The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Giannis Leap, England’s Agony, and UFC 264 With Kevin O’Connor, Chris Ryan, and Kevin Clark

Episode Date: July 12, 2021

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Kevin O’Connor to discuss the Bucks’ Game 3 Finals win over the Suns, Giannis Antetokounmpo’s dominance on the court, speculative Finals scenarios, Team USA’s startling loss to Nigeria, offseason trade buzz, and more (2:00). Then Bill talks with Chris Ryan about England’s loss to Italy in the Euro Final (1:16:00). Finally Bill talks to Kevin Clark about UFC 264, Conor McGregor’s fight-ending injury, exciting upcoming UFC fights, the postponed Wilder-Fury boxing match, and more (1:43:15). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Kevin O'Connor, Chris Ryan, and Kevin Clark Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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But yeah, download Green Room because our people really like using it. And we've had some fun experiences with it so far. So check that out. Coming up, I have a lot for you because we had an awesome sports weekend. Kevin O'Connor from The Ringer. We're going to talk about game three of the finals

and Giannis and a whole bunch of other subplots that have emerged from a really fascinating finals, I got to say. So we have that. Chris Ryan from The Ringer and the rewatchables and The Watch. He comes on to talk about the Euros and his beloved England who fell in PKs and whether we should even have PKs. And then finally, Kevin Clark we should even have PKs. And then finally, Kevin Clark, also from The Ringer. We're going to talk about the UFC event over the weekend, a little boxing, a little Aaron Rodgers as well.

So action-packed Sunday night for you. Let's kick it off with our friends from Pearl Jam. All right. Kevin O'Connor is here. We are taping. It is about 740 Pacific time. Just watch the Bucs cruise to a Game 3 win. KOC, we've been working together five years now. When did you join the ringer?

2016, August 2016, Bill. Yeah, there you go. We're heading toward our five-year anniversary. You're a handsome, bearded, multimedia guy now. You've got a YouTube series. You've got your own podcast. I want to start with Giannis. Not just that he was awesome tonight tonight but there's something going on

game two, game three there's a shift and I'm trying not to overreact but it's hard not to because this is the finals this is the biggest stage we have the stuff that he's doing physically combined with the skill

the looking for the teammates stuff today but just his ability to basically do whatever he wants on the basketball court is pretty rare. And I was going through, I'm like, how many overpowering guys have we actually had in the finals? Like where it was just a guy physically where the other team was like, we can't hold this guy off. And the list is basically LeBron, Shaq, Wilt, Giannis, Moses, and Kareem.

And I put a lot of thought on that list. There's been other people, right? Jordan's been dominant. There's been Magic Bird. There's been dominant guys. I'm talking about somebody who's basically said, my physical gifts cannot be contained. And I feel like that's what's happened the last two days. For me, it goes back to that Brooklyn series when almost like there was no other option. He kind of had to figure it out. He started doing stuff on the right block with the confidence I hadn't seen. Does he seem different to you? He does seem different. I mean, I thought the stat that summed it up was tweeted out tonight by Shaneane young he said in nba history players with multiple games of at least 40 points 10 rebounds and five assists lebron did it five times shack did it twice havlicek did it twice jerry west did it twice and janice has done it twice

in three games and it just sums up how complete of a dominant player that he has been you know he talked after the game about you know his mindset is attacking getting into the basket I mean, he's doing that in different ways. He's doing that with the ball in his hands. He's doing it by screening and rolling. He's doing it by hanging around in the dunker spot and getting ready for offensive rebounds. He's dominating on defense. He's doing everything on the court. I mean, what we saw in that in third quarter of game two, in the third quarter, really the whole game of the game we saw tonight in game three i mean like this is yeah this is peak yannis i mean would you agree like this is obviously with the stage and the implications and everything factoring that in this is the best yannis has ever been and it's like 10 days after he hyperextended his knee we thought it might all

be over if that makes it even crazier for me yeah and that's what pushes this over to the top to me because he's playing injured now Now, he didn't seem very injured tonight, but I thought he was 85, 86%, whatever, in game two. Are you sure he's not 100%, Bill? Today, he seemed 100. Yeah, today he seemed 100. But, you know,

there's a lot of, like, checkpoints that you watch guys hit, especially I'm older than you, so I've seen different great players kind of figure it out as their careers go along. And I think playing a little bit injured and how you respond to that as a small piece of it, right. Dealing with adversity. We've seen so many great stars over the years where they get their teeth kicked in a couple of times, right? For him, it happened. They blow a two nothing lead in 2019. Last year, they get embarrassed in the bubble against Miami. And then this year in that Brooklyn series

where everything lines up for them, Harden's on one leg, Kyrie's out, and it looks like the Nets still might win. And it basically comes down to Durant stepping on, you know, a foot over the line or the Nets are probably going to the finals. But somewhere during that series, I felt like he got pushed to the place you want all the nets are probably going to the finals. But somewhere during that series, I felt like he got pushed to the place you want all the great stars to go to

where they're just like, I am not going down. If we go down, it's not going to be because of me. I am going to do everything I possibly can. Did you see in the third quarter there after he got his fourth foul, which this is the first game they're able to get in foul trouble. And then Giannis got like, he got a dunk, he got some free throws, but then they didn't get in the ball for like three minutes. And he was getting progressively more and more pissed off. And then finally they had the ball on the right side and he started like maniacally like waving his arm.

Like he was like trying to get the attention of a waiter because he wanted to leave a restaurant. Give me the fucking ball. And they finally swung it around to him and he got it. But I've never seen him act like that in a basketball court of view. I mean, we saw him slam the chair during a timeout in game two as well. I mean, he's showing that side of himself. Like he knows what's at stake here. And you mentioned that third quarter. It was 63-49 when he got subbed out at that point.

And, you know, the Suns go small. They start utilizing zone. And like you said, Giannis wasn't getting a lot of touches early on when they first started going to that. Well, the zone seemed like it freaked the bucks out a little bit for whatever reason. They started shooting threes. It's like, why are you shooting threes?

They have nobody to guard Giannis. What are you doing? The Suns cut it to four. 74-70, I think the score was. And I'm thinking to myself, like, is this really going to be the story of the game?

They go without Aiton. But then that's when everything really turned. Giannis inserted back into the game shortly, starts dominating. Chris Paul eventually subbed out.

And then it just balloons to 20. It didn't take long. You really do. For all, you know, I know Van Gundy caught some heat for defending

Mike Budenholzer tonight um saying like all the slander and all that it's nonsense but budenholzer and that coaching staff you do have to give them credit they have figured some stuff out throughout these playoffs and i thought in game three tonight they did a good job making the adjustments that they needed to granted you know a team that is going with Torrey Craig, Frank Kaminsky, front courts, there's not a lot of answers for the Suns without eating out there. But when they went small and they went to the zone,

it didn't take long for them to figure it out and to turn a four-point game into 20. Well, they scored 16 straight? Yeah, 16 straight. There was a moment. So Cam Johnson had that crazy dunk over PJ Tucker. That was nasty. Which, of course, we had to derail the momentum of

by having the block charge replay review because, God forbid, we enjoy anything in basketball. And then Cam Johnson kind of had a heat check. He had like 10 out of 12 points for them. And as you said, it got cut to four. And I'm watching it going, uh-oh, the the sons have figured out a small ball type of thing where it's like now Giannis is away from the rim. He's not around

the basket defensively. He's guarding J Crowder, 25 feet away. The space is now opened up. This is a nice new wrinkle for them. And then the bucks are like, no, actually it's a terrible wrinkle for you. And just pounded them in are like, no, actually it's a terrible wrinkle for you and just pounded them in the glass, which is something like, I think when the Bucs did this against Atlanta in game six, right? When they're just kind of attacking the basket and they're not settling for jumpers

and they're just like trying to use their size and Lopez, who is bad again tonight, but just being around the rim and especially having Giannis around the rim, that's when he looks like Shaq 2.0. And that's what they've unleashed. I love the, how many threes did he take today? He only took two. He missed both like he always does. 17 free throws, made 13 this time. Incredible. 14 for 23, had six assists, but had a couple of really nice created shots for people

as he was drawing the defense to him stuff. But the thing to me is just go to the basket, Giannis. I haven't seen anyone in Phoenix stop him yet. And then you mentioned the Torrey Craig piece of this. The Suns have seven guys. And one of those seven is Campaign, who's played one good game out of the last 12. Campaign ever since

Game 2. Game 2 against the Clippers last series. He was awesome. That was a 29-point game. Then in Game 3 he had the ankle injury. He played only four minutes. Since Game 3, he's averaging 5.4 points on 33% shooting. Seven games. He's been horrific.

This is the campaign who entered the league, the campaign who struggled with shot selection, who struggled to put the ball in the net they can't survive without him being able to provide a spark off the bench so you know for phoenix here with this version of cameron pain with no sarge coming off the bench when you might have either you know no big on the floor or you're relying on frank kaminsky who stunk tonight or you you're relying on Torrey Craig in your front court for Phoenix here. I can't help, but think bill we've seen the formula and you can't always rely on getting a guy into foul trouble, but if you can get Aiden off the floor, or if you can get Aiden out of a rhythm, get him in his own head somehow, that is an area for the bucks to

completely exploit in this series. I mean, without Aiden out there, I don't know how many answers the Suns really have. Because without Aiton, not only do you remove a rim-protecting presence on the defensive end of the floor, a guy who can be a Giannis stopper, even at the start of that third quarter before he picked up his fourth foul, they shifted Aiton off of Giannis, and they had Crowder or Bridges on him. And that's a much better matchup for Giannis. But not only do you lose that, though, you lose the rim runner.

You lose the guy who's rolling hard to the paint, who's catching passes from CP3, who's forcing the defense to rotate in, or he was hitting some of these shots on the short roll. He had those face-up jumpers. You're losing that guy on offense, too. He's a great passer as well. So if you're...

Wait, and you're and you're losing offensive rebounds you're losing offensive boards you're losing so much without the andre and like he's like chris paul if the suns win this is gonna win finals mvp and understandably so but the andre and like should be second probably in that right now just because he might be the secret finals mvp if phoenix were to close this thing out but anything the bucks can do to either get him into foul trouble or get him out of his rhythm, that to me is going to be the key for them moving forward in the series. And we saw why tonight, just with him not being able to play a full slate of 40 plus minutes. He only played 24. Well, they got out rebounded by 17 today.

Aiton had an awesome first quarter. He only finished with 18 and nine. It feels like most of that happened in the first quarter. Look, this isn 18 and nine. It feels like, it feels like most of that happened in the first quarter. Look, this isn't rocket science. We were texting about this a few days ago where it's just like, get eaten in foul trouble. That should be your entire game plan. Go at him a hundred times in a row.

If you have to just try to get him off the floor, because I'm with you. I think the sons just look like a completely different team and he's not out there in the, in the honest piece. Athletically. He's the only guy they have who can, who has a chance within 10 feet of the basket against Giannis and Giannis that when Bridges is on him, it's over Crowder is trying to do Crowder stuff. And I'm sure there'll be a moment in game four, game five, where he knocks Giannis off balance and it'll be like, Oh, is that a cheap shot?

Like he's the master of those, but they just don't have the size. And that, you know, to me, James Jones won executive of the year, right? Yes.

That 10th pick in the draft that they've got nothing for in the, in this entire playoffs, Jalen Smith, like man, cause it hurts you in two ways, right? Cause Jalen Smith, they can't play him. But then Hal Burton, who, as we've said a million times, is the guy they should have taken,

or they should have traded that pick and traded back on more assets. And they just got nothing for it. And I think it's really hurting them now because they have six and a half guys you trust. I'm counting whatever happened to campaign as the half guy because he's just done nothing for them but to to have nobody after ayton is pretty alarming i would be i would be really nervous if i was a suns fan i mean i think for for suns fans there's still a lot to feel good about with the way chris paul's performing the way he's getting what he wants on the offensive end of the floor but that deandre ayton piece of the equation here i mean those minutes without him whether it's eight minutes whether he's playing 40 or whether he's playing under 30 like he did tonight one of the things i worry about is if you are extending him to have to play 40 plus minutes every night because the demand on him is significant like it's even if you can get him for

40 minutes without fall trouble is there a point where there's some diminishing returns as the series wears on because he doesn't have to do that most of the time you know in past series that at least he had sarge behind him granted sarge hasn't been the same as he was earlier in the year because of ankle injuries that he had and of course now during the finals he has the acl so you know for phoenix here those non-eight minutes i don't know what the solutions are. Um, I, for the sons here, if you're having bridges on Giannis, you're having Crowder on Giannis and you need a help. Um, we saw what the bucks did in that third quarter, just getting them into a little bit of rotation, completely shook them up like a snow globe and nobody was in the right position. Bucks were able to get open,

easy shots or offensive rebounds or tip in chances inside. I don't know what the answers are for the sons without eight on the floor with eight. And it's. I don't know what the answers are for the Suns without Aiden on the floor. With Aiden, it's pretty easy. You know, the formula, we've seen it. But without him, I don't know if there is an answer. And I mean, it's pretty obvious, like, for Phoenix, regardless of how the series goes, what the number one priority is behind re-signing Chris Paul.

It's finding somebody to back up DeAndre Aiden. Well, there's a really weird final schedule this year, and I can't decide who it helps more because we basically, we had three days between game two and game three. We have three days now until game four. Then game five is three days later on Saturday, the 17th. Then game six is three days later on the 20th. And then randomly game seven is the 22nd, it looks like. So the only time there's two days rest is between six and seven. Other than that, that helps Chris Paul because the Suns can play him more minutes. It helps the eight and piece, you're thinking.

But more importantly for the Bucs, it really helps the Giannis recovery thing because even having that extra day, I thought, really helped him today. If I'm a Suns fan, I'm going glass half full and I'm like, Scott Foster was the ref. Chris Paul was 0-2,000 against Scott Foster in the playoffs for whatever reason. It's a classic

game three. Great crowd. The roll guys are always better at home. The threes start going in, all that stuff. They couldn't get a call. They had 24 fouls. The Suns had 18. So you're going to talk to yourself in all these things. Like, we didn't shoot three as well. What'd they shoot?

9-31 tonight. 29%. Yeah, 9-31. Now, they're not a 9-31 three-point team, but they're not a 20-for-40 team like they were in Game 2 either. They're somewhere in between. So you can talk to yourselves into all these different things and Game 4 will be better and Book's going to be mad

and all this stuff. The Giannis thing is just sitting there. It's like, that guy's going to kill you again in game four. You have no answer for him. And I don't know what you do other than hard fouls, try to get in his head,

really be physical with them and use somebody like Kaminsky to just basically clobber him a couple times, right? Yeah, I mean, I think we saw the Suns try a couple of different things in the first half. They began blitzing or pressuring Chris Middleton, pick and rolls, turn him into a playmaker. I mean, you can't necessarily do that against Giannis, especially if he's in a screening situation there. I don't know what the answer is against Giannis. For the Suns here, it's what's in your control. You know Giannis is going to go off.

You know Giannis is going to put up big numbers. He's going to dominate in his own way. I look at the offensive end of the floor, and the Bucs did a really nice job on defense at making things hard on the Suns. They're pressuring more full court past the half-court line. In the half-court, you're seeing some passing lanes that were previously open for the Suns. You see the way they like to whip the ball around the floor closing pretty quickly.

There's some tough passes and tough catches for Suns guys off balls. I thought that bothered Mikkel Bridges quite a lot tonight. He wasn't able to be in it. He wasn't able to be in a comfort zone tonight. And so for the Suns there, you know, I wonder, will they watch the film? Are there ways to exploit that pressure with some back cuts,

maybe some design plays where you're screening against the pressure to get a guy cutting towards the basket? How can you use the Bucs pressure against them?

That like what is in your control there? You can't stop Giannis. What can you do on the offensive end to continue producing in the half court? That's going to be

one of the keys for the Suns moving forward. was awesome both ends today that pass yeah he had some he was 8 for 14 he made 5 for 10 threes so 21 but 9 assists so that's basically if you're drawing up like what do i want from drew holiday it'd be like make half your threes give me a 29 but defensively, he looked like the guy from Atlanta game six. You could tell immediately because he's one of those guys that's weird.

There's offense heat check guys, but there's very rarely defensive heat check guys. But to me, he's a defense heat check guy where it goes to another level and you can kind of see it. The game slows down. It's almost like watching a boxer or an MMA guy or something. The game slows down for him and he's like reading guys moves before they can see it i thought he was destructive tonight yeah you know he's giving hell to whoever

he defends right i mean you see him on chris paul a lot more often now than we did in game one except for the fourth quarter but whether it's on book whether it's on chris paul that dude just makes things hard on your offense like instead of you getting into your pick and roll at 18 seconds on the shot clock it might be happening at 12 or 13 he's just so disruptive and i agree with you bill i mean i think this is a player who he's might be learning we talk so much about offensive you know learning what a defense does, understanding tendencies. But the flip side is true, too. You know, understanding how an offensive player moves, what actions they take on certain areas of the floor.

And it feels like Drew Holiday is one of those guys who learns things over the course of a game or over the course of the series and just ends up dominating at an even higher level. I mean, you know who he's like, Kev? He's like our lord and savior, Bill Belichick. You don't want to play him three times in a season. That third time, he's ready for you. Drew Holiday, maybe it's just the more times. Did you hear Mark

Jackson compare Chris Paul to Tom Brady tonight? I didn't like it. You didn't like it? Tom Brady has seven rings. Compare him to a quarterback with less rings. Would have been my preference. Peyton Manning? Peyton Manning has over one, at least.

Let's take a break. I want to talk about Giannis some more. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention,

and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. All right. So the honest thing, I'm just, I was trying to think like, trying to figure out the two ways this series goes, right? Where the one way is the Suns did it. The Bucks won their stupid game. They were supposed to win game three. That home team's supposed to win that game in the finals. The finals is supposed to play out this way. Home team wins first two.

Home team wins game three. Game four is the, historically, that's the game. That's the one that so many series have swung over the years. That's the game 2000, Kobe and the Pacers, where the Pacers have a chance to, and Shaq fouls out, Kobe saves in overtime. A million examples of game four being the swing game. So there's the Suns scenario where they win game four,

maybe it goes to overtime, Giannis gets his 40 and 20, it doesn't matter, the Suns, the totality of what they're doing is better. The other lane for the series to go is this just becomes the Giannis series. And we remember this as like, you know, when the league's going to celebrate its 75th anniversary next year. And the greatest players have these kind of moments, you know, when history or whatever stared them in the face and they just kind of went up a level.

And they all have them. And I'm starting to wonder if this is it for Giannis. And I'll just tell you from, from my standpoint, you know, I care about this stuff. And I make the dumb lists all the time and things like that. I never really thought he was a potential Pantheon guy. I always thought he was just an incredible athlete. His production was going to be what it was. He was very similar to Shaq, but kind of without the Kobe. He was going to give you the 29 and 12, but I thought he was missing like some,

some chromosome that the great ones have. And now I'm wondering if he has it. And I really didn't feel that way until, until game two, game three. But I just, am I overthinking this? I feel like he might have something that I didn't think he had. I mean, I think he has all his chromosomes.

Well, you know what I mean? Like that one kind of crazy trait that like when you go up a level where these guys that like, when the stage gets bigger, something happens to them. And I'm wondering, I didn't think he had it. I mean, you mentioned it.

You know, you saw him getting angry, calling for the ball. We saw in game two him slamming the chair. We've seen some leadership qualities from him develop over the course of time. We've been, you know, that's the thing with young players. Like, there's so much demand on young players in the league. Like, there's so many great young players. And for them to dominate on the court and to set a great example but also be a vocal leader that's a lot for guys before they reach age 25 26 27 and yannis is getting to that point and i think there's a level

of belief from the guys in that locker room around him too right there's kind of an i agree he's been empowered too to be that guy and be that leader and And so I do think we are seeing that, Bill. And, you know, I was texting with Maren Fader, who got a great shout out. Oh, my God. Mike Breen tonight for her book. Greatest commercial ever for her book. That was terrific. That was so great.

But I was texting with her like the day after Giannis had his injury. And I said, this is either like going to be heartbreaking, you know, it's sad out for the season. Or it's going to be he has this amazing comeback and he could lead the bucks to a nba finals championship and it goes down as like one of the one of the lowest lows to the highest highs we've seen that play out i mean like you and i are spoiled as boston sports fans bill growing up like i i could not have asked for any more seeing all the championships that i did i've been heartbroken i've been exhilarated i've seen it on the highs and the lows and with yana it's like there's a real chance here that this is the yana series because where are the answers for the sons here where are the answers except for just hoping he takes too many jump

shots he seems to be past that he said it it after the game. I have an attacking mindset. He's not taking as many jumpers as we saw in that series. He is not settling. Giannis has figured some stuff out. And I'm buying that this could be the Giannis series and that this could be the turning point right here, what we saw tonight. Well, that's what I told you. I didn't

want to start taping this until we watched the postgame interview because I was just curious what he was going to say. He kept mentioning the word this is is mental. Basically, this is about toughness. This is about mental. There was some higher piece to basketball that he clearly can see now. And then the other thing he was saying was, I just got to go downhill. And I think it's in his head now. When I go downhill, I can't be stopped. And you think back to the playoffs the last two years and even how we felt about him heading into this playoffs. It's like, yeah, you can stop Giannis. Form the wall, make him shoot jumpers, you know, keep him,

put that fence around the basket. And he's really not going to hurt you, especially in the last four minutes of a game. That was the knock with him that we don't have close playoff games anymore. So we haven't seen it yet, but, uh, every playoff game now is a double figures win for somebody. It's kind of weird, isn't it? That we're seeing so many of those. Yeah. I don't like it. We need, we need, we're due for a classic, but, um, I think with him, I'm noticing problem solving. And I think it really started in that Brooklyn series where he's just like, these teams kind of know what I do. I, what else can I do? What, what are the, what are like two other things that I can add to this whole package? And one of them is like those post-ups he's doing where he slows it down and he really bullies the guy down, which is

LeBron. Remember when LeBron added that to his game in the mid 2010s and it was like, Oh, he's going to have this now, Jesus. And then, um, you can see him realizing maybe I shouldn't take this shot. I'll pass this up. I'll just try to get to the basket over before it was so frustrating to watch him. He'll still do it occasionally. He took maybe four jumpers. I didn't like today. But for the most part, it just seems like he's like get to the rim, get to the rim, get to the rim. He's almost like a running back. You know, like I just got to get to the hole. Got it done. Downhill, downhill

five yards, five yards. And now that he's thinking that way, I think it's gonna be really hard for Phoenix to hold him off. Are we going to see a game this series where he takes 30 shots and has like the same amount of 15 plus free throws? I think it could have been tonight.

Yeah. I mean, if this was a close game, I think he could have 50 tonight. Easy. So here's the thing. No doubt. He could potentially lose this series just because of the other guys.

I'm actually not worried about him. The rest of the stairs. I think, I think this is going to be, you know, he'll be in the 35 to 40 and 10 to 15 rebound range every game from now on. That's just

who he is at this point. It's the holiday Middleton piece. Did you like what you saw from Middleton today? Because he still makes me nervous. He hasn't had a Chris Middleton game yet. A little bit. I think I liked the passing in the first half. I thought he did a really nice job handling some of that pressure. The sun sent his way in the pick and roll.

Obviously, the scoring only 6-14 tonight. If anything, that could be a good thing for the Bucs. If you're a Bucs fan, you didn't get the Chris Middleton game yet. So, you know, maybe there's reason to be encouraged by the fact we didn't get it tonight. They have a lot of guys that throw at him. I'm not sure we're getting that in this series.

A lot of good wings from Phoenix, for sure. From a Phoenix standpoint, so I thought, I wish I had him. I'm not sure we're getting that in this series. A lot of good wings from Phoenix, for sure. From a Phoenix standpoint, I wish I had said this on my pod after game two, but I didn't realize how everyone was going to react to the Booker game. And people sent Booker to the Hall of Fame after game two. Comparing him to Kobe, right?

It was outrageous. Honestly, it was outrageous. Sometimes we overreact to individual games. Other times I don't feel like we react enough. Like I really felt like the announcers tonight, it should just been a honest conversation for two hours. It was like, are you guys watching this?

What is happening? Um, but with the Booker thing, he, he scored 31 in game two. He was 12 for 25. He had no free throw attempts. He made some shots.

It was great. But if, if you're telling me you took 25 shots and you scored 31 points, like congratulations, like that's kind of around where you're supposed to be. I thought he made some really good shots, but I think it's dangerous sometimes, especially with these young guys to be like the superstar coronation thing

when he was really good in that game. But I think he's been really up and down in these playoffs. There's been games when he's disappeared. Now, granted, I think the broken nose thing is a real thing. And I actually think it's kind of underrated how much it sucks to play with a broken nose and your fear of going to the basket, getting hit in the face,

breathing, all that stuff. But I think consistency is the last level. Mark Jackson called him a superstar today. There's only eight or nine superstars in the league. I don't know what the exact number is, but to make somebody a superstar is consistency. That's the last piece. It's like, I got to know every night what I'm getting. I don't feel like he's there yet. I think he can have games where he looks like a superstar, but when they start throwing the word superstar around for guys like that, that's where, that's where I'm out. I get confused. I know you love Booker, but I just, yeah, I mean, maybe the word super is a bit too strong, but he is a star. Yeah. What he's turned himself into. He's a star. I mean the the pull-up three-pointer and adding step-backs and side-step threes

and hit those at an efficient rate, that's definitely the next piece for him. That was the concern back at the beginning of the playoffs when he had some poor shooting performances against the Lakers. He did turn it on. He's had some hot games, but he's still not there as a three-point shooter off the dribble like he is from two. And he's not there as a get-into-the-free-throw-line guy when everything else isn't working. If his shot's not getting in, he doesn't have that mentality yet of like,

I don't have my shot tonight, I'm getting the basket. And he's only 24. Right. Only 24 years old. So there's a lot of time for him to add these pieces to his game and become a superstar instead of just a star. But we're definitely seeing some of the limitations of a great player right now in the areas that he still needs to improve. By the way, I feel the same way about Tatum. I don't think Tatum's a superstar. I think he has nights where he looks like one, but he's not consistent enough. It's just curse of the young players, you know? Absolutely. I mean, there's so much demand placed on some of these young players who are performing at a high level already

to be done, to be finished, to be what they're going to be when they're 27, 28, 29 years old. And they're just not there yet. They're just not there yet. It's like Ben Simmons. I'm not sure he's a superstar yet. You're supposed to laugh at that.

I mean, you were like looking at me like, I'm waiting. I was a superstar yet. You're supposed to laugh at that. You were looking at me like, I'm waiting. I was like, wait a minute. Wait a minute here. Wait a minute. I'm not sure he's a starter. I mean, a superstar. I'm startled over here, Bill.

I hope this summer Ben Simmons is putting in the work, man. Yeah, we can talk about him later. He's been rumored to go to every team in the league at this point. With Booker, though, what do you think was going on there with him not playing in the fourth quarter? Because I thought that was bizarre. And then they were like, Bonnie Williams is talking to him. So was he

trying to... Was that a teaching moment? Were they trying to save his legs? Because they were talking about they're trying to save his legs. He's played a lot of minutes. It's like, they're playing every three nights. We don't need to save his legs? Because they were talking about they're trying to save his legs. He's played a lot of minutes. It's like they're playing every three nights. We don't need to save his legs. It's the fucking finals. If you're down 20 with 11 minutes left, we've seen

over and over again in this postseason you can come back from that. You can make four threes in a row and you're down six. I don't know what they were doing. I don't know the answer there. It could have been rest. It could have been protecting his nose from getting hit, further injury, and ruining things for the rest of the series. I don't know the answer there it could have been rest could have been protecting his nose from getting hit further injury and ruining things for the rest of the series i don't know the answer there it was definitely weird though but then again i mean what was it at the time 20 points

yeah but it wasn't necessarily the wrong call how many comebacks have we seen this year though get some quick threes that can turn to 10 real quick for sure it was odd i thought i thought that second half was odd period by monty williams like with with deandre and i understand the logic of pulling out a guy who's in foul trouble and doing it for a short period of time i don't think he got put back into the game quick enough who cares if he gets in the foul trouble you're gonna stop this run you're gonna stop this attack by yannis you can't let this continue i thought that was a mistake by monty williams had a great coaching season still having continue. I thought that was a mistake by Monty Williams. Had a great coaching season,

still having one, but that to me was a puzzling decision in that second half. Yeah, we've seen the four-foul thing confound coaches sometimes where they're basically, they just have it in their head, I'm going to save them until the 10-minute mark of the fourth. I'm just going to try to survive until I get to that point.

But sometimes in these games, it's like by the time we get to 10 minutes of the fourth, this game's probably going to be over unless you get your guy back in. And I don't know, when you think like Kaminsky played 14 minutes. I mean, think about, this happens sometimes. This isn't an unusual finals,

but think about some of the dudes that played real minutes in these finals. Do you know how many minutes Jeff Teague played tonight? 15? Something like that? 14. Wow. He was 0 for 4, but he was somehow plus 9. But he played 14.

Connaughton played 30. Yikes. Cam Johnson played 30. Payne played 25. It is kind of fitting. These teams are down to 6 and a half guys each. And I don't think past that, the fact that Teague, who was torturing us Celtics fans, you know, what was that? Six, seven months ago where Brad's playing him over Peyton Pritchard.

I'm going nuts. I'm like, Jeff Teague shouldn't be in the league anymore. What's happening? And then you're watching the finals and you're like, wow, Jeff Teague. They actually kind of need to get two seven-minute stretches out of him in a finals game. Pretty scary. It was weird. You know, there's a moment I'm watching the second half of this game and Frank Kaminsky and Torrey Craig are out there and it's like against Giannis. It's like, you can't expect these guys to get stops against them. This is the Sun-C team.

It's just weird i mean like i like charles wrote a great article about tory craig last week about you know how he would look would look good for the bucks from having having him in the wing rotation and all that but still i mean like having to rely on him for 15 20 minutes in the finals having to rely on frank kaminsky for 15 minutes i mean mean, these teams are depleted right now. We're seeing like DiVincenzo on the Bucs side, Lacasaric on the Suns side. Not the most major players, but there's a domino effect by not having them.

Well, it's almost like a baseball team where you have, you miss like your number four starter for a month and you're like, well, that guy kind of sucks. And it's like, yeah, but now that that guy's out, now your middle reliever is your fifth starter. And now you have no middle reliever. And now you're,

it's the fifth inning of an eight, seven game. And you're bringing in somebody who shouldn't be in the major leagues. And there's domino effect, uh, 40 club, 42 club update. I did this,

uh, a long time ago. It's one of my favorite stats of like, you add up points, rebounds, assists in the playoffs. If it's 42 and up, odds are the guy's really good. Giannis is a member of the non-finals 42 club, but the actual finals 42 club, in the 2000s, we've only had Shaq,

Kobe and Iverson in 01, Duncan in 03, LeBron a bunch of times, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 20. Shaq did it in 00, 01, 02. Kawhi in 19, Duncan in 03, and then Giannis right now is over 48 combined. 48 to put that in perspective. LeBron's three best, he did a 50.8 in 2018. 48. To put that in perspective, LeBron's three best, he did a 50.8 in 2018. Jesus.

49.9 in 2015 and a 49.7 in 2017. Jordan's highest was 47.8. Shaq put up back-to-back 49s and that's really it. Giannis at 48. This is hollowed ground. We didn't even mention and that's really it. Giannis at 48. Like this is

hollowed ground. We didn't even mention yet, which is my fault, his defense. Yeah, dominant. And the shit he's doing on that end. On top of all the other stuff, like Shaq was not even 60%

of the defensive player Giannis is. And Giannis on these switches with Chris Paul where Chris Paul's like, all right, I guess I'm, here's my step back 28 footer. This is, this is what I got for you. And the way he's patrolling the rim, like, um,

it's one of the more dominant two way performances I think we've seen. He's been sensational even in their loss. I think it was game one in the first quarter. I believe he had a drive on eight and where he just buried him underneath the rim. And then he blocked a drive on eight and where he just buried him underneath the rim. And then he blocked a Chris Paul mid range jumper. And when that happened first quarter, I'm thinking this is going to be the Yana series. Yeah.

Sons go up to, Oh, starting to think it's not going to be, I don't know, Bill. I don't know. I mean, this very well could be the honest serious,

like you proposed earlier. Or it could be Phoenix wins in five. It could be sons in five, but I'll tell you what though. You're honest the way wins in five. It could be Suns in five, but I'll tell you what though, Giannis, the way he's performing, have you changed your mind? Can't he become a Pantheon guy? I think so.

I'm with you. 42-12-4 in game two, 41-13-6 in game three. I think the last two giant leaps we had, I would say would be LeBron in 2012 and then Shaq in the 2000 finals. And even though that was his MVP year, the Portland series that year,

they're down 17 and at home in a game seven. And the whole team looks like they're taking a dump. Like it didn't really manifest itself to the finals. And then it was like, holy shit, how are we going to stop these guys? There's a, a Giannis piece here that if he can get through this and somehow pull this

finals off, which would be nuts. Um, and we'll go into the off season. And instead of it being like asterisk asterisk, if this had happened, if that had happened and all that stuff, I think Giannis would become the focus.

We're like, holy shit, is this Giannis' league now? And the whole conversation changes, which is so crazy because think of like he was a free agent right now. Imagine that. If it was like in two weeks from now, anybody can have him, but the Bucs lock that down. We're going to take a break.

And then Kev and I are going to talk about USA versus Nigeria, a game that the people listening out there almost definitely didn't watch, but we did. How can you be sure you're making the right decision when choosing a university? The smart approach is to look at the facts, like the fact that York U graduates have a 90% employer satisfaction rate. That's because across its three GTA campuses, York U's programs are strategically designed to prepare you for a meaningful career and long-term success. Join us in creating positive change at yorku.ca slash write the future. So I found the USA basketball roster to be alarming.

I guess a lot of people turned it down. Drew Holiday was not there yet. Neither was Middleton. So they had this exhibition game in Nigeria. There was like US select guys. Sadiq Bey was on the team. Darius Garland had a couple of minutes. It wasn't the official team, but they lost to Nigeria. To put this in perspective, Nigeria's up three with

15 seconds left. They need to get it or 20 seconds left. Come out of bounds play. And they get the ball to Ekpe Udo, who misses a wide open 10 10-footer for the game. USA comes down, makes free throws, but then Nigeria ends up winning anyway. Ekpe Udo. Remember him? Warriors pick? Who was he? The sixth pick? And then somebody really good was the next pick? I can't remember who, but yeah.

I'm just putting Nigeria in. They had a guy who was on the Miami Heat with 21. What was his name? Gabe something? And then they had Casey Akp was on the Miami Heat with 21 what was his name Gabe something and then Casey Akpala as well and that guy everybody's talking about Caleb Agata who's going to be on a summer league roster for the Nuggets

right a big summer league guy summer league star potentially this offseason and then Popovich after the game is like I'm glad we lost he didn't say that but he was like you know I'm part of me is glad this happened because blah blah blah it's gonna I'm glad we lost. He didn't say that, but he was like, you know, part of me is glad this happened because blah, blah, blah. I'm like, no, there's no part of me

that's glad this happened. Like we lost to a team that we would have beaten by 100 points 25 years ago. Now, granted, the world's catching up. I was texting with TD, who is delighted that Nigeria came through. And we're just saying like, this is where international basketball is going.

All of these teams have shooters and athletes and the three-point line, the variance of it. But fundamentally, I'm just watching and I'm watching our crunch time lineup and it's Tatum, it's Durant. It was either Beal or Levine. It was Dame as the point guard, even though he's not like

the kind of Chris Paul point guard you'd actually want for a team like this. And then they went with Draymond, but it's like Draymond or Bam in the five spot. And honestly, it was like watching the Celtics offense this year. It was just a lot of one-on-one stand around whose turn is it. And it really got me worried for the Olympics. I actually think we could lose. What was it? What was your biggest takeaway from the game? I mean, first off, the U.S. should be fine. They're going to get Chris Middleton,

Drew Holiday, and Devin Booker back once the finals are over. The U.S. should be fine. They should be okay. And they should win the whole thing, even if it's a bumpy ride. They should win the whole thing. My number one takeaway was just like,

it was crazy how differently the game is officiated i mean it's just like you saw guys trying to draw fouls you saw you know i think it was bradley bale in the first half drawing contact got kind of got annoyed no whistle it was kind of nice it was kind of nice to see that kevin love how about the kevin love three-pointer and that's the second part like kevin love uh he only played what three four five minutes but it was three minutes good it was not good i It was not good. I think when he first entered the game, the announcers were talking like, great opportunity for Kevin Love coming out hungry to prove himself.

He did not look good at all, Bill. He did not look like he belonged on the team one bit. He did not get stops on defense. Because he didn't. Offered no rim protection. Precious or true or blew by him. He tried to draw the three. He looked slow.

He looked like the Kevin Love we've seen the whole past year in Cleveland did not look good past year. How about the past three? It passed three years. And then now they're talking about like a buyout for him. Why would Cleveland buy out 80% of his contract so he could go play for another team? I would never do that. Do you feel like the U S roster is too small? Their bigs are Bam, Draymond and Kevin Love too small. There's two things I don't like one.S. roster is too small? Their bigs are Bam, Draymond, and Kevin Love. Too small. There's two things I don't like. One, I think they're too small. And two, we don't have real point guards. Like, Dame is like a modern 2020s kind of shoot first point guard, right?

And he can set guys up. He can dribble. He looks like a point guard. But he's not like a, I'm here to take care of everybody else on the team point guard. And maybe we just don't make those anymore in America. Maybe that maybe the air of that is done. But, um, I was thinking like even somebody like my guy,

Halliburton, just having unselfish guys who don't care if they shoot, who are just there to make everybody else look good. That was the thing that alarmed me about the team I saw yesterday. I guess Durant is going to end up being that guy for this team. And maybe Durant ends up playing as a stretch five, but Tatum's not a guy

who makes other people better on that. Honestly, not sure Dame is either. We know Beal isn't, Zach Levine isn't. So who is like the glue playmaker? It's Draymond and Bam. It has to be. Well, think about that. That's kind of scary.

My dog didn't like that. She's barking right now. He thought that was offensive. I was looking at the, like, who could have been taken on this roster instead of Kevin Love for one of those final spots. Even like not counting the guys who already turned it down or just like anybody. Well, I mean, they had 57 finalists for the roster back in March. And I mean, part of me was thinking maybe it would have made more sense to add another guard,

like you're talking about a pass-first guard, but then you'd be short of big. And I was looking at the team bill, and it's like they had Brooke Lopez. He's in the finals. 80 is out. Miles Turner finished the season with an injured toe then there's jared allen julius randall mitchell robinson andre drummond montrose harrell dwight howard javel mcgee mason plumbly deandre jordan those were the other choices of the 57 finals jesus i mean that's like not the most inspiring list at all i mean i'd rather have

jared allen with his room protection on this team than Kevin Love. I'd rather have Julius Randle, maybe even Mitchell Robinson, but I'm just looking at the names. Can I say something crazy? I would honestly rather have Evan Mobley in the Kevin Love spot. That's what I was getting to. I was exactly what I was getting to.

I mean, I'm looking at this team. It's like maybe there's a young guy they could have given an opportunity to. How about Cade Cunningham? Why not both of them? Cade Cunningham and Mobley over Jeremy Grant and Love. Why not? I mean, you've got Garuba playing for Spain, a draft prospect.

Why not have Mobley? Why not have Cade? I mean, I feel like there's an opportunity of the finalists. I didn't see a name that I'm like, ah, besides Jared Allen, that I would have loved to have seen on this team. Why not have a young guy like Mobley? And maybe, like, do you think maybe is Mobley part of it's two things, Bill. There's

not like that elite, young, big, like you have, you know, Jokic, who's not playing, or like you have with Embiid in America. Well, Aiton, they screwed up on. They should have gotten in and changed his citizenship before, but I don't think they knew he was going to be this good. They could do that for 24.

Could Mobley be that guy? Do you think Mobley has that potential to be that guy in 2024 or 2028? Yeah, but I'm just thinking for this year, I don't think Love or Grant are going to play. You've basically thrown away those spots for people who are just inferior versions of anyone else who's going to play in those two spots. I would just rather have

the young guys just for the sake of basketball. I think that's really valuable to have young guys on these teams just to kind of be there and have the experience and hang around with other great players. Like, and then you put those guys through the program. So two years from now, six years from now, those guys become your Olympic guys So two years from now, six years from now, those guys become your Olympic guys. And you're like, yeah, we had Cade when he was 19 and now he's starting for us. But by the way,

and I don't like Cade quite as much as some others, but that's the kind of guy this team needs, right? A guard, the unselfish kind of glue guy guard who doesn't care about getting his own shot. So we're on the same page. I think they should use those last two spots for young guys. I thought love was just a ludicrous idea. Don't understand it.

Brought the veteran on. I mean, I get it. I get it. But I feel like there was a heck of a lot better options than bringing on Kevin Love for this team. Can we go glass half full? And I know that I love international basketball more than probably anybody else. I really enjoy it.

I got into trouble a couple of years ago because I was mad Devin Booker didn't play for our team. It was like, could use the experience. Everybody who plays

in these things, they all rave about what it meant to them as a player and to be thrown into these situations with the pressure and stuff like that.

Glass half full. It was really fun to see Tatum and Durant on the court together. These interchangeable six foot nine Tatum and seven foot Durant with the shorter three point line and just the size they had. And it got me thinking of like that. What if I know Durant probably wasn't signing with us in 2016, but that what if of what if those guys had ended up in Boston? I went down a whole rabbit hole. I talked myself through it in four minutes, but just those two, they're so unique in terms of like bodies, skill sets to see them together on the same team. I thought it was fun. I feel like we're going to get more and more of these unique long skilled players like katie you know

like tatum you know we have earlier on sunday we saw victor when bandama from france when bandama seven foot two 17 years old 2023 likely going to be the number one pick france against us and the under 19s he had 22 points, eight rebounds, eight blocks, a dominant force like he has been throughout the entire U19 competition for France. Could they use him in the Olympics? They could, but I don't believe they are. They're favoring

their veterans, kind of like the US is. A lot of vets on the French team, but Wenban Yama, like Bill, you mentioned you love international basketball. Watch the Chet Holmgren for the US againstor when banyama what channel is that well that that was on that was on espn plus earlier like sunday noontime oh i'm definitely watching that how was chet home grin i like his game home grin at home we had a good game not a great game uh but when banyama like this whole past week like he had a he had a sequence against lithuania

last week where they tried to get a switch on him at the end of the clock in the fourth quarter two possessions in a row and he blocked the shot twice against a smaller speedy guard like this guy like watch just type in when bam yama okay he's nasty he's nasty like he's he could be the next big great international player who comes along we've seen yannnis. We've seen Jokic. We've seen Embiid. Luka. Victor.

He needs a good nickname. Wen Banyama is a long name. V-dub. V-dubs. I don't know. Just Victor. Maybe just Victor. But Wen Banyama.

Yeah, Vic. I'm a Vic fan. The V-man? Yeah, he's nasty, Bill. Check him out. It did get me thinking in the Olympics who the crunch time will be and how that's always a nice little litmus

test for who matters in the league. Now, granted we don't have certain guys in there, but I assume Tatum and Durant Dame will be the three of them. And then probably Booker over Beal. I would guess. Maybe. And then that fifth spot.

Popovich did compliment Beal, called him thick. Seems like. Well, that's the thing. It could be Beal as the fifth, and you just go all shooters with Durant as the five, basically, right? And you're just spacing out, and we have the most ridiculous five-some that we've ever seen probably internationally for the U.S.,

if that's the five. And maybe you give up a little bit on the other end, and it depends on whether Durant wants to play defense or not. Like we saw in the regular season with the nets, he didn't play any defense at all, which is the reason they were really bad on defense in the playoffs. He played defense and all of a sudden they were pretty good on defense. So if he actually was,

I always wonder like how hard are these guys actually going to play? Because I do think there's going to be moments when we get into the Olympics, like for instance, Lucas team I do think there's going to be moments when we get into the Olympics. Like, for instance, Luka's team made it. And there could be a moment where we play Slovenia, right? That's his country.

Where it's just Luka against the U.S. And it's going to be really hard not to root for Luka in that scenario, right? It's like a sports movie. I know we have to root for America, but it'll just be hard not to root for Luka doing the one- right. It's like a sports movie. I know we have to root for America, but it would just be hard not to root for Luka doing the one-man show thing, basically. It's not like that team's any better or worse

than his Dallas teams that he's been on, right? No. I mean, the U.S. should smoke everybody, Bill. They should. You would think. They should. There's guys missing, too. Like, Canada could have a much better team,

I think, than they're actually sending and stuff like that. Jokic, you know, decided not to play this summer. I mean, a lot of guys aren't playing. Speaking of Mobley, so I have him first. I talked about this on my pod a week ago

with Rusillo. I think he has to be the first pick. I don't think you should take him first. I think if you like him the most, you do the Tatum-Foltz trade-down move. But it seems like Detroit's probably going to take Cade. There's rumors. Who knows? It's the internet. Who knows what to believe? But that Houston likes Cade and wants to move up. And I'm just saying, if I was running Detroit, I would trade down a spot and pick up something

from Houston and then take Mobley there or if I thought Cleveland wanted Jalen Green move down again but I would end up with Mobley and more assets would be how I played it because I'm just in on Mobley I think he's going to be the most important guy from this draft

where are you standing you have your draft guide you've done some're draft guide. You've done some mock drafts. We've been moving people around. You've had Cade first all year. We're getting closer. Are you starting to waver on Cade versus Mobley? No. I'm sticking with Cade at number one, but that's no

knock against Mobley. I think both of these guys could be legit superstars. Mobley's stock, in my opinion, has gone up during the postseason because we've seen the importance for bigs having an ability to defend on the perimeter, but also be impactful

around the rim on defense. To have the ability to space the floor on offense, not just as a shooter, but to be able to make some plays off the bounce as a passer or attacking closeouts. Mobley has all of those skills

at a really high level. Like this guy doesn't make mistakes on the court. He's a smart player. He's a selfless player. He's highly skilled and only should grow over the course of time as a scorer, as a ball handler, as a defender, as he continues to bulk up. Mobley could be a beast, like one of the better players in the league. But I think Cade could be too, Bill.

I mean, six foot eight, he can be one of the better playmakers in the draft but i think kate could be too bill i mean six foot eight he can be one of the better playmakers in the draft one of the better shooters in the draft one of the better go-to scores one of the better defenders better leaders like this guy intangibles wise check so many boxes from when i talk to people around the league about how hard he works how great he wants to be how he seeks out feedback to try to get better like kate has all that you would want in a franchise player Mobley does too just in a different way I just prefer the the offensive initiator the guy who's creating buckets for you more than the guy who's probably going to be the finisher because Cade can be the creator and the finisher for you depending on his role so I just favor Cade but

Mobley is an unbelievable prospect. And for that, you know, whether it's Detroit, whether like if Detroit did want to take him or Houston at number two, it's going to be fascinating because I'm hearing the same thing as you, that the Rockets love Cade, that they would want to try to get him, whether it's trading up or hoping Detroit passes on him at number one. And if they don't, I wonder what could they get for number two if they decided you know what let's trade down and be in a spot to get sugs or to get scotty barnes or jalen green how much could they get for the number two pick is this mobley prospect is ridiculously great like i can't i i don't have them number one but i get it i get the mindset a lot of people around the league

feel the same as you do so what could they get for number two? I bet they could get a King's Ransom. Imagine if OKC wanted to trade up the number two. How many first round picks Houston could get for him? Yeah, but then you're moving down to six and it's a four-player draft and then it drops. Maybe it's Scotty Barnes. Maybe you want Scotty Barnes there. If you love Scotty Barnes and what he can be

in the defensive end of the floor, I could see that. I guess here's my problem with all this. I'm not saying it'd be the right choice, but I can get it. I feel the same about if Detroit feels this way about Cunningham. Like, we can't take Cunningham because we already have Killian Hayes. Now, we know you can play two-point cards

at the same time in this day and age, but it's just that they felt that way. For Houston, where it's like, ah, what would we do with Mobley? We have Christian Wood. It's like, what are you guys talking about? You trade Christian Wood. Yeah.

Christian Wood is not the reason you don't do this. I remember Cleveland, the year they had Waiters, and then the next year they should have taken Oladipo, and they ended up taking Bennett, because it's like, well, we already have Waiters.

It's like, okay. Waiters is a bench guy. Like Oladipo is actually somebody who could be an all-star potentially. But I think if I'm Houston, I'm just starting backwards. Mobley immediately becomes the best asset I have. He is not a worse asset than Christian Wood.

You can't be like, well, if we take Jalen Green, now we have a little Jalen Green, Christian Wood thing. Get the fuck out of here. Just take Mobley. What are you doing? I just take Mobley. What are you doing? I just take Mobley too. But I'm intrigued by the idea of a trade down.

I wonder, Cleveland, I would think, would want Mobley. If we're just talking about fit. And NBA teams shouldn't think this way. You should just go, if you think somebody's a good star, don't worry about who else you have. Like, take the better guy. But for Cleveland, like their guard heavy love is obviously not there for long haul and mobley could be kind of perfect for them and if you're cleveland could you flip spots with houston and wet their beak so to speak

with something yeah and then houston gets green who they might want anyway i think it's a really fun draft it's it's a really fun draft i think it's a it could be a great draft there's a really fun draft. It's a really fun draft. I think it could be a great draft. There's a lot of talent throughout the first round. The deeper you go into it, there's so many different guys that could play a role right away. We've seen the value of having good players and rookie contracts. Cam Johnson here in the finals for the Suns. Mikkel Bridges.

There's going to be those guys who go to contending teams and contribute right away. I'm looking forward to seeing how things shake out with this draft because there's a bunch of them. Plus, we're going to have Portland trading Wiggins and Wiseman 7 and 14 for Lillard and Covington. That's going to be awesome. Can't wait for that.

Throw in some other first-round picks. We did see tonight over the weekend with the U.S. game Damian Lillard running some pick and roll with Draymond Green. We saw some reactions. I noticed. Don't think I didn't notice the Tatum Beal stuff too. Like, oh man, those guys seem chubby.

Great chemistry there. Yeah. I'm on the record. I would not do a Jalen Brown Bradley Beal trade. I'd just rather have Jalen Brown. How sure are you of that? Like You say you want to do it, but how sure are you of your decision not to do that deal? Is there part of you like,

ah, this is a tough no? I just don't think it's enough of an upgrade to warrant all the additional stuff you'd have to throw in. It doesn't guarantee I'm going to compete for the finals. I don't get it. I would just rather have Brown, Tatum, and then try to figure out all the pieces around them.

We've already seen that those guys can make the conference finals as the best two guys on a conference finals team. It's not like we don't know if they can win together or not. I think to your point, we also don't know if Jalen Brown is done getting better too. Because every time he reaches a new level, every year he keeps getting better. And I keep thinking, wow, this is the Jalen Brown.

Like, this is amazing what he's turned into. I said that three years ago when he made a leap and he makes another leap and another one. So, you know, when you have young guys, you don't know when they're going to stop getting better.

Well, that's like the bridges thing, right? Where we're talking about whether he's a top 40 guy or not. We're so, and I, and I would say he's not yet, but I was like,

I think a year he might be. Just like, if you look at the Paul George leap in 2012-13, you look at what happened to Jalen the last couple years and it's like, could Bridges maybe do that? It's conceivable.

I don't know if it'll happen. Like, he certainly didn't look like it tonight. But those 3 and D guys who start to figure out some stuff offensively to be able to initiate their own offense but they keep all the other skills those guys can make a leap pretty quickly jaylen's added something every

year i don't see it for bridges i don't think he has the ball handling ability maybe i'll be probably in i mean we said about jaylen two years ago right definitely did definitely did and with bridges when i interviewed him earlier in the year for a story um he definitely wants to become that guy like he he talks about it he hates the 3 and d label he thinks he already can do way more than that and he can't like he can attack off the dribble he can pull up he can make passes he does more than just shoot threes and defend so he got more to his game uh than that label really signifies but I don't see him becoming a guy you give the ball to and to run pick and roll a lot to get a bucket on an isolation. I don't see that from him.

And that's okay. He can be a great player. We would have said that about Jalen two years ago. I agree with you. I don't see it that way either. But I think Jalen's made me rethink some of this stuff. His ability to initiate his own offense, which he just didn't have that ability two years ago.

It really is wild. He used to be robotic off the dribble. Now he's so fluid. Like very kind of Wiggins-esque. Yeah. Bridges thing, it made me think of something. So I saw this, there was, I read an article about Bridges

and Brett Brown had a quote in there. And it was something like, yeah, I'll never live that one down or something. And it got me thinking, the ringers Chris Ryan is the reason the Sixers don't have Mikael Bridges because we did that piece about the Colangelo stuff at the end of May, right?

We got Ben Dietrich. He brought us that piece and him and Chris, they secretly edited this whole piece. We wrote this piece about Colangelo and message board activity and just tried to be like, what is this? And it turned into this whole thing.

And Colangelo ended up stepping down and the Sixers had no general manager for that draft. And they had no, they had this void and there was this bizarre, we should do a narrative podcast about this. There's this bizarre, like three months stretch where Brett Brown is the most powerful guy in basketball. He's basically Greg Popovich and R.C. Buford together.

And he's coaching the team and making the decisions. And he's the one who makes that trade for Zaire Smith and the Kings pick instead of just taking Mikael Bridges, who ends up on the Suns. And it's all because of Chris Ryan, diehard Sixers fan. Oh, Chris, you screwed it up. That's a tough one, right? Instead, they got Zaire Smith and that Kings pick that leads to Tobias Harris. And Tobias Harris is $35 million contractor, which I've changed my mind on a hundred times.

Tobias is probably available right now, I'm guessing. That's quite a sliding doors moment, Bill. It's a sliding doors moment. Chris Ryan. Tough month for him between that and the England loss. He's coming up later on the podcast. Speaking of sliding doors moments and Ben Simmons, there's some T-Wolves buzz. And I don't know who this is being floated by

or how realistic it is. But I guess it would be, I would assume D'Angelo Russell has to be in the trade, right? I don't know. I don't know. I have seen a couple of different reports saying I don't know how they get him.

I don't see what would make sense for Philadelphia. It's like, okay. It's great. I'm going to hang up the phone now. Right. Goodbye, Gerson. And Minnesota wouldn't trade. Edwards can't be in that trade.

Of course not. And he doesn't help Philly anyway. And Philly wouldn't want a draft pick-based package unless they were to flip all those picks. Well, I guess my question is, could it be a three-teamer where Lillard ends up in Philly? Minnesota sends whatever in Philly.

They combine the send stuff Portland's way. My dog likes this idea too. And then Minnesota ends up with Simmons, basically. And then Minnesota ends up with Simmons basically. And they've upgraded whatever other stuff plus whatever and they end up with Simmons.

Do you think Dame gets traded? I do. You do? I do. I'm not reporting that. Of course. As a longtime tea leaves guy, I just feel like he gets traded. And plus, you know, for Olshay and that Blazers front office, he has four years left on his deal.

I mean, you could say one side of it is, well, there's no reason to trade him. There's no reason to do it with so many years left on his contract. We have time to fix this. The flip side of it is, yeah, he has four years left. The 29 other teams would happily trade for a guy with four years left on his contract. They could get a significant, like the biggest deal we've seen in a long long long long time for damian though if they did decide to flip him try to rebuild go with youth and try to start over here i mean it's not bad timing to blow it up if you're portland if you don't feel like there's a deal to make you

a championship team where eventually dame's gonna push his way out eventually just with less years left on his contract maybe now is the time i mean you gotta explore those other deals to add to bring on another star to get a better player than cj mccollum but i'm not i'm not convinced that that's going to be out there for them and i'm not sure they have the pieces to get it done either so there is a lot of logic to blowing it up now even though that would be a hard thing to do when you have Damian Lillard, an MVP candidate, four years left on his contract. You could get everything from a team for Damian Lillard if you decided to do it now. So I get it. I wouldn't bet on a deal happening, but it wouldn't shock me. I'm torn on it because on the one hand, I never want to trade the future Hall of Famer who's still a top

11 guy. It's just fundamentally, I'm on the record for as long as anyone has read anything I've written or listened to anything I've said on this podcast. On the other hand, the tea leaves thing, when the guy, it's clearly past some invisible point, it doesn't usually work. It's almost like in relationships. If you have like a friend who's in some relationship and somebody cheated on somebody or somebody, something bad happened. And then it's like, we're going to try to make it another run here. And it's like, all right, they're breaking up. Who are we kidding? It's going to break up. What happened at some point?

And it just feels like we've gotten there with Portland and the best case to keep him. And I've heard people say this is like, look, look at what happened with Phoenix. You know, you're the league is so it's so deep now. And it's so the talent's so spread out. It's two moves and you could win the finals. I feel like Portland had their window for that already and they didn't get it done. They had bad luck. They peaked in the wrong seasons, but they've had their Phoenix 2021 moment.

They just didn't time it right. And now I look around the league, Golden State is going to be really good next year. So are the Lakers. So is Phoenix. Denver is going to be really good. I just don't think there's any scenario from a talent standpoint

that they're going to be able to hang with the other teams and there's no move for them to make because they don't think there's any scenario from a talent standpoint that they're going to be able to hang with the other teams and there's no move for them to make because they don't have any picks what are they going to do what are they going to trade to anthony simons for you know whoever like no the seer little zach collins who i'm not sure he actually zach collins has hurt every time yeah i'm not sure what the move is i don't know like not only do they not have the the trade assets through picks or players to get it done who's available that would move the needle that far in the direction for you like people say well stick with it you know you could be the raptors maybe a kawaii type comes along i'm like i'm sorry like where where is that player you know

when he becomes available and you are behind you know new orleans and in terms of assets yeah new orleans is another one yeah like you're behind them and you're behind oklahoma city if either of those teams okc already proved that they're willing to trade for a star like they do with paul george yeah they already proved it they're gonna do it again maybe three years from now might be four years from now but they're gonna be in it for one of those guys and i don't see the blazers in a situation unless they're the team with the star that's going to be on the move so for portland here there's a lot of logic to just ending it now instead of trying to go through the ups and downs of this relationship which feels like it's

inevitably going to reach a point where dame says i want out i demand a trade right now they're just toying with a breakup but at some some point, it could reach that. I wonder if the Blazers will be the team to cut it off sooner. Well, and then you always have to look at the GM's always going to care about extending his own career over what's best for the franchise. And this would be an extension. It would be. Yeah.

So if he's able to trade Dame and get a whole bunch of stuff and buy himself a couple more years, that's actually a smarter move for him. I think the only trade out there that would even... There's two. It's the Golden State or the Knicks, right? The Knicks, just be like, give me Barrett and Toppin and 100 picks. Just give me all your picks and give me those two guys. And I'm willing to have a conversation. And then the Golden State one where if you could get, I was joking before, but if you can get Wiseman and seven and 14 and more picks down the road and Wiggins and dump a bad contract back on them, that's something. I still, I just wouldn't trade him unless I felt I would never do the Doug Houston Harden type of trade where I can't

even point to one thing I got after the fact other than I made my team. You want a player. I want multiple pieces that I can feel good about after. That's the only reason it makes sense, you know? Yeah, and I'll tell you what, Bill. We mentioned the name earlier, Wenbanyama. It's not a bad time to be in a rebuilding phase the next two years.

You got Wenbanyama in 2023. Next year in 2022, you get Holmgren, Banchero, Hardy. There's a number of great prospects coming into the league over the next two years. Imoni Bates, didn't even mention him, Jalen Duran, who took over the number one spot in high school rankings over Bates. There's a lot of high caliber prospects. If you're going to tank, if you're going to try to rebuild and, you know, granted the lottery odds aren't what they once were were it's not a bad time to be bad so for portland here this might be the moment here to get that next guy who's the face of your franchise in addition to whatever else you were to get for damn and i hate saying that like you said a hall of famer who's still in the prime of his career it sounds stupid

you know at first when you hear it, but it feels inevitable that at some point Damian Miller's just going to want out. And if it gets to that point, you're not going to get as much as you would right now, this offseason. I think he ends up in Philly. I don't know what they give up. I thought what Manick said on this podcast last week

about how he's talked to multiple executives who just value Ben Simmons more than the general public does. I thought that was interesting. There are people that do for sure. Yeah. Who feel like, look, this guy's a top 15 guy and those guys are not available. And I have a chance to get this guy basically on discount. But on the flip side, you have Darrell who has, you know, prized himself on not getting beaten on trades, you know, and that that's why the Westbrook thing I think was so scarring for him. It's exactly the type of trade he would never make if it were up to him.

Speaking of prospects, before we go, I know you were focused on the 2021 MLB draft. The Red Sox had the fourth pick. They got the number one guy I saw, right? Yeah. So, you know, when the Red Sox have a chance to get a real blue chipper, I love drafts. I kind of threw myself into it. And everybody had them either getting the Louisville catcher, Henry Davis, or Jack Leiter, the outlier son, who is this Vanderbilt pitcher. And it was like, one of those two is going to fall to four. They're trying to arrange this

so Leiter can fall to four. It's going to be awesome. Those guys go one and two in the draft. And it's like, oh my God. And the guy who is the number one overall pick, who was like the Cade Cunningham of this draft, was this high school shortstop, Marcelo Mair, California kid. So he falls to three

and the Tigers are up and it's like, the Tigers are going to take that guy. Then we're fucked. Tigers take some high school pitcher, which is, don't ever take high school pitchers. Like you might as well, like, I would just would never do that. Um, and this guy falls to four. My dad is, my dad's out of his mind. He's, he's like, they're comparing this kid to Corey Seeger. He's six, three, one 88 already. I was, I don't have a lot of, uh, people in this category, but my most exciting MLB draft televised moment was this kid falling to four. So there you go.

It's the stuff that doesn't happen in the basketball drafts. We don't see like the best prospect fall to four, but MLB has like these slots and you have bonus money. And sometimes like the guy, Baltimore took an outfielder fifth, who was like, you know, not one of the best five guys, but it was like, he was cheaper. So now they could spend more money in later rounds than other people. It's stuff that basketball just doesn't have. Basketball is like meritocracy. Who's the best guy? I'm taking that guy. In baseball, there's weird shit going on. It made me wonder. I feel like I should care more about the MLB draft. I kind of enjoyed it. I got into it this year. I liked it. I think you would like it. Maybe someday Merrill will be inducted into

the Massville Hall of Fame with Chris Pitino, Bill. Like with Chris Pitino, our guy. The green zombie. The green-haired zombie was great. Then I was thinking, all right, this guy's 18. Handsome kid, by the way. I think he has some Tom Brady potential. So let's say he gets to the Red Sox in four years. He's 22.

I'm in my mid-50s at this point. He has a whole career. Let's say he's like, has a Yaz type career. I'm almost 80 by the time he's done. This guy's going to take me into my, into my nursing home stage. The next spirit of my life, Marcelo Mair, my new guy. So I have a new guy to replace Mookie. But yeah, it was a lot of drama in the MLB draft. It made me think like, there's no you for the MLB draft. Like the, the science that we have there,

there's different people, right? There's like Keith law. There's a whole bunch of other ones, but ultimately you only really have to worry about, I don't know, 10 guys. And then maybe 60 total in baseball.

There's like a kajillion. How do you keep track of all theillion how do you keep track of all the high school and college how many rounds are they in the mld million it feels infinite yeah it's infinite and then you do like that guy throws 98 okay we might see this in the nba if they ever remove the age limit you know where like you have to spend a year in college teams are gonna have to scout so much harder just like they did before you know, where, like, you have to spend a year in college. Teams are going to have to scout so much harder, just like they did before. You know, high schools across the country, some

crappy gyms. I like it. I think that adds so much randomness to the draft. You know what's going to happen, though? Things are exciting. And I feel like it's already starting to happen with some of these apps. I think all these high school games are going to be available online. You won't have to go to gyms anymore to see these dudes.

If it's anybody who's like a top 25 potential guy, 20 of his senior year games are going to be online. No doubt about it. No doubt. I mean, so many high schools already have like deals with Synergy or Second Spectrum. There's so many different video services out there that will record your games and edit them and distribute them to coaches, college coaches. But we also have like the overtime and places like that that are actually going to try to televise them. And by the way, I watched some L.A. high school because we have really good high school basketball here. The games are really fun.

Yeah. I look forward to being out there trying to hit up like, you know, some high school games. See Brawny play. I mean, good Brawny. When do you come back? I'm trying to move back maybe in September. That that's my hope. Wow. In September.

Yeah. Before next season, but I'm, I'm open to doing it during the season. We'll see. It's really nice here. KFC. I know,

I know it is. Although I will say I was in Boston, um, I guess a week and a half ago. It's still the best. It's great. It's great. It's so great. It's still the best. It's great. It's great. Boston has its own charm.

Yeah. It's still the best. It's a great time. When Boston's great, when Boston has great weather, it's a beautiful city. We didn't get that. We got 100 degrees for three days and then pouring rain.

Oh, you were here for that? I was like, oh, this is why I left. I don't know if it's the best then, Bill. When is the next draft guide? We're doing an update this week. Going to be expanding, I think, to 50 or 60 prospects. Going to have a new mock draft. A lot of changes in my big board.

Haven't updated that since, I think, May. So there'll be a lot of changes in the big board. My guy Book Knight moving up? Yeah, Book Knight will be moving up. Yeah, he's moving up. Top 10. Oh, top 10? Oh, top 10. Yeah.

Top 10. Yeah. So he's not a sleeper anymore. Eight or nine. Yeah. I mean, it feels like everybody's moving him up. I'm not, you know, some outlier doing that with him. But what he showed at the combine, what he's showing at workouts with his jumper, that

was the number one question with him. KOC, we can hear you on the mismatch. We can watch you on the void our little YouTube slash Twitter video series and we can read you on theringer.com and we can read your ringer draft guide good to see you good to see you too Bill taping this part of the podcast

it is 315 PT Sunday just watch the Euros final. Italy beats England in PKs. The biggest England fan I know, Chris Ryan, is here. You were worried. England was favored.

England was home. Everything had aligned. It all looked great. And England has that pre-2004 Red Sox DNA where it's like if it all looks too great, it might not be too great. What went wrong? What happened?

They peaked too early. That might be a thing. I mean, I think that getting that early goal was really cool. But then you wind up, or if you're England, you wind up defending for close to 80 minutes. And I think that they were just trying to build a fortress and they were playing three quarters of the game

as if it was the last 10 minutes of the game where you throw everybody behind the ball and try to defend. And they just once Italy settled down, it just felt like they were picking and picking and picking and pushing and pushing. And England couldn't ever develop anything like everything they were doing was long balls and like searching passes. And maybe we'll catch something on the break here. But it always felt like England like Italy was going to get back in. The question is like, England never had a counterpunch to the counterpunch, basically. They essentially stood pat and then really, really, really questionable substitution decisions that are going to get debated a lot in football media, which was just Italy bringing on, you know, taking off their two best strikers,

Immobile and Insigne, and bringing on two fresh legs. And England pretty much waiting until the very last second to finish up their subs, bringing on these two younger players, Rashford and Sancho. And those guys wind up taking and missing penalties. Yeah, so they did the thing that in

basketball I always hate when they bring in the ice-cold legs to get thrown into the biggest pressure situation. Look, I hate this more than anything when the team gets the early goal and then they turtle. It never works. It always comes back to haunt you. Italy's goalie, did you see how many saves he made in the whole game? Yeah, one. Yeah, and England scored their one chance pretty much.

Yeah, and then they just were basically like, okay, we're good. Let's protect this. We're going to try to win the game 1-0, which is not how... I don't feel like... I watched a lot of the Euros. I really enjoyed it.

I didn't feel like they were that kind of team. No, I mean, that was... I feel like they were way more aggressive than that. They were at least balanced. You know what I mean? I think they were a defensive team. I don't think that they were taking a ton of chances. Italy probably on balance across the whole tournament, best

team in the tournament, beat the best teams to get there. They beat Belgium. They beat Spain. You can't really argue with it. It felt like, though, like you said, there was some magic in the air for England, and it's tough to imagine a different situation for them, which is a shame because this is a really, really, really

likable team. That's the thing I would say is just about this specific England team is they're young, they're fun, they're really relatable. They seem like really cool guys. And it's just heartbreaking to see them go down exactly like that. The announcers were saying at some point in the second half talking about Italy, so much pressure. They're just pinning them.

And I'm like, I don't know. It just seems like England has everyone back. I think it's a really weird strategy to say, we've got the goal we needed. Now let's play out the next 88 minutes plus all the extra time in this game and we'll win with nothing. Obviously, Italy was going to either score or come close.

They came close a couple of times. They had 19 shots. I mean, not all of them were on the net, but they were just way more aggressive controlling the whole thing. It was a bummer because I really felt like England had more to show in that game and I don't know what they were doing.

Basically, it was a study into managerial philosophies. Mancini, he chased the game. He was bringing on attackers he was like trying to mix it up he like changed the way his front line played a little bit and i think what southgate the england manager was trying to do was essentially keep it even late and then bring on these really electric attacking players in greelish or you know like he brought saka on and

and i think he thought maybe he could break the game open there, but nobody was getting the ball to those guys. So they were essentially on the same island that everybody else was on. And that had served him well. He had done that a couple of times

where he would wait late, bring on Grealish, Grealish would make something happen. That's how they beat Germany. But it just didn't come off today. It was almost like Mancini was like, I know the card you're going to play and I have the counter for it.

Yeah, it seemed like Italy was psyched to go into PKs. I mean, yeah. I mean, England has definitely... England doesn't go into penalty kicks with a ton of historical confidence. Right. And Italy had just beat Spain that way. So they were probably like,

hell yeah, let's do it. Yeah, Grealish came in. I felt like I just would have started the extra time with him. Not to sound like Mr. Soccer, but you could see when he came in, all of a sudden the last 15 minutes of extra time, it felt like England was at least trying to create, make some runs and do some stuff. But I was really frustrated.

I had no doubt. I didn't even bet on this because I wanted to bet on England. I didn't like the odds. And I was just like, I'll just root for England. It'll be awesome. The crowd will be great. And then when it was 1-1, basically 70-minute mark on, you start thinking like, if England can somehow score,

this would be like one of the great crowd reactions of all time. Yeah. It'll be just complete delirium. I can't wait. I really hope it happens. And they just couldn't make it even. They couldn't even really. It was that one time Sterling, it seemed like he was going to get.

And then all of a sudden, every time there was a defender, like poking the ball, kicking it or whatever. It's frustrating. Yeah, the reaction when Pickford saved, I think, the Jorginho penalty kick. Like Ian Dark said, that might be the loudest I've ever heard Wembley Stadium. If they had won it, I can't imagine the frigging walls would have fallen down there. Like, yeah, I think that they had their chances I'm surprised that they didn't go after

Emerson more although I guess he played pretty well Emerson replaced this guy Spinozola who had busted his Achilles a couple like a week or about a couple games ago and I thought that that was going to be maybe the sort of vulnerable spot of the Italian defense but the thing is man like I don't know if you picked up

like from your eye, but Bonucci and Chiellini, the two Italian center backs, just are freaking gladiators. And they were just so good the whole game. They just managed the game so well. Bonucci scored the goal. He scored a penalty kick. So it was kind of amazing

to watch a master class in defending from those two guys, if you're looking for just taking a step back and appreciating the sport. It was an awesome tournament, though. I love I love a great summer tournament like that where you can really

like settle into it. And the storylines are so, so exciting. Yeah, the two the two backs reminded me in hockey when you get the like the Chris Chelios types. Yeah, the 43 year old guys

somehow playing just all the bright angles, all the little ticky-tack fouls to bust it up. Like there was one play where I think Saka had the ball on the right wing and Chiellini just friggin' yanked him back. He horse-collar tackled him, basically. And it just completely broke out the play.

And he was like, yeah, give me a yellow, whatever. But they're not going on a fast break here. Before we have the obligatory penalty kicks conversation, I hate extra time almost as much. I actually thought the extra time for the most part during the Euros, there are a couple aberrations, but for the most part, pretty boring. Teams that seem kind of content, especially Denmark was the best example before England actually got their goal. Denmark seemed so delighted just to get to PKs.

What were they like? Five to one underdogs, something like that. But the extra time feels like it should be fun. And a lot of times it's not. A lot of times it just seems like tired dudes or coaches

that either sub too late or too early and they never seem like they navigated that. Have they ever thought about experimenting with that? I think golden goal would be the solution for the most part. It's just basically next goal wins. And you would just see teams chasing it down.

Now, so like basically what happens is if a team is quote unquote playing for penalty kicks, I think that's a little bit of a misnomer sometimes. What they're really doing is playing for another team to make a mistake. So you're sitting back and you're basically like, we're not going to let you score easy on us. But if you screw up, maybe we can break and counter on you because you've brought like the center back came up because he got bored and he started moving. And we just get that one break that we need.

But we're never going to make it so that you you can get anything past us. So sometimes I think what we think of playing for penalty kicks is just basically conservatism in football. But yeah, I think that like the away goal, it's something that is sort of outplayed its usefulness. And now, because there is so much analytical sophistication in management, teams can be like, we're going to do this. And then the odds of if we go to penalty kicks,

it's like we have a 50-50 chance of getting through here. Yeah. I watched with my daughter. We always joke about in California, especially in the younger levels with the youth soccer, there's the kickball teams, right? That just, they're not trying to possess. They're not trying to connect passes. They're just basically like they stack everyone back. They kick it downfield, they hope the ball bounce a certain way. And especially if it's a shorter field and it's younger, they can get like a, you know, suddenly a three on two, two on one, some bounce or breakaway.

And that's just the style they play. And it's always like, if you're trying to prepare kids for real soccer, maybe to play in college or something like that, that's definitely not the style. That's not going to help anybody to do that. It was as England was kind of morphing into that in the second half. And so it was like,

Oh my God, they're playing kickball. Like where's Sterling? Where like, I don't understand. Why aren't they attacking? And it just, it just seemed like there was a fear of losing.

Do you think it was, it meant so much to the people you haven't, when was the world cup 1966? That was the only. Yeah. International title ever. Yeah, that's like that's their that's their big crowning achievement. And it's it's sort of like this national myth of this 66 team. I think the crowd, you think the nerves of the crowd and stuff, does that does that is there like osmosis?

Look, I'm sure that I'm sure that there was nerves involved with that. I think that the England fans obviously tightened up a little bit as the game went on and when Italy scored. But there was also something that was happening in the first 15 or so minutes of the game when England scored, which was that they were able to progress the ball up the field on the ground and were making these line-breaking passages, which is essentially when you're getting from

defense to midfield to the forward line cleanly and breaking vertically like the ball is breaking vertical planes Mancini saw that and did something but you have to like look at it to see okay I want to eliminate these these Harry Kane passes that are coming from deep and

then he hits Trippier and Trippier hits whoever that's what was happening in the beginning of the game. And I think it wasn't less a matter of them seizing up in the moment as Mancini just kind of maybe outcoached Gareth Southgate tonight. Southgate looks like he's in Ted Lasso season four. He's like the most stereotypical English coach I think we've ever had. He's a really good guy, man. I mean, it's tough. He missed a penalty in a famous tournament when he was a player.

I think he's done a really good job reinventing this team, bringing in a lot of really cool young players. The decision to bring Sancho and Rashford on in the last minute will be debated no matter what. I mean, I love both of those players, but that's a really tough thing to ask for guys that age to be the first time they touch the ball as a penalty kick against Donnarumma,

who just wins the player of the tournament after this game. And he's, you know, probably the second or third best keeper in the world. It's really, really dark. Yeah, there's a rhythm to all this stuff, right? And especially like just kicking a soccer ball, you know, Zoe always has games where they like don't have a real chance to warm up before the game. And she's like, it sucks. You have no feel for the ball. Like you just, it's almost like in basketball if you didn't get to shoot before, you know, the second half or something. Yeah. To bring somebody in ice cold like that with the amount of pressure and especially

like, uh, I was incredible. Save off the goalpost to keep England alive. And then the last guy comes in and announcers like, and now this teenager has a chance. I'm like, the guy's a fucking teenager. He was just on right. He's house, right. He's house pod. I know, but it was just like, this is your, this is your fifth guy. It's talking to a guy who's like, it's just like, this is your fifth guy? You're picking a guy who's like, can't even drink yet? But look, if he makes it, it's the greatest decision ever made. That's the thing.

If Saka buries that, it's like, what a stroke of genius to do that. I think that, you know... Who would have been your five? Obviously the first two. The issue is that, I don't know the statistics. The issue is that he took off somewhat more seasoned guys like trippier just won la

liga jordan henderson has won premier league like these guys who have played a little bit more i wonder whether or not i i have no idea whether or not their penalty kick stats are better or worse than sancho or rashford but they were at least part of the game and there was that weird moment at the end of the game where it seemed like he was going to bring Rashford on and then he didn't for a few minutes. And then at the very last second, he was going to bring Rashford and Sancho on, but then they couldn't get the ball out of bounds. So they essentially

bring them on during a corner and those guys maybe get like one touch each and then it's penalty kicks. And that's just not like the ideal situation I think you want to go into. All of that being said, like everything that we think we've just learned from this game, where it's like England scored early, turtled up,

played defense. They were playing with a lot of historical pressure on them. Argentina just did that last night. They scored early on like a basically like incredible breakaway, like on how D Maria, then they defended for the next 85 minutes. And Messi was running around, scything guys down and like trying to break dude's legs. And Messi was running around scything guys down

and like trying to break dudes legs. And Brazil was playing like five strikers. That was an incredible match. But Argentina beat Brazil in Brazil and finally Messi wins a trophy with Argentina in senior level. I thought that was a better game

than this game. Yeah, that was awesome. I did not think this was a good game. This had a very dull hour basically i mean you could you can learn a lot from it but the argentina match was essentially refereed by like um by like a like a guy who was reffing like a venice beach basketball game or something and it was just like yeah you guys go ahead and figure it out after like the first few minutes neymar's shorts were torn there's there an Argentina defender whose leg was covered in blood.

I don't know whose blood it was, but it was covered in it. And then at the end of the game, all the Argentina players go rushing over to Messi. That was awesome. They're all crying. It was just awesome. It was awesome scenes. Plus, Messi totally gacked the... Oh, God.

I mean, it was really, really the most un-Messy moment of all time. If they had lost that match, oh my God, I still just like see it. That was like almost too easy for him to score. But yeah, that Argentina match is exactly the opposite of what we're talking about with England, where it's like they were able to defend against Neymar for 80 minutes or whatever,

and they were able to shrug off all this historical pressure, maybe because they weren't playing at home. Who knows? I did think Italy was the best team. I watched a lot of the Euros. I did feel like they... I don't want to say the right team won because I hate penalty kicks, but it certainly wasn't an embarrassing champ or anything.

The penalty kicks thing... Look, we have the same discussion every time this happens. Nobody has come up with a better way to do this. I still feel like, do you go 9v9 for the second 15 minutes There's been talk about, do you take a guy off every five minutes until, and what are you talking about though?

Are we playing five a side then at Wembley? Yeah, I don't, it seems at least that feels more like soccer than just penalty kicks. I think golden goal would make both teams attack. If you were like next goal wins, I think it would incentivize teams to both attack. I'm not sure what would have changed necessarily.

You know, like when you have somebody like a Denmark and an England and Denmark's playing defensively, I don't, they might try to go win a free kick down the other end. They might try to go get a penalty on the other end. They might try to break away. I think that it would

be a little bit more of a carrot to have two teams playing. What about being able to bring back subs and extra time? Like you could bring back two people. Oh, guys that you had pulled off? I like the finality of the decision. Interesting. I like that it makes a manager really

push his chips in. If Southgate brings on Henderson to kind of try to get control of the game and he takes him makes a manager really like pushes chips in. So like when, you know, if, if Southgate's going to bring, brings on Henderson to kind of try and get control of the game and he takes him off in the final minutes because he wants a different penalty kicker, like he's got to live with that decision.

So I like it. And I thought Mancini really showed a lot of stones by taking his forwards off and putting fresh guys up front and he didn't play favorites. I think you could make an argument in this match that maybe you could have tried something different with taking kane off and kane is like this golden god in england and like you can't substitute kane and kane is the the captain and the talisman and all these things and i get it but he looked a little gassed and they were basically making him be a playmaker and a forward and then when they would get down into the final third i didn't always feel like they had anyone to cross to.

There was no focal point for them to score from. And I think it would have been interesting if they had tried something a little bit different, the forward line. But, you know, that's hindsight. They really need the 6'7 forward that can come in for the last 20 minutes. Every team needs that.

The kid they have on the bench, Calvert-Lewin, is pretty good in the air. And he's a really good goal scorer. You team needs that. The kid they have on the bench, Calvert-Lewin, is pretty good in the air and he's a really good goal scorer. You can really shoot. There was a list of people that I think everybody wanted to see which was Sancho and Grealish and they didn't really get a chance to make much of an impact.

Well, we buried the lead, but how devastating on a scale of 1-10 was this for England not actually winning this? Because it seemed like the fans had convinced themselves that this was actually happening this time. I think it's pretty huge. I mean, I think that the fact that it was a home tournament, I

think the fact that at least officially they're coming out of the pandemic there. They're ending a lot of the restrictions there. And I think that it's just been a really long trying time. And I think that this particular group of kids kids and i emphasize that because they're really young were very inspiring to like a multi-generational fan base there and i think that people who maybe

ordinarily were like i don't really care about england were all of a sudden really enliven like a lot of my family members who are football fans but we're like in love with this team yeah and you're getting getting Getting WhatsApps from them about it. It's really heartbreaking. I think that they'll be back in and around it. I would feel differently if the next World Cup didn't feel like such

a... You guys are going to play in the winter in Qatar, huh? Okay. It's just like a weird World Cup. I feel like some version of this squad will be back in some capacity. But I also think Italy will be back. They look great. Do you think the Euros have gained steam during

the internet era, as we do social media? Because I remember we had them at some point it was during when we were at Grantland, right? What year was that? 2012? Yeah, well there was 08. 08 was like the one where I really, really, really got into football, I think, international football. And then so it would have been 12 that would have been the Euros.

Yeah. Because we had that, but wasn't the Olympics was going head to head and it's the Euros that year, right? Yeah, that was London. Yeah. But I don't remember the Euros being as kind of in the vortex as they were at least in America this year. But I think part of it has to do with just, there's this whole generation now of, it seems like under 32 where soccer is just one of their sports. And there's a million reasons for that, right?

It's video game. It's the fact that the premier league has been on TV now here for 15 years. You're not going to bars at six in the morning to watch your team anymore. You can just watch them. Yeah. I think there's a sophistication,

the podcast, the internet coverage, there's a sophistication in the podcast, the internet coverage. There's a sophistication with the sport that casual fans like me, I really actually feel like I know what's going on for the most part.

And then the diehards can watch everybody and have opinions on everything. And it just feels like it's, it just felt different this time around. I think you just watch and that England team

is mostly, it's Manchester City, Manchester United players, Arsenal players. These are guys that most people who are even like if soccer is their fourth favorite sport, probably have watched Manchester City like two or three times. And these England teams have been in the Champions League deep into the knockouts like Liverpool and City was in the final this year. Chelsea was in the final, won the final. So I think more people are getting a chance to see these guys

in a lot of different ways, but there really is nothing like international football because you mix in that like, oh, I'm really into these guys because I play them on FIFA with like, holy shit, I've just decided I've fallen in love with this Spain team or I've fallen in love with this Denmark team who came back from such like

a crazy, tragic opening match with Ericsson falling to the ground and and and going into cardiac arrest like there was so much drama and uh yeah i mean i i think people just wind up really developing attachments for these these these national teams and because the competition is so good it's slightly different than than maybe some of the stateside qualifying tournaments or, you know, like Gold Cup or something like that. It feels like a little bit more significant. Well, as you know, I'm half Italian. Yeah, that's right.

For some reason, I didn't grasp. For some reason, I root for England just because I love, as you know, I love rooting for the narrative sometimes. The fact that nobody basically under the age of 59 years old remembers a positive English soccer or anything. It's pretty incredible. It was a good thing for them because I don't think a lot of those kids playing for England actually are super conscious of the pratfalls that that team has made. It is amazing, though. Did you see a couple of times one of the Italian players would get called for a foul and they would do the Italian guy hands?

I love it. It would actually be, like, the emoji of Italian football. I love that. There are so many, like, classic Italians in the game. I love the names, too. I kept waiting for Don Fenucci, but there was no Don Fenucci. There is a Fenucci. It's pretty close.

Yeah, Fenucci was close. But, yeah, I thought the tournament, I think, was a huge win. I guess, though, only if you're talking about just from a landscape standpoint, the only kind of ding was that Mbappe and France going out early, I think, was just a bummer because I wanted to see them more. Yeah, I think Denmark wound up being the Cinderella, the George Mason, you know, oh, my God, I can't believe this is happening. But yeah, probably.

It's fine. I won't be telling my grandkids about seeing Denmark in the 21 Euros. I think most people would like to have seen Mbappe and Pogba. It'll be like when the U.S. loses to Nigeria in the Olympics in hoops. It'll be the same kind of dissatisfying

wondering why Kevin Love played 28 minutes in a clincher or all that stuff. You were just locked in on that last night. I love international basketball. As you know, I love all international competition. I wish the Euros... Wasn't this a great sports weekend, though? This is like a cold school.

You had Wimbledon finals. You had Argentina-Brazil. MMA. MMA. And now tonight we have an NBA finals game and the European Championship. That's just like you sit down in front of the couch and then you get up MMA? MMA. And now tonight we have an NBA Finals game and the European... Copa? That's just like you just sit down in front of the couch and then you get up 60 hours later. It's crazy. Yeah, we had Copa.

We had USA, Nigeria, although I might have been the only one who cared. And then all the UFC prelims all going head to head. And then at the same time, Garrett Cole was pitching this incredible game against the Astros. Yeah. Where Boone ends up leaving him in.

He's screaming at Boone to leave him in. He throws 129 pitches, gets the K to end the game. And it's like the Yankees season has turned around. They just blew a six run lead in the ninth inning today. So it did not turn around.

But yeah, it was... Usually July we're dead. We had Red Sox Phillies. Some Red Sox Phillies. After you dined out on Jacko's grave the other day? I know. It came back to haunt me.

You should utilize dead for us. Yeah. I mean, we get free agency occasionally the Olympics, but this year

it's been locked and loaded. Well, you're in better spirits than I expected. Yeah. I mean, I think that I have probably a proper relationship

to the English national team based on being a guy from Philadelphia. It gets a little intense if you're like, I'm a dude who's been to England three times, but I have this very intense attachment to their national football side. I really love them, and I love my family in England's heartbroken. So shout out to Jane and Beck. Plus, that game ended at like 11 at night oh yeah can you imagine the pub scene at like 1 30 in the morning yeah i'm really i haven't checked twitter but like it was it seemed pretty gnarly at wembley in the first place and then yeah with

the english that sometimes they'll just be like by the way last tube sorry and you're just like wembley's not close to london i found that out when we started Grantland. I went to England to go watch two matches at Wembley. And I was like, I told the travel people at ESPN, I was like, yeah, anywhere near Wembley should be fine. And not really thinking that Wembley wasn't in downtown London or something. I remember this. And then I was like, hey, so I'm 50 minutes from London. That's cool.

Like, I'm just like out of the Marriott. I was stunned when I went there for the Olympics, how far away everything was from everything else. You're just constantly traveling to different spots. Nothing is close. It's basically like New York, Brooklyn, Harlem, all the different pieces of the city, how far away they are. It just takes time to get everywhere. But it's united by how much they love sports. When you fly in, when you're flying into Heathrow, and it dips in plain terms a little bit, you

can just see all the big stadiums in London. And you can actually just point out, there's Emirates, there's Tottenham. It's really cool. We saw, Zoe and I, and Zoe was only like six or seven, we went to the Women's Gold Medal Game at Wembley. And it was top four coolest stadium I think I've ever been in.

Yeah. Right? Lambeau. They've gotten used, like they've kind of broken it in there. When they first built it, I think there was like some skepticism. Like you just built this spaceship out in the middle of nowhere and it doesn't have like. It was fucking cool. I loved it.

Yeah. It's just, I mean, it's just, you walk in there and you just, it doesn't have like cool i loved it yeah it's just i mean it's just you walk in there and you just it just feels immense it feels momentous i can't imagine what it'd be like it's a place for finals it's a place for larger than life events so it's it got a it got a good one today i think i think i think a couple of guys on england and maybe the manager is going to want to do over but yeah so you think Southgate is going to really take it? Well, I think that he's going to be like, I made some really big calls and they didn't quite work out.

You know what I mean? I don't think that he's going to be like, I tried to encourage those guys to play possession football for 70 minutes and they just didn't listen to me. I think he was like, keep your shape, play defense and hit them on the break because they're not as fast as you

and they didn't do it. I see like a big, bushy, Ron Burgundy type beard from him eventually. Yeah. I see like a big, bushy, Ron Burgundy type beard from him. Eventually. Yeah. Just kind of a rough look. Still wearing the same suit from today,

two months later. Show up in Qatar with a quart of milk. Yeah, how far away are we from the World Cup now? Next winter. It's good because it's in the winter

because of where it is. Because otherwise, I think it would be too hot to even contemplate being there. Ridiculous. All right, Chris Ryan. All right, Bill Simmons. Good to see you.

Good to see you too. All right, Kevin Clark is here from The Ringer taping this. It is close to four o'clock now Pacific time. Just had Chris Ryan on to talk Euros. Your generation likes the Euros. I feel like your generation is the first one that grew up with soccer kind of on television

and video games and just kind of knowing the stuff. And it just feels, I was saying to Chris, it just feels like a bigger deal than it did 10, 12 years ago. Well, if you ask my parents, I got into a couple of years too early because the Euros in 2004, when I was in high school, they still had it on pay-per-view. And so I had to buy it. Every game like 50 like a boxing match oh my god and uh yeah so that's how much it's grown i didn't buy every game by the way but that's how much it's grown from 04 to 08 when it was on espn for the i think the first time in 08 and everybody was like whoa like this is this is a huge leap and

then obviously you know fox soccer channel and all that stuff started to grow after that. Then NBC got the rights. Now ESPN has wall-to-wall coverage. If you got into it when I did, so like 2002, 2003 kind of thing, you've just seen it grow in leaps and bounds. The fact that coverage went from non-existent to bad was a huge leap. And now it went from bad to good. So I'm in heaven.

Yeah, it's great. I really enjoyed it. I watched way more than I expected. I gambled on games I had no business gambling on because I barely know anything. It kind of broke even. It's like how I do with UFC. I just kind of tread water with UFC. You're coming on here to talk about UFC, your second or third love. You love the combat sports. You're known as a football guy, but you also have a deep passion

of the combat sports. I went to a car race today in Brooklyn and these guys came up to me and they said, hey, and the one guy was like, I got into this racing because you and Russillo did a podcast about this.

Wow. And then, hold up, but here's the punchline, is that we're talking and then I say, are you going to the race in Austin? It's a Formula One race in October. And we talk about it a little bit.

And I said, well, I can't go because it's football season. And the guy goes, oh, do you cover football? Wow. Oh, wow. Wow. Okay. He knows me just as the Russillo Racing correspondent. You're like, every year I've done an Aaron Rodgers story

just for the record. Maybe not this year. This could be the first year. This could be the year I don't get Aaron Rodgers to sit down. But yeah, I would say there's a group of sports that are tied. I mean, football, both pro and college are number one for me. And then there's a group behind it. And then both combat sports are firmly in that group. Well, last night's UFC card, memorable. I wouldn't say it was a good main event, how it played out.

Not the whole main card, the collection of fights, why Greg Hardy was on the main card. I have no idea. I just think they- I have some thoughts on that. Well, they seem to think that the casual MMA fans like me are like, I wasn't going to get the fight, but then I saw Greg Hardy was on the card. So now I'm interested because he once played football

and that's a sport I care about. I don't get that at all. They tend to stack cards with stack being kind of, I mean, that's the wrong word, but they put heavyweights on the card a lot because they're liable to have knockouts. I think Greg Hardy at this point can't beat any top heavyweight.

So anybody better than him is going to knock his head off his body. And I think there's a weird appeal to that. My ideal for Greg Hardy would be he's not gainfully employed in any sports league. But if you're going to keep him around, and the UFC, they're not deep at heavyweight, so I doubt they cut him. If you're going to keep him around, the best option is he gets his ass kicked within 90 seconds.

Well, that fight was a bust. The Wonderboy fight, you know, that's kind of how you have to fight Wonderboy, but that was still not the most fun three rounds of my entire life. The woman's fight was okay. Really, the hero of the night was the green zombie until we got to the green zombie taking it to O'Malley one of the great moments in recent

mass history that was fun first of all I like the guys who get mad at the ref stoppage when they're getting their ass kicked right like there was no reason

there's no reason for the fight to continue except you just want to keep getting beat up and there's a certain folk hero element to being the guy who can fight like one of my favorite fights of all time i've ever seen a person was this guy's a beat going against kyle boshniak and and they just hit each other in the

face and that if you can do that chris liebman became a folk hero because of that um if you can be the guy who just stands in there and as ufc fighters like to say bang uh you can have a nice career even if you don't win like that that's the beauty of u, bang, you can have a nice career even if you don't win. That's the beauty of UFC, is you can have a career even if you're not a top, top guy. That's what makes it a little different from boxing, is that if you can keep coming forward as the neon zombie did,

you can have a career. I liked him. He's 28 seconds away from the sports movie ending with his girlfriend coming out like Rocky 1. I get it. He was blocking shots with his face, no head moving. He didn't throw counters. He was there to get...

He seemed excited about getting beat up. That was his role. He studied from the likes of Chuck Wepner, Rocky Balboa, Tex Cobb, all the greats. But it was a weird one because O'Malley somehow came off worse and that was a guy I think they were banking on, but the fact that he had so much trouble and then it all led to the main

event, which the first round was just awesome. And then it just abruptly ends. And then, uh, I listened to the first hour of Ariel and, uh, yeah,

PC and Chuck did a whole about, could you have a fourth fight here? My take is there will be a fourth fight because they're going to have fights that people are going to pay to see. And people are, we'll see, they're going to pay to see a fourth fight of these guys. They're going to keep paying to see McGregor four years after he's done. The question now is like, has he, has he won two fights in five years? What's his, he's won one fight since the end of 2016. Yeah. So the question is how long can they keep this McGregor thing going where it looks like McGregor

comes out he does the entrance he does the swagger it feels like but then he loses each fight at some point this has to peter out he beat Eddie Alvarez in November 2016 and has only beaten Cowboys since then in that time period he also lost a boxing match

in that time period but this is the UFC and you can talk your way into relevance. You can sell yourself into relevance. This is a sport where Nate Diaz just lost a couple weeks ago to Leon Edwards, but he's Nate Diaz. He was funny. He was engaging. He was charismatic. And everybody was talking about Nate after the fight and not Leon Edwards, despite the fact that Leon is a better fighter. First of all, Poirier and McGregor have the chance now going into a fourth fight, which will happen, to be the undertaker and cane of UFC,

which is they can rekindle the feud whenever they want, sell a bunch of pay-per-views. So what's going to happen is the UFC is going to buy itself some time because McGregor is obviously going to be out with that broken leg for probably a year. I mean, even if you had the best medicine and rehabilitation and all that stuff, that's not something you come back easily. So Poirier will fight Oliveira probably for the

belt. He could have fought Oliveira before this, but he just wanted the extra money. And also, I mean, Conor was not really the way Conor fights right now. He's not much of a threat to Poirier. I think it's one of the most interesting stories to me because when they fought in 2014, Poirier was not nearly as good a fighter. Conor was much better. Poirier fought emotionally in 2014. Conor got in his head. In this fight, I really felt Conor fought emotionally and Poirier got in his head and they almost switched roles a little bit. Conor's the best salesman in the history of MMA and he was selling the fight. Joe Rogan's crouching down. Conor McGregor's got a broken leg and Conor's selling the fourth fight there. I mean, that's what it is. Like they used to joke about it. And they used to say that coach K was so good because in the second half of blowout, he'd be coaching the next game, right? Like he'd start, he'd start

moving the pieces around and Conor McGregor can sell the next fight five seconds after that. He just got essentially, he was about to get knocked out. Really? I mean, Herb Dean could have stopped that fight. And it reminded me a little bit, you know, when Ali lost to Frazier the first time, Ali got out of the hospital before Frazier, right? He just ran out of the hospital and then he declared victory because he got out of the hospital first, even though Frazier had won the fight. And then they almost got in the fight in Wide World of Sports because he was talking about the hospital right and so mcgregor finds ways to with a broken leg declare victory and start selling the fourth fight and that's what i think is interesting life is not fair like that that's the whole thing mcgregor is going so if poirier wins the title over olivera dana white already said they're

going to fight again poirier and mcgregor so he might get a title shot just being on, what, a three, four-match losing streak? Yeah. Three, and so, or two. But I just think that there's, because he can sell it, he's going to skip the line. Life is not fair in combat sports. I think, you know,

the big picture thing is in UFC, they don't treat a loss the same way. And I remember Conor got his ass kicked by Khabib, and then the week next week, he was at the Cowboys game and they acted like, you know, he'd won the Superbowl or something.

We don't view wins and losses in the same way in UFCs as they do in boxing or other sports, because the whole culture is supposed to be best fighting the best. So Connor can sell it. He's going to get a title shot against all odds when he comes back in a year or 18 months. And yes, they can sell a fourth fight after this.

I wonder the injury he had. And this was hard to think of it in the moment, but I was thinking about it today because I was thinking about how long it took Gordon Hayward to come back, which I would have guessed it was like a relatively similar injury. But for what McGregor does for a living, where you can get kicked in that exact same spot where your leg broke especially if that's you know if you're leading forward whatever how many guys have come back from that injury and been fine like it can happen in basketball like paul george can do it yeah i

mean chris weidman had had that exact or similar injury where he kicked it and then came back and stepped back and and kind of broke his own leg. That's happened before. I mean, I think part of it is the legs are so important to obviously it sounds like fighting one on one, but the legs are so important in MMA because these leg kicks have become so such a part of the strategy. And we've seen that whether that's, you know, poor a last fight, Justin Gaethje, Edson Barboza. I mean, you don't want to get kicked in the legs by these guys, and you want to kick these guys in the legs. And so if you don't have a solid bone structure or anything like that, I mean, that becomes

a huge problem. You hear these stories about certain fighters basically screwing with the nerve endings of their legs so they won't feel pain down there. I would say, and this sounds like the most basic thing I've ever said, but I would say having 1,000 percent leg health is really important before you can return to UFC. And that's why I think this might be a little more of an arduous process. You cannot fake that or else it's going to get exploited into UFC ring.

Yeah. I wonder maybe we don't see him for 18 months. Who the hell knows? Do you think if he had to do this over again, I know he made a shitload of money from Mayweather, right? Like that's, he made the kind of money

it would have taken him five UFC fights for. But if you're just talking about an actual UFC career and kind of whatever run he was on and then the boxing thing becomes a thing and now you've got to train differently, you've got to have different style, all that stuff. If he had just stayed focused on UFC, what is the ceiling for him

with the all-time greats? Right now, he's not one of the best lightweights, period. He's not one of the best lightweights, period. He's not in that conversation. I don't see a path for a championship run for him or a second act at all. I don't think it's going to happen. It's the old Marvin Hagler line. It's hard to get up and do

5 a.m. road work when you're sleeping in silk pajamas, right? I mean, I just think that once he got super rich and listen, I would love to have this problem. He just decided to take his foot off the gas and not train every day. And I remember hearing his coach, Sean Cavanaugh, say that at one point, he still says this, but that Conor would fight every Saturday if he could. Right. He just loves fighting and all that stuff. And I just don't know how much of that is still there for him. And I think that UFC is especially cruel in the sense that even though he has dipped in talent,

I don't think if he fought could be 100 times, he was going to win very many. I think that that's a guy who is just a, to use a ringerism, that guy's a UFC unicorn. And he's a guy who was literally wrestling bears when he was a kid, you know what I mean? That was just, you're not going to get that out of, uh, out of many guys. And so I think that there, there, he just came along at the right arrow to rise to the top. But I think with the depth of the lightweight division right now, and obviously Khabib's inactive, but I just think those guys were just better. I think there's a path where he's in the conversation to be a UFC champion right now

if he had taken it a little bit differently. But I just think that right now, it's going to be really tough for him to get back. And I think that he's going to stay relevant. You know, I was thinking about this. Roy Jones Jr. had a similar dip in the middle of his career. He lost to Antonio Tarver and then just started losing to everybody. But boxing has a way of

just throwing those guys out. They stop selling a million pay-per-views. They stop being on ESPN all the time. UFC, because of the way it's structured and because Conor is such a character, his losses are going to be front and center for the rest of his life. He's going to keep coming back

and he's going to keep losing to guys like Dustin Poirier unless he does like he did with Cowboy and kind of lowers his sights a little bit. Well, he wrote me and I bet on him. That was a mistake. I know. Well, I didn't know he was going to break his ankle, but even the first minute I felt good.

I was like, Conor's back. He's focused. I bought into all the rhetoric. Yeah. I bought into all the rhetoric. Yeah, I bought into all the rhetoric. He's burning himself out. He was burning himself out. He had one path, which was an early knockout. Once I realized that wasn't going to happen,

the fight was over. I think he knew that. When he's putting Dustin in a guillotine, that just, that's not going to work. That was why I say it was almost, he was fighting a little bit emotionally. I think he kind of, I don't think that he was,

he was giving up at that point, but I think that when you're trying to, to go for kind of a spam guillotine in the first round, uh, in that, in that spot, I think that Connor probably knew a little bit better. Who's the boxer right now who could get basically even odds in a fight where he clearly wasn't as good as the other guy,

but it was all legacy and people who just liked him and liked betting on him, basically, was why the odds were the odds. Is there a boxer like that now? Well, I'm looking at the Errol Spence-Manny Pacquiao odds right now. Oh, there you go. They're fighting on August 21st. Yeah, that was a crazy fight for him to take.

It popped out of nowhere. It popped out of nowhere. I mean, the whole thing was supposed to be bud crawford in saudi arabia then the money didn't materialize uh it looks like errol spence's is a heavy favorite uh he's minus 240 i guess he opened up as uh that seems low yeah i don't know i mean i i think that it's i think it's really hard and we saw pacquiao obviously beat Keith Thurman. We've seen him fight and beat Adrian Broner over the past couple of years. I think that there's a, even though

Pacquiao is over 40, I think that there are still going to be 42 years old. There's still going to be some hesitation to bet fully against him because he's Manny Pacquiao. So it's a little bit like that. Not on this end, my friend. There's going to be no hesitation at all.

What UFC fight are you looking forward to the most this year? I'm looking forward to whenever Francis Ngannou gets back because they kind of screwed him over. They're having an interim title fight for the heavyweight championship in Houston with Derek Lewis. I don't think that's the right decision. They should have waited for Ngannou. Francis Ngannou is a generational

star and I think that the fact that they're undercutting him a little bit is really strange to me. I'm intrigued to see... By the way, I do think that when Conor does come back, I think after he loses to Poirier, he'll get another Nate Diaz fight, which I think is important. We just need to... That's kind of what we're talking about. We're talking about Conor's career being able to last forever and selling a Troy in pay-per-views. It's going to be stuff like that.

There's just a lot of depth right now in the UFC. And this is something that I think a lot of people saw coming because there weren't a lot of guys 10, 15, certainly 20 years ago, who were training UFC from the time they were 12 years old. It was a wrestler who learned how to strike or it was a jujitsu guy who learned a few more things. That was the deal 20 years old. It was a wrestler who learned how to strike or it was a jujitsu guy who learned a few more things. That was the deal 20 years ago. And now you just see the depth of the champions, Kamaru Usman, the guys like Israel Adesanya. There's just so much talent there that I think any championship fight, real championship, not interim championship, is a must-see event. Well, one fight we're not seeing, Wilder Fury 3. That got canceled. If we had done an office poll for why was this fight going to get canceled, I would have said COVID outbreak at the Fury Camp probably would have been the number one guess.

One shot for Tyson. He either didn't get the second shot or forgot to get the second shot. Or couldn't remember if he got the first shot. So now this is getting postponed. He was busy with his thinking about how if he got COVID, it would cost him

tens of millions of dollars. That's why he didn't get it. This was the biggest fight of the summer and now that's gone. And now we're done. But then that holds up everything, Bill, because everybody's waiting for Fury and Joshua. And everybody said, okay, well, Fury beat Deontay Wilder so thoroughly last time that Fury can beat him again. Wilder's become kind of a sad case.

He's kind of become a conspiracy theorist. Not kind of. He keeps saying that Tyson Fury cheated and that there were loaded gloves and there were people in his corner who were working against him and all that stuff. And I don't think he made some changes in his camp. I don't think Tyson, excuse me, Deontay Wilder is in a position to win a heavyweight boxing championship at this point. But Tyson Fury needs to beat him contractually in order to get to Anthony Joshua. And so who knows when that's going to happen? Now, you know, boxing. I mean, this thing seemed on the one yard line.

I'm fine for another fight. I just want to know that Fury and Wilder, excuse me, Fury and Joshua are still on the one yard line. And every time something like this happens, it seems to get further and further away. You and I both know this we are boxing fans we know to expect pain we know to expect every okay everybody wants a fight it's definitely not going to happen or if it does happen it's gonna happen three years after we want it to happen you know and i that is why my frustration with with this fight being pushed

back to early october uh is so heightened because I, when, when anything goes awry in boxing, I think that the fan is usually the one who suffers. Wilder reminds me of what happened to Riddick Bowe in the nineties when he was super relevant and he was the guy briefly, and then had this weird trilogy that for some reason he was just never the same after. And I think he took a lot of hits, unfortunately. But then all of a sudden it was done and you knew it was done. And the Wilder thing, I did not expect, especially with his size and his punching power, you would have thought that would have lasted for a while.

And now it feels like he's on the last legs of it. I agree. I remember when Wilder came into the ringer office and we were talking and he was talking about how he was never nervous in the ring ever. It was after the first Ortiz fight. And he basically he seemed to have a persona that was invincible. He seemed to think he was invincible. Yeah. And he said, you know, because he basically said he wasn't bothered ever when he was when he looked like he was about to be knocked out by Ortiz.

We kind of went through his career just kind of shooting the shit on the couch. And I felt like he really did this confidence about him. And I always wondered what would happen once that confidence got busted a little bit. And it wasn't what I expected. It's now him basically coming up and saying, I didn't lose, which is certainly one way to deal with defeat.

But I'm surprised that's the route he's taken. And it's a little bit of a bummer because i really did think because he's always in a fight because the telly teddy atlas is about dante wilder is that it's almost like waiting for the shark and jaws his hand right and you're only you're waiting and waiting and waiting and then the shark comes out and then every you know the fight is over the scene is over whatever it is in Jaws. And that never happened against Fury. And I kind of feel like once that happened to him,

Wilder's whole worldview collapsed upon itself. Speaking of worldviews collapsing on itself, do we think Aaron Rodgers is going to be back in Green Bay? So all we have to read the tea leaves of is two golf appearances over the past two weeks.

He had the match and then he had the Tahoe thing. He said he was going to enjoy this week and then he was going to start working out and then figure it out in a few weeks i don't think he has a ton of options i don't think that there's i don't think there's any reason for the packers to trade him i think it's going to come down to whether or not he wants to miss games and even then i don't know uh i think aaron rogers is after a a standoff is probably if he plays anywhere, he's going to play for the Packers this year. I bet he does.

I bet he plays for the Packers. I bet he doesn't retire. And I bet there's an agreement, kind of a handshake deal that he gets traded after the season. That'd be my guess. There seemed like there was a lot of look at me, look at me, look at me during these last six months with him. That's my expert opinion based on Jeopardy, the celebrity relationship, the carefully orchestrated news break

during the NFL draft, a Bryson DeChambeau match, golf tournament on TNT, the Tahoe thing, Hawaii, Miles Teller. It was a lot of, hey, he might as well have been Addison Rae. Wow.

Might as well have been Addison Rae. Okay. He might as well have been Addison Rae Wow Might as well have been Addison Rae He might as well have What was the difference I'm amazed he wasn't at the UFC fight Yesterday doing sidelines To interview people on the red carpet Crouching next to Rogan Where is he in the bachelor

I'm surprised they were able to fend him off From bachelor in paradise Okay alright there's a lot to chew there So Where is he in the Bachelor? I'm surprised they were able to fend him off from Bachelor in Paradise. Okay. All right. There's a lot to chew there. So the Jeopardy thing is real. He talked to our own Claire McNair, who wrote an amazing book about Jeopardy that you should all buy. And he basically said he wants to be the permanent host of Jeopardy. And I think that there are people who thought that before he said that or before he had that little media tour that he was just doing this as a hobby or maybe he'll do something down the road, but he really wants it.

And so I think that you can square that with the fact that he's the reigning MVP of the league. I think that you hear these stories that I don't think he just I think he just kind of didn't want to work out in the offseason, which is fine because there's a lot of guys who don't work out that hard in the offseason and they can still win MVP. And also he's probably doing conditioning. He's just not doing seven-on-sevens in gym shorts or whatever. So I think that he can balance the job and the MVP performance with the kind of celebrity life he wants, whether that's hosting a game show, going off to Hawaii for months at a time, going to the Kentucky Derby with Miles Teller.

I actually think that that can work. I think NFL people in general love to talk about how hard they work, but I don't know how true it is. I remember there's an old joke that I've heard a few times that if NFL people work so hard, why are there so many scratch golfers in the NFL? Why are these guys able to just sneak out and play 72 holes a week if they're really working 120 hours a week and they don't see their family and all that stuff and they sleep in the office, there's something there. So I think this whole thing about how you have to have knows the grindstone and work all the time. And listen, even Brady takes weeks of time off. And so I don't I'm OK with Rogers doing this.

And I think that if he shows up this year, the Packers really are a still a Super Bowl contender. I think the work working so hard thing is really they wake up early and they don't drink. And they they they tend to translate that into I work 110 hours a week. But the reality is they're waking up at five in the morning. They have an early workout. They drink like a carrot juice with whatever. They do some other cardio thing at 11 and then they all have the ability to nap. So they wake up at four 35, whatever, but they're always taking a nap at like one 30. All of them know how to nap. So I'm not as impressed. Big nappers. Big nappers. See, you haven't had kids yet. I've seen my wife when we had two small kids

where it's just like, you're just grabbing sleep here and there. You don't have the personal trainer or whatever. And you're just like kind of living on, I don't know, four to six hours of sleep a night. I don't feel like these quarterbacks are doing that. I do think some of the coaches are though. I think some of these dudes are like workaholics

who should probably maybe get out of the office a little. Yeah. But I think there's such a culture of talking about how hard you work that you really can't parse it. Like, I really do think that Bill Belichick and Andy Reid and some of those guys, Sean McVeigh really do work all the time, but I don't think it's one. I don't think it's one through 32. I think there's some guys ducking out for happy hour at Chili's, maybe more than you think. Well, definitely our guy in Tampa. He was putting a solid eight and a half hours a day.

He's also the guy, and I think there's something to this. He's also the guy who said that if you have to, if you're an assistant coach and you have to go miss a recital of your kid, that he'll fire you. He wants them to go to recitals. He wants them to go to soccer games,

all that stuff. When I, I'll tell you a story. Uh, I went to go meet with Brian Flores a couple of years ago and he was late for, for my meeting with him. And I'm sitting there and this happens all the time.

Wasn't freaking out about it, but it's always normally 99% of the time. It's like, Oh, special teams meeting went late or whatever. And he had ducked away and gone to his kid's Christmas recital. And I'm thinking like, you know what?

I kind of want that guy as my head coach. Yeah. I don't, I mean, like, listen, Andy, there's nothing against the guys who work hard,

but I kind of feel like from a humanity perspective, the guy who's saying, Hey, I really liked the recital and my kid's Christmas pageant or whatever it is. I don't want to play for that guy. That's how you feel about me in the ringer. That's, that's why you joined us. You do, you know, how many, uh, soccer games and youth football games I went to. I've heard, I've heard, uh, I I'm bored by the Rogers story. And to me, it's like, I saw Tom Cruise at Wimbledon sitting between his two co-stars

pretending he knew either of the players. And I was like, Aaron Rodgers is like a year away from this. Just randomly showing up at Wimbledon with two Mission Impossible stars and nobody knows why he's here. Let me ask you a question. If Aaron Rodgers tomorrow said, I desperately want to play for Bill Belichick,

how does your Aaron Rodgers take change? Oh, I'm all in. That'd be great. But we don't need him. We have Mac Jones, the future of the NFL. And an unbelievable defense. If we just have to figure out

this Steph Gilmore situation, we're good to go. Pencil us in for 12 wins, like always. Last year was a blip, Kevin Clark. COVID. Throwing it away.

We're back. We're back. Order has been restored. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see, buddy. I'm not as optimistic as you are. Have you studied the future odds at all? Yeah, we've been doing some pods on them

and stuff like that. You did a little NFC over-unders recently. We did over-unders, AFC and NFC over-unders the last couple weeks with Steven Ruiz and Doug Kide. You know, there's just the 17 game thing to me, I'm still having trouble with

like is it 10 and actually someone ran the numbers for us a couple days ago and tweeted Nora and I about it. But is a 10 win team now a playoff team? I don't know. We just have to see what that means 10 and 7. So it's almost like would a nine and a half win team have been a playoff

team in the old system? I can't wrap my head around it. And there are smarter people who are running, who are literally running the numbers. And until I just see it for myself, I'm withholding all

win judgment for teams that are in the middle of the pack. The one thing I'll say is it seems like if you can get to 11 wins, you're in. That seems right. With seven spots on each side. 2008 Patriots,

you couldn't do it from... Yeah, that was a fluke though. That was a weird year for variety of reasons. That was the year when Kurt Warner almost won the Super Bowl. I think 11 and six makes it in a seven seed system. Yes.

So if you get to 11, you're good. I agree with that. But 10 probably also gets you in with the way this goes. All right. Depends. AFC is pretty stacked. Listen to him on the Ringer NFL show.

Don't listen to him after the Wilder Fury fight because that's not happening. But I had a whole green room planned for you that week. I know. I was thinking about that. Oh, yeah. I had a whole, I was going to call you about it and it just fell apart. Well, next time. See you in early October.

See you in the green room in early October. I'm going to do 10 NFL green rooms before I do one Wilder Fury green room. Green room's fun. People are talking about it. I like it. People like the green room.

I listen to the aerial. Not just the aerial one after the fight. I listen to the aerial one during the weigh-in as well. Yeah, that was interesting. I like that one. By the way, he had a theory.

What was that lady's name who was three and a half pounds overweight. Oh, Aldana. She was three and a half pounds overweight. And Ariel's theory was like, when that happens, that's usually an enormous advantage for the person. Cause they're just carrying more weight. And I was like, really? I would have thought it would have been the, no, it was right again. So that's, I'm filing that away for gambling purposes going forward. Because the penalty is like you lose some of your purse. But on the flip side, you have this advantage now of you weigh more than the other person. You carry more weight in bulk.

Yeah. Good one to remember. Yeah. Also, don't bet on Conor McGregor is the other thing to file away. Yeah. You're right. So two lessons for you this weekend. The good thing was I stayed away from England in the Euros,

which was smart because they're pre-2004 Red Sox pedigree. Kevin Clark, good to see you as always. Great to see you, Bill. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to the Kevins. Thanks to Chris Ryan. Thanks to Kyle Creighton, our producer. We will be back on Wednesday night, not Tuesday night.

We are back on Wednesday night after game four, me and Rosillo. We're going all out. Might even be a two-parter. Who knows? Stay tuned for that. We will see you on Wednesday night. Don't forget, new rewatchable is coming as well on Monday night. We did Legally Blonde, 20th anniversary of that movie.

So that's coming on Monday night. Shockingly good movie. I gotta say, it's aged really well. I'm surprised. So, there you go. See you on Wednesday night. On the wayside, I'm a person never lost. I don't have feelings within.