The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Case for Milwaukee, the Metaverse + 2022 Oscars Predictions With Ben Thompson and Sean Fennessey

Episode Date: March 23, 2022

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Bucks fan and business and tech analyst Ben Thompson to discuss where Giannis Antetokounmpo fits into the MVP race, Bucks playoff speculation, what to expect from the 76ers, and more (3:52), before talking about the Metaverse, newsletters and alternative media, misinformation, and more (40:53). Then Bill is joined by The Ringer’s Sean Fennessey to discuss the upcoming Oscars, long-shot turned Best Picture contender ‘Coda,’ Will Smith Oscar-watch, Oscars gambling odds, and more (58:27). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Ben Thompson and Sean Fennessey Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For as long as I've known the NBA, it's been a stars league. But even among the stars, there's an exclusive club. Russell, Dr. J, Jordan, Kobe. They're all part of a select group that paved the way for the NBA superstar of today. And some even shared secrets with each other along the way. From Spotify and the Ringer Podcast Network, I'm Jackie McMullen, and this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back what you think in those first few weeks and then zag the other way. If you were wrong, you could bet

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Must be legal drinking age. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where we have a couple of new podcasts that we launched recently. I hope you're listening to The Town with Matt Bellany, Hollywood industry stuff, right in my wheelhouse. Not a long podcast either. Something to be said for the 20 to 25, 28 minute pod that you can listen to at 1.2 speed on Spotify. It's like a car ride. You're done with it. Also, Icons Club, Jackie McMullen's narrative NBA podcast about the evolution of the NBA superstar is just awesome. I'm so happy with this. Second episode went up earlier this week.

It's about Dr. J, and I think he is the most underappreciated superstar of all the NBA superstars. That's my take. Hakeem is in the conversation as well, but I think the impact of Dr. J over the years has kind of faded because he's not a self-promoter. But for the first 35 years of my life, it was Russell and Chamberlain. Then it went to Dr. J and Kareem, then Bird of Magic, then Jordan, then LeBron and Kobe. And the legacy of Dr. J in that whole kind of torch handing it off piece of it, where he was the most likable superstar of the 70s. We did a book of basketball podcasts about him, me and Brian Koppelman, that I thought

we did a good job of breaking down the impact of that. But Jackie's podcast, interviews with Dr. J and a whole bunch of other people, the amount of people she got for this is really, really great. So hope you're checking out Icons Club. Very proud of that podcast. Also, just like us, getting close to wrapping up on Ringer Dish, if you haven't heard that one as well. It is about celebrity culture and how it has evolved in the 2000s. So a lot of evolving with the Ringer Podcast Network, but we're really doing good stuff. I'm proud of the stuff we're doing.

FanDuel Sportsbook, not as proud. I've had a couple of NBA parlays in a row that have just bombed. I'm not doing a good job. I even screwed up on the Ringer Gambling Show. I screwed up the five-leg parlay that JJ and House did. I'm probably going to pop on there either Thursday or Friday with JJ and house talking about bets and stuff. But when we get close to the NBA playoffs,

we're really going to go all out and I'm going all out on Fando on Wednesday is doing same game parlays. I'm going to tweet this one out on Wednesday night too, or Wednesday before the Wednesday night games. But I'm gonna try to nail one of these. Like once and for all, let's get some momentum heading into the playoffs. Talking some MVP stuff with Ben Thompson coming up

and some East odds and some final odds. But really, Ben Thompson is going to tell us where we are with the Bucs. He's been on before. Nobody has a better feel for the Bucs and Giannis. We're also going to talk about the metaverse. And then our guy Sean Fantasy comes on after, hosting the Big Picture.

You've heard him in the rewatchables a bunch of times. He's going to tell us what to expect with the Oscars this weekend. Is it going to be a disaster? Is it going to be weirdly fun? What are the big subplots? More importantly, gambling. We have that as well.

So, fun podcast. Looking forward to it first. Our friends from Pearl Jam. Our friend Ben Thompson is here from Stratechery, which is a newsletter, a blog, a website. Consume it however you want. It's got podcasts. He is a major, major Bucs fan. He came on last spring during the Bucs Assants

as Giannis was crowned as the king of the NBA. And then everyone was like, no, you're actually as the king of the NBA. And then everyone was like, no, you're actually not the king of the NBA. All these different things happen and you're not one of the best players. Now we have this three-man MVP race. We're heading into the home stretch. On FanDuel, Embiid is minus 160.

I taped this Tuesday morning. Jokic is plus 140. And Giannis is 10 to 1. And I don't understand it. And I'm not even sure I'm going to vote for it. There's 12 games left or 10 to 12, depending on the team. I want to explore the studio space. I want to see how the season ends. I want to see what the records are. But what happened to Giannis this year? Why has he just been bounced? What's going on? Well, there's no actual on-court justification.

He's been, he's better than ever. I mean, I think you saw the confidence and stuff that he developed last year. His free throw shooting has been much better this year. He cleaned up the whole, like, taking 15 seconds sort of thing. He's hitting at a well above 70% clip. His passing is incredible. And the Bucs, I think it's underappreciated

that they've been basically playing without a center all year and he's been playing center. And that's great in sort of crunch time. And you can see the Bucs fourth quarter defensive numbers are off the charts compared to the rest of the game. But there's a reason why even like Golden State back in the day, they wanted a Bogut type person because the death lineup is good in short segments. But when it comes to the day to day grind of the NBA season, you need a center. And that's been, I think, the Bucs sort of challenge this year, but now that Lopez is back, I think they're looking

great. I mean, I picked Bucs' sons to sort of repeat in the finals at the beginning of the year. I did too. And I've honestly seen nothing to change my mind. So the Bucs right now, 44-27, tied for second, two and a half games behind Miami. And three weeks ago, I was on, I think, with Rosillo.

And it was the first time I was like, I'm concerned. I keep waiting for this team to come around. I know guys have been missing here, there. They haven't had the full team. And then they started to rip off some wins. And then I wasn't as concerned anymore. I still feel like I'm looking at it from a Celtics standpoint. That's the team I don't want to play,

and people in my life are like, I don't want to play Durant. I'm like, I'm actually okay playing the Nets without Ben Simmons and without Joe Harris and with a smaller team that I think athletically we have some size. The guy I don't want to see in a playoff series is Giannis. I still feel that way.

As scared as I am of Durant, I still feel like we can give him his 35 to 36 a game, and that's fine. We can still kind of still manage the series. Just pencil that in. But the Giannis thing, the physicality, athleticism, I really feel like he's at the peak of his powers. You've watched his whole career. Do you like he's at the peak of his powers. You've watched his

whole career. Do you think he's at the peak of his powers or is there still like five, six percent we still have to go here? I think there's potentially even more than that. I mean, he's significantly better this year than he was last year. His mid-range shooting is completely dependable now. Like you feel great about him taking a shot from 20 feet in. He has this turnaround jumper now. I actually saw this stat just the other day that his mid-range shooting is actually higher than lots

of other prominent players. I know Curry was one of them, but it's this very jarring stat, but it's a relatively large sample size. And I think that he's still improving and still getting better. And the three-point shooting is still not quite there. He's shooting like 30% for the year, but I think he's on track and still getting better. And, you know, the three-point shooting is still not quite there. He's shooting like 30% for the year.

But I think he's on track. That's going to come along in a couple of years too. So I don't think he's at the peak of his powers at all. And I mean, it's very a weird situation as a Bucs fan. I guess this is what a championship will do for you. But I haven't been concerned all year. I mean, I think the reality is they've been playing a lot of bad players. The biggest single upgrade in the playoffs

is Giannis going from 30 minutes a night to 40 minutes a night. And that applies to Holiday and Middleton as well. And you start cutting out these bad players that are producing bad stretches. And you have Lopez there to help bear the load on defense. I think the team's looking great.

And it pains me. Well, one thing. Two things as to what you said. Number one, the Bucs have already shown you can can give durant 50 a game and still survive so that's number one right but number two uh number two well as as long as i'm on it i've i've had this take for a long time people forget that brooklyn series game five jeff green went eight for nine from three if he doesn't do that that series is over in six and we're not hearing anything about durant's toe or anything else. That was the sort of

missing piece in that series. But number two, it pains me to say this, especially to you, but the Celtics are the team I'm concerned about the most as well. I mean, I think that that's a team that has always matched up well with Milwaukee just because they have so much on the wing. We really have sort of Middleton on the wing, and then Holiday will probably guard one of the main two guys. But that's always been a challenging matchup for the Bucs. Look at us. Look at us eyeing each other.

We're staring at each other across the bar with our fistball ready to go. I mean, to be clear, it's more of a downward glance for me. I'm still feeling pretty good from where we're at. Yeah, you won the title. But no, I think that... I never saw the East being sort of wide open. And again, this is a great segment to come back and throw in my face

in a month or two. But I haven't seen anything really to make me feel like that, you know, that the Bucs aren't in the position I sort of thought they would be coming into the year. I mean, they're not going to go 16-0, but I think they're going to be significantly better than they've been the regular season.

I think they've been better in the regular season than people realize. Well, one thing to know about Ben, for the people listening, you're a homer, but you're not a homer. You're like me. You're very realistic about your own team. I'm not sure if I want the comparison to Bill Simmons, not a homer

status. No, but if I don't sure if I want the comparison to Bill Simmons, not a homer status, but if I don't like my team, I will be like, like I was like that with the Celtics for 50 games. I'm like, these guys, I don't know what's wrong with this team, but I don't think we have any chance. Then things flipped. I've never, other than the Morgan magic Red Sox, I can't remember an in-season turnaround like this team has had. Oh, it's been incredible. But you, you've been realistic over the had. Oh, it's been incredible. But you you've been realistic over the years of like we're missing

this. Giannis isn't doing this yet. I'm worried about this. The big thing I think you would have been worried about this year with the Bucs was just

like, all right, when's Middleton going to look like the Middleton from the playoffs again? Where's that guy? And then that came back. What?

Last two months? Last month? Yeah, I mean, Holiday and Middleton not only had the finals run, which was a month later, but then also went to the Olympics and then had a newborn. And so he had the triple whammy of, I'm not

getting any rest or any sleep. And I definitely think for the first few months of the season, he was making dumb turnovers, not super locked in. But I think, yeah, he's really snapped back into place recently. And the other thing that makes me feel really about the Bucs is there's no question Middleton went to a completely different level last playoffs. I mean, there's no bigger Middleton defender in the world than me. But even I was hard to appreciate just how incredible he was.

I mean, he's overshadowed by Giannis, but he was scoring 40 points in the playoffs. He averaged, you know, like 25, 8 and 7 in the finals or something like that. And he was absolutely incredible. It's like, well, can he do that again? What's underappreciated is that Drew Holiday was not very good for large portions of the playoffs. Like people, like Bucs fans were comparing him to Eric Bledsoe. Like, oh no, we have this other guy who is a great defender, good in the regular season, falls apart

when it matters, particularly against Brooklyn. He was quite rough against Brooklyn. And he's been incredible this year. Absolutely incredible. Like his shooting is the best in his career. Obviously, we saw what he did in the Olympics. I think that actually is why people have this perception of him being much better in the summer than he was, because he was so incredible in the Olympics. I think that actually is why people have this perception of him being much better in the summer than he was because he was so incredible

in Tokyo. But I think that if he comes back this playoffs to a similar level he's playing in this regular season, we can handle a bit of regression from Middleton and then full confidence in Giannis just to do what he does. And if that happens, then I

think things are looking pretty good. Yeah, Drew's a 50-40 guy this year, which is the first time in his career he's 50 and 41% from three. I test same thing. Yeah, and he's hitting high-difficulty shots. Yeah, he's doing these step-back threes on a regular basis that we've never really seen from him, and he's been money all year. So we'll see what happens in the playoffs.

But I think that's an underrated component of why the Bucs could actually be better than they were before. Well, and there's the familiarity too. And I talk about this. I've talked about this a few times, especially with the Philly team. That's a lot of new pieces,

pieces getting thrown together. Brooklyn, same thing, where they just could never seem to have all their guys at once, especially with the Kyrie thing. And Milwaukee, you felt it last year with Drew. And then you got all the reps with him. And then this year, you feel it more.

Going back to Giannis, though, Roussel and I, we were doing this in the pod on Sunday, the down one, 12 seconds left. Which guys do you trust to get you a basket? And I never would have put Giannis even in the discussion for that. And I don't think he's in the top five, but I do think he's probably in the top 10 at this point for,

I trust his instincts. I trust his ability to potentially back down. I think he, as you mentioned earlier, really trusts his 13 to 15 footer now in a real way. Like I feel watching it like it's going in and he can get layups and dunks if it's a smaller matchup, whatever. You have that. You have the middle 10 piece.

He hits his free throws now, especially in the fourth quarter. Giannis has actually been a remarkable fourth quarter player for several years now. I think he leads the NBA in fourth quarter scoring right now. But he sort of has this unfortunate rep. And I think there was the NBA in fourth quarter scoring right now, but he sort of has this unfortunate rep. And I think there was one moment in the playoffs that's really irked me was that go back to that game five Brooklyn game. And he fumbled a pass in the final seconds. And I think Charles Barkley said, yeah, he's afraid of shooting free throws.

And that was such a like, no, he just dropped the pass. Like the guy is fearless. He's not afraid of shooting. Yeah, he's not afraid of having in big moments and he really in his track record I think in the fourth quarter and in clutch moments is much better than people appreciate and yeah is it like a Kobe style

like I'm going to do all this footwork and do a fade away well more than it used to be but no probably not but the pressure he puts on a defense and like if he wants to get to the rim there's just very little that you can do about it. Again, I'm a homer, of course. I'm biased, but I feel very confident in him.

I think eye test-wise, people struggle with the thought of him kind of being unstoppable in fourth quarters because it's not the traditional version of what we think is unstoppable, right? Where a lot of what makes him unstoppable is he can just get to the rim and get fouled. But the 15-footer, I think, has changed it. With Embiid, Embiid has a couple

kind of go-to moves that you recognize as he's doing them. He's got that little one-legged shot. He can pivot into the paint for the jump hook, stuff like that. But I would encourage people to compare Embiid's fourth quarter stats to Giannis' fourth quarter stats. Giannis' fourth quarter stats are better.

And the reason I fear Milwaukee is I keep going to like last five minutes when it slows down, gets tight. How many people do you have who can actually create a shot? And for Boston, the fear with this team is that they really only have the one guy. Whereas Milwaukee has two and a half depending on what's going on with Drew in a game. You know, because he'll have the games

when he doesn't have it. But if he does have it and then you get Middleton back to last year's Middleton, now I'm worrying about three guys and now you can play the matchups, which I think if you play Brooklyn, which could be the 2-7, right?

If you play Brooklyn, there's a lot of matchups to exploit with that. If they have to play Kyrie which could be the 2-7, right? If you play Brooklyn, there's a lot of matchups to exploit with that. If they have to play Kyrie and Seth Curry at the same time, if they have not a lot of size, who defends Giannis on that team? Like, really nobody? One of my favorite games this year was actually Cleveland.

I think it was back in December or something like that when they still had a team. I love that team, by the way. It's a bummer to see how many injuries they've had. But it was kind of a close game. And it was a fun game because it had a real feel for me of when the young Bucks used to play the LeBron Cavs. And it was like

we were all so hyped up to play and we're going to take them down. And then it'd be a close game. And then LeBron would just shut us down at the end, right? And they would win every time. And this happened in the inverse where it was a close game going on and on. They got down to the end. We put Garland in pick and roll with Middleton and Giannis every single time. And Middleton scored over the top of him like four times in a row. And boom, the game's over. We won by 12. And I think that there's the

that's one of the things that the team got out of the playoffs last year. They had this empty side pick and roll with Middleton and Giannis that's basically completely unstoppable. I think what people don't understand about Middleton is he's huge. He's a really big guy. He's a solid 6'7", long arms, and he can just shoot over guys. And so you put them in that side pick and roll, and just having the experience and knowledge of,

okay, it's crunch time, it's time to score, and we can flow naturally into what we want to get has definitely been a big difference. And that's one of the things where having a lot of inexperienced and not so good players on the floor, they don't know how to just flow into that and go to the right spaces. And it's kind of smucked up a little bit. And that's the sort of stuff that just like, it's a long regular season. Your depth is not, the longer you go as a a high level team your depth gets less and less and you're just going to have these sort of rough edges but when the minutes ramp up and you're only playing your best players then all those problems you know sort of go away and you made the key point about the honest

playoff minutes when we get to the actual games that matter, you're adding eight to 10 minutes per game of Giannis. So now all of a sudden his stats are 33, 14, and you know, nine or whatever. Because there's just more of them. He's scoring 30 points in 30 minutes a game right now. Yeah. I mean, the other thing too is, and I have to say this,

given the amount of times I've dumped on him on this pod, is Boonholzer has improved a lot. Like he, he had like a, no, I mean, we saw it last year. I mean, the, in the finals, is Boonholzer has improved a lot. Wow. Tell us. No, I mean, we saw it last year. I mean, in the finals, they made real meaningful adjustments in the finals. Well, number one, he started playing the guys a lot. We figured that out in the Brooklyn series.

He's played them all the time. But then number two, I thought he outcoached Monte Williams in the finals. He made real adjustments, particularly in the defensive side, in the way they pressured the ball hand, where it just wore Paul out, particularly, and then really shut down the corner threes, and then

let Giannis and Lopez control the paint. And I think that that bodes well, that the Bucs are going to be faster to adjust, they're going to be quicker to play their guys big minutes, because Boone Hoser finally did it and it worked. So, you know, it's also weird to be here playing on confidence. But I mean, but if you think about

it, like players develop and get better, coaches can develop and get better too. And we thought with Coach Budd, it might not happen given that he had so much success doing what he did. But I think, you know, last year his job was on the line and the Bucs had had three great years and we choked out for similar reasons the previous years and he changed and it worked. And it gives you confidence

that that will happen again this year. We're going to take a break. During the break, I want you to think about your five guys you trust the most down 3-2 playing in Boston with five minutes left. But we're going to take a break. This episode is brought to you by Movember.

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And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. If I'm going to nitpick with this Bucks team, other than the record, which can be totally explained to the year after stuff

and the Olympics thing, I think you're right. Not just the Olympics right after, but also like going to Tokyo. And I think people don't factor in the physical toll of that. Who's your fifth guy? Who do you trust? Who's out there? If your playoff life depends on it, there's five minutes left in Boston. Boston's up three, two Tatum's got 38 points. Crowds going nuts. Who are your five guys other than Giannis, Drew and Middleton? Obviously, who are the other two? Uh, Lopez and Connaughton would be

my first two choices. I mean, Connaughton also was incredible last year in the playoffs. Just hitting tons of clutch shots, which is a complete shock. I was so down on him when they re-signed him to that contract, and he was such a sort of trick-or-treat player.

But he's been really reliable. Obviously, that's another guy we've been missing over the last sort of six to seven weeks. He just came back this week. And so I think he's the main guy. And then Lopez, too. I think if Lopez comes out and you go small, it's probably going to be Portis.

And that is a little nerve-wracking. I mean, Portis has been incredible. His three-point shooting is amazing, but he's still a bad defender. And one thing that Bud has done is, in this start in last year's playoffs, he stopped playing drop when Portis is in there. Portis is the worst drop center

in the history of the NBA. It's unbelievable how bad he is at it. So when he's in there, they play higher in the pick and roll, and they either switch or pressure the ball handler. But it's still hard to trust him on sort of that end. That's obviously the P.J. Tucker spot. And one of the things as Bucs fans, we have a ready-made blame target if they don't win again, which is there was nothing restricting them from re-signing Tucker except the willingness to pay,

and they didn't. And that's sort of the question is, if you want to go small, who's that fifth guy? As far as other options, I mean, it does start to get a little thin. I mean, I think Grayson Allen has been, he's great on offense, but he definitely can get picked on and will get picked on on defense. George Hill's another option. He's in and out of the lineup. You know, his plus minus is incredible this year, but he's also George Hill and he's like 55

years old. What about my guy Carter who I've liked for four years? He's been a revelation. I mean, it feels like I like the upgrade when Brooklyn dropped him to get Drogic. I think I'd rather have Carter. We played against Utah

a couple weeks ago, and Utah was missing a few guys, so they had to go pretty small. So we played Holiday and Carter together and just wiped their offense out in the fourth quarter. And the Bucs came down and won that game. So I like him a lot, particularly against Brooklyn. Could be a great option if they're going to play Kyrie and Seth Curry, who are both pretty small. We can

play Holiday and Carter on them, and then we can come back and just run that middle to Giannis pick and roll. It's going to be pretty tough for them to handle. So Carter, this is his fourth year in the league. He's in Memphis year one, goes to Phoenix, bubble season. Then Chris Paul obviously shows up because they don't need him anymore. Gets traded to Brooklyn. He's behind all those guys. He's never really had a chance. He's, for his career,

is a 38% three-point shooter. For the Bucs, 11 games, 55%. I like him, though. I've always, I was always kind of, I was kind of hoping the Celtics would get him, actually,

because it just seemed like he was out there. But I think if you're talking about, if you're gonna make a list of like, who are the most fucking random guys in the planet who are actually going to be involved in a playoff series this year, I think he's at the top of my list. I think he's going to pay for you. I think he's going to be out there in crunch time, as you said, against the nets against teams that are a little smaller and people are going to be going, wait a second, is Carter playing crunch time for them? But I do think

it's a play. And you mentioned Portis. Portis is averaging 15-9 this year. Yeah, and look at his percentages. He's basically a bench guy. I know. He has started most... It's funny because he has started... Because the Bucs at the beginning of the year were all ready to mount

a six-man-of- of the year campaign for him. But because Lopez got hurt, he's ended up starting to, to, too much to, to qualify. But it's one of those things too, where,

you know, the problem with a guy being out is not necessarily the lineups that he plays in. It's like the knockdown effect down, down the line. So Portis comes in and that's pretty good. But when, when Portis and Giannis are sitting,

we have Boogie Cousins, we have our second-round pick playing. Now we have Serge Ibaka, who's a little bit washed, I think, is a fair way to put it. But now you have Lopez back in. It looks like he's probably going to start in the next game or two, maybe tonight. And then Portis coming in

off the bench, now that just changes the dynamic of your bench units. You have much more scoring. He is the kind of guy who has a really nice back-to-the-basket game. You can toss it into him. They'll shoot a 15-foot turnaround. It just balances stuff out

really nicely. The Lopez thing really can't be overstated. The last time I was on here was during Game 2 of the Finals and was giving a passionate defense of Lopez because everyone was killing him for the first two games. I think we were right that the problem was the guard pressure, which Boone Holzer

adjusted to, and he was great the last four games. The Bucs obviously came back to win, but I've never appreciated him, but he was so reliable. He played every game. When he was suddenly gone, it's like, oh my god, he was actually so much better and so much more

important to this team than we realized. It actually makes me nervous about, like, his next contract or him getting older, because it's like, he's actually much more irreplaceable than we realized. Particularly against, you know, conferences in Bede or something, he's such a big guy. Like, he's always played in Bede quite well, and so it's great to have him back.

That's a huge development. If he hadn't come back, I'd still feel decent about our chances, but it definitely completely changes having him back. Yeah, that's why I said Porter is a bench guy. I know he started all year, but in the playoffs, he's a bench guy. But he should be a bench guy.

Yeah, yeah. And you have a bench guy who's basically 15-9 off the bench for four playoff rounds. Pretty nice. You also have the Grayson Allen piece. He's already brutally injured. Alex Caruso. Just brutal. People go nuts about it.

Oh, come on. But he is going to be a really fun playoff guy. And, you know, he's for you guys, he's 6.23s a game. He's making 40% of them. He's going to be out there scoring 11 a game. Like he will be one of your seven or eight guys.

And he's going to do something in the playoffs that becomes a three-day first take story. It's just who he is. It's going to be terrible. But he's a great playoff villain. You guys were like too nice last year. Now you have like a great playoff villain. You guys were like too nice last year. Now you have like a real playoff villain. I'm excited for that. You'll be defending him.

You'll be defending him on text threads to your friends. No, no, no. Grayson's a good guy at heart. Yeah, this may be my last appearance on the podcast if that event happens during a Milwaukee-Boston series. So we'll see how it goes. Oh, I'm going to be so mad. If he hurts Tatum or whatever.

Let's talk. I want to talk MVP really quick because as I said, Giannis was 10 to 1, which I don't understand. Giannis is second in points per game. He's fifth in rebounds per game.

He's shooting 55% field goal, which is 10. 11.6 free throw attempts, which is second. And they're honest free throw attempts for the record. 31.1 PR, which is second. And they're honest free throw attempts for the record. 31.1

PER, which is third. Wind shares, he's second. Usage, he's third. Embiid is first. Wind shares per 48, he's second. Embiid's fifth. His vorps higher. All the advanced stats. If you're looking at what's their record when he

plays, he's 39-20. Embiid is 39 and 19 when he plays. Jokic is 40 and 25. Going down the line, the Giannis Embiid stats are either even or there's a slight edge to Giannis. There's a little bit of an eye test thing with Embiid because he's had some big games on national TV. I also think he has a bigger fan base and more people in the media, not to sound like conspiracy bill, including some people at the Sixers. fan base and more people in the media, not to sound like conspiracy bill, including some people at the Sixers.

So there's more people kind of advocating for him. But to me, it's like, I would say a hair edge to Giannis with about 12 games left.

But I still think Jokic is the MVP. I would say that would be my vote right now. Now, if they fall into the playing game, I'd have to reevaluate

because I don't know if I could do an MVP who's in the playing game. But the Jokic stuff, right now, Denver's 40-25 when he plays. He's ninth in points per game, second in rebounds per game, and seventh in assists, which is fucking nuts.

He's top 10 in all three categories. You go through every advanced metric. He's first in PR. He's first in win shares. He's first in win advanced metric. He's first in PR. He's first in win shares. He's first in win shares 48. He's first in VORP. His true shooting 65.28. You pick an advanced in the offensive rating,

defensive rating stuff. His defense, the rating stuff is surprisingly good with him. Obviously, he's not Giannis. He's not as threatening as Embiid. But he's a really good defender this year. So he's a slight edge. Make the case for Giannis for me why I should change my mind.

Well, I think this comes down to how you define MVP. If it's like the best advanced stats, then it's clearly Jokic. If this guy wasn't here, how truly horrific would this team be? Also Jokic. If it's the best player on the best team or the best player in the league, then I think it's Giannis. And I think that's sort of the... One thing I think is underappreciated

this year is it's traditionally been the case that the Western Conference top to bottom is much better than the East. This year, there's a lot of bad teams in the Western Conference. So I think that's why you have a situation where Denver's record is actually not that far behind both Philly and Milwaukee, even though they're relatively low in the standings. But that's because there's like seven good teams in the Western Conference, so they all fatten up

on these terrible teams. And whereas the East, you know, the depth is better, which is you know, it hasn't been the case for like 20 years. And so I think the record thing is I feel bad holding it against him on one hand, if he's in the playing game, if the record's so similar. On the other hand, it's like, well,

your record is fattened up a bit. I think he was going to say something about Miami, by the way, the Southeastern Conference, or Southeastern Division, not good. But I think it just comes down to your definition. I mean, I agree with you. It's hard to give the MVP to a guy who finished in sixth or seventh in his conference. That's really the biggest thing.

Yeah, the play-in game is kind of a deal-breaker for me. Well, and the other thing, too, is if you look back... You'd have to be way better than everybody else for me to vote for you if you're a play-in team. Yeah, and this is always a dicey argument because who knows how the future is going to play out. But are we going to look

back at Giannis and think he didn't win enough MVPs? And that's a weird thing to say given he's 27, he's already won two. But we're looking at, I mean, my first appearance on this podcast, I think like years ago, I told you like he has goat potential

and you almost fell off your chair. I think that's exactly what you're seeing. I mean, there was a good article in The Ringer a couple of days ago about LeBron's passing Malone and who could potentially pass LeBron one day. The only guy really that has a chance is Giannis. Because KD kept getting hurt, I think.

I think KD was in the mix, but he missed too many games. Yeah, KD was in the mix, but missing two years is just way too much. And this is a guy that, again, he's better this year. He's better than he was last year. Looking back, especially when you consider the playoffs, which obviously aren't part of MVP, but the playoffs established pretty clearly that he was MVP caliber. I mean, his back-to-back MVPs look very good in hindsight, looking a little shaky after they got knocked out. And so I think there's a sort of a broad historical argument that we're watching the best player of this era in his prime, putting up stats that are MVP level for a team that is probably

still the favorite or one of the favorites to win the title. And that seems like a pretty solid reason that he should be MVP. I'm not going to feel bad if Jokic wins. I love Jokic. He's amazing to watch. Again, I think just sheer value compared to the baseline of a team. He has it sort of wrapped up, but I'm certainly going to be pleased and not feel any reason to make defenses if Giannis wins it. Interesting about Giannis with the points. So he's at 14,000. He's age 27. LeBron,

after his age 27 season, was already at 19,000 points. So Giannis would, I mean, I think LeBron's going to be really tough to catch. I personally don't think they're... Oh yeah, no, I think Louis Ringer put the chances at like 20%

or might have been 12%. Basically, he's the only guy that was in a realistic realm of possibility. I don't think it will happen either. I mean, LeBron is also very thirsty to get that title. Well, that's the other thing. I'm not sure if... Yeah, he's... I don't want to say he's padding,

but he's playing really well on a bad team and putting up big points. The problem... I don't think there's a guy in the league who has a chance at whatever total LeBron's going to end up with. Giannis is probably the best bet, but that's a long, long shot. He would have

to, because the other problem with Giannis is he's not putting, like LeBron had all these seasons where he was playing 37, 38 minutes a game. I think he had one season where he played like 40 minutes a game and he was at 30 points a game, but with like real minutes, dude. Playing 75, 80 games.

Milwaukee's always been really careful about Giannis and not putting those miles on him, you know? Yep, but he's still averaging 30 a game, so. Yeah, seriously. Well, the records, Milwaukee and Philly are both 44 and 27. Denver's 42-30. I hate we've turned into this basketball society

where we try to figure out all this stuff with 12 games to go. I think this is one of those seasons where I really want to see where everybody lands. I also want to see who ducks Brooklyn in the seventh seed because we saw Philly last night, and that was sixth game in 9 nights. I get why they would rest and beat.

I don't totally get why they would rest Harden. Harden has now ducked Miami twice on the Sixers. But it does seem like Philly's too anxious to get the 2 seed. Do you think Milwaukee, my feeling on them, and I said this to Rosillo on Sunday, I don't think they give a shit.

If they have to play Brooklyn round one, I think they would bring it on. You don't see any ducking potential with them, do Sunday, I don't think they give a shit. If they have to play Brooklyn round one, I think they would bring it on. You don't see any ducking potential with them, do you? I don't think so. I mean, this happened last year where the last game of the season, the Bucs could have tossed the game and avoided Miami in the first round,

which obviously, you know, had the demons of the previous year sort of hanging over them. And they put it to the locker room, like, do you want to do? And they're like, no, like, we want to win this they're like no like we want to win this game and if we play miami so be it and they won the game and then they swept miami in

honestly pretty humiliating fashion i think people like brin forbes outscored jimmy butler in that series to sort of put it in context and we actually talked over the first game where middleton hit that game-winning shot and they got the monkey off their back, and then it was over. And I think they probably feel pretty similar about Brooklyn, which is, I think there's probably some aspect, I mean, no, I don't know about the team. Speaking personally, there's some aspect where I wouldn't mind facing Brooklyn just to sort of shut up everyone talking about Katie's toe.

And so I'm open to whoever. Obviously, you would always like sort of an easier path, but there's something... I mean, the Bucs path last year was not exactly easy at all. And it made it all the more gratifying to sort of win it. And hey, bring them on, bring them on. I'm feeling good. These might be famous last words.

I'm going to be shoved in my face, but I'm feeling pretty good. On FanDuel, Brooklyn is somehow the favorite to win the East at plus 280. They're a seven or an eight seed right now. Milwaukee's plus 290. Philly's plus 350. Miami, who's still in the one seed,

is plus 480. And the Celtics, who have been the best team in the conference for two and a half months now, they're plus 650. I don't remember. I personally think it's a big four and then I have Philly kind of on the outside looking in because I don't trust

Embiid and Harden to stay healthy for three straight playoff rounds. I don't trust their bench. I don't trust new teams. I feel like Philly is so high variance because what they do have is they have a matchup nightmarish in Embiid, like who almost no one can really, it's a similar to the Giannis idea. Like no one has anyone that can really handle Giannis.

And when it comes down to a playoff series, it's possible that you just have that one guy that just is the difference in the series. And Philadelphia has that potential more than just about any team other than Milwaukee. So I think they definitely have a chance. At the same time, Embiid has never shown he can hold up. He's never shown he can handle the stamina

of playing more minutes in the playoffs. He always falls apart in the fourth quarters and he gets injured. And meanwhile, you know, well, we have Harden drive to the rescue. Harden of all his, you know, great playoff successes in the past. So I think there's, I could see them going to the finals. It wouldn't shock me.

I really like Embiid. I would like to see him succeed. But at the same time, they could lose in the first round too. And it wouldn't be a surprise. It's hard to imagine a greater high variance team than this particular 76ers team. They could really go either direction. I would actually be shocked if they made the finals. I don't think they have enough.

I don't trust the heart and pedigree. I don't, you know, Doc is the coach. Embiid, as you mentioned. Yeah, the Doc bit does not help. Embiid having to play 40 minutes a game, basically for three straight rounds to get them there and then how good the rest of the teams are. You know, to me, it's like,

Milwaukee's still a team to beat. KD and Kyrie in any series, I'm just worried, even though I think Milwaukee and Boston have the right teams to beat them. And then Miami is the wild card. Butler hasn't been playing well lately. They really rely on Tyler Harrow.

It's a team that they can kind of coast with that one seed if they want. But like last night, they could have ended it and then rested a lot of their guys. And they somehow lose to Maxie and those dudes. Yeah, I mean, they're also very high variance just because they rely on their three-point shooting so much. Which I like going against in the playoffs if you're going to be relying on it like that. Yeah, because I think we saw this really last year with the Suns series, and

I actually felt that way coming out of the first Bucs-Suns game where the Suns blew it open in the second half. I actually came out of that feeling pretty good. And the reason is because you could see the core advantages that Milwaukee had relative to Phoenix were still there. And what happened in the finals was Phoenix is like this finely tuned machine. And that machine will chop you up in the first couple games of a series, but it's a seven game series. And if you're bigger and more physical and you are just beating on them game after game after game, suddenly that fine tuned machine starts to develop a couple problems and stuff doesn't work so smoothly together. And this is the thing about the Bucs that I think is they're never a team that's going

to do like a 16-0 run like those Warriors teams or the Lakers back 20 years ago, but they will grind you down. And the physicality is just, you get to game five, game six, and here comes Giannis at the basket again. You're like, my God, please stop. Like, I just, I can't handle this anymore. And holidays, similar holidays, just mauling guys up and down the floor. And that's a really tough thing in a seven game series.

Well, it's Boston has a similar thing, right? They can win if they don't shoot well from three. Yeah. They can win with defense and athleticism and they can still pull out games. And the thing with Wings is, I mean, this is a big thing for, a big opportunity for Tatum for sure

to show can he really just be that guy. I mean, I think the, I always knew intellectually how much different the regular season and the playoffs had become, you know, watching other teams. But then watching the Bucs the last few years where they had these dominant regular seasons that would flame out and the playoffs had become, you know, watching other teams, but then watching the Bucs the last few years where they had these dominant regular seasons

that would flame out in the playoffs and seeing how they had to adjust to win last year. I mean, you feel viscerally like it's just, it's so much different and you need a guy like a Tatum. And I can understand now why people are so high on him. I mean, just, yeah, you say you only have one guy who can go create a shot at the end of the game. You also have a guy that can go and create a shot at the end of the game. And it's surprising how many teams that seem like great teams don't

actually have that. And so this idea of just grinding them down on defense and just having a guy that puts you on his shoulders, I think it's a good formula. You know, like I said, I hate to you up, but I think it looks pretty good. The fear is what Dallas showed where they just trapped Tatum 35 feet from the basket. It made us play four and three, and I just think teams are going to die in the playoffs.

All right, we're going to take one more break, and then I want to talk about the metaverse with you. What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to powers your scale with no preset spending limit. More cash on hand to grow your business with up to 55 interest-free days. And the ability to reach further with access to over 1,400 airport lounges worldwide. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express.

Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. All right, so this was a tech development since the last time you came on, the Metaverse. There have been rumblings. I know they were working on it, but they really,

Facebook, now Meta, has really unleashed this whole thing. They're spending billions of dollars. There's a huge engineer fight right now in Silicon Valley. My gut take is, I just don't see it and I don't get it.

And I know everybody's like, no, no, this is going to be the next big thing. It's like, is it? You know, we've been here a few times and we've talked about some examples

over the years, like 3D TVs. They're going to change how we watch TV. Didn't really happen. Like there's been these moments when people are telling us things are going to change and then they just don't really change. Now, streaming is an example of the other way, right?

Where it's like, hey, streaming's coming. It's going to change the way you watch TV. It's like, all right, is it? Then it did. So the metaverse, this is the biggest bet I feel like anybody has made on the them telling us this is going to change how we do stuff. Where do you stand as we're about a year in here? I have a fairly, I think, boring take, which is I think this idea that the metaverse is something distinct and different from the internet doesn't make any sense to me. To me, the internet is the metaverse.

And if you think about how communication has evolved, we're sitting here on this podcast talking to each other. When we did podcasts, I think even when I was on your show, we had no video. We would just do it over audio and even you go way back you probably to be in the same room like you know there's years of using skype or whatever it was way back it was two years ago yeah and so well i remember because i think the first time i was on your podcast is because i was in la you're like hey finally we can do a podcast because you're in the same city as me like and so that was um and so you well you start out like say communication like it's like text, right?

Text was the first thing on the internet. Then there's more images. And suddenly they have Instagram come along and people are communicating that way. Then it's video and TikTok is video and things along those lines. And you see just this progression in immersion and reality as technology makes that possible. And in that sense, will we at some point get to a world of 3D? Sure. Will we get to a world of virtual reality? Sure. But it's going to be part of the same path that we're on. I mean, look at games. Games started out when we were kids. You would play

text-based games, right? They'd ask you questions like, do you want to do whatever? You type in your answer. Then you had like 2D, like sprites and stuff like that, then 3D. And now you have games that are incredibly immersive and realistic. And games have always been sort of onates the reality, which is we have this medium, which has been truly revolutionary and transformational, where we're all connected all the time. You know, now lately there's all these like private chat groups and stuff like that. You have your own little communities that you're interacting with all the time. And sometimes those communities, maybe you'll put on a headset and be virtual. I think the virtual experience is actually really good, particularly for meetings, because you do feel like you're in the same room as other people. It's hard to describe you haven't Facebook to talk about it in that way. But I think it's just a natural evolution where we don't replace stuff. We just add on top.

And we still have text on the internet. I write text. That's sort of my job. Just because pictures and video came along doesn't make that go away. And I think it's the same thing for VR and all that sort of stuff. So on one hand, I agree with you. I think it's overstated. On the other hand, I disagree in that, of course, we're going to get more immersive. Everything is getting more immersive over time. And it's just going to feel, it's going to be like the boiling frog, as it were. And suddenly we're going to be, oh, I guess this is what they were talking about. The newsletter boom. You were either George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, or I'm not sure which of the founding fathers you were either George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, or I'm not sure which of the founding fathers you were of the newsletter boom.

Now there's a million newsletters everywhere. And this has become a real media entity for lack of a better word. A lot of people have been able to do this and live on it. We had Ethan Sherwood Strauss on here a couple weeks ago who left The Athletic to do a newsletter. You're in the forefront of this. Do you think this is changing media or do you think this is just a bunch of writers who are now able to monetize what they're doing in a safer way?

What's your take in 2022 at how this is going? Yeah, I think it's probably more additive. When something new comes along, everyone wants to pretend like the old thing's dead. And last time I checked, the New York Times is stronger than ever. There has certainly been a consolidation and strengthening of these large entities on one hand and this sort of opportunities for individuals on the other. But that's what you see on the internet again and again and again. You either bulk up and get super big and dominant, or you sort of like completely cut your costs to zero and have this opportunity by finding your own little niche audience. And so this is just a manifestation that you see in sort of all sorts of areas. I think it's a great thing because there's so many opportunities and so many things to write about that would have never been possible in the old publishing era where you're constrained by geography. You have to actually print the papers and put them on delivery truck and deliver them. Now, when your audience is the entire world, if you need to just find a thousand people, well, you're not trying to find a thousand people in Boston.

You're trying to find a thousand people literally out of seven billion, right? And you have things like social media and stuff like it's the most amazing thing for this because people want to share it. Social media isn't helpful to the writer so they can post on social media. I think people make this mistake a lot. They give away their best content on Twitter. It's like, why would you do that? The reason it's great is if you spread via word of mouth, all your readers now have microphones so their word of mouth gets spread via word of mouth, all your readers now have microphones. So their word of mouth gets spread via Twitter or Facebook, whatever it might be. And so I think that it's a additive thing that does give these new opportunities,

but that doesn't mean the other stuff sort of going away. And I'm super excited to see where this goes. I think that the podcast space is going to be really interesting. Obviously, there's advertising and Spotify is making a big play here to sort of do what I call aggregate, like where they're the centralized player

and they can build, you know, a distributed ad system across this, sort of like Facebook. But then also, if this falls through, there's also going to be the niche opportunity where if you have, you know, some small number of fans, you're not going to make a living through advertising, just like you're not going to make a living through advertising,

just like you're not going to make a living putting ads on a blog these days, but you can charge people directly and you can make way more revenue per user. So that's something I'm super interested in exploring, sort of figuring out for podcasts what happens with newsletters. But I think it's all additive.

I think it's a good thing. It's good to have different places to go. I think it's good to have opportunities It's good to have different places to go. I think, you know, it's good to have opportunities where sort of people can't just decide what everyone gets to say or do or say. Like you can just go somewhere else and no one's forcing you to read a newsletter. No one's forcing you to read a sub stack.

No one's forcing you to listen to a podcast. It's okay. Like we're adults. We can figure it out. And I'm optimistic. I mean, I'm even more biased about this than about the books, but And I'm optimistic. I mean, I'm even more biased about this than about the Bucs, but I'm definitely optimistic. I think back to like 1995, 96 range.

All I want is to write a sports column. I just want a chance anywhere, right? And I'm living in Boston and we have two newspapers, the Herald and the Globe. We have the weekly, the Boston Phoenix. We have the monthly magazine, Boston Magazine. That's it. I have those four options. There's no internet yet. The internet doesn't really round into shape in a way that I could have written for it until the spring of 97, which is when I started my column. And that was it. Now I look at, there's so many different opportunities for so many different kinds of voices that I think because of the disinformation piece of this and because of some of the voices that have emerged, people, I think, sometimes lose sight of what a cool time this is. That if you have something to say and

you're good at it and you have real talent, you have a chance to be found. And I just don't think that was the case 25 years ago. I think it is now. Well, I already kissed up to you about the Celtics, but this is absolutely the case for this. Like I look at you as, I mean, I wasn't the first one to really do this newsletter thing sort of at scale. And they're like newsletters on Wall Street that cost like a whole ton of money.

They would literally mail them out. But to sort of do this sort of at scale, but I look back to you and going back to AOL, I think you started just sending emails, right? You're just sending emails to your buddies. And this idea that you don't have to slot into the spots available in the local newspaper. You can create an entire new way of looking at things and be the voice of a fan. Like, I'm not going to be objective. I'm going to embrace sort of the subjectivity and defining this new opportunity. And then you go to page two and you

can just write anything that you want to. And your success is not determined based by what your bosses say. Your success is determined based by how many readers you get, which means if you do something new and different, your boss may hate it. But just look at the page views and you're sort of dominating. It's the same thing with subscriptions. I mean, one of the downsides of page views is you kind of got corrupted, right? Because you have to drive for page views, get advertisers, you get all the, you know, the clickbait and all those sorts of things or like serving people's worst instincts.

When it comes to charging for stuff, people aren't going to pay for clickbait. They're not going to pay for stuff that's just purely inflammatory. Like you're actually asking them to do dollars and cents. And I think it's really valuable, particularly when it comes to like Twitter, where so many people in media write for other people in media because people in media spend all day on Twitter. And then you end up with sort of everyone evolving into the exact same point of view so that all their friends on Twitter will say that's a great column and they're worried about going elsewhere. When you have a completely different feedback mechanism, which is money in your bank account, it completely changes that because that's all the silent majority. Like, there's so many, and I learned this lesson very early on. I would get feedback on Twitter.

I'm like, after a little bit, I'm like, it's always the same people, right? And I look at my subscriber numbers versus this very small number of people that respond to everything on Twitter, and they're very different numbers. So I need to not over-index on these folks because I have a larger base that subscribe for a reason. And I think that's a good thing. That's a healthy thing. Yeah, the disinformation piece of it, which has been, I think, another outcome this decade,

even though it goes back to last decade and really the last few decades. I don't really know with the way the internet works and the way basically everything works and how accessible everything is, I don't know how we police that. I think it's probably the most negative outcome of all of this. It's just the reality of it. And I look forward to what are the next 10 years going to be like. I guess I would trust in humans' capacity to just get better at discerning what to believe and what not to believe. Almost not much different than anything else, right? Your brain just adds the ability to kind of see through bullshit. And hopefully that's where we're headed.

But then you see this stuff happen in Ukraine and the way the Russians have used disinformation there. And it's just like, fuck, what are we going to do? Well, I think the reality is when the cost of producing information on the internet is zero, like literally you can just go to Facebook or go wherever and type stuff and it appears. And it didn't cost you anything, didn't cost Facebook anything. And when that happens, you're going to get an infinite amount of content. And of course, producing fake stuff or misinformation is cheaper because you don't have to go to the trouble of verifying it and figuring if it's right. You can say anything that you want to. And that applies to malicious actors as well that want to sort of plant this sort of stuff. It's countered by the fact that, as we discussed, you also get way more good content and valuable content that would have never existed otherwise.

And you also get the opportunity to sort of build up a reputation and a track record. And this is accessible by sort of anyone, anywhere. And it's a very different world than the old world where there was three TV stations and everyone took their cue from New York Times. And there was a certain like information gatekeepers. And they weren't always completely true either. I mean, go back to, like, the Iraq War and weapons of mass destruction to have a great example of misinformation propagated by the same people who are worrying about misinformation now. But in that case, there was no real counter. I mean, the blogosphere was just getting started.

Like, where is the alternative coming from? Now we have information about literally everything with literally every point of view, and it doesn't matter if it's right or wrong, right? Because everyone can publish. And there's an aspect where, yes, you have to learn to navigate this, but also it's not inherently worse than what was

before, because there's way more alternatives. And I think your hope, I share the same hope. And you look at like surveys or like research, the real problem with this misinformation is generally old people where they grew up in a world where there was a Oracle type voice that was the mass media or whatever it might be. And they're used to just trusting what they read. Whereas young people, they don't believe anything on the internet.

They think it's like, they just assume it's all BS until you sort of make your case and prove it. And so I think we're in a really difficult time period right now, you know, but as this younger generation that grew up on the internet, that grew up, you know,

they weren't, don't post stuff on Facebook or come back to haunt you. All these lessons that come on the internet, that grew up, you know, they weren't, don't post stuff on Facebook or come back to haunt you. Like all these lessons that come up the internet, I think we'll be in a much better place. I mean, you and I are the age where we can remember pre-internet and then we went through the shift and now we're post-internet. These young people today, it's just been the internet all along. And I think that skepticism, that healthy skepticism is going to be a thing. And it's and I hope so, because that's the only way this idea that we're going to centrally limit and control stuff.

It just like it's just like sand through your fingers. It's not going to work. It's going to actually further reduce trust because people are like, oh, you're just making these decisions for political reasons. And I'm actually going to listen to this other guy because he's being censored. And the thing with cranks is cranks are wrong like 98% of the time, right? And so you want to get that 2% that's good without sort of enhancing that other bit. I'm not sure this sort of idea to cut everyone off works.'s not going to work and i think it actually has has bad counter effects but i do think we'll get through this i think we'll i think we'll make it through it's going to be a tough few years i think honestly i think it's already better in many

respects people you know people know i mean you know i don't know if we can talk about this on your spotify podcast but like the the joean thing, no one who listens to Joe Rogan thinks he's like an oracle of health information, right? He's a fun interviewer that's interesting. And this idea that in December 2021, someone was on the fence about vaccines and somebody decided to change their mind because they heard something about Joe Rogan is ridiculous.

The information's out there. It's overwhelming the amount of information that talks about this in the positive sense. And we got to, like, you can't make people do stuff. And so I think we'll be okay. It's going to be hairy to get there, but yeah. That's my take. We're getting disinformation from every part of the world

and even the quote unquote people who were trying to help us. I know. We go back like, I was wearing a mask for a year. Yeah. I was on the highway yesterday. I saw somebody in their car by themselves

with the mask on. And I'm like, what are we doing? I've been saying this on the pod for a while. Yeah. Look, the disinformation thing, it goes back to the 60s

when JFK got murdered and they covered it up and all the shit that happened with that. It goes to Watergate. It goes to Vietnam. Just go back and watch the movies from the 70s. They're all about real distrust of government and authority and people feeling betrayed.

And, you know, this isn't a new thing. I think we're going to navigate. I believe in humans' capacity to learn and grow. Ben Thompson, we can subscribe to the Stratechery newsletter, whatever you want to call it. Stratechery, yeah, Stratechery. You just

search for Ben Thompson. We make jokes about naming all the time. Word of mouth blog where people can't pronounce the name is not great, but hey, it works. I'm sure I will see you again during the playoffs.

I feel like, I feel like there's going to be a moment where we kind of eye each other and we're like, oh shit, our teams are about

to play each other and this could determine a finals trip. Good luck regardless. Well, thank you. Same to you. Well,

I'd say, okay, fine, same to you. I'll give it to you. Sean Fantasy is here he hosts the big picture movie podcast

for us what's your title at the ringer head of content that seems important and you're on the rewatchables every once in a while

the rewatchables is really about to heat up. We have some amazing stuff coming. I'd love to know. What's coming up, Bill? A whole bunch of them. Please tell me one title.

Let's talk about the Oscars. Okay. I was telling you for three weeks that Coda was going to win the Oscar for Best Picture. Yes, you are. Everyone laughed at me. What was it?

Like 20 to 1 at some point? At one point? I don't remember what the exact number was, but it was, yeah, it was a reach. Got to like, I don't know, 12 to 1, 10 to 1. Wins the PGA. What were the awards that it won recently?

Rattle it off. So the big turning point, I think, was it winning Best Ensemble at the SAG Awards. That was when it... And I think you and I spoke before the SAG Awards and then it won ensemble and it felt like it started creeping at that moment. And then, of course, the PGA's, it's a big indicator.

That's the Producers Guild of America and that guild has predicted seven of the last ten Academy Award winners for Best Picture. So you're starting to see the odds get closer and closer to even between The Power of the Dog and Coda right now. Well, either way, it's going to make history

because if it does win, it only has three nominations total, which I think would at least tie the record for a movie that won Best Picture but only had three nominations total. It would be the fewest nominations for Best Picture winner since 1932's Grand Hotel, which I know is a big favorite of yours. And that movie

actually only had one nomination, and it was for Best Picture in 01. On the other side, 10 movies have won the SAG and the PGA. Only two lost the Oscar. The two that lost were Little Miss Sunshine, which lost to The Departed,

and then Apollo 13, which lost to Braveheart. The two that lost were Little Miss Sunshine, which lost to The Departed, and then Apollo 13, which lost to Braveheart. The other eight won. Now, I would argue that that Little Miss Sunshine and The Departed comparison is very apt here because you have a feel-good family story in Little Miss Sunshine that came out of Sundance, just like Coda, and you had The Departed, which was a coronation for a longtime master who was overdue for their award. Jane Campion, widely considered one of the masters of the last 30 years as a filmmaker,

has won an Oscar for Best Screenplay but has never won Best Director and has never had a film win Best Picture. So, you know, it's interesting this tends to happen. Also, the big difference there is CODA makes people feel really happy, feel really good. And so people tend to vote with their heart with the Academy Awards.

And in this slew of titles in particular, the heart titles seem to be doing pretty well. So it'll be interesting to see how it shakes out. What if CODA is just a fucking awesome movie that everybody who watches it loves? What's wrong with that? Why can't that win the Oscar? People I've heard the take glorified lifetime movie.

Yes. It's like, it can't win because it's just this happy feel good movie. And these movies aren't supposed to win the Oscar. It's supposed to be two hour Westerns from a hundred years ago where you're in a coma half the time watching it. That's what's supposed to win the Oscar. Power of the nap.

I don't think either of those things are exactly accurate. I think that there's something tricky here, right? What is the award supposed to do? Is it supposed to be a snapshot of movies that people love? Is it supposed to be a recognition of greatness in terms of achievement of all of the departments and fields and all the challenging things that come together to make a movie very special? Is it just supposed to be a time capsule? Is it supposed to be a hall of fame? There's no clear definition really in terms of what the movie is supposed to be that wins. I do think, I feel pretty strongly that if Coda wins wins a movie that I really like and that I turned

out to love after my daughter was born, I've talked about this a whole bunch. I think if you have a kid, you see this movie, it's pretty hard not to connect to it and feel really good about it. But when we do the rewatchables in 2029, and we're looking at a movie from 2021, and we're looking at the Academy Awards, and we're like, so Best Picture CODA. Huh. How did that happen? Why did that happen? Was this really the best movie of the year? Was it one of the 10 best movies of the year? Is it

really like a great film? It's a good movie. I like it. I don't know that even when you... I'll give you a better example. Forget about The Power of the Dog Binary. Dune is probably going to win six or seven Academy Awards on Sunday night. It's going to win virtually every below-the-line award that it's

nominated for, which means most of the people who worked on Dune are at the absolute top of their game. And yet, for some reason, Denis Villeneuve is not nominated for Best Director, and the film has never really been a significant contender in the Best Picture race. I haven't really heard a good explanation for why that is. A lot of

people also love Dune in the same way that they love Coda. The Dune fans, fans of that book, are very hard to please. And most of them were really pleased by this movie. And yet, for whatever reason, the Academy Awards rarely rallies around movies like this, too. So, I do think that in

the future, we're going to look back and we're going to be like, wow, Dune didn't win. That's kind of weird that it was not only did it not win but it was never even under consideration and what I think that represents is the award season is long it's really really long this year it's longer than ever because of the Winter Olympics and a number of other things

and so the narratives like evolve over time I was told recently by an academy voter that there's a strong chance that if there were only five nominees this year, that CODA wouldn't even be nominated. And now, because it's had the opportunity to grow momentum over the last two months, it might win.

So that's just a representation. CODA debuted January of 2021 at Sundance. This movie's been around for 14, 15 months already, and it's had the opportunity to build slowly. And now folks like you and a lot of other voters are catching up to it and falling in love with it. So all of it is so unpredictable. Well, and then on top of it, so more nominees in the category, way more voters.

And then you do that. What do you do? You vote for the top three. What do they vote for? One, two, three? Or do they actually rank all of them one through 10? It's all 10 ranked Ranked choice voting. It's a preferential ballot. And the reason that the PGAs are so significant is because that's the only other award show, the only other awards that uses ranked choice voting. So all of the producers and the

PGAs did the same thing that the Academy voters are going to do. And the case obviously has been made. I think that helps Coda, doesn't it though? Yes. I think that's the point that Matt had made too. And many people have made this, that Coda, if it's not number one on a lot of ballots, it's going to be two, three or four on a lot of ballots. And that's going to help push it up.

And you made the power of the nap joke. But there are a lot of people who don't think the power of the dog is very interesting. They think it's boring. And so are there enough people that have it slotted down in 7, 8, 9, 10 to then force Coda up to the top? It's very, very possible. Let's just get this on the record. You didn't like The Power of the Dog.

Well, I said to you, and who was the person who made the small screen, big screen thing? I thought that was an important point. You sent me some tweet. It was Ann Thompson. It was the longtime awards cover. Yeah, Ann Thompson made this one,

which I think was a good one. It's almost like there's two Oscars now. There's the small screen Oscar and the big screen Oscar. If I had seen Power of the Dog in the theater and I'm trapped with it and I'm on a 50 foot screen with it and I'm outdoors and it's a Western and Cumberbatch is even, I thought he was really good in that movie. And that's, if you're going to make the case for that movie to win, it's, it probably starts with him.

Um, but small screen Coda watching, like I was telling everybody in my life to watch it cause probably starts with him. But small screen, Coda, watching. I was telling everybody in my life to watch it because I really loved it. My dad, who didn't even have Apple TV Plus, I'm like, just get it. I'll send you $100 in the mail. Just get Apple. So he finally gets it. Then he calls me after with my stepmom. They're like, we loved it. It was so good. And I think that matters. I don't think it's going to end up being like Shawshank, but sometimes movies come out that everybody's just like, that was fucking awesome.

I'm in a good mood. I'm so glad I saw that movie. That should matter for the Oscars. One of the aspects of this story that is so interesting to me is, the movie is only available on Apple TV Plus now. And not a lot of people have Apple TV Plus subscriptions. Certainly people who were listening to the Prestige TV podcast about the morning show, I'm sure they're tapped in. But there's not a ton of people who really even understand that Apple TV has its own service.

And so how many people have actually seen this movie in the public at large? How many voters in the Academy have actually seen this movie? I think now they've probably come around to it because they've run such a brilliant campaign for this movie, but it's still relatively small. It actually feels more like a 90s indie to me, a Sundance Darling, than it does like a movie that is owned and

operated by the biggest tech company on Earth. I mean, Apple is not an underdog. Coda is not really an underdog. They have a lot of power and cash at their disposal to help promote this movie. Now, obviously, the movie that they're promoting is very sweet. And so there's nothing kind of like scurrilous about what they're doing here. But it's an unusual binary to have Netflix and Apple pitched against each other in this

duel because these are the two companies that are in part responsible for the slowing down of the theatrical movie experience and the academy awards there's it's it's believed that a lot of the people in the academy like still support that and want to believe in that and so that's another reason why the movie is going to make history like you said it's almost certain that a movie from a streaming service is going to win best picture this year and that's that's a huge thing in popular culture. I guess, what would the parallels be? Green Book? In terms of a win like this?

Yeah, just like a drama that made people feel good and also the competition maybe wasn't awesome. I think a bit more like a lot of the binaries that we get historically. I think La La Land versus Moonlight is an interesting comparison. La La Land was kind of a fun, big

movie that made people feel good. Moonlight was certainly more emotional, more sophisticated, smaller, and a little bit more, a little darker in some ways, too. I think you could also look at The Social Network versus The King's Speech in 2010. The King's Speech, we don't really think about that movie that much anymore, but I think you could also look at The Social Network versus The King's Speech in 2010. The King's Speech,

you know, we don't really think about that movie that much anymore, but I think one of the reasons why that movie resonated so much in part because of the campaign that was run for the movie, but it did actually make people feel good. It was about someone like

overcoming a disability of some kind and kind of like learning something about themselves. It was also a historical film based on real people, which always does well at the Oscars. And The Social Network was this kind of brooding,

dark analysis of a period in history with people that we don't really care for very much so I see it as like kind of a pretty traditional split I guess another version of this too would be would be I guess Roman Green Book like you said

you know the sophisticated auteur against the mainstream kind of feel-good movie. I don't know. I forgot that Nomadland won last year because I just stopped thinking about the Oscars last year the moment it ended. We barely spoke about the Oscars in 2021. Well, that was a pretty brutal batch of movies.

I think in this case, if you're going with... I think you made a good point about Dune. I'm not sure why Dune fell out of the conversation when it was such a high-stakes, expensive, really well-done

movie that I think has usually failed in the past or been disappointing or uneven. And that was like the best possible version of it and really well crafted, but just kind of moved to the wayside. And then, uh, you've been touting drive my car for a while, which I just, I just don't think a three hour subtitled movie. That's, that's a haul. I don't see that cracking the ballots, but that might be the one. I mean, you seem to think that might be the one people remember 10 years from now. It's possible. It'll be interesting

to see what Hamaguchi, the director, does from here on out. If he continues to work in Japan and make films there, if he considers coming to America and trying to make a movie. We've seen foreign filmmakers do that before. I think that that movie is just such a wild outlier in the last 25 years of the Academy Awards. There really hasn't been a movie in a quarter century like that nominated for Best Picture. Whether it is actually the best movie, it wasn't my favorite movie of the year, but it was in

my top 10. I think the thing about that movie is it just indicated to me the point that you were making earlier, which is there's so many more people in the Academy, and it's so much more international, and it's so much less white than it was 10 years ago that it's totally changing the landscape of the movies that are being considered for these awards. And it's also changing the landscape of what movies can win. So I like stats. I like to take a kind of analytical sabermetric approach to the Oscars. But you basically have to accept that the last five years are so radically different

from the previous 30 years that a lot of the statistical comparisons are not as important as they were five years ago. And it seems like Coda took King Richard's feel-good spot. It did. King Richard was kind of lurking there for a second. Coda takes it. Then Power of the Dog took Drive My Car's artsy spot. Mm-hmm.

And it's really a two-man race. And that's even Fando, which incredibly has Oscar odds this year. Well, I think Coda, even more than King Richard, took Belfast's spot. That was the movie that in the fall, when it was debuting,

and I believe Belfast won the audience award at TIFF, which is like a pretty clear, let's say an award that Green Book won. It's an award that usually indicates where the populist point of view is on a movie. And Belfast just never really picked up the speed that everyone thought it was going to. I think in September, there was a sense that it was Power of the Dog

versus Belfast all the way down. And for whatever reason, that movie didn't click. It is the only movie I believe that hasn't streamed out of all of them. Even Drive My Car is streaming on HBO Max, but Belfast all the way down. And for whatever reason, that movie didn't click. It is the only movie, I believe, that hasn't streamed out of all of them. Even Drive My Car is streaming on HBO Max, but Belfast is still not available on a streamer. You have to rent it. Hmm.

Well, Power of the Dog is minus 140 and Coda is down to plus 105. Me and Kim on Sal bet on Coda when it was plus 850. Very excited about that. So what do you stand to make there? Well, plus 850. I excited about that. So what do you stand to make there? Well, plus 850. I stand to make our wager eight and a half times. We bet $10 million a piece.

I want to talk about some of these odds. And you're really good at the Oscar poll stuff. And we'll do that after the break. But before we do that, just quickly, so the Oscars really trying to change what they are and try to get more people and doing all these dumb gimmicks. And it just feels like a car crash in slow motion. Every piece of it.

I haven't liked one thing I've read. I think they completely misunderstand what were some of the problems with the Oscars. I actually like the categories. I just think they, as we talked the last time you were on, they needed to add a couple categories that add a populist flavor, like breakthrough

performance, best popcorn movie, or best big budget movie, whatever. Just a couple things where I'm like, oh, here's the category where Dune is going against Spider-Man. Yes. Oh, I wonder, is the girl from CODA who got robbed for best actress, just robbed, not nominated? I just don't understand that at all. At least she can win best breakthrough. And to me, that's how you improve the Oscars. But tell our audience some of the stuff they're

doing well they have two problems one is how they're communicating changes and two is what those changes are so the one that ruffled the feathers of a lot of longtime fans of the academy awards is the idea that eight categories won't be filmed live during the telecast that they'll be filmed the hour before the show starts and then they'll be edited and truncated and then inserted to the show later on a lot of people feel that's very disrespectful to the people who are nominated in those categories to me it's really weird because a handful of the categories that they're doing this for are like pretty vital to making movies you know like best original score is a pretty important thing in a movie yeah you care about the construction of movies and frankly when you have someone like Hans Zimmer nominated, Hans Zimmer

is probably the second most famous living film composer after John Williams. And this would be his first Oscar in 30 years. And people fucking love Dune. So the idea of shrinking down that time and not helping people better understand, I think is a really weird choice. It's been widely criticized. You can make the case that it's now

too criticized and that people have missed the point. But they're trying to basically keep the show within three hours. And that decision, reportedly, comes from ABC. ABC is in the middle of this 10-year contract to broadcast the Oscars. The ratings have lost 75% over the last 10 years. The show used to be watched by 40 million people last year. It was only watched by 10. People don't think it's going to be that much more later for this year's telecast either. And so in an effort to draw in what I would describe as casuals and not hardcore

Oscar fans, they're inviting a lot of people to the show, like Sean White and like DJ Khaled, to be presenters, which I find very strange because I have no idea what those people have to do with movies. All due respect to those guys but that's just

an appalling choice. It just completely defeats the purpose of the Oscars. The whole point of the Oscars it's a big film jerk-off night and it's fine for better or worse it's all people

who act in movies and make movies celebrating movies. And this isn't the Pulitzer Prize. You can't have Sean White at the Oscars. But it's not like in a group of anonymous people that you've never seen who have bylines or something like that like just get more

movie stars get more filmmakers get more people who are legends of i've seen a couple of tweets of like what who really should be presenting and it's just like basically looking at how you look at the rewatchables like let's look at some movies that are having anniversaries the godfather is having its 50th anniversary this year yeah let's get the four living godfather actors yeah just get them all back you know get al pacino and jimmy kahn and francis ford coppola and talia shire and robert duvall on stage together let's have five minutes about the godfather for christ's sake like let's do something that is about movies that's i think what that's what's so far seems to be missing the other thing is that there's now at least it sounds like six musical

performances on the show, which I would say that four of the five films that are nominated for best original song are not very well known. And the one that is known is the second most known behind the Bruno song from Encanto, which is also going to be performed. That's going to take up like 25 minutes of telecast. Do people care about that? I mean, that's something in particular that for years I have not really understood people wanting to see the musical performances. Obviously, if Beyonce performs and it has not yet been confirmed that she's going to

perform, that's different. Beyonce is extremely famous. People will tune in specifically for Beyonce. I understand that. But, I don't know, the idea of turning over basically one-sixth of the show to songs that people don't even really have a big relationship to. And also then putting Sean White and Tony Hawk on stage. But like not even the jackass guys.

Like if you're going to do something like that, put the jackass guys on stage and be like, they had a movie this year. People loved it. It was a big hit. Why are we talking about Sean White? It's just it's a very strange thing. And so there is this sense of desperation, I think, in trying to bring in people who otherwise wouldn't be tuning into the show.

And I think there's a strong case to be made that the Oscars should really be doing the opposite. That they should be trying to focus on people who actually care about movies, who are invested in this, who want to understand how movies are made and what's so exciting about a great movie experience and the history of the art form.

The Godfather is not some obscure title. Carving out a little bit of time devoted to it, I think would be a great movie experience and the history of the art form. The Godfather is not some obscure title. Carving out a little bit of time devoted to it, I think, would be a great tribute. To me, the presenters thing, you and I could figure out in two minutes. It's just like, hey, Leo and Kate are going to present an award together. You know who we're going to get together? Sam Jackson and Bruce Willis. Hey, here's Tom Hanks and Gary Sinise. Just put people together

that I loved in movies. Hey, here's Damon Wayans and Bruce Willis. It's the 32nd anniversary of The Last Boy Scout. Five people who care, but people think this is cool. You know, Nick Nolte.

Is Nick Nolte still alive? Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy. 40 years after 48 hours. Like, how fucking hard is this? Do your Godfather thing. Do 15 minutes on, hey, the most important movie of the last 50 years was made 50 years ago. Here's a 10-minute history of the Godfather. And now here's everyone who's in the Godfather.

And they're on the fucking stage. It's like the same thing as the NBA All-Star Game. It's like, hey, here are all the greatest living players we have. They're all right here. Is this cool? Do you guys like this? That's exactly it. Your relationship to the NBA and the way that you have, over the years, cited

the importance of not forgetting figures from the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, and how they basically, not just paved the way, but explain how the sport and the league works now. Icons Club promo. Right there. Our new podcast, the Icons Club, right. And Jackie's show is hopefully showing people that all these things are connected to each other.

And movies are the exact same way. The new things that happen in movie technology or movie storytelling are all related to stuff that Francis Ford Coppola was doing. It's all related to stuff that Orson Welles was doing in the 40s. This stuff fits together. They're not antiques. They're part of a long story. So I think in the 40s. This stuff fits together. They're not antiques. They're part

of a long story. So I think in the past, the Oscars has at times done a good job of this, and at other times has watered down that idea to try to get people excited about something. The movie lovers unite theme is the one that they're going to be touting on Sunday night. That feels amorphous. I'm actually a little bit less interested in movie lovers than I am the people who make the movies, which is why I watch the show. So I hope that doesn't get lost in the shuffle of trying to get these kind of drive by viewers interested in a three

hour pageant, which is I think a tough ask. And if they're doing it at the expense of the people who spent a lot of time caring about this stuff, I think they're making a big mistake. Also, one last thing, Bill, this show isn't streaming. And most young people are watching things on streaming. They're not watching broadcast television. And apparently, ABC has fully declined to allow any streaming for this show. And that just seems like a big mistake. And I don't know necessarily what would

be the best way to do it. I'm not suggesting that there is a clear way to do it, but the award show is trapped in another time and racing to get to the present, and I'm not sure it can get there fast enough. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. Would you rather have that or ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Sean White and Tony Hawk.

Ladies and gentlemen, Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese. Like, how fucking hard is this? Just bring out famous people who had a huge impact on movies. I just don't think this stuff's that hard. And by the way,

if you have to do a two-night ceremony and have it the week before and then another week, like, that's fine. We do it with the Emmys and it's okay. Matt Bellany on his podcast, The Town,

which you can find on the Ringer Podcast Network, he does a prediction at the NH pod. He predicted $14.5 million, I think. I think it's going to go way up. I think part of the problem of last year, people don't care about the movies. I think this year, people

care if Will Smith's going to win the Oscar and I think that will be the number one thing that drives this we can talk about the host like I ultimately

are there two or three things that people actually care about I think the people who have seen Coda are going to care if it wins because people love that movie including myself but

the Will Smith thing will be what what lingers over this, and they should have it as late as possible. And FYI, I could see him losing. And we'll talk about that when we do the Oscars. But Cumberbatch, we saw it last year with Anthony Hopkins

and the father. He's fucking amazing, and the father. I remember texting with you and Chris about it and being like, why isn't Anthony Hopkins going to win for The Father? That movie was amazing. Now, Olivia Colman didn't win. Olivia Colman's probably not going to win this year either, even though she had the best actress performance.

We'll talk about all that in one second. We're going to take a break. All right, we're going to do some Oscar bets. You can bet these on FanDuel, miraculously. I don't think there's any code of value left. It's down to plus 105. We're taping this

on Tuesday noon. Power of the Dog is minus 140. You know, it's funny. If Spielberg was like eight years older and near the end, I think West Side Story

would have like an incredible amount of momentum. Like the old guy has done it one last time, but he's not old enough yet for that momentum.

But he's been waiting to do this for eight years. Eight years. He's 75. It's not like he's 62. Like, certainly he seems vital and he's been on the awards trail the whole time and he's going to keep making movies. If you think he's like slowing down, West Side Story is so amped up. I mean, it's a musical, so it's not going to be for everybody, but just from a filmmaking perspective, it seems like it was made

by a 35-year-old guy. But can we really expect 10 more years of great Spielberg movies? If so, that's awesome. But we might look back on this too and be like, damn, we should have hooked up Spielberg with another Oscar here. We might have made a mistake. Here's the problem. We don't have enough podcasts

like we do with basketball. If there was 25 big picture podcasts out there, it would have been like on a Tuesday, people like, could this be Spielberg's last chance? And then that would have been the narrative. We would have had Stephen A's argue about it. We just don't have any sort of apparatus for talking about movies like that other than your podcast and like two other places. It just means if I haven't come up with that idea, I'm not working hard enough. I just got to go back in the lab and come up with more angles. I was trying to stay out of your way, but do I need to

get a little more involved? I mean, that's really what we're learning. Right there, that Spielberg thing would have been a great angle. I love to be challenged, Bill. You know I welcome your feedback. So he's 75. Yes. Jaws was 57 years ago. No, 47 years ago.

47. Which I could add. 47 years ago. Coming up on the 50th anniversary of Jaws, that would be the Spielberg-a-science, I feel like. It would be 78. It would be like 50 years of Spielberg.

It would really dawn on people. I know he made two movies before that, but Jaws was... Yeah, I want to say, is Duel 1972? I want to say it's his 50-year anniversary as a director. Imagine that.

What are you going to do when you celebrate 50 years of podcasting? How are we going to celebrate you? Can we get you an Oscar for that? Please, give me the Kevorkian machine. 50 years, that would be year 15

next month. Yep. Okay. Another 35 years it takes. Yeah, you'd be in your 80s. Sounds good. We still doing MJ versus LeBron then when you're 85? I don't know if that's going to work as well. King Richard is 23 to 1.

Drive my car 65 to 1. I don't even think there's value there. Is there any chance for Dune, 28-1? I don't think any chance at all. The only one that would be fascinating, and I don't think it's possible at this point because of the CODA wave that's happened in the last three weeks,

but it wouldn't shock me if King Richard was like three or four on a lot of ballots. So that's 23-1. Is there a little something here added in nowhere? I think it's like very, very, very, very low likelihood, though. It really does feel like it is a two horse race at the moment. They should have taken Jane Campion and just put her on a remote island until the until Oscars night. I mean, they have.

She hasn't said a word since she had that flub at the Critics' Choice Awards. It was a blunder. There have been late season blunders before. I don't think that's going to hurt her ultimately. I do think some people will not vote for it, but

it's also impossible to say. That's one last thing, too, about the show, Bill. I wish that there was more transparency in the show my big idea that I had always wanted for this show which they would never do but I thought would really help people tune in for all three hours is every 20 minutes you eliminate another movie from the best picture race so every 20 minutes you know Dune is no longer is no longer in the running and then drive my car is no longer that's a great idea yeah and then wouldn't you tune in for the countdown all the way through the show tough beat for everybody

who just gets eliminated but i but like if they're doing ranked choice voting that means that we know that everyone is ranking the film so we have the data to support the order in which the films are being eliminated from the race so it's kind of a logical thing that they could do. And if this was sports, and of course it's not sports, but if it was sports, it's how you do it. But they'll never do it. Well, from a gambling standpoint,

which I think is another way to really help the Oscars, yeah, halfway through the telecast, you could say we've narrowed it down to four films. Yes. And then the betting odds would change, all that stuff. So, Jessica Chastain. Yeah.

We both love. I mean, you married a redhead. I dated a redhead for three years in college. We're pro redheads. She's one of my favorite actresses and has been pretty much since she first came to the scene.

Huge fan of hers. Love Chastain. I'll never forget when I was trying to figure out my HBO show. We went to Andy Cohen's, whatever that Bravo show. Watch what happens. She was one of the guests and just,

just enchanting. I'm a huge fan. If she wins for that movie, that's bad. It's not her best work. It would be really classically Oscars though. If she did, because she's been,

she's been the all time campaigner, right? For this. if she did. She's been the all-time campaigner, right? She's done absolutely every single thing. She's run a brilliant campaign. She's a very contemporary movie star. She has a really strong social media footprint. She's really posi, like super positive about everything. And she's done a good job of showing us the the transformation that she made into this real life character so you can literally see video of tammy faye from 35 years ago and video of chastain making the transformation and that kind of wows academy voters like historically

you know think of meryl streep and the iron lady or uh you know nicole kidman and virginia wolf yeah these kinds of transformations usually work well. I just don't think that Eyes of Tammy Faye is that good. It's not bad. It's just like a very mediocre movie with this really big, loud performance in the middle of it. But it's the kind of movie that tends to win people best acting Oscars.

We have an award for that performance. It's called the Emmy. That was a cable movie. And by the way, so has been the Ricardos. And I can't believe Kidman. I just can't believe the girl from Coda didn't get nominated. How is that not one of the five best performances? She learned how to sign language. She sang. She had to gain singing confidence as it went along. She's in every scene. It's one of the two movies left for best picture. And she's the whole key to the movie. If she sucks in any way,

the movie unravels completely. If they re-voted nominations today, she would be nominated. I feel strongly about that. What's her name? Because I'm blanking. Amelia Jones. Yeah, sorry, Amelia.

You should have been nominated. It's actually quite weird that neither she nor Rachel Zegler nor Alana heim were nominated there usually is one spot for an ingenue and this year it was actually kristin stewart who took that spot even though she's been working much longer than those three actresses have for spencer but that movie was and i i know you're not that movie is bad olivia coleman was the best actress performance i've seen all year in The Lost Daughter.

Agree. That's who I would have voted for. I feel very similar. I actually thought in The Father last year, she should have been nominated. She's a little, she's entered a Yana stage where it's like, you've already won. I'm not going to take you seriously anymore.

But she might get, you could see a world in which she's nominated like 10 out of 11 years because she's beloved and everyone recognizes she has goat status as the best actress going right now. I like her at 5 to 1. I think those are good odds.

I think she is the best under 55 actress that we have. She's taken the street title, best living actress. Would you say her or McDormand? I think it's her. I'm nothing against Frances McDormand, but I think it's her. I think

that that would be fascinating if Chastain... We're all assuming that Chastain won, but Chastain winning at the SAG a few weeks ago was kind of a shock. So it's not as if we have a ton of data to know where this one is going in particular. So there could be a surprise here. This is the one that feels

most open to me in the big five categories. Best actor. It's basically Will Smith minus 600 or Cumberbatch is plus 550. There's a world. I feel like if Cumberbatch wins this, then we know what's going to happen

with Best Movie. Oh, for sure. No question. It's like, boom. And if, and we have a power of the dog run,

I thought he was awesome in that movie. If you're going to make the case for that movie, it's, you know, meticulously crafted, obviously, and he's awesome in it. And so is the supporting actor.

Yeah. Cody Smith McPhee and him and their relationship in the final hour of the movie is at the heart of the movie. I don't think he's going to win. I think Will has run a really, really smart campaign. He was really hot and heavy when his memoir came out.

He was very present and he disappeared for a couple of months. His speech at SAG was a home run. I was like, man, I fucking love Will Smith. And that's all you want to feel at the end of that speech is,

I love this guy. I just want to keep rooting for him. And I feel like he's going to be fine. Was it one of your two... We both love Will Smith. We wanted to win. Was it one of your two best performances of the year? I'm not really super moved by the way that this category is

organized. I thought Cooper in Cooper and nightmare alley was incredible. Um, I, you know, I thought I, I said last night, I thought Oscar Isaac and the car counter was really great. There were a handful of,

I thought Simon Rex and red rocket was phenomenal. I thought he would have brought a really fun energy to this show and isn't going to be there. So there were a bunch that I really liked that are not there. Like Javier Bardem is a great actor and has won an Oscar. I really don't know why he's here for being the Ricardos. He's perfectly fine as Ricky Ricardo. But, you know, it's not the kind of thing that we're going to remember.

So the Will win is an accumulation win. It's an it's time win. But it's also a really, it's a quality movie. And he clearly put in a lot of thought and effort into that performance. I love that movie. I like Code a little bit more, though. They're doing very similar things. Best director?

It's Campion. You can have Campion at minus 2,000 against The Field, which is 10-1. You can have anyone else for 10 to 1 on FanDuel. I don't even know who you'd pick here, honestly. I don't even know who...

I guess Ryosuke Hamaguchi is... It's possible that he creeps in because there's such admiration for that movie, and it would be a way to recognize that, but I just... I don't see it happening.

Here's a fun one on FanDuel. You could do Troy Kotzer, Coda, dad from Coda, Ariana DeBose, who was awesome on SNL, by the way, and is awesome in West Side Story. You can have both of them for minus 280. Or you could take

the field for plus 200. You get the other eight actors in the two supporting actor categories. I actually think both of them are going to win. And on FanDuel, you could do Will Smith minus 600 with those two, and you could try to do some parlay action.

Get that down to about two to one. Get Will Smith. You get all the favorites basically. Stay away from the Chastain category would be my recommendation. Here's the challenge of gambling on the Oscars. There's too much time, so there have been too many precursors to tell us

where things are going. This is another reason why I wish the Oscars were on February 1st, because I don't want to have all this information about who is going to win. The fact that we know for sure, and maybe it won't turn out this way, but it certainly feels like Will Smith,

Troy Kotzer, and Ariana DeBose are going to win. Based on those odds that you just shared, those are really good odds that those three are almost certainly going to win. I don't want to know that. I want a Marissa Tomei moment. I want to be shocked. I want to be blown away. And it's harder and harder the more time that goes by, the more people

you hear from, the more award shows we have to be surprised by some of these key awards, which is one of the reasons why I think everyone's all excited about Coda vs. Power of the Dog. There's uncertainty. So we need uncertainty. In some cases, it works for you. Best actress could have it. It could. It could. Well, what if Kristen Stewart wins for the unwatchable Spencer just because people like Kristen Stewart and they like Princess Diana? And some people really like that movie. I was

not one of them. It would be a great moment. I'm a huge Diana. And some people really like that movie. I was not one of them. It would be a great moment. I'm a huge Kristen Stewart fan too. I like that movie. I don't know if it's like her best performance, but it's a very different performance from her. She learned an accent. She's transformed into a real person. The Academy likes that.

I just think that there's so much antipathy towards the movie. There's so many people who agree with you. Because it sucks. It's so hard to watch and so painful and so drawn out. But that'd be great if there was a surprise. I would welcome that. I would not be thrilled

with a Nicole Kidman win personally. If Kristen Stewart wins, we'll do Panic Room rewatchables. Oh, fuck. Wow. I think that anniversary

is coming up. for voting. That's a that's huge, Bill. Yeah. Panic Room, March 29th anniversary right after the Oscars. It's almost like Kristen. Yeah. Panic Room, March 29th anniversary, right after the Oscars. It's almost like Kristen Stewart's Destiny.

What? Do we have to do Panic Room? We gotta get this win going. Do we have to do it anyway? That's a really cool movie. I know you love that one. You love the way that Fincher executed throughout that house. I've heard you talk about that before. Yeah, to me, as you know, I try to bring everything back to basketball. That's his

2007 LeBron dragging the Cavs to the finals movie. That's just not a movie that should have worked. It's all set in a house. They're in the panic room. It's like they have to figure out two ways to kind of get them out of the panic room so things can be scary. And it's just improbable that it works. There's a funny wrinkle that worked out really well with that movie, which is I remember when Jared Leto was cast as a bad guy in that movie. It was kind of a joke. You know, he was Jordan Catalano. He had not really built up this resume

and people thought it was funny. He had the white boy dreads or the cornrows, rather. And now it's like Academy Award winning actor Jared Leto, major movie star. Jared Leto is, you know, fifth build in that movie. So it's got even more weight to it. He's really

going for it these days. He's doing accents. He's wearing prosthetics. Any other categories we care about that you feel like there's some betting opportunities? I guess Best Director ain't happening. The category I'm the most stumped on right now by far for my own

picks is best adapted screenplay because there are some confusing things going on because of the way that the wga is organized some films were not eligible for that award that happened over the weekend and so there are nominees here that were not nominated i think the Power of the Dog was not eligible for the WGA award. So many people think the Power of the Dog can win. Coda won the WGA award. So Power of the Dog plus 145. Coda is minus 165. Lost Daughter 6-1. Dune 24-1.

Drive My Car dropping to 16-1. Yes. And the Lost Daughter is an intriguing pick at plus 600 to me because it won the USC Scripter Award, which is not necessarily predictive, but is considered very notable in the screenplay race.

And there's a lot of love for Maggie Gyllenhaal. She's running a great campaign. She did really, really well at the Independent Spirit Awards. I think that film won like four or five awards at that show, including Best Picture. And Maggie Gyllenhaal's just been crushing it in interviews. So there is a lot of warmth for that movie. Now, maybe not enough to overcome the two leading favorites in the Best Picture race and Coda and the Power of the Dog. But also,

no matter what happens there, that will be a little hint earlier in the show as to who's going to win Best Picture. So can you get some real-time parlays going once the show has already started and we see who wins Best Adapted Screenplay? If Coda takes Best Adapted Screenplay, does it feel like the energy is moving towards that movie? It might. So it's just that it's a really critical category to watch throughout the show. Summer of Soul

is another one that it's only minus 310 to win Best Documentary Feature, but it's been cleaning up in these things. I'd be surprised that they don't win. The only thing that was shocking to me about that, and it has won dozens of awards at this point, is Attica,

the Showtime documentary about the revolt at the prison, won the DGA award for the best directed documentary, which was a pretty big shocker. And DGA isn't always predictive, but it does show signals. So who knows?

And the documentary category is always a little bit weird. It's never exactly what you think is going to win. So keep an eye on that one too, I guess. All right. So you're going to have

a big preview heading into the weekend. And then right after the Oscars, you're doing a post-game show. Your big picture co-host, Amanda Dobbins, became a mom a few weeks ago. She's raising a child.

And so while I raise my hackles about the Academy Awards, she's bringing a young man into the world. Joanna Robinson's joining me for the show on Thursday and on Sunday night. She's been great filling in for Amanda. She really knows her shit too. So I think it's going to be...

Here's the thing. This bet is not on FanDuel. If Will Smith wins, I think Amanda's like minus 500 to pop on the pod. Even at it. I just can't imagine her not weighing in.

Will Smith, her beloved Will Smith, winning an Oscar, that's going to be the most emotional... Will that be the most emotional Oscars moment since when? What was the last time? My favorite is the Tom Hanks win for Philadelphia, you know, when he pays tribute to his acting teacher and how much he changed his life.

That was a really big one. I mean, I don't know. What are some big ones? Do you go in for the Anne Hathaway one or no? No. I mean, Scorsese in 2006 was, you know, one or no? No. I mean, Scorsese 2006 was, you know, we wanted it just for him to get one, I think, was good.

You know what was a great one? Was the recent one when Bong Joon-ho won and he paid tribute to Scorsese. That was a great moment. That was great. Leo getting one, I think, was great. There's been some good ones, but Will Smith will be way up there

just because, I mean, you could make a case he's the most, he would be the most popular actor that's ever won an Oscar. As weird as that sounds. That's a crazy, that's a fascinating hour-long conversation. He's sold more tickets

than probably any actor ever, I would say. He's got to be in the running he's got to be the most one of the most famous actors we've had i don't know if he's more famous than leo after titanic but well there's in the room and there's in the world at large right like in the room i don't know if will smith is as admired as he might be by the public at large there's like industry beloved people and then there's you know like Clooney. Obviously, he's very famous and well-known

and people like him a lot. But in the industry, people really like George Clooney. You know what I mean? He's like a real mensch. Everybody likes working with him. He's a really good guy. Will Smith, I'm not sure

where he sits there. I don't know. Do you know? Is he beloved by his peers? Yeah, I don't think probably on the level of like a Scorsese winning. Yeah.

I actually think that Jane Campion, even though she kind of screwed up two weeks ago, but I still think her winning will be a big deal. And I do think, as you said, she's one of the best directors in the past 35 years. And people in the room will care about that. The Will Smith thing is more about the journey going back to the late 80s

and all the iterations of him and all the things we know him so well he's so different from Leo yeah like he just he's we're like we understand his life in a way that we don't understand like Leo's life the same way because we almost had this with Eddie Murphy and Dreamgirls

we almost had it with Sly Stallone with Creed we almost had with Michael Keaton for Birdman that year. There's been ones where it's like, God, it would be so cool if this person won. I really like this person. What a cool thing this would be.

And they usually don't win. Yeah, there's also a distinction there, I think, between people who identify as like actors first versus movie stars first. Most of the people you just named were movie stars, you know, and Eddie Murphy is a good actor, but he's known as a movie star. And so sometimes I think that's held against certain actors too, where it's like, he's not really a serious actor. And I think that was

held against Will Smith for a long time, which is like, you know, he's a guy who's in the men in black movies and he's great for Hollywood, but is he great for the Oscars? And this would be a big change in that respect. I mean, I feel very, very confident that it's going to happen and it should be a good moment. I'm sure he's been preparing his speech for a long time. I just fando the Amanda odds drop to minus 600 now.

Has she been listening in on this pod? I don't know. Telepathically, she's like, you're right. If Will Smith wins, I'm definitely coming on there. I'll say this. Amanda's paying attention. I definitely get a text every three or four days that's like, you're right. If Will Smith wins, I'm definitely coming on there. I'll say this. Amanda is paying attention. I definitely get a text every three or four days. It's like, hey, how the fuck did this happen

whenever somebody wins a weird award? So she's alerted to what's been going on. All right. Sean Fenton, you can hear him on the big picture. You can hear him on the rewatchables. Maybe we'll be doing Panic Room

at some point. Good to see you as always. Thanks, Bill. That's it for the podcast produced by Kyle Creighton. As always, thanks to Ben Thompson. Thanks to Sean Fennessy. Thanks to Steve Cerutti and Dylan Berkey as well.

Don't forget, we put up a new Rewatchables. I'm going to name it. We did the 15th anniversary of Shooter. Who knew we were celebrating the anniversary of Shooter? But telling you, weirdly influential, weirdly smart action movie that was trending in the top five on Netflix, really for like a month. People like Shooter. So we talked about it in a pod.

Coming up Thursday, I'll have one more podcast on this feed. And I think I'm going to pop on the Prestige pod at some point over the next few days as well. A lot of shows that we're breaking down on that. We Crash, Dropout, Bridgerton. There's some big ones coming. House Niagara to Winning Time, probably after the fourth episode, but we might do mid-season too.

Hard to tell if people like that show. Anecdotally in my life, people are either totally in on that show, kind of in, or they're just out. They watch one episode, they're just out. So still trying to figure out how big the audience is for that. But we're definitely at the very least, we will do a mid-season one.

But who knows? We might do one next week. Listen to Fairway Rolling with House as well because the Masters is coming up and him and Nathan Hubbard. Really good feel for the golfers. So there you go. I will see you in this feed on Thursday. Go Suns.

Go Suns. Go Suns.