The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Embiid Conundrum and Million Dollar Picks, Plus “Who Won 2019?” w/ Rembert Browne | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: December 26, 2019

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons hits on the NBA Christmas games (3:55), before making Million Dollar NFL Picks for Week 17 (21:38). Finally Bill and Rembert Browne bring back an old Grantland tradition with a “Who Won the Year?” bracket featuring Keanu Reeves, Tiger Woods, Kawhi Leonard, J.Lo, and many more (33:50). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's post-Christmas episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network is brought to you by State Farm. Just like basketball, the game of life is unpredictable. Talk to a State Farm agent. Get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected. Kind of like Milwaukee getting their butts kicked on Christmas Day yesterday. That was a little unexpected. Get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected. Talk to a State Farm agent today. Meanwhile, the Google Assistant is ready to help you navigate the unexpected talk to a State Farm agent today. Meanwhile, the Google Assistant is ready to help you get more done with just your voice in the car, at home, and everywhere you take your phone. With the Assistant, you can set reminders so you don't

forget important things like, hey, Google, remember that my keys are on the top shelf. And then later I could just say, hey, Google, where did I leave my keys? A little help, hands-free. Just say, hey, Google, to get started. We're also brought to you by TheRinger.com, one of the world's last good websites, where we were writing about basketball yesterday. Shout out to all The Ringer people that were working on Christmas.

Kind of a lousy basketball day. We're going to talk about that in a second. Speaking of The Ringer, the rewatchables we put up, Talented Mr. Ripley on Tuesday and also put up the last Book of Basketball 2.0 podcast, which was a breakdown of Kawhi versus Philly, game seven, round two, the best basketball game of the year for a lot of different reasons. It's broke that one down with Ryan Rosillo and Chris Ryan.

And Kawhi will be coming up later in this podcast, ironically enough. So you can listen to those. And then if you never listened to the rewatchables, or if you were like on the fence of it, I would subscribe before we get to the next three weeks of podcasts, because we have a very special trilogy coming for you starting on Monday night next week. So there's a famous person who joins us for three straight episodes, and you're going to be surprised who it is. So there you go. Before we get to the

pod, wanted to mention, we had an awesome year this year. The pod really grew. We hit over 250 million downloads a couple of weeks ago just for this year for this podcast. And that was easily a record for what we've done and watched us grow over the course of the decade, dating back to the old Grantland days and then starting here in 2015. And then just watching it grow every year and watching the audience grow and the people who listen to podcasts audience grow and watching it go into different countries. All that stuff has been really great. Thanks to everybody for spreading the word for us. Thanks to the NEF for producing it and especially putting in some long hours on Sunday night so we could get this up so you could have it in your iPhone or your car or wherever

you listen to it to on a Monday morning. So really good year for us. Hoping that 2020 will be even better and an awesome year for the Ringer Podcast Network in general. Really, really happy where we are. So there you go. Coming up, I'm going to talk about Christmas Day ho, and then do a little million dollar picks for week 17. I actually really like a couple of the games this week. And then we're going to run something that Rember Brown and I did that there's also going to be an accompanying YouTube video for that we'll run on Friday.

But it is Who Won 2019. Rem used to do this as a bracket for us at Grantland at the end of, I think he did it the first four years of Grantland. So 11, 12, 13, 14, and we brought it back for 2019 and it's super fun. So there you go. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, taping this Thursday, late morning, East Coast time. Want to talk about basketball first. ESPN and ABC, they called it Chris Basketball.

Sorry, did not work. I actually did a poll on Twitter about this and it was either not liked or reviled depending on who was voting. But look, I'm all for stupid pun word sports stuff, but Chris Basketball just does not work. And let's never do it again. They really had bad luck with these games. Boston, Toronto turns out to be a blowout. Then we have Philly, Milwaukee, not close really at any point

until the tail end where Milwaukee made a garbage time run. Then we had Houston, Golden State. That actually was probably the most fun game other than the most fun game other than the Clippers game, except for the fact that none of the Warriors were playing except for Draymond Green. Clippers-Lakers was fun, except LeBron definitely wasn't 100%. And then Pelicans-Denver. Who cares? The Pelicans have nobody on their team anymore. I have three takes coming out of

these games. The first one, I realized Embiid was great in that Milwaukee game. He was the best player on the floor, which has happened a few times this year. And if we had best player on the floor awards, Embiid would win more than his share. The problem is this started a couple of weeks ago with the Barkley-Shack discussion we talked about on this podcast.

We've actually, Marcelo and I have been talking about this for a while, about Embiid, the fact that he has gears. We've hit a point now where he can't win, no matter how it plays out. Because if he's awesome, like he was yesterday, and he's the dominant guy on the floor, people go, well, he should play like this all the time. If he doesn't play like that, people go, where's Joel Embiid? What happened? Why doesn't he care? So he's now somehow painted himself into this corner because he's not in the greatest shape in the world. And because physically kind of comes and goes depending on the week where when he does well, he doesn't even get credit for it. And I don't really remember a precedent with somebody who's this good.

There's been other guys over the course of NBA history. Like we've seen Vince Carter was definitely like this the first five years of his career where he weirdly peaked as a basketball player in year two, the 2000, 2001 season when I think that was the only year he made, was top 10 in all NBA, all that stuff. And we just kind of compared everything that came after to that one season when he had the seven game battle against Iverson and the Sixers, all that stuff. And his career was disappointing after that

because he just never really, really tapped into it. And he was always physically, there was something wrong or he was mad about something. He played his way out of Toronto, ends up with the Nets. Had some good Nets years, but it was never quite the same. And we always kind of held it against him. I know I did. But that was the guy really for last decade. And then I would say the decade before, Derek Coleman,

and beats a much better player day in, day out, and more dominant than Derek Coleman was. But Derek Coleman was the most gifted power forward we've probably ever had up until this decade. Like just a guy that had every single tool you could want. He could shoot threes. He could post up. He was a great passer. He was shoot threes. He could post up. He was a great passer. He was a lefty.

He could rebound. If you were just starting tools for that position, it's either him or Chris Weber until we get to this decade. And, you know, he just could never get there either. I think Embiid is better than both of those guys. And I think the difference is when Embiid buys in, he's one of the six players in the league that matters right now.

The problem is we get frustrated because he's not always buying in or he's going through the motions or whatever. And then somebody calls him out and then he's awesome next game. I don't know how this plays out with him because one of the things we're seeing is the social media 24-7 basketball generation that we're in now.

When we start calling guys out on stuff, they actually sometimes work at it and it's in their heads. And in a weird way, we can kind of shame them into being better. This definitely happened with James Harden and his defense in the 2013-14 range. When we talked about this on the Pyramid Pod in Book of Basketball, we made enough jokes about his defense and it became enough of a thing online that he actually realized,

oh, I can't be a matador anymore in defense. I actually have to pretend I care a little bit. So with Embiid, you know, physically it's, it's not going to be, he's going to get himself in awesome shape this year, but I do think it's in his head a little now where he's like, screw you guys. I'm one of the six best guys in the league. Why do I have to keep proving this? But on the other hand, when he doesn't prove it, then we point fingers at him and now it's turned into the cycle. And I think it's a fascinating subplot to watch the rest of the way, because when he's awesome, we're like, yeah, see, that's what you should do every time.

And when he's not awesome, you're like, where's Joel Embiid? I thought he was awesome. And he's the only player like that in this position right now. And whether that will spur him to just absolutely kick ass the rest of the way or whether this is just who he is, a guy who on any given night can just crush everybody else. We will see how that goes. I still think that Philly team is bizarre to watch, but when he's playing awesome with the defense that they have, they can obviously beat anybody in a given game. I think they're a terrible matchup for Milwaukee. They have so much size and length to throw at Giannis.

Giannis didn't play well yesterday. He wasn't shooting threes. He got super frustrated, uncharacteristically kind of angry the fourth quarter, I felt like, but still a bad matchup for them. And I don't think that's, if I'm Milwaukee, that's the one team I don't want to see in the playoffs. I'm happy with anybody else.

Want to talk about Milwaukee quick. Russel and I have talked a lot about the difference between regular season and the playoffs and how there has been really a chasm that has developed the last couple of years where you can look really good in the regular season and it just doesn't matter. We've seen it with the Rockets. We saw it with the Bucks last year. We've seen it over and over

again over the course of a decade. And it's become more and more pronounced where some teams are just built for the regular season. And whether that translates to the playoffs when things slow down, when you're seeing the same thing every two nights in the conference finals, stuff like that, whether that can actually be a real negative for certain teams. I look at this Bucks team, it reminds me of this 09 and 2010 Cavs stretch that we had, kind of a blend of both, where LeBron won his first MVP in 09 and then he won a back-to-back in 2010. That 2010 team, I don't feel like was as good.

2009, they were 66 and 16. They had an 8.9 point differential. LeBron was awesome. And Mo Williams actually made the all-star team. But the drop-off from LeBron to Mo Williams from that one best player to the second best player in the team was pretty pronounced. And it really ended up hurting them when we got to the, uh, to the series against Orlando, because LeBron was, that was one of the best series of his career. I think he was like 35 a game. Uh, you look at his playoff

PR that year, it's one of the three or four highest PERs for anyone who's played 12 games ever. But he had no help. He didn't have enough horses. And as the series went on, Orlando just kind of figured out how to beat them on both sides. It's a fascinating series to rewatch, actually. I wonder if this Milwaukee team, the regular season numbers are so awesome with them. And especially with Giannis only playing 32 minutes a game, the fact that they've been this dominant as a regular season team should matter more than I feel like it does. Because I still feel like when you get to the playoffs and it slows down and everybody's throwing the kitchen sink at Giannis, you look around and it's just a bunch of role players.

And Chris Middleton, I would say, is better than a role player. I still don't feel like, it's still hard for me to imagine him being the second best player in a championship team. I can't wrap my head around it. We'd have to, I'd have to go through history and try to see if there's ever been a less talented second banana on a title team. Kobe went two straight

with Gasol as the second best guy and Odom as the third best guy. But Gasol was great. Like Gasol's going to make the hall of fame. You know, in 2011 with Dallas, Dirk was definitely the best player and there definitely was a drop off to the number two guy. But the number two guy was really the Tyson Chandler, Sean Marion, Jason Kidd kind of intelligence defense, Troy Oka combined with Jason Terry, who was just a great irrational confidence second guy,

something about that team made sense. And I think for this Bucks team to make sense as a team that could actually win the title, that would have to be the model where you have to find your five guys in the last six minutes of a game. And it would have to make sense in every respect. And I watch this team and I just, it doesn't totally make sense to me. It doesn't make sense to me who their five are going to be. Probably George Hill's out there. Middleton's out there. I feel like Giannis is probably playing center

unless they're going against Philly. And then shooters, and you just kind of cross your fingers and hope the threes go in. I wonder if they're going to make a trade as we get closer to February. They do have some contracts. Bledsoe, even though he's under a long contract, is somebody they could probably flip.

Everyone's talked about Chris Paul with them. I think that's really risky. He makes so much money, and to match the salaries would be tough. I'm also not positive. If I was OKC, I'm not sure I would want to give Chris Paul away at this point because if anything, they have a chance to sneak into the top six if they used their picks and some of their salary stuff and added another wing. They have the worst wing guys in the league, probably out of all the playoff teams. And if they could use some of the fringe picks they got combined with the Roberson expiring salary or something, they could actually get somebody who could help them.

And they could be a little frisky in a playoff series. So we'll see. I'm just not, the Bucs aren't passing the eye test to me. And I know Rosilla talked about Bucs, the Bucs fan base and Bucs aren't passing the eye test to me. And I know Rosilla talked about the Bucs fan base and Bucs Twitter last week and how they are just out of their minds with feeling slighted all the time.

But look, this is why none of us believe yet because we watched it last year in the playoffs when you had two nothing lead and you fell apart. And even the Christmas day game, I know it's one game, but I still feel like Christmas matters. It's the biggest spotlight game. It's a playoff game. Everybody's watching, everybody's going balls out and it matters. It just does. And the fact that the Sixers were able to take Giannis basically out of that game, that matters. And I don't know.

I don't know who's going to come out of the East. Wanted to mention the Celtics quick. Cause I think the Celtics are really good as I keep telling you they have a, they have a crazy stretch coming up starting January where they play 23 games in 42 days. They played the least amount of games of anyone. I think this team has a chance to be legit good. The X factor for me is Hayward. Hayward, he played yesterday. He was pretty good. His foot's still sore. The sore foot thing, he didn't play for like five, six weeks because he broke his hand.

I can't believe he still has a sore foot. My shit detector's going off. I don't like it. I don't understand why he's not healthy from the knees down at this point, two years after that injury in Cleveland. And it worries me because they need 100% Hayward to actually do some damage in the playoffs. Because then you just, you have Brown, Tatum, Hayward, two of those three are out there at all times. And it just pushed them to another level. If you have a compromised Hayward or no Hayward, two of those three are out there at all times. And it's, it just pushed them to another level.

If you, if you have a compromised Hayward or no Hayward, it really limits what they do. There's an interesting Celtics subplot. Marcus Smart hasn't played in a while and I love Marcus Smart. And I think he's the soul of this team in a lot of ways. It makes a bunch of great defense hustle plays. But when he's not playing, offensively, they just flow better because he's the one guy in the team.

He's the no-no-yes guy, right? He's the guy who he thinks he's as good as the other really good offensive players in the team, but he's not. And there are these situations, especially in close games, when he's taking the biggest shot of the game when you have four better options. And I just want to note it because how good they look offensively when it's built around the three forwards and Kemba and just a bunch of role players, I think it needs something. And if Marcus comes back, I think they have to be really careful.

One, about whether he even plays in crunch time. And then two, how involved he is in crunch time, because Brown has become an all-star this year. Tatum is an excellent two-way player who I still feel I can go up a level offensively as we go along. And then Hayward, before he got hurt, was playing better offensively than both of those guys. Kemba is Kemba. He's 23-24 at night. They just don't need Marcus's offense. And if he can figure that out before we get to April, May, June, I think that would be the biggest thing that could help this team, other than Hayward being healthy.

All right. Clips Lakers really quick. Kawhi's the best player in the league. Giannis is the best regular season, day-in, day-out guy in the league. But if I'm playing in one game, I still want Kawhi's the best player in the league Giannis is the best regular season day in day out guy in the league but if I'm playing in one game I still want Kawhi first and that's where I am mentally

it was proven again yesterday he's now played the Lakers twice he's been the best player in both of those games if the Clippers have a flaw it's that they don't seem like they totally realize it you watch the end of that game they could put the Lakers away.

Paul George gets a contested 22 footer on the last two seconds of the shot clock. Lou Williams takes a three with his hand in his face. It's like, just, can you get Kawhi the ball? They can't stop him. He was able to get Danny Green in trouble time and time again when it mattered. That team is really, really, really, really built for a playoff series

because they have so many different ways to go. Defensively, they're fantastic. And they still have a trade to make. I was pro-Harkless, and I still feel like if they don't make a trade, they're fine. But I also think you can make a case that if they can turn Harkless into a stretch four, like a better Jermichael Green, basically, that would really help him. I don't know who that player is. If you put Marcus Morris on this team, that's a ball stopper. I'm not sure I want him.

But one guy that I think could be interesting as a buyout guy for them is Jay Crowder on Memphis, if they end up buying him out in February or March when they're out of the race, because that's kind of the type of guy they need on this team. Somebody who could play the three or the four, somebody who's that scared, somebody who I think would really vibe with, with Beverly and just kind of the, the fuck you attitude that this team has. So watch out for that. Watch out for the Jay Crowder thing. Everyone talks about Iguodala with them. I personally think he's a stay away. I don't trust if he can stay healthy for 10 weeks, April, May, June. He has not been healthy the last couple

of years. He has a ton of miles on him. And if you're playing your big trade trip, you'd have to give a park list at that point to get Iguodala because Memphis isn't buying him out. I personally would, that would not be my move because I don't think he is a guarantee to stay healthy personally. All right, we're going to take a quick break and then we'll do million dollar picks. Time is running out on SimpliSafe's huge holiday offer, their biggest sale of the year. If you're looking to fully protect your home with award-winning 24-7 home security, now's the time to do it. Burglaries spike during the holiday season with families traveling, leaving empty homes and expensive gifts behind. This holiday offer could not have come at a better time. SimpliSafe has everything you need to protect your home and family.

There's a smart lock and video doorbell to defend your front door. There's an army of sensors and cameras that guards every room, door, and window in your home. And if there's a break-in, SimpliSafe can give real-time video confirmation to police as it happens. So police respond up to three and a half times faster. It's no surprise SimpliSafe won CNET and PC Magazine Editor Choice Awards. Get 25% off plus a free camera at simplisafe.com slash BS. It's a special holiday offer that ends on December 31st. simplisafe.com slash BS. SimpliSafe with two I's. 25% off plus a free camera. All right. Million dollar picks for week 17. Last week, we lost a little. We lost 370 because, well, I deserved it. I went against the Patriots. I took the Bills plus six and a half. The thinking was that it was going to be

an even game, a back and forth game that would be decided in the last couple of minutes, which is, by the way, exactly what happened. But the Pats end up covering. They score late. They get the two point. Buffalo comes down. They get first and goal from the eight. Can't Pats end up covering. They score late. They get the two-point. Buffalo comes down. They get first and goal from the eight. Can't finish to tie the game. So the Pats cover. I still feel like I don't mind losing that because the game played out exactly how I thought it was going to play out. We won on the Ravens. And then we lost on this Titans game where we took the

Titans plus two and a half against the Saints, not realizing because it hadn't even come out yet that the game didn't matter for the Titans, which is part of the thing that sucks about doing these picks on Thursday, where it comes out later. It's like, even though it is a game that they need for the sixth seed with their battle in Pittsburgh, because it's a non-conference game. It weirdly doesn't matter with the tiebreaker thing. It matters more if Pittsburgh loses, which is what happens. So now, now you have the, uh, the Titans with their destiny in their hands. And we'll start with them first because they're minus one 80 against the

Texans. They're favored by three and a half points. Here's the Texans are are claiming they're going to play everybody two issues with that first of all casey and the pats are early the pats if they win if they beat miami and they're favored by 15 and a half they beat miami they clinch the two seed. If the Chiefs lose and the Texans win, the Chiefs fall down to the four seed, not the three seed, which means they would have to play Baltimore in round two, basically. They don't want any part of that. So Houston is saying they're going to play their guys because they want KC to play their guys, in my opinion.

Once the Pats and KC take care of business, KC's playing the Chargers. The Chargers punted on the season about three weeks ago. Once those are done, then we go into this Texans-Titans game. The Texans already don't have Will Fuller. I, for some reason, watched a lot of AFC South this year. It's amazing how different the Texans are when they don't have Will Fuller.

When they have him, he stretches the field, always seems to either make a big player, get a pass interference, opens up everything else for Hopkins, and their team just looks completely different. When they don't have him, they seem very beatable. And you even saw it when he got hurt on last saturday they stopped they stopped moving the ball and it's weird that he means that much but he does so they don't have him this week and in general i don't see the incentive once this game actually gets going if the pats and kc win for this team to go so here's what we're going to do. We have, you do a Chiefs-Titans money line

parlay for minus 111, which I'm going to do. I'm not afraid of the Chargers going into KC and somehow beating them. From what we've seen of the Chargers, I don't think they have it in them. We have that. We also have, we can do a parlay, Tennessee minus 180, Pats minus 1400 against Miami, and the Saints minus 700 against Carolina. They need that to get a buy in the first round. And that's minus 112. I'm going to sprinkle 300K on both of those. So 300K, minus 111, Chiefs, Titans, Moneyline, both have to win. 300K minus 112, Tennessee, Saints, Pats, all three of them have to win. So we're doing that one to start.

300K on each. Second one, the Falcons are plus one or even money at Tampa Bay. Both teams are five and two in their last seven. There's been a lot of talk about whether the Falcons are trying to save Dan Quinn's job, all that stuff. The shame of Tampa is they actually probably had the bones of a playoff team if they had had both receivers healthy the whole year, if they hadn't blown a couple games, et cetera, et cetera. I think where they are now without Evans and without Godwin with Jameis with the 30 for 30 in play, all that stuff.

I don't think they have enough offensively personally for them to make it. He's definitely not on the page, same page with some of the receivers. He's definitely gonna throw a couple more picks in this game. The Falcons are playing really well. More importantly, the Falcons are pretty healthy, especially where it matters with Julio Jones. And I just like them in this game. I think they finished the season off six and two in their last eight. Everybody feels better about it. Then it starts a whole, should they keep Dan Quinn or should they not discussion? The team turned around once he handed off the defense to a couple of his assistants

halfway through the year. It seems like the team likes him and plays hard for him. Matt Ryan is healthy again. And every year there's that team that finishes six and two or seven and one down the stretch or doesn't make the playoffs and they can kind of build on it. I don't think it's Tampa Bay. I think it's really hard for them to move the ball without Godwin and Evans. I don't see it.

So I'm grabbing the Falcons plus one for 300K. We're doing that. And then last one. Niners minus three at Seattle. The Seattle thing. First of all, this line, I was way off.

I think I picked Seattle by three and now it's when we, Sal and I did guess the lines. Now it's Niners by three. It feels like the more you read, it feels like there should be higher. And I, and I want, I want to know, this is one of those games where not a lot of people would take Seattle.

So that, that part scares me right there. The fact that this pick looks too obvious. With that said, no Chris Carson, no Rashard Penny. I thought the Seattle team, the heart of this team was those two guys a few weeks ago. You watch them, you're like, man, this is like double barreled every single down. They have this awesome running back in there and two guys that can do different things. Now they don't have either of them.

It's really hard for me to imagine them being able to move the ball that well. I know that Anders D is a little banged up, but I don't see how they're going to move the ball with the Marshawn Lynch and all these, these third and four stringers they have, it just puts them in such a bad spot for what they were and what we watched this season. And then you look at actually, you know, where Seattle was just as a team this season.

And I think they're, they're four and three at home. They haven't been reliable. A lot of close games, I think they're four and three at home. They haven't been reliable. A lot of close games. A lot of games where they've either been behind or they've had to claw back, stuff like that. They certainly haven't put teams away. It's a team that's been a little smoke and mirrors,

passionate together, kind of hanging around and relying on just the fact that Wilson's really good and they can run the ball, that stuff. I don't see it against this Niners where the Niners actually need this game. Sunday night, I think the Niners are really good. They've been in a lot of playoff games over these last few weeks.

They're a team that I think could win the Superbowl. I do not feel that way about Seattle. And for me, this just feels like a Niners take care of business and maybe even lay the smack down. So I love laying the minus three. I'm going to put 400K on this. So here are my picks. One more time.

400K on the Niners to lay the smack down in Seattle and grab the NFC West once and for all. The Falcons, we're going to go even money for them to win in Tampa Bay, 300K. We're going to put 300K on Tennessee, Saints, Pats, all three to win, minus 112. If that loses, I lose 336. And then another 300 on Chiefs-Titans money line, minus 111.

So if I lose, I lose 333. So those are our four picks for million-dollar picks. We're at 1.247 million. Want to get a little nest egg heading into the playoffs, and we have a lot of plans for the playoffs for this. All right, coming up, me, Rembrandt Brown, who won 2019? But first, a break.

We're taking a break to talk about CVS Health. As a predictor of health, did you know that a person's zip code may matter just as much as their genetic code? That's why CVS Health knows it's important to bring health into neighborhoods. I know there's been times with me when I've been so sick, I couldn't even get to an urgent care and had to basically bleary-eyed get behind the wheel or be driven there and like

a sack of luggage, try to figure out what was wrong with me. Well, now those days are over with CVS Health. More than half of all Americans now live within 10 miles of a minute clinic at CVS. CVS Health also bring health into homes with home care managers and trained nurses who administer IV treatments in patients' living rooms. Select locations, they're rolling out CVS Health Hubs with professional care teams for clinic services and testing, prescriptions, and health products under one roof, in one trip, on your schedule.

With those innovations and more, CVS Health has learned something important. When you put people at the heart of health, people take health to heart. CVS Health, where health is everything, not all services available in all states. Let's talk about Zoom. They didn't invent video conferencing. They just made it better. Now, Zoom is how business gets done. It ties together all of your communication needs into one easy app for video conferencing, phone calls, group chat, webinars in your conference rooms, flawless video, crystal clear audio on any device.

Makes it easy to meet and collaborate face-to-face no matter where you are. You can turn any workspace into a modern, easy-to-use Zoom room, a video conference room, enterprise-grade designed for instant collaboration, instant wireless content sharing, and a single tap of a button to start a meeting. Zoom Phone also works seamlessly from any device as your business phone system to make and receive phone calls, capture call recordings, easily elevate the conversation

from phone call to video if the need arises. It's used by millions to connect around the world. It's the best-reviewed communication suite. And by the way, you can set up a free account right now online from Zoom. Don't wait any longer. Meet happy with Zoom. All right. So coming up, we are going to do who won 2019. Me and my old Grantland colleague, Rembrandt Brown. Here's what we did for the seeds. We only guaranteed eight seeds and here's who they were. Number one, Megan Rapinoe. She was the top seed of the tournament. Number two, Lamar Jackson. Number three, Billie Eilish.

Number four, TikTok. Number five, Kawhi Leonard. Number six, Tiger Woods. Number seven, Phoebe Weller-Bridge. And number eight, the whole cast of Succession. So those are the only eight seeds guaranteed to go into the Sweet 16. Then the part you're about to hear, we did play-in games for the final eight seeds, seeds nine through 16. Here was that matchup. And we're going to break down all of these right now. Jennifer Lopez versus Joe Burrow. Disney Plus versus Netflix,

Keanu Reeves versus LeBron James, Greta versus One Direction, AOC versus BTS, the all acronym battle, Adam Driver versus Zendaya, Lil Nas X versus Lizzo. And then finally, the matchup everybody's been talking about, Donald Trump Jr. versus Simone Biles. So there we go.

We're about to break all those down. Here's me and Robert Brown right now. Once upon a time, on a site called Grantland, you premiered something called Who Won the Year? I think the first year was 2012? 2011. 2011 you did it. Yeah.

You were like a young pup. We barely had gotten you at that point. It was great. And then did it the next four years. Even snuck one in on V it. Yeah. You were like a young pup. We barely had gotten you at that point. It was great. And then did it the next four years. Even snuck one in on Vulture. Yeah. And then stopped because I was like, this takes like eight years off of my life each time I do them.

So what we did was we have eight top seeds. Yeah. And then we have eight play-in games for the other eight seeds. Yeah. This is great. All right, play-in games. This is great. So this is for eight spots.

We'll start on the left. A matchup America's been talking about for a long time, J-Lo versus Joe Burrow. Two people with not a lot in common. Not a lot in common. J-Lo, Burrow. That's about it. That's about it. Much like J-Lo, Joe Burrow had a really great year at an advanced age.

Yes. He's like 29. Yeah, he's 29. He's like Chris Winkie. He's like the dude in the program. Also, both have benefited from great film work. J-Lo looked amazing in Hustlers. Burrow looked great in that video of him walking on the field

that was like in like 1 million P. It was like the most high def video of all time. That's when I started caring about him. And great Heisman speech. Great Heisman speech, cares about the little people. I personally hate LSU because they like to beat Georgia. Right. Yeah, that's a rival for them.

So Goodyear for him, unfortunately, he's probably going to the Cincinnati Bengals. Yeah. So I don't think he'll be on the list in 2020. He's got some Matt Ryan in him, which could mean— Is that a good thing? No, not at all. I mean, I think this is pretty obvious. I think just purely on J-Lo as in longevity,

I can't believe that she is going to maybe get nominated for an Oscar. She's probably getting nominated. Great movie. She looked incredible. Yes. Incredible. How about the fur coat scene? She opens the coat.

Amazing. Constance Wu comes in the coat. I thought she was so much better than Constance Wu, who I thought was supposed to be the star of the movie. J-Lo blows her away. You and J-Lo are the two most beautiful 50-year-olds I know. Thank you. I appreciate that.

And I don't want to rank it. We're often discussed as the top two. And then she's doing the Super Bowl halftime. Yeah. In the NFL's continuing attempt to appeal to more than just white males. The answer is clearly J-Lo. Yeah. Sorry, Joe Burrow.

All right. Next one. Disney versus Netflix. Or Disney Plus versus Netflix. Okay. The case for Netflix. Stock's still over 300. Yeah.

It's still a dominant streaming force. Two Oscar movies that premiered in the theater and then were on netflix almost immediately after like they did it they did it this year they did it it's still possible it's a ponzi scheme and we're gonna find out they borrowed like 150 bajillion dollars to pay for everything who amongst i'm not ruling that out disney, it's another thing that seemed kind of Ponzi scheme-ish. They pulled it off. Now they have this ESPN, Hulu, Disney Plus bundle. Things are great. The stock's on the rise. Bob Iger might stay around until he's 80 for all we know. And everybody under 20 has Disney Plus that I know in my life. Every child, as you know,

I'm a parent. I yes a parent of two children yes great kids my kids never really demand anything they were like this disney plus thing is like we're fucking getting disney plus dad like now yeah like go get it right now you know what's on disney plus we're getting it so slayed edge to disney plus but what's your take? My take is I'm glad you brought up the age, the moment, because I typically, when things are exciting, I buy them. I still don't have Disney+, and I don't know why. Like, I was excited. A lot of your shows are on there, shows you grew up with.

Yeah, a lot of my sports movies are on there. Like, there's a lot, and maybe maybe i just like maybe maybe i need the holidays to just like really sit down with all of my nostalgia um but i the initial excitement was big but then i didn't there was no follow-through on my end are any of your actual like og shows on disney plus so here's the thing and dis Plus, does it only appeal to white people? Here's the thing. Should we put BET Plus up here? BET Plus would be amazing. BET Plus is actually

real. We've landed fresh prints. No, here's the thing. I went straight from and I think the Lord, my mom let me do this. Cause this is like why my pop culture knowledge is what it is. I went straight from Nickelodeon to MTV.

I like did not really have that moment where I'm watching like Disney 30 minutes. I like went straight from, I watch like Rugrats and Doug to I watch music videos. There was no, and I watch, I i heard you say the real world i was scared for a second like a little bit kind of you know that's like why i know like weird early 90s stuff so it yeah i mean maybe disney plus is is for white people i would never would have thought that that would be the worst marketing campaign of all time. Disney Plus.

Disney Plus. We're for white people. I honestly think Disney Plus is going to have a huge next year. I think the Mandalorian thing working out on top of all the other stuff they have, like the Simpsons and Pixar, Marvel, all the Star Wars movies, all the shows that my kids have watched for the last 10 years. It is a mother load of content. You call this one. You want me to call it?

I think Disney Plus because I think the odds were higher against it. But how about this? Since we're at a stalemate. Kyle, who wins? Disney Plus. Wow. A white man picks Disney Plus. Keanu versus LeBron.

This is incredible. Two of the great athletes of all time. Two people really should not be fighting or playing basketball at their age. Keanu. He's older than I am. Yeah.

I feel like Keanu had LeBron just has good years. Yeah. They're all good. This one is cool because, like, I don't think we even, he's up here if the Lakers aren't, like, 25-2 or whatever they are. Yeah, good year so far. So, like, they're having, he's having, he's having a great second half of the year. Right, first half of the year is pretty bad yeah it was weird like um keanu i just don't think anyone expected him to become like a cultural phenomenon outside of just like people

that like john wick like he became like this figure who is like like granting wishes and showing up to like homeless shelters and like saving cats out of trees. Like I didn't expect it. And even though some of that has faded away, like that was very much like a summer fall thing. I just feel like it was a really cool year. Like J-Lo, like I'm just glad that old people like J-Lo, Keanu and LeBron are still all around. And myself.

And you. Yeah, me. I'd like to be thrown in there. So I would give the edge to Keanu because LeBron's first half of 2019 was so lousy. He's had a nice comeback, but I don't think he deserves to advance. Yeah, I mean, the reality is, like, LeBron didn't have a better 2019 than Kawhi, which we'll get to. Right. But, like, he's never going to eclipse Kawhi.

But Keanu had the best action movie year of any action movie slash action movie star and like the most sensitive guy in the world. Greta versus One Direction. Now we had a satellite tournament of all the Gretas and Greta Gerwig lost in the finals

to Climate Greta. Here's the thing about Greta. Greta got her Climate Greta. Here's the thing about Greta. Greta, you got her Climate Greta. Well, that's who she is, right? Greta Thunberg. Thunberg? Climate Greta. Greta does not want to be famous.

Greta's like, I'm just trying to save the world. Like, leave me alone. And we're like, yo, you're the person of the year. And she's like, thanks. I would love to go home now. And they're like, nope, not yet. I just want to sail on my little ship and save the world. I feel there are times where I feel,

I have no idea how old Greta is. She could be four. She could be 29. I have no idea. But I love that. I actually love Greta because I love a young leader, a soft-spoken young leader. I also love the fact that she truly gets under grown men adult skin in a way that is so embarrassing. To the adult bed yeah like like trump is just like coming at greta who as i said is either four or 29 i don't like she might

be in the seventh grade yeah and like like grown ass adults are like beefing with her that's just like it's such a wild she's got all the power i i i for Greta. On the other side, we have One Direction, another group that I did not expect to talk about. But all of One Direction's solo artists are famous now. Harry Styles. It's impressive how they pulled that off. One of them was on the SNL musical guest. Yeah, Harry Styles.

Neil. There's Zayn. What's Neil's name? Neil Johnson? Yeah. It's Harry Styles, Neil Styles, Zayn Styles. musical guest yeah neil there's zane what's neil's name neil johnson yeah it's harry styles neil styles zane styles i think they're all brothers um um i just want to acknowledge that most groups don't break off and everyone's successful they did that big year but like five on one it's i think it's still greta I vote for Greta as well. AOC versus BTS. This is the all acronym battle.

Yeah. Only one acronym can survive. No other acronyms, even though we have PWB up there. So BTS, Phenomenon, K-pop. Literally. Beloved by a couple ringer staffers as well

like in a really significant way. I've become very I'm scared for your safety right now if they don't win. Oh yeah yeah yeah at Rembert please don't hurt me.

Don't find out where I live. Either way you lose with who you're about to get to. It's like AOC has some crazy fans. I get AOC's Bernie Bros or BTS's K-pop stans.

I think that the BTS phenomenon is like undeniable. Yeah. Like it is, it's a force of good and concern, but it's like you can't talk about music in 2019 without talking about BTS. Agree. talk about music in 2019 without talking about bts agree um you kind of can talk about politics without aoc just because there's lots of other darker forces that but she is the breakout politician of the generation of the year she actually won two which is a big deal because a lot of people are become phenomenons and then like get five percent of the vote in the election she actually won um bts wins this bts wins yeah yeah but fuck the afc she's she's

she's a superstar um okay next one mini driver i like that it just says driver versus it sounds like she had like some sort of uber Uber incident. This is like a claims court. The case of Driver versus Zendaya. Wait, question. Yeah. Father of a teen and a soon-to-be teen. Yeah. You watch Euphoria?

I watched every episode. I absolutely loved it. And I look at it this way. It is the worst possible teen experiences on steroids. It doesn't reflect real life as far as I know. Okay. That's what I told myself. So far. I'm just going to like throw it out there.

There's a world. I don't know how the matchups are going to go, but there's a world in which Zendaya just runs away with this whole bracket. I'm just saying there's a world because I think she might be the most likable movie star on earth. I judge it by this. If you're at a Christmas party and people are shooting the shit and they've had a couple drinks and somebody says,

you know, I fucking can't stand Zendaya. This is like your Denzel theory yeah this is another one like this where if you said that the reaction would be like really pure horror yeah it's like oh Zendaya people like what and they would just walk away yeah they'd be like what's wrong with you

yeah um so yeah Adam Driver big movie star huge he's fucking weird though I back Adam Driver, big movie star. Huge. He's fucking weird though. I back Adam Driver's whole, that whole NPR thing. I'm on team him just being like. So who are you voting for? Oh, I'm voting for Zendaya.

Like Zendaya, like she has everything. Like she comes from, she, she comes from the Disney universe. Which is usually a universe that doesn't end well. Does not end well. You end up like Bella Thorne. She is in the Marvel universe. She's in Spider-Man. A lot of good universes.

She's on the cover of high fashion magazines. She wears a suit better than every man on earth. She's the flyest and seems to be the coolest. And she's incredible on that and seems to be the coolest. I think she's. And she's incredible on that show. Yeah. Really,

really, really great. Zendaya wins. Okay. Wait, let's go to, let's go to, I want to save the big,

the big one for last. Can we go Lil Nas X and Lizzo? Yeah. Wow. So this could have been a final in some alternate universes of brackets. Well, but it's interesting because first half of the year, you said Lil Nas X. Second half of the year, you said Lil Nas X. Second half of the year, Lizzo.

And if anything, if you could combine them, they win 2019, but each of them had a good half. Are you talking about Liz, Nas, X? Yes. Yeah, I mean, God, this was not supposed to happen for either of them this year. Like Lizzo, like was known, but was obviously like, this record has like been out for like three years at this point, but it finally popped off. Lil Nas X was like, not even a person that anyone knew of, in February I don't think so like it's miraculous that either of these things happened I think

Lizzo one thing Lizzo is getting all the Grammys right which Lil Nas X is not getting Lil Nas X had the clip of him at the high school with all the little kids singing the song which was probably the coolest clip I saw all year.

Yeah. Old Town Road is like the song of this year. I think the kids are done with it, though, which is a problem. Well, the kids are done with it, but. It can only be in so many TikTok videos. That's true. Um, but I don't think like old town road became a song that like three-year-olds just learning to speak and like 80 year olds knew like, there's, there's like a song like that. Like that's like, Hey, yeah.

Yeah. You know, like, it's like the, it's, there's not a lot of songs that like you throw it on at a wedding, you throw it on anywhere. It's like a basketball game time out yeah it's just gonna like it'll hold up even if like we'll hate it probably for the next two years and we'll start liking it again in like five years that's like it's gonna have the hey y'all thing but if i hear hey y'all now i'm like thrilled again after like a decade of like if i hear this song one more time i'm gonna die i think i think on the strength of that song alone it might be a little nas x all right last one

all right unbelievable here's the thing when you asked me about this i didn't expect to get to this point donald trump jr versus simone biles i didn't expect that to be a play-in game. I thought that was going to be maybe the final or maybe a semifinal. This is... Man. The case for Donald Trump Jr. Thread. My story.

Click here Long thought of as a Fredo type figure Yeah Now feels a little more like He's sick of y'all saying that shit He's now Fredo Plus He's Fredo Plus He brings more to the table than Fredo

He Big Twitter presence Big Twitter presence Not afraid to wade in at some controversies uh there's some 2024 buzz for him that maybe this is a w bush kind of thing might be a w bush maybe might be a whw um grew that beard out that zaddy beard the beard he's feisty he he put out a book that you could get at like your your neighborhood sam's Club or Vaughn's. He did some college speaking tours.

I thought that was a fucking flex. And then didn't understand why some of them went badly. This is the year he's like, I'm my own, like, y'all might impeach my dad, but I'm not going anywhere. I think he might snitch on his dad. I think we need him to buy an NFL team. That would be full circle. Wow. Right?

Like he buys the Atlanta Falcons. Why? Blank's like, you know what? I need some help around here. He buys the Indianapolis Colts or something. And becomes like basically the James Dolan of the NFL. It would be a fun outcome for Simone Biles. Simone Biles.

Like, okay. Like now the, like the greatest gymnast ever. She certainly crossed over into the whole endorsement thing too. And like, she seems, which during non Olympic years is unusual. Yeah. I mean,

she feels famous even though we've had no Olympics since 2016. Yeah. She like, she has like, she has momentum. She's not like every three and a half years. We remember Olympics since 2016. Yeah. She has like, she has momentum. She's not like every three and a half years. We remember that she exists. Right.

So yeah, she definitely is the most famous gymnast ever. I think you got it. It's almost like she's paved the way for some new category. I didn't know existed. I think we have to, even though I want to keep talking about DTJR, um,

I just don't think, Oh, he's not advancing. What are you talking about DTJR. I just don't think. Oh, he's not advancing. What are you talking about? Simone Biles. Great job by her. All right. So everyone's advancing. We're going to take a break.

We're going to fill things in. Great. All right. We're going back to who won 2019. Here are the matchups as we head into the final 16. Megan Rapinoe versus Lil Nas X. One versus 16. Two versus 15, Lamar Jackson

versus Greta. Three versus 14, Billie Eilish versus Zendaya. Four versus 13, TikTok versus Disney Plus. Five versus 12, Kawhi versus BTS. Six versus 11, Tiger versus Keanu seven versus 10 Phoebe Waller bridge versus JLo. And then eight versus nine succession versus Simone Biles. Here we go. All right, we're back. We've written in the names. This is serious.

This is big. We're going left. First Megan Rapinoe against little Nas X. So Megan Rapinoe, a breakout star of the World Cup. Sports. Which was a little unfair to Rose Lavelle, who was the actual breakout star of the

World Cup to people who actually like soccer. She had the pose of the year. Pose of the year. The confidence slash swagger, which, as the dad of a female athlete, was really inspiring. My daughter was really into how Rapinoe carried herself.

Especially when you're talking about little girls or fledgling teenage athletes, stuff like that. Especially females, confidence is such a big thing. And she just carried herself like fucking John Wick. And it was awesome. She's fucking John Wick. She really was. And gave no fucks. Zero.

Other stats. Like 72 hours straight of just making like the great drunk speeches of all time. She was just going everywhere. It's just been like, what up, motherfucker? Right. She was so much fun. Like also. Getting her to the ESPYs was savvy.

Yeah. In probably the coolest, best, famous person relationship on Earth. Her and Sue Bird. Unbelievable. Like, that's the great relationship of our time. Lil Nas X I think he knocks off like half of the people on here But this is how it goes sometimes Sometimes you end up 16th seed going against

The icon He made a couple threes early But Rapinoe is just too much Too much manpower The hair, just everything She This is a surprising, I mean, she's a one seed. You should advance out of the first round.

Next one. What a battle. TikTok, Disney+. Wow, two things I haven't downloaded. No TikTok? I don't know how to fucking use it. I need to just spend like an hour with Ben. This is a TikTok my son made.

Which camera will we see this? This is incredible. He's an artist. Just for some context. Yeah. Do you remember who won the first bracket 2011 was that watch the throne year that was 2012 twitter won the first year oh what a sad reality to the end of the decade now everyone blames twitter for everything as an employee of twitter i'm gonna kill you well that is funny you work for twitter now one thing i will say is even though i'm not on tiktok all the good tiktoks make it to twitter

so i do end up consuming lots of tiktok so i respect it as a platform um and i but i wouldn't know what it was outside of the ones that make it like push through culturally um but i can't lie and act like it's not like it's not the thing like it's like i i am on the out i'm like accepted the fact that i'm on the outside for young people it is really really uh it's been the one platform that's really grown it seems like this year because instagram had once they added stories that was like a year ago two years ago people under 20 aren't on twitter um the same way they're on instagram and tiktok do you think that it had a bigger year than White Plus. Than Disney Plus.

I think TikTok had a bigger year, yeah. TikTok it is. All right, now we go to the 5-12 matchup, perennially an upset matchup in the real tournament. I can't believe Twitter won in 2011. Yeah, that's why they hired me. What did Twitter do to win in 2011? Like, exist.

Was it the Ray Allen DMs? No, it was just like, this is social media. Isn't it exciting? Like, it was... It might have been the Ray Allen DMs. There wasn't Instagram yet. All right, so Kawhi versus BTS 512. The case for Kawhi.

Won the finals. He did it. Hit the greatest buzzer beater series winning shot in the history of basketball, in my opinion. Yeah, maybe the greatest, like one of the great, like top five still images, him crouched. Like that's up there with Jordan. And then that face he made when they're all surrounding him, he's just like, yeah. Just incredible. He almost didn't know how to experience full joy.

No, it was, yeah. It was like his first happy Christmas. He's like, I can open presents. I feel joy. The whole, all the kawaii stories, like him going on Serge Ibaka's cooking show and just being weird and everybody kind of realizing

there was a little more there than just like this mute guy that we always made fun of for not talking. There's a little more. Dan orchestrates this whole free agency tour. Yeah. And dicks the Lakers around for an extra week. Love that.

Knowing he's not going to sign there. And then signs with the Clippers. And then on top of it, after the Clippers trade all these picks for him and Paul George, lets them know he's only staying for two years. And we'll discuss it two years from now. The Kawhi laugh. Oh yeah, the Kawhi laugh.

Which now everyone else does. Kawhi is saying bored man. His laugh. Everything about him. The fact that he somehow has like is making Under Armour kind of cool in a way it seemed inconceivable it seemed like chefs absolutely never gonna happen and BTS huge um my thing about bts this could be a very ignorant thing to say but i feel like there could

be another bts there might be a version of bts every year i feel like there might be like lqt that's 2020 just any acronym any acronym same um i do i have listened listened to BTS and I get it. But I just feel like this kind of feels like Kawhi's tournament to lose a little bit. I just I wonder who's going to like someone might beat him, but I don't think it's now. I don't think it's BTS. Man, I knew it was going to come down to this succession versus Simone. I'm so excited for this. It was only a matter of time.

Did you know how big Succession was going to be? So this is the 8-9 matchup for the record. Chris Ryan loves Succession. I love Succession. And like two other people here loved it. About four episodes in. And we all thought it was probably gonna get canceled at the end of the season because there was no buzz at all and a lot of the critics didn't like it and

then over the we started writing about it and talk about here at the ringer and a couple other places might have and then around episode seven eight it was like oh this this show's here to stay yeah but then you go to that second season and you think that's usually when the shows does this and then it'll come back just this show vertical line green arrow like in fantasy when when like lamar just says the green arrow every week and you're like oh yeah still keep lamar same thing for succession infinite r1 turbo just never just never ran out and so and i think one of the best things is a lot of actors that i didn't have a lot of familiarity with. Yeah.

You know, like I didn't know who Shiv was. She'd been in like one horror movie I'd seen. Jeremy Strong, I didn't know who he was. Yeah. The Culkin brother, I didn't know which one. It was a Kieran or Rory. I didn't even know. Tom, I don't know who the fuck that is.

I don't even know what his name is now. It's fucking Tom. You go all the way through and these people are part of our lives though. So I didn't see, I didn't start watching until leading up to season two. So you went backwards. I went back. Yeah. I did the thing where I was like, I was annoyed by how much everyone liked it. I did that annoying thing where it's like, everyone likes this.

I don't want to watch it. And then by episode two of the first season i was like holy shit um i do think this show like is one of those same thing kind of happened with the watchman this happens a lot on hbo where like you just start seeing how much people are talking about it on twitter in real time and it's like i have to be a part of this like i can't like people live tweet succession and live tweet The Watchmen in a very real way. By episode five, if you aren't watching The Watchmen, you felt kind of crazy because it felt like everyone around you was watching it in real time. I feel like Succession definitely got the live, the tweet during the episode bump.

Well, but then there's a second part to this, which is the anti-binge watch model. I think the shows that don't binge, like they've got to, at this point, they have to be really good. Yeah. Like. Euphoria was like that.

Yeah. I think Law and Order SVU's season 28 was a little like that. Oh yeah. When they found that guy. Yeah, and he did it. And turned out to be the custodian. But at the end, it was his sister.

Fuckers. Succession versus Simone. I will personally remember 2019 for Succession more than Simone. Same. Also, Succession was an incredible memed show. Like, Succession out of context was like a thing where people would just like post. True.

Like, it was really, it felt like Fuck off and all that stuff. Cousin Greg, great character. I don't know why he ended up in so many important meetings, but I love that he did. Alright, now we're moving into the next region. Lamar Odom versus Greta.

Wait, is that not Lamar Odom? Okay. We had Rapinoe, TikTok, Kawhi, and Succession Advance. That's strong. That's a strong left side. And now Greta versus Lamar Odom. I don't think Lamar Odom had a great year. I don't think his big three comeback really worked.

No, it's Lamar Jackson who has- Wow. Tough for me. Maybe the highest approval rate of any human being right now for sports or pop culture. He is in a fellow's Zendaya. Oh, I like it. Yeah, and he's right there. It could happen.

I don't know if it's going to happen. It could happen. Lamar's tough for me because he's breaking all of Mike Fick's records. Oh. It's hard for me. Not only is he just electric to watch and the whole story is great, and he just seems like the greatest guy too.

But it also taps into the thing we mentioned earlier where it allows people to latch on to the story and just get fucking agitated about it. Oh, yeah. And in this case, it was really, it only seems like two people ever even said on TV or radio that they thought maybe he should be turned into a receiver. But now it's like Bill Polian and Booger were like the only two people that I know of.

Maybe there are a couple other online, but, and now it's like, and they wanted to turn him into a receiver. It's like, no, he was a quarterback drafted in the first round. Pretty sure he wasn't going to be a receiver. I wanted him for the Patriots. Kyle and I were watching that draft together, fucking losing our mind as he fell to number 31. And then we took Sonny Michel, the Georgia backup running back.

But that whole narrative, but the fact that people were so crazed about it actually added to the legend of Lamar because it's like everything people want. They want somebody who's fun, somebody who's likable, somebody that allows them to get agitated about something. And that's Lamar. Lamar also inadvertently gave me my favorite racist story of the year. Oh. Do we have a sponsor for this when my man was like the ball blends in with lamar's skin i like sometimes things are so wild like i can't help but laugh. I was like, wow, you said that out loud, that people can't read the fakes

because the brown football looks like the brown arm of his brown skin. Therefore, Lamar's, it's not fair. And then Lamar the next week comes out with full white gloves on. Like that's, I can't ask for a better story. That is the best shit ever. Great run for Greta, but it's over. Greta, I think by advancing Lamar, we are doing what Greta wants us to do,

which is to just like, if Greta wins 2019, she's going to be like, enough is enough. I just want to be a normal seven-year-old. I don't want to win ringerold. I don't want to win ringer brackets. I don't want to win. I don't want, like, the winner of this will end up on billboards all over the world. I don't want to do that.

It's less that Lamar beat Greta. It's more that we are allowing Greta to go home. The next one. I have some. This is a bloodbath. Billie Eilish at number three against Zendaya at 14. It arguably could have been a semifinal. Yeah.

Zendaya coming in like Murray State at 14. Yeah. Very Murray State. Making threes early. So here's the thing about Billie Eilish. Yeah. I'm showing my age a little bit. I've showed my age multiple times so far.

Billie Eilish, I know to be famous. I know how big she is. I don't know what her voice sounds like. I could not pick her voice out of a lineup. This happens to like one very famous singer a year where it's like, I know they have eight songs on the radio. I don't know which ones they are. I just assume the songs I don't know are Billie Eilish.

But I can't claim her to not have been a winner just because I don't know it. But like everyone else. She's phenomenally talented. Her songs are actually really good. It was such a pleasure when my daughter puts on her fucking shitty music stations in my car. And then just, I don't have a choice because

that's one of the things that happens like you probably know all the songs just by osmosis yeah and they're so bad all the songs are so bad fucking sam smith if i hear another sam smith song i'm just gonna veer into traffic and then billy eilish comes on and it's like wow this is actually good this is music you listen to oh so she is a is a reprieve from the bad Sam Smith. Yeah, it's like, this is good. You guys listen to this? And like Ben Simmons is into it, the lyrics, and she kind of fits into a lot of what's happening in teen culture anyway.

Yeah. She's mysterious, hard to figure out. Like she intentionally wears baggy clothes. Like it's really hard to get a handle on anything with that. I love the mysterious teen. It's like can't read, just has no home. I love mysterious teens. Okay, so.

I think she is a once-in-a-generation talent. You could say that also about Zendaya. I'm just saying you could. You could. You could. This is talent. You could say that also about Zendaya. I'm just saying you could. You could. You could. This is tough. You could. I'll let you call.

It's your bracket. If you're out on Billy Eilish, you're out. We haven't had an upset yet. I think the answer is Zendaya. I think the answer is Zendaya. Okay, great. Now we're in the bottom half of the bracket. This is...

Keanu took down LeBron, now taking down... Wow. Trying to take down Tiger Woods, another old guy who had another renaissance that we went nuts for. There's a lot of people on here who we didn't know about last year. Tiger is probably the person who I least expected. I've always wanted him to come back, but I think I was at a point where I'm like, it probably won't happen.

It's weird though. None of us, the great thing about Tiger is that none of us ever fully got to that point. We got 99% there, 99.5, but there was always that sliver of hope, maybe. And he did it. And he fucking did it. He won the Masters. So many good sports moments this year.

It actually got a little forgotten because it seems like it happened 100 years ago. It only happened eight months ago. I had come up with Tiger was the last person I added because I completely forgot that that happened this year. Tiger versus Keanu. It's Tiger. It's Tiger. It's Tiger. Keanu, I would like to think that Keanu would not want to beat

LeBron and Tiger. Last one is another bloodbath. Phoebe Waller-Bridge. One of the most beloved people on the internet. And it's one of those things where you either love Fleabag and the other show

or you don't even know about it. I love the fact that, I wish more people did this where it's like two seasons, we're out. Like, that's when you know like that's what Chappelle almost did. You should have done. I think as history as the years pass

we'll remember it that way yeah oh yeah we will continue to africa yeah then we wouldn't remember the africa thing but i feel like that there's like a certain level of like i'm the shit and i will go on and do other great things when you're like yeah like i know y'all want more but like we're done here let's go do some other stuff i feel like it's like one of the most boss moves that's happened in a very long time. Because you know she would have gotten, like, $100 billion to do a third season. But she's like, I'm going to go make this James Bond money. Because she's also doing James Bond.

Right. Hmm. J-Lo had a great year. J-Lo had a great year. More people are aware of J-Lo's great year than just because more people know about J-Lo. I think J-Lo wins this. I just think this is kind of like, this is a J-Lo year. I think she's just like, we should keep her going.

Also, the Latino community. Shut up. Oh, honorable mention. Is she the queen? Had a great year. Oh, yeah. We should have put Shay in there. Good year, Shay.

You're never going to make the bracket as long as I'm in charge. What a great year. Oh yeah, we should have put Shay in there. Good year, Shay. You're never going to make the bracket as long as I'm in charge. What a great year. Let's take a break to talk about Square. They make that little white reader that helps businesses take payments like Fernando the barber. Kyle's barber. He takes Square.

Guess what? It's super easy to pay Fernando. Here's the thing a lot of people don't know about Square. They make so much more than the card reader. They make tools like point of sale for restaurants, retail, and salons, easy to build websites, invoices you can send from anywhere, and full service payroll too. They design and build all their hardware in-house so it all works together smoothly with their software because running and growing a business takes a ton of work. And while Square can't do all that work, it can help with a lot more than you think. See how Square can take your business from square one to whatever's next at square.com

slash go slash BS. That's square.com slash go slash BS. And since we're here, January is coming. That means more January sports are here. The pro football playoffs are kicking off. College football wrapping up. NBA getting a full swing. Enjoy all the action on FanDuel Sportsbook,

America's biggest online sportsbook and the official sportsbook of the ringer. They've got all the bets you could want. A great easy to use app. Once you win, they get your cash free. And if you've been holding out on trying FanDuel Sportsbook, now's the time.

It's giving new users a free $50 bet just for signing up. For instance, I thought the Chiefs were going to win the Super Bowl. I don't know why you would think that. Andy Reid's their coach. But you can bet on the Chiefs to win the Super Bowl. Go find the odds. They're probably in like the 10 or 11 to 1 range. Bang it out.

It's a free $50 bet only available for a limited time. Don't wait to get your piece of the action. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app on iOS or visit fanduel.com slash android. Sign up with promo code BS. Get your free $50 bet. Must be 21 plus, present in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. Free bet issued as non-withdrawable site credit expires seven days after receipt. $10 minimum deposit required to withdraw any winnings.

Terms apply. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or in Indiana, call 1-800-9-WITH-IT. Okay, we're diving into the final eight and then the final four. Here are your final eight matchups. Number one, Megan Rapinoe versus TikTok. Lamar Jackson versus Zendaya. Kawhi Leonard versus the cast of Succession. You just knew

those two were going to battle this year. And then Tiger Woods versus J-Lo. Two 50-plussers almost. Well, Tiger's almost 50. Feels like he's 50. Feels like they've been around about the exact same amount of time. Let's do it. The final eight. Here we go. We are now in the quarterfinals. This is big. The elite eight. Rapinoe versus TikTok.

1-4 matchup. Both of them advanced. Pretty impressive. Yeah. Do you think Rapinoe has TikTok? I actually think TikTok should win this. Go on. Pretty impressive. Yeah. Do you think Rapinoe has TikTok? Do you think she... I actually think TikTok should win this. Go on.

Are you looking to knock out one seed? I just think a merging social platform, so hard to do. Nobody thought that was going to happen again. People, remember the dialogue about Snapchat was going to be the last one of these? Yeah, it happens every 18 months. There's going to be another one every 18 months. Probably. But the fact that they pulled that off and all these people are jockeying for it and pissed off that they could have bought it when they had the chance.

And then how it just feels like it's going to grow and grow and grow and grow. Whereas Rapinoe, the moment was the moment. But so I guess the question for you is, will you remember 2019 for Rapinoe or is the year TikTok really put itself on the map and turned into this much like Twitter in 2011? Yeah, I think. That's your call. This is your bracket. I think that. I'm just here to make the cases for both sides. I hear you. I think it's interesting because there is a demographic of young teen woman like your daughter. Yeah.

Who is very invested in both of these people. Yeah, true. Um, and I think day in, day out, TikTok probably more important in terms of, like, what had, like, a real impact. I feel like Rapinoe wins. in a way that like we've had moments with Serena but like I think it's very cool to watch her become like the number one American athlete just like culturally like more than like you know in this period where like you know people don't even really care about like USA basketball that much you know it's like she was just like you know what I'm putting like the country on my back people don't even really care about like USA basketball that much. You know, it's like,

she was just like, you know what? I'm putting like the country on my back and we're not even getting paid as much, but we're still going to fucking like, it was very cool to watch them kind of embarrass us men's soccer. And just like the entire idea that they don't get paid. Like,

I also liked how upfront and transparent she was just about her sexuality, but not in a way that we would have had 20 years ago. It was just like... She was like, yeah, whatever. Yeah, she literally was like, whatever, let's go. And the way she talked about herself was advanced. Yeah.

And I thought it was important. I say Rapinoe, think that tiktok was important i think tiktok was looking ahead to kawaii and didn't realize i think tiktok was like let me get out i don't want to lose to kawaii tiktok was already scouting kawaii i thought they could zoom right by rapinoe i think rapinoe wins okay rapinoe and then in the other bracket, Kawhi versus Succession, a 5-8 matchup. Wow. I still have Kawhi. I'll remember 2019 for Kawhi before Succession. It's interesting.

Who's the last great athlete who said so little and was so widely known? Who are the great quiet team sport athletes that are beloved? People love Kawhi. Right. Not in the like, we love his personality. They're just like, you're like

you're good and weird. I think what people like about him, and I think this is why he has a chance to win. 2019 to me was a lot about authenticity. people gravitating toward who seemed authentic versus who seemed

like they were the full of shit, trying to get their credit card, lying about page views or how many users they had, forging documents, all like the chicanery that has been going on this decade that we'll remember this decade for. And I think people like Kawhi

because he's just completely authentic. He doesn't have his fucking agency and he just had like Uncle Dennis. We all should have known that they had a plan, but people were just like, it's just Kawhi being weird. It was Uncle Dennis. It all should have known that they had a plan, but people were just like, is this Kawhi being weird? It was Uncle Dennis. It was like, you know.

It was great. I also think everything you said about Kawhi also works for Rapinoe, just in terms of like, yo, this is me. There's a reason these people really got everyone fired up in interesting ways because it was like,

oh, you're just showing us your hand, which is like not that complicated and kind of refreshing um you know let's go through all next bracket lamar zendaya wow just two two beloved people like what combined age of what like 41 how old is zendaya she older than greta yeah yeah she's either she's either younger or older than Greg like they're both what like 20 wow I mean so the thing with Lamar is it's only been a couple months for him here it's been three and a half months there's still the playoffs coming

we don't know how that's going to turn out he has been a phenomenon but Mahomes was a phenomenon last year and if this does seem to happen in football every year there's somebody we gravitate toward and grab onto. Yeah, I think Lamar had a strong Q3, Q4. Yeah, strong. And we could also be talking about him next year because who knows?

I mean, I'm excited for him and Mahomes to be like both firing on all cylinders at the same time. Last one, Tiger versus J-Lo. Wow. Two survivors. Two 90s icons. Two 2000s icons. Yeah, just. I mean, she made Out of Sight, which was the movie that I think, along with a lot of other people, made me think she was going to be like a huge movie star.

She really wasn't. In that movie, you leave that movie, or at least you left it in 1999, whenever it was. You're like, she's going to be a huge movie star. It never really totally happened. And then Hustlers, it was like 20 years just, she's picked up with that movie star thing. I just love that no one seemed to, like no one saw it coming. Yeah. Like I remember when they announced the cast, I was like, well, this is cool.

But I was just like, I'll keep it moving. It's like a posse movie. But one, Hustlers is good. Hustlers is good. And she kind of blows Constance Wu up the screen. I mean, J-Lo acted It's a huge L for Constance Wu. I love J-Lo. I think

that it's fantastic that she's like ending her third decade of relevancy like on a very high point. I don't know who else could have done that role.

Really? But it's not like that movie. That movie was an E.T. No, of course not. And that's where this falls apart a little bit. Yeah. I mean. I think it's Tiger. Tiger had a good four days this year.

Look at you. What are you doing here? I mean. I love Tiger. I love Tiger. I love Tiger. I don't know. I think it's Tiger. You think it's Tiger?

He's one of the greatest athletes of the last 50 years. And we wrote him off and he was dead. And he was done. Okay. I think your argument works because like Tiger was further away from glory. J-Lo never disappeared. J-Lo's J-Lo. Nobody's ever writing off J-Lo. She's been

beloved for 30 years. And you're going to have ebbs and flows of being beloved. Tiger was written off. You're right. All right. So we're down to a final four. We have three athletes. You know, that actually makes sense to me because this was a very memorable sports year in a lot of different ways.

It's true. You know, it's funny. I think there were more great TV shows and movies than like breakout individuals' performances. I think one of the reasons Zendaya is awesome is that she, like you can't really single out someone from Succession. It was just like a great cast, you know? There's a lot of really, I mean, there's more TV than ever.

So there's lots of, while there's lots of bad shit, there's also lots of great TV and movies. But yeah, I think it makes sense that there's more athletes. Let's, it's time. I just, I think it makes sense that there's more athletes. It's time. I just, I want a Rapinoe to go all the way.

I think this is where it ends. I think it's where it ends too. I don't want it to end here, but. We have a five seed about to make the finals, Kawhi Leonard. My favorite thing about Kawhi is, or just what happened was, like, I never thought that, I never thought he was going to be like that guy. Me neither. Like, I never thought that, I mean, like, that would be like,

I'm more of like a Kawhi guy than a LeBron guy. Like, the fact that you can be like, oh, no, Kawhi's like the best basketball player. And he's like the most interesting personality. Like, he's not on, he like doesn't use social media. Like, that's awesome. There's another piece to it. He's the opposite of Lebron like i i know everything that lebron does every day the other thing i wanted to mention in person

kawaii is is he passes the test man he's he's like one of a kind yeah he plays at a pace where i compared it to michael jordan in the last three Bulls titles when his athletically he was slowing down a little bit and he had to compensate in other ways but was always able to play at the pace he wanted to play at at all times and offensively he's like have the ball I'm not gonna go flying to the rim I'm gonna get a shot right over there from 17 feet and it's not gonna be blocked and it's gonna go in and I'm gonna get over there I'm not gonna go full speed I'm going to get a shot right over there from 17 feet and it's not going to be blocked and it's going to go in and I'm going to get over there. I'm not going to go full speed. I'm going to do a little herky jerky. I'm going to be at a weird pace. When I line up to shoot,

you're going to jump a little bit early and I know how all this is going to play out and then I'm going to make the shot. Yeah. And he just does it over and over again. It's, it blows my mind. Like that there's actually a basketball player who's like, I want to shoot from right there. Right. When he's dribbling the ball up the court, he's like, I'm going to get

to the elbow. And the defender's going, he's going to shoot from right there. We all know. We all know what he's going to do. We don't know exactly when he's going to get there, but he just always gets there, and it typically goes in. Defensively, he's always going to make the biggest play, and he's just fucking get there, but he just always gets there and it typically goes in. And then defensively, he's always going to make the biggest play and he's just fucking awesome to watch.

And the fact that he made the Clippers cool, think how impossible that is. The Clippers are actually cool now. Clippers are awesome. They were owned by Donald Sterling five years ago. Who lost the decade? My guy Don.

How about the name Donald? Glover's holding on. He might change to Donnie. Yeah. So we have Kawhi over Rapinoe. And then the other side, a surprising matchup. Number 14 seed Zendaya going against

number 16 Tiger Woods. Yeah. You know? Can you really... I think there's going to be some people out there that are like, what the fuck is going on? How's Zendaya going to make the finals? Yeah.

Can you make this a succinct case one more time? Yes. I saw some stats about like... Oh, is this some inside twitter shit no no this isn't inside twitter shit this is like just seeing or I hope it's not anyway um no there was just like

they do these polls about like likability index yeah I've read like seven or eight of these and the answer is always Zendaya she's like apparently and i get it but like that thing where like every demographic like is that person like everyone's in like that person pops up like you know i feel like there was a period of time when like like pre-backlash where

like chance the rapper had like a year like that where it's like everyone's in on this person and then it always turns like I assume that at some point it'll turn because that's just what happened but like for 2019 being in being in like

one of the biggest movies of the year and one of the biggest TV shows of the year and also just like making it to the second movies of the year and one of the biggest TV shows of the year and also just like making it to the second phase of her career. Climbing out of Disney. Yeah, climbing out of Disney. The Disney curse. She broke the Disney curse. Being like a fashion icon

in a way that I don't think anyone expected. I'm just like, I think it makes sense because she had a full year. I'm not shitting on... The fact that Tiger beat J-Lo is an accomplishment. Right. That I think Tiger will...

He's walking out of this proud. He's walking out of this proud. He's updating his LinkedIn again. He never thought he'd be in this bracket again. No. All right, so we have a Zendaya-Kawaii final. We're now in the finals. We're now in the finals. We're now in the final.

Kawhi Leonard versus Zendaya, last name redacted. So in my mind, it's clear who the winner is. I feel like we have the same answer. I think we do. Why is Kawhi so important? I think Kawhi wins. Kawhi wins because... Why is he the most important figure of this year?

I feel like he is. Because the whole year was important. Yeah. He starts out in Toronto as coming off this polarizing trade and comes in, makes Toronto good. We take them seriously as a contender. Takes us all the way through April, May, June. Yeah.

Makes the greatest buzzer beater ever. Beats the Warriors in the finals. And then gives us all this free agency drama. Everyone else shoots their wad and signs early. Like Durant had premature ejaculation signing. Couldn't even wait till midnight. It's 5 o'clock. He's like, oh, I'm signing with the Nets.

Kawhi waits it out. Everybody signs within five minutes. And then he gets this whole week where it's like, where's Kawhi going? Where's Kawhi going? Oh, he's over here. Nobody can read Uncle Dennis. He gets another week out of it. And then it seems like he's going to the Lakers.

Yeah. Double crosses them. Starts this whole Clippers thing. Now the Clippers are really fun. He's owned, every month of the year, he's been involved, which I think matters. Yeah, he was like player of the month in some way, every year.

He was the who won 2019 player of the month four times. He won January. No, I'm obsessed with it i love the fact that he like being low-key but like was clearly playing chess in a way that no one else was like no one could read him like everyone's trying to always like take these cues off of what you're doing publicly meanwhile kawaii was just like... He was like Kaiser Soze. Yeah. It felt like this masterful script that clearly worked.

Turning the tables on San Antonio. I don't want to be here anymore. I'm out. Goes to Toronto. Uses them for a title. Leaves. Yeah. Fucks with LeBron. Fucks with the Lakers. Goes to the Clippers. It all kind of fits into 2019. He also... It also... you know,

even though that team was clearly a shell of their normal selves, like, him and, like, a bunch of dudes beat a super team. Yeah. Like, him and Fred Van Vliet, someone who I, like, was never really supposed to

know much about, like, he made, he made, like, the. Like he made, he made like the whole, he made like the United States basketball fan root for Toronto. Yeah. That was weird. That was weird. I loved it. And then like on top of everything,

also having this like very likable, like internet side of him. He wasn't doing any... He didn't have to say anything. We would just find ways to make his clips and things go viral. And now you have his teammates doing the Kawhi laugh. He's clearly a cult figure. Yeah, Titan is...

There's not a lot of cult figures these days because everyone's so accessible. No one's mysterious. Kawhi is, is this piece of clay that people are just taking and molding into whatever they want, getting whatever they want out of them. And he's just kind of there allowing it and happy with it.

Yeah. And we like see little glimpses when we're like trying to take all of these glimpses and like tell a story about who he was. Like there's that great video of him in the backseat with Serge Ibaka. Yeah. And Kawhi like doesn't really know that he's on camera, but it also kind of looks like Kawhi's like rolling a blunt.

And you're like, interesting. Like maybe Kawhi smokes weed. Maybe like it could have also just not been that, but it's just like, we're just trying to like figure out like who this ball of clay is. And we're all doing it in different ways, but none of us really know who he is. There's no mystery with LeBron. There's no mystery with Embiid. But I think Kawhi is the one person who's been able to protect his personality slash identity slash persona.

Yeah. Like Kawhi might, like, I love. Also doesn't care. Doesn't seem to care. Like someone that famous having like a private life seems healthy. It also seems like just healthy. Like, I don't really know, like, like who's in his circle. Like if he has, like, I think he has. I don't really know who's in his circle. I don't think he knows.

I think he just figured it out. He's just like, I don't want y'all in my business. This is amazing. So Kawhi over Zendaya. That's our finals. Kawhi over Zendaya. Kawhi's road to the finals. He took down BTS in round one.

In round two, the cast of Succession. Round three, Rapinoe. And then Zendaya. It's incredible. I mean, multiple people. The whole cast of Succession he had to take down. He took down an entire...

Cousin Greg? He took down like Rupert Murdoch's whole family. Unbelievable. It's incredible. Remember Brown, a pleasure. Thank you. Thanks, man.

All right. Thanks to State Farm. Thanks to Unbelievable. It's incredible. Remember Brown, a pleasure. Thank you. Thanks, man. All right. Thanks to State Farm. Thanks to Square. It's more than a little white credit card reader. It's a whole system of tools built to run and grow any kind of business from point of sale and payroll to invoices and online stores. Go to square.com slash go slash BS to see all the ways you can take your business from Square One to whatever's next.

Thanks to Simply Safe. Time is running out on their huge holiday offer, their biggest sale of the year. They have everything you need to protect your home and family, like a smart lock and video doorbell for your front door and an army of sensors that guard every room in your home. Get 25% off plus a free camera at simplisafe.com slash BS. The sale ends December 31st.

SimpliSafe with two I's, simplisafe.com slash BS. Cousin Sal and I will be back on Sunday night after everything shakes out. Ready to guess the lines for week 18, aka round one of the NFL playoffs. I'm so excited.

Enjoy the rest of the week. Happy holidays. We had an awesome year this year. Very excited for 2020 and everything that's coming. On the wayside I'm a bruised son Never lost it I don't have To ever forget