The Bill Simmons Podcast - Steph’s Last Ride, Philly’s Swoon and Bill’s ‘SNL 50’ GOAT Lists | with Rob Mahoney

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

The Ringer's Bill Simmons and Rob Mahoney take a long look at the NBA's Western Conference before the All-Star break, including the new-look Warriors, likely WCF teams, the curious Mavericks, and more. Then, they open an NBA six-pack of topics, including the disappointing 76ers, first-round draft pick chaos, the confounding Bulls, and a potentially dim future for the Suns (3:50). Finally, in honor of 'SNL50', Bill reads an essay about his love for 'Saturday Night Live', his fantasy 'SNL' cast, all-time hosts, episodes, sketches, musical acts, and more (01:01:27). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Rob Mahoney Producers: Kyle Crichton and Chia Hao Tat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Please check out the ringer.com because we have a bunch of good content this week, including some really good SNL stuff. Uh, we have a fun NBA project coming next week, so stay tuned for that as well. And then the big news for the Ringer Podcast Network, starting this week, starting Sunday night, White Lotus is starting on HBO. Last year, or last season, Joanne Robinson and I, we did the recaps of White Lotus season two.

And I think we might've done season one too, I can't remember. Anyway, season two we did. We added Mallory Rubin this season. White Lotus will end on HBO. We will be putting our podcast up as a video podcast on Spotify on the Prestige TV pod. And you can watch it on the Ringer Dash TV

YouTube channel as well. Our recaps. And then on Wednesdays, Rob Mahoney and Joanna Robinson will have the pre-caps for Prestige. They're also covering Severance on the Prestige TV pod as well. So, very excited. We love White Lotus. One of our favorite shows since we've had

Great Linn and the Ringer. We're talking since 2011. This is one of the OGs, one of the most fun TV shows to talk about. So anyway, that's coming on the Prestige TV pod. Coming on this podcast, I'm gonna talk to Rob Mahoney actually about what's going on in the West,

what's up with the Warriors, can they turn it around and we're gonna open an NBA six pack. And then I had a whole SNL 50 thing I wanted to do about my favorite sketches, episodes, characters, musical performances. It all makes sense to listen to it. That's at the tail end of this pod. My fingers actually worked.

I wrote some stuff. So there you go. it's all next. First our friends from Pearl Jam. Hi, Rob Mahoney's here. We are taping this part of the podcast late on Thursday night, 8 p.m. PT. Just watched a bunch of basketball and then tied into what I want to talk about with you, the West we're going to start with. You'd Golden State win today. You had Dallas hold on and win.

You had Minnesota beat OKC, and then you look at the West and you have all these teams jammed together. Golden State's the 10th seed with 27 losses. Minnesota's the seventh seed with 25 losses. I'm the most interested in the Warriors, and I've watched every minute of all of their games since they

made this Jimmy Butler trade and there's something here and I don't know what it is yet but I like it I don't know where it's gonna go their ceiling feels a little higher I don't think they're to win the title but they're the most intriguing team to me that's not Denver the Lakers or obviously okay see I think they're the fourth most intriguing team to me, Rob. OK. Can I suggest what the thing is that you might be seeing? Yeah, let's see. I would say two things maybe.

Golden State actually shooting free throws. Great. Jimmy Butler helps with that. Two, something very exotic for the Warriors, attempting to score around the basket and sometimes doing so successfully. Like they, they blow a lot of layups. They, they have a lot of guys who claim up a little bit around the basket or can get stifled out with length. They obviously play really small,

but having Jimmy as any kind of presence inside, even if he's also missing some layups now and again, just as a cutter, as a driver, as a transition force, it's a nice counterbalance to everything else that the Warriors have going on offensively. Yeah, it feels like I rounded them out. I also, like you mentioned the rebounding, the offensive rebounding, the free throws.

That game yesterday that they played against Dallas, where it basically came down to Moody makes a corner three, I think they win. If Jimmy just goes to the basket with his right hand instead of crossing over going to Kyrie, they might win that one too. But the symmetry of the team seems to make sense now because Jimmy, even though, what is he, 6'5", 6'6"?

So I think he's more 6'7", 6'8", right? All right, wherever he is. There's a post-up element with them that they just didn't have before, unless it was Kaminga. And when it's Kaminga, you lose some of the IQ stuff. With Butler, you don't, you get the IQ stuff. So now you have him, with Draymond, with Steph.

And it's funny to call them a high IQ team because they also make some of the stupidest plays you'll see every night. I don't think any team has sloppy or worse turnovers, and yet they are a high IQ team. Like Steve Kerr is about to have an aneurysm at any given moment in these games. And you get it, like some of the passes Draymond throws

for being a genius level playmaker are absolutely baffling. Indefensible decision making at times. And yet they get away with it because they have these hot shooting stretches. Their defense is obviously still pretty rock solid overall and I think will only get better with Jimmy. But ultimately, I'm totally with you as far as the post up elements of Jimmy's game. He's so intuitive in terms of the way he moves. That has fit in Golden State really seamlessly. And he also just in staggering him and Steph a little bit,

it gives the Warriors something to do. And they were really lacking that when Steph was off the floor. It's like, what do we run? I guess Brandon Pajemski is going to dribble for 18 seconds. There was way too much of that happening. And Jimmy Butler, if nothing else, orients them to, okay, this is an actual first option, even if he's not pounding the air out of the ball. It's also a team that when Kaminga comes back,

becomes even more interesting because now they'll have multiple things to look at. They can ride him. There's some Butler-Kaminga stuff already. I don't know if you've seen it. Little hint of, I might take this guy under my wing. Okay. Little mutual admiration society stuff. Maybe, maybe I'll take him to Jimmy Butler grad school and not teach him the

stuff from the last year in Miami, but the, the first couple of years. One of the things that's been so much fun to watch with these Golden State games is just having Butler back as an invested, happy, engaged guy in the sidelines doing like, fish bumps, just super competitive aggro and not looking like he just lost his dog. And that he wants to just walk off the court. So I'm glad to have him back. Yeah, even in the game. So Jimmy Butler is one of the best contested rebounders in the league in terms of just the overall effort he puts in and how he goes after it even against Biggs. And if we're gonna talk about like how

Golden State makes a run or how they hold it together, how they challenge some of these other elite Western Conference teams, a big part of that is Jimmy Butler makes the version of small ball they play make a lot more sense. Moses Moody has been a thing for a while now, but the Moses Moody minutes make even more sense when you put in with Jimmy Butler. Kuminga's gonna be a little different just because they are a little bit duplicative. They're gonna be a little trickier to play together,

especially if Draymond is also on the floor. Like that's, it can jam up a little bit too much. And I'm curious to see what Kerr does with that, how he tries to separate those guys, if at all, in the rotation, because they're gonna have to play a lot. And Dallas in the first half of last night's game tried to use the Draymond, Jimmy lack of shooting

from deep thing against them. And then Golden State figured that out. They went with a small ball thing. Dallas didn't have their centers last night so it's hard to make too much out of it, but they went small. I guess Jimmy was the four. And then they had Moody and Pizemski and Curry

with Draymond and it was fun. They were likeody and Pizemski and Curry with Draymond, and it was fun. They were like hustling around, and it was old school Draymond. Here's the thing I'm watching with them, and I've been watching this for a while, and I really started thinking about it with the Ringer 100, with that exercise

of just trying to rank the best players against each other, and Curry was just a blind top seven, top eight guy. Not positive he's there anymore, and I don't know where he is in the top seven, top eight guy. I'm not positive he's there anymore. And I don't know where he is in the top 20. But there's two things I've noticed. One is the consistency of being great just doesn't seem there. He's become a once a week, I'm awesome guy.

He doesn't have the great kick ass games that he used to have. And I actually went through and I just looked at two things because this is hard to kind of quantify. How do you measure somebody's ceiling as a great player versus where it's been the last 10 years? He's 36 years old. You can look at all the counting stats.

They're down a little bit, but not like too much. But the thing that was interesting to me, so in 2016, his second MVP season, he had 13 40 plus point games. And then if you go on basketball reference, that weird game score thing they have that I think I mostly like, it's at least, it's something. You know, if you're in the high 20s or higher, that means something good happened with the game you played. So he had- It's like the PER of box score stats, right?

It gives you a general indication that something is up. It's that you did a bunch of things well in the same game at kind of an unusually high level. So about 29 is a really nice game score in basketball. It's again, arbitrary. But he had 24, 29 plus games from a game score standpoint basketball. It's again, arbitrary. But he had 24, 29 plus games from a game score standpoint in 16. This season he has three.

This season he has zero 40 point games. So even if you go back to 2022, he had seven 40 point games in their final season. He had 10, 29 plus game score games. In 23 he had 13, 29 plus game score. The point 23 he had 13 29 plus game score. The point is like every once in a while Steph Curry was like we're not losing tonight, I'm Steph Curry, I'm just gonna have an awesome game.

And that's really not what I'm seeing from him in the same way this year. And I wonder if it changes after the All-Star break or is this just who he is at age 36? I don't know the answer, what do you think? I suspect having Jimmy will help with some of that and just from an overall workload perspective, Jimmy and Kumingo coming back will lift some of what is on staff right now.

Ultimately though, I think that is who he is at this point in his career. I don't think he's going to have those singular scoring outbursts all the time. But the good news for the Golden State, I don't think the rest of the league has entirely caught up to that. I don't think they will catch up to that because Golden State, I don't think the rest of the league has entirely caught up to that. I don't think they will catch up to that because history tells us they don't with legends, right? Like you put Steph Curry on the floor, someone sees him, they are gonna freak out.

And that's why virtually regardless of how many points Steph actually scores, he has a massive, massive on court impact in terms of the offensive production. Like he is not at a Jokic level, because Jokic is really in a class unto himself there, but with Shea, right? Like with the other really high-level offensive operators in terms of the difference of having him on the court, even when he's not hitting consistently, even when he's not going for 35 or 40

points, he just scares the hell out of people. I think that part will always be true, even if Steph is 45 rolling out there. Yeah, if you're saying what defender makes a guy who's in the paint who realizes he's open run full speed at him like he's running out of a cabin in a horror movie. Steph is still number one in this. The other piece of it is they had to work so hard

to get him offense in the first half of the season with this goofy team they had. And he also had to play a lot because their record wasn't that good. And I do wonder with the reset of the break and then the Jimmy piece of it and the symmetry of the offense coming into play a little bit

and then Kaminga comes back, maybe it'll be easier for him to rack it up and have, the thing that would make him special were like the 16 point third quarters and just the little scoring barrages. That's what's not happening anymore. And then you throw in the sloppiness. Like their clutch record this year,

I think they're just like 500. And they've blown a bunch of dumb games. But the reason- And by volume, they've just been in a lot of close games. Which that in itself, as you're saying, is taxing because it forces step to play More minutes to even get to that point the reason I think it's important I'm not doing the ESPN thing where it's like just a block just talk warriors or Lakers and that's it. That's the rule. I

Really do think there's something here. I think there's something here with the Butler curry dream on thing I kind of like their role guys and And I think if they can hang around, hang around, hang around, there's a competitive kind of intuitive infrastructure that some of these other teams don't have. Like I don't trust Houston to have it. Memphis, I don't know what to make of anymore. I just assume Jaws not playing now when I turn Memphis on,

it's like surprising to see him. It's one thing after another with him. And then Minnesota is a mess. I don't try, especially when Edwards has, Edwards has had two like really, really, really awful games. They did win tonight, they beat OKC. But just, maybe Minnesota will be the only one I see that I could see in the conference finals.

I don't think it's going to be Dallas. OKC Denver, is there anybody else you have on your radar to maybe make the West finals and do like what Dallas did last year? Dallas catches fire, they have that streak, all of a sudden they're in conversation. Who is that this year? I still give Memphis a little credit in that conversation.

I think we clearly have to wait and see what the Lakers are capable of. But at this point, Denver's got the inside track and teams are gonna have to figure out not just how to outflank them, but how to beat them specifically if that matchup comes on board, which is I would say the toughest single matchup

available to anyone is what do you do with Nikola Jokic right now? Because we're seeing Minnesota case in point tonight. OKC is a vaunted, unbelievable defense. But Minnesota has some inroads there to score against a team like that. Nazred is clearly a huge part of that formula. Granted, they're not playing with their usual team.

Julius Randall, Artur de Gobert, Mike Conley, Dante DiVincenzo. And yet... And Gobert didn't play tonight either. Absolutely. They didn't have the ability... They didn't have their normal set of players, but they found things that could work against the Thunder defense for as wonderful as it is.

I don't know that there's those answers for many teams about Nikola Jokic. There's just not a lot of conceptual stuff you can throw at him that's going to work. That's not to say you can't leverage the occasional off night from Jamal Murray, elements of Russell Westbrook's game, parts of the back end of the rotation,

Michael Porter maybe not swinging the ball as fast as the Nuggets might like him to sometimes. Like there's buttons to press, the Nuggets are not unbeatable, but they look really tough right now. And they look like a really tough matchup specifically for the rest of this Western Conference field. Murray came back. Brasile and I did that live show in Denver. Yeah, we had like a heart to heart with 1100 Nuggets fans. Like this Murray thing is bad. Like you guys, this is alarming what's happening.

But the best case scenario was, he just needs to play himself in shape. And he did, he played himself in shape and he looked noticeably skinnier within three weeks. His burst came back. The 55 point game he had this week was not an aberration. Like he's been blowing by people and look like Murray. So now all of a sudden those yolkage 48 point games, like those are out the window.

You don't need them anymore. Now he's back to being the, by the end of the third quarter, he's got 22, 12, nine quarters also playing better. They just look like the nuggets again. So I don't know people like this podcast for instance Maybe maybe overreacting to the first two months But the Murray thing was scary because the Paul George thing was also scary and guess what that continues to be completely terrifying So, you know, there was real signs of danger, but Murray played himself out of it

Yeah His credit the Paul George thing is bordering on reanimated corpse at this point, and Jamal Murray has found some kind of life, some kind of burst, and I think most importantly, the edge and the aggressiveness in his game. That's always, when Jamal is feeling whatever injuries he has at a given point,

or just has shaken confidence, he doesn't push in the way that the Nuggets absolutely need him to push. And to see that version of Jamal Murray back, that's a thrilling thing to see. So right now we have OKC Memphis, Denver is the top three, Denver threatening to pass Memphis, Houston Lakers, and Houston just, you know,

has not been good for a couple weeks, but they've had some injuries. Lakers, I don't know what happens with them, 32 and 20. Clippers, 30 and 23 have been confusing for about a month now. And then we move into that Minnesota, Dallas, Sacramento, Golden State thing. And we're gonna talk about it when we do the NBA six pack.

The most notable thing is the Spurs feel like they've fallen out. And I think Phoenix is not dead, but people are definitely around the table, have fallen out. And I think Phoenix is not dead, but people are definitely around the table, like John Hamm and Landman. They're definitely around the hospital bed, and maybe the doctor's like, you might wanna say your goodbyes soon.

They're almost at that point. But it feels like we actually might know the 10 playoff teams now. Unless you think Sacramento can fall out of this, because they had a bad loss with New Orleans tonight. They've won some goofy games. They're 20 and 27. They honestly could be like 22 and 34.

So if Phoenix was gonna catch a team, that would be the team I'd pick. But what do you think? Do we have our 10 now? I think this might be the 10, and that is somewhat confidence in the Kings, more so pessimism in the Suns on my part. Okay.

Confidence in the Kings. I mean, mild confidence. You and Vivek. I think they've got some stuff to work with. I think they have a reasonable play-in level roster as currently constructed. I agree. And there's nothing wrong with that, but there's a reason we're not going to be talking about them in the vein that we're talking about Golden State, which is to say an actual threat potentially

to do something with the talent that they have. And we were talking about this on group chat today too. I don't know if it's the Jimmy Butler element specifically that makes Golden State feel like a wild card in the same way that his heat teams felt like a little bit of a wild card. It's just hard to write off. And it's hard to write off looking at this Golden State rotation and thinking, okay, you know what, like when it really matters, the Pat Spencer minutes are going to write off. And it's hard to write off looking at this Golden State rotation and thinking, okay, you know what, like when it really matters, the Pat Spencer minutes are gonna evaporate and the Quinn Post minutes are gonna evaporate

if they have to. Like they're gonna get what they need out of these supporting guys, but their best players are gonna go the distance. And the question at that point will be, how hard did Steph and Draymond and Jimmy have to push to get them into the play-in or to get them into the play-off?

And will they have enough left from that point? You made a point earlier about Minnesota and how something about them seems comfortable against OKC, which is something you couldn't really say about a lot of teams. I think that might be just a lot of length on the perimeter and interchangeable guys and just people to throw at SGA.

Today was the recipe for how you beat OKC in a playoff series where one, SGA doesn't have a good game. Yeah. That was helps. And then two, they don't make a ton of threes. And you know, it is a team and I guess you could say this about any team in the league, but I really feel with them when they're down like 12 and you go, I mean, this is it.

This is how you beat them. And then they win like their next 13 by an average of 20 points a game. But they can have that, you know, you can hit them with the haymaker. So when they, if they're down three, two in a playoff series on the road in a game like today, that's would be the recipe, I think.

I still don't 100% trust anyone else on their team offensively except SGA. And that's the one thing that gives me pause with like, just pencil them in. Like, they have the best odds to win the West, and it's an easy pick for the finals. But that's the one thing that makes me nervous when it's really nerve-racking gut crunch time.

Ball crunch time? Gut crunch? Nut crunch, I think is the expression we look for. Did I just invent theacking gut crunch time. Ball crunch time? Gut crunch? Nut crunch, I think is the expression we look for. Did I just invent the phrase gut crunch? The gut crunch, the old gut crunch. Who am I going to if like Shay has five fouls late in the third quarter and I just need somebody to get me offense for like six minutes?

That's what makes me nervous with them. The answer is probably J-Dub, and that's a reasonable answer, but he also doesn't exactly play that way all the time. Like they are such a process-oriented team where they're just gonna move it and go through their system and trust in the shots that they get.

And I think reasonable people can disagree as to whether those shots are ultimately what you need in now TM gut-crunching time. I think- Gut-crunch. Look, they clearly need a little bit more as evidenced by the fact that they can occasionally put up like a 14.4 quarter like they did against Minnesota today. That's not going to do it. Even in a game like this where you have a bit of a deficit you're

working back from to begin with, it's an area where you hope over time, JDub grows into that responsibility. Chet Holmgren, who I think played his third game since coming back from injury tonight, Chet Holmgroen, who I think played his third game since coming back from injury tonight, he will grow into that responsibility over time, hopefully. He looks quite rusty, understandably, right now, so he's going to get better and better over the back part of the season. But that's the wild card with them, and I think if they don't do as well in the playoffs as they would have liked,

or as many of us would have anticipated, a lot of us are going to be wondering, was there a lever to pull there in terms of getting more of a spark plug score at the deadline? Not someone who has to be a part of your permanent, like a fixture in Oklahoma City, a pillar of the community,

but could you not get a guy who could get a bucket on demand when you maybe really needed it? We talked about it a little last week. I'm in the camp, they're playing so well and they look so good. And Wiggins especially, that was the spot you would have improved,

but he was just playing really well. You know, and it's like- He was balling out, he was scoring in bunches. Yeah, so all right, we trade Wiggins and contracts and a few of our picks to try to get Deandre Hunter. Are we even better? Wiggins was playing really well. Yeah.

Would you rather pay Wiggins, like a much smaller contract, or Hunter 18 million. I can see why they always value the continuity. And it's one of those things that if it's in May and they lose some round two, we're like, why didn't they make a trade? I told you.

But you're right. It's hard to look at a roster winning 80% of its games and being like, yeah, you should have done something. They're doing a lot every night to beat basically every opponent put in front of them. And a close team too that really seems like that's where even the Cavs messing with what they have, it gets a little dangerous when you have a team

that like clearly likes each other. For sure. Dallas is the only other team just quickly. Who knows when Davis comes back. The way Kyrie has played and kind of, I mean, this is like one of the great one eighties we've had by an athlete, Kyrie the last two years where I think he senses the moment in the city of Dallas and the press conferences, the interviews that he's given, the way he's played where he's like, no, no, I got this.

Come over here. Like don't, don't abandon the ship yet. If they can get Davis back in time, I don't know if they can, but if they can, it is an interesting team. You know, they have size, they have length, they have defense, and the fans who seem like they were gonna revolt against this team even three days ago. Like, I don't know, they were into the game today. They were cheering those guys. And you know, so they're kind of, I guess over here on this side, depending on where they land. Right now they are 30 and 26,

but no Davis for at least a month. So they'll be somewhere between eight to 10, I would say, in the play-in, right? I would think, and look, the win over Golden State yesterday, massive, massive game in terms of playing applications. But yeah, they need Davis back. And more importantly, they just need a big, a single able bodied big who is not OMAX prosper on stilts. Like they just

need somebody in that spot to do big man things and credit to them for getting by the way they have credit to them for winning tonight, not only under the circumstances, missing all these bigs, missing Anthony Davis, but Kyrie didn't play in this game either, but his spirit lived on in Dante Exum and they beat the Heat. And Dallas just kind of keeps on marching right now. It's been very impressive to see the way they've rallied. They beat a Heat team that just looks

mediocre every night now. It just looks like it's the end of the line. I'm thinking about the gut crunch. It's like a 90s exercise machine. Like I'm doing an ad for it. The gut crunch right now. Call now, it's half off. We're gonna take a break and then we're gonna rip off

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Miklobalcher, Superior is worth paying for. Speaking of Superior, let's unpack six major things going on in the basketball world right now. We have to start with the 76ers. in the basketball world right now. We have to start with the 76ers. So, I was thinking big splash teams in the last 25 years that just ended up being disappointing. Going back to post-lockout, the 1999 Rockets,

when they put Barkley and Pippen and it came together and they were like, look at this, and then it was bad. The 2004 Lakers, even though they made the finals, that was still kind of disappointing the way it ended. But the big ones, 2013 Lakers with Dwight and with Nash. Now this is going to be fun. Not fun. The, the Prokhorov nets post KG trade with Pierce and Joe Johnson and Darren

Williams and Prokhorov. Oh my God, he's going to basically do what the Dodgers just did in baseball. It didn't happen. 2019 Celtics, after they made the Eastern Finals without Kyrie. Kyrie came back. Hayward came back. Tatum, Jalen Brown. I think I went on Jalen and Jacoby's ESPN show and predicted them to win in the mid-60s.

That did not happen. The 22 Lakers with LeBron and AD and a new addition, Russell Westbrook. Sure. They ended up winning 33 games. And then the Nets after the foot on the line season. Of course. The KD Kyrie Harden thing. Where does the Sixers just sucking their 20 and 34?

Where does this rank on the, I can't believe this is happening scale for you because there were some signs. Yeah, it's hard because there are the precursors. I don't think any of us were fully trusting Joel and Beats health coming into the season. Certainly Paul George has given us reason to be dubious about his long-term ability to stay on the court. Paul George has given us reason to be dubious about his long-term ability to stay on the court.

But I would never have anticipated that basically every single thing that could go wrong has gone wrong. Every bright spot that has emerged in the rotation, short of Gershon Yabusele, which I'm not trying to jinx him, wrap him in bubble wrap, protect Gershon at all costs, please. Every other bright spot in the rotation has been snuffed out by injury, by circumstance, like nothing is working. And that's hard to predict clearly, but also hard to wrap your mind around, like how so many things could go wrong at one time.

Yeah, so there was some Paul George stuff that came out today from Shams that he had a screwed up finger tendon on his left hand. He's getting injections for it. I'm sure that's true, but it doesn't explain the fact that he looks just slower and more plotting and doesn't seem to have nearly the same burst and just seems like not only a step slow,

but a second slow. It is processing. And I don't know how that's the left-hand tendon thing. I don't get it. I don't think it is. I mean, we can kind of parse those things out because there is the step slow thing as well. You're not getting past Zaire Williams against the Nets. That's a problem.

That's a problem in a game where Joel Embiid is not playing, Tyrese Maxey is not playing. This is your moment to do some of this and you make one shot and worse, you attempt seven. Horrible, horrible game for Paul George. All of that said, I have found myself at many points in the season being a bit of a Paul George apologist. And look, those days are very much behind me at this point.

But the case for that apology, the defense of Paul George throughout most of the season has been a defense of the little things that he brings to the table, right? It's orienting the offense. It's being an adult on the court when they badly needed it. It's spacing the floor. It's keeping the ball moving. Good connecting stuff, but role player stuff. And at some point, if you're doing all the role player stuff and you're failing

every time you're asked to be a star, we have to call you what you are. And it's a $50 million role player. And that's a very tough position for the Sixers to find themselves at the very outset of this deal. He hasn't helped himself with some of the comments either. No. Like when he complained about playing the five, he, there hasn't been a lot of, I'll do whatever it takes to win games.

If they need me to play there, I'll play there. It's just, there's a lot of like basic, you have to look at how the outside world is looking at you stuff with him that just seems to be missing. A sixer should know never to say that they're bored doing something like playing the five because this life as a sixer will be very interesting very quickly in ways that you do not want well the biggest thing they got was the Eagles had a playoff run and won the Super Bowl it's very true and they with Curtis and I talked about it on Thursday the this rarely

seen Super Bowl news dump after they won when they're like hey and bead might get surgery again I don't know where this is going and they just snuck that one out under the dead of night but I I think if, uh, if Philly had been knocked down around one, the Eagles, and then, you know, people really had a chance to stare at the sixer season with the kind of season Max is having, or is most averaging 28 a game. Yeah. But Sally, they really lucked out with that. And they're still, they're 20 and 34.

They're six and 14 in their last 20. In that last 20, they have the 23rd net rating. So they're just been a bottom 18 for, you know, a good 40% of the season here. They've only gotten 17 games from Embiid. And yet they're only a game and a half behind Chicago for the 10th seed. And Chicago doesn't want to keep winning. So they might stumble in anyway. I don't know if Chicago wants to keep winning or not because their roster would tell you that they don't.

The public comments would tell you that they are attempting to. So I really have no idea what to make of any of that other than the fact that the playing crop in the East is an absolute joke. It is teams that are either too hurt to compete, don't have the resources to actually be good teams yet, or in Philly's case, a little of both. Like they just are not in a competitive place by any stretch of the imagination. Quentin Grimes should not be your best player. Like that is not a thing that should be happening.

Justin Edwards should not be playing 30 minutes in a game. That's not where the Sixers ever anticipated this going, but it's the reality that they now have to navigate. Orlando is 27 and 29 in the seventh seed and they haven't been happy with their team for two months. No. Atlanta is 26 and 29. They're the eighth seed.

They made two like borderline dump trades. The Hunter trade and the Bogdanova trade. Those are trades you make when you don't care where your season is going. They can't really dump because they don't have their first round pick. But, uh, and then you have Miami at the nine seat, 25 and 28, who just like, you know, I think they'd be maybe the second worst team in the West. Would you, would you rather be Miami or Portland right now? Portland is tough because they are winning themselves out of

the tank race at the moment. Yeah. Their future is tough. And we should say Philly's future in terms of their first round pick, which they may or may not be able to actually keep is looking dicier by the minute. I have to be very careful. They don't accidentally lose that pick at this point. I want to audible to that as the second thing of the, uh, of the six pack.

But before we do the, the in Bbeat thing, do we see him again? He's played 17 games. Does he play 20? We should not see him again. Like tethered to this conversation, like they should be actively looking at shutting Paul George down, shutting him beat down, managing these injuries over the back part of the season, it's time to regroup, like this is not going to resolve itself. And even if you could limp into the play-in

and even limp into the playoffs, that is not a success for this version of this team. Like being an easy out in the first round is not success for the Sixers. So at this point, like sear into the skid, lean into the failure, live to fight another day, frankly. The problem is making the playoffs. Embiid could never play 14 games in four weeks.

It's never happening. So even if you like miraculously won both playing games, I don't know where that's getting you. All right. The second thing you mentioned, the draft pick. Okay. See gets Philly's first after the top six. So Philly keeps it first six spots. If it's the seventh pick, okay.

See gets it. But this is one of many things. This is the all time, what the hell is happening in the first round thing? It's bad shit. It's, it's either 15 or six. There's so many teams. There's a couple of things I can't even really figure out who gets the pick. Yeah.

So it's about half the league. OKC gets Philly's first after top six. They get Utah's first after the top two, if it's out of the top 10, but Utah's probably going to keep that pick. Miami gets Golden States first if it falls out of the top 10. I think that's probably happening. Atlanta gets Sacramento's first if it falls out of the top 12. I think that might happen.

The Knicks get Detroit's first if it falls out of the top 13. I think that's happening. So we already have four teams that are going to give their pick to somebody else. Okay. See gets Miami's first. If they don't make the playoffs, basically. So that's 50 50. We'll see. Then we have San Antonio gets Atlanta's first Utah gets Minnesota and Cleveland's first.

The Pelicans get the Lakers first Brooklyn gets new Orleans first Cleveland's first. The Pelicans get the Lakers first. Brooklyn gets New Orleans first, Milwaukee's first, and the Knicks first. I think that's right. Does Brooklyn get New Orleans first? I don't think they get New Orleans. I think they just get Milwaukee and Knicks. All right. I'm going to take that one out. Brooklyn gets Milwaukee's first, the Knicks first.

Keep in the air. Orlando gets Denver's first. And then we have this trade where OKC can swap and get the best pick from the Clips or Houston, their choice. Yes. Houston can take the second best pick and swap it to Brooklyn for Phoenix's first. Phoenix, Phoenix, I guess, loses the pick either way. And then the Clips get the worst of all of those.

I'm going to figure out that sequencing in about a month. Yeah, we need a visual aid. We need somebody to come up with a flow chart. All of those picks I laid out, what is the most alarming to you for the team losing the pick? Oh, great question. Atlanta?

The Atlanta ones are bad, because it dramatically changes how they navigate their roster, what they're doing for the foreseeable future. It's, on the one hand, I think it can be silly sometimes when teams like the Bulls, who were so protected they were probably going to keep their own pick anyway, go out of their way to trade to get their own pick back.

It can be silly. But there is so much more freedom and flexibility as a franchise when you do own your own picks. Because the second they're out the door, the second you lose control of when you start the clock and when you start to rebuild and when you start to reboot. And that's how you get into these weird lost seasons where you're sort of languishing either in the middle of the standings or just outside the play in accomplishing basically nothing, but also losing lots of games and not getting

any draft capital to result from it. The Atlanta ones feel really, really rough right now. One thing I was thinking with all the OKC things in play, let's say they get the seventh pick from Philly. Yeah. And let's say they get Miami's pick because Miami is a playoff team. And then they have their own pick. Yeah. And then they can also swap with the Quippers or Houston. So that's a middle. So they'll have four picks.

Well, they'll have three. They'll have three. They'll have their own. Three. Oh yeah, you're right. Yeah. Three, including Philly's pick, which could be in the seven, eight, nine range. Yeah.

But then they have all these other picks because they have a million, kajillion picks. Yep. And we've been watching this going, what are they going to do with all these picks? They already liked their roster. They only have a couple of spots anyway. Could this be the year that they take that seventh, eighth, ninth Philly

pick, if that's the pick, add like eight picks to it and just say, give us Cooper flag, here's the all time mother load of picks. Like let's say Charlotte gets the first pick and they could just trade back like six spots out of the Cooper flag spot and just get a war chest of the all time most picks ever in a trade from OKC just to move back six spots. You'd have to have like a four hour meeting about that. I feel like Cooper flag is really good. Yep.

I love him. I'm probably the highest on him out of, out of, you know, because he's a big intangibles guy. And I know I'm going to overreact as we get closer to June. But you'd have to really think about it because it's not a Wim Benyama pick. And if you're okay, see, I think you would also have to really think about it because what the Thunder need more than anything are cost controlled players, really good players on cost controlled salaries. Their roster is about to get very, very expensive very, very quickly. If you could have four cost control years of Cooper Flag as you are contending with the rest of this roster, I'm hesitant to say this because we haven't seen Cooper Flag play in the NBA yet. If he is as

good as advertised, that he might be the single most attractive piece to the Thunder for exactly that reason. Stretch four, can play some three. Runs the floor, good ball skills. Incredibly competitive, doesn't need the ball checks out. Yeah. And I, and I know whoever gets the first pick wouldn't want to trade in, but there's a price for everything and there's a price to make you go, holy shit. Like you're going to offer me 220 cents in the dollar for this pick. But I honestly think that's what okay.

So he has to do. Here's the thing though. If that pick does convey and okay. So he gets Philly's pick, six teams will have 20 picks in the first round between them. Okay, see one of them Brooklyn will have three picks, the Spurs, the jazz, the magic, the wizards will all have two picks. That is an incredible consolidation of draft capital.

And I don't know who ends up keeping a lot of those picks and who ends up moving them on because they're clearly valuable for all of these cost controlled reasons we've just talked about. But if, if, to just help you visualize at home as you're listening to us, list off all of these swaps and protections and picks that may convey basically every single pick from 18 to 30 is going to go to a different team except for Indiana's pick and Boston's pick. That's it. Every other pick is probably going to change hands. And that's insane. Yeah. And I don't's pick. That's it. Every other pick is probably gonna change hands.

And that's insane. Yeah. And I don't even know how they fix it. And Adam Silver should not be the one explaining who gets what. They should maybe hire Bobby Marks just for three hours as his assistant just to be over on the side, just laying out whatever.

Yeah, doing the touchscreen. We have to raise pick swap literacy around the country at this point because this is becoming an epidemic. Well, OKC in San Antonio, San Antonio is the other team. Like if Atlanta's pick, Maracos, they got in the top four and it got to like four, San Antonio would have enough assets to really try to climb through picks. So it'll come down to how generationally you think Cooper Flagg is.

And I don't think he's in the Wembe Anthony Davis sure thing class. You really have to believe in some other stuff. I personally think there's no way he misses because how competitive he is, but you know, six, seven and a half. There's things you could, to me he's the perfect stretch four,

but we'll see. All right, next thing on the six pack, speaking of the draft, the Brooklyn Nets, the team that just won't tank, the team that has players telling reporters, Hey, we're going to try to keep winning games. If you don't like it, don't root for us, which I love. So they're 20 and 34. They're one and a half games behind Chicago for the 10 seed, which is tied with Philly. But does it feel the same as Philly to you, Rob? Not even a little bit. They have a great coach.

They, they made the mistake of, they kept KM Johnson and Nick Klaxton, but they also have D-Low on the, I'm so happy not to be on the Lakers anymore. I'm going to go nuts. Yeah. They're six to one in their last seven. Their defense held all seven opponents to under a hundred, seventh net rating over that time. They're six to one in their last seven. Their defense held all seven opponents to under a hundred. Seventh net rating over that time. They bought out Ben Simmons. They traded Schroeder and they traded Phinney Smith and yet they're still hanging around. And this was not

the plan. They made a trade with Houston, I'm sorry, with Houston to try to get their picks back and give them Phoenix picks and they were going to tank. Now I don't know. They might make the playoffs. What would you do if you were running Brooklyn? Oh, okay. Think of fake injury or think of playoffs? I think go for it. Honestly, I think go for it. I, it's always tough in these positions. And yes, I understand the long-term arguments, but I'm with you that I am moved by the enthusiasm of the team. I am moved by the amount of backbone they've been playing with lately and ultimately particularly how good they've been on defense. This is a team that's like playing a pretty deep rotation, really high energy style, forcing

a lot of turnovers. They can't score for shit even now, but they get a lot of stops and they play with a lot of effort and ultimately here's the thing. I say you encourage the guys to go for it and they ultimately will probably lose a lot of games anyway, but you didn't pull the rug out from under them. I think that's where you start to lose credibility with the players on your team is when you start actively sabotaging their efforts to win just for the sake of the lottery, but if there's a way to let them run themselves out and look, if you look at

the teams that they've, they've beaten at this recent stretch of games where they've been so successful, it's not exactly an amazing row. They will lose games against better teams eventually, but like, let them find their spine, let them find their style and ultimately what can be successful for them and like let Nick Claxton wake up a little bit because you had a bit of a slow start to the season like these are meaningful developments for a team like Brooklyn I Saw this happen a decade ago with Brad Stevens and the Celtics and we were all going nuts because we wanted them to lose but ultimately like

You do build some sort of a weird DNA That you didn't just roll over which brings me to the next person on my six pack list, or next team, Charlotte, who has achieved peak tank. I don't know if you've looked at their box scores. They tried to trade Mark Williams and couldn't get rid of him. And now I guess he's just in limbo as they fight about whether that trade was legal or not.

Brandon Miller had surgery, which is too bad. They signed Alfred Payton and Taj Gibson and both of them are playing. Well, basically they have to play. Yeah. There's not really another option. They did. They took on Nurkic in a salary dump and Nurkic has now found his destiny where, you know, he'll have like a 27 rebound game where they still lose by 28.

And then they also have Lamello Ball who's one of the great, great stats, bad team guys of the last 30 years. I thought it was hilarious that people are like, wow, how did he get left out of the All-Star game? He just jacks up shots and they lose. He's not an All-Star. That's unkind. I don't care.

I think Lamello is better than that. I think he's better than that. Was that a defensive LaMelo ball? Look, I'm willing to go out on that particular limb. Like, I think LaMelo is, look, he is on another planet in terms of some of the things he chooses to do, but has a facility with the game that not many guys have and ultimately is basically the only reason

the Hornets have been anything close to Solven at any point in the season. So he doesn't have a lot to work with when he's out there. Bigger concern for me, in addition to all of his habits and kind of the judgments he makes on the court, clearly just like that, cursed ankles, tough injury history. If he's never gonna be consistently healthy,

how is he gonna consistently grow as a creator? And that's a problem for a player like him. Would you wanna play with him for six months a year? Be honest. Would you want to be his small forward? Would you want to be Brandon Miller? Do I, what I want to play with anyone under the age of 25, I think the answer is probably no. Like there is a stylistic difference between us.

This is the only team I really like Charles Lee. I think he's a good coach. This is the only team I don't want Cooper flag to go to. See, I think he and Lamello could run beautifully together. Oh, I don't know. Anyway, they're in position to get him. They started working it. Next one on the six pack.

The Chicago Bulls putting together the finishing pieces of an epic 10 year run, starting in the 15, 16 season. 42 and 40, 41 and 41, 27 and 55, 22 and 60, 22 and 43, 31 and 41, 46 and 36 in the 22 season, lost in the first round, 40 and 42, 39 and 43, 22 and 33 with a chance to make the plan again. This is Reinsdorf's like manifest destiny just to, to, uh, to not pay the luxury tax, to be somewhere near the plan, to not actually be a threat, to not really have a direction is like, are they tanking or they, like

they re-signed Lonzo ball. They could have traded them for a first round pick that came out. Now they kept them. They have Giddy, they have Kobe White, kind of like Budzelis. Vucovic is still there. They overpaid Patrick Williams. I don't know what this team is. They don't either.

And this is just what we're doing in the third biggest city in America, Rob. Apparently it is. I get from that 10,000 foot perspective why Reinsdorf is the guy who comes up. I don't want to give our tourist Carnitivist too much cover here because I feel like Nico Harrison has done him an incredible favor. Patrick Dumont has done him an incredible favor, taking a lot of the airspace of the NBA right now. And I think it just kind of slid under the radar that after the deadline, Cornish was went up there, had his press conference and explained that there are

three different ways to build the championship team. You can have two stars on it. You can have three stars on it, or you can have nine or 10 very good players. First of all, that has literally never happened before. No team has won a championship with nine or 10 very good players. Not a thing. Also, what qualifier isn't a very good player, a star? I don't know what threshold he's talking about, but what's better than very good?

Like great. Well, let's talk about that. If it is, even if that were true, even if that were what the Bulls are trying to do, how many players on their current roster are very good or even like pretty good? I don't think they have one very good player. I don't think Kobe white's very good. I think he's good. He's probably the closest theoretical Alonzo ball might be the closest.

We hope Montez Muzela's can be that. Vuch some nights. Very good to me is like, if my, if my son came home from school and I said, how did your history test go? And he said, very good. Okay. I'm thinking that's like an A minus. Very good.

It's like really positive. Yeah. There are no A minus players on this roster. I'm not even sure that like, this is a roster that is scraping for solid B, B minus talent right now. And to the extent that it's there, it's probably years away from developing. They got nothing from Levine. The extent that it's there, it's probably years away from developing. They got nothing from Levine.

They have no extra first round capital other than this weird protected first rounder they have from Portland that they'll probably never get. They have an absentee landlord as an owner. I, I think I would take every single team in the East future over theirs. Yeah. You would, so you would take Charlotte's, you would take Philly. Yeah, Charlotte, the Brooklyn picks. Yep. Even Philly, I have Maxey and I have, you know, hopefully some tradable assets

and maybe Embiid will come back. Maybe I can turn Embiid into something. I would rather have every other roster in the East over Chicago's. I don't even know what their number one asset is. What a day for the Wizards. You know, they, they had to win something eventually. They won your heart, at least relative to the Chicago Bulls. Congratulations to the Washington Wizards.

Honestly, Jordan Poole's probably better than anyone in the Bulls. This season. That is the darkest sentence that I've ever heard someone say. Jordan Poole. I think it's true. I think it's true. I thought somebody should have traded for him. We talked about it last week. I actually think he's really figured some shit out.

And he's at least done it on a big stage before, but yeah, like Koolibaly and Saar and Carrington and they've got guys. They're okay. They're going to have cap space. I want to all do credit to Jordan Poole has had an exceedingly normal NBA season. And for him, for a guy that talented, that's a huge step forward. If I was a Chicago Bulls fan, I would be losing my mind.

Rightly so. They're in the third biggest city in America. The Celtics are about to sell for between six and six and a half billion. So the Bulls are somewhere around there. Why can't they just sell the team if they're not going to run it correctly? How long can you live off the Jordan?

And how long can you be like, oh man, if T-Rose didn't get hurt in round one, oh man, that was 13 years ago. I know. Last one on the six pack. You wanted to talk about the Suns, who have a net rate in their last 15 games of 18th, who in their last 58 games,

including the playoffs are 26 and 32, who tried to trade Kevin Durant for about a week before they told him or his agent or his manager that that was even happening. And, uh, now it's like, yeah, this summer, they're probably gonna trade KD. This is, this is grim. What are you seeing? It's not as loud or as dramatic as what's going on in Philly. And so, yeah, they get the lead in terms of the, like the dumpster

fire power rankings here. I just, it's so disappointing to see the Suns in such disarray, quietly sucking all this year and seeing none of the primary stakeholders of that team do a single thing to fix it. And this isn't ultimately like a second apron problem or a no trade clause problem. Like those are obstructions, right? In terms of Phoenix get making its roster better.

They're not obstructions for anyone on this team playing into the ball on defense, they're not obstructions for anyone on this team fighting for a rebound, they're not obstructions. Most crucially defining some semblance of offensive flow for a super talented team on paper. Like I know there is a worse than the sum of its parts thing happening here. Because basically none of the parts compliment each other at all. It's just a lot of guys in their individual lanes, not making each other

better, and that is really a really tough watch for people like us at this stage in the season. I just don't get the sense that anyone involved in it particularly participating in that offense either or participating in this season. And so it's so disjointed. It's so unpleasant. I really just like where the Phoenix Suns find themselves. And I don't wish this on any of them. This is just who they've been. Well, the problem is they had a certain coach last year that they made the scapegoat for everything. Frank Vogel, who won the 2020 title.

They brought in coach Bud, completely different philosophy. He's going to unleash these guys offensively and they're even worse. But to me, it's a talent problem. I was looking, I look right around this time where you have like, like I would say, OKC Boston and Cleveland are the three best teams, right. In some order. And then you think like, they probably have the best rosters, the nine man rotation, who would you take on a team like Phoenix, how many of their guys,

other than the top two would even play for one of the top three teams. So that would be their Beale. Yeah, he would. I think Beale would play off the bench for at least Boston and Cleveland. I don't know about OKC, maybe. Who's he playing over? He would play. Who's he playing over?

They need somebody like him. That's the sort of smart thing. So you're giving him Isaiah Joe's minutes? Sure, yes. Okay. I feel fine giving Bradley Beal Isaiah Joe's minutes. Okay, so he's in the seven, eight eight or ninth man range for the top three teams. Fair. Maybe six on the right roster.

Okay. First guy off the bench. First guy off the bench. I would still rather bring Prichard off the bench before him, but that's just me. Grayson Allen or Royce O'Neal. Do they play for any of the top three teams in the top nine of their rotations? I mean, this is kind of the Tory Craig corollary because didn't he just like just kind of crack

into Boston's rotation a little bit? Tense man. Yeah. Royce O'Neal can do a lot of Tory Craig things. I would say slightly better than Tory Craig on balance. Grayson Allen, very much an issue of how much you need his shooting. And frankly, this season, whether his shot is on or not lately, it's been looking a lot better. Start the season was not there. If he's streaky, he's not very viable. So that's a huge problem in terms of high level competition. Nick Richards? Yeah, I think you can get minutes.

Maybe Boston, like the Kata, the random Kata game, maybe Nick Richards is the game that I said. I bring this up because it's just grim, what Phoenix did with all the stuff they traded away. And you know, I defended the Durant trade when it happened, or at least the idea of it. Even that night, none of us understood why Cam Johnson was in it.

But when you're throwing in as many assets as they did, but then also paralyzing themselves to trade other picks and I don't see you now and I don't really know what Katie is worth this summer either. She said, that's not like a miraculous parachute out of here. He's going to buy that. It's going to be his 19th season next year. What are you, what are you, what are you getting for him? Are you getting like Jalen green and a two, a first and a Pratada?

I don't know. Like, what are you actually getting for Kevin Durant at this point in his career? He's got one year left in his deal? That's even worse than this, frankly. That's the hard thing about interrogating Kevin Durant trades is the packages feel more depressing. And I think the packages also force you to confront what you as an organization in the Phoenix Suns have done with Devin Booker's career. A player who had to come into his own,

who took his time, who grew as a playmaker, who grew as a creator, who, to be totally fair, is not having an amazing season by his standards, but a good enough one, a good enough Devin Booker season. And if you use that whole period of time and you have one trip to the finals in a somewhat weird Western conference field, and that's it, that like, that's, that's the primary like feather in the cap of the Devin Booker era, that's really sad.

Honestly, for a, for a star who's had this kind of long lasting relationship with the team, like you would hope that a player like that would be rewarded with better. with the team, like you would hope that a player like that would be rewarded with better. How many teams did Luca fuck up during his career in the maps? Yeah. Because that game seven definitely like was some sort of weird cat house with the Suns. Yep. The Minnesota, the fact that they beat Minnesota, I think led to, I don't know if they trade towns if they make the finals. Probably not. Um, then Dallas themselves. That's another one. Right. So there's already, there's three with the blood on his hands.

Yeah. The Phoenix thing feels like a rap. We have not heard a laugh from Ishby lately. No, there are no fixes. And then they're in a conference where this can't happen. They're going to have San Antonio coming. Yeah. Okay.

She's already there. You okay? She going down the line. It's like there's, this is it. They have the toughest remaining strength of schedule of any team in the league from this point. They're not going to make it. Well the sad thing is Brooklyn had a few of those picks that they gave back to Houston to get their pick back so they could tank and now they're not even tanking correctly. But hey, those Phoenix picks are looking pretty juicy. Before we wrap up the six pack, San Antonio, when do they throw the flag into this season? They're just far enough away that you could talk me into it. What does throwing in the flag look like?

in the flag look like? Some some Wemby rest management, some Wemby, hey, we need to set them down for three games. We were worried about some fake tendonitis and some fake part of his body. I'm not sure they need to do that. I think they're going to be again, perfectly fine. Coasting out, losing some of these games. Now, if the Fox thing catches on in such a huge way where it's unavoidable, then yeah, maybe you have that discussion, but part of trading for De'Aaron Fox is accelerating at least a little bit. And I think ultimately their position is not so much tethered

to their own pick, right? It's tethered to the other draft capital that they have. It's tethered to the guys they already have on roster. So I don't think they necessarily need to. Counter? Yeah. Portland could pretty easily pass them. They could be the third worst team in the West and they would be either four or five or six teams worse than them in the East. They could be in the six to nine range with that draft pick, which puts you in lottery mode.

Not too sure. I actually really thought that they were going to make a little bit of a run and they just can't. I thought Boston really exposed some of the issues with them. I don't know if you watched that game. They attacked Wimby in a really unique way that I haven't seen teams do before. And just in general, it just looked like two different classes of teams. And then you think the Warriors got better. I don't really see the path for them. Anything else you want to hit before we go?

I think we covered a lot of it. And then you think the Warriors got better. I don't really see the path for them. Anything else you want to hit before we go? I think we covered a lot of it. We covered every mid to terrible team in the Eastern Conference, it feels like. So we really gave the people what they want today. Well, that's it for today's six pack. But if that's not enough for you, remember, McLoBoltra Courtside can get you closer

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Light Beer, St. Louis, Missouri. Rob, we're both on the Prestige TV podcast, doing White Lotus. I'm doing the recap with your TV wife, Joanne Robinson and Mallory Rubin on Sunday nights. And then you and Joanne are doing the pre-caps, diving into theories on Wednesdays. You can find that on a, that's gonna be a video podcast on the Prestige feed. That's also on our Ringer dash TV YouTube channel. What are you the most excited about White Lotus? Uh, Walton Goggins, always Walton Goggins, but Kary Koon.

Never upset to see Kary Koon on the screen. And you haven't watched the first one yet? Not a bit. You know, I'm really looking forward to it. I'm really juiced from my personal trip to spiritual Thailand for this season. That's the thing. You get to go on an actual vacation with the cast. You just live back carelessly through your TV. From your lips to Daniel X ears, let's lock it in.

Let's get that expense report filed, I'm ready to go. You can live vicariously, just like nice TV, just kind of zone in, see the trees, there's a lot of monkeys, there's a lagoon. Yeah, lots of stuff. Love a lagoon. Really good, anyway, you can hear us both on the Prestige TV pod, you can hear Rob

on the Ringer MBA show on group chat as well, and you can read him on an excellent website called theringinger.com. Mahoney, good to see you. Thanks, Bill. Saturday Night Live premiered on October 11th, 1975, the same night as game one of the World Series between Pete Rose's Big Red Machine

and my beloved Boston Red Sox. I had turned six two weeks earlier. I have one hazy memory from that shutout victory for the Red Sox in game one. It was Louis T. teetering around the bases, somehow scoring while wearing a puffy blue warmup jacket. It was amazing. Was I sleeping later that night when John Belushi declared his intention to feed his fingertips to the Wolverines?

Of course I was. But the 75 Red Sox were my first favorite baseball team and SNL eventually became one of my favorite TV shows ever. For the rest of the 1970s, SNL thrived in some alternate universe that just would not include me. We all knew about the show in school. We knew it was funny.

We noticed the commercials. We knew our parents stayed up to watch it, but we couldn't sample it until fourth grade because something special happened that year. That's when best of SNL shows started popping up in prime time as fillers for NBC's canceled shows. Suddenly the nerds, the coneheads, the wild and crazy guys, the cheeseburger guys,

they all became part of our lives. Needless to say, I loved everyone, I loved everything, but I really loved John Belushi, the samurai guy, Joe Cocker, the chocolate donuts commercial, the but no update monologues. This human being actually existed every week on some show way past my bedtime? How is this fair? How could I watch more?

How could I get there? We didn't have DVR, YouTube, or social media in 1979 as you can probably guess. Once that week's SNL host said good night, the episode vanished into thin air. The only time you would watch it again is if it was in a rerun that summer. So I was out of luck until fate intervened. That same winter my parents separated

and I became an only child with an insane amount of leverage, leverage used for self-serving proclamations like I don't care what my bedtime is, I'm staying up late for Saturday Night Live. So one of my first live SNL shows was hosted by Margot Kidder during Kidder's brief apex between Superman and Amityville Horror, two movies that I like. You wouldn't remember this apex

unless you're over 50 years old. But one of SNL's underrated traits as an American pop culture institution, it catches 90% of our most famous actors, actresses, and musicians at the exact point when they are precisely the most famous. Think about that. The most famous.

That's SNL. The best sketch from that show, Kidder's Lois Lane character threw a birthday party for Bill Murray's Superman character, and she invited some various superheroes to come along, and I'm watching it live. I'm just sitting there waiting for my guy Belushi. And at the three minute mark, the doorbell rings,

Kidder opens the door, there's Belushi. Strolls and cackling, he's covered in green, he's dressed like, oh my God, he's dressed like the Incredible Hulk. And even now you can listen for the audience laughing and clapping just at the mere sight of John Belushi because in 1979 there was no safer comedy wager in America than John Belushi as the Incredible Hulk.

So he ambled over to Superman, shakes his hand, screams in mug pain, oh, let go, let go, let go. And then later he annihilates the bathroom with an Incredible Hulk poop as everyone recoils in horror. He comes out, come on, take it easy. It's not supposed to smell like roses. I never laughed so hard in my life. This was done.

This was a wrap. I had a new favorite guide, new favorite show. I stayed up for a few more season four episodes and then Belushi left. He left with Dan Aykroyd for Hollywood, but I still watched all of season five. Once NBC started, uh, airing one hour best of SNL shows on Wednesdays in the fall of 1979, suddenly kids like me could retroactively experience every famous sketch.

Did NBC realize? Did they realize they were cultivated in the next generation of SNL diehards? Of course they didn't. This was the same year they tried it out Super Train. There wasn't a dumber TV network than NBC in 1980, so we can call it a happy accident. But that summer, I made my father bring me to two R-rated movies, Caddyshack and the Blues Brothers, just to see Chevy and Murray and Blue Sheen and Ackroyd.

And that fall, we bought a cumbersome VCR and SNL became part of my life for good. Over the next five decades, the most important sketches and moments hinged on four impossible to totally measure questions. Factor number one, what was the impact in the moment? For instance, you might have a personal history of the Wayne's World franchise that's colored by two movies and a whopping 19 SNL sketches.

You heard me, they did 19. Maybe Wayne and Garth stopped making you laugh 25 years ago. I sure hope not because we're doing Wayne's World on Mondays we're watchable. So it still holds up by the way. But the first Wayne sketch happened on Leslie Nielsen's February 89 show, not long after Mike Myers joined the cast

when he was simply the guy in the credits who had the same name as the killer from Halloween. That's how we knew him. Then they did Wayne's World. Everything killed. Wayne killed, Garth killed, the whole cable show in a basement angle killed. You watched the sketch in the moment,

you thought, I want more of these guys. Do this sketch again. And for me in the moment, matters more than everything else. You know, you know with more cowbell, Barry Gibb talk shows, Star Trek convention, Mr. Belvedere. You always know right away with SNL.

So that's factor number one. Factor number two is the sketch still funny right now. Little less important because comedy, you know, sometimes doesn't age that great. Sometimes the things we thought were funny in 1994, we don't think are as funny now. It's also hinging on something that happened in the moment, sometimes, which is like one of the last

Wayne's World sketches ever, which happened in 1994's Heather Locklear show, yet another host apex. And in the sketch, Wayne starts dreaming that he ended up in Melrose Place. Now, this is something that would make no sense to anybody who's under 40 and can't remember Melrose Place if they watched in 2025.

But in the moment, it was one of TV's hottest shows. Sandler parroting Billy the P. Whip Boyfriend was the highest of high comedy. You have to believe me. Everyone despised that Billy character, only the internet didn't exist yet, and we couldn't properly ridicule him. So Adam Sandler spoke for everybody.

And that matters, even if the sketch itself hasn't aged well. Factor number three, does the sketch have any belated significance that transcended the sketch itself? Okay, here's a good example. Will Ferrell's first SNL season, 1995, 1996, that followed the critically reviled season 20, which nearly submarineed the show

and left New York Magazine's infamous take down cover story as its enduring legacy. How about that as a legacy? That summer, NBC makes a fuss. They're blowing up the cast, they're blowing up the writing staff, and you had a real sense the show was on life support, which would have been the third time in 20 years.

We felt that way. So season 21, Meryl Hemingway is hosting the first episode. I'm visiting my buddy Jim Grady in Connecticut, anderyl Hamlin is hosting the first episode. I'm visiting my buddy Jim Grady in Connecticut, and we play shuffleboard until 4 a.m. at Sam's in Port Chester, where I'm still the goat. One of those nights when I woke up on Sunday morning with my contact lenses still in my eyes,

unable to remember how I ended up on the sofa and wondering why I didn't have a blanket. Nobody else was awake. I loaded up SNL on Jim's TV and I watched through bleary eyes as Farrell's first big sketch comes on, Get Off the Shed. And again, I'm hungover as all hell,

I can barely see, and this new cast member is jumping right off the screen at me. Who is this guy? He dragged at least four wheezy post-cigarette binge cough laughs out of me, and at some point, Jim heard me laughing and rolled out of bed and I immediately replayed Get Off cough laughs out of me. And at some point, Jim heard me laughing

and rolled out of bed and I immediately replayed Get Off the Shed for Him. And now Jim was saying, who is this guy? Later, Farrell plays a husband who kept coming up with off-color excuses to derail his wife and get her off the phone. That character was funny too. Combining the impact of those two sketches,

you knew that your life in 1995 was suddenly 0.77% better with this Will Ferrell guy. You knew right away. And two decades later, Get Off the Shed isn't one of Ferrell's 10 funniest SNL sketches. Husband excuses probably doesn't crack the top 30. But that first episode mattered. There was a new sheriff in town.

You needed to start watching SNL every week again. And that matters in the big scheme of things, right? So that's the third factor. The fourth factor, it's a cousin of in the moment. Did you know immediately that something truly spectacular had just happened? All right, let's go back to 1975. Richard Pryor is about to host the 11th episode.

They've already banked 10. SNL has already established itself as TV's most groundbreaking show. No comedy show belonged to the baby Boomer generation until SNL showed up. This is a generation that devoured Rolling Stone. They devoured Derrick Rock music. They hated Vietnam and Nixon.

They revered George Carlin, Richard Pryor. They loved improv. They loved Harvard Lampoon. They despised traditional sitcoms and variety shows like Carol Burnett. They needed their own show. So after 10 episodes, Michaels, Lauren Michaels, figures out a show-to-show structure

for that specific audience that barely looks different than the one today. Sketches, weekend update, music, comedy performances, short film. Basically in that order. I don't think he ever intended the show to reach 30 million people some nights, but who the fucking predicts this shit?

So Prior was that generation's hottest comedian, which meant no season one episode carried higher expectations. Chevy Chase had already become a huge star. What happens? It becomes SNL's first Pantheon show. Prior's monologue, predictably great. Exorcist parody kills.

Prior and Belushi did Samurai Hotel. And everything peaks with word association. Which is a sketch that pitted two of comedy's biggest stars against one another, Pryor and Chevy Chase, who's the breakout guy for season one. And thanks to a sizzling performance by Pryor, the racial tension that builds during that sketch still plays 50 years later.

It's not a sketch that's aged well, but it's one of the most important SNL moments ever because nobody had ever tried anything like it on live television before. This was dunking from the foul-line shit. This was Dr. J in the ABA contest. That was word association. So my favorite SNL episode ever

also had my favorite SNL sketch ever and my favorite musical performance ever. This was when Stevie Wonder hosted. And they do this sketch called the Stevie Wonder Experience. This is eight years after Prior, 1983. Wonder hosts right as Eddie Murphy is doing this wicked and slightly controversial impression of him. And Eddie's a huge star at this point.

And you're watching the show live and you're thinking, there's no way Eddie's gonna do Stevie in front of Stevie, right? But you're secretly kinda hoping he would. So it finally happens in a sketch with Joe Piscopo, who's playing an agent. He brings in Stevie, who's a celebrity impersonator, and they audition for Murphy, who's a music executive.

And the catch is that Stevie's character bills himself as a Stevie Wonder experience, only he's doing a Stevie impersonation, it's horrible. And Murphy goes, no, no, no, no, you're doing it all wrong. And proceeds to slip on a pair of sunglasses and the crowd goes bat shit. And he does Stevie, with Stevie standing right next to him. So I'm 13 when this happened,

which is probably the best age to fall in love with SNL, even though I was already in love. And you can think I'm crazy, I don't care. But the most exciting non-sports TV moments of the early eighties were this sketch, Letterman taking a show to LA and having Carson as a guest, Michael Jackson singing Billie Jean and doing the moonwalk on the Motown 25 special,

which was amazing, Reagan getting shot by Hinkley, Roddy Piper smashing the coconut in Jimmy Snuka's head, and the premiere of Thriller on MTV, and I can't accept any other arguments. Anyway, Eddie brings the house down with an impression of Stevie singing, my Sharia Mourning, unbelievably crushes it, kills it. Stevie's standing right there, crowd settles down.

Stevie tries his impersonation again, it's still terrible. Eddie takes over, nails it a second time. Crowd settles down, scene shifts back to Stevie for one last attempt, and only this time, fake Stevie suddenly turns into real Stevie, and he belts out an acapella version. That's, you can't even describe how good it is, because nobody brought it quite like Stevie in his prime.

He nails the last note note and the studio erupts like someone made a mid-chord shot to win a tournament game. If you watch the tape, Piscopo breaks character. He lets out this delighted yo. That's how remarkable it was. So I know he's a first bout Hall of Famer. I know he's a musical icon. But I can't imagine Stevie Wonder ever

bringing the house down quite like that. And Eddie pushed him there. Of course, Eddie never breaks character. He waits for the applause to die down. He waits an extra second, and then he finally says, nah man, it still sucks. Huge laugh, perfect ending, one of the greatest sketches in the history of the show.

And at that specific moment, you would have bet anything that Murphy would be one of the biggest stars in the world someday, but that's what made him such a unicorn. By sheer coincidence, by dumb luck, an SNL show that desperately needed energy and diversity and a real star stumbled into someone basically created by God to appear on the show.

So of the biggest stars in SNL history, only Eddie broke into show business on the show. He was a cast member at 19. He was the show's meal ticket by 20. He was a movie star by 21. And he was a full- at 19, he was the show's meal ticket by 20, he was a movie star by 21, and he was a full-fledged super-duper star by 22, and headed to Hollywood for good at 23. We will never see it again.

He's the most talented SNL cast member ever. He's the only one to host the show when he was starring on it. And for that, and many other reasons, I have Eddie as the SNL GOAT cast member, and I'll fight people in a bar if they want to come up with somebody else. Here's the thing, only Eddie and Will Ferrell could carry an entire season by themselves. This is like you're using the 2009 LeBron and the Cavs analogy.

How many guys could you win 60 games with if they were the only really good guy in the team? That was Eddie and Will Ferrell, and that's really it. So if you're building the hypothetical Goat SNL cast, I think you have to have Eddie and Ferrell or I can't take the list seriously. It's non-negotiable. But what would the rest of the cast look like? Well, three things.

First of all, SNL needs to move like a basketball team. You need an eight man rotation, you need one wild card off the bench, you want enough minutes for everyone. This is always the mistake the show makes over the years when they have these big fat swollen casts. You have a 90 minute show with commercials, it's really about 67 minutes of content.

You have weekend update, you have two musical acts, so maybe five, six sketches max, plus a couple update things. You don't need 17 people, you need eight, maybe nine. So we'll have the wild card, we'll have the Dan Waiters spot. So that's one. Second, the best SNL cast members can either carry a sketch

or glue guy a sketch. And the glue guy thing is super important because that's what Phil Hartman was the best at. You have to be able to do both. You can't just be a one man show. And in this case, it's a lot like basketball. Can you take over a game? Can you set other people up?

Can you play characters? Can you play the straight man? Can you sell other people? Can you do anything? You want a whole cast of these people. Again, you gotta think like it's a basketball team. You want the ball to move around. And then the third thing is I was trying to include different errors to the best of my ability. So Eddie and Farrell ran. I got seven spots left.

Phil Hartman was the best glue guy in the show's history. Dana Carvey, who I think is the most underrated male cast member now, he would have thrived on any cast for the entire 15 years and was a force of nature. Same for Bill Hader. So there's five and I don't think you can leave any of them off, Eddie, Farrell, Hartman, Carvey, Hader. Best female cast member ever, it's still Gilda Radner.

It's not fun to say because she was on the first cast and she kind of had the title to begin with and then other people probably tried to take it from her, not knowing, but she's still the best. She's the best female cast member in the history of the show. Kristen Wiig was right up there, so she's included to that seven. And I thought Maya Rudolph was the most underrated

female cast member ever. She could carry any type of sketch, she could do all the musical stuff. So that would be my eight. And then obviously for the wild card, I gotta have Belushi. So I have Eddie Farrow, Gilda, Wig, Hartman, Hader, Carvey, Maya, and Belushi.

I'm rocking with those nine. My Weekend Update guy, Norm McDonald. Come on. Still living on social media 30 years later. They're still running his jokes from update So I have norm. I'm turning over all digital videos. I'm doing a time machine loop here to add a Andy Samberg and Adam Sandler They're just gonna work together even though they're from different areas knock yourself out guys, and then I have the following 10 hosts Tom Hanks John Goodman Steve Martin Chris Martin, Chris Walken, Alec Baldwin, Dave Chappelle, Emma Stone, Ariana Grande, Melissa McCarthy, and Candice Bergen.

If you're drawn from all the eras, that's the best 10 you're gonna come up with. But remember, this is my list. Doesn't mean it's right. I've only been watching the show for my entire life. What do I know? All right, 10 best episodes ever. So these are my 10.

They might not be year 10, these are mine. Stevie Wonder, 1983, which had the Stevie Experience, had the Canon camera ad, Dion the hairdresser, and three Stevie songs, including him singing Overjoyed, which is the best musical moment in the history of the show. That's one I won't argue about, go watch it, if you don't believe me.

The crowd goes nuts and just keeps cheering, it's like a sporting event. So I have that episode, Richard Pryor in 1976, which also had two standups from him too, it had Samurai Hotel, Word Association, you know, the Chevy Weekend Update. That's the first great SNL show. Jim Carrey in 1996, which was the last episode

of the aforementioned comeback season. This is Carrey at the peak of his powers. He's coming off, you know, he had the mask and he's Ventura, like he's Dumb and Dumber. He's suddenly one of the biggest movie stars and SNL had rejected him, so he comes on with a huge chip on his shoulder. There's Fireman Bill, Night at the Roxbury,

Joe Pesci Show with Jimmy Stewart, does the cheerleaders, does Shakuzy Lifeguard. Also you had Norm on Update who was on fire and you had a David Spade Hollywood Minute. So this is probably the best show of the last 30 years that they had. And by the way, Soundgarden was the guest. Steve Martin in 1978, this was why they considered

to be the best show of the Belushi Akroyd Murray era Blues Brothers as the musical best guest Steve Martin said it was the peak of me actual quote King Tut did the wordless guild the dancing scene wild and crazy guys medieval barber There was a point counterpoint on weekend update with Jane Curtin and Dan Akroyd that I was enjoyed When Jane would make her point and then Dan would go Jane you ignorant slut and a joke Dan would go, Jane, you ignorant slut. And a joke that would not fly 50 years later, but it was really funny

because that's what newscasts were like back then. It was these males just dominating the show and the woman was over there. So they're paired in that, really funny. Nerd Science Fair was on that as well. All right, fifth one, Tom Hanks in 1988, which I think is in the running for best season opener ever and probably was.

This had the Bush to Caucus debate. Dan Ackroyd as Bob Dole. John Lovitz as Dukakis going, I can't believe I'm losing to this guy. So I have that. There's a parody of the movie Big. Dennis Miller's on update. They do the All Drug Olympics on this one.

They played a game show called Jew Not a Jew. That's actually pretty funny. They did the Girl Watchers thing with Lovitz and Hanks where they're just like, my forehead's just a little too big called Jew Not a Jew that's actually pretty funny. They did the Girl Watchers thing with Lovitz and Hanks where they're just like, ah, my forehead's just a little too big and all that stuff. Mr. Short-Term Memory, Hans & Franz.

Great episode. So this is, I think, the most underrated episode for me. David Alan Greer in 1995. They do the Wake Up and Smile sketch where the teleprompter and the morning show breaks and they all kind of turn on each other, Lord of the fly style. It's unbelievable. It's one of the 10 best sketches.

So that's on there. Speed does Hollywood Minute. Will Farrell does a Brian Boitano impersonation. Um, Ted Koppel as, uh, doing a Michael Jackson, Jack Obacko. Um, Brian, David Allen Gert plays Brian Gumbel off camera as like this real kind of basically like a crazy hood. It's hilarious. And then Norm was on update.

So I'm putting that one on there. You also had Darrell Hammond on that show as Bill Clinton reviewing American president and talking about how much he loved that the wife died. And then Silver Chair was somehow the musical guest. So you have that. William Shatner in 1986, this had Star Trek convention and Alzheimer's, Sweeney Sisters of Christmas, TJ Hooker parody.

They had the Star Trek Five, Restaurant and Enterprise. This is one of the top seven shows ever. They even did a Wonderful Life parody. Tom Hanks in 1990. Hanks with two of the top seven for me. This is the one when Aerosmith came on. Aerosmith was on Wayne's World. Hanks was the groupie doing the Sybilance.

Sybilance, short term memory, Tales of Ribaldry, Girl Watchers, Millar and Update. Probably the best SNL cast of that era. So I have that. I have Eddie Murphy's comeback show in 2019, which was emotional because nobody ever thought he was gonna come back after the show made fun of him a couple times.

He finally came back. He did all his old characters and it was awesome. Christopher Walken in 1992, where he did Trivial Psychic, Perot and Stockdale, The Continental, Stock Talk. There was a Sinead O'Connor parody. There was a Pat sketch. there was a Hollywood Minute, NJ and Brady on Weekend Update, and Arrested Development.

So that's my top 10. I also have, as honorable mentioned, Timberlake in 2006, we did Dick in a Box and Barry Gibb Show. Lindsay Lohan in 2004 2004 when she was in that famous Debbie Downer sketch. There was also a really funny Harry Potter sketch. Sting in 1991 which had the Sinatra Group in it, some other stuff.

Eddie Murphy when he came back to host in 1984. John Goodman in 1998 when this is the episode they did Neil Diamond Storytellers, but he also played Linda Tripp with Monica Lewinsky. There was a morning latte thing. It's just a really good episode start to finish. And then Adam Sandler, 2018, when he came back, he played the Farley song,

which is, I think, one of the most emotional moments in show history. And then Betty White in 2010, when she came back, was really fun. So for my favorite sketches ever, and these are in no particular order, the Tony Bennett Show, the first time Baldwin did this when he had David Guest and Liza Minnelli had it,

lines were crossed, that is still one of the five funniest sketches for me, it makes me laugh so hard, they sing a song together. It's making me laugh thinking about it. The Sinatra Group with Phil Hartman when there was a parody of the McLaughlin group and he's got Billy Idol on there and Luther Campbell and he's just killing everybody. I watched this in college with my buddy Jacko who was my roommate at the time. We watched it on a Sunday morning after we woke up and I think we watched it five times and we

were talking like Sinatra yelling at Steve Vanity for the rest of the week Steve wonder experience. I mentioned the Neil Diamond storytellers. That's the one where The old will Pharaoh is Neil Diamond Just going off the rails and being like this is a song about my hatred of immigrants. Just incredible stuff Mr. Belvedere fan club. This is a fan club for Mr. Belvedere, Tom Hanks hosting, where they're all deciding how to interact with Mr. Belvedere, and it's really about fan obsession, but it's really, really good. Jackie Rogers Jr., Jack Potwod, that's with Martin Short.

That was the funniest character he played on there. Dysfunctional Family Dinner with Sarah Michelle Geller when Will Ferrell with the family is just kind of eating, but then they would yell at each other and calm down. Mark Halbel, you know that one. Buckley Get Shot and Buckley Died, those two are classics. The first Barry Gibb talk show, I have that one. Debbie Downer at Disney, a classic.

Greg the Alien, I think the most underrated Will Ferrell sketch where he's hosting a sports show, but he might be an alien. Star Trek convention with Shatner when he has all the Star Trek people and he's like what's wrong with you people and starts Yelling at them Reagan the mastermind Phil Hartman is Reagan the referee Pittman show I has is one of my most underrated ones John Goodman as referee Pittman He's it's a talk show and all the all the people in the audience are like hey

It's a talk show and all the people in the audience are like, Hey, um, referee Pittman, how do you shove your head up your ass? Is it like, do you have to bend out? And it's just, they're just making referee jokes. Chippendale sketch with Chris Farley, comedy killers, which was like Jeopardy, but with comedy killers. And then the final answer ends up being the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Incredible. Unfrozen caveman lawyer, Dysfunctional family feud.

Tribute psychic. Farley, the first time he did Matt Foley. Nick Cage and Tiny Elvis. Wake up and smile, which I mentioned earlier. Night at the Roxbury with Jim Carrey, which was just unbelievable because they'd done this sketch a couple of times and then he came in and just physically was somehow outshone both of those guys. Election night 2016, I don't have a lot of ones

from the last 10 years just because you got age with those but election day 2016 with Chappelle. Whenever the parties talk about how this is the worst thing that ever happened and Chappelle's doing Chappelle stuff, great. And then Bargazzi's Washington dream thing was really good and they've done two of those.

But that was, I think, of the last five years, probably one of the greats. And then the only other one I forgot to mention was the Joe Montana one, Sincero Guys 2. And Joe Montana is the biggest star in football and he's on there and you can hear his thoughts and his thoughts were, I'm gonna go upstairs and masturbate.

And it just was like shock and air. Joe Montana say that. So that would be my episodes. And then just for the hell of it, musical acts. Best musical performance ever, Stevie Wonder overjoyed. Second best, Paul Simon when he sang the boxer right after 9-11. Really great. Just I think one of the best moments

in the history of the show with all the New York firefighters standing there and Giuliani, it's really special. Queens of the Stone Age when they played Little Sister in 2002 and Farrell came out and did the cowbell, amazing. You two did I Will Follow at the end of an SNL episode in 04 and ended up like kind of, they broke the fourth wall and kind of went in the audience. That was amazing.

The bus boys sang Boys Are Back in Town in 1983, right at Eddie's Apex. And Eddie just went out and sang it with them, and it felt like a moment. Run DMC, Walk This Way, 1986. White Stripes, Dead Leaves, in 2002, which is just like Jack White and Meg White at their fucking apex.

It's awesome. Billy Joel saying Miami, 2017 and 1981, it's really good. Nirvana, Teen Spirit, 1992. Blues Brothers, Soul Man, 1978. Really fun to watch still. Outkast saying Mrs. Jackson in 2002. Pearl Jam, Porch in 1992, you know I love that. You know I love Porch and Pearl Jam.

Hole was awesome, they sang Violet in 1994. I would encourage you to find any of these by the way. Billie Eilish, Bad Guy, 2019, visually it was amazing. Cannon Crowe sang Round Here in 1994, and it was their first song, not their second one, and they crushed it, and it basically made them a hit band, which is the power of that show. If you crushed SNL, your albums took off.

Sinead O'Connor, Last Day, 1990, Last Day of Our Acquaintance, 1990, the print song that was actually her song. And she's incredible in that, and then two years later comes back and does the Pope thing and almost commits a career suicide. Although now I think it's played out better for her. Kendrick in 2014 sang I and it's great.

Bowie did the Man Who Ruled the World in 1979, which was I think one of the coolest visual ones. Eminem and Dre sang still in 1999 and it's awesome. And then the last one I would recommend if you wanna go look up any of these is Stevie Nicks, Stand Back in 1983 because there's some guy that is dancing during the performance. You'll know it when you see it.

It's a moment unlike anything ever in the show and also it's a really good song. So that's what I got. Those are all my SNL thoughts. I can't wait to watch SNL 50. If you wanna read what I thought about SNL 40, it's in the Grantland archives actually from 10 years ago. But that's it.

Those are all my thoughts. I would dump them out to you on the pod and on the YouTube. You can watch me actually stumble through this. So there you go. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Rob Mahoney. Thanks to Kyle and Saruti and Gahal as well.

Don't forget prestige TV podcast this weekend, white Lotus Sunday night. Me and Joanna and Mallory are going to be breaking all of it down. New rewatchable is coming on Monday. Wayne's world. And that will be the first video podcast on Spotify. Very excited about that. Enjoy the weekend. I will see you on this feed on Sunday night. I don't have a few years with him On the wayside, on the first summer deliverance

I don't have a few years with him