low five figures on his is extremely well produced the video had like a lot of motion and editing and a soundtrack and um it was it was

clearly an expensive to do and it turns out that that there was a sign with the lights in the middle, you know those letters, that's huge. It said, boy or girl. And the fireworks were lit. And the fireworks came out pink. Meaning that Zion and his soon-to-be baby mother, Akima, I believe her name is, Concrete Rose is her handle, are going to have a female child congratulations to them everyone's excited except for a young woman by the name of mariah mills now i might have done some research on mariah mills um she is this kind of research that like weird viruses came up on your computer yes very much like a lot of pop-up windows in some of the websites you're just trying to close out pop-up windows as fast as you can like whack-a-mole and i went

through her spotify channel shout out to spotify she's got a few songs up write it out is one of her latest hits i believe it was released in 2022 um the music video it needed to do some work on the music video um i think it'd be it'd be fair to say that I can't say this for a fact, but it feels like her body has been surgically enhanced. Extremely so. And she has done some love scenes on camera. Okay. Many. Some would say professionally.

And now what I'm going to say is what she tweeted. I don't know the validity of the things that she claims, but she went on a 20 to 25 tweet thread explaining that she was in a relationship with Zion and that Zion was going to move her to new Orleans. And she also had some screen grabs with Zion expressing his desire to move her to new orleans and she also had some screen grabs with zion expressing his desire to move her to new orleans and um that was supposed to happen in december um it's now june so it seems to be like some very long-term planning i don't know how that works but um she also went into some detail about some of the um coital encounters that she has had with zion oh um and maybe stay pg

on this one because god only knows what's true and not true yeah yes and also there could be children in a car listening to this you know you always have to be sensitive to that so some some very deep extreme details about the coital encounter. Some of the things I think that you will particularly like is the mentions of Zion being in shape. So here we have a, I think I'll call her a porn actress, is also an artist and a singer and an actress. Adult film specialist. Yes. And she was saying that she was trying to motivate Zion Williamson to stay in shape. A professional basketball player, number one pick.

She's like, I was the one trying to get you to stay in shape. And she was blaming this other woman for him not being in shape, which is like, again, like I am kind of having fun with this story because it seems like, I mean, at the end of the day, he was sleeping with two women and it all went to Twitter and it got very toxic and icky and kind of made me feel kind of gross when i read it all because it made me just worried about their lives and just how people relate to each other and express each other and communicate online and you have daughters public it's just kind of gross and icky but like there is like a basketball part of this where like the women in zion's life are evaluating what kind of shape he's in and they know that it's a concern and if it's

getting to like that level then it really is an indication that this is something that is on his mind is part of his life and it's something that he deals with on a on like a daily basis and um outside of like these claims and the sort of like gross details and the the lies and deceit um i found that part about her speaking about his uh physical fitness to be telling of sort of where his head is at and what the people in life are trying to do. Yeah. You were alarmed. I was concerned for Zion. You know what I mean? Like I, I really feel that Zion Williamson should be spending five to six hours a

day, rehabbing and in a gym and with a trainer and just doing everything he possibly can to fine tune his body, to be a professional basketball player. And it does not feel like that is the case. And am I reading too much into some tweets from an adult film actress? Yes, his body to be a professional basketball player and it does not feel like that is the case and am i reading too much into some tweets from an adult film actress yes probably but it is just it is an indicator that the people in his life like this is a thing on his mind and there's two

women in his life like blaming the other one for him not being in shape but i also feel like he's burning a lot of calories when he was with these women as well maybe maybe it was keeping him from getting bigger well the pelicans got rid of their strength conditioning guy so that happened um i think it's weird that zion and jaw were the one two in that draft and we have oh yeah more concerns about their off-court stuff than just about any player that's come in the league the last 10 years, where it's like, you guys are literally your own worst enemy in all these different ways. With the Zion thing, I don't know, we were both idiots when we were 23, 24. So I was finding it hard to be like, oh man, if that was me, I would do, because I was an absolute jackass. So I wonder like like if i was another

team watching this you'd be like all right this guy's going through like kind of his young and dumb stage when he comes out of this and the light bulb goes off all of a sudden i have this amazing talent like would would this make him more or less of a trade asset i like this this is this is another great zag from you bill i just want to compliment you before buying a crappy house it's like oh this house on an awesome neighborhood yeah there was a murder suicide in this bedroom but guess what i didn't know those people i didn't know those people we'll scrub it up we'll burn some sage we're gonna get a great deal what could go wrong great deal worst case scenario of a haunted house movie

that we could sell to Netflix. I do actually like this. And I actually do feel that in one of the articles, I mean, it was like on TMZ or something. I don't even know his actual age, but he's got to be 22. It said he was 22. He must be 22 or 23.

He's a very young man. Well, he's 2019 draft. So he's 23. Yeah. 23. Yeah. So he's like 23 years old he's very young and i think like joelle and bead if we could just say you know what it was tricky

yeah craig's telling us he's 22 think about that 22 years old he'd be like he'd be right now he would have like a cap and gown on and and graduating college and like spending a month you know riding trains in europe and finding himself. And I feel like he, to me, would be someone that I would be extremely interested in if I was another team that felt like you could bring him in and give him a change of environment and a change of coaching staff and a change of teammates and a change of sort of strength and conditioning people and doctors. And he would be someone that I'd be very interested in if he was available. I just know from firsthand experience, literally with you,

that New Orleans is a place where both of our lives just fall apart when we go there. Oh, my life still isn't the same. But that was the Kaepernick Super Bowl. Well, we had two. We had a few. We had the NBA All-Star Weekend and we had the kaepernick super bowl well we had two we had a weekend and we had the kaepernick super bowl but we had that one time when we were at the casino all night and we came back at like 7 30 back going back into the hotel as a bunch of our bosses were

leaving the hotel to go to breakfast all the executives are walking out with ties on and smiles on their face yeah two of us the two of us is leaning against each other to keep us from falling on the ground and just poking each other to stay awake they must have looked at us and be like oh my god what that was that was that was i remember we were supposed to get on the plane leaving one of those times and i didn't know where you were and you showed up on the plane i made the plane you made the plane and barely and then i had to sit next to you and you were just zonked out and i i was just like we came home and both of our wives were like what does new orleans do to you and you're like you don't understand there's a

casino right in the middle of the downtown we got right there we got off the plane and we were waiting for like the rental car shuttle or whatever we're waiting for la got off the plane and we were waiting for like the rental car shuttle or whatever we're waiting for lax like uber and we didn't have ubers at the time taxis or whatever and i remember going to you and i was like bill i want to run grantland like i want to be in charge of grantland like i want to be like the top guy like i'll take a lot i'll take a lot off your plate your job it's like i'm like i'm a great manager like i want to run grayland and you looked at me and you're like it's been a long weekend buddy i was like hold on i'm trying to borrow a cigarette from the person in the designated smoking stand the gate i'll be back and we'll discuss this right around never 30 we'll discuss we'll pick this up but so this i think i

think that i think you make it think you make a good point. I think Zion is primed for a change of scene. And I think that if I was another team, I would buy low on this right now. And obviously, it has nothing to do with his off-court stuff. I just don't think New Orleans is a good place for a young person who doesn't have their shit together yet. It would be my number one draft pick

for please don't live in this city especially with the food and the delicacies and the fact that it never shuts down i um let's talk joff for a second though because he was the same draft class i know we're wrapping up um yeah i'm i'm very bullish on john moran's nba future i'm very bullish on it and and i think that um these were he made some bad decisions um but they're not basketball related they're not injury related they're not they could be mental health related but i feel like this suspension is he's going to um he's going to be like denzel washington and man on fire when he comes back onto the basketball court oh then i'm predicting i'm predicting an extremely productive energized rested ready john morant when he returns to nba basketball and i think it lasts for like

three years like i'm very very bullish on joha's future in the NBA. It's interesting. NBA history would say this could go in any direction because like Marbury was somebody that was pretty immature for a while. A couple of teams got tired of his act and he just kind of never got it together. And then all of a sudden it was 2009 and he was randomly on that Celtics team

and his career was heading the wrong way. And he had as much, I think, natural talent as Jha did for that era you know he was super duper talented and just could never stay out of his own way so we'll see these guys are young um jacobs thanks for staying up late of course thanks for popping on the bs thanks for driving wilds away with your it wasn't even that bad i thought it was in the comfort of nick wright's arms he's like these guys are fucking nuts i'm out of here yeah yeah and i also uh i want to give uh nephew

kyle a shout getting married give us give us like a give us like a one minute what you're looking forward to for nephew kyle's nuptials well he moved he went back to New York for the wedding, and now the whole state is covered in smoke. I'm here. It's really weird. I'm assuming it's not related. But he showed up, and now the entire state is covered in smoke. I don't know. I don't think it's related.

But I also can't be surprised. Smoke does follow Kyle around. No, it's going to be fun. It'll be nice to have the whole family together. And I'm happy for him. And I'll be watching game four of the finals on my iPhone. Jacoby, good to see you. Thanks for coming on.

Thanks so much for having me, buddy. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too.

You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you can still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember.

Hey, you. Yeah, you. Scrolling TikTok and avoiding your chem homework? Check here. Hot take. You've seen enough Bama Rush, ASMR keyboard, and viral dance videos for one day. Let's lock in and start that assignment. If you need a little help, lean on Chegg's expert-supported learning tools. I say this with love. Put on some lo-fi beats and get going with our step-by-step study support. Your weekend will thank you. Small steps today means big wins tomorrow with Chegg. Subscribe today. You got this. All right, this is the second time this week that I've done this, where we have a great ringer podcast, and I just steal the host from that podcast during a very timely time for their podcast. Did it yesterday with Fairway Rollin' with House and Hubbard.

Today, Matt Bellany from our excellent podcast, The Town. The biggest stealth story of the last couple months that crossed between media and TV and Hollywood and just- And politics. Politics was just a big dinner table convo was the CNN situation with Chris Lick.

They hired Chris Lick. He was the EP at Stephen Colbert's show. Comes in, replaces Jeff Zucker. And the whispers start immediately. You had Dylan Byers on your podcast today talking about his reporting. Immediately inside CNN, they're turning on him. And it goes and goes and goes. And it seems like he's just going to be a punching bag for a while.

And it's going to last maybe another year, another six months, whatever, but probably not doing anything with him before the election. amount of time with Chris Licht, the kind of profile that nobody does anymore because nobody is stupid enough to be in a profile like that because nobody has PR people around them who's like, don't be in that. This is not the right time. A year of full access, going to the gym with you at six in the morning. Nope, not doing that. You're not doing that. Our friend Louis K would never ever in a million years have ever let anyone go to the gym with me at six in the morning. I think Lewis had a heart attack just seeing that profile, knowing that that exists in the world. And someone said, yes. Right. So this piece comes out and it's one of those, the countdown's on. It has so many different tidbits, bad moments, uh-ohs that you're like, all right, the countdown's on.

You predict, you wanted to, did you want to predict that on Monday's pod? Were you going to predict that he wasn't going to last a week? After that piece, how long did you think? I was going to predict it. And then I switched because they brought in this COO from David Zasloff's group, David Zasloff, the CEO of Warner Discovery, Chris Lick's boss, brought in like a lieutenant to sort of right the ship. And I thought they would at least give him a few weeks, a few months to kind of see if this was salvageable. It lasted a few days. Wow. And he had a really bad staff meeting on Monday that everybody reported about. And by Wednesday, you wake up and he's done.

Well, the key thing was that there were blind quotes in the journal where Anderson Cooper, Jake Tapper, some of the other big names at CNN made it known that they had expressed their opinion that he could not last. And that's just a knife. So this story combined like seven different things that just make a story like this eternal, right? I know you did some, you did some research trying to figure out how many times we've had situations like this, but just going through the checklist, a guy who's came off pretty arrogant coming out of the gate, check, never great. B, people weren't sure how good he was to begin with. And I'm going to talk about just how good can you actually be when you're the EP of a show where the host does anything. We'll talk about that later. So you have that. C, you have a directive that nobody really believed in. CNN

is now going to not be over on one side. They're just going to try to be neutral. It's like, well, how's that going to work? D, they didn't really have the talent to pull it off, right? So it's like, all right, well, even if this guy was a good GM, what are his moves? And then E, the whisper campaign that just kind of started and kept going and kept going. What else is in that checklist of just the souffle? Don't forget F, Donald Trump, who tends to wreak havoc and get people fired wherever

he puts his plant. And the Trump town hall on CNN, which turned into a complete disaster. Not the fact they did it. It was probably a good idea that they did it to try to win back some of those viewers. But the way they did it, stalking the pond in the audience with Trump supporters that just cheered on every lie and every, you know, insult that he said and putting their rising star, Caitlin Collins, opposite Trump and having him just completely bowl through her, that turned into a total disaster. And it turned a lot of people who were pro Chris licked against him.

That was such a misfire and so inexplicable. Like if we were in a text chain with them and he's like, here's my plan for the Trump town hall. I'm going to put a lot of Trump fans in there. I'm going to put my up and coming female, female reporter slash anchor. I'm going to put a lot of Trump fans in there. I'm going to put my up and coming female reporter slash anchor. I'm going to throw her into this. What are the downsides?

You see any downsides with this? And we're going to be like, yeah, lots of downsides. This is going to go terribly. What are you doing? Have you never watched an interview with Donald Trump? He is the hardest person in the world to interview. Even if you have him alone in a dark room. Put his fans in front of him where they're just going to cheer everything.

And also it was days after this sexual assault trial where there was this E. Jean Carroll trial where he was found liable. And of course he insults her. Of course they all cheer it. Of course it's live on CNN. That's the other thing. Even Fox News knew to tape the trump town hall so you can edit it now obviously fox news got sued for almost a billion you know had to settle for almost a billion dollars for defamation that's why they're afraid of what trump says but even

fox knew to tape delay trump cnn went live i it's inexplicable as it was happening. And it seemed like it shattered CNN internally. It was, everyone was just so bummed out. A, that it happened. B, that there was no foresight put into it. C,

they put this anchor in a terrible position, you know, that I think she'll be okay, but just, you felt bad for her watching it for an hour. It's like, man, this is terrible.

Should she leave? Should she leave with 20 minutes to go and just get the F out of there? And it was unrecoverable, obviously. And then the Atlantic piece comes out. The Atlantic piece is the big mystery. Now, everybody's talking about the iconic, already iconic line, let's see Jeff Zucker do this shit where he's pumping iron at 6 a.m. in the gym. Amazing. And especially since like, it's since come out through page six, we're not sure if it's verified that he was on Ozempic.

And that's how he lost a ton of weight in addition to working out, but whatever. That gets all the attention. But there are like five separate things in this article, any one of which would put you on thin ice. The fact that he was insulting CNN's COVID coverage from before he got there. The fact that he had a staff dinner with a bunch of high-ranking people at CNN and was on his phone the entire time reading a Puck article about himself at the dinner. The fact that, you know, he came in announcing himself as the kind of the guy who's going to right the ship and, you know, the guy who knows better than everyone else. You don't say that. You do it. You don't say you do. That's the number one rule of executives. And the fact that he's had he has his boss, David Zaslav, whispering in his ear and he was this henchman

almost doing the bidding of this guy. Journalists don't want to hear that. Journalists don't want to hear that their leader, the guy who's supposed to have their back, is really just taking care of the ultimate corporate boss. Yeah. I'm not even sure you should hear from somebody who has that job in any capacity any capacity, like you're an executive, like how many would Jimmy Pataro ever do a 15,000 word magazine feature about here's, here's my plans. Here's what I'm doing. Like there's so many ways that can go wrong. And so Tommy, uh, our friend Tommy sent us this puff piece that the New York times did about him like six months ago. Right. And those are usually the way if you're going to do a feature,

it is heavily orchestrated. Everything is agreed and ironed out beforehand. And you're only going to say certain things. And that's usually the way this goes. This is like a piece they used to do in the sixties. Right. Right. When the internet did not exist.

When the internet in the sixties and seventies, when, you know, this is the kind of shit I grew up on these unbelievable long features. I told you that, uh, that this, this writer, I won't name the writer, but, um, somebody right after I got suspended from ESPN came to me and wanted to do this big, long profile. And obviously my instinct was, no, I can't do that. But this was a great writer. And, and half of me was like, you know what? This is such an interesting time in my life. I wonder if this is worth it. And then I remember I talked to Lewis about it and we're like, yeah, oh yeah, definitely not worth it. But now eight years ago, isn't it? Well, cause the thing I was thinking was like, whatever has happened in my life right now, it isn't just about me. It's like

they're, you know, ESPN's at this weird place. I'm trying to do these things. Like it'd be interesting to see somebody I respect try to capture this moment. And it, you know, eight and a half years later, half of me kind of wonders the piece exists. And half of me is like, thank God. I'm sure I would have said five dumb things, but I can see why you'd be seduced. Lewis is very happy you didn't do that. And there is a reason why smart people pay people to be their press representative, to advise you on those decisions.

And the CNN people that, first of all, allowed Chris Lick to do this piece in the first place. And then when it was clearly not going that great for him, allowed it to continue for almost a year and give this writer the kind of access he had, knowing that this guy was kind of a wild cannon here and was probably not going to say things that were going to help his cause, malpractice. Now they did just get fired. So the CNN people are now out,

but I just, you know, it's not their fault that he said the things he did, but it's their fault for putting him in the position to say it. And that is a Cardinal sin in PR world. What's crazy is he had that job for 13 months. Usually you have like one win. He's like,

well, at least this happened, you know, like even the. You're just like, well, at least this happened. You know, like even the worst GM of all time, like Isaiah Thomas did a really bad job with the Knicks, right? But then you go back and you're like, ah, well, you know, there are a couple draft picks there. He had that. Ronaldo Bauchman, that wasn't bad value.

You can kind of talk yourself into a couple ones. With this Chris Lick there at CNN, CNN's in a worse place. No innovation really happened. The only thing that he really kind of landed that seems semi greatest sports analysis ever or studio show guy ever and the greatest radio podcast guest ever. There's no more upside for Charles. You won. You hit the lottery. Didn't he say he basically did it as a favor to help the company out because they're struggling? Right, which is never a good sign. He's a company man. So maybe that show will succeed and maybe we'll be like, oh, belated W for Chris.

But other than that, was there a win? Is there a win you can see? I was trying to think of great moments in CNN. Honestly, the last great thing CNN did was probably the January 6th coverage, which was excellent. But that was before Chris Licht. And the biggest thing that they screwed up on

is they got rid of CNN Films, which has made some awesome documentaries. Now, ironically, the woman who ran or still runs CNN Films, Amy Antilles, is now going to be taking over CNN in the interim. Maybe they should have looked to her in the first place. But CNN Films, just getting rid of that was a big mistake. The Trump thing turned into a disaster. I thought CNN Films did some good stuff. They did great stuff.

They did the RBG doc. They did the one about the triplets, the brothers. They just won the Oscar for Navalny. So they've done some amazing stuff. And that, to me, is a way forward for CNN. Because you can do high-quality documentaries like that, and it's not political. You can make them in a way that like all people will enjoy them. And you get the documentaries did decent ratings on CNN.

I just didn't understand it. Just they were just cutting costs right and left. But I don't know if they had any real wins. The morning show was a disaster. They ended up having to fire Don Lemon after that. You know, they still didn't have a real replacement at 9 p.m. for Chris Cuomo. And the primetime lineup was still kind of a TBD. They tried Jake Tapper, and he didn't work in primetime. So I don't know if they had a single... Now, that doesn't mean they don't do good reporting. CNN still has good reporting. Even this past week or two, they had some good Trump scoops. And that's what I think a lot of the people at CNN were upset about is that they have been doing some good work lately and it got completely upstaged and marginalized by

the antics of their leader. Like that can't happen. Why did CNN want to change their identity so badly? Because there is a thinking amongst the leadership at Warner Discovery that the ultimate value of CNN is as a pristine news brand. And that Jeff Zucker, in his pursuit of ratings, had prostituted that brand and turned it into a polarized brand, which ultimately long-term was going to be a less valuable brand than CNN, the most trusted name in news. So they said, we are going to pivot back to down the middle news

and get that ultimate brand value back. I mean, is there any trusted name in news? I don't trust anybody. I don't trust the New York Times. I don't trust CNN. Who am I supposed to trust? That is out of another era. And in this era, people go to their preferred news source.

And it doesn't mean that CNN couldn't be that and have shows on both sides. But you got to have the sides. Deciding that it's just going to be down the middle, I don't think was the right call. Have a Don Lemon, but also have your version of a Hannity or someone, or a Megyn Kelly, or someone where conservatives felt they had a voice, but don't just turn it all into bland peanut butter and jelly. Who's the audience though? Is it my mom who just turned 75, who always had CNN on? Is that the audience? Is it you? Is it me? It's certainly not anyone under 35. They believed that there was this untapped audience of people who were turned off by

the polarization in news. And whereas Jeff Zucker explicitly tried to take audience away from MSNBC, that they believed that there was an audience of regular people out there who were sick of it all. Sick of hearing about Trump 24 hours a day, sick of hearing about all the grievances you hear on Fox News all day, and that there was a down-the-middle audience.

Turns out, at least from the numbers we see so far, that audience either doesn't exist or they are not looking to CNN to fill that void because they are getting their butt kicked. Some nights, CNN loses to Newsmax, which is the fringe writer than Fox News network. Right. That's crazy. I have one last quick look point and then we got to take a break and I want to talk about CNN and the cable bundle and all that stuff.

You know, so he's EP of Colbert and I just, as a personal anecdote, I worked for Kimmel for the first 19 months of his show and he's obviously a good friend of mine and I followed his show

and I know a lot of people on it. The host is the EP of the show. The show is going to rise or fall depending on the work ethic of the host, the way they think about stuff. And the only way those shows succeed is if the host is fucking on it. Like the days of, I don't know what Johnny Carson,

what that era was like, whether they just say it was an hour show and you smoked and you had these 12 minute interviews on the air. And I'm not sure how much thought was put into it, but the way everybody does the show now, it's got to be the host and the EPs are pretty interchangeable. And I always thought it was really insulting to Colbert and really kind of not sophisticated about late night that everybody was just like, they hired a new EP. That's why the show's ratings improved. There were a lot of different reasons for that.

One was that Trump came in. One was that Colbert got better at the job. One is that I think people got a little tired of Fallon because he was too much fluff. So just crediting like, oh, the EP who turned around Colbert, I always thought that was really disingenuous. What did you think as you were watching that? I agree and disagree a little bit because there was an absolute inflection point on Colbert

where he turned it around. You know, the equivalent of the Jay Leno, Hugh Grant interview where struggling and then that happens. And then all of a sudden he just goes on an incredible run. And that happened with Trump. When Trump became a in like Colbert. And that did coincide with Chris Licht being there. Now, I don't think that he was the architect

of that shift in strategy. I think you could have been the EP and the same thing would have happened. But you do look at his track record and he did something on Morning Joe where he had those anchors lean into what made them popular. And it was the banter. It was their, we now know, sexual chemistry between Joe and Mika, who ended up getting married.

It's a great chemistry. Yeah. But he did the same thing on CBS this morning with Gayle King. They really leaned into building that show around her and her personality. And that's what he gets credit for on Colbert. Because if you looked at those early Colbert episodes of Late Show, he kind of wasn't himself. He wasn't doing the character anymore, but he hadn't really found what the Stephen Colbert of the late show was going to be. And I don't know if he found it on his own or if Licht gets some credit there,

but he was there and he has a track record. So I don't think we can say he did nothing. I mean, Kimmel would even say this. It probably took him five years to fully figure out who he was on a late night show. And for Colbert, he went from playing a character to being himself, which is, you know, they also had a shitload of hype. And, you know, when the show wasn't great coming out of the gate, it was like, oh, shit, is this a disaster? What's going on? So he fixed it.

Especially for those of us who love Colbert Report. And you're like, oh, okay, great. It's Stephen Colbert as we knew him. And it was definitely no all right take a break and we'll come back I'm going to talk CNN big picture when you ride transit please be safe yeah be safe because what you do others will do too others will do it too so don't it too. So don't take shortcuts across tracks. Don't do that. In fact, just don't walk on tracks at all. Not at all. Trains move quietly, so you won't hear them coming. You won't hear them coming. See?

Safe riding sets an example. Yeah. An example for me. Because safety is learned. It's learned. Okay. Give it up. Give what up? Really? Really, really. Ugh. This message is brought to you by Metrolinks. RBC Avion Visa lets you get there your way. Whether you want to...

Suit up for peak ski season. Or... Spring break with the whole fam. And a whole lot of sunblock. Or even... Book last minute and go on a whim. Choose from over 130 airlines on last minute or peak season travel with no points hike. Switch to RBC Avion Visa and get up to 55,000 bonus Avion points.

Limited time offer, conditions apply. Visit rbc.com slash Avion. It's a bigger picture question for me with CNN, where it's like, how can CNN get back? What's their next move? How do they evolve? There's this era now, this collection of cable networks that really, really mattered in the 90s, in the 2000s specifically, that all seem to be really struggling right now. And I just wonder, is this MTV, Comedy Central, CNN? Do networks just have a shelf life sometimes? Maybe this is how it should have

gone for CNN. Maybe there's no saving CNN. Maybe the answer actually would have been to go even further left and kind of double down on what the perception of it was anyway. I don't know how you have a broad news network. I also don't know if a news network can matter in the same way when everybody gets their news from all these different places all day. It's just a different era. It's like Comedy Central made sense when I was in college and my buddies and I were hungover watching Saturday Night Live reruns. But now we would be watching YouTube and TikTok and all these different. YouTube is Comedy Central.

Yeah. I mean, it's a larger question of the brands that are going to survive the transition to streaming. Because most of the television brands that you and I grew up with and that we've known for the past three decades will go away. And what the big failure is in the media universe, in my opinion, is that Paramount Global, which owns MTV, Comedy Central, didn't figure out a way to transition those brands over to streaming. Why is there not a Comedy Central hub on Paramount Plus that everybody goes to for fresh new comics? And every night at 9 p.m., there's the comic of the day, or there's something that is curated and branded and feels special and urgent about Comedy Central as a brand in streaming. Same with MTV.

That brand means nothing to anyone under 35 now. And that was the biggest brand in the universe for people under 35 not that long ago, 20 years ago. And the fact that these companies were so addicted to the cable bundle money, greatest business ever created is the cable bundle because people paid for stuff that they never watched. And it caused these companies to get fat and lazy and to not mind their brands. And the brands were absolutely usurped by the digital ecosystem and they didn't do anything about it. And now it's too late. We watched this happen not just with cable channels, but other stuff we grew up with, like Sports Illustrated.

They didn't adapt to the internet, and Sports Illustrated went by the wayside. Rolling Stone was another one, where Rolling Stone was the epicenter of music for a while there, and then got supplanted by MTV and never figured out fully what their role was. And then that moment kind of ended like this happens. Sometimes you can have a 10, 15, 20 year run as a network or as like whatever you're trying to do. And it moves on. I think what's weird to me about CNN is I, even as three, four years ago, it felt like it had a specific piece of territory that still mattered to some people, right? And whether they went too far in one direction with it and they could have dialed it back, whether they weren't breaking

new talent, which I think is probably the fairest criticism you can have, their inability to find kind of new up-and-comers that they could build around. But I still feel like out of all the cable channels we're talking about, that's the one that probably should have stuck around, especially because there's Fox News over here, whatever Newsmax is going to end up being. There seems like there should be an alternative channel to those, right? The challenge for CNN in the digital world is that the revenue and the cable subscription fees are tied to that channel. CNN Plus, which in theory is a good idea, have CNN for the streaming bundle. Great. They couldn't put the CNN programming on CNN Plus. It had to be different because the cable providers require that CNN be a cable-only product.

So that really ties their hands because all of the resources are plugged into CNN. You ended up having Jake Tapper host a book club on CNN Plus. Like, who the hell wants to watch Jake Tapper talking about books? You want to watch Jake Tapper talking about politics and news. And that was exclusive to CNN. So they did have their hands tied there. I mean, there was probably a workaround, probably a way to get around that and a way to work out deals. But it requires investment and sacrifice.

And still to this day, the carriage fees that CNN makes from the cable providers are the bulk of the revenue that they're still getting paid, even though the number of cable cord cutters has skyrocketed and the revenue is not the same. It's still pretty significant. And it's just hard. It's hard to get around that. You know, you mentioned the content thing about who wants to watch Jake Tapper talking about books. ESPN plus went through this the last five, six years where

they're trying to program all this like talk content on ESPN plus and these interview shows and none of them work, but you know, what works is I want to watch, you know, the lacrosse Ivy League quarterfinals are going to be on on a Saturday at 9 a.m. And ESPN Plus has them. Cool. Like it's almost like it's like the super niche service of all time

plus a library for, you know, the games that they're showing in 33rd. That's kind of the answer. And I think they belatedly realized that. Well, and they're going to slowly transition more and more major sports over to that platform as they kind of dip their toe into going all in on direct-to-consumer.

Right. And that's where they're going to land. I think that's so much harder for CNN where people watch CNN because it's like, oh, I'm in the kitchen. I'm making dinner. I put it on. Or, oh, I'm in the kitchen, I'm making dinner, I put it on, or, oh, I want to see what they're talking about. To actually just go to a streaming service to watch talk content, I still haven't really

seen it work that well. But this leads to the second piece of this, which, you know, there was a really good piece, I think, Wall Street Journal or Vulture, Joe Adelian wrote it? Yeah, Vulture. Vulture. Just about like, is this a moment right now with streaming going one way or the other? And you can feel it in the markets. You can feel it with people cutting back, moving budgets to 2024 and 2025 or chopping budgets.

We're just at the end of the line of this crazy era that started, I don't know, maybe 2017, where all of a sudden the prices for TV shows, for movies, for docu-series, for documentaries, they just went fucking nuts. And now it's like, not only is it done, but nobody even knows how to explain what happened. And this has happened in other worlds, where there's tech places, even a place like The Athletic that just was like, we're going to lose $50 million a year until somebody buys us. And it worked.

But now that stuff doesn't work anymore. And I think in Hollywood, combined with the writer's strike, I don't ever remember a time like this since I've been out here, where people are like, we literally don't know what's going to happen now. Yeah. It turns out 500 scripted shows a year, not feasible. There's not enough people to watch that. Almost 600. It was 599 dramas they said last year.

How is that possible? And there's a lot of parallels. The banking crisis, the housing bubble in 2007, 2008. Turns out that letting people who make $50,000 a year buy million-dollar houses with no money down, not a good idea. And it's the same thing. There was this run-up where the stock market had decided that subscriber growth at these streaming services was the all-important metric, and whoever could get to 500 million subscribers first was going to be the winner. So everybody poured money into these stocks

like Netflix and then Disney saying, just do what you got to do to get to those subscribers. Doesn't matter how much money you lose. This is an amazon.com situation where you will lose money for a decade. And then all of a sudden, you'll be the best business that ever lived. And turns out that's not the reality.

So we've lost, it feels like we're losing Showtime. It's already got. Showtime's moving into Paramount and they're kind of merging. It'll become a tile on Paramount Plus. It'll, you know, maintain a little bit of its autonomy,

but ultimately Showtime is not going to be a brand that really translates over to the streaming universe, which is a shame. Showtime 10, 12 years ago, it wasn't beating HBO, but it was like winning a couple of 10, nine rounds, you know, where it was like, Hey, Showtime get frisky working with good people. And they, they had, they took boxing from HBO. They were spending a shitload on documentaries they were winning emmys yeah yeah they had a nice run there but ultimately showtime is another paramount global property the investment level was not there they were never going to

compete with hbo and they ultimately did not they weren't able they weren't able to keep that run going so you have them you have peacock which i don't think Peacock knows what it is. Like there's a Pete Davidson show. My daughter started watching. It's actually a pretty good show. It had Joe Pesci's in it. Edie Falco. Um, they, they, Steve Buscemi was in an episode. I watched the first three with her. It was like, it's a good show. I didn't even know it was on. Yeah. They just put, they just put an episode on YouTube for free, I think, to try to get younger people interested. It's just people don't go to Peacock for that reason.

The Peacock numbers have been growing and it's sort of unclear. We just did on the town. We did our winners and losers of the first half of the year. And Lucas, my counterpart on Monday, picked Peacock because they've had some growth. And he said they're a winner.

I'm not totally convinced that Peacock is a winner right now because, you know. What does winning mean though in 2023? If you're spending like a jillion dollars and you're just losing money every year, but it's like our subscribers went up a little bit. Is that a win? I mean, they think so because Peacock is, first of all, US only, and it's at about 20-something million subscribers. They've got to grow that scale in order to be in the game. And they have benefits. They have Sunday Night Football. You don't have to subscribe to cable to watch Sunday Night Football anymore.

You can watch Peacock. The Universal movies go directly to Peacock. You can watch those after 45 days, which for people with kids, the Minions movies being on Peacock is that's value. Now, those movies also go to Netflix later. So if you're willing to wait a little bit, you can still see them. But Peacock does serve a function. I just don't know ultimately if it's going to be one of the three or four streaming services that survives all of this turmoil. Yeah, to be fair and to be clear, I like all of these streaming services. I go to Peacock. I like Peacock.

I just thought it was funny that Pete Davidson, who was white hot, who is a huge deal. There's still a piece missing when some of these shows launch on a streamer versus like if pete davidson was on 9 30 if he was in the barry slot on hbo now it's not like barry has gangbuster ratings either but at least i feel like it'd be like oh pete davidson he's got a show on hbo but you would think thing you would think it's better if it was on hbo that's the value of a brand it's like a jedi mind trick right yeah it's like that because they have established a certain level of quality and taste. I'm going to assume the show is good until I'm proven wrong or I'm disappointed by it. But yeah, the point on the Davidson thing is just, there's so many shows, these things can come and go. And if like you're

me, you're caught up in the NBA playoffs and my, you know, my daughter graduated high school last week. I'm doing nine things. I'm like, I didn't literally didn't even know Pete Davidson premiered a show. I feel like that era is going to be over. There's going to be less shows, less content. You and Lucas have talked a lot on the town about how many streamers we're going to ultimately end up with, who's winning, who's losing, who would you bet on? It looks like Disney's going to get Hulu. It'll be a tile it'll likely be a tile on disney plus just like star is a tile on

disney plus around the world and people will just have to pay a little extra for it at first maybe they'll bundle it in for a higher price and then try to push you into an ad supported tier but yeah hulu i think ultimately will get bought out from comcast and will be a disney property wholly owned so do the is the theory that these people have so much content at this point that a we have the writer's strike that you know they they have the content banked but at some point that's going to become an issue but if you're these places that are losing money hand over fist my fear with the writer's strike is that they're, are they going to look at it and go, eh, maybe not a bad thing for us not to hemorrhage money for nine months

here. Oh, well, they're already saying that. I mean, I hear it all the time. I know, but do we believe that though? Cause I don't know if that's a ploy or they believe it. I don't know about nine months, but I believe it for three or four months that the ability of these studios to kind of hit the brakes a little bit and be like, whoa, what are we doing there? We got a little over our skis. Like maybe shouldn't have had that third martini and greenlit those five Star Wars shows that, you know, are going to cost $100 million each and not going to add that many subscribers to Disney Plus. So, you know, I think that that's going to happen. They will also be able to get out of some of these onerous deals. I mean, the story in Hollywood over the past five years has been these record deals that creators have been getting,

three, $400 million for some of these people like Ryan Murphy and Shonda Rhimes that, you know, it's hard to quantify that stuff, but for the most part, they haven't worked out. I thought the most interesting, or one of the most interesting things in that Joe Adelian piece was Shane Ryan, who once upon a time did The Shield, but now did The Night Agent, which is a show I watched.

I liked it. It was, you know, in that kind of 24 universe. And I think it was really popular. It trended for- Number one on Netflix. Yeah, for two weeks, it felt like it was in the number one. And he was basically saying like, everybody, the numbers are this. It's like six and a half million streams.

If you translate this in the 1995 version of whatever, this is the biggest show on TV. And yet I had no upside in it. And he's like, I'm doing fine. But if you're just removing my upside for a show that I work on to become this massive hit, what are we doing? It's almost like playing, having an NBA and just not having the playoffs

and people just play some games and then they disappear. It was an interesting take. I hadn't really thought of it that way. How do you measure success if they're buying up your upside before you even do the show? Well, that's why these writers are on strike. They want a success metric built in

to the streaming model. And the streamers don't want that because they have said from the beginning, they are not advertising driven. So they are not, you know, viewership driven. They have a different way of monetizing via subscribers. Now that's changed because now they do for the most part have advertising models. But the other thing here is, um, you know, they want to be able to feel proud and have a profit motive in making something great i mean i had jason blum the producer on my on uh the town guy yeah and he

was talking all about this and he didn't say it this way he wrote a new york times piece too but he's basically saying that you try less hard when you are bought out at the beginning. And he tries harder on his movies when he has the incentive to make it great and make profit on the back end. Well, if only I hadn't known any Spotify things like this, you know, he didn't quite say that, but I think that's what he's thinking.

And that's what Sean Ryan seems to be thinking. Like if he's going to have upside when the night agent becomes this huge hit, then he's going to try a little bit harder to make it great. Yeah, you're increasing the mail it in potential. Exactly. Is what you're really doing,

especially if you're overpaying somebody. And what we've seen in this peak TV era of 600 shows, there's a lot of stuff that's mailed in. A lot. We've also seen it in audio, Matt Bellany. What are you saying? Not the town, of course. Not the town.

You do not mail it in, my friend. Now, I think this is all going to shake out in a way that nobody can predict, that has no kind of parallel in the history of entertainment. I have no idea how many channels we're going to end up with, how many shows we're going to end up with. Because you could make the case we have way too many shows, right? If we have 599 dramas, that's just too many shows. 15 years ago, there were were 200 are we going to go back to that and if we do what's the ramification for the entire entertainment ecosystem now a lot of these shows that we talk about have very small episode orders they're 6 8 10 episode shows and in

the past they were 13 or even 22 episode shows. But if we go back to an ecosystem of 200 shows, a lot of people are going to be unemployed. Right. So MeTV in LA, Channel 6, for people listening, they show White Shadow at seven o'clock every day, which is great. It's just a great way to have coffee every once in a while with Coolidge and coach and the gang. Um, but they have the next show is it's, it's the show called family at six it's white shadow at seven. And then it's crazy. Like a Fox with Jack Ward and eight o'clock. And I was like, crazy, like a Fox. I don't remember this one. So I Googled it and it was a top 20 show in like 1985. It had 20 million people watching Crazy

Like a Fox. I didn't even know what the show was, Jack Worden. And you think like it's, at some point, are you trying to keep stuff alive that just doesn't exist anymore? Like the 1990s and the 2000s, where if you got a comedy that lasted 10 years and then it got syndicated for another 10 years and you just got to make money in all these different ways from it. I don't think that air exists anymore. So how do you compensate the showrunners correctly when that whole syndication,

when a lot of shows aren't going to go 10 seasons, how do you compensate them for success? I don't think the streamers and the networks know. And if they do know, they're not going to tell us. Well, that's the key. They do know. They know exactly. Oh, you think they do know? They know the moment you watch through an episode of Wednesday and turn it off or pause it to see what star just showed up. They know everything about your consumption habits. They just don't want to share it. The greatest con that Netflix ever pulled on

Hollywood was overpaying people to not share data. That has changed the entire television model. And Netflix got away with it because they said, oh, here, I'm going to dangle some money in front of you. You're going to get paid as if this is a hit. We're going to take your quote and we'll give you 10, 15% on top of that quote. And everyone said, great. The agents were like, great. I can make my numbers this year. Now here we are 10 years, 15 years later. And people are saying, oh shit, we don't know anything about these shows. We don't know who's watching. We don't know what's a hit. We don't know that I created Wednesday for you. And this thing is, is throwing off hundreds of millions of dollars

in revenue for you because it's generating tons of subscribers, I get nothing out of that. That's what people are starting to talk about today. And I think it's going to really change if the number of shows comes down and if Netflix starts not paying some of these overages and buyouts, people are going to say, okay, well, wait a second. I want my money on the backend now. Or if you're going to sell ads against my show, I want a piece of that revenue. Yeah.

And so here's an idea that can't work. So let's say Netflix says, hey, Shane Ryan, you're making The Night Agent. If you're number one on Netflix, we'll give you a $5 million bonus. If you last in the top 10 for 10 days, that's another $10 million or whatever. Be like, okay, that sounds cool.

Now that's a way to reward. Is that auditable? Because remember, those are Netflix's own numbers. That is not Nielsen. So that's my point. A, I have no idea how they come up with the top 10. B, they can kind can finagle the top 10 based on what they promote on Netflix. If they want the night agent to be number one, when I go to Netflix, hey, and people will find it anyway. And that's the thing. Nobody trusts any of this. They don't trust the data. They don't trust the rankings. Not one piece of it. So I don't know. I mean, it's not like podcasts can... The Apple charts can be game. All you have to do on the show charts is post...

We did five episodes of the town every day. Guess what? The Town would be like a top 50 show on Apple because they do total audience, not audience by show. But we wouldn't do that. Yeah, it varies a lot. And there are a lot of these different companies that have popped up that purport to do streaming ratings and that have various metrics. There's a demand metric of what people want.

I don't trust that at all. Nielsen does a streaming ratings where they talk about minutes viewed. But obviously, that skews towards shows metric of what people want. I don't trust that at all. Nielsen does a streaming ratings where they talk about minutes viewed, but obviously that skews towards shows with a lot of different episodes. It skews towards movies that are longer than an hour and a half. And Netflix has said that the Nielsen ratings are not completely accurate and it's only us so there's a lot of different ways that this stuff can be counted and monetized and it's just become impossible because as many flaws as nielsen had in the tv era it was the one accepted metric that all the advertisers used and thus all the tv

networks used people have been cheating this shit forever. I remember when pagination was happening in websites. And I remember Sports Illustrated was saying Peter King's column had 3 million readers, but it was split into five parts. So it was 600,000 readers five times. And that's what they were selling advertisers to for like a year. And then the advertiser's like, wait a second. people have always tried to cheat these numbers rankings whatever and then eventually people catch on and they move to another thing well nielsen used to be you'd write down what you watched in the old days of the nielsen family you'd literally have to keep a diary and like it obviously it skewed against the more embarrassing shows like if you were watching survivor or real world or whatever and didn't want to admit it to a nielsen pollster maybe you just

don't write down that you were watching real world and that hurt that show and now at least it's automated and and they can tell who's watching what but it only a few years ago they weren't even counting out of home viewing yeah so like only a few years ago, they weren't even counting out of home viewing. So sports in bars and restaurants, they weren't even counting that. The only thing we know for sure is that football wins. Football beats everything. Just have football. Football, what was that stat? It was like 98 of the top 100 sports programs were football. 92 of the top 100 broadcasts were sports last year. And I think football was more than half of them. If you include college, way more than half of them.

Unbelievable. Until the Saudis buy the NFL. Yeah, you want to give us your 30-second take on that? Is golf the last one that the Saudi money comes in on? I think the government, the US government gets involved here. It does not pass regulatory review. This is an easy issue for all these senators to line up against because who are their constituents? Old people.

What old people love? Golf. And the notion that the Saudis are now controlling the PGA Tour will not sit well. And I think this gets blocked. Yeah, that was the one thing I wish we had gone, House and Nathan and I last night, I wish we had gone harder into that.

It's like, because we talked about the antitrust stuff and the more you read last night and today, it was like, oh shit. Yeah, this actually might not even happen. Hey, you're doing a great job with the podcast. I love having it. shit. Yeah, this actually might not even happen. Hey, you're doing a great job with the podcast. I love having it. Who knows? There might be some Puck ringer announcements down the road in the next couple of weeks. You never know with us. You just never know these days. Yes. And you can also get my newsletter. If you go to the town, there's a link to get a

discount on my Puck newsletter. Oh, an essential newsletter. Good to see you, Matt. Thank you. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Jacoby and Wilds. Thanks to Matt Bellany. Thanks to Craig Horlbeck filling in for Nephew Kyle tonight. New Rewatchable is coming, I think, on Friday as well. And I will see you on this feed on Sunday night with Priscilla. Enjoy the rest of the week. Go Kyle. On the wayside On the first side of the river I'm saying I don't have to do it again

Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit fando.com slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, or Virginia. 1-800-NEXTSTEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 in Arizona.

888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. 809 with it in Indiana. 800-522-4700 or visit ksgamblinghelp.com in Kansas. 877-770-STOP in Louisiana, 800-327-5050, or visit mahelpline.org slash problem gambling in Massachusetts. Visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland, 877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York, 800-522-4700 Wyoming or 1800gamber.net in West Virginia.