The Bill Simmons Podcast - Nico’s Gone, Iconic Bad Trades, Baseball’s Comeback, Lane Kiffin, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and the Power of Boredom With Chuck Klosterman

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Chuck Klosterman to react to the Mavericks firing Nico Harrison months after trading Luka Doncic (3:04). Then, they take a look at a possible Anthony Davis trade before discussing parity in MLB, coaching in college sports, and much more (40:47)! Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Chuck Klosterman Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo Get Gameday Deals all season long only on Uber Eats. Order Now. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We'd love to talk, business. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network where you can find a new episode of The Rewatchables that went up Monday night. We did Snake Eyes, which is a really, really, really, really fun 1998 movie. Yet another awesome, 1998 movie directed by Brandon Palma, starring Nick Cage. As Sean Fantasy said on the podcast, it was a safety off performance by Nick Cage. He is just going for it the entire time. Really fun movie.

So you can check that out wherever you get your. rewatchables podcast. Hey, I wanted to, I wanted to bring something back for 2026 for this podcast. Obviously, I did this when I wrote. I did this for the first couple years of when we had this podcast on The Ringer. And now I'm going to try to get it going again, maybe on Tuesdays, but I wanted to bring the mailbag back. I wanted to lean on the listeners for some fun questions and uh you can email us questions at bspodcast 33 at gmail.com. Bs podcast 33 at gmail.com. Uh, send them in. I'm going to have somebody go through them. Send me the best, the best, uh, possibles. And then I'll go through and try to make it a running

thing either on Tuesdays or Thursdays, uh, maybe near the holidays, but also, really thinking for 2026, especially when this podcast ends up on Netflix, probably I think in mid-January. So I want to have some sort of extra gimmick. I miss doing the mailbags. It's just pure laziness why we haven't been doing them. I haven't had time to really go through all the emails, but I'm going to get some help and I'm going to bring it back. So the mailbag is coming back. It's not a big announcement, but it's an announcement. It's not as big of an announcement as the Mavericks firing Nico Harrison less than 10 months after he made the Luca Donchus trade.

We're going to talk about that and a whole bunch of other things with BS Podcasts Hall of Fame or Chuck Kohlsterman, who hasn't been on in a while. We have a lot of topics. I have some sense of where this might go, but then as always with Chuck, you just never know. And it's next.

We're going to take a break, then bring in Pearl Joe. This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is presented by State Farm. Having insurance isn't the same as having State Farm. It's like needing the protection. an offensive guard on the football field, but getting an elementary school crossing guard. Sure, they're both guards,

but you can only trust one to keep your quarterback safe when the game is on the line. So don't settle for just any insurance. When you can have State Farm, like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. All right, the BS Pod Hall of Famer, Chuck Closter Minis here. We are going to talk about a bunch of stuff. One thing we did not have on the docket was Dallas Mavericks GM, Nico Harrison, got fired

about two hours before we started taping here at 10 o'clock Pacific time. And we never talked about this trade and all this stuff on the pod. So he's getting fired not even 10 months after he made this trade, which when the trade happened, everybody automatically was like, wow, this is one of the worst trades of all time. This is inexplicable. Why didn't he shop it? Why would he trade Luca?

Why did he underestimate the fan base? And then somehow it worked out even worse than it seemed like in the moment. Davis has played nine games out of like a possible 44. and the Mavs are terrible, the fans are enraged, and they finally had to dump this guy before we even got to Thanksgiving. Can you remember another sports situation like this since we've been alive?

Well, I don't know. I'd have to think about that. It's interesting that the GM is under so much, you know, the fire. Like his, the awareness of the GM of the Mavericks is higher than the vast majority of their roster, which is, right. I mean, I'll tell you what, though. Okay, obviously the trade didn't work.

I'm not going to sit here and be like, ah, well, on the opposite, actually. But I do think he was treated somewhat unfairly, and it was, to some degree, his fault for not explaining this better. Because there is a way to explain this trade that does not seem as insane as it does now. Yeah. All right. What's that way then? Well, okay. So they go to the finals in 2024.

And Luca plays great. He's like, he's like 28, 9 and 8, I think during that playoff run. But they barely beat OKC. And then they kind of got run by the Celtics and clearly couldn't compete with him. So if you're him and the idea is, the real goal is to win a championship, not to be good, not to be competitive, not to be interesting, not to make money, to win a championship. I can understand the thinking being like, we need to go in a completely defensive direction. which he said and Anthony Davis is you know I mean obviously Luca on a scale of one to 10 he's a 10 on offense maybe a five or six on defense when he's healthy Anthony

Davis is like seven eight eight nine 10 on defense so I think that he looked at this and like we got to just completely reconstruct the scene because it didn't we did we did the best that we could with what we had with our best player playing awesome and we could not do it so we've got to sort of recreate this. They say, like, why didn't they throw Austin Reeves in there? I think at the time, he was like, that's not, he's part of the system that's not going to work. It's like either all shooting or all defense.

Yeah. As it turned out, it was a mistake. This did not work. And, you know, and everybody who said it was going to be terrible, proved right. But, you know, okay, so no one talks about him letting Jalen Brunson leave that much. Because everyone seemed to think you're supposed to let Brunson leave at the time. Now, if they hadn't done that, the team is completely different.

There's a lot of things I feel like that could have made this a completely different situation, but he kind of made that mistake that a lot of GMs do, which is when you make a trade, you're almost supposed to behave like, I'm not going to say anything. I'm just going to let everything play out and I'll be proven right. He should have been more on the offensive and said, this is doing this because we're not going to win a championship the way we're with the trajectory we're on. We've got to change things. And I think that would have seemed more reasonable.

It allowed people to kind of think all these crazy things that he was trying to actually just move the team to Vegas and all this stuff. I mean, yes, obviously, I'm not trying to say it was a good trade now. It didn't work. But it wasn't as insane as people responded at the time. Right. Well, he did leak out the defense stuff.

And he was saying the defense wins championship thing. He probably didn't say, he probably didn't come harder. There's nothing else you could have said, right? There's like no, like, that had to be the reason. but he wasn't very definitive in his defense of this decision, you know? Yeah, because he's like too cool for school. I mean, there are so many things wrong with the trade, and we talked about all of them when it happened,

basically that they didn't shop it. This was the only suitor, that it was the only suitor because if word leaked out that they might trade Luca, the fan base would have revolted. So he's trying to sneak it by the fan base, basically. Can I get this deal done without this leaking? Because if it leaks out, I won't be able to do the deal because the fan base will revolt,

which probably should have been a red flag for him in retrospect. Like, yeah, you're doing a trade that the fan base is going to revolt. That might not be a great idea. But the bigger thing for me, he didn't get enough in the trade, which everybody said at the time. Whether you like Reeves or not, he has to be in it because at least he's an asset. But he was banking on Davis, who as we've seen, and he's had some bad luck, like he got poked in the eye, right?

Now he has to wear goggles. he's had some wear and tear over the years. But he's banking on this guy who's a big guy heading into, like, he's already in his early 30s, heading toward his mid-30s. When we see the history of the league, these 6'11 and up guys as they hit 32, 33, 34, they can get really gaming in a whole bunch of different ways, right?

Versus Luca was in his mid-20s with a whole bunch of scenarios where he could have actually gone up a level. And that was the part I didn't understand. You're buying almost past performance and giving up future performance with this age piece of it that was stupid along with all the other stuff. Everybody who said the trade was idiotic was right. Time is proven.

It was a bad move. But I think this is tricky because the way trades are considered while they're happening is very different than the way they're considered retrospectively. And that's what I mean by that. Okay. So when the Thunder traded James Harton, okay, who won that trade? The Rockets. Okay.

But at the time, the trade was made. The idea for both teams was we're doing this to win a title. That is our motive for making this move. And it didn't happen. Now, ultimately, the Thunder down the road do wouldn't. So if we look at this of all being dominoes that line up and kind of moving in these kind of capricious arbitrary ways, but kind of ending in the present, the Rockets didn't win that trade.

The Rockets did not win a championship by, you know, by getting hard. Same damn close. It seems like that they won the trade because obviously he had this amazing career. And what was given in return did not really, you know, amount too much. But if the goal was to win a title, the goal failed. So if the initial idea about the trade is to win a championship, that needs to be the same criteria you use when considering it in retrospect. Yeah, that's fair.

Well, so Kyrie blew out his ACL right after the trade and AD got hurt. Yes. So if you're Nico. That was a good acquisition he made that everyone thought was crazy. True. Many people question the idea of him getting Kyrie, and that proved to be a smart move. I really respect your Nico Harrison's ag. I didn't think it was possible.

And you're, you're zagging in a way that I, it's new territory. It's like watching somebody climb some mountain. mountain that's never been climbed. What I'm just saying is that it was that go to trade was a mistake and time has proven that it was. I do think to some degree he was treated unfairly. And I think that the idea of the fan base turning on the guy being the motive for firing him, well, if for whatever reason they start the season six and two or whatever, everything

is different, the fan base would then all of a sudden decide, oh, this was brilliant. He got us Cooper Flagg for this back door. in Sydney, Nostradamus thing. It is strange to take the side of someone who just got fired for obviously making a horrible decision. But that's what I'm doing. Like, I sort of do see the reason behind it. And I just think the pile on against this guy was kind of cheap.

Well, so, anything about him as a person. I don't like, what is he like as a guy? Not that that should matter in terms of how we gauge this decision, but what's he like. Very well respected in the NBA community. I mean, I had a whole shoe background. And when they hired him, I think people thought he was like... His shoe background, his big thing is that he blew it with Steph Curry. Yeah, but I mean, everybody's got one of those probably.

I think he was respected as a relationships guy. Like he had relationships with agents, players, people on other teams, and he was somebody that could rejuvenate them. I think, like, when I look back now that it's almost 10 months later and you look back, this was really we don't think Luca can be the face of our team trade and what's the best we can do and almost like we might be getting one over on the Lakers if we get this trade for him now because they don't realize what they're buying but the part they missed which I said at the time was like you're lighting a fire under somebody who the one thing that you could kind of ding him on

was well he's not in great shape yet he's a little bit of a diva like all things that by trading you're just lighting this massive fire under him to be like, oh, I'm gonna fucking show you. So it was like the greatest thing that ever could have happened to him, which people said, including me at the time. And that was the part he didn't factor into the trade. Like, what is the potential of what I'm giving up?

What happens if this guy goes up a level? Which is what's happening. I would say two things to that. One, here again, in retrospect, you are right. So I can't say like that was, you know, a crazy thing to think. But I think it is difficult to make a move or not make a move based on the intangible abstraction

of whether or not this guy will care more if this happens. If this guy will take this in some personal way and he'll lose a bunch of weight and care more. I mean, that's part of the sports, though. You have to factor in human nature and motivation. That's a good, that's a point in your favor. That's the kind of thing he's supposed to think about. The other thing is I do think he probably became fixated

on Anthony Davis. That he thought this is the only rim protector who can feasibly score 33 points as well. Like I can get the most on both ends of the floor from this guy if he's healthy, and I'm going to gamble on that. Because I think a lot of these guys, it's like, you know, and you, I'm sure will agree with this.

There are so many GMs in all sports whose only goal is putting themselves in a position where they can't do anything that will get them immediately terminated. That if they can always sort of create this... By the way, Chuck, that's life. That's like the content industry right now. That's like a bunch of media executives that name a company. They just don't want to have, they'd rather not have a win or a loss.

They would just rather kind of cruise along and not actually take a risk on anything. And is that good or bad? That's bad. That's bad. And I would say that the idea of a guy thinking, maybe we can win the title in two years. If all of these gambles come together, I mean, that gets a guy fired and it did. But it's like, Well, but the real problem is he didn't make the best possible trade. So if he's going to shop Luca, you shop Luca and maybe Utah comes out of nowhere and says, we'll give you Lori Marketing and 10 first round picks. Like you just don't know until it's like selling something to your neighbor over putting it on eBay or something.

Like you're just basically guessing that's what the price is. You don't know. Like here's a comparison to me in this situation. Yes, they should like should have reasons in this deal or whatever. They could have gotten marketing all these different guys. you know teams this happens i guess more at the college level in football but they kind of run the shotgun all the time right and then they get down inside the 10 and they're still in the shotgun and you're like what i'm doing why are you doing this and it drives you crazy tex attack used to do this

all the time it would drive me insane well here's the deal though if you say our philosophy is this how is we play in this way we go shotgun all the time we go fast all the time we never eat clock it's not what we do you can't say like oh but when we're we're inside the five, we flip this. You've got to stay to the program. Now we're a power running team. So if he looks at this and he's like, okay, we throw in Austin Reeves.

Maybe what Austin Reeves offers, which is, you know, he's averaging 30 points a game this year. He's a great offensive player, but maybe he was like, this is not the kind of guy that we want for what we're doing going forward. We need a different kind of. But he's still an asset. Like, it's still somebody you could flip for more stuff.

That's the issue with that. And that's, and so you could have flipped him for something else, you know, yes. Here again, it's like, I'm like somebody here being like, oh, actually, it was a great idea to go into Vietnam. It made a lot of sense for it. It didn't work out, okay? I'm fucking, it didn't happen, right? So I'm not saying that like actually what you think you saw is an illusion.

It made the trade. It was a bad trade. It failed. I'm just saying the reasoning behind it was not as insane as people behaved particularly in that first 48 to 72 hours after the trade happened. People just sort of lost their mind. And I feel like this idea of winning trades, you don't know until these things play out, you know? I mean, we've got to talk about it

because this is what the job is talking about this shit. But it's not a good way to do it because the criteria changes from, are we going to win the championship by making this move to, in retrospect, who got more value out of this move that both won us nothing? Yeah, but there's another piece to this, which is the sports fandom connection

And it's the same thing that the Red Sox had with Mooky Betts. And this happens over the years. Like we even, I remember when I was a kid, the Mets traded Tom Sieber to the Reds. And I didn't care about the Mets. But as a little kid, I was like, holy shit, they traded Tom Seber. Like he is the Mets. How can you trade the face of your franchise for what you got back, which was basically like Doug Flynn and I forget who else was in that trade?

But I think that's the piece that I think people can over and over again, underestimate. How much fans give a shit? How much fans get attached to somebody? That's somebody who maybe doesn't make that much money. They bought their kid a Luca Donchitz jersey for $200. And then the guy gets traded two months later. Like little things like that, they just missed. It's a lack of connectivity. It's a lack of connectivity to the fan base and what they actually care about, which is like, I think the fan base actually cared more about just having Luca in their life for 15 years than actually winning the title. He gave everybody the choice and they're like, all right, 5% chance you win the title,

but you keep Luca for 20 years, or 90% chance you win the title with Davis once. I think all the MAFs fans would be like, we'd rather have Luca and the puncher's chance, and that's it. I think that probably is true. You know, one thing about the Portland Trailblazers is that for many, many years, they never really put themselves in a position where they could realistically win a title, but the fan base liked the team because they're always competitive, you know? And I do think that, I mean, that's, you know, when I was, okay, so I have a ton of friends who are huge, like Minnesota Viking fans, right?

Because of, yeah, from, yeah. And we sometimes sort of had this discussion. Would they prefer what the Minnesota, what the Vikings have been over time, which is the most successful franchise not to win a Super Bowl, I would say. When you say, oh, yeah, decade to decade, no question. They're always kind of relevant. in the mix and just can't actually get over the hub. And then it was like, would you rather have that or all these other possibilities of teams who won a championship, but for the most part have been down?

And I think for the most part, that they prefer the way things have worked out. They prefer having a good team all the time, overtime. It almost feels as though they've had championships in a weird way, which they're talking about like consistent relevancy versus like that one like the Florida Marlins 2001 title or whatever, or 2002, whatever year that was, when they kind of bought the title and then gutted the team. I mean, in the year they went 15 and 1 and got beat in the NFC Championship, Atlanta.

That was obviously a heartbreaking, you know, you would say like a gut-plunch loss or whatever. And yet there's a memory of that season that is positive in their minds. Like, they remember how awesome that was or whatever. So even though it didn't end with a championship, as though they feel the franchise as good. And maybe it's the exact same thing here.

Like maybe, particularly, in a place where basketball is, you know, by far a secondary concern, where it's, you know, where, you know, the high school football matters more in Dallas than the NBA. Yeah. And it made me be like, well, it's just nice to have a competitive franchise. It's nice to always have a good team or whatever. It's nice to have something fun to look forward to. And that would be that obviously is what they should have done. Like here again, looking back, that obviously would have been a better move. I did not expect the response. to be what it was. But it would be strange to hire a GM. And if he came in, he was like,

well, my number one priority is sort of making sure the fan base is enthusiastic and happy. It doesn't matter how we finish. I want the fans to feel good about this. Well, that's actually a very reasonable kind of strategy. I don't think you would hire a guy who says that, right? If his number one thing isn't we're going to win a title, that's what a GM is supposed to say. My job is singular. I am here to put together a roster. that wins us a championship. Well, do you think, you know, like if you were the Mavericks GM and you called me and I was like your one phone call, oh, yo, I got to throw this by you.

Let me ask you about this. And beyond like how dumb the actual trade is, there had to be somebody in his life who would have been like, dude, they're going to hate you if you do this trade. Like you have to go to the games. Everyone knows what you look like. You're going to have to sit in the arena. and everybody's going to hate that you traded their favorite player

and if this doesn't work out and it's not quite as good as you think or Davis gets hurt or Luca goes to the Lakers and he's awesome. There's like seven different scenarios I can present to you where you become the most hated person

in Dallas since 1963, basically. That's how you would be perceived. You won't be able to go anywhere. It won't be fun for you to go to dinner. It won't be fun for you to go to the games. It won't be fun for you to go into a convenience store and buy gum. Name any scenario with you in Dallas, and it's going to suck.

So you're sure you want to do this. You have to be really convicted in the trade. It'd be like, nope, you don't understand. If we get Davis, people don't understand how awesome he is, and I'll take the heat if he's not. And I just don't think it was that it was even remotely a slam dunk to risk all that other shit. Did you happen to watch this Martin Scorsese documentary that was just on? I still haven't. I'm due.

Well, the same situation could be said about him making the last. temptation of Christ. He had this idea that this is what I want to do, and I think this is what I got to do. I'm sure there were people in his life saying, like, don't do this. Like, it's going to change your perception among the people who currently like you the most. Like Christian, you know, it's like he's sort of tied into a world with sort of very traditional views in his audience or people who have sort of, you know, artistic reactionaries, whatever the case, however you want to look at it, you know.

But he was like, I got to do it. And if you want to be great, you've got to do those things. You can be good by listening to advice, but to be great, you have to ignore it and take gamble, you know. Except in this case, when you're trading Luca Dachish. I didn't think I'd come on here and support Nico Harrison today, but I guess I am. You're supporting the concept of it. You're not supporting. Or at least like, to me, I can imagine a scenario where things work out differently, and this is remembered as a brilliant decision.

that's not going to be what it is, right? It's not how it's going to be. So I'm not saying. Well, that's what he'll tell people 10 years from now. Be like, look, Davis got hurt, Kyrie got hurt. I don't think I was wrong. He can move into that mode pretty fast. I don't think I was wrong.

I think the team we put together actually would have been really good and we never saw it and we'll never know. I was thinking about like growing up and then through our childhoods when we cared about sports and we had no internet, way more time to just think about dumb, historical shit. There were always these trades that kind of levitated

above all the other trades or the Babe Ruth thing was more of a sale. Yes. But it's a short, I was trying to think of the worst trades in my lifetime. And Hershey Walker always gets mentioned first,

right? That Minnesota gave all this stuff to Dallas. And it was really the wrinkle of the trade where if they just waved all these players, they got all these extra picks. Yeah, well, that was, it was really a trick in the,

it was yeah it was like they like the Vikings did not believe that they would actually cut all those guys yeah he was like they're not going to cut everybody and it was like yeah we're cutting them all and we get the pick and that was I mean that that really was not him you know but fundamentally when that trade happened people were like holy shit the Vikings got hersher walker they give up a lot but hersher walker's awesome like you know in the moment it was not crazy I mean I might be wrong about this but I'm pretty sure or not. In the first game he played, or maybe it was the second game, I think it was the first game, they put him in your return to kickoff. Right. And his shoe came off. And he still had this huge return. Like it's, I don't know, I think he scored, but it was a big return with one

shoe on. And I remember all the Viking people being like, this is it. This is, we did it. This is this is it. This is the thing that we did. So it's a defensible bad trade. And, well, it's defensible. Not if you look back on it. If you look back on it, it would probably was certainly, the most meaningful trade in modern NFL history. No question. Yes, there's no question about it. But when it happened, you can see it.

I mean, the worst trade in the history of the NBA somehow isn't the Luca trade. I think that's the most indefensible trade. The worst trade ever, it wasn't even the Nets fault, but the ABA MBA merger happens. They have to pay this big premium to join the NBA, and they basically don't have money. So their choice is like,

we can join the NBA, but we're going to have to sell Dr. Jay. And they sell him to the 76ers for $3 million to basically, because they had to because that was the way to keep the franchise alive because NBA teams didn't make money back then. But fundamentally, just selling Dr. Jay as you're entering the NBA when he's in the prime of his career, there's no worse trade than that. I guess trading Jabbar. Okay, so that was like for Brian Winter, I think junior bridgeman.

Junior Bridgman, Dave Myers. And also Kareem was kind of forcing it. But defensive because he was going to be a free agent in a year and they knew they weren't getting a compensation for him, so they kind of had to do it. So another one like this, so the Broncos trade for John O.A., who is like the best quarterback prospect of the 80s,

doesn't want to play for Indianapolis, rightly so. Like, it's pretty smart that he didn't want to go there. And he's like basically puts his foot down. I don't want to go there. So they trade him for a quarterback named Mark Herman, Chris Hinton, who was one of the best left tackles in the league. And in 1984 first, and that's it. And they get John Elway for two decades, basically.

And I think that's actually a worse trade than Herschel Walker. But the catch is he didn't want to go there. And he wasn't going to go there. And he was going to go play baseball. And they were kind of hamstrung, right? So there's a reason for that. And now we do you not want to go there. But if that trade was discussed two years after it happens,

everyone was like, Elway's not going to make it. Right. I mean, there were like, that was, he seemed at the time, like a super athletic guy, remember there's like footage of him

that he lined up behind the guards to the center one time. And it was like, there was all these, you know, he was kind of getting pushed into playing and it didn't seem like it was going to work.

And then. Yeah. Then all of a sudden, it took a terrible relationship. Now, obviously, as it turns out, you know,

it would have been, he won two Super Bowls and he's a Hall of Famer and all of the... Yeah, all of a sudden he was in the AFC title game. Siebert of the Reds, we mentioned, had a lot of the same DNA, the Luca trade,

where it's like you're just trading somebody that your entire fan base loved. And in Siever's case, won titles with, right? One in the 69 title with made the 73 World Series with. Most beloved Met ever, they traded them. The Deshaun Watson trade was really bad. And I think we knew it was bad when it happened. Then they guaranteed his contract.

They gave up all these picks. That really was the worst NFL trade of all time, not Hershey Walker. I would say for what you gave up, if you add the money into it, You had the money and the off the field stuff, which had already happened. Yes. And a fan base going, wait a second, we don't even want to root for this guy.

You traded all this stuff for him and you guarantee. So that's actually the worst NFL trade. Then the Pierce Garnett trade to the nets, which I think was way more defensible when it seemed like Prokeroff was just going to spend basically money like the Dodgers are spending now. And, you know, they gave up three first. They gave up a pick swap in 2017. But it just seemed like they're going to have the highest payroll in the league every year.

so who cares about the picks. They got rid of Gerald Wallace's. It was semi-defensible in the moment. Then a year later, Prokroyov's like, I don't want to spend money anymore. Now you don't have those picks. And then the only other one is the most famous NBA one for years was that Parrish-McKale trade.

It was Joe Barry Carroll. The number 13th pick was Ricky Brown. For Parrish from McKeel. Parrish was, you know, wasn't really Robert Parrish at that point. He was the equivalent of, I don't know, like a better D'Andre Aiton right now. McHale was the third pick.

Carol was the best college player was semi-defensible. This Luca one is the first one that even as it happened was hard to defend. Along in that same situation, I think getting Dennis Johnson for Rick Roeby probably. Oh, that was amazing. But there was like, there was

some cocaine son stuff at the time and DJ was one of the names. So I think they got them on a discount. The point is you go through all these trades in history and there's always one yeah-butt and this Luca trade didn't have a yeah-butt coming out of the gate. Everybody was like, why did they do

this. It was like the immediate mass reaction. And then it just somehow got worse. So I really think it has a chance to be remembered. I don't know if it's the worst trade ever, but it'll be mentioned forever. This will be when 50 years from now, if we still have professional sports in a country and a society. And they're like, what were the worst trades ever? This would be mentioned. It will. If the Lakers won a title, for sure. If they don't win a title, I don't know. I don't know if I don't know what will happen. I don't, I like your little twist on that. Like, you don't say there was no, when I say this was, there was, they were, Harrison was kind of

treated unfairly, I'm not saying that it was like, was treated unfairly because people didn't realize it was actually a good deal. I feel that people over amplified the degree to which it was imbalanced. I mean, and here again, it's a weird statement to make when all those people have been proven right. It is strange for me to make this argument. now. I realize that. But I, what I'm saying is at the time, I feel like he or someone else in the media could have made a very justifiable case for why the chances of them winning a title increased with

this move. And here's the problem with the increased thing. Because I went to all those finals games. They lost the first two in Boston. Game three, it felt like they were probably going to win. And Luca fouled out with five minutes left, which if you're going to hang Luca, don't get kicked. Don't get, don't fall out of the fucking game. But then the offense went to Kyrie and I was in the stands going, oh my God, like this is, this is like a Shakespeare moment where Kyrie, this guy that all the Celtics fans hated because he kind of, you know, kind of didn't want to stay on the team, promised he was going to be there, didn't. Now this guy's going to cook us in a game three. We're going to lose game four. We might blow the series.

I never felt like that series was safe until the second half of game five. The point is they were pretty close to winning the finals that year. So you can't really use the, oh, well, we can't win the title with Luca. Wait a second. Wait a second. They were in the vicinity. They played as well as he could. They got beat four to one in the finals and really should have lost to OKC in the

semi-finals of the West. Well, that, yeah, the OKC series was a 50-50. They really should have lost. But we had the perfect team to play him, though, in the finals. When he followed out, wasn't that the one where he was sitting on the floor yelling at the bench and then like Winhurst talked about after the game? How immature he was. He knows what he's talking about.

He was in a position basically saying, like, this isn't going to work if this guy is this way. And was there any indication that this guy was going to be different than that way unless he changed locations, you know? Or I guess it would be hilarious if as we're talking about this, Nico came out of your back room and just patted you on the back and said, thank you, Chuck. Thank you for being my one defender. I know exactly what's going to happen because it always happens when I go, like, it must be weird being you. and having this audience of so many people that, of course, you encapsulate some of the stupidest people on earth. And you get real smart people, too.

Like, sometimes it's don't be like, oh, this person listened to our podcast. And I'm like, that person listens to the podcast. But there's a huge, much larger chunk of just, like, I, it would, you have a higher tolerance for that than I do. Or maybe, maybe you just got used to it. I mean, this is something I got to bring up to you. promise no guys to bring this up to you. So I was at this humanity symposium in North Dakota a couple of weeks ago. And the

theme was about the culture of the 1980s. And you know, I'm the speaker at this thing and I'm doing all my bullshit, you know, slow cancellation in the future. I'm talking about the past and all these things. Here's what people want to talk to me about. This is the main thing that they want to ask me about after this symposium. First of all, does Bill Simmons actually believe Rocky 3 is the best movie of the 80s. That was a question to you? Yes.

Did you say that? Did you make that statement? I was like, that seems like that something he might say, but I was the best movie of the 80s or the best Rocky movie of the 80s? They claim you insisted was Rocky 3. Now you could have, I said like maybe he was being served on.

No, I didn't say that. Okay. I might have said most entertaining movie of the 80s. Of the record, you are, yeah, because I was like, I don't know if I would have made that case. Do you believe it's the best of the rock? I did well I think it's the most rewatchable okay okay yeah I think Rocky one's probably the

the quote unquote best one but I think Rocky three is the most entertaining start to finish okay well so then the conversation morphed into this and it seemed like the kind of thing you might have real input on if Rocky Belboa was a real person and then he died in his obituary what part of his career or what part of his personality is the lead? Like what is considered the most important or memorable aspect of his career if he were a real person and then passed away? That he ended Apollo Creed's undefeated heavyweight championship streak, came out of nowhere, improbable rags to riches story, captured the heart of the nation.

More so than beating the Russian in Russia. and convincing the crowd in an exhibition to, say, USA, USA in the Soviet Union. Oh, you think that would be the lead that he ended the Cold War. This was the crux of it. That's the first thing people brought up. And then they were like, but it was an exhibition. And I can't remember. Would it have been televised in the United States?

Is there footage in the movie? Yeah, they show his kids watching. Okay. So how did that happen? Because he says, well, my kid is staying up late. So, yeah, he says, The Soviet Union allowed, like, who covered it? Listen, there's a lot of holes in Rocky Four.

He didn't get paid for it. It's unclear who profited from the pay-per-view, even though probably I would say tens of millions probably watched where the money go, did their split. There was no promoter. It was an exhibition. There's a lot of questions. They've never really been answered.

What, if we use just the scripts, the fights we see. So you're saying, like, we take this as, Rocky, his whole career was a real career. You're saying him beating Drago in an exhibition, but maybe turning the Cold War is mentioned above him being a rags to Rich's story who beat Apollo Creed ended the streak. That was sort of the central aspect of the debate over this. Other people, I think, brought up the idea would, would it be seen as a very sad story because of the end of his life, the way we look at Sonny Liston or something? That even though in the movies, it has portrayed as positive. No, because think of Mike Tyson. Like if Mike

Tyson dies. Okay. What's the first, like, sentence, what's the blink snapshot of his career? It would be like, Mike Tyson, the most feared heavyweight of the 1980s, who won his first, whatever, and was the youngest heavyweight champion of all time. And then his career ended in disgrace. He was in prison. Comma, his career ended in disgrace after he went to prison and bid a Vanderholyfield and lost all his money and a whole bunch of other things. Although it's sort of seems like now his story is kind of a redemptive story, right? The fact that he's still alive is, I think, redemptive. You know, or he's kind of become something very, very different.

Because we were just talking, it's just interesting to me always to talk about fictional things as if they were real and what the response would be. You know, it's like a, you know, if they discussed, if Rocky died now as a person, would there be a discussion about the racial overtone? of his rivalry with Creed now, which would not have been talking, would that be brought up? Like, in the New York Times,

like that, the guy who won a Nobel Prize for, like, you know, discovering or being part of the discovery of, like, the DNA. And, like, in the headline, it kind of mentions that later in life, he said, like, some racist or sexist

or sexist things or whatever. It was very, it's like, I'm sure he didn't expect that was going to be part of his obituary. So I wonder if that would happen now with, if, if, if Rocky, the real person die, if that somehow would be.

I would say, the clubber lang part would probably have like the stronger racial overtones than because creed was like a beloved you know he kind of trained he was like ali he transcended all that stuff i'd say creed was definitely more more that rocky three tapped into that a lot harder i think even though creed was on rocky's side the strangest thing about clubber lang is i remember at one point he's giving an interview in the movie and his thing is you know i live alone i train alone yeah but he's a boxer so we never spars? How can a boxer train alone? Like a boxer more than anyone needs someone to train with him? Is he just hitting the heavy bag? I think he was probably being a probably exaggerating

a little bit. Let's take a break and then we got to talk about baseball. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to by Fandual. This NBA season on Fandle, it's all about the boost. Game days mean your chance to boost your bet, make every play payoff. That's right. All customers get a 50% and profit boost on NBA Parlay and SGP bets. So I'm going to Denver Clippers on Wednesday night. The Clippers are not doing well this season. They really match up nicely with Denver and I feel like this can be a kitchen sink game for them.

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Every football season, the same thing happens. The game somehow makes everybody really hungry. Quarterback scrambles clearly a sign for breakfast burritos. Yeah. Turnover, suddenly dessert at 2 p.n. doesn't sound so crazy. Wing formations. Well, those can only mean buffalo wings, as if they're ever not in play. Even the goalposts start looking suspiciously like French fries.

It's almost like football is sending a message to eat. More food. Yeah, the good news, Uber-Its makes those cravings easy to satisfy with game-day deals all season long. From wings and pizza to chips, drinks, and even last-minute grocery runs. Don't sleep on those. You'll find savings on all your favorites delivered straight to your door. Order now on Uber-Eats. Can I say one more thing about Anthony Davis before we move on?

Just because it's timely, and I'd like to just get on the record on the pod. What's interesting is they trade Luca for him, and he's the centerpiece of the trade. and he's important for Nico. And he's clearly when he's helping one of the best 15 players in the league. But now has had even more wear and tear. He makes a ton of money. They've changed a lot of the trading rules.

So a lot of the teams you could think he could get traded to, they can't even do the trade because they can't take his giant salary back. I went through it today. I can only find a couple teams that would even make sense. On top of the fact that, you know, they're not going to send him to a place where he's going to be unhappy

because they don't do that in the NBA. If you have a disgruntled superstar, not worth it. So it's really, like I was thinking, oh, you know, it would be really fun is Davis for Lamello. Like just like the Mavs get this young point guard. They play the flag. Charlotte gets a big man. And then it's then you start unpacking. It's like, well, that trade can't happen because they have to, they can only take one player back for Davis.

Charlotte have to send three to make the sellers work. Davis would be unhappy in Charlotte. They'd have to trade him. Charlotte's not going to do that. They want to tank. So that blows up. really the only teams are the Knicks and the Warriors. And then it comes down in desperation.

The only team that would actually be desperate enough because they're near the end of the line is the Warriors, which leads me to Butler, who makes the exact same amount of money as Davis, so you can trade them straight up, I think, if I understand the rules. Is this going to happen or is just you're speculating? I'm just thinking like, Davis is getting traded.

Are they planning? I was getting a bunch of texts today from different people going, well, now the Mavs are going to blow it up. They'll trade AD. And we do this with the NBA, but they've changed the rules so dramatically and these guys make so much money. It's like, well, actually cross off

eight of the 10 teams you thought AD would go for. Here are the actual teams. And it's basically the Knicks and Golden State. If you're the Knicks, I don't know if you trade towns for him. This town spreads the floor for you. Davis, all the wear and tear, who knows. But I think Golden State would be the one team near the end of the line that could talk themselves into it.

Because they're kind of, they're not on the level of O.K.C. in Denver and, you know, they could give Butler and some first-round picks. Butler goes to the Mavs, playing with Flagg. They have the centers. Like, it's just something in my head that I thought would make sense. If you have, if you have Currie Flagg and Davis, don't you at least want to see what happens when? I think that's how this plays out.

Yeah. I mean, I would want to see what happens first. I mean, I'm just telling people this is if the blow-it-up scenarios, there's not a lot of blow-it-up options. So, all right, let's talk baseball. Okay. the pitch clock saved the sport true or false uh singularly or did they contribute to it so you're saying it was the biggest factor you would say singularly it's the biggest factor

i think but i wouldn't say it's the only factor yeah agree okay also i i i is the sort of the sport is saved now we've made the decision baseball is saved we've had like seven podcast conversations where we talked about baseball being dead. Are we now the position that it saved? The viewership of that World Series was bonkers. It was crazy, but this is what I think. And anecdotally, September and October, there was more baseball talk going on than in any time in my life since the early 2000s.

I'll tell you what, it's the most I enjoyed watching baseball since the 1990s between the Twins and the Braves. Think about that. Yeah. Or like 0304 was the last time I felt like baseball kind of took over. the country with the narrative. It's like, oh, three, every bit the Bartman game and the Yankees Red Sox, like, we just have anything like this 20 years. What is, what is likely going to happen is a lot of the people who watch this World Series and have suddenly changed their opinion about

baseball, are they going to start watching it again next April? And they'll be like, this is not what I remember. Because playoff baseball now seems more different than the regularly season now than any other sport. It used to be that way in like the NBA and in hockey. Now it's in baseball. I think could happen. My kind of new theory on this is that baseball, Major League Baseball, is going to overtake the role the NCAA basketball tournament had about 15 years ago,

which is that people don't really follow the regular season, but then they become obsessed with the tournament. So you get their pools, they watch, they do the weekends, they go to sports bars. And they convince themselves during the NCAA tournaments that they actually still know about college basketball. Like, there's enough ways that you can cheat with the internet

to actually seem as though you know what's going on in college basketball without watching it. And then you get into the tournament and you're like, oh, this guy and that guy and all the, and then you can also kind of fall back into all like the classic adjutry stuff. I think that's going to happen maybe with baseball that people will not care that much during, you know, outside of regionally during the regular season. But they'll be like, okay, baseball playoffs, this is great.

Because, I mean, that was really, they got, you know, it's going to be far. for another World Series to match this, you know? But the playoffs before, the rounds before were great, too. Exactly. So I think I've been thinking about a lot because something clearly shifted. And I do think the pitch clock helped. But I also think, like, having the Dodgers, what they did, right, they spent all this money, and they ended up, they make the bets trade.

They finally get Otani into a playoff situation. They get Yamamoto, who's incredible. They get Freddie Freeman from the Braves, and they have Will Smith, homegrown catcher, right? They have that's their five. But they also have enough money to spend on these different expensive starters. Like, they just have enough money to spend. They're basically making this giant blockbuster movie,

and they have enough money to spend on like, oh, this is a small part for the attorney general. We'll get Laura Linney. Like, they just, it doesn't matter. But they've won two in a row. they won in 2020 and they're like a legitimate dynasty now which I think people like

I really do and I'm not the first person to say this and I've talked about this on pods before I think I've talked about this with basketball forever with how desperate they are to have more parity and make it have teams not dominate I personally like domination I like having the bar for all the other teams

to try to beat this is what we grew up with This was Celtics Lakers in the 80s. This was Cowboys Steelers in the 70s. And this was the Bulls in the 90s. And I just personally like it more. I like having the bar you have to climb to beat. This is what college basketball used to be like. This is what we've had in college football the last 20 years.

And I think baseball has figured out the best because nobody's going to beat the Dodgers because they've actually figured out how to spend, how to grab this Far East connection where they're always getting the best, who is the next guy from Japan, and they're probably getting them. And now this is the team to beat. On top of, like, you have Judge in New York. You have Soto with the Mets. You have Bryce Harper and Schwerber with the Phillies.

You have Roman Anthony now with the Red Sox. All the big markets have a guy. And I'm all for it, man. I really feel like we're headed to a good place. Okay. Well, first of all, you said, so they're a dynasty now. Now, weren't you kind of skeptical of people

who called the Kansas City Chiefs of dynasty? Well, they've won three and six years or five? Well, if you said 2020, that would be three in... I guess the difference with them and the Chiefs

is the Chiefs was always built like the Patriots where these little five-year windows in the NFL and then the cap gets you.

With whatever the Dodgers have now, they're always going to be the favorites to win the World Series for the rest of the decade, no matter what happens with the team

they have. I mean, I think what people love the most and to some degree the NFL is the only league that can really create this scenario is

parody with a dynasty where that that there's a ton of parity in the league and there is it one team that's sort of one level above that's kind of that's the ideal situation I mean like you know say like you know when like we always talk about

the Lakers and the Celtics in the 80s that we're doing for dynasties but there wasn't a ton of parody I mean you went down to the bucks and the you know there was a level with like you know the Rockets box Pistons the Mavericks for a couple years in the NFL right now I mean that is the P. Roselle idea of creating parody has worked to such a full extent.

I mean, the worst teams in the NFL are still some guys that are, like, it's really rare to think of that this is, this team can't compete. You know, it's like, so that's kind of maybe, you know, the idea of baseball having this situation, I, I, it doesn't seem like they have created parody across. the league? No, you need the dregs, which is, I wrote a column about this once. To have great teams, you need bad teams.

And this is why I hate the NBA lotteries so much because you're constantly rewarding the bad teams for being bad, but you're putting the most talented players in bad situations and then wondering why they've been disappointing. You know, you're putting

guys who have a chance to be awesome, but they're playing on an 18-win team, and very rarely can you flip that around. Like even LeBron, when LeBron went to the Cavs, that team was awful for years, you know, and it was like, but that was why I was so interested in what would happen with Cooper Flag and the Mavs because with Kyrie and AD, they actually had a chance to be good right away, which is basically what happened to Larry Bird and Magic. Those guys went to teams where they

were good right away. Jordan had the opposite. He went to like a mess of a team. It took five years to get there. But I think I still like it because I still like when you have football has it with the quarterbacks, right? It's Mahomes and Allen, those teams are always going to be good. Hopefully Drake May now with the Patriots are always going to be good. The way the Eagles have built their team, they're going to be good for at least the rest of the decade.

So maybe you have three or four kind of bars that the rest the league has to get through. Baseball might have seven. Are you one of these people who would be like, let's abolish the draft and let just the guys come out of college sign where they want to sign and we enforce a hard gap?

And so if somebody like, you know, Chit Holmgren's coming out or whatever. He can take X amount of dollars for teams that are in the seller. Or he can take a little less money if he wants to sign with a more established team. Do you want the draft to exist? Do you want... I want the draft to exist. What I don't want is for teams to be able to be in the lottery for three, four,

five straight years with top five picks. That's what the NBA has to change. How about the old way? I just think like if you win the lottery, you shouldn't be able to get a top. three pick the next year. I would just put that rule in right now. You shouldn't be rewarded for being bad over and over and over again. Yeah. I know. I just kind of. If you have a top three pick, maybe you can't pick higher than four the next year. You know, like little little wrinkles so that

teams get penalized at least a little bit for being awful. Like I think what the Nets did, they're the most disgusting of all the teams, right? They had five first round picks last year. They blew all of them, and they don't care at all. They're not even the second most important team in New York. The Liberty, I think, are more important. I think that people own the Liberty and the Nets probably care more about the Liberty. And they're just like a way station for incompetence at this point, kind of hoping that they'll stumble in this draft that's coming up. There's these three like legitimate franchise guys in it. And they're just kind of keeping their fingers crossed to get one of those three guys. And that's their entire strategy. I think that sucks.

I'm done with that. I mean, we talked about this years ago. go the whole idea of like you know the process as it was used to be described which would turn out to be a disaster well i'll well except that it actually worked exactly as it was how it was supposed to work it's yeah they never made it pass around two they won two playoff series yeah but the players didn't pan out but they did the thing that it was intended to do they had ben simmons they had mb both those guys were seen as you got the false pick yeah it's full to here you go and like It's just, so, so the, it did actually do the thing it was supposed to do, which is negligibly increase your luck of getting into somebody great. Like, it's like, it doesn't, it's not, it's a strange strategy.

It's just like it's, well, maybe not strange. It's just slightly increasing the possibility that you will find the guy who changes everything. And they did that. They actually got that. But here's, here's the thing with the Sixers, though. And this is what we learned retroactively and why I don't think teams. will ever do that again. They build a losing culture,

but they put these young stars in the losing culture and told them it didn't matter if they won or lost. And I think it had real ramifications for those guys. I think for Simmons and for Embed, those guys have had really bizarre careers. And I think even some of the stuff they value has been, Simmons was like thought he was a super duper star. The team wasn't winning anything.

And I still don't know what happened to him when he basically bailed out the team. And then Embed, I just think he's had a really strange career where it really seems like he values the individual stuff over the team stuff. And we've seen him like, even little stuff, like, I'll play yokeage, but only if it's in Philly versus playing in Denver. Like, you can't be like that and be the face of a team and the best guy in a team. And I think you just learn bad lessons when you're in a bad situation, you know? Yeah, I guess. That's true.

I mean, and you're saying that if he gets drafted somewhere else, you think maybe he's a different person. Well, think about, like, Tatum had one of the best, Tatum and Brown had two of the best situations you ever could have walked into, where they go into a team that's also had just signed Al Horford that had Isaiah Thomas lucked out with him. And the team was pretty good and was like in the Easter conference finals and those guys are rookies getting a taste of it, going against guys. They're in winning situations with good crowds.

And I would say that had a great effect on them, you know, a really positive effect. It's also unusual. not usually how it goes. But if you're just saying, like, I'm going to put one guy in this Philly situation and one guy in this Boston situation, which guy will learn better habits and have a better career? You had bet on the Boston situation. Oh, totally. I mean, you know, in the NFL, you see this with young quarterbacks all the time. I mean, Sam Darnold. That's the best example of all of them because he's actually talented. You know, what is, you know, it's very often,

And as it turns out, it's like, you know, the cliche now is that nobody knows anything in the NFL about drafting quarterbacks. Everyone is, you know, which all guests work, we can't predict anything. And it certainly seems that way. And yet, when a lot of these guys get into a good situation, they end up becoming pretty close to what the original description was. Right. You know, whatever the original idea was, there's, it's kind of, I can't remember what year it was, but the year, like, Like, he came out, Lamar Jackson came out, and Josh Allen came out, and, you know, Rosen was in that draft and Baker Mayfield. Like, we did a podcast and we talked about this.

And it's very interesting how we were in some ways amazingly correct and in some ways amazingly idiotic. Most notably me claiming Baker Mayfield should be moved to slot receiver. That was what I said in that podcast. You said that? Well, because everybody was saying about Lamar Jackson. He would have been an amazing slot receiver. They were talking about Lamar Jackson, and it was sort of like, he's such a great athlete, but he'll probably never be a quarterback. Maybe you know, move him to a receiver or something.

And I was like, I don't think that should be the case at all. He's the best of these guys in my view. Yeah. It's like maybe Baker Mayfield, maybe. Maybe like he could be like, you know, like an Engelman type figure, like coming out to Kent State. Well, we like, you know, we like Lamar Jackson. We like Josh Allen. Like you had seen him like in a target or something and talked to him and you were like he's a good guy or whatever.

And like he sort of had a good understanding of him. And that worked out. but like Rosen I remember the guy from UCLA I think I was like that he actually might be the best you know and out obviously that was wrong

he was out of the league in two years what if he goes somewhere different who knows what if he goes to you know if he didn't went to Baltimore it'd be hard to imagine what happens but you know I feel like we've talked about this a bunch of times but it is hilarious that

in 2025 we've come no closer to figuring out what's going to make a good quarterback we have to We have decades of data and tape and analysis. I think people are getting better at it. Like, even somebody like McShay, who is with us at the Ringer, I think he's done a really good job the last few years. He's been pretty on it.

There's some stuff that I would look at that is almost like non-football stuff when I would look at these guys. Because I remember thinking a lot about this stuff with Drake May. And it's stupid stuff that's probably on brand for me, but like the fact that he was a little brother, the fact that he stayed at North Carolina for an extra year when he just could have transferred

when you know it seemed like the team was going to suck there was like there was like good guy good teammate leader kind of traits that were there but it also helps that he's fucking really talented

right and that's the thing you didn't really know until you saw him in the NFL the thing you said before probably is the biggest factor which is this it's situational it really is the situation you're in when Jared Goff was coming out, do you remember what the criticism of him was?

Small hands and kind of dumb, right? Well, he went to Cal. I mean, it's like, I thought he made like dumb decisions or there was some people weren't sure about his decision making. I just remember it was that he had small hands. And they were sort of like, you know, and there was like when it rains, history, you know, it's like, well, okay, sure, sure.

You know, it's like maybe. But, you know, he was actually not, terrible with the Rams, got him to a Super Bowl and was that a very good career. You know what's funny? So I was watching randomly watching the NBC pregame show the other day, which I don't usually watch, but I wanted to see the highlights because I was on a plane

and I didn't catch everything. And they had Jason Garrett interviewed, I think it was Jason Garrett, interviewed Sam Darnold. I think that's what it was. Was that what it was? Maybe it was two weeks ago. I can't remember. But it was

Jason Garrett reading Sam Darnold, his scouting report of Sam Darnold. And going through the stuff that he had. And Sam Darnold was like, yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah, you nailed me there. And a lot of it was stuff like he's so competitive. He can be his own worst enemy and things like that. And they were just talking about it. And of course, they did it in that pregame style where the thing just,

they zoomed through it really fast with a bunch of edits and footage. And I was like, I could have watched this for 20 minutes of somebody going through their scouting report of somebody. who's, like, clearly made it as a pro and been like, all right, so what did I get right? I was like, this is like, the best segment ever. It was like a minute.

It is interesting. Like, there was one, I remember it was kind of going around online. It was like the scouting report on Kobe Bryant coming out of high school. Right. And it was like eerily accurate. Like, it was amazing.

Like the things they said about them that were good, of course, were plentiful. But even the negative things were all right. It was like, I mean, it didn't say this, but it was like close to be like, you know, could face legal issues. in Colorado.

Like, it's like, it was so specifically specific about what his life ended up being. So some, they're dead on. You know, some, yeah. But also, a lot of scouting stuff, though, is like very aphoristic, though, thing, too. So, like, if you're, if you're saying, like,

oh, this guy, he's like, you know, so competitive he might be his own worst enemy. Well, that's, okay, so that's technically a criticism, right? So is the idea that he should become slightly less competitive or calibrate? Less of his own worst. I mean, it's not, it's a pretty, it's like giving a job interview when saying, what's your weakness?

It's like, oh, I care too much. It's like, well, thanks for nothing. You know what I'm saying? One thing I've learned, at least with the NBA, and I think this probably goes for football for a quarterback too, is, like, if I ran an NBA team, I would never take the guy, like, with a high pick that I'm really betting on, like potentially even betting my job where I didn't get the feedback

that this guy was like an incredibly hard worker. I just think that to me that would be a non-negotiable. Even like I've started to do some work on the 26 NBA draft because it's really like potentially a generational draft with these guys. It's really nuts. And I'm fascinated by this Kansas kid who really might be the best two-guard prospect.

That's the comparison I've seen. Yeah, like he's the first one we've had at two-guard who can be credibly mentioned with like Vince like what Vince was like coming out of high school and at North Carolina and Kobe what some of the stuff

people were saying about him coming out of high school and then Jordan at UNC like there's some stuff with him but one of the things that people have been saying is like this kid really gives a shit like he really works

this is the Cooper flag thing Cooper flag is like I'm gonna I have a weakness I'm going to work on this until I fix the weakness and I do think for the NBA you need to be that way I don't think you can really

succeed at the highest level unless you're wired that way. I mean, you could be right. I mean, for me, I feel saying someone is a really hard worker or a workaholic in a scouting report is less meaningful than the detriment of questionable work ethic. I feel like people will rarely say questionable work ethic unless they have a pretty clear reason for arguing that.

But people will say great work ethic because it's just something you say. like it's just talking about guys level of competition the you know their need to win all that stuff that's true certainly sometimes and sometimes it is just something people say but when they say something on the negative side that usually means you know

something motivated them to do that like people are not really motivated to say positive things except to occasionally seem the most enthusiastic that's another thing I've noticed about how like the the ranking of prospects has changed that there is now almost a competitive world within that sort of, you know, paradigm where somebody's like, well, to be remembered about this, I have to be the most excited about Ace Bailey or I have to be the most down unlike old dozen money or whatever, you know?

It's like you got to have some like real strong, strong, strong, strong take. And that does skew these things because that's how you get into this problem of like, these guys seem like busts immediately and they should have never been in the position to be viewed as potentially generational. I just... Well, we also, I, this sounds really basic and dumb, but I swear we don't think about it enough

how much a kid can change from the age of like 18 to 23. Like I say with my own kids. Like you just, you change, you get older. All of a sudden you have confidence. It's like, what happened there? And to try to project when somebody is, think about these basketball kids, these kids are 18 and 19, and try to project even just what they're going to be like as human beings at age 23 is kind of a crazy process, but we do it anyway. I mean, okay, the United States is dominated by people from about nine to 12 universities. Almost everybody in the elite world comes from about these nine or 12 places, which is essentially saying things are dictated.

by people who were incredibly impressive 16-year-olds. Like, they were incredibly impressive when they were 16, and then they were able to get into Harvard, and they were able to get into Yale and Princeton in these places. And then somehow that education is the validation for the position that they start their life and where they end up. But what we're really talking about is this, like, they're not a formed person. Not only is that a huge difference between 18 and 23. think of the difference in you between 20 and 30.

Oh, my God. Like, it's almost, the person I was at 30 had no relationship to the person I was at 20 and probably wouldn't have even liked that person. Like, you know, it's like, so to view somehow the early part of my life as a way to understand the middle of my life, I mean, in sports, there's no other way, right? We've got to get the kids coming out of college and guys peak early. all that stuff. But yes, it's totally true. That's exactly right. Do you think if baseball has another strike, I was thinking about, we always say in real life,

history repeats itself, right? It's like, oh, here we go. We did this already. And baseball, having a lockout or a strike or however this is probably going to play out, which I think is going to happen, right as they've captured the zeitgeist for the first time in a real way in 20 years, just feels like the most baseball thing ever for that to happen. Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. This has been our entire life, right? Every time it felt like baseball was going great, there would be something stupid happening.

Well, I mean, you know, they just, there's, it's, can you sustain a league in the United States without a salary cap? I don't know. I guess they're doing it. And it certainly seemed to work great in the playoffs. But I will, you know, here, there's so much chance Bill I mean it's like okay so if for whatever reason

the World Series went five games this year we're not talking about it I don't care that much I don't know and then I'm not every person but it's like you know if that happens and then you're like oh you know the World Series ratings were kind of down again and now there might be a strike we'd be like I'd figures baseball's dead

but now because there was this transcended seven-game series. You know, that game that went to like the 18th or whatever, you know, I'm watching this thing and I'm like, they're going to have to start having position players pitch. But like Otani can just go in. Like, you know, all these things were so interesting. And plus, you know, it's like, you know, it's like Atani, like he gets kind of shelled and like he thanks the umpire, like tips his hat to the thumpire while he's leaving the field.

And like, you know, and like Yamamoto is like, I'll pitch four games in a row. if I have to. It's like there were some things in that. I was like, boy, you just don't see this from American athletes anymore. The Yamamoto thing was the most unbelievable thing in a while. People were sort of like, you know, it was I think the conventional wisdom is, you know, among the people I knew. It's like they were kind of rooting for Toronto or whatever. But like the Dodgers did to some degree, those two guys particularly just kind of win me over. Like, you know. Yeah, I agree. One more break. And then we got to talk college football. You may have heard of the sex cult nexium and the famous actress who went to prison for her involvement, Alison Mack.

But she's never told her side of the story until now. People assume that I'm like this pervert. My name is Natalie Robamed, and in my new podcast, I talked to Allison to try to understand how she went from TV actor to cult member. How do you feel about having been involved in bringing sexual trauma at other people? I don't even know how to answer that question. Alison After Nexium from CBC's Uncover is available now on Spotify. You know what's better than the one big thing? Two big things.

Exactly. The new iPhone 17 Pro on TELUS' five-year rate plan price lock. Yep, it's the most powerful iPhone ever, plus more peace of mind with your bill over five years. This is big. Get the new iPhone 17 Pro at tellus.com slash iPhone 17 Pro on select plans. Conditions and exclusions apply. All right. I texted you for pod ideas.

You texted me back. One thing you were excited about were all the insanely great coaching job openings in college football and why those jobs actually aren't that great. So what did you mean? They're not, it's not that the jobs aren't that great.

They're just not as great as they used to be. Like, you know, you look at Florida and, you know, LSU and Penn State and, you know, Auburn and all these sort of these great jobs. But what is weird now is something has been completely removed. from college football coaching, which is charismatic recruiting.

Like, you know, that used to be the big thing that a guy could go into someone's kitchen, talk to the kid and his dad and his mom, and it's like he was different. Like, you know, I don't know if you read, you read Barry Switzer's autobiography, bootlegger boy. Oh, from like the 90s?

One of the things he talks about in that book, which I just will always remember is that whenever he was recruiting a kid, he had this thing he did. he would first walk through the back alley behind their house to see what kind of beer was in the garbage like what kind of like what bottles were in there or you know and that way when he went to the house if the dad said like do you want a beer he'd be like only if you drink old milwaukee he'd always he'd always only want exactly what the guy drank now that's in some ways manipulative

but that really is someone like i understand how to relate to people like on their level you know now that's not how it is. Now, in the same situation, he comes in, drinks old Milwaukee, convinces the dad, he's a great guy, gets the kid jacked about going to Oklahoma. And then the kid says, like, well, what's the offer, though? Because Georgia Tech offered $340,000. Yeah. That's all it is now. So now it is completely switched away from being the kind of personality that can convince a kid to go to your program to talent evaluation. Like, can you, see a guy who's a backup for old miss at tight end who then you can grab in the portal by just writing a bigger check like it really is a professional well that was that was what north carolina

was when lombardi was saying how they wanted to be the 33rd NFL team and it's like they're basically we're not a college program we're like a professional portal program yeah which i think is what they've created just in general with the sport right i mean to some extent sure i mean it's definitely like it's it is way different now I mean the SEC is not as dominant as it used to be and there's a lot of people being like oh see now that everybody can play players they don't have the advantage anymore but I don't think that's what it is it's just that the SEC used to have so much depth at every position and now that's just impossible now to be like a great special teams player for Georgia means that like you can start maybe an outside linebacker for Indiana and then there's

You know, it's like you can make these moves. And it has like, so to have like the Penn State job now or the Florida job, like these marquee jobs is like, you get there. That's the whole deal. I don't know how much of an advantage you have. Like, I don't think that whoever takes the Penn State job is going to have an advantage over Indiana. Like I just, I don't think that will be the case unless that they can just, you know, do something very simple, which is raise more money.

Like, just have more money to give them. these guys and that really changed like so that also means that while these jobs aren't as good as they used to be a lot of random jobs could be great like if you get if you get a job at like liberty and liberty says like we're going to do what it takes to you know to get these guys you might as well be in florida you see this with b yu's basketball program b yu like took a kid from duke just they just like we gave him a bigger number so i am very interested well they went further than that they moved the kid from Brockton, our own AJ DeBanza from Massachusetts, and they moved him in there before he was even done with high school,

moved him to a place in Utah. What is kind of interesting about these college jobs is obviously the guy everyone wants is Lane Kiffin. But. Which is hilarious. Well, why is it hilarious? Because it's just been a roller coaster ride for Lane over the years, right? At one point it seemed like his career was over.

Now he's the guy who's in the most of the end. The last super likable coach that still exists, right? And at the college football, at least. But like, I don't know if Florida and LSU will wait for him because they're going to go to the playoffs. They're probably going to win a playoff game. Like, so I don't know if LSU and Florida or like Penn State, even if they would be in the running for that, are willing to wait that long. So I do think it's possible that he could end up at Auburn if he leaves. But also, I hope he doesn't leave because he has really rehabilitated his representative.

reputation as like a guy who now like loves living in Oxford, Mississippi, it would kind of change everything back if he leaves. Like if he, especially if he left like in the middle of the year or the day after they lost, it would be like, it'll be like, oh, God damn it. Like again. But you know, do you think we're ever going to see like what we grew up with with Bear Brian and Paterno and these coaches that are just at the same place forever unless they break the rules and they have to get shoved out? That's gone. I mean, well, I mean, the sport's different now. I mean, they've, they've, they've made college football or professional sport. It's just not the same. And those examples particularly, like, it's going to be hard to see someone in that position at an elite program that way because

you can never be down. But you can't have, you know, someone could coach that long at like, you know, like Missouri or Utah or one of these places, you know, that if you're just good every year, occasionally make the playoffs. But if the expectation, like at LSU, I mean, what was Kelly's record at LSU, 34 and 14 or something like that. It wasn't that he was terrible. He had a Heist's a trophy winner. Every year they came in with the potential to possibly go to the national championship

or at least make the playoffs. I mean, if that is the annual expectation, you can have one down year. Two down years, you mean you're in trouble. Third year, you get fired, you know? So the idea of their call, like, even like a Sabin-like coach, that will never, I don't think that will happen again.

Lane Kiffin, if he were to make a commitment to Old Miss, could have that kind of career. He could be there the rest of his life, because the expectation is slightly lower than the other SEC schools and he would have been and he will have success

both now and in the future. Do you care about buyout stuff and shit like that when they're like Brian Kelly they're negotiating it's buyout he wants to full like it's funny that this is just like a category of sports reporting.

Did you see what they're doing now with the Brian Kelly situation? Now they're like LSU at least that's what I saw yesterday. LSU is claiming we have it officially fired him yet so therefore we can now fire him now for cause oh in which would case would I guess changes the buyout situation I mean he's obviously hard lying it he's like it's like

$54 million and he's like paying me uh you know like I'll sit around and do nothing for two years you know and they don't want to do that I think that they assumed that he would be the kind of guy who'd be like I'm going to talk to Penn State right now but he's not doing that so right So what's your, give us your grade for the state of college football right now? Are you happy with it? On the field? This is your favorite sport? Just everything.

The whole experience. Is it, are you pro? Is this good? Is this what's happened this decade been a good thing? On the field, I would say it's still an A or A minus almost every week. I mean, in terms of the health of the system, C minus and getting worse. I mean, in the short term, it is fun that Vandy is good. like it's neat to see that you know it's like like and indiana yeah exactly you know like like these

these games are are great i mean there was like a this last saturday there was a whole bunch of like like kind of surprisingly sort of thrilled it didn't look like the world's greatest slate when i looked at the espn but like there were a ton of good games like you know i the indiana game was incredible and that was like one of the best sporting events of the year it was i mean probably the catch of the year and then the iowa oregon game was real interesting because iowa was like, just that they're upmost Iowa, like this last drive, they got to go 93 yards and they can't throw the ball, but of course they complete a deep one. All of these things happened.

They made it kind of a really fun day. So I still, I mean, in terms of being a consumer, I would watch that over anything, but I know what's going to happen. Like, I mean, in the short term, professionalizing a college sport does kind of spike its popularity because it, you know, pro sports appeal to the casual fan. more than college sports do but that erodes over time particularly if the kind of professionalized college version just becomes like kind of a less good version of the NFL and that is what's going to I mean my fear of what's going to happen in five years is that all these teams are going to play the

same and like the idea of someone like you know shotgun running the option throw the ball that time you know an option team playing an air raid team or something is just going to be over It's all going to kind of be like, you know, in the same way that, for the most part, the NFL is. That, you know, that the teams are different, but they're much more similar than different by, like, you know, by factor of 10. And in college, there's still real diversity. And there's regional quality to it. And the conferences play differently. And I think that's all going to be gone.

And, of course, that's going to be disappointing. But, I mean, I just, I don't know. I'm sure I'll still watch it. I'm sure I'll never. Have you heard about this five-year eligibility role that's getting battered around? What is this? That people think might happen?

Basically, instead of a red shirt thing and whatever happens with that, it's just like when you go to college, you have five years to play sports. You can start all five years. You can go to Duke and play basketball for five straight years. Is this because people thought the extra year

for the COVID stuff was good for the kids or what would? Yeah, I think and especially like in the D3 level, you play four years, you go to grad school, you could just play for one more year after that. I think people like that. Well, I mean, I think I've said this before, but I very much believe this. So,

I think that we are now less than five years from the SEC and the Big Ten, at least for football, breaking off from the NCAA, and they're going to start their own thing. And when that happens, I don't think the players will need to go to those schools.

I think the quarterback for Alabama can represent Alabama. He can certainly go to school if he wants. But not actually go to class if he doesn't happen. There will be no obligation that he be an enrolled student. So, I mean, I think that's almost certainly going to happen. And everybody will know, here's what's going to happen. Everyone like me is going to be moaned this. But there's also going to be a lot of people being like, this is progress.

Why should he have to pretend to go to school? He deserves to make money because he's making the university so much money. And it's going to be seen as kind of naive and reactionary to not support this. That's going to happen. And then a lot of people will be like, that's crazy. How can it be that I'm watching the University of, you know, South Carolina and only 40% of the roster is enrolled in school? And people will be like, you don't get it. You don't get it.

The quarterback works full time as a bartender at the local sports bar. You don't do that. You'll just live on campus. You don't have a great life, you know. Who's been your, who's your team of the year so far in college football? Because you float around. You're like a nomad. You'll just root for anybody.

Who's been your team? Who captured your fancy? I don't root for anybody. I mean, who captured your fancy? Well, you know, I really like Notre Dame's team this year, but I kind of like them every year. I like their run game. I am very interested in oldness. Now with Sabin gone.

Yeah, it feels like you're. becoming a kiffin guy that's the feeling i'm getting absolutely um and especially not with saving gone that's kind of who i'm rooting for um uh in in the in the south uh there's a in the big 10 i mean the coach from indiana is truly a jerk but it it makes for an interesting situation and i'm not going to root for ohio state so it's like you know um i uh un cunc any any really interesting you and see? Absolutely. I really wanted that to work. Like I was really in, you know, I watched that first game.

It's coming on. It's getting better. Drive of that game. I was like, yeah. But, uh, I mean, I just, I think that this is what I think has happened, you know, that. So what is sort of like the, the, one of the vortex central ideas of like the coaching personality? The coaching personality is that I love to coach, and it doesn't matter who I'm coaching. I would coach a pee-wee football team, and I would care as much as I would coach in the high school team,

and I'd care about a high school team as much as I would care about a college team, and I would care about that as much as the NFL. Coaching is teaching. I'm an educator. That's what matters to me. All I care about is, like, what I'm doing in the moment. And I think Billichick got to North Carolina, and he's like, I guess I used to be that way. This doesn't seem the way I remember it.

I can't tell these kids what to do and they don't seem to know anything. I got to teach him everything. All that might transfer up there and happy. Because when he took the job, say with the Browns, I think Billichick was still the kind of person who would have been like, I like coaching the Browns. I would just assume, you know, Coach Masclan high school. It's a Belichick impersonation.

Well, I didn't realize I was on the docket today. I'm not Chris Ryan. I can't do this shit. Okay. So I'm just, I just kind of failed you. But like so. I can't do them. My British accent is terrible.

But I think that when Billichick was with the Browns, at that point in his life, whatever age he would have been, that would have been what, how many years ago now, 30 years I think he still would have been the kind of person who no matter where you would have put him, if you'd have put him in a powder puff football league, it would have been, I care about this more than anything else. But he's an older man now. He's went through a lot. He's had the experience of being, you know, the most.

talked about person in all the sports for moments. Like him, you know, and now he's in the situation where it's like, well, can I win the ACC or whatever? It's like, I think that it's hard for him to get motivated to be himself. And I don't think, I think he's, I think in a way, it's probably a bummer to realize that. It would be like if, you know, okay, so I start writing because I just love writing, right? I'm a writer before I ever get anything published. used to just sit in my bedroom and write stuff, you know?

And then now it works out, you're a journalist, write a bunch of books. In my mind, I'm still like the person in high school who just writes because he loves to write. But now if all of a sudden I couldn't sell books, my mentality would say, go out in your office and write. You just love writing. But maybe it wouldn't seem the same to me. Maybe the idea of writing for nothing except myself, all of a sudden wouldn't seem the way It used to be when I actually became someone who could do it or whatever.

Like, you have to just love it to be good at it. But once you get rewarded for that, maybe it changes. I mean, I worry about this. Like, I worry if I actually have the same drive that I had 30 years ago or 40 years ago. I don't know. So you think Belichick being on like a four and five view? and C team just wakes up one morning. He's like, I don't know.

I don't know if I'm enjoying this anymore. And I've done everything I can do in coaching and maybe this is it. Here's what I think is more like it. I think there was a time when he would have woke up in the morning and he'd have been, we're four and five. What can I do to make us better? Now maybe he wakes up and he's like, I want some toast. You know, is the coffee ready?

Like, it's not that he doesn't, he's not like he's consciously being like, I don't care. It's just that it's not consuming him. Like, you know, when you're consumed by something, whether it's a job or a person or whatever, you know, everybody's had this in their life where there's like, you know, maybe a time in your life when the first thing you thought of when you woke up was this person you were dating. And when you went to bed tonight, you were thinking about this person. And I was just like, it's like, it wasn't, it was just a.

I'm like that with coffee. Okay. Yeah. When I fall asleep, I'm like, I can't wait to have coffee tomorrow. morning. And then when I wake up, I'm like, oh, I'm a get to make coffee. And that would be a totally great mentality if you were trying to become a major coffee entrepreneur. Right. Like you would be like, that's how I need to be. That's the person I need to be. I need to be somebody thinks about coffee when I wake up. Yeah. I mean, that's because, you know, if you want to be good

at something, it can't be that you think about it a lot. You need to think about it all the time, even when you don't want to. And that is the key. And that's a hard thing to sustain when you're someone who's lived and had that many experiences. He said he's had so many experiences in football. I'm sure sometimes this seems like this isn't the same. Like this is, you know, it's just not fun to do this in the way it used to be fun. I cut out a piece. We did the rewatchables, me and Van and Sean last week.

We cut out a piece we ran last week on this podcast about filmmaking and creativity. And I was, we were arguing about it and we're obviously all good friends about, I was saying like I worry sometimes that there's too many distractions that it's going to ultimately hurt creativity because I think of the way I grew up where a lot of times I read a book or wrote something just because I didn't have anything else to do. And I would be like, I got two hours here. Maybe I'll try to write a column. But now if you put, I don't know, 18 year old, 19 year old me in the situation now, I'd be like, I'll go on Instagram and go check that out. or I'll go on Twitter

or I'll go on some message board or I'll go on the Celtics Reddit to see what they're saying and now I've just killed two hours but I didn't do anything that actually I have something to show for it and I do worry about that with this with the 125 generation

that sounds like the old guy but I think sometimes the best ideas I ever had the best things I ever wrote just in general where came out of like my brain was just going because I was at a stoplight

I wasn't on my phone. I was just kind of staring at a tree and all of a sudden thinking about blank and got an idea. And I'm like, oh, that would actually be a good idea. And now I wonder if people have that in the same way because they're always moving on to something that captures their attention when they're bored. Does it make sense? I would say the greatest detriment to American culture right now. I mean, in terms of what we're talking about, arts, entertainment and stuff like that,

is the systematic elimination of daydreaming. The people used to daydream all the time. That used to be, you had to. Like it wasn't, you wasn't like, you know, if you were, you had to go to the bank and you had to wait in line, and there was nothing to do while you were waiting, so you just had to think about things. And that, you know, I, this is going to make me sound weird or weirer than I am.

But like, I forced myself to do this. I have chunks of the day where I just lay there and don't do anything just so I can just to use your brain well to just let my brain just sort of go just like let it think about anything

without something providing stimulation back I mean that's that's also like you know this thing you're talking about people have talked about this since the beginning of the advent of the printing press that basically it's like people will be less creative now because they can just read the Bible or whatever. And then it was like, oh, well, radio and then television and all these things.

It was like, these things are going to stop us. But here is kind of what's different. Reading is like a like a, like a true, like a responsive thing. You read something and you got to kind of imagine it in your mind. It's an active experience. Okay. But then all these other things we move through are passive. And we have really accelerated that part of it.

that like where people are like sort of looking on their phones or whatever they can i mean phones are always the easy thing to use that's what everyone uses and there is a passivity to it because you don't have to imagine what you're consuming it's a visual image or you don't even have to read what uh you're reading about because they find ways to sort of repackage it and tell to you faster in sort of a simpler format so or you're or you're listening to you to it over reading it. You listen to an audio book, whatever. And I just, I think that the idea of sort of, just sort of kind of spacing out and just kind of letting your mind go, I think that's really, but just totally gone. Like my kids can't handle it. My kids cannot handle boredom. You know, I often think, you know, it's like, like we've really become like a real secular society. But I think one of the benefits to when it was a more sort of relationship. religious society, was it forced people to be bored? Like, you know, I would go to mass and sit there and you would just have to sit there

for an hour or whatever, you know? And I think that was really good. It's like really good to force people to be bored, you know, and we've removed that from You know where we haven't removed it? If you take a flight and the Wi-Fi is down and you thought like, I'm going to go on the Wi-Fi, I'll watch a show or I'll do, I'll go, but now you're just stuck on this flight for four hours. You didn't bring a book and you're like, oh shit. And guess what? Sometimes that can be okay, especially if you're a creative person. Well, I mean, this, this is kind of a thing,

right? Raw dogging flights, obviously, it's a weird, strange, they pick the term raw dogging for this. But so there's this idea that you go on a flight, you don't watch TV, you don't listen to anything and you don't read. And why would this happen, right? Why would, why would people do this by choice? And it's because they force themselves to do work. Yeah. No, I think that there's something in subconscious about us that craves this. Oh. Like that for some, you know, that people are confused. I flew four hours and I didn't read anything. I didn't watch anything. I didn't listen to anything. Why do I feel good? They don't even. know why it makes no sense they expect to come off the flight and say like that sucked the

tv didn't work and i didn't bring a book and i just had to sit there and yet that's not what's happening they're proud that they did it yeah good about it so i i mean it's an achievement to be bored on this podcast i've supported nico harrison and all this was like people should do nothing it's good for him so i guess what's going to be third yeah i talked about this on sunday on the pot i i went i took the train from Boston to Stanford with my daughter. Okay. And we both had an iPad on and we watched this peacock show at the same time. And that's all we did for the entire thing.

We watched this show and we talked about it. And I was thinking when I was a kid going back and forth between Connecticut and Boston because my parents were divorced. And I'd be on the Amtrak and I bring a book and a notepad, right? And I read the book for some of the time or I'd have a newspaper. And I don't have this and I'd write like parts of short stories or, fake sports columns like just whatever to kill the time for three hours those were kind of the only options but it also like made my brain work in in these ways like i remember in college this is i didn't

have a computer till my senior in college when i had i wrote a sports column every week and i'd write it longhand i would go to a dunk of donuts and i would get a giant ice coffee and i would write out ideas for the column and then i would start writing it in fucking cursive i would write out the entire go back into the newspaper office and then type in the column. And that seems like that happened in like the 1890s. It seems like I was like a cast member on what was the Yellowstone spinoff, 1893, whatever, 1888. Yeah, like that seems like a million years ago.

But that was how, whatever my weird process was. You know, you will often make jokes about like your fingers not working. Do you misrecognito? Yeah. Like I got to say, I'm always surprised. like okay so you put that basketball book out it's like an 800 page book about a sport i don't know how many weeks it was on the top of the bestseller list you were in a position where you could have written whatever you wanted for the rest of your life you could have said i want to do a book

of poetry it would be 400,000 dollars for that so how did you not keep doing that like you could have written a book about anything you wanted and then you just stop now i understand some people are listening to this and they're like well because he moved into podcasting and that's actually much more relevant to what was happening in the world and he'd rather dominate this space than that. But don't you, do you ever regret that you didn't continue writing? I don't regret it, but I really miss it. And I don't, the reason I haven't wanted to do it the last seven, eight years is

because I just don't feel like I could do it at a level that I'd ever be happy doing it. I always say it's like golf. It's like these people that have to play golf a few times a week to be good at golf. and if they're just playing every once in a while, they're so unhappy because they know what they should be doing, but their body can't remember what to do. I feel like with the writing, you just have to do it every day.

It's the only way I could be successful at it. It's the repetition of being in the habit of doing it day after day after day that I think for me, some people aren't like that. For me, that was what it was. And all these different career choices you make, I don't have the ability to do that anymore. So I would have to give up something pretty major to be able to do it. With that said, I have been thinking about writing a book.

Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. This is a difficult question. But like you say, I totally understand you saying, I don't feel like I could do it at the level to which I would be comfortable with or which I would find acceptable. What specifically do you mean by that? Like, what do you think that you're writing now would laugh that would stop you from being

comfortable publishing it? Because it's, I mean, I'm always uncomfortable when I publish things. It's like, you know. I think it's more the process because I remember the happiest I was ever with writing was when I was doing my basketball book, which was like a suicide mission basically trying to do the book the way I did it with doing all the other stuff I was doing. But I was in the habit of really writing for three and a half, four hours a day. Like every day, I didn't have another choice. And I remember like I got to the point where I felt like I could flick a switch and just write whatever I wanted for like three, four hours and be like, all right, I'm going to go.

to this place, I'm going to do it, and I know it's going to be at the level I want it to be. And I never really got back to that spot. I had moments. I remember, like, the first year of Grantland, I felt like I got back there for like a year with the process. I remember I came back from Boston after LeBron killed the Celtics in that game. And I wrote a column on the plane that I think it was probably one of the best things I've written.

And I wrote it on the plane. I had like four hours to write it. I was, you know, frankly typing when I had to send it when I landed and I just knew I could do it because I had had enough reps. That's the stuff I'd just, it would be so hard for me to do it now.

I don't know how to do it. But look what you just said. That you hadn't done it in a while. You did it one time in a four-hour window. No, no. I'm saying when I did that, that was because I was writing all the time. So what would happen if you did that now?

What would happen if you tried that now? Do you think? I'd probably, I'd stare at an empty, I've tried a couple of times. I'd stared at the empty document for two hours, like kind of even remembering the process of putting your brain into your fingers. What book are you considering writing?

This is like I'm breaking news. I feel like I probably do it. No, you're not because I'll never do it. No, I had an idea. I had two different ideas for a book. I'm not going to mention them. You won't even, okay. I'll tell you offline.

Oh, okay. Okay. I mean, I'm curious. I don't mind you not telling me here, but I'm a little surprised that you said that. I thought that was you were like, I'm done with that world. No, I had a book after the basketball book that I really wanted to write and I just got too busy and I didn't do it.

But I had it all sketched out and I didn't do it. I'll tell you about it after. Okay. But I had it. I had literally, John Walsh still mentions it to me almost any time I talk to him because he's though, I think the one person I told about the book. So it's a sport. And he was excited.

It wasn't really a sports book. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I'll tell you after. but I think the biggest issue the mistake I made with the basketball book was it was just too long and too hard to do

it was like three years of my life and it should have been like two books I should have spread it out why I disagree entirely so you wrote it actually became the book you imagined and it sold incredibly well I know but I wish I had done part one and part two of it and then spent more time on it

versus like doing just trying to rush to meet a deadline I still have so many things I would change about it at this point. Well, I mean, it's tough to do a book like that, particularly like when you were talking about some players who are still active. Because there's no way you can write about things in the present tense without the book in all likelihood becoming dated, even if you're right. Even if everything you say about those guys is correct, things just change. So that is hard. Like, it would be hard for you to read a book like that and not say to yourself, well, I would change this or I would change that. I mean, it's really interesting.

But there's a scary moment when you're doing a book like that, and I'm sure this is happening with at least one of the things you wrote, where at some point you're completely lost in whatever you had in your head the book should be and you've done a lot of the work already, but you're now in an abyss and you can't get out of it. You can't see the finish line, but you've already done all this work. And there's nobody who can help you. It's like you're the only person. In a weird way, that's probably what I miss the most about writing is like when you're the only person who can solve the problem, and it has to be you or else the thing's not going to get solved, right? But at the same time, it's so scared. It's all you think about. It's like to do it

correctly, it has to be like, the only thing you're thinking about, you're thinking about it when you're in the shower, when you're in the car, when you're making a tuna fish sandwich, whatever it is. It's just like, fuck, I got to figure this out. That's what it is. I mean, when you do rewatchables now, it's almost like, to use a musical analogy, it's almost like you guys they're kind of like making rumors, right? Like you're people, you're kind of throwing ideas off each other. You're using your... Which I love.

It's really fun to do it. You're using your relationships to kind of create stuff. There's a producer outside. There are all these things. Writing is like being prints. You write the songs. You play the songs. You produce the songs.

It's just you. Billy Corrigan making Simey's dream. You're like, I'm just going to redo all the guitar and drum and bass and everything. If you were smashing pumpkins and rewatchables, that would be like you would go back and like, you would do voiceovers for like things right he says like i don't do a different voice for sean i don't like how we said this i'm gonna get an actor yeah so there's there's stuff i do miss about it now that that my kids are older there might be more time but i'd have to give up something i don't think i

could do it at the the level i'd want to do it you know like that i admire the way that you've stuck with you know you like you have two books two books that came out and how many what's the span of time between the two books? Well, next year I have a book in January and a book in the fall. And then weirdly, this is talking about weirdness. They're re-releasing Farger Rock City in the summer for the 25th anniversary. Wow. And it's strange because I've looked at that book since I wrote it.

You know, and I'm kind of, it's weird to think about it, but that's, you know. Jesus. Yeah, but you'll, and you probably, you finish too. Now you're thinking about what the next one is. Yes. I'm really interested. The book I'd want to read from you, or maybe it's just a piece,

is what's, are bands just dead? And why did bands have a shelf life in music and rock? What was, how did we have, like when I was a kid and we had that whole Beatles era of rock bands, but then we had all of this other,

like the bands that became classic rock, and then all these other bands like Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles, we just had bands and the unity of a band and people getting together and it was just how you made music. And why has that seemed like it's not gone, but how did that just, how did that era just end? Okay, it's like, you know, like Tame and Paula right now,

I could say as like a band or like the Warren drugs or a lot of these bands, it's like they're still like, you know, they're coming up with new ideas and like people are really into Geith right now. So it's what you're saying. still happens, but it's no longer the center of the culture, and that's mainly what we're talking about, is that it's receded from that. Part of it has to do with, you know, the formal limitations of rock music. I mean, rock music, for whatever reason, sort of made this decision

that a band is going to be one or two guitars, a bass player, a drummer, possibly someone on keyboards, possibly someone doing another instrument that will sort of, you know, change the texture, and then vocals. And the songs are all going to be between three minutes to five minutes unless you want to go further and you become prog rock, or you can become extra short and you kind of become like a novelty, like Stormtroopers of death or whatever. So there's all these sort of formal limitations to a high degree.

I think we used them all up. I mean, I know that seems insane to say, but there were so many bands from 1964 to 2004 to 2004, you know, 2004, or whatever it was just used, that like the sheer number of music that was produced during that period sort of consumed a lot of the potential ideas you can create for a three or four minute song.

And then there was the fact that all this music was also accessible, initially, physically, but then through the internet digitally. And therefore everything has become to some degree retro. Like everything that comes out now, to some level is informed by music that existed in the past in a pretty direct way. Right. You know, and not just, and not the music that had just come before it and not just like

the classic records that everybody sort of steals from. The idea that there is, it's almost impossible to imagine that the most interesting thing that happens in popular music would come from a band playing rock music at this point. It just doesn't, it just doesn't seem like that's still available. but you know and the culture changed to the interest in rock culture changed and disappeared you know that was a big part of it you know going to going to a rock show had a lot before and after the band played that was a meaningful time and that's kind of gone you know Nathan Hubbard has a theory

that all of the chord combos and beat combos have basically been done in all of these different rock songs that everything becomes derivative of something that already exists, which is part of the issue now. Like basically what you said about all these different combos have already happened with the four people in a band that would be in a band. I think a lot of people said that happened in the 1980s. Right. I mean, seriously, because it was like, you know,

so much of what is considered rock music is still completely traceable. back to 1955 to 1967. I mean, like, so there is so much of, like, what we view as, like, what is supposed to be in rock and what makes something heavy, you know, what makes something, you know, sort of, you know, psychedelic or whatever, like, that's all been established. So I think it's, like, it's not that it just happened now. It's just that these things occur, and they're lagging indicators. like really like rock music achieved full self-awareness of itself in the early 90s that was really

the end of sort of the idea of formal invention in an ideological way for rock music but nobody realized that for 15 more years like we went through a long iteration of like all the new york bands like the strokes and stuff and the white stripes and all these things radio head is in this you know it did not in any way feel like it felt like it was a vibrant rock form like it felt like it was still something that was uh you know formally inventive and extremely interesting and yet in a lot of ways soon as the rock artist particularly like the grunge era artists became self-aware about what they were doing and what meant to be a rock star and sort of what this sort of said about your fan base and all this stuff. I mean, all art ends when it reaches self-awareness. And that's what happened to that.

I think 02 to 06 or 07 was a really great time. And I felt that way as it was happening. I think there are people who are many people who I think very justifiably argue that a lot of the music that's being produced in rock, you know, right now and in metal right now. It's like it's back. It's just that it has, it's, it's, it's sort of now like being like a connoisseur of these things. It's sort of like saying it's like being like, I know the most about jazz in 1985 or whatever. And people are like, well, what do you mean? Like, you know, it's like, well, there's still jazz artists happening and these are still, they're doing it. It's, it's so, you know, like, especially when you and I talk about these things, we always talk about them in a macro way.

Like everything we talk about is sort of in the widest. possible lens. Like, what does it mean to the world in general? But of course, if we would really drill down to the specifics of this, in the same way that, like, you do with the NBA, like, when you low talk and stuff like that, the things you're talking about aren't really applicable to most people who follow basketball. Right. I mean, even when you talk about like, like, you know, getting like, you know, league pass or whatever, I think for most people, the idea of getting league pass, even though it's not that expensive, it's kind of insane since 90% of the

time when I want to watch an NBA game, the guys aren't playing anyways. Like the number of times that I watch a basketball game I want to see and both teams are operating in full strength happens so rarely. It's almost like I've got to text eight people that's like, oh, I'm watching the Warriors and the Nuggets and everyone's playing.

It needs to be an automatic text, yeah. No, they need to tell you like, hey, three days from now, the Nuggets will be playing all their guys. Get ready on Wednesday night. I'm in a fantasy league with, I got 15 guys on the roster. Ten of them are technically on the injured list. Like, you know, to some degree. It's just, yeah.

It's been, it's been ruined. I was talking to my son. My son really likes to smash and pumpkins. Okay. My son is, like, really is on the cutting edge of all the modern music. Like, he knows everybody has all the hip-hop, all the, basically all that world. like that's his music but there are some older bands that he likes and he really like smashing pumpkins mainly because i was probably playing them in the car but i was thinking like

when so i'm in high school and there's a certain kind of music i like but there's only like between 10 to 15 years of it to go back and get like when we're buying like CDs and compact disc calling up CDs in 1985 and be like oh got to get more music I'll get the best of sticks. You know, there just weren't a lot of albums, right? And there's only like maybe 12 years total of all the music I like or 13, whatever it is. And now I look at him in 2025 and there's 60 years of music for him to go through, not to mention like he also likes jazz and different things.

And I almost wonder if we even need new music the way we did. There's so much old music, like you could kind of live on that. It's almost like having leftovers in your fridge forever. You just go back in any decade and find awesome stuff, you know. I would guess, I mean, every person is different. But in general, the idea of the time something is released matters much less I get the sense from younger to younger consumers. Like something being released now, something being released eight years ago, something being

released 38 years ago, they're all accessing it in the exact same way, right? There's no, because there's no, there's no physical music culture as much now. It's not like, it's not like you were, say, you would have been into, like, The Cure or whatever. It's like, you would have hung out with, like, goth people and there would have been this whole kind of world. I like the Cure. I did not hang out with God. Well, but I'm just using that as an example. I mean, you were into sticks, I guess.

You'd be hanging out with a lot of people, like, who loved AOR music or whatever. And you'd talk about foreigner and you'd talk about Boston. And, you know, that's like, you'd have this kind of, like, kind of world. Now that's not really how it is. like sort of all music is equally accessible. And, you know, what you were describing, kind of sort of like there wasn't that many albums. It's like, I remember sort of the opposite experience

where there was a limited amount of money. So it's like, you know, I've said this a million times, but it's true, like for a very long time, I had four cassettes, and then I got a fifth cassette. This is like eighth, ninth grade. And it was absolutely impossible. for me as a kid who was completely into metal to be like

I'm going to go back and buy the old Aerosmith records. Like I couldn't have done that. There was no way or particular. I'm going to buy some unpopular Alice Cooper records just to understand that didn't happen, right? By the way, I was in the same boat. I probably only had like 30 CDs. But it was a question of like

there weren't that many choices. It wasn't strange to be somebody with 30 CDs. It was strange to be somebody with hundreds. Well, remember how important the greatest hits albums were? Yes. Because he would be like, oh, I get the most possible versions or most possible songs from this person I kind of like. I remember the bad company greatest hits. Like, this is great.

Yeah, well, people so glad they put off. I never had a bad company album. I used to buy a lot of live albums because the live album encapsulate the last three or four records. You just mentioning, you know, like bad company now. So like, you know, so bad company is going on the rock hall. Are you aware of this? Yeah, I saw that. I was surprised they weren't in there already.

okay so well i guess i have another this might be another strange take okay so okay so i mean i think i probably i'm guessing like bad company more than most people who are listening to this podcast and all i mean i've owned some bad company records okay yeah um you know like a um you know pet benatar i think is in the rock home now and uh foreigner pretty good four year run foreigner have been a time you know like i definitely probably like foreigner more than the average person in 2025 you know Aussie osborne got in as a solo artist and stevie nix got in as a solo artist you know so all these are so i'm not criticizing these bands but i'll say this so the rock hall never actually described like what bands are included or like what's the reason

a band gets in but i did feel like there was an unspoken understanding of what bands are not going to get in. And to me, it seems like it's artists like that. Like people who are commercially successful, relatively formalist, straightforward bands, bands that got a lot of attention in the world sense. People bought their records.

People went to their shows. But it doesn't seem like that's like a Hall of Fame career to me. I mean, if you're going to have a Hall of Fame about rock music or pop music, however you want to see it, it seems like you should be able to say something about the artist more than it was like, oh, there was good records.

A lot of people liked them. Like, it doesn't seem like foreigner. I just don't understand. Like, what is the reason foreigner is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? And here again, I say this as someone who likes foreigner. Like I like those. By the way, this happened in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Same thing. the bar of who is a Hall of Famer because I think, and I think it's the same reason for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They want to induct like six, seven, eight people a year, right? And at some point, they don't have the six, seven, or eight anymore.

So all of a sudden, and listen, Michael Cooper killed the Celtics in 1987 in game four. He was the best offender at that position of the 80s. I never thought he was a Hall of Famer, but now he's getting in. People like that are getting in versus like, the concept of the Hall of Fame is like,

Tim Duncan's a hall of famer. You know, the, Alan Iverson is a hall of famer. Like the best 50, 60, 70 people in a sport are hall of famers. Then we could argue about everybody else. To me, a Hall of Fame is more meaningful

if there are years when no one gets in. Totally. But like, it's just, it's just odd to me. And now with the Rock Hall, anybody who gets in gets to vote, right? So like, you know, like, so like all the guys,

Def Leppard are voting now. and like all the guys and all these and that and that's definitely going to uh you know expand this to bands that would in the past we would not have perceived as being sort of like kind of you know canonical groups i mean that's i guess that's what i like i kind of feel like if you're in the rock hall you should either be a canonical act or you should be an act who did something that mainstreamed or invented an idea that kind of went everywhere you know or that during the time you existed you were kind of the most

important act that was happening and I it doesn't seem like that's how it is now now now the rock hall kind of like the basketball Hall of Fame has become a situation we're not getting in is more meaningful than getting it like if you're a band

who's not in the rock all like Motley crew whatever is not in the rock all and they'd be like well why are we not in if deaf leopard is in or if you know if it like what what what's separates. It's like, why the replacement? So basically if you've had success for seven, eight years, you're now in the Rock

and Royal Hall of Fame. Well, but yes and no. I mean, Boston's not in the Hall of Fame. If you're going to pick one of these faceless eight years. Boston's not in the Hall of Fame? I'm 99% sure they're not. Wow. And to me, like, so bad company got in before Boston?

What? Bad company got in before Boston? Yes. It's kind of shocking. I mean, I think that there's some people who say Boston really has like one. one and a half records. But, I mean, there's more hits. Yeah, I'd say three.

That are great. I mean, plus, the thing with Boston is, that record was a bedroom album. It was produced by one guy by himself in his house. He did it himself. It is the best sounding home recorded record in the hit music. That to me, put that in a hall of fame or a museum. You know, like the achievement of the creative process of making that first Boston record would justify its induction.

I don't, like, you know, it's like, obviously, like, I like Ozzy Osbourne. I like Stevie Nix. I love Black Sabbath. I love Fleetwood Mac. They get in in Black Sabbath and Fleetwood Mac. I don't really understand why they're being or why they were inducted as sole artists. Can you really look at their solo career and say, like, this is a, like, it's important that these records happened, you know?

Well, Stevie Nix, I think, I mean, she did have a couple. album and a couple of hits, but she's the Fleetwood Mac piece of her career. She already got in for the Fleetwood Mac. He had a good solo career. Ozzie had a great solo career. Crazy Train, Flying Highigan, there's a bunch of the songs that are great. But to put it in a Hall of Fame now seems like it's just. Well, I have the answer for this one.

It's literally because they want to have the 7-8 new members every year so they can have the ceremony and the telecast. and they're never going to be like, hey, we've run out. Hopefully we'll have some more down the road. They're just going to put in seven more. They want to have the ceremony like in the Barclay Center. So we have to induct Rush and we have to induct Kiss or whatever because they'll fill the place. But I mean, Rush definitely should be in the Rock Hall.

But, you know, it's, I don't know. But that's mentioning bad company made me think of that. Again, now, so now I'm pro-Niko Harrison, pro-bordom, anti-bad company, I guess. This is the aggregate of this conversation. And pro, you think Bonds and Clemens should be in the baseball hall fame? Yes. I've been on the record for 20 years saying, I don't know what we're doing. But there's some veterans committee now where they might be able to get in.

And I don't even think people care anymore because it's been so long. Although in a sense, I mean, like over time, it helped Pete Rose not to get in the Hall of Fame. Like, it helped because it's like every year the Hall of Fame induction happened, people talked about Pete Rose every single year. If he would have just got in, people have been like, oh, questionable decision with this gambling situation. And that would have been, he just be a guy in there. So, like, sometimes not getting in as to your benefit. Well, we never got to talk about the chair company in Pluribus, two shows that you love. So if you want to do, you want to do 60 seconds on that? I want to say a brief thing about the chair company in Pluribus, which I, like, I felt

television has been real down for the last six or so months. And these two shows are great. And the reason they are is because they're they're kind of doing something that kind of had been lost for a while. The chair company is the rare example of a show outside of like the Nathan Fielder stuff where I literally have no idea what's going to happen in these episodes with even it, you know, like it is really surprising to me when I watch a television show and I don't kind of see what like where they're going or what's going to happen or or even if I don't know the twist, I see a twist on the horizon. This show is not like that. Like I, I, I, I, I, I, I do not know, seem to scene, what's going to happen.

And the thing about Pluribus, and I've only seen two episodes of this, but they're great. What is interesting about this show is that it seems like it clearly must be about something, and yet that is a debatable concept. Like, it thinks about AI, but maybe not. I mean, there's some people I think who see it as like a statement against wokeism. And I think there's some people who think actually it's like a pro-socialist message. Like, you know, like there's a whole, like this show, because Vince Gilligan does things in an apolitical way, people assume there must be a secret political meeting in there.

And they can just kind of inject anything. And he's done a brilliant job of making that possible. Plus, he's one of the last guys who at least cares. like what the TV show looks like on your screen. Like he's not just like, I'm going to show, like what would be an interesting way to show a woman driving as opposed to I'm just going to have a shot of a car for two seconds so we know she got from point A to point B.

It's like he's trying. Like he is, you know, he is trying ideas, you know. Two good ones. They're both on my list, as is the Scorsese doc. You will like that. You will really like that. So this, and I haven't seen the Netflix The Garfield Assassination Show yet

But I've heard they kind of stealth released it The Game of Thrones guys are EPs on it And Tom from Succession is in it There's some really good actors in it And supposedly it's great It's about pregnant Garfield It's a four episode Drama slash

I think it's a little bit funny too About the assassination of James Garfield I didn't even tell this was happening. Yeah. They did the weirdest thing. They didn't publicize it at all. And I think they wanted to be word of mouth. But I already have a couple people in my life where we're like, this is fucking incredible.

And I wonder, could this lead to like some sort of Ryan Murphy type situation, but like on a high end caliber of like taking historical things and just like four episode, whatever? Because I'm all in. If that's how we can learn about American history, I would be excited about it. like a real, like, tabloid version of Squeaky Fromm trying to kill Ford. Right. But this is like high-end, well done. Yeah, that could be real good, you know? Right.

So we'll see if that goes. Chuck Gloucesterman, plug some pre-orders for your books. Oh, yeah. So my football book, my football book is coming out in January. It's very difficult to sell books now, so I appreciate you having me on here and allowing me to say this. And I will. I'll come back. I'll actually come to L.A. in January.

We can talk about this book more. Do you have the book? Do you have the book? I have the book. Okay, good, good. Okay. Good cover. Haven't read it. It's on my holiday list. I will read it before we do the podcast. Take your time. I just went through the freaking gauntlet of NFL and NBA starting at the same time. Well, yeah. So I was trying to just survive October. You know, it's hard to find the time to do. It's like what Jim Crocey says. It's like you don't understand the things you want to do.

do until there's no time to do them, you know? Jim Crocey, one of my first favorite musical artists, by the way. There's Jim Crocey songs. I was walking in the rain, walking the dog the other day, listening to this music. It's like those songs at times are too emotional to be available to me in the day. Like, I don't want to think about some of these things that like, you know, and like they're real memorable and everything's a visual picture. And like some of them like, you know, Rapid Roy or whatever are just kind of fun. But there's a lot of songs that They're like, this resonates deeply with, you know, too much, too much emotion. Chuck Closterman, a pleasure, as always.

I'll see you in January. You got it. Thank you. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Chuck. Thanks to Gahau and Eduardo. As always, I'm going to be back on this feed on Thursday. And don't forget about the new rewatchables that went up snake eyes.

Don't forget about the mailbag. BS Podcast 33 at gmail.com. if you want to send a question for a future mailbag segment. I will see you on Thursday. Go Patriots. Must be 21 plus in President Select States for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas. or 18 plus and president in D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming, game problem, call 100 gambler, or visit RG dash help.com.

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