The Bill Simmons Podcast - Six NBA Forks In the Road, Plus Wemby’s Charisma With Brian Windhorst and Best Early NFL Futures With Ben Solak

Episode Date: June 21, 2023

The Ringer's Bill Simmons starts the show by talking about six guys he believes are the most interesting in the NBA over the next few days. Then, he is joined by ESPN’s Brian Windhorst to discuss what makes Victor Wembanyama different from past generational prospects. They also talk about how Wemby's handled his growing fame, what San Antonio’s long-term plan is for him, and more (28:12). Then, The Ringer’s Ben Solak joins Bill to run through some of their favorite futures bets for the upcoming NFL season (1:05:15). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Brian Windhorst and Benjamin Solak Producer: Isaiah Blakely Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, basketball, football, Hockey deliver unreal plays, the biggest goals, can't miss moments. Matthews, McDavid, Crosby, the NHL's best. They're all on Prime. Prime Monday Night Hockey. It's on Monday. It's on Prime. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite.

I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gangs here, you're tailgating outside the stadium, it's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air? Moments like that are when you want a light beer that tastes like beer, that's delicious. You don't want to load up on those heavier beers, and then you only have two of them. Then you feel tired. Your stomach feels full. Miller Lite, it's your friend. It just accompanies whatever else you're doing. You're super happy

with it. Opening an ice cold Miller Lite can signal the beginning of Miller time. Miller Lite is the light beer with all the great beer tastes we like. 90 calories per 355 mil can. So why not grab some Miller Lites today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I put up a new rewatchables on monday night we did indiana jones and the last crusade that was the third indiana jones movie came out 1989 it's also known as the sean connery movie sean fantasy chris ryan and i broke it down a lot of holy grail talk it got super weird near the end a lot of mad ishbia jokes for some reason but uh very fun podcast.

So go check that out. Coming out in this podcast, I'm going to do a little thing at the top about who I think are the five most interesting guys in the NBA over the next 72 hours. So we got that. Brian Windhorst came on because I had become fascinated by Victor Wibinyama. The person. There's a charisma to this guy. Is this one of the most interesting characters that's entered the NBA in the

last 50 years? We're going to break all of it down. Windhorses spent a ton of time with them. And then last but not least, it is NFL futures. Not too early to sniff around season. I have a couple I like Benjamin Solak from the ringer. He had a couple that he liked. So we decided to hop on a podcast and bounce back and forth. Our favorite futures. We're not that far away from the NFL season. It's, I don't know, it's less than three months.

Starting to get ideas about some teams. Did really well last year on my future, so hoping to do it again. All right, that is the podcast. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, recording this two days before the NBA draft. I want to play a little game. I think there are some fork in the road dudes this week over the next 72 hours. So we're going to open a little NBA six pack. This would be a good sponsor gimmick. Six fork in the road guys over the next 72 hours number one Draymond green opted

out of his contract this week and everybody just assumed that we opt out he'll sign with the Warriors for more money I'm a little more skeptical because if you go back to the to the Jordan pool punch two things happen one they took care of pool with an extension they took care of Wiggins with an extension they didn't take care of Draymond draymond competitive guy he's won four titles he's following that one away and then the tape leaked which i said chris vernon talked about it today and the mismatch was kind of a bigger deal than i think people realize publicly it was such a violation of the internal dynamic of a team why did it come out who leaked? Why didn't they find the person

that did it? And I just wonder, like when you start talking about somebody who just feels underappreciated, they're taking care of other people. When he was the guy who was the best defensive player in all those title teams, who was the second best defensive guy in the league last year. And I wish I had voted for, for a defensive player of the year. I really regret it. Um, because without him, the words were a mess. And you just think like at some point you got people, players on other teams, front offices, batting their eyelashes at him, like, come here. We value what you do, man. You would change our culture here. At some point that shit works, you know,

and you go from, I don't feel like I'm appreciated enough to man, all these teams want me. This is great. So like a team like Dallas, for instance, and I, and this is why it's a fork in the road for this week. Dallas has the number 10 pick. They could package it with a bad contract, right? Davis Bertons and JaVale McGee. That's they could open up like 24 million in cap space by packaging the 10th pick with those two guys. And there's teams that would take it. There's teams way under the cap, Houston, San Antonio can get way under there. I think Indiana can as well. Maybe it's just Bertans or maybe, you know, it's, it's a three way where it's like the number 10 and Tim Hardaway and you have a dream on going a different way. Like whatever it is, shit happens in draft week trades that you never thought could happen. I just think Dallas, I've felt that I said that on a podcast four

months ago, I think Dallas is lurking with Draymond. And I still feel like this is a ring chase scenario for LeBron a year from now. And somebody had told me this somewhere during the winter. And I kind of followed it away. And I'm like, man, if LeBron ever left the Lakers, where would he go? At this point, it would be like year 22 for him. He'd be in his 40s. Where would he go? Well, he's going to attach himself to one of the best players in the league, right? That's his best chance to win a ring. That's a smart move. And he's one of the smartest players I've ever had. So if Draymond went to Dallas now, Kyrie stayed and they had Luka. And then LeBron a year from now, after he sees this Lakers thing through one more year, that to me in my head makes sense. Now, it could also make sense if Memphis went to Golden State and said, hey, what about

a sign-in trade? You can get some value for Draymond. We'll give you Adams and Luke Kennard and send us Draymond and Draymond goes to Memphis. He's going to determine where he goes, obviously. My point is there's teams that would want him. The Lakers, would he play for a 12.2 mid-level exception? He's represented by Clutch. Would Clutch talk him into that and say

we'll make all the money back you know by you being in la with your media career um you know even though it's it's half what you're worth maybe we make that back in la i don't know my point is i am prepared for anything with draymond and the key thing to remember is he already won the four rings. He's not ring chasing. He's chasing adulation, acclaim, respect, appreciation. And the only thing keeping him with the Warriors now is the Clay, Steph, and Dre thing, and really the Steph thing. And why I'm dubious at the 11th hour that he'd actually leave is the Steph relationship because those guys are like brothers. And that's a really tough thing to be like, you know what? I'm out. The other question for me is, would the Warriors be okay if he was out? He's in his mid thirties,

expensive contract, second apron. All the reasons you know, is the pool Draymond thing tenable? I just feel like Draymond is at a fork in the road. So there's one. Two is Zion Williamson is my second guy. He starts a five-year $194.3 million contract on July 1st. He's missed 194 games. He is not the most mature guy in the world. Doesn't always stay in shape. This is a rare case of a franchise potentially, franchise altering guy, a potential first team all NBA guy becoming available at an age before he's all the maturity stuff kicked in. So that the rest of the league is looking at this. I said on Sunday that somebody told me, not a bunch of people, one person told me, I don't think Zion's going to be there on Thursday. I think he's going to get traded. And I was like, really? It was the first time anybody who knew anything said something

like that to me where I took it seriously. The question is, if they decide they're going to move on, what do you get for them? You're looking at the Pascal Siakam level of guy. You're looking at, you know, the scoot, Gordon Hayward's expiring package from Charlotte, maybe Trey Young, Mikhail Bridges and stuff. It's nothing compared to what Zion has shown a couple of times on the Pelicans, where he just looked like one of the most unique, original, explosive offensive forces that we've seen at the forward position a long time. Here's why I think if the trade is there, that they might pull the trigger. Because we've seen in the history of the NBA, a lot of the times players get traded, big moves get made because either a new owner is in charge or a front office guy. I don't want to say it's a Hail Mary, but

it's like, man, if it doesn't work out with this guy, either he's going or I'm going and guess who never goes is the player. So David Griffin has been there a while. If he keeps Zion and it doesn't work out next season, guess who's getting blamed other than Zion? David Griffin. And that'll be it for him. So if you're him, do you make the move now? Do you take the sure thing? Like, if I'm Toronto, I would trade Siakam for Zion Williamson in five seconds.

Why not bet on the upside of a guy who could be one of the best five, six, seven players in the league? And if you're New Orleans, maybe you take the certainty of somebody like that. I mean, Jalen Brown is the one that makes the most sense, but by all accounts, Boston's going to resign him to an extension and then everyone's going to be miserable for the next two years. Zion Williamson, fork in the road, because there's a chance that they just say, fuck it and trade him to Charlotte for Scoot and Hayward and some other stuff. Or it's a three-teamer like I laid out, I'm prepared for anything. I'm on Zion

watch and for him, huge fork in the road because he clearly needs to get out of new Orleans. Can he find a team that he would become an adult with and learn basic stuff? Like stay the fucking shape next guy quickly scoot this is based on the Zion thing I haven't learned a lot of lessons in life but one of them is is NBA draft related I'm just always gonna gravitate to the guy where all the scuttlebutt is this guy really gives a shit and he's in the gym all the time. And he's one of those first guys in the gym, last guy to leave guys. I just, those are the guys for me. Sorry. That's my sweet spot. That's what I want to hear. And Scoot Henderson is like that. I think Scoot, whatever his deficiencies are, like KOC has said his shot's not good enough yet. Scoot's shot will be fine

four years from now. Worst case scenario, he's poor man's Russell Westbrook. Best case scenario, he's rich man's Donovan Mitchell. He's basically Donovan Mitchell with Saquon Barkley's body. Athletically, what he's bringing to the table physically as a guard, even though he's 6'2". So if he's 6'4", this is a different conversation. It's stupid. I just feel like he's going to four, this is a different conversation. It's stupid. Um, I, I just feel like he's going to be a dominant, dominant, dominant guard. And my role with this stuff

is I'm never taking a guard in the top three, unless I am positive that he has a chance to be an all NBA first team or second team guy. And in this case, I think it's true. So you have him on one hand, then you have Brandon Miller on the other hand, who, um, you know, was involved in a pretty major incident with the shooting. Still trying to find out all the details in that one lost 13 pounds because of mononucleosis. The workouts haven't been great. Apparently at a better one this week, the interviews haven't been awesome according to the scuttlebutt compared to scoot and it's just riskier but he's also a more unique player it's way harder to find this six foot nine guy with three point range who can handle the ball these guys are hard to find that's why the celtics they get jason tatum

they value him over somebody like marco faults it's harder to find a jason tatum i get all the miller logic i just think sc Scoot's a safer bet. And I think Scoot's going to be absolutely incredible. And I think other teams realize that. That's why people have been trying to trade up to that Charlotte pick. They're not trading up for Miller. They're trading up for Scoot. So it's a fork in the road for him in this respect.

I think it'd be great if he went to Charlotte. And he's playing with LaMelo Ball. He's playing with new owners. And you know what? How many cool players is Charlotte had? Even if you count LaMelo, Larry Johnson, Lonzo Mourning, like it's not Baron Davis for a couple of years. It hasn't exactly been a hotbed of cool superstars. And I think Scoot just becomes the guy immediately. And then look, if it doesn't work out with him and LaMelo, trade LaMelo. Scoot just has higher value, higher asset. I want to see him go to the right team.

What I don't want to happen is for him to go to Portland at number three because Charlotte, their brain broke and they took Miller at number two. If he goes to Portland at number three, now you have this Dame situation. And Dame is our fourth fork in the road guy. 33 years old in July. I have him 73rd in my Pantheon. The third to last guy in the lowest level, right behind Reggie Miller and Ray Allen. His resume, you know it.

One first team, all NBA, four second, two third, two second round playoff finishes, made the conference finals once got killed fluke year because it was golden state and Houston around to scored almost 20 K Golden State and Houston in round two. Scored almost 20K points. Fifth all-time in threes. He'll probably end up second behind Steph career-wise. We'll see if anybody can pass either of those guys. He said one top five MVP finish. If you're doing the list of best 21st century guards,

I made this list in five seconds, but Curry, Kobe, Chris Paul, Nash, Harden. And then you're talking Russ and Dame, T-Mac, Clay, Manu and Tony Parker. Then maybe the 20th century guys who had some in the 20th century and then more in the 21st century, Iverson, Kidd, Ray Allen. He's on the list is my point. But at the same time, what do you want your career to be? And this is the summer we're going to figure out with him. He's at a fork in the road. He can do the Reggie Miller, stayed in Indiana his whole career, never won a title, but had a great career and went down as a top 75 guy and belonged to the city.

Or do I want to make a run at this? The two teams that have the ability to pay the biggest price for him that he'd actually want to go to are Miami and Brooklyn. Brooklyn has more picks. We covered this on Sunday. They have all the Phoenix picks. They have Dallas, 2029. Miami has a little less.

Tyler Hero, they can throw some contracts in to make it work. I think they could trade this year's first and two others. They can do some pick swap stuff. But ultimately, the Brooklyn offer would be better. And then it's first and two others. They can do some pick swap stuff, but ultimately the Brooklyn, the Brooklyn offer would be better. And then it's him and Mikhail bridges. And then now you're hoping, can we get the third guy? We had these two now what's next.

And he's basically in the same situation he's in in Portland. I don't think they're going to be able to trade the third pick and Simons for a guy who will meaningfully change his destiny because I'm just looking at Denver. How do I beat Denver? Jokic, Murray, Gordon, Porter, all these role guys, these cheap guys that are just going to want to play Jokic for the next five years. They're just not going to beat them. This is what I said on Sunday about the Phoenix thing that got a little misconstrued where I was saying, if you switch Shamit and Beal, is the series any different? The answer is no. You know why the answer is no? Because Denver destroyed Phoenix offensively. They destroyed them. Jokic had like a 35-12-12

in the series. They couldn't stop them. I don't know what their offensive rating was, but it was probably 200. Phoenix had no chance. So if you put Beal in there, all right, maybe they could have outscored them in one more game, but they weren't beating them four out of seven when Denver was doing whatever the fuck they wanted offensively. Beal wasn't changing that. And if I'm Dame in Portland, I'm like, is my destiny really changing if we trade the number three pick

and Simons for like Pascal Siakam or Jalen Brown? It's just not. But if I go to Miami, it changes. And that's why this is a real fork in the road. Because if Miami can figure out how to get him for a hero and the other stuff and just put him with Jimmy Butler and bam, now I have a chance to win the title. So to me, this all comes down to where Scoot lands in the draft. And if he's two and Brandon Miller goes to three, maybe Dame talks himself into that more because at least the roster makes more sense.

But I just feel like he's going to get traded and he'll end up on Miami or Brooklyn. That is the fork in the road for Dame Miller. Two left. Quick one on Brad Stevens. He's my fifth guy. You weren't expecting him. GM of the Celtics.

Didn't want to coach anymore. They moved him in. I don't know if he's like an executive for 30 years. I think he's going to coach again when his kids get older. Pretty cautious guy for the most part. Derek White trade, very safe, smart, awesome trade. Al Horford bringing him back, safe, awesome. He hasn't done anything crazy. GMs usually get the one crazy move out at some point, but they didn't even like email left. They didn't even hire like David Fisdale to be Joe Mazzulla's like lead assistant. They've been really cautious. And my point is they can't be cautious anymore. Five conference finals in seven years, it's a team that's hit the ceiling. And if everybody comes back in 2024,

I just don't feel like the destiny of this team is any different. I don't think they can beat Denver in a series unless Tatum goes up all other level. They have a couple of different roster issues. One, they got the Grant Williams free agent thing. They have White and Brogdon and Smart and also Peyton Pritchard. So three and a half guards basically. And you really only need two, two and a half. They have to trade Brogdon or Smart this summer,

in my opinion. I just don't, I want White to play 38 minutes a game. I only need another 30 to 35 minutes from one other guard and then Pritchard minutes. And then I got Brown and Tatum. I have Gallinari coming back. I'm talking like Hubie Brown right now. And I also have this Jalen Brown extension coming that I don't feel like anybody's going to be happy with by the time it's done, including him. So what do you do? You got to do something.

You got to do a two for one or you got to flip one of those guards. I mentioned on Sunday, like if you can turn Marcus Smart into Tim Hardaway in the number 10 pick from Dallas, that's a trade I'd be really interested in. There's another trade coming when we get to our sixth fork in the real guy that I want to talk about that Isaiah Blakely is not happy about. It was produced in the pod today. You have to do something. And I kind of feel like you have to do something this week.

They need to get an asset. That's why that number 10 pick is so fascinating to me because you had this older, increasingly more expensive team with no kind of young, cheap bench coming in. And you're going to be paying Tatum and Brown over a hundred million dollars a year from now, you got to start getting creative right now. And Brad Stevens, this is where Danny Ainge would have done a blow it up thing. I think Danny Ainge would have traded Jalen Brown already. I really do. I think he would have traded him like Houston for number four and a whole bunch of stuff. We were trading him in Atlanta. He would already be gone. Danny didn't give a shit. The joke about him was he'd trade his

mother if he could. Everybody was on the table at all times. And it actually kind of hurt the team with the players a little bit because all the players were like, Danny will fucking trade anybody. So Stevens is the opposite. It's like, no, it's good. Joe did a good job. Great first year coach experience. Joe was a disaster. I mean, I was talking to somebody today about game two of the Miami series when they're up nine with six minutes left, they blew that game.

But you go back and you watch game one and two of the Miami series, which is when they really lost the series. And the coaching was just apocalyptic. So yeah, maybe they fixed it. They brought in Sam Cassell. They brought in Charles Lee, but they didn't fix it during the season and they just jumped back in with them again. So what's going to change? Because this team couldn't get over the hump last year. It's just a year older. Nothing's going to change.

So what are you going to do, Brad Stevens? I have you as my fifth fork in the road guy. Sixth guy, it's just a personal thing with me. And I think I'm in the minority, which is fine. I've been in the minority in the past on basketball players. DeAndre Ayton turns 25 in July. For his career, he's 17 and 10, 59%. He's played 45 playoff games, 16 and 10 and a half rebounds, 63% shooting. And now he's become this liability.

How do we get rid of this guy person? Because he makes $30 million a year and he's in, he's got three years left on his deal. The salary cap, everything's going up, but the second apron thing is looming over everything. And people think, well, they're clearly going to trade DeAndre and cut them into parts. And then your other people go, well, he doesn't have any value. Nobody wants to pay $30 million for a center. Let me make the case why that's not as daunting as maybe people realize. Let's just go through the list of best centers.

It's Jokic and Embiid and Anthony Davis, if you want to count them as a center. And bam, it's a bonus, right? It's those five guys. If you have one of those five guys, you're feeling great. And then we kind of move into this different level of dude. I'm not going to mention Wenbenyama yet, but he's probably number six. We're going to talk about him with Windhorse in a second.

You go quickly into this DeAndre Ayton, Vucevic, Walker Kessler, Porzingis, Brooke Lopez, Jared Allen, who absolutely sucked in the Knicks series. You kind of go off a cliff. And then all of a sudden you're in this Jakob Pertl, Kavon Looney, Rudy Gobert, Clint Capella. You're in that group, Miles Turner.

Now I'm all of a sudden looking at 38-year-old Al Horford. Wendell Carter, who has never been a playoff game. Steven Adams, who's hurt a lot. Mitchell Robinson, who completely disappeared that Miami series. Claxton, who's 100 pounds. Maz Reed, who I actually kind of like as a free agent signing. Okongwu on Atlanta. Don Shunis.

Chet Holmgren, who we haven't seen one minute of. Robert Williams, who's hurt every year, and Zubats. If you put it in the context of like, all right, let's say Wemby is the sixth best center in the league. He's coming out of the gate because he's going to block five shots a game. Would you rather have Aiton than just on a basketball standpoint? Would you rather have Aiton than everybody else on this list? Vucevic, Kessler. I'd rather have Kessler. Porzingis? Lopez? Jared Allen? Pirtle? Looney? Go on down the line. money like Tobias Harris made $40 million a year for the Sixers, but he's not a bad basketball player. I would say he's a above average, solid starter, right? You just wouldn't want to pay

him 40 million a year with Aiden. Like if I'm the Knicks, right? I have, I hit the ladder with the Brunson contract. Brunson makes 25 million. I have The RJ Barrett thing, he makes a pretty good contract too. I think it's like under 30 a year starting. They have the money to kind of take a swing on somebody who's a little overpaid. But why wouldn't you, Mitchell Robinson and Quickly and Evan Fournier is going to be expiring contract and you turn them into Aiton. You'd be like, man, we can't give up quickly. Well, I just gave you DeAnd into Aiton, you'd be like, man, we can't give up quickly. Well, I just gave you DeAndre Aiton. You went from a third tier starting center to a guy you can make a case as the sixth, seventh, or eighth best center.

And you could put him with Jalen Brunson and Randall and RJ Barrett and Josh Hart and whatever else he might do. I would make a move on that. If I'm the Celtics, and I've been in arguments about this all week, and Isaiah Blakely does not like this trade, Brogdon and Rob Williams for Aiton, I'd have to seriously think about it. It's been reported the Celtics don't want to do that, but I go from Rob Williams, who every year either gets hurt or something weird goes on, and Brogdon who's always hurt too, to Aiton who plays 35 minutes a game every year.

What are the reasons that he's not an asset anymore? Well, his coach didn't like him. Chris Paul seemed like he turned on him. There's been moments where he didn't punish smaller players in the low post. Maybe he's a change of scenery guy. I'm going to leave you with the story. 1980 draft. Celtics have the number one pick.

You knew I'd work the Celtics in here. Joe Barry Carroll is the guy. He's the franchise center from Purdue. And then people puts up the stats, but people are a tiny bit concerned, but he's got so much talent, you got to take him first. And Red Auerbach looks at it and he's like, you know what? I actually really like this McHale guy on Minnesota.

I want to figure out how to get him. Can I maybe trade down? Trades down with the Warriors, gives number one and number 13 for McHale and Robert Parrish. Robert Parrish at that point, he was an older rookie. I think he came in the league when he was like 23, 24, went to Centenary. And was a guy who was like an 18 and 10 guy in the Warriors. But people thought, ah, he doesn't give a shit.

Those teams don't win. You know, if you look at the teams he was actually playing with, it was an absolute shit show. There's like drug guys on the team. And they didn't really play with like the perfect point guard, all that stuff goes to the Celtics and becomes the chief comes a hall of famer, incredible role player. And he would flame out sometimes, you know, like the 85, 85 finals was an awesome for him.

He had a couple of moments where you're like, man, chief, wake up, dude. But became this beloved Celtics. And I'm not saying Deandre is going to be Robert Parrish, but there are parallels. Like I'm always willing to bet on talent and Aiton is a guy from his rookie year has been a double, double guy. Um, never at any point in the regular season, is he not like a pretty safe bet for like 16, 17 and 10. And he's a change of scenery guy, which I love. So put him on a different team, put him in a different type of system with some positive reinforcement, people saying, it's not your fault. It's not your fault, DeAndre. Introduce him to wheel hunting.

I would gamble on DeAndre Ayton. If I'm Dallas, I would do it. If I was the Celtics, I would do it. If I'm the Knicks, I would absolutely 100% do it. And if I'm Golden State, I would seriously think about flipping Draymond for Ayton in some form if I felt like Draymond was leaving. Because they did this. We saw this with Wiggins. Wiggins is the perfect parallel to this. Wiggins, we all gave up on him. So much talent. He's such a loser. What a waste. Who swung the 22 finals? Andrew Wiggins. So Aiton is my sixth fork in the road guy. I'll be interested to see if he gets

traded this week. I personally would bet on the changes seen with him. All right. That's it. We're going to take a break. All right. It's time for a special part of today's show brought to you by SAP. When you run a business, it can be affected by anything on a given day. SAP has been there and done that across every industry and type of business, providing software and solutions that help you be ready for anything that happens next. And when it comes to sports, it's all about who can be ready. So let's talk about who's ready for what's next. You know who reminds me of this is the Oklahoma City Thunder, where I just agree with all the moves they make.

Like they have the 12th pick this year. I'm sure they're going to take the French guy with the seven foot three wingspan that KOC had them take in the mock draft because he's just the type of guy they always take. They gravitate toward these big athletes, these freaky positionless guys who can do all these different things. And they nailed that Jalen Williams pick last year. And they like a certain type. They like guys who are either comfortable with the ball in their hands or guys who can

just guard anybody. And I'm just always so impressed by Oklahoma City. Anyway, in the world of sports, the future is unpredictable. OKC found this out. They had Durant and they had Westbrook and they had Harden. They lost all three. The same goes for business. That's why there's SAP with experience across every industry and type of business.

SAP has seen it all. So your business can be ready for anything that happens next. Be ready with SAP. All right. Brian Windhorst is here from ESPN. You'll see him a lot this week. This is not a full Wendy Simmons podcast because he's doing a lot of media. I really brought you on for one specific task other than to say hello. Nice to see you. Great to have you on. You've actually spent real time with Victor Wimbanyama, who I am becoming increasingly fascinated with as a personality, as a character that is entering our lives for a long time, as somebody who feels different than all of these

other hyped Ballyhoo number one picks that came in. There's a charisma to him that is just really unique for a rookie a and B for a tall guy. You've been around tall guys. Tall guys are usually awkward. Tall guys. Usually they don't want to be the center of attention. Everyone's staring at them,

pointing, pointing at them like, Oh my God, what's the weather like up there? This guy like rebels in it. He loves it. So what does he like? Give it, give like revels in it. He loves it. So what is he like? Give it, give us the scouting report. Just him as a guy.

This is exactly why I wanted to get to know him because when I first learned about his personality, I was really intrigued. And, um, it's why I took the time and the effort to, I mean, I know a lot of people that ESPN, they'd like needle me because I went to Paris twice this year as if those are vacations, but you know how that goes. So I really, you know, I spent time, you know, meeting his youth coaches, spent time with his parents, spend time with his teammates, watched him in practices. His coach was very kind and open and letting us watch him practice and spending time with his agents and things like this. And he is extraordinarily unique. He decided he was going to be an NBA player when he was 12 years old.

And I know that, you know, we see guys get drafted and they pull up little things that they made when they were in second grade. This is what do you want to be when you grow up NBA player? Fine. That's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about he changed his life and made all major decisions to reach the NBA as a French kid at age 12. And you will hear him talk in the next few days, and you will hear him speak with one of the cleanest accents, or accent, well, some accent, obviously. You do not hear French people who speak English who speak like him, because he worked very hard to learn English that Americans would be able to appreciate because he knew how important it was. He told me, he said, basketball people speak

English. I have to speak English. And he didn't start last month. He started years ago. When he was 14 years old, he moved away from home and moved into a, you know, basically into a dorm, essentially, because he wanted to work at this academy. And he did it because he wanted to work on his skills. He wanted to work on becoming good enough to be a pro. And obviously that happens with a lot of elite athletes. That's not unique. But some guys who are really tall have to be browbeaten into it.

That's not his thing. And this last year especially, he basically spent the year getting ready for the NBA. He was playing on a higher level team in Lyon in a different part of France. The team is owned by Tony Parker. They have guys on it that are veteran players, and they were playing in the EuroLeague. They played not just in the French League, but the EuroLeague. The EuroLeague is what Luka Doncic

won the whole league, won the MVP and everything like that. And he said, I'm not going to play here anymore. I'm going to opt out of my contract and I'm going to go to a different team. And that team is specifically built to prepare him for the NBA. This team, Bill, is probably going to, if it doesn't fold, it's going to drop down a division. Like their gym where they play is probably going to be taken over by a pro volleyball team next year. Wow. Okay.

And so he went to this team and the entire team was designed just to prepare Victor for the NBA. They like signed American guards to work with him on pick and roll. They signed all young players so that they could practice more and more aggressively because on an older team, you don't want to do that. They set their practice schedule up around his training routines. And because I know some people were like, well, how come if he's so darn good, how come he didn't win the French League? And I was like, well, because he was playing with a bunch of guys who'd never played with each other before. Who are young. And by the way, the second best player on the team, former Celtic Tremont Waters.

Oh, yeah. Got kicked off the team like in the last month of the season. There are some stories about that. I don't know what's true, but I don't think it was a happy situation there. So they lost their second best player with a month left and they still made the finals. So he spent this whole year, like learning and preparing for the NBA game. Like his coach was preparing him to leave, you know, like, okay, Victor, here's how we're going to prepare you for tonight's game. But we're also going to prepare

you for the NBA. It was probably not perfect. Obviously you could pick apart certain things that they did, but that's what you have to understand about him is that he has been preparing for this for a long time. You've been on a lot of tall people. Ogascus. Oh, is he seven, three spent some time with that dude. They can go in a couple of different directions,

right? Like Kareem. Oh, he wrote a book called giant steps. Like he hated being tall. He never wanted to be like that. The only guy we've had, I made a list of like, you know, Kareem, Ralph Sampson was another

one who the, you know, he never wanted to be the seven foot four center retention guy. Yao. I mean, who, he just like, please, I just want to play basketball and do my thing. Bill Walton used to lie about his height. He was seven foot three. Say he was six 11. Sean Bradley was obviously, he didn't have the athleticism. Manute Ball knew he was an oddity and kind of enjoyed it and

stepped into it. The only guy that really embraced it was Wilt. And Wilt, by all accounts, obviously we both weren't around for Wilt, but by all accounts, larger than life, charismatic, center of the room, could mix with anybody, like behave like a celebrity across with a basketball player. It feels like Wemby has this. And I've been asking around, you know, different types of people have rubbed shoulders with him. I know Tommy and JJ have them coming on a podcast, but there was that great video of him. And you were there actually, when he got, when he found out he was going to the Spurs, were you there for that?

I was. Yep. So they had the, one of the French you can find on YouTube. They're just rolling the whole time. And it's like, I don't know, five,

six minutes. And you can see him interacting with, you know, the, the kids that are there and all the people in his life. And it's just, he's just fucking likable. I don't know.

There's no other way to say it. I'm trying to think of the last person that came into the league like this, where he's like, Oh, I like that guy. He's like this big teddy bear. I'm going to be so fascinated to see how he hits because we don't usually centers aren't like this centers or the villains centers are these, Oh my God, we got to get by this guy. Giannis has a little bit, but he doesn't have the height. And that's what you can even feel it this week. He's in New York and it's like seeing a skyscraper, right? When you stood next to him the first time, what was it like?

I can't believe, first off, I've never seen anybody built this way. His hips are outrageously narrow, which is going to be an issue for him. But and they're very his hips are very, very high. His foot. You know, like Shaq has a club for a foot. OK, right. Victor has a normal foot, except for it looks like somebody went into photoshop and just stretched it his fingers and his hands his hands are like a foot like from the bottom of his heel the top of his middle finger is like a foot um part of the reason why he blocks so many shots is not just his long arm but how big his hands are yeah um he did this thing he was messing. We went over there for the first time. We did this big photo shoot. So we, we, we actually,

this kind of tells you where this team is. ESPN rented out the gym. That he plays, he plays and practices in. They like, cause it's not owned by the team. It's like owned by the city. And like, we rented it out. And like, they told the team like, yeah, you're not, it's not available that day. that day oh why uh it's it's a private event and so like jonathan gavoni who are you know like knowing everybody in french basketball for 20 years like the coach was like hey what time are you guys going to be done they say you're not going to be done till five and he's like oh no no we'll be done at like one o'clock you can schedule

practice for two like oh thank you very much because five o'clock didn't work for us we have to travel like they were negotiating with us when they use their gym okay but anyway we set up this photo shoot and you know it is a photo shoot you got to reset everything and you know it takes freaking forever so they're setting up this this photo shoot and so he's just in between um uh shooting like little one foot shots just to you know kill the time i'm standing next to him and i'm realizing that when he's that he's standing on the ground with his feet on the ground and he's pretty much able to touch the rim if he goes up i took a photo of it and I started showing it to like people in the NBA. I was like, look at this shot. This is not doctored in any way.

It's like unbelievable. He's like, he's laying up a ball and it's like his middle finger is like four centimeters from the rim and he's on his flat feet. If he went on his tiptoes, he could grab the rim. That's freaky. So, you know, how it was Steph before the game, everybody gets there early for the Steph show to show the shooting warmup, you know? Yeah. When the scouts are at Victor's games, and I got to go over there and got to several games this year,

they all flock to see his pregame activation when he gets on his bare feet and gets on his fingertips and walks on his bare feet and toes, like crab walks with his hands and toes. And they watch him use these band workouts. All the scouts want to watch him work out because I don't know if it's going to work. I'm not a genius, but, but they've been worried. This is

what I'm talking about, about him getting ready for the NBA. They've obviously been worried about protecting his feet for years. So they have this regimen they put him through to strengthen his feet and ankles. And he uses bands and he uses, he does all these things to strengthen like his toes and strengthen like, you know, the muscles and stretch the tendons in his feet. And it's wild to see he does it out on the court. And when I was there, one of the times I was there, Brian Wright from the Spurs, Spurs general manager was standing next to me, filming it on his iPhone, like fascinated, just wanted to watch it. And like the scouts,

I crowd around and watch it. And he, you know, does things with balls for agility. Like, you know, he, you know, he's like first guy on the court, Bill, first guy on the court to, to do all the, to, to do all this stuff. He's very much when he, every, every day, I don't know what the proper term is. It's physio, his physical therapist is athletic trainer. I don't know what his term is sessions every single day for a whole year working on his body stretching flexibility strengthening not at not at the facility like would come to his house at night

like this is what lebron started doing in like year four he was doing he was doing at age 18 okay um so his body is is just it's just different now he is very light you know he's probably like 225 230 his center of gravity is very very high okay so what ends up happening is guys who are a lot shorter than him six eight guys their shoulder is like their shoulders are like in his midsection. So they knock him out of the way. And he does get knocked out of the way. And he will get knocked out of the way a lot.

And he'll get dunked on a lot. Some big, strong guy will grab the ball, put their shoulder into him four or five times, knock him out of the way, dunk on him, glare at him and say, get out of here, kid. And then the next time down the court, Victor will force their shot down their throat but they won't see it and as i've been saying this and i it'll it'll happen in the nba i don't know if it'll happen in summer league i don't know if it'll happen in november but i'm telling you next year there will be a time where victor defends the rim and the corner three at the same time where a guy goes into the basket can't shoot because victor is denying the shot and the ball goes to the corner and the guy gets like here comes the three and

then wait a minute wait he was just at the rim how is he blocking this shot he's blocking the shot because he is seven foot five with a foot long fingers and you know hands and fingers and you can't believe the range he's going to cover i'm not saying he's sending it in the eighth row i'm saying the shot will go up and be like wait a minute that got tipped by who the guy was just at the rim so that is what the thing is he and he has this other move bill that i i found just he does these little things you just can't believe so one time he gets the ball on the block okay he's on the left block so he's the basket is over his left shoulder so he's got the ball he's dribbled on the block and his who's ever guarding him you know is digging it digging his position he's got his forearm up and he's he's gonna i'm

not letting this guy go and i'm watching for the hook shot and he just looks over his right shoulder and he reaches over and lays it in the will chamberlain that little like reverse finger roll thing yeah yes and the the defender is like what just happened yeah will used to do that in the early 60s when he had like you know six seven guys guarding him and he would just turn around the other way and flip the ball over them they didn't know what happened and now wendy's seven five and can do it. Right. Like it, like I'm telling you, he's going to, he's going to get away with that for a

year before they figure out like, Oh, wait a minute. We can't guard him normally in the post. It's like what I would do to my five-year-old son. He'd be guarding me. And I just reach over the top of his head and drop it in the basket. What's he going to do? Well, he has that other move when he's on the left and he, he could do the Dr. J late seventies kind of swoop toward the rim where you don't realize he was 18 feet away, but now all of a sudden his hands near the rim.

This was Dr. J way back. Like, Jesus Christ, how'd he get to the rim? But Wemby's not going to do that, but he'll be able to dunk from like eight feet away. So she's got like one step and he's, and he's there. I'm glad you brought up the hands though, because seven foot five with the wingspan,

but then he's got the extra long fingers, which is like another, like, you know, four extra inches. So yeah, we've never seen a defensive player like this before. He's probably, I mean, I could get embarrassed by saying this. My guess is his hands are bigger than Kawhi's. At least long. I think his hands are bigger than Kawhi's. At least long.

I think his hands are. If they're not longer, it's very, very close. So you're talking about Kawhi hands with seven foot five. I mean, he didn't go through the combine. So I don't know if we'll get his measurements. His wingspan it's gonna approach 9 feet I don't know

I don't know what it's gonna be and like I said this could be used against me because it'll come in at like 8, 7 it's not 9 feet but it's gonna be something wild and part of the wingspan is gonna be how long those fingers are well so we talked Samson is the guy that would be the closest comparison, which was 40 years ago, but was seven foot four and athletic and didn't seem as tall when you're

just watching him because the way he moved. But then if you stood next to him or you went to a basketball game with him, you're like, Oh my God, that guy's gigantic. And Wemby's even bigger than him. Look, he moves like a guard. I mean, I don't understand it. It's one of the rare guys who's ever come in the league where you watch the footage and it just doesn't seem real. When he did the putback on the three, I was like, all right, the ceiling is now off. I'm prepared for any play with him, any version of anything sign me up so he had this coach when he was um young like 12 the first coach that he ever um uh really had that was really like preparing for professional his name is uh kareem and um and kareem was a big fan this has been the stories i wrote i was a big fan of the Pistol Pete Maravich

dribbling skills tapes that came out in the 80s, which I went and watched. I wish Jalen Brown would buy those. I don't know how. By the way, I was at game seven. I'll send them to the Celtics in care of Jalen Brown. I was at game seven, and you were only like, you know where we sit.

You were only like, you know where we sit. You were only like, what? In terms of, you were less than, you were 50 feet from me. You didn't want to come over and see me at any point? I made an evaluation at halftime. Stay away. I'll just see you later. We were both memes in the last 12 months. You had the fingers pointing at me and I became sad Bill Simmons. We should have

a meme off. Yeah. That was probably later in the game, but I decided at the half I was going to let you alone. Anyway, I interrupted you. So Wemby does the dribbling videos and all this stuff. Maravich was a big believer in the

low dribble. I mean, I know that he didn't invent it, but those tapes, it was believer in the low dribble. I mean, I know that he didn't invent it, but like those tapes, it was a really emphasized below dribble. And so he really taught Victor, you've got to dribble low. You've got to learn how to dribble low. And the one thing that Victor said, and that Kareem,

when we interviewed him through a dream interpreter was like, he refused. And this is how he treats everybody. It's not just Victor, but obviously when Victor was 12, he was like six, three, is how he treats everybody not just victor but obviously when victor was 12 he was like 6-3 i don't know and he's like no you're not gonna i'm gonna teach you like every other i'm gonna have the same expectation and same techniques with you as every other player so like he started learning early like pistol pete the other thing is kareem's other influence was the n1 mixtape so even though victor is 19 and n1 mixtape was

when he was literally an infant this guy taught him a combination of pistol p and then when he would play against the guys one-on-one he'd be doing like hot sauce and the professor moves and the players liked it and victor liked it and so they started imitating it and so when he was i know in his formative years he was learning dribbling tricks from this coach and you can see now when you watch him dribble watch how low he is he i mean it's higher than my head but watch when he is handling the ball on the perimeter. Watch how low his dribble is. People say he plays like a guard because when he's out there, he's, he's down low, he's bent low and he's able to get low. And then when he needs to, then Gumby explodes up. Well, they, even in the 30 for 30 about Bill

Wallen, they talked about how he was a guard for years. And then he all of a sudden had this gross spurt, but he kept all the guards goes, we only have you for 15 minutes. I'm taking a quick break. I have a couple more questions. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers,

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Really, really. Ugh. This message is brought to you by Metrolinks. So, you spent like a crazy amount of time with LeBron James in 01, 02, 03 as he was heading into the league. Completely different circumstances. But the same kind of attention on him. But as he came in, it took him, I don't know, what would you say? Eight to 10 years to really get comfortable

with being famous 24 seven and all the stuff that came with it. Why does Wemby seem so comfortable now? Is there any way to compare and contrast those two experiences? Well, he, I do think in the last year or so has lost some of his public um his ability to go out in public which i think he misses a little bit like for example we had this dream of taking him to the pompadour museum to do a to do a shoot there with cameras which is

this incredible art museum in paris I know everybody thinks about the Louvre or the Musée d'Orsay, but the Pompidou is just this real high ceilings and it would just been awesome. And we were going to go like on a Tuesday morning at eight in the morning. Like we were not going on Saturday at three o'clock. And it's just like, yeah,

I just don't want to do that, you know? So I think he has been a little bit restricted. He, where he lived in Paris was in a very sort of private area, a neighborhood that, you know, it was a bunch of frankly, retirees. You had to have quite a bit of money to live over there. And it was like retired folks and their dogs kind of walking around the neighborhood. So I do think that he has had to sort of sacrifice a little bit of that.

He's going to stand out in any place he goes. There's no way to not see him immediately. Even though he's very much been looking forward to coming to the United States, like he's been repairing for years. He's very French. He dresses very well. You'll see. I don't know where he gets these clothes, but he's French. One of his agents, Jeremy, his wife is in the fashion industry, of course, because they're very French. And he dresses, he has excellent clothes. We did an interview the second time we went over with Robin Roberts. It's going to air on Good Morning America this week. And, um, you know, Robin Roberts is quite the fashion plate. Um, you know, he apparently, um, went over multiple different outfits because he knew that, you know, he was, he knew he was going to, you know, he was a little bit late to the interview. His agent kind of wished him to me. Yeah, we tried on several different outfits because he knew it was important, you know,

and he knew that, you know, he had studied Robin Roberts and he had, before he agreed to the interview, he wanted to watch several of her interviews to prepare before he said yes. So he's thorough. I don't think LeBron was doing that. I mean, you know who LeBron's big first network interview was with?

I'll give you 35 guesses and you'll never get it. I'll give you one hint. He's a Division I college football coach now. I have no idea. Who was it? His first network interview was with Deion Sanders.

Really? Yeah. Yeah. Well, one thing with Wimby, and this is anecdotally is somebody i know who knows things just who knows who the kind of people he's spent some time with wimby and and this guy said the thing about wimby is he's fucking cool already like he knows how to like move in the celebrity world and like he knows all these designers already and like he's basically like

a 28 year old i how old he's 19 right you know who he's boys with and i say boys i mean i mean it yeah michael douglas the actor the actor what right crazy right yeah uh uh michael douglas was i I don't know if it's on Netflix or Amazon. I don't know. He did a series where he played Ben Franklin. He was in Paris filming like last fall. Michael Douglas was an NBA fan or a basketball fan. Started coming to games.

Victor was very interested in meeting him. Michael Douglas was what what like 74 uh he invited him out like like first off uh mbappe showed up at his lottery party right i mean look so he does see that there is some celebrity stuff that's going on by the way there was like 65 people at the lottery party it was not like 500 people you know them charging for entry like you know it was like legitimately like a friends and family party but it does seem like all the french anybody who's been famous in france athlete whoever else all of them are like big brother in this person with uh wemby looking out but i yeah but i think he he's not typical he's not you know he's you know like he i think he genuinely likes hanging out he liked

hanging out with michael douglas so he like went out to the set and spent a day on the set like looking at the cameras and like when we we did our set when we were doing our we used all these fancy cameras and stuff and lights we did a couple we did three or, when we were doing our, we used all these fancy cameras and stuff and lights. We did a couple, we did three or four different things with him. He's like looking at the cameras. He's like looking at the photos, looking at how the guy's editing the photos. Yeah, so there's a curiosity that's a little unique.

Yeah. And it feels like a little bit of a Curry kind of vibe to him. The only person I can think who's come in the league the last 25 plus years that seems just fascinating to me or what was at that time was Kobe. Because remember Kobe, it was like he lived in Italy and then he just came back and went to high school. But he speaks two languages and his dad was Joe Bryant. It was like, what's going on with this guy?

He just seems so distinct from the normal type of rookie that was coming in. It feels the same way with Wimby. I got to ask you a basketball question since I probably should. Why wouldn't San Antonio just try to be good right away with this guy? Russell and I talked about this on Sunday. Why they have cap space. This guy is like a once in a 20 years player who defensively is going to have this enormous impact already. They have a good coach. They have good players in the team. What is their plan long-term? What are you hearing? Well, who do you want them to sign? You want them to sign Draymond?

Well, but I'm saying could they get like Austin Reeves and Grant Williams and just be like, hey, we're going to actually try to be good. Like, could they go get two $20 million guys along with the guys they have and say, let's try to see what this looks like. Let's put them with good players right away. Well,

first off, I'll be interested to see how many games he plays. So he did play every game this season, by the way. Now they were playing one to two games a week. He did play some for the national team as well. they were playing one to two games a week he did uh play some for the national team as well i think he played four games for the national team but i think he played in total about 45 games we played every game uh plus he had those exhibition

games a couple exhibition games when he went to vegas so he might have played around 50 games for the season um i don't know how many you know i wonder what the Spurs are going to play him whether they're going to play him he has to play 65 games with rookie of the year I would think so he might play exactly 65

he might play exactly 65 games so that'll be interesting also here's the thing very rarely have rookies impacted winning. Like I always say, LeBron did make the playoffs to his third year. I think Durant made the playoffs his third year.

Luka, he was as ready. Well, Durant was a shooting guard his rookie year. I mean, that was the dumbest situation of all time. But like Shaq came in on Orlando and right away they were good. Now Shaq is a little older than Wemby was. They had a couple other good players. But with centers, it's more doable to me

because they can have such a defensive slash rebounding impact right away. That's true. That's true. I don't know. They have some decent guys on their roster. They got a little thing going there. Yeah.

You know, I mean, I don't think they should trade draft picks off to acquire players for now. No, I don't think they should either. But I think they could, you know, would it be a bad thing to be a play-in team next year, you know, because getting the reps with some of the guys. I know this is cliche for, you know, he's competitive. He doesn't,

you know, I was thinking like this season was supposed to be like a developmental season. Like, yeah, like they put together a roster that wasn't necessarily designed to win and they went to the French finals. So that was actually an accomplishment.

Yeah. So I think he's, he's going to want to play to win. Now, one thing is he wants to play for the French, and I think he will. Was Popovich going to tell him no? He was a coach. He wants to play for the French. There's a World Cup this summer in the

Philippines. The French won the silver in the Olympics in Tokyo. They won the silver in the Euro championships last summer. Yeah. They want to win and he wants to play and they're in a brutal, they got,

they got drawn into the group of death and there is a game in August in Jakarta. Okay. Where the Canadians are playing the French. The Canadians are loaded too. That's right. That's why it's a group of death. I don't know who's all going to be there,

but you could have Shea Gildas, Alexander Jamal Murray, like Lou Dort Wiggins Wiggins. I think the guy who's going to be guarding it might be Zach Eady of Purdue. He's Canadian. Against Gobert and

Wemby Nyama and Evan Fournier. I don't know who else they're going to have. Nick Batum. I can't wait for that game. I want to see that. I think there's a way for Wemby to go little cruise control in these games, right? He's so, with his size, he could just kind of run up and down the floor, affect every shot and shoot some threes

and have more of an impact than just about anybody who'd run anyway. So here's what I'll say about having watched a bunch of games with him this year. There's a tendency where there will be eight, 10 minutes of game time. And you're like, wow, he's not doing anything. And like, I'm waiting to see, you know, for that to happen in summer league or whatever. And they're going to be like, this, well, this guy was number one. Thank you guys. What would you say?

How dare you? Number one prospect in the history of team sports. Yeah. And then he'll make like 11 plays in five minutes. Like he'll, he'll just turn it on. Like, he'll be like,

how did he, how was he playing? Oh, he's got 12 and seven in the head half. That's not bad. And then he'll have like a five minute round in the third quarter where he'll like hit five straight fadeaway jumpers, uh, you know, knock down a three, get three blocks and eight rebounds. And next thing you know, he's put the game away and he's got, you know, 26 and 15. Like he does that.

So you're a, you're all in a hundred percent. You think this is a transformative superstar? I'm not, I'm not there in terms of him being there an instantaneous impact player. I am calming. I'm trying to calm ESPN down, calm down. Don't go hog wild and thinking he's going to average 40 and 30 in the first month of his rookie year. Yeah. Just take it easy. I almost want to say come back February 15th. Okay. Because he's going to get embarrassed. And I know that people are going to come at me because I was the guy who's been talking about him so much. They're going to be like, yeah, well, he's averaging eight and six. There's no way he will average eight and six.

As long as he stays healthy, which we always get nervous with the tall guys, there's just too many ways over a 48-minute game that he's going to get stats. And the blocks thing right away is going to be four to five blocks a game. Like right away. There's no way it's not. There are going to be guys who he is going to embarrass him. He's going to get embarrassed when he gets pushed around and he is going to embarrass some dudes who have no idea where he is,

who are going to like go to make their move. And they're going to just get it swatted because they're never going to imagine that a guy of that size can cover that much ground that fast. I think minute average five blocks a game one year. I'm looking this up really fast. Yeah, his rookie year, he was 5.0 blocks a game on Washington, playing 26 minutes a game. That's an amazing stat.

That seems reasonable for Wemby. All right, you have to go. Here's my quick question, 30 seconds. Pick one player that you don't think is on the same team three days from now. Not about three days, but if the Blazers don't trade is on the same team three days from now? Not about three days, but if the Blazers don't trade that number three pick, we're headed for something there. I agree.

I don't think the Blazers, as we sit here on Tuesday, it's only Tuesday, I think the Blazers are going to pick. I think the Blazers are going to draft, I think the Blazers are going to draft. And I think that's going to put Dame in a position because he is on the record. I don't want another teenager. I need a guy now. And the problem is that the Blazers agreed with them

and then they got the top three pick. And they're sitting there and they're looking at Scoot, who I think it's going to be. I mean, if Cavoni and Woj say that Brandon Miller is going at scoot who i think it's going to be i mean if cavoni and woge say that brandon miller is going to charlotte i say he's going to charlotte if they're looking they keep looking what they're being offered and then they're looking at scoot and they're looking at what they're being offered and they're looking at scoot i'm like i got scouts telling me that scoot would be number one in next year's draft and in 2025 and maybe even last year he'd be number one that's the

kind of scoot not going second is a huge mistake that i well i keep saying maybe maybe charlotte will take him but i'm just telling you gavoni says miller woj says miller i believe those dudes and so what i do know is that that the blazers are telling people i think we're going to draft and they're saying that because i don't think they can pass up this pick. If they had the fifth pick, trade happens. I don't think they're, that's where they were supposed to pick. Nope.

And when they made the agreement with Dame, that's what they were like. They were like, okay, we're going to trade this pick. I don't think, first off, I don't think there's a trade that they could make. They're not trading for Giannis. They're not trading for, you know, Jokic. I went through everybody. It's hard. It's hard to find, oh, we'll just add an awesome veteran. It's like, so who is it? Is it Pascal

Siakam? Is it Jalen Brown? Because it's going to take more than the number three. Jalen Brown's going to resign. Yeah. Okay. But even if they got Jalen Brown, okay, let's just say for sake of argument, they got him for the third pick. Where are they? Are they seventh? The move is to trade Dame. It's to take Scoot Henderson three if he miraculously falls there and then trade Dame to Brooklyn for all the stuff they have. That's how I think this plays out.

Or Philly. Philly. Philly. Well, the thing about it is, is if Dame asks to be traded, if, if, how much is he going to direct it? Because he's kind of got a de facto no trade clause. I mean, he won't, he won't be able to say like, you don't trade that extra pick for me. Like Beal basically was. But he, how are you going to disrespect him? If he says, I want to go somewhere, you're going to kind of have to send him there. So that'll be fascinating.

I look forward to, I look forward to seeing you on the Friday first take with like four hours of sleep over the last three days where they just, what do they do? They, they, do they do the thing that like women do on bachelorette parties when they get the IVs and they're just pumping, pumping stuff back in them so they can drink more Rose. What do they do to you?

They don't do anything. I wish they did. No, I'm taking, I specifically took a 6am flight home from the East coast on Friday so I could have a little respite. I'll sleep on the plane. Smart. Well, it'd be a semi-boring free agency this year compared to the summer of 2019,

for instance, which I think we're all still recovering from. You've just jinxed it. Thank you very much. All right. My bad. Wynor, it's great to see you. Thanks for coming on. I appreciate it. All right. Bye-bye. All right. It's June. It's NBA draft time. It's free agency time. College World Series. It's the kind of stretch where Ben Solak from the Ringer doesn't have a lot to gamble on.

Were you able to gamble on the softball World Series? Did they have lines? What was going on there? Oh, yeah. Listen, if you think I'm not the proud owner of an Oklahoma national championship ticket at the beginning of every season, you got another thing coming to my bank accounts doing great because of it. Home field just emailed me this morning. My, my national championship 2023 t-shirts on the way. It'll match my national championship 2022 and my national championship 2021 shirts. Congratulations. I don't know how you pulled it off.

It's like rooting for the Brady Patriots, man. I finally get it. This feels electric. Holy smokes. Brady Patriots. We're in NFL future season is why you're here. It is way too early to have definitive assessments yet. I have not done really any of my homework yet, but the lines are all out. They're fun to look through. I finally got through finals any of my homework yet, but the lines are all out. They're fun to look through. I finally got through finals and Jokic got anointed and we're moving to the draft. I was able to read. Now I'm kind of like, all right, wait, what's going to happen football. I'm on the board with two bets already. I know you're on the board with a few bets. So I thought we would talk over the bets we've already made and the bets we're kind of looking at.

I'll start, I'll you start and then I'll go. Maybe we could go back and forth. What was, what was the bet you jumped the gun on? What was your premature ejaculation NFL future bet? Yeah. So the, the, of the bets that I took super early, like back in like March and April, the one that I think is still best available is the dolphins to win the AFC. I got it at plus 1,400. Right now

FanDuel plus 1,200. Vic Fangio's defenses are very good, which is not usually how you talk about let's talk ourselves into a conference championship team. Not usually starting with the new defensive coordinator, but Vic Fangio is the foundational defensive coordinator of the last five years.

This is the guy that largely solved the Shanahan-McVay offense. This is the guy after whom all modern offenses are trending their years. This is the guy that largely solved the Shanahan McVay offense. This is the guy after whom all modern offenses are trending their stuff. Like this is the dude. And the transition from Miami is critical because they have a lot of talent defensively talent that I think a lot of folks don't realize because it was hidden a little bit by a very aggressive Brian Flores scheme. And then the holdover Josh Boyer there,

you add a player like Jalen Ramsey to a secondary with Xavier Howard Javon Holland one of the best young safeties in the game a pass rusher with Jalen Phillips one of the best young pass rushers in the game interior defensive line Christian Wilkins Raekwon Davis get David Long excellent middle linebacker from Tennessee this defensive roster is loaded in the way that last year we looked at this offensive roster and we said holy smokes like look what the Dolphins have got. This is incredible. And so when you bet Dolphins, it's tricky because the elephant in the room is Tua Tungvalu's health, right? And that's why win total wise, you go and you look for a Miami win total, you get nine and a half wins. It's

even juice on both sides, minus 110. I don't want to take that because if Tua is healthy for the majority of the season, this is a guy who was undefeated in games in which he was actually 100% healthy. A guy who was like third in the league in EPA per drop back until his second concussion. Like if Tua is healthy, they're doing more than winning nine and a half games. They're winning 10, 11, 12, 13 games. They're pushing for the division. They're pushing for the conference. So if you're betting on the high end of Miami's outcomes, I'd rather I'd pass up like over nine and a half wins. I go straight for the division. I go straight for the conference

because you're betting on a healthy Tua. And if the Dolphins are healthy, or excuse me, if Tua is healthy, everything else is correct around the Dolphins for this team to push into the playoffs, win a playoff game, win a couple of playoff games and fight for the conference title. And so I'm big on the juicy plus money when it comes to Miami. I think that's really smart. And I completely disagree. Okay. Walk me through that one.

I just think too, I don't see it. I don't see how he's going to get through a season. All the logic you laid out made total sense to me because basically you laid out the glass half full of the two of Dolphins experience. The glass half full of the two, a Dolphins experience, the glass half empty would be two is going to get hurt again. They're going to miss the playoffs because they're on a backup QB. I'm just so not a Mike white guy, not after December. Although I guess he was playing with 70 broken ribs. Um, I'm looking at them and I'm, it's almost like

approved to me too. It can make it to even November. I thought last year I was traumatized by it. I couldn't believe they kept throwing him back out there. And there were reports that he might possibly retire in the off season, all this stuff. And when you said elephant in the room, to me, it's not an elephant in the room. It's like a fucking fleet of elephants.

Right. It's the whole room. It's everything. It's just filled with elephants. And it's like, well, if to, it's like,

no, no, no, two, three concussions last year. And they're like, well, if Tua... It's like, no, no, no. Tua had three concussions last year. And they're like, no, I was actually two. And the third one wasn't. And I was like, I'm positive he had three. He was on the ground three times. He's taking judo now, though.

So he's going to learn how to fall better, which is how you know you're in a terrible off-season cycle. What happens psychologically to him if he takes another big hit? Are they going to use him differently to try to avoid hits with him? The points you laid out about the defense, though, maybe this is a thing where they have to change

who they are a little bit. And like, hey, this is defense and big plays is now our identity. It's possible. When I go and I look for teams that I think realistically could have like a top 10 offense and a top 10 defense in the upcoming season.

Eagles are immediately up there. Bengals are immediately the upcoming season. Eagles are immediately up there. Bengals are immediately up there. Bills are immediately up there. Just kind of the usual culprit. San Francisco as well. You get down to that second tier and it's like, OK, Jets are going to have a top 10 defense. Are they going to have a top 10 offense?

Maybe. I'm not convinced. Chiefs will have a top 10 offense. But are they going to have a top 10 defense? I don't know. I look at this Miami roster and I go, OK, if Mike McDaniel is who I think he is, and that's the other real crux of this Dolphins argument. I tend to be very bearish, very cautious on one year wonders on guys who do it really

well in their debut year. I always want to see what does it look like when the league catches up to you? As far as I'll allow myself to get excited about a one year guy, I'm excited about Mike McDaniel. Like, I really think he's got the juice. I think he's the next Sean McVay. So if McDaniel is who we think he is, I think 11 games of Tua and six games of Mike White is still a top 10 offense for the NFL, not a team speed that they have. And then I think Uncle Vic handles the defense, no problem. And so to me, that's a top

10 unit on both sides of the ball. That's a team I want to invest in. Well, my first bet plays off your first bet. Uh-oh. I didn't even tell you I was doing this. The New England Patriots are plus 750 to win the AFC East. Oh, yeah? Why'd you say, oh, yeah? Like I was offering you like a Ginsu knife covered in acid. I don't want to be anywhere near whatever the Patriots are doing as an organization. They terrify me in terms of stability, belief. I've seen the end-of-season defensive performance. I hear that Bill O'Brien's an actual offensive coach.

I just look at the roster, and I look at the body of Mac Jones' work, and I go, that's a team that's going to be at 500, and they're going to be somewhere weird, and I don't want to touch them. Okay, counter. They were 8-9 last year, including two of the dumbest losses in the recent history of the franchise. They crushed the draft.

I would say the Eagles and the Pats are feeling the best about their draft. So we might have gotten three defensive starters out of there, including a stud cornerback. Everyone's going nuts about, uh, about that. That's a whole hive is happening right now.

Um, we actually have an offensive coordinator who will have a playbook and plays huge. And we'll put thought into how the quarterback might be able to succeed. I call me crazy. That's a bonus. They're beefing up receiver. I think there's a real chance of getting Hopkins.

But more importantly to me, I just think the price is off because there's a world where they have the best AFC defense. I think it's possible. They have so much talent in the secondary. Now they have the switchability with all these guys. The big mantra in the offseason heading into August is going to be multi all these guys. These days, like the big, the big mantra in the off season, heading into the August is going to be multi-position guys, flexibility,

not knowing who's going to be attacking, where they're going to have a really good pass rush. And I'm sorry. I, you know, I don't know if Belichick wants to go down this way, post Brady. I'm sure he doesn't want to.

This is the greatest coach of all time. He's going to have one last run. And you know, you were with me last year when I was shorting the Pats. I was against the Pats. Pats not to make the playoffs. I was like the stench of that team last year. You could just smell it from California. I feel the opposite this year. I actually think, I think they were better than their record last year. And I think they crushed the draft. I think they made a couple smart free agent signings. And Mac's going to be way better with a little more stability in an actual playbook. So could they get to 10 and 7, 11 and 6 possible?

And then you go through the rest of the teams. I don't think Buffalo, I don't like the direction their arrow is going with really anything. The dig stuff has already started. The Jets, you're banking on 40-year-old Rodgers. And then Miami, we covered the two a thing. So to me, I feel like they should be like plus three 50 plus three 75 plus seven 50 is like, that's Arizona without Kyler territory. Yeah. I definitely feel it like the AFC East odds in general are screwed. And the AFC, uh, odds are screwed because Rogers and the jets are getting way too much trust.

I like too much plus two plus two 50 for the jets right now on Fandle with the bills at plus one 30 that puts the dolphins and the Patriots both behind the jets. I think like dolphins, certainly that's wrong. And I would think the Patriots and the jets would be around the same area. It's very challenging to trust Rogers health. It's very challenging to trust Rogers seriousness.

And while defensively, I absolutely definitely think they're loaded. I have not yet seen enough from them in terms of offensive design and game planning and consistent performance. Like obviously Garrett Wilson, great last season, we were bringing Brace Hall back from injury, have this turnstile and tackle both of them where they're bringing guys back from injury and have veterans and just there's there's way too much uncertainty there for me to trust the Jets as much as sports books do, which makes the Patriots a value by default. But I can't be as high as I am on the Dolphins

and then also be like, yeah, and the Patriots too. Like I kind of got to put my eggs in a basket. Can you just spend 20 seconds explaining to people how shaky the Jets offensive line is? Because it feels like that one's getting swept over the rug. We have the combination of 39, 40 year old. I don't know how old he's going to be when the season starts. Rogers with probably the worst offensive line he's played in front of in a couple of years

and no breeze hall to start the year. Like I, I don't understand why people are just like, oh yeah, 12 and five pencil. I'm in. Did anyone watch Rogers last year? I wouldn't say Rogers was elite last year. Would you? No, and there was already debate about like, in what arc of Rodgers' career was he on a downturn?

Was he never going to be elite again? There was already that conversation before he got hitched to Matt LaFleur, right? When he was there in Green Bay. And then MVP season, MVP season, when you go back to back MVP, it kind of quiets the doubters a little bit. But we see the off season last season and you have to ask yourself, I always bring this up when I

talk about aging, especially at the quarterback position. It is not a gradual decline. It's a cliff. It's usually very hard to see. And every single year you're older, right? Once the number in front of your name no longer is a three, but a four and you're over the hill, brother, like it's going to come and it's going to come fast. And so whenever you start to see Rodgers throwing it away even more than he used to because he's not scrambling as much, not creating as much, and getting frustrated more often, like, it's portentions of a quick and rapid fall that's going to come.

I'm not saying it's going to happen next year, but it becomes more and more likely the older and older you get. The left tackle and, honestly, right tackle situation for the Jets is actually yeah kind of bananas from left guard lake and tomlinson center where they have conor mcgovern they drafted joe tippman and right guard elijah vera tucker they're incredible awesome left tackle is going to be dwayne brown apparently again but also he might move for mckay beckton who they're trying to bring back now that he's lost 30 pounds but but Dwayne Brown has kind of said that he doesn't necessarily

want to do that. He had rotator cuff surgery last season. Mekhi Becton had a kneecap fracture. They have a fourth rounder, Carter Warren, who's from Pitt. He was hurt when he came out. They have a second rounder from last year, Mac Mitchell out of Louisiana Lafayette,

who also got hurt last season. Welcome to New York, Aaron Rod And then there's one more dude. There's one more guy at tackle they've got who had to play last year, and I can't remember who it is. But everybody's hurt or old or both. And so you just don't, you have no idea. And they don't want to move Vera Tucker out to play tackle because they did that last season,

like to help solve a problem. And then he got hurt at tackle. They want to play him at guard. He's an incredible guard. So their bookends right now are in a really shaky spot. I'm shocked by the Jets' optimism. It makes no sense to me because on top of everything

you just mentioned... Billy Turner. They have Billy Turner also. That's the tackle I forgot. There we go. We're done. We have no idea if Salah's a good coach or not.

I don't think he's necessarily a terrible coach, but we have no idea if he's a good coach that could be like the coach of a 12-5 team. And then on top of it, it's the fucking jets. Like Curb Your Enthusiasm had an entire episode in season 10 about a guy who died and they didn't know if he killed himself because of the jets. And it was an entire 30 minute episode because did the jets do this to him? This is the jets. So it's like, well,

we got Rogers. We're going to put them in front of really one of the worst offensive lines in the AFC. And, uh, and this'll go great guys. Uh, this is why I like the Pat's bet because I just feel like the other three teams have real question marks for being, including Buffalo, you know, like why did Buffalo end the season the way they did last year? Why did they get their absolute asses kicked in the playoff game? Are they better this year talent wise than they are last year? Like Leslie Frazier got blamed for some of it. And then it's like, well, and Alan was hurt and he's going to be fine. It's like, but you know, it also could happen. Maybe they missed their window from two years ago. Yeah.

And maybe that 13 second game is going to haunt them for the rest of this decade where they're going to be like, oh my God, we're 13 seconds away from, you know, potentially winning a Superbowl and now we're here. So I don't know. I just feel like it's wide open. The bills are very challenging to calibrate to because at the end of last season, or excuse me, at the end of the season, previous the last Brian Dable year, right? They end on that incredible Mahomes-Allen duel in the playoffs, final 13-second moment, gorgeous game. And at that time,

Allen is playing better in terms of like rolling EPA, rolling success rate, DVOA, than he has ever had before. This is the best Allen has ever looked as a quarterback. Then next season, Brian Dable's gone, Ken Dorsey is in. They were better last season

offensively by like all major metrics than they were the season previous. They were better like, oh, by a season long, luckily EPA success rate points were dry. They were better. But Allen ended the season by EPA and success rate by rolling averages worse than he'd ever played in the last three years because he's caught that injury. And so you have a team that like, you look back on it from a season perspective, you're like, they got better. And then you look back on it from a vibes perspective and you're like, everyone thinks we're on fire. Like the house is burning down. We're never going to beat the Bengals. We're never going to be the Chiefs. It's over. So to me, like the bills are on paper when you try to strip the emotion away from it, very similar to the team that was

number one in Super Bowl odds last year. That was above the Chiefs in the Super Bowl odds. It was the favorite going in. We just are a year smarter. We know a little bit more about Gabe Davis and Dawson Knox and the options behind Stevon Diggs. We know a little bit more about how limited this sort of a defense can be going into the playoffs. We know a little bit more about Ed Oliver not necessarily being a star, be going into the playoffs. We know a little bit more about at Oliver, not necessarily being a star, Tredavious White, not necessarily being back to where he was.

And so that's why there's that dampening feelings. I just think like we're a year smarter. I still think the bills are very dangerous because Josh Allen's very dangerous. And that's, that's difficult to ignore. And the case for the bills would be Allen was hurt. And the Hamlin thing was a huge, huge,

huge cataclysmic event. They, they, they, they had one move in the 2021-2022 offseason to push them over the hump and it was acquiring Von Miller. And then he got hurt for the playoff run.

Well, what are the odds? He was season 12. Did you think he was going to play five straight months? And so losing him was, I think, an enormous part of... When you try to hand wave away the Bills' struggles in the playoffs you're like oh well Vaughn was hurt and that was that was unfair and that sucked it's like okay

well well you signed an old guy that was your big move yeah they have Leonard Floyd behind him which is great they lost Jermaine Edmonds and they don't really have a great replacement plan right now they're defensively they're in a weird spot offensively I trust them I trust Allen incredible talent and they have tons they have enough resources and enough experience in that system that they're going to be fine. Defensively, they're a little weird. I'm excited to see that in September and see what they look like. Well, they signed my guy Damian Harris, who they

stole for like $2 million. I was like, oh man, that guy's going to be good for them. Listen, the moment we start to get some over underseason rushing, over underseason receiving, the first guy I'm looking for is Ramondre. That's the first dude I'm out for. Ramondre with the quietest 1,500 all-purpose yard season you've ever seen your dog on life last year.

I'm so excited for him. Now with no Damian Harris in the backfield. All right, what's your second future? Let's get out of the AFC. We've talked it a lot here. The Atlanta Falcons, I have a plus 400 to win the NFC South. Right now they're at plus 230. So that line has moved tremendously.

But as it is, they are still dogs to the Saints, who are the favorites at plus 135. So again, to put that in context, the Bills at plus 130 and the Saints at plus 135 to win their division. That is unmerited. That is unwarranted. What are we talking about with the New Orleans? What are we doing? Are you New Orleans? What are we doing?

I don't understand. Derek Carr is going to move the needle for you? Derek Carr? They have bled talent on the defensive side of the ball. And yes, Dennis Allen is an incredible defensive coach.

But we also have a lot of data on Dennis Allen's teams overall at this point when he's the head coach. It's not particularly encouraging. Okay. Saints fans want to put... By the way,

on the Dennis Allen thing, they threw away some stupid games last year where you were like, wait, did this guy, these guys have a coach? I felt like they had like four of those last year. I don't think Dennis Allen is the best game manager and game flow reader that we've ever seen don the headset, unfortunately,

because I love his defenses. I think he's an excellent defensive coach. He's kind of got some Vic Fangio vibes. So it's headset, unfortunately, because I love his defenses. I think he's an excellent defensive coach. He's kind of got some Vic Fangio vibes. It's like, listen, just run amazing defenses for forever and look grouchy

and you don't have to do anything more than that and it's great. But they've bled defensive talent over the last few off seasons and now they've done so again. Marcus Davenport

out of the building. David Onyemata out of the building. So they continue to endure a lot of turnover there. And then offensively, we've talked a lot about believing in players and putting your eggs in the basket

of like oft injured guys and older guys. Saints fans are really excited for Michael Thomas. I don't know how you're doing this to yourself. You can't be, you can't be believing in Michael Thomas

in terms of a player to stay healthy and to stay serious over the course of a season. But yes, if Michael Thomas and Crystal Lavi are playing together, it's amazing. But I don't think Derek Carr is an elevator in any sense. I think we know enough to know that that guy's around 500. Is Michael Thomas going to be the funniest

in the fantasy draft when somebody spends like $27 on him and there's just chuckles and people shaking their head like, oh, man, you got roped in. Your buddy, he's got his two-year-old on his hip. He's rocking a six-month-old on the table. And he's like, Michael Thomas had like 800 yards in 2021. You're like, yes, did you hear what you just said? Yeah, good luck. Yeah, so the Saints to me warrant a lot of doubt. And accordingly, we look to the Panthers.

We look to the Buccaneers who, don't bet the Buccaneers, you're insane. And then we look to the Falcons. I'm just enamored with this Falcons team, have been since last year. You love insane. And then we look to the Falcons. I'm just enamored with this Falcons team. Have been since last year. You love running backs. They have 17 running backs.

You love it. Listen, they are zagging where the rest of the league is zigging. And a lot of defenses don't have answers for it, right? They have the ability to just straight pummel you, right?

If you are not a tough enough defense for them in terms of physicality, in terms of the size, they can beat you that way. And a lot of the games that the Falcons were in last season or one last season that were surprising were a result of that. They beat up on that Niners team

because they were just so physical relative to them, right? They played a slop fest with the Ravens. They played a slop fest with the Chargers. And these weren't games that they won, but they were games where they were tight against playoff caliber teams because they have such a unique identity

relative to the rest of the league. The number one hindrance last year was Marcus Mariota. He couldn't play. It was not functional. Kyle Pitts was like third in the league and like uncatchable targets.

You know what I'm saying? They're dialing up deep shots for their top 15 pick, Drake London, their top 15 pick, and Kyle Pitts. And they just cannot connect. So you swap Marcus Mariota for Desmond Ritter and you say, all right, well, do we really know what Desmond Ritter is?

No, but at least there's a range of outcomes with Mariota. I knew what it was. It was bad. It was stinky. Like I know there wasn't anything there with Ritter. I can get a game manager, right? I can get a Ryan Tannehill caliber player. When you think of how this Arthur Smith offense

used to work in Tennessee. I think they're going to run the ball, dominate behind an offensive line, produce great physicality now on both sides of the ball with the investments they made in the front seven defensively. Talk about David Onyemata, talk about Calais Campbell. And then I think Ritter's not going to hamstring them when they need to pass or when they dial up

that play-action shot the way that Mariota did. And accordingly, to me, they're the most dangerous offense in the NFC South comfortably. And then defensively, first year, Ryan Nielsen, I think they'll have some teeth. They bring in Jesse Bates. They trade for Jeff Okuda. They're making moves. And I think that you'll see a little bit of a step up, even if there's still warts there. So I do like the Falcons. Plus 400 was certainly a better number. Plus 230 is probably more the correct price, but I doubt the saints. And so if you, you'd rather go Panthers that direction, sure. Go for it. My team of choice is the Falcons. It's a lot of the same logic with the, and this is why I love talking futures now because people aren't really having the conversations that

we're having right now, or we're like, wait, why are the saints favored? And there's, and then it, by August, everything's kind of aligned. I'm with you on everything you said about Atlanta, except I'd bet on those, at least one of those Desmond Ritter games, like he was bad. And it wasn't even like, oh man, he's just a rookie. Like he was just flat out bad and i i can't shake that stink out of my head my like i i i really try not to be like sicko film boy on pods but my number one off-season sicko film boy take is turn on the desmond ridder film it wasn't that bad i went and like re-watched it last month i watched all four games i was like in the moment i was like he

gets it he gets he's just trying to get to speed. It's there. Like, when you hear them, when you hear Arthur Smith talk about him and you hear the way that the veterans on offense talk about him, they get the sense that he gets it. Like, in terms of preparation and in terms of on the whiteboard,

in terms of commanding the huddle, and then in terms of putting it on the field, they talk about how he has a good process, how he understands what it's supposed to look like. It's just a matter of getting up to speed. And to me, they were five and four last season at the midway point. And I was looking at all my Falcons futures like,

oh baby, I'm the smartest. And they left Mariota in and they let him tank their season. They lost so many games, like three points, four points, all these low scoring games that they could have won. And then they get Ritter in there and game one's not good. But by game four, you go,

okay, if you had done this last month, he could have actually played at a functional level in December. And maybe you would have won a couple of these games. You could have pushed for the division, which you were still had a chance to win a week, 16, week 17 with such a poor division. And so Ritter is on the right developmental track. I don't think he's going to kick down the doors of the league and Justin Herbert year two numbers, but I do think he's going to have a year that shows. Yeah. This guy can start for you. I like your instincts with this division. Cause this was the other, there's one other division that I'll get to in a second, but this one, I had the same reaction as you. I was looking more at Carolina just because the odds are better. And if you're telling me like,

Hey, what if Bryce young is just like pretty good next year, you know? And, and that team, I felt like should have made the playoffs and they were up 21, nothing in that last game. And Sam kind of died in the second half and Brady started doing weird voodoo shit. All of a sudden they lost, but I did like that team. And I felt like they were, they at they at least had some blue chippers on both sides. I don't know. It made me so mad when Tampa made the playoffs. I was like, they're clearly not a playoff team.

So now you put Bryce in. I guess my question is, what if Bryce is pretty good right away? Because I think it's possible. So if Bryce is pretty good right away, then I think the Panthers are equivalent and probably a little bit better than the Falcons, right? You're dealing with quarterback uncertainty at both spots, right? So my answer would be like, well, what if Desmond Ritter is pretty good? And then like, all right, now we're talking styles.

But wouldn't you say Bryce is a better bet to be good next year than Desmond Ritter? I mean, Bryce, he was just playing the SEC for a couple years there. He's been in a bunch of big games. I don't know. Yeah. I would't know. Yeah. I would say that in the event that both are good, Young will be a lot better. Like Young's high tail outcomes are a lot higher than Ritter's. I am very hesitant on Bryce Young. And that was like the big thing, like our draft show for the last few months and then coming into the, the, the, the actual draft itself was,

I just don't know how confident I can be betting on this much of a historical outlier. I was about to say this large of a historical outlier, but large is really the operative term there. This is a small son of a gun. Uh, I'm, I am worried about Bryce's ability to withstand hits at the NFL level, short term and longterm.

I'm worried about his ability to work all the areas of the field. Now, if young is going to be good, I think like his rookie contract is probably the area for him. I don't think he's going to develop very much. And I think the hits accumulating are what you're worried about. You're more worried about that in year three, year four, like to a stuff as he's younger, he's in his prime, he's taking fewer hits than like maybe he's able to go through more seasons without taking on that damage taking on that toll and so you get

some good years out of him you get a a playoff berth out of him i don't think the panthers are a bad bet by any stretch but i i think the general consensus is like a lot more excited about bryce than ritter and since i'm a lot closer uh but i see those two is a lot closer i tend to zag and go go the falcons direction i'm gonna do something with this division and i'm not ready to make a decision yet and it might be swung by there's gonna be some long feature on bryce young how he changed the culture and how special he is and how he's the first guy there and the last guy to leave that'll be around like august 8th and i I'm like, oh God, I'm in like, you're tickled me at all the right spots. All right. Here's my other one that I did

right away. And I feel great about it. And I still feel like the odds aren't where they should be. I got this at plus two 40. It is now plus two 20 on Fando Seattle to win the NFC West. The second you said plus two 40 to two 20, I knew what you were talking about because I have it and I've been watching it because I love it. It's the squarest, easiest, most logical bet on the board. And the last time we had something like this was last year with Philadelphia. For whatever reason, April, May, June, Dallas was favored. And the Eagles were like, what were they like? Plus 200 plus 180. And it started to drop and it started to drop. And we were on all of our podcasts going that Eagles line stupid. Like they, they should be co-favorites in that division with

the Cowboys at least. Why are the Cowboys favored over the Eagles? And it dropped and it dropped. And by the time we got to like the two weeks before the season, the Eagles were favored in the division. I think that's going to happen with the Seattle, San Francisco line. San Francisco is minus one 65. They have Sam Darnold is their quarterback. Like we're basically saying Kyle Shanahan is now can like, let's just have him.

Can he heal the blind? Can he, can he heal cancer? What other things can he do? What other miracles of man and mortals can Kyle Shanahan cure? Cause the Brock Purdy thing just made people think, Oh, well just throw anyone in Kyle and make it work. It's like, maybe Brock Purdy was pretty good. Cause I watched Sam Darnold with a 21, nothing lead against a pretty shitty Tampa team, not be able to do anything in the second half. Once they kind of figured out the two things he could do and Seattle, awesome draft.

We know we have some Seattle fans in our life. Good playoff, you know, made the playoffs last year. I like the team. I think there, I, I would have them like a top four most talented NFC team right now. I can't believe it's plus 220. Explain this to me. I definitely think it's wrong. I think a hugely critical thing is the schedule disparity.

The schedule hits San Francisco harder than it hits any team. Firstly, they're playing like a first place schedule. So they're going to have some of the most challenging opponents, right? They're going to have the Eagles in season, such like that. But secondly, they have horrible rest disadvantage. Three times this season, the Niners will be playing a team coming off of their bye while they are not coming off of their bye. And then because they're West Coast, they're going to have huge travel disparities as well.

So the Niners are in for an extremely challenging season in terms of scheduling snafus. And this is like a lot of the sort of things that influence win totals a little bit. But you don't see that reflected as much in the divisional odds. And so again, like it's similar to Miami. I look at the Seahawks divisional odds, or excuse me, their win total.

Over 8.5 is minus 142. I'll take it. I think they're better than an 8.5 win team. But when I widen the scope, it's easy to connect the dots of Seahawks a little bit better than expected. Niners are going to take a little bit of a step back because of scheduling problems

on top of injury concerns for a very oft injured team that's going to be not working off of buys and going to be having to travel a lot. And then you add the fact that you don't have an actual quarterback, playing quarterback with all of his limbs and with experience, and it's just not a real position. don't have an actual quarterback at quarterback playing quarterback with all of his limbs and with experience and it's just not a real position and the Seahawks are here with a

second contract veteran who has proven to produce like obviously again like Gino's just one season but this is the sort of guy who usually keeps the offense steady I brought up like what are those teams you can see being top 10 offensive DVOA defensive DVOA and I listed the obvious ones and I inherently left the Seahawks off because when you look at it on paper, I mean, this team's going to be top 10 in both metrics. Why wouldn't they be? Like, it's a great running game

with one of the most talented and diverse wide receiver cores and a quarterback who's aggressive and accurate downfield against a defense that overperformed expectations over the course of the season last year. Obviously, it was ups and downs, but generally played better than thought. And then they invested a ton of resources into it, and they kept stability

along the defensive coaching staff. Like, it's a great-looking roster in a weak NFC with a Niners team that, like, at some point, Kyle Shanahan's going to reach into the hat, and there's not going to be a rabbit, right? Like, they're going to go not 13-4 at some point, right? And so I love, love, love division exposure on the Seahawks. I think there's such a solid team just sitting in the wings,

waiting for the Niners to catch a little bit of bad luck, and then they can scoop that division. One of the things I love about futures, I did really well last year. I'm hoping I can continue the success on the win over unders. But when, when just the reason somebody's line is what it is or their favorite or whatever is some sort of like a not real thing. Like in this case, it's like, well, it's Shanahan.

That's, but it's like, all right, but that can't be your reason. They're the favorites. Like you mentioned the oft injured stuff. They have McCaffrey, they have Debo and they have George Kittle.

I don't trust any of those guys to play 12 games. It's wild. Like I would say the over under for each guy in a regular season is 12 and a half games. And this is a different conversation than who's a better choice to win the Superbowl because I think we would both say, well, the Niners have a shitload of talent. If they get in there, they're going to be a hard out. But if you're just talking about who can last over 17 weeks, who can stay healthy, who has depth, who has the coaching infrastructure, who has an easier schedule, I just think the path is way easier for Seattle. And if they hit on the rookie receiver,

that becomes the best receiving core in the entire league, right? Oh, yeah. Who has a better three? Maybe Cincinnati? I would say Bengals would argue, like Bengals one, two is definitely, I think better than the Seahawks one, two, how good Jackson's with the jig, but is now creates the conversation around the thirds. I think the Bengals are up there. Uh, Chargers fans want to be involved.

You're not Cowboys. You're not Niners fans. No. Yeah. I mean, it's either first or second. Yeah. Um, I just, I like the vibe. And I think by the time we get to mid-August,

that's about, what do you think, plus 140, plus 135? Man, I mean, like, it depends on what articles are being written about what quarterbacks are doing what at San Francisco training camp. But I think, yeah, like that number is going to, it's going to narrow. I mean, that number is going to bounce with every single article coming off of off of Brock Purdy was thrown on the side field today as opposed to the far side field. He's physically closer to where practice is happening. Maybe he's coming back. Yeah. Give me one more future before we go. Is there anything you have an activity yet? Those are my two favorites. The only other one

that I really liked was, I just, the Bengals getting plus odds for them for the division is, is just attractive to me. The plus one 25, because I would, they'd be one of my three teams I would pick to win the Superbowl. Yeah.

I was doing some research on that division particularly because if the Bengals win the division this year, they'll have won it for three years in a row. And in my head, I was like, man, like when's the last time somebody won the won it for three years in a row. And in my head, I was like, man, like when's the last time somebody won the AFC North three years in a row?

And it was the Steelers from 95 to 97, a period of time in which I did not yet exist. And critically at that time, like the Jags were in the division and like, I think the Colts or something. Like it was not the NFC North as we know it. Since it's become this tooth and nail nasty, you know, three piece rivalry between the Ravens, the Steelers, and the Bengals, with also the Browns attending

every so often, it's been really hard to stay atop this division for that long. And so I looked at that. I said, okay, like maybe Ravens plus 240, maybe Steelers plus 390. I couldn't get all the way there. I really, I do like the Ravens overall, like a team improvement. I like Lamar Jackson MVP odds, but I'm not going to touch the division. Bengals are obviously just so, so, so talented. I will say two dirty

boarding unders that I think you just got to take because their layups are the Bucs under six and a half and the Rams under six and a half. This was the NFC divisional round Cooper Cup for the love of the game game from two or three years ago. And they were, they were lovely teams then, but now it's the box with either Baker Mayfield

or Kyle Trask starting, which like one of the things about June is we say things and we don't realize how disgusting those things are. It's either Baker Mayfield or Kyle Trask starting that like feels kind of regular now because it's not real yet when we get to August that's going to be a sickening sickening sentence uh I think the Bucs have a I have a great chance to be a blow-up team at the trade deadline a good chance to be moving on from veteran players they already started to move on from Shaq Mason move on from Donovan Smith they're kind of in a weird transition stage do not trust that team certainly don't trust the quarterback do not like Todd Bowles' history as a head coach. I'm out on the box. And then that Rams team,

you're betting on Matthew Stafford health, right? If Matthew Stafford is not healthy, cannot play the majority of games, cannot function, there's no chance this roster is winning more than six and a half games. And when we talk about Matthew Stafford health, we're talking about a 35-year-old man who was already going to come into last season on a pitch count because of his elbow injury to start, and then he had multiple concussions and a spine injury. So that's the sort of player that just health-wise, I am not willing to trust. And then given the lack of talent across the roster overall, even if you're getting 10, 12 games out of Stafford, I'm still not sure this team is a five-win team, six-win team.

Sean McVay did very poorly with losing last season, right? There's a lot of reporting on this. I don't know if Sean McVay and Aaron Dahl are going to stick around for another losing season, if that's the way this thing starts to trend. I don't know if Les Snead's going to be around. This is not a team that's built to go 500. They're built to win 14 games or two. And they look a lot more like a two-win team than a 14-win team.

I like the Rams under six and a half as well. Well, you mentioned the two. It's time to pay the giant dinner bill when you ordered that second bottle of wine. This is the bet we make to then bet on the Dolphins to win the AFC. Yeah. Let me ask you this, and then we'll go. Fando has a bunch of awesome bets, including Tampa not to make the playoffs at minus 470 with the Rams not to make the playoffs at minus 420. And if you parlay those together, it's minus 200, which is tasty. But I also don't really love doing the minus 200 bets.

So if you could throw a third team into that one, we could either go to not make the playoffs or make the playoffs. I have a couple of suggestions. Chicago at minus 220, not to make the playoffs. That would basically be a fields. I don't believe in you bet, but I don't feel like that needs to be in a parlay. The Giants minus 200 the year after they paid Danny Dimes when it just seems like that's

going to have this watershed effect. Everything went right last year. What are the Packers? The Packers not or the Packers to make it? Packers not is minus 170. To get Packers, Rams, and Bucs, then you're looking at plus 138. So that, yeah, that's pretty enticing. You like that one?

I'll tell you something. The Packers might suck. I mean, I don't... I didn't give out an under on their win total. I'm just doing my research and figuring out where I feel on teams. In terms of units, I do

not trust. I don't trust this defense the amount of talent they've had in the way they've underperformed joe berry back for another season the packers defense to me is not interesting and then when you really get into it on on the offense and just you know okay david bocciari is perpetually hurt we're just gonna get yosh nyman in there and no it's fine one of romeo dubs and christian watson will emerge for us and yeah like it's good it don't worry about it. It's cool. We got a third round tie down out of Oregon State. It's like, yeah, I like, I like Jane Reed.

I like Luke Musgrave. I like Romeo Dubs. I like Chris Watson. I like all these dudes in the 15th round of a fantasy draft. Are we going to build a ship out of this for Jordan Love, who has not played many snaps? There's just, there's a way that this hits the wall in a really bad way. And even if I think it coalesces nicely,

I think they're still worse than the Vikings in their division, and they're probably worse than the Lions in their division as well. And it's tough to make the playoffs as the third best team in your division. Packers, not to make the playoffs in minus 170, I like straight up.

But throwing in the parlay, you get plus money. Here's why I wouldn't do that. Okay. It's going to be so much fun to root for the Packers post Rogers for the Ewing theory potential with them. I don't, I want them to do well.

Cause it would be more funny if they're like seven and two after nine games. You're like, Whoa, right. Rogers. Yeah. Yeah. The Jair Alexander quote,

Jordan love is the best quarterback in the NFL is a little bit too far, but absolutely. Yes. I very much agree with the let's prop up the post-Rogers Packers to entertain ourselves. It's actually interesting because we picked three NFC teams there

and obviously the odds don't change when you select the teams, but functionally once the Packers and the Rams don't make the playoffs, it does make the Buccaneers more likely to make it just because now there's two NFC teams who decided don't. So honestly,

we'd probably be wiser to just pick an AFC team. Just the mathematics of it. Yeah. Can I talk you into the Las Vegas Raiders at minus five 50, which would bring our parlay to minus one 30. Oh yeah. No, you know,

no issue talking me into that. Uh, Fandle also has up a, uh, uh Vandal also has up a season specials thing. And there's like, you know, longest team to go undefeated. And then there's a longest team to go winless. And oh, baby, those Las Vegas Raiders plus 1,800. I'm sorry. We're talking about Jimmy Garoppolo, the quarterback who the Raiders changed the contract for because he isn't healthy already.

This is what we're resting our hat on here. Absolutely. Raiders not to make the playoffs. Love it. They were already in salary cap hell and we were decimated with a bunch of bad John Gruden drafts in a row hell. And then they flipped. They got out of the Derek Carr business and they're bringing Garoppolo who was hurt as

they were signing him. And they're going to have unhappy Devante Adams. What's he going to be like in like the second week of August? I could see them going the other way and just being like, you know what? Let's get out of the Devante Adams business right now. We'll trade him. Let's go. Let's try to blow this up and tank.

I don't see. And plus they're in the hardest division. If Denver ends up being actually pretty good with Sean Payton and then you have the chargers and then you have the chiefs, that's a nightmare, right? So I don't know. I don't see the bit. That would be my recommendation. Minus one 30 bucks Rams Raiders. I just don't know how you're losing that 1300 to win a thousand. Let's go. Yeah. I was looking at a cap and cash spending the other week. The Raiders are, I think, eighth in the league in total cash spent for the 2023 season, which is like, okay, eighth, who cares?

Yeah, but the top teams like the Bills, the Ravens, the Eagles, Broncos, who obviously missed it, but were trying to do something. Where do the Raiders spend all this money? Devontae Adams? How could you possibly justify being top 10 spending Raiders team? And you made the playoffs twice in the last six or seven years? It's incredible that they achieved this. Well, remember, they did the big Chandler Jones thing.

And I think he was, can we say he was a bust? I feel like we can. They spent a lot of money on him. He was an official bust. I was very excited about that signing. And it was just an insane whiff. Yes. The Raiders sensed Carr.

With Carr for almost a decade. They made the playoffs twice. And both times they lost in the wildcard round. What were you doing? Who? This is. What were you spending this money on? It's unbelievable.

Patriots to win exactly 11 games, 12 to 1. I'm just going to leave you with that. All right. Ben Solak, great to see you as always. I'm going to send you some cheese with the Patriots plus 750 jersey. I love it. Wearing jerseys with the odds. That's a good bit.

I got to start getting into that more. That's a fun one. Appreciate it, Bill. Good to see you. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Brian Windhorst. Thanks to Benjamin Solak. Thanks to Isaiah Blakely for producing. I will see you on Thursday night with a multi-part NBA draft extravaganza. Until then. I don't have