The Bill Simmons Podcast - NBA “Too Soon?” With Joe House and Kyle Mann, Plus the Struggling Grizzlies and Week 9 NFL Picks With Chris Vernon

Episode Date: November 3, 2023

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Joe House and J. Kyle Mann to ask some NBA questions: "Is it too soon to say the Knicks need to trade Julius Randle?" "Is it too soon to panic about the Heat?" "Is it too soon to say the Thunder might be a top-five team in the West?" And more (2:32). Then, Bill talks with Chris Vernon about the 0-5 Grizzlies (1:12:38) before bouncing some NFL bets off of him and making the Million-Dollar Picks for NFL Week 9 (1:26:26). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Joe House, J. Kyle Mann, and Chris Vernon Producer: Kyle Crichton The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming, please checkout theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, a little game at NBA 2 soon. Plus, I'm going to try to save million-dollar picks next. 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 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. 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 at 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 in 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 sportsbook. 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, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I put up a new Rewatchables on Monday. We did The Omen, me and Chris Ryan.

Chris Ryan and I also went on the Prestige TV podcast this week and we did a Hall of Fame episode. We covered the pilot of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Aaron Sorkin's show about basically SNL, starring Matthew Perry. And it's a really great Matthew Perry performance and really an awesome pilot. I was shocked by how good the pilot was.

Show tailed off after that, but we had fun talking about it. So you can check that out on the Prestige TV podcast feed. We have some shows coming up on that feed as well. Nathan Fielder has a new show we're going to be covering now.

We're going to be covering The Crown. So bookmark the Prestige TV podcast. Hey, how about this? We're going to be doing a live podcast in Las Vegas before the NBA in-season tournament semifinals. The semifinals are Thursday. Our live podcast is going to be

Wednesday, December 6th at Jimmy Kimmel's Comedy Club. The show starts at 8 Pacific. Doors open at 7. We're going to have the Real Ones podcast, Raja and Logan with KOC. And then it's going to be me and Rosillo and almost definitely a special guest.

So tickets will go on sale on Friday at 10 a.m. Pacific time. And if you want to grab your tickets, here's how easy it is. You can go to Jimmy Kimmel's comedy club.com. Once again, Jimmy Kimmel's comedy club.com. Jimmy Kimmel heard he was a decent guy. Be interesting if he's there. Maybe we'll run into him. Yeah. Live show. We are, we're going to do a bunch of fun stuff in Vegas for the in-season tournament. We'll be talking about it in a second.

We're going to play a little NBA too soon with J Kyle Mann and Joe house and cover as many teams as we possibly can. And then our guy, Chris Vernon from the mismatch, he's going to tell us what the hell is going on with the own five Memphis Grizzlies. And he's going to do a million dollar picks with me because good Lord, I need mismatch. He's going to tell us what the hell is going on with the own five Memphis Grizzlies. And he's going to do a million dollar picks with me because good Lord, I need the help.

It's all next. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, we're taping this Thursday afternoon. It is before the Thursday night games. So if anything happens in the Thursday night games, don't blame us. J. Kyle Maness here. Joe House is here. He's showing his face after he guaranteed a Washington Wizards over

in the big over-under preview pod we did. House, you can back out now. We'll give you a mulligan right now. Well, I had to come on today because I heard the podcast between you and the Cousin Sal, the Sunday Night Football podcast. I was taking strays left and right. Why am I taking strays from YouTube bums who can't get an NFL pick straight? Now, the Cuzz is doing very well. But yeah, I got the whiz

wrong. I'm here to own it. But why am I taking bullets on the football pod? I was just lashing out. I was just bitter, bitter about how my NFL season's going. You're winning. You're wearing the square bets of the week. So J. Kyle Mann. Yes. Before we're going to play a game on NBA 2 soon, but it might be a little negative, some of the NBA

2 soons. What is the thing you are most excited about this season? The thing that has delighted you to no end? I just want to start on a positive note before we start to get a little negative here. I mean, I think we had one night. The easy thing to start on a positive note before we start to get a little negative here. I mean, I think we had one night. The easy thing to say is Wimby, because

it's just non-stop cavalcade of just fun house, what the hell's going on. It's every night. I said the League Pass needs to install an update thing that just said Wimby's in, and then I can click it and just be like, all right, here we go. Or we need, I was joking with somebody about if they wanted to miss,

you want to miss the minutes of somebody you're not a fan of. Oh, I don't want to watch Dylan Brooks. Let me click off, that kind of thing. I think we had one night, I forget what night it was. It was early on, but it was just like back to back to back to back to back, like great games. And I think you and I have talked about this before, but it's just off the charts talent in the league every team is interesting there's something interesting for me to watch in every single game um it just feels like we are in

a really really accelerated period of talent in the league um which means you know we're ripe for expansion i mean that's the thing overall it feels like the league just is in a great place. Um, now there's still a chasm between like the guys you can build around and the championship level players, you know, that's still kind of there, the space at the top, but the talent, man, it's just, it's just blown me away. You know, I'm not trying to be sunshine pumper for the NBA here, but it really is true. I'm with you, House. I was watching a Portland game last night, and all of a sudden, Shaden Sharp just starts going by everybody in crunch time. And I was thinking, we're probably in the best hands we've ever been with crunch time guys this year, even the bad teams. Your beloved Wizards, at least if the game's close, you have multiple guys you can go to who can at least create a shot. I was just thinking where we were in the mid-2000s, how grisly some of those teams were. And now at least there's offense, there's unpredictability, there's heat check guys on every team. There's some real ass dudes offensively. But do you agree with Kyle about the depth? Yeah, absolutely. And I really

like his innovation with League Pass being able to customize a little a la carte selection. I think that they need to create a Shaq and a Fool channel and just put every Jordan Poole minute on the Shaq and a Fool, a dedicated channel, every night in an audition. I seriously wonder what the Washington franchise told him when he arrived. Does he think that he is auditioning for an and one mixtape? Because that's what it looks like when he's out on the basketball floor, fellas. Well, I knew this wasn't going to start out well. He probably needs to be humbled a couple of times, right, Jordan Poole? He does seem like he walked into this like there's a new big three and it's just me kind of a kind of attitude um all right let's play nba too soon we spent you had a caveat in there that was tough though bill you said you know if the game's close the wizards even have

options that was tough yeah i just i've been i've been i've been sorry i'm not trying to pick on house further here but like denny of di has just had his hands up more than Larry David. Like on an episode, he's just been over there. Like, okay, I'll disappear, I guess.

Well, he, he at least, you know, seems to believe in the concept of defense. He can't really play defense, but he believes in, in,

in, in the concept of it. Uh, but the thing that, that you were going to be looking for with Washington, they're always in it in terms of a cover. Cause they're going to be looking for with Washington, they're always in it in terms of a cover because they're going to be double-digit underdogs in the vast majority of these games.

The question is, is there a backdoor cover? They almost did it last night against the Hawks. They didn't quite pull it off. NBA too soon. I'm going to throw some too soon's at you, and we can all decide whether it's too soon or not. I'm going to start out with guns blazing. This one's hot. Fire's coming out of it. Is it too soon to say the Dame trade may have killed two contenders and created a monster third?

Let's just start there. He doesn't go to Miami. They're one in four. He goes to Milwaukee. They can't guard anybody. And then it leads to a sequence of events where drew holiday goes to the Celtics and they're averaging 180 points a game. Comment too soon to worry about this trade from the bucks, Miami sides. Oh, there are a lot of,

there are a lot of variables hanging in the air as fun as it would be to just shovel dirt as fun as it is to shovel dirt uh and jump to that conclusion i mean the big the big thing here is middleton middleton is on a minute's restriction right now if you watch them i mean they can't guard the ball at all if you read buck's twitter has been really fun to watch not in like the schadenfreude way but i mean they're mad a lot of their smartest fans are mad and i think rightfully so the things that we saw on the horizon, they kind of sold their soul a little bit for A, to please Giannis. We can talk about the Adrian

Griffin hiring here in a second. But B, the offense, the offensive side. The NBA is a plus-minus game. They were heavy on the minus. They were heavy on the half-court stifle you, but they couldn't score. They'd get to the end of the year and they tried to solve that problem by switching out know, switching out the coach. People complained about

Boone Holzer for years. I really thought that they should have hired Nick Nurse because I thought, you know, if you're going to, why not do the Frank Abbey mail with the FBI thing and go get the guy who knows who's been terrorizing us? Like, let's go get the guy who has the biggest Giannis counter book like yeah in the world let's hire that guy um but I do to to put some like let's my break pump thing would be Middleton is going to be huge for their offense to open up you're going to be able to run more three-man options he's their best and most qualified ball handler and creator and pull-up shooter um the question would be is he going to get question would be, is he going to get back to that spot? Is he going to get back to where he can do that?

And that still doesn't solve their issue of guarding the ball because if you compare them to the Celtics, there's a huge chasm between those two teams and pressuring the ball. So I would say they've been shocked. They're not electrocuted. They're not dead. So I'd say it's a little soon to say, but they still have some real, really big issues defensively to answer, in my opinion. Yeah, I would go ascending order house, things that I've noticed. I've watched three of the

Bucs games. The Middleton thing is the smallest problem because it's probably fixable as he gets back into shape. On the other hand, he is older. His body has been beaten up. He hasn't really been the same on both ends in two years. And he's a slower wing, which, you know, it's, this leads to the second, second higher thing is that Griffin is put in, in this defense where guys are scrambling around. And to me, this is a team that's going to, I think by March, probably play in a lot of zone to try to hide some stuff. Right now, they're aggressively trying to. In Toronto last night, I watched that whole game.

That game was embarrassing. Toronto had wide open threes, and they didn't make a lot of them. They actually could have scored 20 more points than they did. I think they got to like 130. They were giving up layups, transition stuff. And Milwaukee just seemed slow to me, which leads me to the first thing, which is, House, I don't know with the guys that they have. We flagged this before the season.

The wings. You just remove Dame, and you just give me all the other guards and forwards on that team that's not Giannis. And it's just a below average crew. Even if Middleton comes back and he's 100% healthy, he's the only above average guy in that entire thing other than Dame. Dame, we knew about the defense forever, right? Now we're really seeing it. And this team went from the Drew Holiday, one of the best plug and play guys in the league, as Doc said, plus just, you know, that was the one thing, their defense was pretty good,

unless it was Jimmy Butler leaving his body. And now I don't see the defense at all. And I don't know what the middle ground is going to be for them, but I actually think it's pretty alarming. And I would be alarmed if I was a Bucs fan. How are we going to get stops? The playoffs are about stops.

Do you see them getting stops in May and in June? Well, who knows? I mean, this is precisely at the guts of the challenge for the Bucs, right? They needed to, after that first round exit against Miami, show up this season and show out. They needed to demonstrate to themselves, to their fans, to the league, that that was an aberration. And instead we have an absolute work in progress.

Adrian Griffin seems to have installed a defense that would have made perfect sense with true holiday on the team, except true holidays not on the team anymore. And the Chris Middleton piece, when has Chris Middleton not been on minutes restriction? When was the last time Chris Middleton was not on a minutes restriction? And, you know, I think your point about the zone defense, you said March. Dude, it's November.

They need to do something kind of quick. Now, they're middle of the road by offensive rating. They're 29th in the league by defensive rating. That's not feasible. That's not tenable with a guy that's a defensive player of the year candidate in Giannis.

I think it really boils down to, from my humble perspective as an outsider with nothing invested, I think this Adrian Griffith thing is a real challenge. And him scaring off Stotts, Stotts picking up his ball and going home, that's a concern right there, fellas. Yes.

So you got a first-year coach who's trying to solve all this. You have a team that has completely changed its identity. And I was flagging this all summer and heading into the season. And then it's like, you're a hater. You're just mad the Celtics didn't get Dame. I'm like, I've watched Dame play defense the last few years. He's not a good defensive player. And just in general, you looked at the collection of guys they had. And I just, as we talked at the top, the league is so deep. Night after night, you're going against Trae Young and DeJounte Murray. Then you're going against Anthony Edwards. Then you're going against Tyrese Maxey.

It never ends. And if you can't guard the perimeter, I don't care how good Giannis is. So Kyle, part of me is thinking, if I had to do the running diary prediction of what each month of Bucs headlines is going to look like if this goes badly. Like right now we're in the zone of, oh man, it's just so much new. Dame got to figure out his team, give this some time, right? And then if it's starting not to look better, then it goes into, hmm, this has been a little tougher than we thought. It's been a lot for Adrian Griffin to put in his new system.

There'll be some new system talk, but no shots fired at Adrian Griffin yet. But then if we get to mid-December Christmas range and it's still not better and they still look as slow and disjointed as they have this first week or so, then it starts being like, hmm, maybe they miss Coach Bud more than we thought. And then after that, it becomes, hmm, trade deadlines coming up. What is this team missing? Now we have the whole trade deadline dialogue. And I just think there's going to be a lot of dialogue about the Bucs because there's going to be nights when Dame can hide it like he did

an opening night where he just scored a bunch of points at the end of the game and they won. But fundamentally, defensively, they give up a ton of points night after night after night. The defensive rating after five games, to me, is not totally an accident because it backs up the eye test of how slow they look. They look slow. A team with Giannis should not look slow. So that's what I see. So you still don't think it's an overreact or you think it's too early to overreact? I'm with you that I'll fast forward and be like,

my mind is already jumping to the trade deadline. I was joking with you a couple of weeks ago about like, I've been on the trade machine a lot trying to get them another guy to guard the ball. Like it's, that's, they have to address that. Because if you remember like the earlier, I'm just kind of working from that. Just, we know that,

that they're going to have to do that. If you remember in the off season, when people were just kind of looking at this on paper, they were just like, oh, transition, oh, transition. I just heard people over and over again, oh, they're going to be killed. Can you imagine in transition, transition? Well, the key to transition is that unless you have a team like a Kings team that can just get it out even after a made basket and beat you down the floor, this team ain't that.

Like you said, they're old. They are going to be a half court execution team but but for them to be more than that to capitalize on Giannis and the spacing you got to be able to like turn people over and get stops so for by them buying into the offensive thing they plugged one big hole in the ship and another one started gushing in that they're going to have to figure out how to he's going to have to figure out how to balance those two things because transition has to be triggered by defense. I'm so glad you brought up the, yeah, I'm so glad you brought up the transition piece because you're either getting off turnovers or you're just running like the Celtics. And I don't know if this is going to last. It's definitely an early season thing and

something they've worked on, but they just taking off all the time. They want to play with real pace. They're trying to do it. This is what Sacramento does. This is when Golden State's going well, they have a nice mixture of this. There's teams that do it. Then there's other teams like the Lakers that don't want to play at a pace like that because they have LeBron and AD and they kind of pick their spots when they run. For Miami, who's running on this team other than Giannis? Dame's not really a fly up and down the court guy. He's a pretty methodical player. So is Middleton.

None of their wings are really that athletic. So to me, I don't see the identity. It's like with Philly, where they have this maxi team, right? Where maxi flies. And they have a bunch of young wings now. And there's this fun team to watch. But if Embiid's not going to run, you're not a transition team. So I don't know.

It seems like a, I'm going to say work in progress house. I feel like we didn't make fun of the Bucs thing enough, like that this actually might go wrong, I think is in play now. And I don't think people felt that way two weeks ago.

Yeah, I think it was fine to be patient and wait and see. We didn't know what Adrian Griffin had and wait and see we didn't know uh what adrian griffin had up his sleeve and we didn't know there there was too many unknowns right we don't have sleeves do we don't know if you have you might not have any sleeves we've seen a lot of bad first year coaches over the last few years like it's not a slam dunk like oh they have a new coach like the nba is a really hard league to coach. House, you've had some iffy coaches over the last few years of Washington.

Like they're hard to find. We got one right now. Right. We have multiple right now, actually, across teams. Yeah. So, but then the Miami side of this, so they don't get Dame. They start out one and four

and they barely won the one game. I'm not pouring dirt on them. I'm not even going to wonder. But I do think if there's a do-over to be had with all of this and we're just like, what's the most fun

for the Eastern Conference for a competitive standpoint? It probably would have been Miami going to, Miami getting Dame, Milwaukee keeping Drew Holiday, and then the Celtics not getting Drew Holiday. And it feels like these teams would be a lot closer. What Drew is already,

what you can see with him and White together, those guys are ridiculous. And I don't even think I fully realized how good it would look right away. That's why it's so hard with Milwaukee to be like, oh, you got to give them time. Boston has two new guys out of their top five. Boston lost four of their top seven.

Right. And and they've been able to get it going right away. So I don't know. Are you worried about Miami at house too soon? Well, they are 24th by offensive rating, 17th by defensive rating, 23rd by net rating. And so, you know, you would expect their defense to be a little bit better. Their losses, they played two playoff teams and the Nets, I guess, are going to try and contend, you know, losing to the Celtics and losing to the T-Wolves at this early stage.

And no Caleb Martin for the Celtic game. Right. And that was a good game. I'm not worried about them. I did feel like they missed Max Struess, who used to just particularly kill the Celtics, but in general just wasn't scared and was a wing with size. And then you take Caleb Martin out,

and all of a sudden now your wings with size are not sizable. I also think there's a wrinkle, and I don't think it's too soon to talk about this. Tatum's bigger and he's punishing smaller guys. And it's, it's a subplot for this season. They,

I think especially as we get into the bigger games of the season or the playoff games in the playoff series, you're not going to be able to guard him with smaller guys with the weight he put on. And he's really worked on like drop step stuff, putting his shoulder down into people. Have you noticed this Kyle? Oh yeah. Are we talking Celtics now? I'm just talking Tatum. JKM, you knew the over under on how long it was going to take. We're talking Miami. We're talking the Celtics. I'm talking bigger Jason Tatum against Miami,

a team that seems smaller. Come on. No, I'm ready. I asked that because I'm ready, because I have noticed that. I'm glad that you said that, because I do think that the Celtics, in the way Drew helped them do that,

I think in bringing in Drew, it just kind of tilted their touches and kind of redistributed them a little bit. Jalen's actually, his touches are down, interestingly enough. But what I have noticed is that yet, and you and I, I think I've talked about this on different shows, about different players, that you kind of evolved to that point where you start going back to the basket. I love that quote where Doc said that he said to Tibbs early in the game when LeBron went back to the basket, he was like, uh-oh, I love that.

Right, what's this? Yeah, yeah, that was great. Because I think everybody was kind of thinking that. But I think a big thing for Tatum is he's doing that. They're all kind of cumulatively getting off the ball faster. Their ISO possessions actually are down for the Celtics. But Tatum is able to do this just because they have one through five space like they they can and a sneaky thing about this lineup is that they all

can punish mismatches and they're like the opening minutes of that pacers game they just kind of took turns like if you have a skinny team that likes to run and kind of shoot the ball a lot of times those guys are skinny and this seems older so it it was just like Derek White took his turn, Drew Holiday took his turn, but I think he just, in general, this is a problem KD had in OKC,

which, and you've heard him say it, was just like he was always playing against 1.5 defenders, and I'm not going to say that that's something Tatum can just exclusively blame trouble on,

but it definitely helps him that they have just insane space whenever they're trying to run their stuff. And you just go across the league, the best teams have that. And the Celtics really, I think, have found something here for him that's going to help him just evolve, honestly, more runway. Well, it was notable against Miami, and that was where no Caleb Barton. I want to see a game where they have him back. Miami just seems small in that game, especially with Porzingis who got into foul trouble, but he's just gigantic. House was telling us in the off season, Porzingis, he's huge. He can shoot

and you can't put a small guy on him because he'll punish the small guy. And they're already kind of experimenting with this. Wait a second, you're going to guard so-and-so with that guy? Miami had Lowry and Hero out there at the same time and with a smaller wing guy. And then it's like, all right, pick your poison. House, you made some soft jokes about Tatum, let's be honest, during the playoffs last year. You called him soft a couple of times. It's something that happened. Well, he deserved it. And he,

as the leader of a team that went on this disappearing act, uh, uh, inexplicably a number of times, basically from the all-star break through the playoffs. And there was like, you know, if,

if you're going to be the leader of the team, then you got to be, take the responsibility for the character of the playoffs. And there was like, you know, if you're going to be the leader of the team, then you got to take the responsibility for the character of the team. And Al Horford's too old to instill his tough guy kind of quiet persona. But look, man, I was all over

Tatum as potential MVP at the beginning of last year. I sang his praises coming off of that final series against Golden State and how he showed up stronger. Well, he did no one in the latter half of the year. Well, maybe you're the reason he put on 12 pounds. We don't know. He put on 12 pounds

of muscle. The combination of Chris Stops and Drew Holiday is an absolute force multiplier. You can't measure. There's not a direct link where you say, oh, it's not one plus one equals two. It's one times 15 equals 30. I mean, I can't do math,

but you understand what I'm trying to say here. That leads me to our next two soon, but we're going to take a break. Score early this NFL season with FanDuel America's number one sports book. Write down new customers, get $150 of bonus bets when your $5 money bet wins. We're going to be covering on million-dollar picks at the end of this podcast. My favorite bets for the NFL for week nine.

I'm also trying to convince them to do something with the in-season tournament where we can make a big future bet. So I'll keep you posted on that as we go. Check out my Twitter feed on Friday. We're going to do some sort of NBA same game parlay as well. FanDuel, great app. So many ways to bet. Live same game parlays.

Find bets in the new Explore tab. Parlay Hub. Got everything. Go to fanduel.com slash BS. Kick off the NFL season. In the NBA season, FanDuel, official partner of the NFL, you must be 21 plus in president-select states.

$5 pregame money line, wager required. First online real money wager, only $10 first deposit required. Bonus issue does not withdraw, but bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.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 gang's here. You're tailgating outside the stadium.

It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the 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. All right, coming back after we spent seven minutes talking about Miami, but really talking about the Celtics. Let's actually just talk about the Celtics. Brian Barrett asked me this,

and I don't know if it's too soon to ask this question, and I'm probably going to get hit by a lightning bolt and probably get sworn out by some Celtics fans. I'm not talking about the quality, the ceiling of a starting five. I'm just talking about five guys, the quality of each of them, and then the quality of the starting five. So the combo of all five guys having to be at a certain level, but then the starting five itself. If KP can stay healthy for this whole year, is this one of the best starting fives of this century? Because Barrett asked me that and I'm like, wow, that's aggressive. And then I started looking it up and you go through it. The best starting five of the century is KD and Curry and Iguodala and Draymond and Clay. That's the gold standard. You have to beat that.

Those guys won multiple titles. They didn't all start together in the 17 year, but they did in 18. And for the most part, that was their lineup at death. Then it gets dicey right away after that. You talk about some of the great lineups, like the Miami lineups. You know, Mario Chalmers was out there in crunch time.

Udonis Haslam was out there in crunch time. Nice players, but not like guys who could make an all-star team. The Detroit teams had Billups and Rashid and Wallace and Rip Hamilton and Prince and were famous for those starting fives. But there's nobody in that starting five on the level of Tatum, I don't think. The 2008-10 Celtics, Pierce, KD, Rondo, Allen, Perkins. Perkins would be the weak link in that starting lineup, right?

You go back even to 1983 when you had that great Sixers team with Andrew Toney and Julius and Moses Malone and Mo Cheeks and then it was Marco Ravarone who was the fifth guy. There's always like a weak link in the lineup.

That 08-20 2010 Celtics lineup was plus 13.3, Kyle Mann, when they played together. But then you go 01, which I think was probably the second best team of the century, the Lakers in 01. Shaq, Kobe, Horry, Rick Fox, Derek Fisher.

Tails off a little. The 2016 Cavs, LeBron, Kyrie, Kevin Love, Tristan Thompson, J.R. Smith. Those last two guys aren't ever making an all-star team. 14 spurs, Duncan, Parker, Kawhi, Danny Green. Splitter started, but Maynew finished. From a one through five standpoint, Kyle, the Celtics team's a little more unique than I think I realized. Watch then, then the eye test is like, holy shit, they have so many options. I just haven't seen a lot of this. Where do you stand?

Uh, I can't quite get there with like putting them that lineup ahead of like either of those warriors teams. I think those, I'm not either. Believe me, I'm not, no, I'm the warriors team. They're the gold standard. Sure. I'm just saying the best. I'm not either. Believe me, I'm not. The Warriors team, they're the gold standard. I'm just saying, are we ready to even have the conversation yet? Is it too soon? House is shaking its head. I can't get there. It's just like anytime you have two MVPs

in one lineup, you mentioned the Shaq-Kobe Lakers. We're talking prime players who are prime candidates for MVPs. I just think that's the top level. And, uh, well, and then also one titles, right? So that's the other way you do the rankings is like, you'd have that Warriors team one, the 08 Celtics would be in the top five, the 04 Pistons, the 01 Lakers, the 16 Cavs,

14 Spurs, those teams all won titles. And it's, it will, and then. And then it becomes the conversation shifts from can this team pull it off to we got to stop them. Both those Warriors, like all those Warriors dominant teams and those Lakers teams had that like, you know, well, the Lakers kind of had their issues as we went on.

Yeah, I mean, this team is interesting. You were shaking your head like you had something. Did you have something you wanted to say before I say? I mean, just settle the F down like come on we're four games into the god damn season. Listen it's Brian Barrett he asked me to look it up I like Brian Barrett but Jiminy Christmas

keep it in your pants son what are we talking about here? This lineup is not even smelling the jock of some of those Miami you know title contending title winning teams. It's fine. I like it. I think it's going to be fun to watch, but

four games in, congratulations. They scored 155 points against the Pacers. That's the accolade right now. Pat on the back, boys. Who do you have as their fifth worst starter, House? Who's the bottom if we're ranking the starters?

Who's five for you? Because I actually think for me, it might be Porzingis. You beat me to it. It's Porzingis. So Porzingis averaged 23 a game last year. This is the point. Yeah, for the Wizards. Come on.

I know, but this is the point. When these other great starting fives they all had like well there's Kendrick Perkins or you know there's Mario Chalmers there was always somebody who's like oh this guy's kind of lucky to be here let him play 50 games before we start covering his ass in glory 50 how about like 25 well just get him to the playoffs honestly like you could take off the next two months just get him to the playoffs that Warriors thing I I had kind of forgotten Kyle how does plus 17.7 for three straight years sound as a five-man lineup per 100 is that solid is that what we're looking for from a lot of it's pretty good I think that's that will that'll do pig I think would be it would be the quote there

yeah they were just they were just they had an inevitability about them you know and I just think It's pretty good. I think that'll do Pig, I think would be the quote there. Yeah, they had an inevitability about them. And I just think, I mean, if Tatum, we'll see. If Tatum can get to the MVP level, you'd add these two just huge sets of problems to solve. And I don't know that they're quite there. This team, in terms of how they're put together, like I was saying about they're the inverse of the problem that the Bucs have. I was watching the shot clock. That's something that I like to watch with defensive teams that

are really solid. And if you watched something with the Pacers in that game the other night, Halliburton would have helped, but I was watching them routinely. The Pacers would get into their offense at around the 16 or 15 second mark. And then you start to think, okay, well, really good defensive teams can guard the first action pretty well and talk. And then you get into a situation where, you know, that takes about six or seven seconds.

And then you have a couple seconds to have some guy make a decision, pull something out of his ass. If you have a team with like some creators, those are the best teams that can do that. They are going to, my point is they are going to routinely stress teams to that point. And then it becomes a conversation of like, okay, over a hundred possessions, how many good decisions are you going to be able to make when the clock is bearing down on you and you're sweating to make a good decision? That's where they're going to wear people out.

And I, but, and to flip it towards the pessimism that like house is talking about, you know, they're going to be, they're going to be, they themselves are going to be stressed a little bit more by the schedule. I do want to see some more,

you know, of their contests against, against some of the better teams in the league before we like circle back and just kind of dial in what our expectations are. But yeah, they're going to wear people out defensively. House, I wanted to enjoy this moment right now because as you know, Porzingis might not make it to December. So right now, this theoretical on paper Celtics starting five, the thing that has been really interesting and it was what I was hoping was going to happen,

but you can really see it is White and Holiday together, how great it is. You know, like Doc was saying, and I forgot to follow up with him. He was saying how Drew was one of the five best plug-and-play guys in the league. And then he said Derek White was too. And you can really feel it. Like, they don't really need any touches,

but if you give them, if they have to do something, they can absolutely do it. They can guard anybody. You can see it on the looks of the guards of the other teams where they're just like, fuck, I got this guy and there's this guy over here. And for Porzingis, it's perfect because he gets to do a lot more rim protection and stuff than having to be stuck on somebody 30 feet from the basket. I think as the season goes along, teams are going to be trying to really try to go at him,

try to figure out how to get him in a switch and stuff that house watched last year on the Wizards. Good luck, though. I mean, this is the thing. Those two guys are excellent decision makers. That's what it takes so much pressure off of everybody else

in terms of what's the right play here? What's the right, uh, action here. Where am I going? It just, and, and, and, you know, Porzingis, uh, got switched into, uh, an uncomfortable position quite a bit with Washington because there's no such thing as a good decision maker with, with, with that team last year or with this team this year. But, you know, those guys, they cover up so much because of their instinct. The basketball IQ part of it just fills so many holes. It's, you know, it's formidable. I'm willing to concede that. It's been an absolute delight.

And again, this might be the highlight of the season these first two weeks, but it reminded me of Lombardi was saying on my podcast the other day about he loves when teams double down on their strength and the Celtics double down on this Derek White strength they had with Drew, who's in a lot of ways, like almost like a better Derek White. And the two of them together,

it's just, they're just being unleashed. It's really fun. All right, let's do a goofy let's do a goofy too soon. Is it too soon to say that Daryl Morey's commissioned James Harden portrait is the worst purchase of the last five years?

Did you read that article? The Ramona Shelburne article? He commissioned an artist to make this really... So all that's fine. Why is it in his living room? They made a point of saying like it's in his living room.

Why? Put that thing somewhere like it has to be it's i'm that's going right a lot of rooms it could go in other than the living room that's all i'll say what do you think kyle is that going in the attic or the basement oh i miss i was thinking it was a mural yeah i missed the part that it was hanging the reading comprehension there. Yeah, I don't know where you would put that one. I don't think my wife would let me hang that to begin with. I was laughing that, I don't have any say in what gets hung in our house to begin with, but I trust her judgment to clarify.

But I was laughing at like, he repeatedly is just committing, that's Daryl's way. And that's Daryl's way of sort of appreciating or just expressing. He had a play, he produced a play that was like about the small ball, the micro ball rockets. Uh, he, and then he, the, I thought that the, the second portrait of like,

I thought I could do it alone was just as strange like that. Like the one painting I thought was funny. Just Daryl repeatedly commissioning art was likeing art was cracking me up during that piece. I'm curious what the next one's going to be. I don't know. Is there going to be an art installation? I love how weird Daryl is. I support it fully.

I don't know if I would have told Ramona about my two portraits. Might have kept that one under my hat. He put them on Instagram. He IG'd it himself. I guess he did. I don't know if I would have done that either. Which is fine.

I understand the psychology of my professional career has built off of this. I want to commemorate this. At some point in this attic, I'll get up some posters of all the podcasts in the Rigger Podcast Network and Grantland that I've invited myself

onto all of these years you know i'll cover all these walls with it you know because it is a a point of of pride for sure but like the the idea that uh it needs to be featured in a prominent place in the home that it's the thing that people walk into when you're when you're hosting when you're when you're when you have other you know with guests and stuff that feels a little out of order with me now i do understand the musical because daryl is nothing if not an appreciator he loves the arts of the broadway yes exactly right a known appreciator of the broadway so that good good autumn with that piece but you can't have why would somebody want to come in your house and see James Harden?

House, you should commission a portrait of Raheem Palmer to commemorate the successful season of Wise Guys. Tecto color Raheem Palmer. Just put him right in the living room. I love it. I love, I support weird GMs. I love how weird Sam Presti is. Like he just has to get out on every train

and say, wait, you're trading James Harden? Can I get a pick swap out of this instead of my mediocre first round pick? All right, next too soon. Is it too soon to say the Knicks absolutely 100% have to trade Julius Randle? Like if this is an emergency code red,

we have to get rid of this guy. I don't know if you followed not only the game last night and his performance in that, but the Knicks fans now have moved into a whole other level of being anti-Julius. The playoffs really got it going last year. Then it turned out he was hurt, but now

he's back. He looks miserable again. House, is it just like this? The answer is it's too late. It ain't too soon. It's too late. Did you watch what happened last year? The Knicks fans were ready to run Julius Randle out of town in March of last year before the playoffs got going.

The playoffs did not help his case any. And they for sure, every Knicks fan that I know was trying to come up with a way to get Julius Randle off this team in the offseason. Not running out the ball and letting it, you know, let this Knicks team get out here. You know, Villanova North that they got going there. And it's a successful bit of chemistry, except for they got this one oddball potion that's dragging the whole thing down, Kyle. I don't know they what are they gonna do they gotta get rid of them in some form or fashion this has been the thing with him since

he was here since he played for the kentucky team that like sucked the whole year and then just all of a sudden they kind of got it together and made a run of the title game it was like we were frustrated with him we were he's and it's just been this kind of like mercurial up and down thing like i a good a good microcosm of this is last year we did the top 100 i was the last person to i missed the email where we went through and picked who we're going to write the blurbs about so thanks a lot in retro i just want to say retroactively to my fellow ringer writers who left me with kyle kuzma and Randall. And I appreciate that. Anyway, I went back. Kuz is good. I will say, though, it was an incredible, like, writing exercise.

It challenged me. But anyway, I know Randall's game. I've watched him a lot. I think the big, and one of the things was, though, over the course of the year, this is just him in a nutshell. He, I wrote an initial blurb that was pretty scathing. I was pretty critical of him. I wrote this thing about this guy has all these tools,

but he is sort of at war with himself. There's a little Russ energy where it's like he insists on playing this one way, but then you'll see him be like, oh, he's good. He's quick in face-ups. He's a decent screener. He's actually not a bad passer when he's interested in it. But then he gets in these modes where he's obsessed with being a heavy usage guy who steps into tough shots,

doesn't always attack the basket, plays to his weaknesses. And then, you know, and he'll play good for a little bit. And I messaged Justin. I was like, hey, should I rewrite this? And then he was like, yeah, just wait and see. And sure enough, he regressed. Like, I just think he's at the point, he's at an inflection point where it's a very rusty type thing where it's like he has things to offer. I don't know if any, who is going to convince him to like change, you know? So like, I do think that like, it probably is going to help New York really hot take there.

You know, he shoot 25% from three, 13.2 points per game in 34 minutes. They're going to have to make a change. It's rough. We saw this coming, unfortunately. $28 million this year, $30.3 next year, $32.4 player option million

the following year. He was a trade value guy for me that I ended up putting on because as I was figuring out the list, he was playing well. And the Knicks fans are, you know, Randall's playing well and he's durable. Like there's, there's good things about him too, right? He's been a 24 and 10 guy, a couple of years in a row. He, by the way, I'm, I'm now the Knicks GM trying to sell another GM on Randall. 24 and 10 guy, a couple years in a row. I was like, what the hell's going on?

He's made an all NBA team twice in the last three years. Like that's not nothing. He's been the best guy or the second best guy in a couple of playoff teams. So I don't know if this is, you know, like some of our terrible, when we did our worst contracts draft last year, this isn't like trying to get rid of Ben Simmons. like some of our terrible, when we did our worst contracts draft last year, house,

this isn't like trying to get rid of Ben Simmons. It's he's clearly somebody who might need to change the scenery. I think the problem for them is I thought towns was going to be the natural place for him and towns and go bear. It wasn't going to go well. And Minnesota is going to be like, fuck, we got to get out of this deal. We got four years left.

The last year of it ends with a six, 61 million. Let's get out now. But then you watch Minnesota and it's like, I actually wouldn't do anything if I was Minnesota. They beat up on Denver. They're the only team in the league that's not afraid of Denver. And in general, they're a weird team that I'm not sure it makes sense, but I also would not even consider doing anything yet if I were them. I don't really know what other outs they have. And I don't, the league is deep. Who's sitting around going, oh man, can't wait to add three years of Julius Randle. They might be stuck with them unless, you know, there's some, some other unhappy guy that becomes available. Like if the Bulls, that thing goes South and one of those guys,

but I, I actually think they're stuck with them, Kyle. I don't think there's any outs. So they just better hope he plays better. They think of anything, they should come out and say, you know what? Julius has taken some shit. He's our guy. Fuck off. We're not trading him. We believe in Julius, but it's tough when he's, you know, not even running hard and not boxing out and doing some of the stuff he's been doing. Yeah, he does seem to let one side of the ball affect the other side of the ball. I just really think with some of these guys that have a hard time buying in and just sort of changing their game,

they kind of need to go into one of those extreme accountability situations. I always think of DeMarcus Cousins as a guy that repeatedly had problems throughout his career. And then he gets with the Warriors who have a strong structure and strong accountability. And he kind of behaved, basically. He basically played ball with them. I think he's more talented than Randall when he was hurt. I don't know. I was thinking about the Hornets are a weird team that I just think, I don't know. I was thinking about like the Hornets are a team,

a weird team that I could see that maybe don't totally know where they're going. Like they're a team that like could use a big with like some connective ball skills. I know they, you know, they have some problem problems with some of their players right now. They could be some,

an opportunity for them to go. I was just thinking randomly about the Hornets the other day, but that's, he's going to have to get in a situation like that that's going to influence him to play differently, honestly, because I think he's hurting himself with his insistence

on playing the way he plays. I don't want to step on the Grizzlies segment I'm going to do a little bit later with Chris Vernon before we do Million Dollar Picks. Are the Grizzlies a bad idea for Julius Randle? As we're taping this, the Grizzlies a bad idea for Julius Randle?

Like as we're taping this, the Grizzlies are 0-5. Put him next to Jaron Jackson. They're last in offense right now. They still have 20 more games to go with Ja. And could they just kind of steal him for not that much? Like that was the only team.

By the way, I don't even think they should. But that was the only team I By the way, I don't even think they should, but that was the only team I was thinking could maybe talk themselves into him in the contract as like a, what the fuck? And then hope Memphis gets him going. Yeah, I was looking out west for sure because I honestly

think he would be incredible in Miami, except for the Knicks are not going to trade him to Miami to let him come kick them in the ass. But I think he would be, that would be a situation where he could really flourish. But I don't think the Grizzlies is a terrible idea because I went

to the Wizards home opener and the one thing, watching the Wizards and the Grizzlies go up against each other, I didn't fear one guy on the Grizzlies as a potential scorer. I mean, Desmond Bain is nice and he did indeed get hot

and the Wizards gave him every open three look they could imagine. And the Grizzlies did battle all the way back and get it inside of 10 points in the last minute and a half. But I feared no one in terms of an offensive presence. And I think his combo ability,

the biggest pressure there would be can Taylor Jenkins reign him in? Can they come up with a lineup that makes the most sense for him? I don't think Julius Randle to the Grizzlies is crazy talk, though. Here's what Verno's going to say when I ask him about it when he comes on.

Fuck no! We aren't trading for Julius Randle! What the hell, Simmons? He is going to say that. You're absolutely right. Let's take one more break and then a couple more for you. This episode is brought to you by Movember.

The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November.

Sign up now. Just search Movember. At Pennzoil, we have one job, pioneering a motor oil so advanced you don't have to think about your motor oil. Instead, you can think about how your engine sounds, how your stomach feels as the RPMs build, how your wheels hug the curves, and how with the Pennzoil Platinum Up to 15-Year, 800,000-kilometer protection guarantee, your adventures will be many.

Pennzoil. Long may we drive. Available at your local Canadian tire. Enrollment required. Keep your receipts. Other conditions apply. See Pennzoil.ca slash warranty for full details. All right, NBA Too Soon continues with a question that hurts my soul, but I'm going to ask it to Kyle Mann anyway.

Is it too soon to say definitively that Scoot Henderson will not win Rookie of the Year? We're off to a tough start. You know, this... I was doing some research here. I was just trying to go back and compare. You know, I think he's like 2 for 21 from three to start the year. I was comparing top 10 picks since 2015 because it's kind of not fair.

Whenever you compare players, it's not totally fair, especially to compare point guards like before that, just because the league changed so much before that or after that. And I went back and I was just looking at the guys, their starts, basically like their first four games since I knew we were going to be talking about Scoot. And he's a pretty glaring outlier in terms of volume of threes in like their first five games. Yeah, he's shooting, let's see, 9% from three. So, yeah, 9.5. And the only guy that really even comes close, let's see.

Jamal Murray actually had a bad start. I guess the question you kind of have to start asking yourself is, he's not doing the things that he did in the G League. A lot of his offense was really heavily around the elbows. He really loved to get into the mid range. And if you look at his shot chart, he's not shooting from there at all. He shot a decent percentage. And I don't even mean shooting the pull up jumpers.

I mean, he's not even shooting floaters. I haven't seen the downhill stuff at all. We're seeing it more from Shane and Sharp. I'm a little alarmed. But on the other hand, he's a rookie, and this is how rookies should probably look when they come into the league. I think the other problem is just

that Malcolm Brogdon comes in, and he's a really competent point guard. He won sixth man of the year. So Scoot comes out, who's just been handed the car keys, barely knows what he's doing, and then Brogdon comes in and actually knows how to drive the car. So I don't think that's helping. And it's a weird team that got thrown together.

I'm not panicking. It sounds like you're like 10% more panicky than me about this. The things I was worried about are rearing their head. I mean, I worried about him being a half-court sort of chess player in the early goings. I thought the best situation for him would be to kind of be moving on and off ball a lot, which is what he's doing. I just think he needs to just have – he needs to shift from, like, aggressively hunting his three the way that he is because he wasn't a great

dribble pull-up shooter from three in the G League. I think he only shot, like, 30%. But he did shoot almost 43% from three on catch and shoot threes with the G League. We have a sample of him against good defense shooting the ball. I just think he needs to do what you were saying. I think his game needs to ripple out from getting in the paint, getting off the ball.

You're not Jamal Murray. Play to your strengths. You're a great athlete. I still think he needs to improve his left hand and his defense is atrocious. It is bad. I actually thought that was going to be better. Well, listen, Kyle, it sounds like I'll be purchasing your Scoot Henderson stock right after the podcast. No, you won't.

You won't. I'll buy more. No, I'm going to buy it. I'm stepping in. I'm going to talk to your broker. How? So am I buying your Scoot Henderson stock or are you keeping it? Oh, no, I'm keeping it.

And already it's sunk costs all over my gambling tickets that I invested in over the summer with Scoot Henderson for rookie of the year. Here's the thing. And Kyle, you know, nailed it. He needs to reorient himself. The fewest number of minutes he's played thus far is 25 minutes. He's played four games. He's got 36 minutes, 25 minutes, 27 minutes, 34 minutes. Across all of that time

as a new player in the NBA, he's taken five total free throws. That's not enough. You're not a three-point shooter. You didn't arrive in this league to be a three-point shooter. I want Coach Chauncey to channel some of his inner point guard coaching and say, let's just reset. Let's reorient your arrival here. Do the thing that's easy. Do the thing that you have a natural advantage, and that is get to the hole and absorb some physical contact and get to the free throw line. Make the easy baskets. Don't try and make the hard baskets.

You're a 9%. Make the easy baskets. Don't try and make the hard baskets. You're a 9% shooter from the hard baskets. Go to the free throw line and try and get a couple of those easy ones. I hope that's what we see in this sort of upcoming chapter. I'm going to put my call to House's

broker on hold, but maybe check in in a couple days. I'm not worried about Scoot yet, but I agree with you guys. This is a stylistic thing. Somebody just got to tell him, like, go to the basket, Scoot. You're ridiculous downhill. Nobody's going to be able to stay in front of you. Just go to the basket.

You're not pull up like you're not trying to get embedded Twitter videos of all your game winners from 25 feet. Go to the fucking hoop. I'm not worried about you yet, Scoot. Is it too soon? Oh, house, I can't wait for you on this one. Is it too soon to say that Anthony Davis is definitely going to break down? Here are the numbers. He's played 210 minutes in five games. He leads the NBA 40.2 minutes a game through five games. He has played over 2,000 minutes once

since 2017. In 2020, he played 2,131 regular season minutes, 769 playoff minutes. Missed games since 2019. 28, 10, 36, 42, 26. House.

They threw a lot of stuff in Anthony Davis's car. And they even put some suitcases on the top. And they have them driving cross country. And I don't know if it's a good idea. I don't know if the engine's going to make it. What are your thoughts? Well, here's the thing. The conundrum for the Lakers is they entered this season and said, by golly, we are not going to do what we did last year, which is stumble out of the gate and have to play catch up through two thirds of the season and then put ourselves in this position at the all-star break where if we don't, you know, ride Anthony Davis from the all-star break you know up to the playoff moment

we ain't gonna make the playoffs they they they appear determined to avoid repeating that fate and yet unfortunately for them that means that both LeBron James who's been absolutely incredible in his 21st season and Anthony Davis must carry the load because the supporting cast is just a supporting cast. I mean, we've talked, we're trying to speak into existence. Some of these guys stepping up and playing a more, you know,

formative role. Yeah, but they realized something in that Clipper game, though. Well, it does seem like it, right? In the end of the fourth quarter in OT, they started running more stuff through Reeves. Yeah, but they realized something in that Clipper game, though. Well, it does seem like it, right? In the end of the fourth quarter in OT, they started running more stuff through Reeves. And I thought things unlocked for him and for them.

I watched a lot of Lakers this year already. I just could not believe how involved D'Angelo Russell was in everything. It was like they made this concerted effort to... I don't know whether they're trying to boost the asset or he's playing with something to prove. And Reeves just didn't have the ball enough. And then he missed a couple shots. The Laker fans got pissed. By the way, I'm buying all the Reeves stock. Please put it on the stock site because I'll buy it. I like when they run stuff through him and they give LeBron little breaks and then it's not just like throw the ball into Davis or D'Angelo, Russell, whatever. So maybe they'll unlock that. But Kyle, do you see Anthony Davis playing 3, some of the load away from LeBron. That was the entire idea. It's like, hey, man, you're younger. You're moving into the prime of your career. You have these ways that you can grow. And they've talked repeatedly about he's going to take six threes per game. And, you know, right now I think he's taken, you know, one point four. He's he's shooting the ball

pretty well. But the idea, you know, there's a lot of burden on LeBron early, which is like a worrisome, you know, if you want toome... I don't think they wanted that at all. No. I mean, 29 minutes, 35, 39, 32, 42. He's playing a lot, man. I mean, LeBron's just a little older than me. I will say, it really seems like he can just get to the rim when he absolutely has to. And guys just don't want to stay in front of him and be

bowled over by him. At some point, it's like a game of chicken with two cars driving at each other. And at some point, the car that's not LeBron always veers to the side and LeBron just keeps going. He's really figured out. It's so funny how he uses his size now compared to that late 2000s version of LeBron that was like all finesse and athleticism. And this one is like, there's this brute force element that's just awesome. But I thought the reason, I think they have too many guys in their roster,

but I thought part of the reason for it was that you wouldn't have to put the miles on these guys. I think what happens is the NBA, you play 11, 12 guys, it's never gone well ever in the history of the league. Yesterday they played eight and they're trying to get to that eight or nine, but you can't just keep throwing guys out. I don't believe in the Christian Wood piece of it at all.

And to me, that seems pretty fool's gold. Ultimately, I think Reeves is the guy they have to figure out how to unlock as their version of Manu. You pick any sort of six-man slash supporting guy, swingman, who can also make plays at the end of games. That's going to help them the most. If you had to guess in the Anthony Davis, uh-oh, he's been scratched from the game. Oh, it's going to be a couple days. When are you thinking, like Thanksgiving? Next week? What are you talking about?

Thanksgiving. I mean, I'm not rooting for it. He looks great. He's playing great. Yeah, none of us are rooting for it. I'm a fan. I'm a big Anthony Davis fan. I want to see him in the playoffs, though. We just respect the history. Like, when you come to visit me

and I feed you too much food and you have a couple glasses of wine, I have, you know, 20 years of experience to know that we're going to sit down on the couch, put a basketball game on, and you're going to immediately start snoring. Like it's not, I'm not, I'm not sitting there going, oh, this would be the time house stays awake and watches this whole game with me. And then maybe we'll watch something else. I'm like, no house is going to pass out. This is what he And then maybe we'll watch something else. I'm like, no house is going to pass out. This is what he does.

You did it the other night. I did talk to my wife for three minutes and then she looked over and you're out. This Anthony Davis thing is the exact same thing. Like do not put 40 minutes a game on Anthony Davis. Like we know how this is going to play out. So they have to fix it. I think this is a really dangerous game they're playing. Uh, is it too soon to say, okay,C might be a top five team in the West?

Because that one I feel like it might actually be too soon. Because if you have Denver and you have Golden State and you have the Lakers, I think I have Minnesota over them right now. And then probably Phoenix would be the five. But I do really like that OKC team. And what it comes down to is whether they make threes or not. They lost two games this year. Last night, they were seven for 34 on threes against New Orleans.

Against Denver, they were six for 32. Now, they also got smoked by Jokic. But erratic three-point shooting might be what keeps them kind of on the side. And by the way, pretty fixable thing if they wanted to decide to get frisky this year. But what do you see from them, Kyle?

I trust their three-point shooting if they did get the opportunity to be in a playoff shooting. I feel like it will sort of balance out. They run the risk of that. I've talked with a lot of Thunder fans about like them getting Case and Wallace, who has been like unbelievably good in there. And I'm not just saying that because he went to Kentucky.

He's been awesome. I've wondered if his sort of defensive prowess and shooting ability and like extra playmaking ability could free them up to maybe make some you know there are some teams out there cough cough milwaukee who need some ball pressure i don't know if they can make a deal if you those two things kind of i don't know there's something to think about um and yeah over overall i do kind of trust their their shooting and stuff to level out in terms of like getting into top five, for me, the Wolves and the Thunder are kind of close to a push.

Would they beat the Clippers in a series? I don't think so now. I don't think that would happen. Could they beat... So you would put the Clippers in the top five. I'm not there yet because I just don't know. To me, that's a week by week. Let's see who's playing.

Well, Dallas is first in the West right now. Are they a top five team beginning to end? That was my next question. That was my next too soon. Is it too soon to say the Mavs might be a playoff team? House, your OKC thoughts quick, and then we'll go to Dallas. Well, OKC remains that work in progress to be kind of imagined. You like the direction that they're headed in.

They have all of these young parts. I think Kyle's point about them figuring out the three-point thing makes a lot of sense i do think that they would benefit from uh an adult from a vet from somebody that comes that can be a sidekick to sga i don't know who that player is kuzma at what position do you think though that's what i keep asking myself i don't know i don't know honestly that player is. Kyle Kuzma? At what position do you think, though? That's what I keep asking myself. I don't know. Honestly, I think a little bit of size like that. Because when you get put into the half-court offense in the playoffs, you're always in the half-court offense in the playoffs.

It's a slowdown time. Size never hurts. It's either a Siakam. Yeah, it's like a Siakam or it's just a second center. And then you can kind of go Twin Towers here and have some Chet insurance. What about Rob Williams? Tyler's been getting offended when people talk about them

trading for a five. So I always try to tread lightly with the question. But could they go get him? Yeah, I think they could. The big guys are just, they're burying Chet in the basket. I mean, Andre Drummond made him literally almost break his ankle. They're going to have to have another Jakob Pertl-y type guy. Right.

Great point. They just need a rotation big who's competent. Can they go find somebody like that? I do think they're going to need that tool on their utility bill. Jokic said he needed to get fatter. I still think Chet as a Rookie of the Year candidate, I'm pretty bullish on that one.

I've been really, really, really impressed. Yeah, he's too skinny and there's a couple centers in the league that are going to overpower them. There's not that many of those centers, though. You know? Like, when they play, they haven't played the Lakers yet,

I don't think, but when they play Davis, Davis is going to try to bully ball them and he probably will. And that's where you need that Rob Williams, whoever, but I, that seems a little closer than, uh,

that then I was even hoping for because I was bullish on them to be over 45, a potential 50 win team. I think they look really good. I just think they're missing one piece. So the Mavs playoff team for you, House? Are you going to get seduced by four wins over the Spurs, Brooklyn,

injury-prone Memphis, and then the messed up Bulls? Is this win you over yet? No, no, no. Definitely not. I'm glad for them to be in this position out of the gate. They took care of their handling of the business the way glad for them to be in this position out of the gate. They took care of their

handling of the business the way they're supposed to be handling their business. But you mentioned they're still barely inside the top 20 in defensive rating against teams that aren't exactly burning the house down. They're second in offensive rating.

And this is, if you're a Dallas fan, this is exactly your best hope for beginning to the season. We'll have our true referendum, our true, you know, state of the Dallas Union with the Friday night game against the defending champions. Glad you brought that up. Great job. Great job.ca's gotten

off he looks engaged um lively is is lively i really love that lively i like lively too yeah i mean so they're good for them they took they're handling their business against bad teams to start the season i'm not gonna knock them i took their over I think they're like a 44-win team. It doesn't feel crazy to me. Yeah, Lively has been certainly more impactful than I was thinking. Grant Williams, we knew what he could do. He had a great game last night. You know, as usual, this comes down to, can they get a full normal season out of Kyrie?

We just haven't seen in a long time. But is he just going to be happy to be on this team and not kind of do anything to undermine it or any of that stuff? What does shark say about this Miami team, Kyle? I mean, Dallas team.

Hard to say. I mean, if they don't, he was, he was a defense guy. I mean, I think, I think he would have come around on lively by now who I think you're all

right. Like he reliably could not have been drafted to a better situation for like what he he can run he has energy he can catch he can dunk and he's defensively has good hands i they i'm sure they've been really pleased with him he's been ahead of schedule so it's all going to be you know can luca can luca drag how far can luca drag them it's it's ultimately what's gonna what this is gonna come down to and I mean he's been unbelievable I mean like you know he had a 35 12 and 12 the other night and that's just kind of like I who cares that's that's how good Luka is you know I got an email the other day it's kind of funny you get those emails from I think cleaning the glass about like who was above there and below their box score and like Luka and Jokic both are two guys where

it'll say like up below their box score and you'll look and it Jokic both are two guys where it'll say like, oh, below their box score. And you'll look and it'll be like 25, eight and nine. You're like, oh, what a shitty outing. Shame on you guys. No, I don't, you know, the schedule has done them some favors, but they have a lot of questions to answer for them to even to be a serious contender.

But they're going to be a pain in the ass just because Luka's a pain in the ass and he can litigate. He's just like, he's a pain in the ass and he can litigate. He's just like, he's a pain in the ass basketball litigator. He's going to slow it down, drag you into the mud. It's very LeBron-esque.

And he's unafraid in any mano a mano last three minute situation. All right, last too soon. Is it too soon to say Denver and Boston are levitating above everybody else right now from what we've seen? And I would have Denver over Boston. Yeah, I can go quickly.

The answer is no. They are in an entirely different class. We forecasted coming in. They're the only two teams, I think, above 50 wins that we, you, me, and Rosillo sitting and doing our win total forecast. We took the over with Denver. We took the over with Boston.

I think we were unanimous i think it was a six for six on the on those those picks because we could imagine what we're seeing with our own eyes now i will say this i've been so impressed by denver so absolutely like you know the the open question around what does it mean with bruce brown's not not part of this team and will these the the young replacement you know talent um that that mr uh booth has brought to the table bear out it bears out bears out i'll raise my my my left hand up yeah it's it's a good situation did you did you just just go Doris Burke on us and call him Mr. Booth? I was,

I couldn't remember. I was like, Calvin, Calvin, he played for the wizards. I mean, you know, Calvin,

he was, he was one of your many mediocre centers. Yeah. I think, you know, their big question that we had just talking about them before the year and we all went over on him, Kyle was all right.

Bruce Brown's leaving. Like, do we trust these young guys? Do we trust Christian Brown to come in and take those minutes? Do we trust two of these younger dudes that they have to maybe play and be impactful? And I think that's what's been the surprise. Minnesota whacks them, but I also think every great team's going to have their one team that's just kind of a weird matchup for them. I'll bet the next Denver-Minnesota game is probably the most interesting game of the year

from a standpoint of, all right, let's see. They tagged Denver. Denver didn't see it coming. They broke a beer bottle over their head. They didn't see it. But now we're outside the club. What do you got? Let's go. And I want to see how Denver responds to that. But you think Denver and Boston levitating over everybody else right now yeah i think so and uh you know i think house is right that like maybe maybe we did overplay the like how heavily they were going to be leaning on the rookies they aren't really leaned on them hardly at all honestly and we we leaned a little

bit on the bruce brown thing bruce brown became the like i know ball guy to kind of be like oh bruce brown screener. You know, it's like, and those things are true, but it's like, you know, it's not like Bruce Brown went to the Pacers and instantly changed that team. He's a great player. But I think, I think this is speaking to the power of Jokic, quite frankly, is that when you have a player like him, not only is he a floor raiser, but he literally affects the value of every individual player that you have. Suddenly, suddenly 50 cents ain't worth 50 cents. It's worth 75 cents with Jokic. Your money goes further.

So, and I think the other thing that I think that people underrate about them now and in the past, you know, they lost Jeff Green, but it's the fact that they've got these big mobile forwards too, that can do a number of things. And, you know, they have these lineups where Aaron Gordon can play five. Like Aaron Gordon, like in Denver, has just been a revelation, honestly. And, you know, KCP, they have continuity. I would love to see them play Boston in the finals

just because I think their personnel would stress Boston in a way that could really yield some interesting things. So, you know, I, I agree. I think those two teams have the playoff pedigree. Um, yeah, they're,

they're above everybody else in my book. How's 20 seconds on the hardened trade before we go. Good luck to everybody involved, uh, on the LA side, Steve bomber went on TV last night and talked much louder and much faster than me touting the fact that he wants to get folks from the food and the bathroom back to their seat as quickly as possible

because of that new stadium experience. I can only imagine the good people of Los Angeles hustling back to their seats to see James Harden pass the ball to Russell Westbrook because Paul George and Kawhi Leonard are out for extended stretches, which is exactly what the LA Clippers do. Congratulations. Best of luck to everybody involved. I was shocked how many people seem to be in the camp of, well, you know, they're better. You know, there's like, well, you know, they gave up some stuff, but can't argue with the results. They're better.

Like, really? Yeah. If you give up two and a half first round picks, I would hope you're like a whiff better, but I just, listen, I'm on the record. I don't think it's going to work. Kyle, 20 seconds on James Harden. I was telling somebody Harden getting traded to the Clippers on a day that you needed to have a podcast come out was like a, like an NBA jam behind the back lob. Like, I felt like you were like 40 feet in the air, ready to catch it. out was like a like an NBA jam behind the back lob like I felt like you were like 40 feet in the air ready to catch it I was like it was like I said it was like asking Mozart hey we need a melody for this waltz I was just like this is Bill's bat signal like this is the

best I was excited I was like he has to just be foaming um I mean I think I think that they offensively you're you're putting Harden in a lesser role. The issue, I think, with Embiid was just like you need, if you've got a guy who's not going to elevate the personnel the same way that like a Jokic would, your square one is just really tough when you bring in a guy who also doesn't move, who also isn't going to cut,

who also just is really inflexible. I think the ball's going to move a little bit more in LA. I think they're going to be a pain in the ass, but I think defensively, they're going to run up against some problems at the end of the day. I don't know. I feel like they're going to be better offensively. I'm kind of torn, honestly, on the Clippers thing. I don't think they're going to win at all, so I think that's just

kind of where the conversation starts and ends, honestly. I thought Kawhi looked good in the Laker game. That was the first time where it doesn't seem like he has nearly the same lift. When he jumps now, it seems like he just gets one inch off the ground.

The explosiveness doesn't seem where it was four years ago, and it shouldn't because he's older. He's had some surgeries. I thought he was really effective in that game and really competitive. I don't know if he can keep it going. Didn't change my opinion on the trade. Joe right, Joe house. We can see you on Sunday on the wise guys show on fan dual TV. You can keep your hot street going. I'm going to try to keep my cold street going with Chris Vernon in a second. Kyle, man, we can, we can see your

videos on the ringers YouTube page and we can see you on one shining podcast with the one, the only Tate Frazier. What else are you up to? Anything else? Working on a ranking for the site. Tyler and I have a little thing that we've been working on. That's going to be ridiculous. We'll see.

And then, yeah, I'm all over the place. Got a lot of irons in the fire. All right. Good to see you guys. TD and your small business go together like. TD small business account managers have in-depth business banking expertise, so they can give you the advice and resources you need to make your day to day easier.

So if you're ready to meet your small business match, we're ready for you. Visit td.com slash small business match to book an appointment with one of our advisors. All right, our guy Chris Vernon is here. He is the co-host of the Mismatch podcast. He does a lot of stuff in Memphis. I have recruited him to help me with my slumping million dollar picks we're gonna talk grizzlies first your team's we played a game with uh with house and kyle mann called too soon dot dot dot is it too soon to dot dot dot is it too soon to completely panic about this Grizzlies season. Completely panic?

Yes. Be worried? No. I do think what we've learned, though, Bill, is over the last couple years, we do this every year. Last year, Philly started 1-4. The Lakers started 0-5. Sacramento started 0-4. I mean, it happens. We got to two weeks into November

and the one seed I think was Utah. And the two seed was Portland. We got into two weeks into December and the one seed was the new Orleans Pelicans. And so it's a, it's a really long season. It's a really long season, but certainly to start start off oh and five and put yourself in a hole is is not a good look at all especially when you know you gotta somehow get to what like you want to you want to be at least in the mid 40s in terms of 45 46 yeah yeah i mean 45 got the four seed last year that's what phoenix said they 45 and 37, and they got home court advantage. So, I don't know. The problem is the conferences might be more lopsided this year

because the East just looks like it's weaker across the board, and the West looks like it's better across the board. And it might be like, remember that? Wasn't that their year that Phoenix had like 48 wins and didn't make the playoffs? I don't know if it would be that bad, but I think mid-40s is going to be the number. Yeah, I think you're right.

That was like the Eric Bledsoe, Isaiah Thomas, that whole crew where we thought the guy did like the best coaching job ever back then. But, yeah, I don't know. I mean, they've been terrible for sure. And to lose to, you know, at Utah is not terrible. At the Wizards is abominable. I mean, you've been terrible for sure. And to lose to, you know, at Utah is not terrible. At the Wizards is abominable. I mean, you can't lose that game.

You can't lose that game. The scoring is rough. House was talking earlier about, you know, your 29th in offense. He just wasn't scared of any scores on the team. Bane's good, but you don't have that, oh, my God, we need a bucket. This guy's definitely going to get us an awesome shot guy. Bane's good, but you don't have that, oh my God, we need a bucket. This guy's definitely going to get us an awesome shot guy. Bane's probably the closest. The only thing that you can hold on to is they have run into historically great shooting performances.

No one has ever given up more three-pointers in the first five games of the season than this Memphis Grizzlies. 89. They've had two teams shoot 50% against them. And now, you know, when teams shoot 45, 55 shots from three, if somebody goes 50% from you, you're dead. You're dead. Right. So who's come in?

Who have you seen in person? Who's come into town? I have seen Denver. Unbelievable. Yeah. Dallas. come in who have you seen in person who's coming to town i have seen denver unbelievable yeah uh dallas but they were without kairi which was shocking considering the player participation thing is working so well that was like the third game of the season third third game of the season he wasn't on the injury report i show up to the arena and they say there's no kairi i said why so he sprained his foot i guess he oh my god he must have he must have sprained at mid-afternoon um i have seen them i've seen the pelicans the first what do you think of them wait what was

your pelicans take you know it was i got it i look i've gotten in big trouble and the pelicans like their team account is now mocking me because I just thought they had a weird chemistry with that starting five. They're hardly interacting with each other. I don't know about the Ingram Zion thing, but I guess lucky for them, they never play together. They're already not playing together by now. But I think it's hard. I actually think that they're going to have to do some figuring out

to reach where they want to be in terms of the pecking order and also just kind of getting some role guys. They've got Nance. They've got Alvarado. They've got Trey Murphy. These guys are all good role players. A couple of those guys are obviously not in the mix right now dyson daniels could be a role player but you know when they're starting they're starting

for non-defenders and herb jones right that's that you know and so i don't know who odd man out is in those mixes, but you know, when it comes to reaching their potential, I think, you know, you're going to need, you're going to need some guys in there that can get you some stops. They also don't shoot a lot of threes. And math just doesn't go in your favor a lot of times. They don't have a lot of guys. And obviously, Murphy is probably the best of the three-point shooters. They're trying to get this Hawkins kid going that they drafted. I like him. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, I think their whole thing is how much health can they have, too? And Ingram's already out we're like we're week two

of the season that's what that's been their issue thus far anyway and so look it's not it's it's not a demerit to watch them and say hey these guys don't seem to have all that much chemistry considering they never played together none of them And now already by the second week of the season, they're not playing together. And so I saw, yeah, I think I've seen, yeah, 0-3. So I've seen Pelicans, Denver, Dallas. I watched the OKC New Orleans last night, and it looked like OKC was just going to win by 20. They were way up.

And then New Orleans has these weird heat check guys. Like yesterday it was McCollum. But all of a sudden, they'll get like points and bursts. I'm still trying to figure them out. To me, that's like a don't gamble on them or against them team.

If you're just like betting basketball, stay away from that team. I watch them as well. And Oklahoma City's too small. Right. They need one more guy. I mean, they're running Chet out there to play center.

And, you know, you're going up against Valanchunas and Zion. And, I mean, they got full-grown men on that Pelicans team. The only thing is there's only a couple teams like that that you could say, like, oh, man, this is a big boy team. You guys are in trouble tonight. So, there's certain nights. Like, Jokic is going to be a disaster for them every time they play. Yeah, but I mean, look, the Grizzlies ran into it last year

in the playoffs without Adams. The Lakers are big. Lakers are big, you know? Minnesota's big. Minnesota's big and a little clumsy and really hard to play, which Denver found out last night. So where is the city at with the Joss saga? Give us the update.

How are people feeling? Do people feel like it's now us against the world? Are people in Joss' corner? Are people worried about him? What's the mindset? I think it was upset with him, for sure. Very disappointed. Then I think the best thing that ever happened to him was the ESPN article.

Because I think what happened is it's like everybody's mad at you. You know what it reminded me of? It reminded me of Will Smith, how we all loved Will Smith. And then Will Smith went and smacked the shit out of Chris Rock and we were like damn man what's up with Will Smith like I always thought he was cool I always really loved Will Smith

I'm so disappointed and then Jada Pinkett went on her tour and started trashing Will Smith and we were like oh hell no no no no no no like we're allowed to not like it but like this is overkill this is too much like you don't have to you know humiliate the guy and that's kind of where the espn are in the

absence of a bunch of new stuff um it was almost like all right it feels like going with the small business owners come on like that yeah, it feels like piling on. And so I think that on that point, it was like, okay, you kind of got people back on your side. And then now that the team's not any good, obviously there's a bit of resent about that. Like, man, why'd you have to do the Instagram live thing? It's so stupid.

But I also think that we have, when I go out and around, all anybody says is, do you think we can, you know, you think you can be 10 and 15 or do you think you can be, you know, nine and 16 or whatever by the time we get him back? And it's just now just like, all right, these next 20 games, we'll see what happens, but can't wait until game 26. Even if you go 10 and 10, you're going to be 10 and 15 when he comes back, which is not ideal.

So I don't know. The story sucks. I actually miss watching him play. It just sucks to get guys pulled out of this daily, you know, cavalcade of awesome NBA players. We get to watch every night and it really might be too late by the time he comes back.

Cause if we think it's 45 and they're nine and 16. Yeah. And he has 57 games left and you have to get to 45 wins, which means you need 30. So you got to go basically 36 and 19 the moment he comes back. And I would assume he has to get into some sort of game shape, stuff like that. All the West, you're not going to have the easy games

like you would in the past because there's going to be 11 teams that think they have a chance. I think it's going to be really hard. You need something to step up. This will make you mad, but we were talking about Julius Randall with House and Kyle. And we talked about could the Grizzlies roll the dice with the Julius Randall trade? Oh, come on. No.

Good grief. Look, they're going to go. They're going to go get themselves a good wing. Okay. That's what they're going to do. They're going to go get themselves a good wing. And like a jeremy grant how good are we talking no i don't know i don't know i just think that this is my prediction

what's gonna happen is they were gonna let all the young guys figure it out and they were gonna see who could separate themselves so you're gonna throw them all in a bucket zaire williams david roddy luke canard jake laravia they're gonna throw them all in a bucket they're gonna say all right who comes out of this now in the end when Ja comes back Smart will probably just roll over to small forward um yeah in the in the meantime uh to be a wing defender but I do think that they could look at a wing to try to get one of the to try to get you know maybe you revisit the Ananobi type stuff or you revisit, you know,

there are guys out there that become available. And so I think that's one. Maybe you go, maybe you go the other way. Well, there you go. You know what? This was the year from hell.

We lost Brandon Clark. We lost Steven Adams. We lost Ja for 25. No, not when you've got, not when you've got Ja Morant, Desmond Bain, and Jaron Jackson Jr.

Come on. Come on. You're ruling it out. Yes. What if they're 6-19 when he comes back? I mean, they're not going to be 6-19 when he comes back. You would have said they wouldn't have been 0-5. I would have said they wouldn't have been 0-5.

But, I mean, playing five games in the first seven days of the season is pretty extreme. It's not that good i mean you don't you don't want him to be good you want marcus to suffer and that's not true he's not going that's not true oh all you boston fans say the same thing you guys all you all you're yes you are it's like your ex and you're checking on instagram to make sure that she's doing shit. Not true. Yes, it is. It's 100% what's happening. We're not. No, we love Marcus. He's been good.

We're super happy with our team. Yeah, he's been pretty good. Actually, it looks like he's in. I was worried about the abdomen thing, but it actually looks like he's in good shape and he's moving around. This is my dream. My dream is that you look up in April and it's a nightmare for you. It's John Moran, Desmond Bain, Marcus Smart, Jaron Jackson, and Big Rob Williams. Oh, that's who you want. Yeah, you want Rob Williams.

Oh, he's got, I mean, come on. What's going on? What is he doing in Portland? He's collecting dust. It doesn't make any sense. They should be trading. Yeah, and he's's got a $12 million contract or something. So that's not even a big

like it's not that big of a deal to have to deal for. You can't score. You can't really rebound. And you just listed five guys in a row that you were counting on for one of those

guys to step up and it was basically the poo poo platter you were like you know if we can get the spare ribs or the chicken wings or the egg rolls if one of those can be good i like roddy i like roddy i do like roddy the other ones i mean we'll see but you know it's five games it's five games. It's five games. I mean, you just outlined, like, you were like, well, what if they, then they got to go this many, then they got to go this many. This is why you're on the NBA Too Soon podcast. It happens. All this is too soon.

What else are we going to talk about? I just told you the Lakers started 0-5. Sacramento started 0-4. Philly started 1-4. I know, you got it. You ran off the stats. I got you. All right.

Speaking of people off to terrible starts, million-dollar picks for me. I got killed 1-4 last week, including an absolutely devastating Browns loss in Seattle. I lost a million dollars last week. I lost $1,065,000 last week. I'm down to $1.93 million down for the season. And I actually don't even feel nine three million down for the season.

And I actually don't even feel that bad about most of my picks. It's like combination of bad luck, maybe missing on stuff, doing it on Thursdays. I'm trying to get my mojo back and I'm going to start bringing in degenerates on Thursdays. And you're one of my favorite degenerates. You like this shit. Also, it's a lot of people think like it's fake money like you really lost a million dollars you're the only guy i know that actually lost a million dollars no we called it million dollar picks like started five years ago because we thought it was good gimmick a bit of million fake dollars every game it's not a fun gimmick when you're down two million dollars heading into week nine oh i thought it was into week 9 I didn't think the bit started until after you sold the ringer

no no no I thought it was actual it was like 2018 I'm going to give you a couple games I'm looking at actually why don't we flip it you give me 3 games you're looking at let's see if I have 5 games that I have circled and I wonder if you have, you said you had three.

I wonder if any of them coexist with mine. I got two that I really like. Okay, let's hear them. Okay. So the first one is a team that you have liked in the past, though they're not any good. I even heard you talking to Lombardi about them earlier this week, and that is the Carolina Panthers.

I am on the fade the Colts train. They have given up 38 to the Saints last week. The week before, they gave up 39 to the Browns. That's like, I mean, I don't even, that's like giving up 100 to the Chiefs, giving up 39 to the Browns. And they gave up 37 the week before that to the Jags. Now, on the other hand, you can say,

well, you know, it's not like Carolina doesn't give up a ton of points, but they just played pretty well against the Texans. And it was a super close game, and they covered that game. They're supposed to get their safety back. Who's Vaughn Bell? I love the guy, Brian Burns. I don't think defensively they're terrible.

The big thing is this. They always perform at home. Yeah, they're a good defense at home. I'm with you. And they only had seven wins last year. Five of them were all at home. And so I kind of look at it and I go, all right. They lost it.

So far, their home games, they had an eight-point loss to the Vikings. They lost by three to the Saints. And then they beat Houston. Those are the only three home games they've played thus far. And the Colts, you know, alongside, I don't blame them, but they've given up these huge numbers and it does coincide they've lost like all three of their corners you just can't you can't lose like that many guys you know they got the new offensive guy calling the plays for Bryce Young

so maybe he'll hit something downfield and I just feel like it'll be ugly. I like their locker room after the game. Yeah. Frank Wright gave a nice speech. They gave the ball to Bryce Young. They shouted out. It seemed like it was a happy one in 16. They don't have their pick is the other thing. They have no incentive.

That's right. To go backwards. I just don't think that, I just don't, it's my opinion, I don't think the Colts should be favored against anybody. So you feel like this, so you think this line should be like Panthers by like Panthers minus one over the Colts, something like that?

Yes. So we're getting three and a half free points. Yeah. I mean, it works to pick. So I just, yeah, I like the Colts. All right. So do you like the Panthers plus two and a half or do you like them plus 122 to win outright? I like both.

I think the Panthers are going to win. But let's take the two and a half. Well, have you noticed? Because you've been gambling a while. Have you noticed how they're killing us now on the Moneyline Underdogs? Like in the old days, the plus three Moneyline Underdog was like plus 145, plus 150. Like they gave you some actual action. Now it's like plus 122.

Oh, gee, thanks. The other thing is we didn't have there was a couple of weeks there at the beginning of this season where we didn't have the upsets so i always follow a couple of these guys on twitter uh that post in the mornings they'll post all the public bets right yeah and so then i'll just go through them and i'll just bet the other money line and i'll just round robin it right i got my ass kicked on those like for like a couple weeks in a row the public was just oh my god that's one of the so that's one of the tricks i use is it's like oh my god everybody's on this team i'm gonna zag and the zag has not really worked this year that well. Not this year.

Yeah. All right. I like that Colts one. What was the other one? No, no, no, no. Carolina. I mean, not Panthers. Yeah, Colts, Panthers. Yeah.

The other one is, you're not going to like this one. I know you're not going to like this one. It's the Falcons. Why? I've lost money in the Falcons multiple weeks. What do you mean? You know what? I think you do kind of like Taylor Heineke. I do. I've lost money in the Falcons multiple weeks what do you mean well you know what I think

you do kind of like Taylor Heineke I do I've enjoyed his work I think they've the quarterback has murdered a couple of Falcons bets this year I agree single-handedly that we're like winning bets they actually have some weapons Drake London Kyle Pitts Bij Like, they got some guys you could get the ball to. Their things are at home. And this is just a – that Cousins thing was just devastating. You know, even if you think he's corny, that guy is a real leader. And it's not even like they get to just go and play their backup because their backup's got a back injury. So they're going to – and they have the trade that they just made.

Yeah, the Dots isn't playing. He's not playing. So it's Jaron Hall. Fifth rounder from BYU. He was like 25 years old already. And now you're going to take him on the road. Against a team, by the way. Who is as good against the Rush.

As any team in the National Football League. Although they just lost one of their main guys for that, but then they made a trade and they tried to stop Gaffney. But the Falcons can stop you from running, so now you're taking a kid who has no business playing. He would have been third or fourth on this list, and now you're going to throw him in on the road in dome

and you can't run the ball and the other thing is they only got one receiver left but they only have one receiver left Addison guy and Atlanta's got Jeff Odoka so they could throw Odoka

on the one guy that can make plays. I don't know. I think Atlanta might bone them. My only fear with that game was that Flores just blitzing the living shit out of Heineken and him doing dumb stuff. And the other thing is, if it was minus three, you'd love it. But that minus three and a half, it's a classic. Ugh.

That extra half point. But I think you might be right. Sometimes you just three and a half, it's a classic. That extra half point. I think you might be right. Sometimes you just got to suck it up and go for it. Have you ever heard of Jaron Hall before yesterday? When you're a fifth-round QB, you're usually like, it's a miracle if you play two games.

Here's what I was looking at. I loved theengals last week that was the only one i won they're playing buffalo again i actually think the bengals got their mojo back buffalo's last four lost to jacksville london had big injuries giants had barely won probably should lost pats they lose pats suck tampa they they kind of let tampa hang around they went by six tamp Tampa got a late cover. Cincy beat the hell out of this team last year in the playoffs.

And I felt like in the game when Hamlin went down, I thought they were beating the hell out of them in that game too. It just felt like they were going to pull away from them in that game. I think they might just have their number. And Buffalo's had all these injuries. I'm not sure how deep they were to begin with. The Bengals, it's one and a half right now because people don't trust the Bengals thing yet because

all the advanced stats are like, they're taking into account the whole picture. The team I saw against the Niners last week I thought was legit. I don't know. I feel like I'm getting free points with this. It feels like a Bengals by three to me. If I bet that game, I'm going to take the over.

Bengals with the over. Yeah, I would. I mean, if you want to take a side, yeah. I just, I do not think those teams are going to stop each other. I don't. No, Bill's gave up 28 to your team. Right. He gave up 28 to your team.

I mean, it's since the Matt Milano thing. It's like, I don't know. He's a big part of their training for Rasul Douglas, who Josh Allen made fun of. All right. Yeah.

I'm marking down. So you're not against Bengals minus one and a half. No, no, absolutely. At home. Eagles minus three against your Cowboys. They're right next to each other in DVOA.

Is this why you invited me on? No, this is one of the games I was looking at. And I actually think the Eagles are a little undervalued because, you know, Hurts, they kind of let teams hang around. They haven't really played an awesome game yet. A.J. Brown's been, in my opinion, him and Tyreek have just been head and shoulders above everybody else's weapons. I think you're going to have trouble running on them. And I still wonder with Dak against big physical teams that can pressure him, what do I have? Who are you going to on third and eight?

I'm doubling C.D. Lamb. Now where are you going? You going to Jake Ferguson? Brandon Cooks, right? Hope Brandon Cooks is going to get... I still don't trust your team. I don't love the value of the minus three is the hesitation with me.

But give me the case for why you think Dallas would win this. The case would be that their offensive line is a little banged up. And that you just get there, you get home and hurts is, you know, he's, he got a little hobbled. And so he's not,

I don't think he's going to be wanting to run around everywhere. Yeah. Right. Like, I mean the, the way to, you know, kind of like what Lombardi was saying,

if you're playing, if you're playing five Mississippi, you got time to get down the field if you're playing three mississippi you don't and so you know you're counting on your your front line uh you know whether it's demarcus lawrence michael parsons and a lot to be able to get home and put a lot of pressure on Hurts. Look, after that 49ers thing, I'm so beaten down. I get it, and I said this last week. I knew it. I knew they'd do this. I knew they'd rope me back in with that Rams thing

because this is what they do. They beat the crap out of everybody that's 500 or less, and then they don't perform against the good teams that was my next question for you are they the guys are crazy are they the good bad team no i mean that's just what they are they always kill everybody not only do they kill them they cover they win and uh you know the arizona game notwithstanding um you know generally since dac has been the quarterback their record and they're against the spread record against bad teams is unbelievable not so much against the

good ones so all right well you you certainly did not talk me out of Eagles minus three I would tell you that much well I don't think the Eagles are that good either. They're not nearly what they were last year. They're not. Last year, going into the game, I was like, oh, hell. This year, I think it's a toss-up. Honestly. Okay. Texans minus three over the Bucs.

Was looking at this one. Texans, they lose to Carolina. It looks bad. Everyone's now off the Texans. Oh, they must not be good. They lost 2-0 in 16. It was a must-win kitchen sink coming off a bye game to Carolina. It looks bad. Everyone's now up to Texans. Oh, they must not be good. They lost 2-0 in 16. It was a must-win kitchen sink coming off a bye game for Carolina. They don't

want to go in 17. Close game. Came down to the last couple minutes. I just don't know what this Tampa team, which seems like arrow pointing down in a hard, hard way. Baker's already banged up. Texans can rush them.

They're home. You know, they have a chance to have a winning record after this game, which is bonkers. Or they'll be 4-4 after this game. I think the Bucs get the 500 as well. Aren't the Bucs a game under 500? One of these teams will be 500. Yeah, Houston's 3-4.

So one of these teams will be 500 after this game. And I don't know. I like the spot. The minus three. I wish it was minus two and a half. Because I feel like they could just win by three. But is this a stay away? You're making a face.

Yeah, I would not. I wouldn't bet on it. I would let this play out and just see what happens with Stroud. You know, is this going to go? Whether the league's figured him out a little bit. Yeah, was this a little flash in the pan at the beginning? You know, if he goes and plays really well in this, but I just want a bigger sample

size before I'm trusting him laying points. I think that's fair. Raiders are minus one and a half over the Giants, and the new coach theory is looming for this. Tell me you saw the press conference. Oh my God., my God. Oh, my God.

I grew up in Compton. I was bumping NWA to Raiders games. This Antonio Pierce, I was like, oh, my God. This is like the greatest thing ever. I don't know if it works, but every time, and I know you resent these, but there's like a hundred million athlete podcasts now, right? Why do I resent these? I mean, you just like, you like the good ones, but you think that there's-

I respect the athlete pods. Yeah, I don't personally listen to a lot of them. Yeah, there's a million of them. There's a million of them. There's a million of them. Well, there's a common refrain on all of these athlete pods because I do listen to some of them. And it's that anybody that has ever played for Josh McDaniels hates his ass.

They all trash him all the time. It's the craziest thing. Everybody that was in Denver just shits on the guy and it will be the same thing with Raiders. I don't know why they don't like him, but they end up hating the guy. This has the classic, fuck you, Josh

McDaniels. We're all over it. I mean, now the problem is, I don't know if Antonio Pierce can go and get five guys that can play offensive line for him, because that's going to be a mess. I had the Lions in a tease on Monday night,

and the Raiders were making me nervous in that game. They were running the ball, they were hanging around, and Jimmy just kept missing throws. I mean, Jimmy and his Adams opened twice, but other than that, he just didn't seem right the whole game, but I felt, Max Crosby was awesome. The new coach theory, which was solidified forever last year

when Jeff Saturday came out of the ESPN booth and knew nothing and somehow won his first game. If Jeff Saturday could win his first game, I'm going with Antonio Pierce. Wait, I think it was against the Raiders. It was. Oh, no. So they owe me anyway.

And then the last one I was looking at was Jets plus three and a half over the Chargers, just because the Chargers are a fucking stupid team. This looks like a totally logical game for them to lose. They're favored by three and a half on the road against Zach Wilson. It's like pencil men. Put them in a parlay. Oh, they'll be fine. All right.

So now we can have real degenerate chat. That feels to me like one that the Jets will win, but they'll win like 17-14 and I'll hate everybody. Right. That's just how it feels to me. Or they lose 17-14 but cover the three and a half. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Other way. Right. That's just how it feels to me. Or they, or they lose 17, 14, but cover the three and a half.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Other way. Yeah. That's right.

It's one of those. Yeah. I don't have that as a main one, but I definitely have that. Now is that early? Uh, I can check on that one. Oh,

it's a Monday night. Yeah. Monday night. Is that bad or good? I mean, it's not as good as if it was a noon game. I do like those. I still, after all these years, I still like that West Coast team having to play a noon game on the East Coast. Oh, yeah.

Right. Yeah. A couple of times. I was kind of hopeful that that was the case. A couple of times the West Coast team hit that and it threw people off the theory. But I'm still in just because every time i go back west coast to east coast i feel like shit for two days i can't imagine what it'd be like to play a football game and i always did and i always get scared like it's like all right

am i gonna be able to sleep tonight if i lose this bet i used to always say this about like alabama right if i bet on on Alabama and I lose, I could sleep. I lost betting on Alabama. But if I bet against them and I lose, then it's like, what the hell is wrong with me? Why am I betting against them? Seriously. I do kind of have that with Zach Wilson.

It's like, I mean, am I going to be able to sleep at night if I bet him and then he sucks? And I'm going to go, what did I expect? I was trying to win money betting on Zach Wilson against Justin Herbert. You might've talked me out of that. That's how I felt. I was looking at the Seahawks money line all week.

And I was like, I, how many times can I bet against Baltimore and Baltimore? And then they stick it to me. And I'm like, what am I doing? I'm betting against Baltimore and Baltimore. then they stick it to me and I'm like, what am I doing? Why am I betting against Baltimore and Baltimore? They always win in Baltimore.

So your advice would be stay away from the Jets plus three and a half. I mean, I would just be nervous about it. I'd be nervous about it just because, again, now if Aaron Rodgers plays, I like it. Aaron Rodgers limps out.

You never know. You never know with this guy. All right. So, I guess we got to decide. How many picks are you making? Well, right now I have Bengals, Eagles, Raiders, Colts, Falcons. That's five. And I could throw in the Jets as a little bonus Monday nighter.

Or I could stay away completely. Maybe I'll stay away. I think you're right. It doesn't feel good to bet on Zach Wilson. It just doesn't. I think that's been one of my mistakes this year is you're betting on these quarterbacks. It's like maybe it's just better not to bet on them at all.

If I lose to Jaron Hall, fine. Right. I get it. It's Taylor Heineke on the other side, but seriously, if I lose to Jaron Hall, fine. All right, here we go. Million dollar picks for week nine. I'm down 1.93 million.

I brought in special guest Chris Vernon, a fellow degenerate, to try to change my luck. We're going to bet $300,000 each on the following five bets. You cannot do the Eagles on my watch. You can't. Hey, listen, you did not recommend it. All right. But I'm doing it anyway. I don't want to root for you. I am doing two that you did recommend.

Falcons minus three and a half against the Vikings. Yeah. We are going to be going against the fifth rounder from BYU and the team that can't run the ball and the team with one receiver. And we're going to hope the Falcons cover that minus three and a half. Panthers plus two and a half at home against the Colts. The plus 122 isn't enough for me from a money line to not just grab those two points. We've seen a lot of like one, one point, two point weird, weird games. Um, I'm with you. The Colts give up yards and points to everybody. Maybe this is the Bryce Young breakout game. Maybe this is maybe Houston loses the Panthers win. There's some Bryce Young. Oh, maybe they got the best guy. So Panthers plus two and a half Raiders minus one and a half over the giants. The new coach theory we're dedicating this pick to our guy,

Antonio Pierce. I'm glad you love that one too. Uh, Bengals minus one and a half against Buffalo. I believe in this Bengals team and I actually think they have the Buffalo's number. And I think we're going to see that this week. And then last but not least,

Verno does not support this one because he loves the Cowboys, but we're going to take Eagles minus three against the, uh, against the Cowboys. Just because I think Dow, I think I'm trying to figure out who's going to play the great game this week, and the Eagles haven't done that yet. And I think maybe this is the week. I think Dallas might be the good-bad team.

You might have laid out the case. So those are the five. 300,000 on each. And then you kind of like the Bengals-Buffalo over two. We're not going to put anything on that, but we're flowing that way. I do. I do like that just because I don't think that either of those teams are going to. I think they'll both score a lot. Chase will probably have a big game.

Diggs will probably have a big game. They'll throw a bunch, both teams. Two good quarterbacks. I'm trying to get FanDuel to do an in-season tournament bet where you can have Denver or the Celtics, either of them to win the title. You can bet on either. Have you looked at this tournament?

No. Where it's like, it's basically they've rigged it so the eight of the best teams are going to be in there because it's going to be really hard for the best teams to lose their brackets. They would have to just suck.

So then it gets to the top eight and I don't know, Celtics nuggets. Do you care about the in-season tournament or no? I think I will. When it gets there, I'm just, I don't mind it because I think everybody is not particularly understanding why they should care about it.

And my opinion is what they're going to have to do. And I think they will. They've got to have some stakes that the fans care about. Not Jake LaRavia making an extra 500,000 bucks. Nobody cares. Nobody. When the, if you're telling me like,

why does this matter? And the reason it matters is because guys make an extra half a million dollars that is not a reason for it to matter to me or to say i should care about the bragging rights of some mid-season tournament like don't don't leave out the special courts that i'm supposed to care about i don't care about anybody's court oh Oh, and the horrendous jerseys. See, the jerseys are going to be annoying. I actually, I dislike courts and jerseys that are outside the norm.

Yeah, they should have just done everybody wear their classic jerseys. Yeah, from the oldest year of your franchise. That would have been the coolest thing to do. Then the Lakers would have to wear Minneapolis jerse to do. Then the Lakers would have to wear Minneapolis jerseys and then the Lakers would have to reconcile the five titles that they claimed from Minnesota that they stole.

You want it so badly. Let me ask you this. If Vancouver had won a title before the team went to Memphis, would you be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Vancouver title in Memphis?

I'm going to say no, there's no way. Absolutely not. Yeah. No, come on. I, but I think our fans are losers.

I do think, I do think there's going to be stakes at some point and sooner than later that make fans care about it. Like you got to get something, whether that means, okay, now we win a tiebreaker when it comes to the playoff standings, or we get a draft pick, right?

Maybe we get, even if you got like the, whatever, you say, all right, the 31st pick in the draft is actually going to be whoever wins this mid-season tournament, which, again, it would take some, you know, it would take a level of knowledge to understand. But as you know, that is the most valuable pick in the draft. That's why the question is, why would the players care about getting the 31st pick for their team?

No, I'm saying that's an addition to they're already getting. No, no, I'm saying that the players. No, I'm with you. I would be way more excited if I was like, oh, cool cool we got the first pick in the second round now i'm even more invested no no but i think they're still getting the money yeah and they get and they get the pick but i think they're banking on the players getting competitive about it because it's like yeah it's a regular season but these are the games that are going to stand out don't you want to win this you're in Vegas.

Like, why not? I don't fully understand it, I got to be honest. I'm also going and I'm excited to go. I mean, it'll be cool just because we don't care about anything that's going on in December with the season anyway. And that's why they're doing it.

So there's something to at least... We have all these people descending on Vegas in December to watch basketball and talk about the nba when usually that's football is swallowed up everything at that point have you been to the sphere yet i have not i'm gonna hopefully check it out that week i'm excited o'connor thinks it's the greatest thing in the world he he gets very scientologisty about when he has an experience that is really great and unique. He really, he gets like, he kind of leaves his body. He's like, like Deepak Chopra.

He becomes one with the earth. The spheres changed me. The spheres changed my life, Chris. Interstellar in the theater. That's what it was. I saw Interstellar on IMAX Chris Yeah the greatest thing ever Oh yeah you're not gonna

You're not gonna imitate me Oh I did that earlier Oh god You do the Come on It's still bad it's like A D plus imitation I'm working on it Alright Verno we can listen to you on the Mismatch you can also tune in to It's still bad. It's like a D-plus imitation. I'm working on it. All right, Virto,

we can listen to you on the mismatch. You can also tune in to all the great stuff he does in Memphis. Have you done Marcus Smart? Have you done Marcus Smart anything yet? In Vegas. Any big sit down with him or no? No, I did the first big sit down when we got him,

right? You haven't done anything since the season started though, right? I've not done anything since the season started. I don't think anybody wants to talk yet. Yeah, I don't believe it. I'm not sure anybody wants to talk about how awesome it is.

Good luck with the Grizzlies season. Yeah, yeah. Nobody listen to the episode of the Mismatch that comes out today. Don't do that because it's just going to be an absolute blood bath for me. Bye, Verna. All right, see you.

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Chris Vernon. Thanks to J. Kyle Mann and Joe House. Thanks to Steve Cerruti and Kyle Creighton. As always, don't forget you can buy tickets for our live podcast in Las Vegas, December 6th, Jimmy Kimmel's Comedy Club. Tickets go on sale Friday, 10 a.m. Pacific time. And you can go to jimmykimmelscomedyclub.com

and get your tickets. Enjoy the weekend. I will see you on Sunday with the Cuss. I don't have. Must be 21 plus and president select states. FanDuel is offering online sports wagering in Kansas center in a great mood. I don't have to. and Virginia. You can call 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 in Arizona. Call 1-888-789-777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. 1-800-9WITH-IT in Indiana. 1-800-522-4700 or visit ksgamblinghelp.com in Kansas. 1-877-770-STOP in Louisiana, mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland, 1-800-GAMBLER.NET in West Virginia, or 1-800-522-4700 in Wyoming. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York.