The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Knicks Survive, and Ant vs. Jokic With Rob Mahoney. Plus, Eddie Vedder and Jeff Ament on 34 Years of Pearl Jam.

Episode Date: May 3, 2024

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Rob Mahoney to discuss the Knicks beating the 76ers and advancing to the second round (2:12), the Pacers moving past the Bucks (27:40), Clippers-Mavericks, the upcoming Game 6 between the Magic and Cavaliers, the Nuggets-Timberwolves series, and more (38:11). Then, Bill sits down with Eddie Vedder and Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam at their HQ in Seattle to discuss everything from the inception of the band to their newest album, 'Dark Matter' (1:01:55). You can listen to Dark Matter on Spotify or where you listen to music. https://open.spotify.com/album/7MNrrItJpom6uMJWdT0XD8?si=kPJ6PJG1RQKFyP2_u0ck-Q&amp%3Bnd=1&amp%3Bdlsi=4bcdac3e11eb45a7&nd=1&dlsi=36df164b60fb4348 Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Eddie Vedder, Jeff Ament, and Rob Mahoney Producer: Kyle Crichton The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, Nick Sixers, some great NBA. Oh, and a lot of Pearl Jam. Yeah, that's next. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me, I can't go a day without sports. I really can't. And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right.

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I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this. It's game day. All the gang's here. You're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer.

Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air? Moments like that. Or when you want a light beer that tastes like beer, that's delicious. You don't want to load up on those heavier beers and then you only have two of them. Then you feel tired. Your stomach feels full. Miller Lite, it's your friend. It just accompanies whatever else you're doing. You're super happy with it. Opening an ice cold Miller Lite can signal the beginning of Miller time. Miller Lite is the light beer with all the great beer tastes we like. 90 calories per 355 mil can.

So why not grab some Miller Lites today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I have new rewatchables coming for you on Monday. We are doing A Long Came Polly,

2004 comedy. Came out 20 years ago. Ben Stower, Jennifer Aniston, and the great Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is just out of control on this movie.

This is a really, really fun movie. It was me and Sean Fantasy. We had a great time. Coming up on this podcast, first hour, me and Rob Mahoney, we did this live on YouTube, on youtube.com slash Bill Simmons,

right after Nick Sixers, which was a very fun game and a very, very, very fun series. We broke down everything that happened. We talked some Bucks Pacers, Clips Mavericks, tried to figure out what's going to happen in Cavs Magic, what's going to happen in Timberwolves Nuggets, which has a chance to be the best series of the playoffs.

So we went for about an hour. And then after that, if you're here for Pearl Jam, don't worry, they're coming. Eddie Vedder, Jeff Ament. I went to Seattle last week, hung out with those guys in their famous warehouse. We were in the batting cage. We filmed it. You can watch it on youtube.com slash Bill Simmons. You can listen to it at the one hour mark of this podcast. And we talked about a whole bunch of stuff. I had a list of things in

my head I wanted to get to, and we probably only got to half of it. Went all over the place. I had a great time. Their new album is called Dark Matter and I got to say, I love their new album. I think it's either my third or fourth favorite album of theirs. And I've been listening to a lot. It's just really good. So if you haven't listened to it, go check it out. Anyway, they're coming up at the one hour mark and first we'll do some basketball. But first, unironically, Pearl Jam. All right, we're taping this. It is 8.47 p.m. Pacific time. Rob Mahoney is here.

It's good to know. That's when my soul left my body, Phil. I'm glad we have a timestamp on it. Nick Sixers, not a series for the faint of heart. We're doing this live on YouTube. I needed time to regroup, but faint of heart we're doing this live on YouTube I needed time to regroup but we told people

we're going live so let's do it the Jalen Brunson series do we start there? it's good to see the greatest Nick of all time at what's basically the ground floor

I'm glad we get to be here for this New York City Hoops God summons the ghost even though he's still alive of Bernard King 40 years ago who had the greatest two series stretch in the recent history of the New York Knicks

Brunson goes 22-24 the first two games and then 39-47 40-41 which is outrageous and there was a moment in this game when it felt like Philly was going to come back and win

when they had the little seven-point run there. And it felt chaotic again. The crowd was into it. Brunson calmed things down. He made a big shot. Missed the foul shot, but I felt like that stemmed the tide. But he was the best player in the series.

And usually that's the rule. Best player in the series wins the series. I don't know how to feel about the Embiid piece of this. Because on the one hand, he was good tonight. 39 points imposed as will. 16 points in the third quarter. On the other hand, as was the pattern, kind of stunk in the fourth quarter.

Didn't really do very much and then fouled out. This was definitely the piece of complicating evidence for the mounting noise about, oh, give more of the offense to Tyrese Maxey. Even more leeway for this electric scoring guard we have. I thought in the first half especially, and particularly in the first quarter, you saw the real limitations of Maxey as a playmaker. He looked just dazed with all the activity that was going on defensively. And Joel is the only reason the Sixers got back in this game. I know they made a run without him playing small, but he

stabilized them. And he's the one who really reversed the energy of it to that feeling of inevitability where, for a long stretch, the Knicks could not guard him one-on-one. And when they tried to double him, Buddy Heald came out of nowhere to hit every three from the weak side corner. The way all of those pieces kind of interlocked, I mean, Joel was sensational. And I think the

inevitability that he was playing with for the vast majority of this game was really impressive. He does wear out by the end, though. And especially when you have guys who can't get him timely entry passes and guys who can't properly space for him. And I thought the Knicks, to their credit, were junking up their coverages just enough where when he caught the ball, by the fourth quarter at least, he couldn't be 100% sure whether it was going to be a single or a double or kind of a shading zone. It was mixed up just enough to keep him guessing. I'm glad you mentioned that because I noticed that. It reminded me of in football when they start trying to mess with the quarterback and they show blitz one time, they don't blitz, then they send a blitz and they basically for the first three quarters

it felt like they were just conventional right we don't want to give up any threes you do what you got to do joel and he was he was burning them then got to the fourth quarter now all of a sudden the second guy out of nowhere pretending to send the second guy but then coming back and it did feel like it screwed him up. There were moments when it just didn't seem like he wanted to shoot in the last five minutes. You notice that? Like he was passing up foul on jumpers.

He was kind of hot potatoing it at the top of the key. And he also looked super tired to me. And that's one of the things, I mean, this is such a weird series. And I think we'll remember it as a really, really, really, really fun. I don't think we'll call it the greatest first round series ever or anything like that, but a super fun first round series.

Absolutely. One of the things I'll always wonder about it is why they never figured out how to pace and bead so that he was peaking at the right times of the game. Because he clearly had about, what do you think? 29 to 30 good minutes in him every game. And maybe they, maybe Nick Nurse felt like they just couldn't survive it. But he always felt to me like this car that was like, you know, when you're trying to get to a gas station, you don't want to get off the highway. No, there's a gas station 13 miles away. I think we could make it. That was Nick Nurse's strategy for this entire series. I think we can make it. I think

there's a gas station down there with the Chick-fil-A and just wait, wait, wait, we're going to get there. And then you break down on the side of the road. This has always been the Nick Nurse school. Let's just add five more minutes to that guy's workload. Let's just keep pressing a little bit more and see if it works and see if it works. But going against Tibbs, who's also like, oh no, hold my beer. I appreciate the commitment to endurance on all sides. But I think contributing to that, and the Nick Nurse dilemma as far as when to pull Joel Embiid and how to format the lineups to best accommodate that,

every time he steps on the floor, it feels incredibly precarious. And there were like five players in this game for whom it felt that way. You know, the thought of, you know, especially when Joel was roasting Isaiah Hartenstein, the thought of taking Mitchell Robinson off the floor felt dangerous for the Knicks.

Obviously, every minute that Jalen Brunson sits, but that was the determining difference, I thought. In the mid-fourth quarter, the Knicks bought like two minutes for Jalen Brunson to sit. And he comes back in and he makes everything happen. And Joel just didn't really have that kind of finishing burst. And they got a big three from Josh Hart at the perfect time.

Oh, amazing. A big 25 seconds left to go up by three. And they figured out actually what to do in the last 10 seconds to protect the lead. Yeah. Hey, use your fouls. Hey, maybe cut off Tyrese Maxey so he doesn't have a full start. So they actually learn from some of their mistakes.

When you think of like we're heading into like the fourth quarter and I was taking notes, I thought Philly was going to win. It was tied going into the fourth. I just felt like this is going to be Philly's game. So I'm kind of taking notes, but my notes are a little slanted toward

Philly's going to win game seven. Where are we going? Who's going to have enough left in the tank? What's that crowd going to be like? Yep. And then all of a sudden the Knicks were up by like, you know, halfway through, all of a sudden they're up seven.

It was like, oh man, the Knicks, this series had so many different swings back and forth. I almost couldn't keep track. Ultimately though, how good are these teams? It's a great question. Because we're going to watch Minnesota-Denver on Saturday night. Yeah. And I think the quality of basketball in that series versus what we just watched,

where we're going to have size, we're going to have scoring, we're going to have playmaking, we're going to have guys off the bench who can actually come in and affect games. We're going to have teams with real identities. We're going to have teams. We're going to have playmaking. We're going to have guys off the bench who can actually come in and affect games. We're going to have teams with real identities. We're going to have teams that can protect the rim. And I just think this was a super fun series, but it feels a little like the JV to me. But it's two JV teams that are so evenly matched and know how to fight.

And that's the important thing at the end of the day is you can get great series anywhere in the bracket. It just has to be the right matchup. And this was that. Neither of these teams are as good as Minnesota, much less as good as a defending champion like Denver. And that's okay. They're both pretty banged up.

They're both playing to the absolute limit, balls to the wall. And the chaos was just off the charts. The series did only have one setting on the dial, and it was insane all the time. To the point that, as you said... Guys it was insane all the time to the point as you said guys falling everywhere like everywhere and to the point as you mentioned like the Knicks being buttoned up for the final 30 seconds of this game felt shocking I'm I'm generally genuinely like

jarred that nothing weird happened because I'm so conditioned to everything weird happening all the time with these two teams and it never felt like whoever was up was going to make the two free throws. It just felt like the other team was always hanging around. Unfortunately for Maxie, who had one of the great, you know, memorable random playoff games in game five and the seven pointer on two possessions. And, you know, and now this is what happens.

I talked about this in my pod on Tuesday night. You lose the next game, and those games kind of, they just kind of fade away a little bit. Still really fun. I don't remember that, but it loses, like, what? 90% of the meeting? A lot of it. Still really fun, but not the same.

And he wasn't good tonight, was the other piece. And there were reasons for that. They definitely changed what they were doing defensively on him. I also think it's really hard to just have two incredible games in a row, as James Harden and Paul George can tell us. And yet, he almost pulled it out, too. As far as all of the closing plays, as

we're mentioning, they weren't really coming from Joel Embiid, although he was setting screens, he was involved. But Maxie converting a layup in which his body was fully paralleled to the ground, and then following it up with that and one goaltend. I mean, if anyone was going to close it, it was going to be him.

And in all due respect, Kelly Oubre, who came up with sensational plays throughout this game. I was kind of flagging them as I was going to, almost expecting the Sixers to win at various points once they started. Once they came back from that initial, I think it was like they were down 19 after eight minutes. But once they started whittling that down, I started flagging plays. And one of them was Kelly Oubre's

chase down block on OG Ananobi. Just completely saved a play out of nowhere. And I think you could do the same thing in the opposite direction with OG's and one on Joel in the fourth quarter passing up a wide open three to drive in and finish. Incredible play made by him. But then you mark it going down the other way because he missed the free throw. And it's like there's just constant toggling of these

hugely momentous plays. And I thought this series was a great reminder in these playoffs in general. All the offense is great, but what makes offense cool is defense. It's like games that are this tight where every three feels like the biggest shot in the world. And that's where we want to be in this kind of playoff basketball. The biggest thing for the Knicks tonight, they knew it there again for Brunson, but I thought DiFincenzo, who ended up,

did he, does that say 48 minutes? It's 46 or 48. I can't see. He had 23. He finally got going. That was the thing in the first five games. It just didn't look like him. Fantasy said that on the pod on Tuesday night. He'd been their second best player for the last two months of the season. And he was kind of MIA. And I think he knew it. He came out hot. He made a couple of big shots early on when they built that lead. He made a couple of big shots late. His defense that lead. He made a couple big shots late.

His defense was there. He was scrappy. It just looked like him again. So they had him going. I thought OG had another good game. They feel like a guy short to me if they're going to keep climbing, you know, rounds. Next round might not matter. Is it the 48 minutes for Dante or the 46 for Josh Hart or the 45 for OG that makes you think they might need one more guy?

Are they playing Sunday? Is this? I hope not. Oh my God. Let's just pack them in like a movable sauna truck and just keep them in there full stop as they head back.

Like we got to get these guys some kind of recovery. Oh, they got it. So Monday night is the first game. That's good for them. Okay, good. Little time. Little time to recoup.

At these paces of these games, you're not meant to play 45 minutes. No. That's just crazy. Plus, the way guys were flying around. There was at least 10 times in this series where somebody was down, I was like, that guy's out for the series.

We're not going to see him again. Walk me through where Philly is mentally right now. The fan base, the organization. Yeah. And bead was healthy enough, right? I,

I, you know, it's like, Oh yeah, he wasn't a hundred percent. I, I guess my question would be, is he ever going to be a hundred percent?

Is this somebody who's meant to play eight months of basketball each year? Is it bad luck? Is it something else? He seemed exhausted near the end of every one of these games. I don't know. From a physical shape standpoint, I wouldn't say he was an A+.

He was doing enough. He was still impactful. It's going to be 31 next year. There's the Met. I think the Sixers fans are like we would love for this to be maxi's team too i don't know how that plays out they're gonna probably lose ubrae my guess that he'll especially with uh all the teams that have cap space and the lack of free agents they have cap space there's been paul george. I don't know why Paul George would not go to Orlando over Philly.

If I had the choice and I'm just betting on a team, I'm betting on Orlando over Philly. That's just me. Wow. Um, not a lot of guys left. And it's just like, this is now year 10 of the unbeat era and they've never made a conference

finals. So what, how do you even react to this series? What's your takeaway? if you're like the advisor to the Philly owners? I don't know that you have a choice if you're Philly, but to stay the course on Joel and making it the best team you can every time out.

And obviously Maxi needs to be a huge part of that. I personally would love Paul George as a fit there. And if I'm Paul George, I would love the fit there. I think in terms of what PG would want, playing in between an MVP kind of player and a young ascendant star takes a lot of heat off of him, lets him play

a much more comfortable role, both on and off the ball, and where he can be an impact defensive player, again, on the perimeter on a really consistent basis. I think that could be an ideal spot for him. And if you can land a player like that, everything changes pretty quickly. What you worry about... Can I zag on that for a second? Let's talk it through. He's from LA or LA area. Comes back, wanted to be here. Everyone thought he wanted to be in the Lakers, ends up on the Clippers, but he's in LA. Now you're asking him

to leave LA again. He's going to go back to... now he's going to the East Coast, which he's never gone that far. The reason to leave would be I can't take this Kawhi thing anymore. I can't do it. This has been a half a decade of never knowing if this fucking guy's playing or not. And I just want to be on a good team

that has some regularity to it. So you're going to go cross country and play with Joel Embiid? Do you feel like you're doing some self-projection as East Coast guy moves to LA and never leaves again? You're entrenched. I'm just like, if I'm going to have uncertainty,

I might as well stay in LA. It's fair. Like, if you're going to talk me into Orlando and Palo, who's like a shooting star upwards and cap space and a young team in defense and a team that really needs what he can do. If I'm leaving the Clippers, I'm leaving for that. And I don't care where he goes. Either way, they're going to be a competitor for the Celtics. But to go to Philly and be in the same kind of

is he playing or isn't he playing situation, I don't know why he would do that. Yeah, I think it's with Orlando, it's a matter of how close do you think that team is and how much do you think their current problems are spacing mechanical problems versus decision-making young player problems and i think it's a combination of both but if you're paul george 34 years old you're kind of picking your shot right now like this next team is going to be the team that's going to give you a chance to potentially contend for a title and if if you want to chill with the Clippers and enjoy all that that entails, power to you. But I think Philly could give him,

if not his best, then close to his best chance to actually contend for something. This message was presented by Daryl Morey. You know what? I was at the Clipper game last night and they do the rosters. Yeah.

And it's like, blah, blah, blah. In his 12th year. So they get to Paul George and I've been to a bunch of Clipper games. I just never noticed this before. They're like, in his 14th season.

I'm like, oh my God, Paul George. 14 seasons already? Because you think of him as like this run of a young guy. He looks the same. But so this next contract will be years 15, 16, 17, and 18. Huge. And he's got a

metal rod in his leg and you know, he's had some other injuries. I don't know. That made me think like he's probably taken one last big ass contract. I don't know what happens with the piece of it where what happens if, if he's like, you know what, maybe it's time. Maybe it's, maybe it's time for me to move time. Maybe it's time for me to move on. Or maybe it's time for me to get a fresh start. What happens if the Sixers get a little aggressive with him? Like, hey, we need you to be in better shape, dude. Like you can't play yourself in the shape during the season.

You have a lot of miles on you. You've had a lot of different injuries. We really want you to dedicate. We don't think you should play Team USA. Well, I want to play Team USA. I already gave my word. Like there's ways this could go wrong. And then the Daryl Morey piece, what happens there? How many, how many years does he get? Do they start looking at him side-eyed a little bit? Like they just made all these moves. They traded James Harden. Didn't really get a lot back. Not that if you watched them last night

you would be amazed you got anything back. But do they start wondering is his vision the right vision? All fair questions. I think as far as the moves that they made with what they had, Oubre is a great example. That's a home run signing, given

the financial investment. Kyle Lowry, a non-factor in this game but has been meaningful in others and that's a pickup a marginal pickup along the margins or a marginal pickup along the edges of the roster for this cost us nothing that's about as well as you can do certainly better

than Bogdanovich and Alec Burks and if DeAnthony Melton had been consistently healthy maybe that would have made this team look a little different in terms of its perimeter rotation, too. Maybe you're not begging on a prayer from Buddy Heald and Campaign to save you in some of these games. But that's where they found themselves. And those guys did deliver moments, not consistently enough, but they did all right. like you look real sideways at Tobias Harris as Philly fans have for a very long time. But as vacant and invisible as you could possibly be in a game in which he played 29 minutes and basically had to play 29 minutes.

And that's the spot where, whether you're talking about Paul George or anyone else, they just have to get some flexible forward size that makes sense next to Joel that is not Tobias Harris. Do you think they could have gotten Bradley Beal last summer straight up for Tobias Harris as an expiring? And would you have done that? And was that a mistake or was that a great move not to do that? I think it's a great move not to do it. Yeah. I mean, how bad is that for Bradley Beal? And we're not having this conversation

about could they get Paul George if you make the trade for Bradley Beal's non-tradable contract, right? You're locking yourself into that massive number when the Sixers are one of the few teams that are going to play the cap space game a little bit. And that's an actual asset for them. Well, they could have gone after Siakam. Yeah. The Knicks also could have gotten Siakam.

And we're going to talk about Indiana in the next segment. But both of the Knicks, I think, were like, you know what? We're not close to winning a title. OG was our big move. These are baby steps. We're going to wait for the big fish next summer. Well, plus, with all due respect,

you've seen OG and Siakam together. True. You know what that frontcourt is. Yeah, so maybe they picked the one and the two. Philly could have at least matched what Indiana gave up for Siakam. Indiana didn't give up a pick this year for Siakam, but this is probably the. And it was funny that we were all looking at that trade when it happened. Like, yeah, Siakam, good player. And then meanwhile, we do the Ringer 100 rankings. And he's always, I forget where he is, but he's always somewhere in the 40s, low 50s, right?

And it's like, you know what? When it's nice to have a guy like Siakam, is he higher for you? Don't look at me on that. I'm in those meetings stumping for Pascal Siakam with a sandwich sign on. Doing spin moves, trying to get him moved up the ranking a little bit.

But sometimes it falls on deaf ears. Well, the segment that I was most excited to do for this part was quickie pressure rankings for Game 7. But there will be no Game 7. No pressure at all, it turns out. And we should mention from, you know,

the fan bases, the psyches of these two fan bases was one of the most fun parts of the series. And you might've heard fantasy on here on Tuesday, having like an actual mental breakdown. The Philly fans are an all-time mess. They don't know what to make of the future of this team. How do we feel about Joel? There's camps forming.

And then the way this played out, where are we going? What did we just do with the last 10 years of our lives? All those questions are in play. The Knicks fans were going to a dark place if they blew this game tonight. I think that if that had been a Game 7

with them blowing big leads in game six and then blowing game five the way they did, that game seven would have been one of the most fascinating first round game sevens, but we'll never know. Yeah, how do you think Sixers fans are going to deal with, in retrospect, the game five miracle?

The kind of miracle that the Sixers never get and have never really gotten in the Joel era for the most part. Every bad break is pretty much turned against them and yet they get this one and it goes absolutely nowhere and fizzles out

basically immediately. That's got to be tough. Yeah, and then there's that the dark side of you if you're a Sixers fan where it's like maybe if that didn't happen

maybe some tougher conversations could have then happened. Damn. Instead, we bought some hope. I just don't know where you are with this Embiid thing if you're trying to win a title. With all the miles that he has,

the surgeries that he's had already, how we've seen these games go, what we've seen in the fourth quarters from him, how this is going to get better. I keep at,, this is what I talked to my Philly fan friends about. All of them are like, love Joel, like watching him. He's definitely one of the best players in the league. I don't know how this gets better when he's 31, 32, 33, especially if you look at the history of centers too. Wings, wings can age the best.

Some point guards age really well well centers usually don't age well centers they you know year 10 through year 13 it starts to flip and you can look at any great center and it starts to flip the knees they just have a lot of weight and a lot of you know a lot of inches it's like a big building and uh that would be what I would be thinking about this summer. And I'd be absolutely furious if you played Team USA, if I was the Philly owner or if I was a Philly fan. Like, what the fuck are you playing Team USA for? Take the summer off.

Get healthy. Get your knees healthy. He should. Honestly. And Kawhi, too. Kawhi, just bow out. You can't even play for the Clippers. Bow out. Get out of Team USA.

You're done. It's a very anti-American stance from you, Bill. I want to win the gold medal. Our boys in blue are trying to win it for us over there. Come on. Yeah. Get Jalen Brunson on that team. I will say what the Sixers have needed, and it's weird because they tried this with the very wretched and cursed Al Horford experiment. But they needed a player all along who could keep Joel's minutes down and control his exposure in some of these games. And they needed it cheap. They needed Isaiah Hartenstein, effectively, right?

Like they needed that kind of discovery, that kind of find, a guy who could really plug in and make the no Joel minutes something other than an abject disaster all the time. And they've never, ever found it. And as this series illuminated, Paul Reed is not the answer. You're basically unplayable by the end of the series. Well, the irony of you laying that out was they had a chance to just not keep Paul Reed.

What was it? Utah made like a poison pill offer for him. Yeah. Philly to match it, he became untradeable and they decided to keep the asset over just letting him go and then he gets to the playoffs and he can't play him. Too bad.

I don't know if we can call him Playoff P anymore. Is that his nickname? Paul Reed? B-Ball Paul. Come on. But what about Playoff P? Oh, he's...

Playoff P is Paul George. Yeah. This is live on YouTube. You get to see my senility. We'll never confuse him for Playoff P. It would he's put playoff piece, Paul George. Yeah. This is live on YouTube. You get to see my senility. Uh, we'll never confuse it for playoff P would have been a better joke. Kyle, edit that out of the YouTube. Oh no, you can't. Let's uh, let's take a break on YouTube really quick and on the podcast and we'll come right back. This NBA playoffs, Fandle is giving all customers two chances to bring home a big win with a no sweat, same game parlay. Every weekend of the playoffs, just place an SGP on any playoff matchup and you'll get bonus bets back if you don't win. Bet on get 10 rebounds and eight assists, and you're off. You have the same game parlay. FanDuel, by the way, now live in our nation's capital, Washington,

DC. Visit FanDuel.com slash BS. Shoot your shot on America's number one sports book where I've been crushing it with boosts. We've hit 10 straight boosts on FanDuel. I'm not kidding. 10 straight. Go to my Twitter feed whenever we do them and we're on a hot streak right now. Visit Fando.com slash BS. Shoot your shot on America's number one sports book. Fando, official sports betting partner

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And you would have thought I would say, let's talk about Milwaukee. Oh my God. Indiana, feel good mid-market story. Absolutely. They have Paul George, doesn't want to be there anymore. They turned him into Oladipo and Sabonis. They get real all-star years out of Oladipo before he gets hurt. Sabonis turns into an asset. They turn Sabonis into Halliburton, who becomes a possible NBA guy. They trade picks for Siakam, really smart trade. They have this Malcolm Brogdon piece.

Doesn't really totally fit with Halliburton. They want to turn the team over to him. They turn him into Aaron Neesmith. They go discount shopping. They get TJ McConnell. They get Obi Toppin. Basically for nothing. Everyone waits for them to trade Miles Turner and Buddy Heald to the Lakers or

just trade Miles Turner. They say, you know what? We're actually going to keep Miles Turner. We like the way he plays with Tyrese Halliburton. And now they're in the second round of the playoffs and they waxed this no Giannis Milwaukee team, which was even without Giannis pretty expensive. And now they're playing the Knicks in round two and we're going to be treated to just a slew of Reggie Miller, Spike Lee, 90s four-point shot. We're going to get all that stuff and it's going to be great. But can you think, is this the biggest success story

of the season to you, Indiana, or would you go another team? For what our expectations were. Yeah, I think organizationally it feels like a huge one. This was a team that I think seeing them make the next step was seeing them secure even a playoff seed like the one they had. Get to the top six, that's

an achievement. Get through a series like this, even without Giannis, even with Dame injured for part of it, well injured for all of it but out for part of it, still an incredible achievement. Most importantly, I think, if you, you know, there's a lot of ups and downs, clearly, for Indiana and their execution in some of these games. But if you

look at Game 1 and Game 6, those are very, very different teams that Indiana put on the floor. That's a team that grew up in their first playoff experience. And that's really all you want from this sort of series. Obviously, you want to advance. You want to do the best you can with the opportunity in front of you. But you want to see these young guys figure it out. And they absolutely did. I thought Tyrese Halliburton in particular,

even just seeing him attack the basket a little more in this closeout game, it's like maybe three games too late, but a relief to see. Yeah. And they, I mean, McConnell was great. They got 41 from McConnell and Toppin. And this was, this is where the Giannis piece both, I think, matters and doesn't matter. Milwaukee couldn't guard anybody's point guard the whole season. No.

And Indiana was always a bad matchup for them and could just send these guards just constantly, just flying by people getting into the paint, making stuff happen. I gotta be honest. I think Indiana would have beaten Milwaukee with or without Giannis. They did in the regular season, as you said, pretty soundly. I really do.

I think they would have won. I thought that Milwaukee team was really suspect. I thought they were old. I thought they were unathletic. I don't think they ever figured out the wings at all. And somebody like Siakam was just feasting on every wing they had because they just weren't athletic enough. And then you could say,

well, Dame was a little hurt. Look, man, when you're trading for super expensive superstars and they're past the age of 32, 33, 34,

this is what fucking happens. It's not like bad luck that Dame got hurt. He's old. It's not bad luck that bad luck that Dame got hurt. He's old. It's not bad luck that James Harden sucked last night. He's old. James Harden's going to play well once a week. This is what happens when guys get into their mid thirties with the exception of LeBron James, who could play 44 minutes in altitude in Denver in game five.

And, um, and he's, you know, in year 21. So we'll put him to the side, but for the most part, older players are up and down. And this was one of the reasons I didn't like the Dame trade that much for what they gave up. Because I'm like, maybe he's moving into a different point of his career. And I think he is. Yeah, he looks awesome on certain nights. But when you think about Anthony Edwards, the stage of the career that he's at, age 22, I don't know what

I'm getting from, maybe he'll go six for 17, six for 18, but I know what I'm getting from an athleticism, intensity, um, going up and down, um, durability. He's going to be in every game. And that's the difference when you're talking about guys in their mid twenties versus a guy Dame's Abe. So I feel like you can't use that as an excuse. That's what you traded for. It doesn't feel like a coincidence that the guys who roasted the Bucs in this game are

hyperactive TJ McConnell, hyper athletic Obi Toppin, everyone who was running full court, everyone who was attacking relentlessly. I think the fluke as far as the bad luck is Giannis. Him getting hurt is the part of it that is unpredictable and maybe somewhat rooted in how bad the Bucks were in the regular season and how hard he had to go all the time to try to correct it. They do have this thing

where they are so old and they're so slow. And this was always like a talking point around the Steph Clay Warriors too, where obviously one of the great shooting teams of all time because of those two guys. But if you look elsewhere, there really weren't a lot of great shooters on those teams otherwise. And the Bucks are kind of the same way, but with athleticism with Giannis, where he's on the floor, they're dynamic, they're energetic, they have

a lot of different ways they can play. You take him out, and it's three pretty old core players, all of whom I will say like showed up in the series to the degrees that they could between Dame and Chris Middleton and Brooke Lopez. They did their best. But at that age, like you're running a little bit too much risk on guys who could throw their back out with a sneeze. You know, like that's kind of where your team is hanging at this point. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that about Giannis because yeah,

bad luck here at his cap. But if you watch the Bucs all season, everything he had to do for this team night after night and how hard he played. I called him a sociopath at one point during the season because he's just going all out. They're up 20 in fourth quarters. And he's flying around like it's game seven. And, you know, the more of those kind of miles you put on during the six months that don't matter, sometimes you can have bad luck.

Doc finishes, my guy Doc, he finishes 19 and 23 on the Bucs. If you told me before the year, here's what's going to happen with the Bucs this season. Remember, the Bucs were like one of the three favorites in the league. Oh, yeah. And if there was video of somebody saying like, here's what I going to happen with the bucks this season remember the bucks were like one of the three favorites in the league oh yeah and if there was video of somebody saying like here's what i think will happen griffin gets fired halfway through the season even though they have the third best record in the in the east doc takes over goes under 500 yannis gets hurt right before the playoffs doesn't play a playoff game and they lose to the Pacers in round one you'd have been like that's fucking crazy what do we want to bet?

101 odds, 201 odds, 301 it's the weirdest I think it's a weirder outcome than Phoenix I think it's a much weirder outcome than Lakers or Warriors because you could have actually predicted that because those teams are old this is how Milwaukee season played out is the weirdest outcome we had this year.

I think. Is there a weirder one for you? No. They went down playing Danilo Gallinari, who's like two years removed from being two years removed from being an NBA player.

Yeah. Where was Blake Griffin? Blake Griffin's like, I'm right here, guys. How is that not involved? Just the most doc shit you can imagine. Like the number of players who get in these

games over the Bucks young guys yeah as you're mapping their future I think there's lots of things you could do as far as you know they there are roster that just needed one more offseason replenishment to get to a functional rotation to begin with they just had to carve out too much to make the Dame trade work

to make the roster work they lost some guys to other teams it just kind of got away from them coming into this season. And I thought they might fix that along the way. They didn't. But they need like a Peyton Watson as much as anybody.

They need a young guy that Doc will... And I understand the paradox of what I'm about to suggest. Yeah, he's not going to do it. Someone he can maybe possibly hypothetically trust and at least work through some mistakes.

He'd rather trust Pat Beverly. He's like, I trust Pat Beverly who whipped a basketball at a fan tonight for the end of the game. Listen, I think they're in really bad shape. And I feel the same way about the Lakers and the Warriors from the sense of we do this with the talk cycle. And this is the ESPN shows. It's like, can the Lakers turn around? What do the Lakers have to do? You can't think of it that way.

You have to look at the best teams in the league, the youth of those teams, and how you measure your own team against the ceiling of the best teams. And the best teams are Boston and Denver and Minnesota and Oklahoma City. Those are the teams that next year will be in just as good of a position as they are this year.

And if you don't have a chance with the roster you have to swim in that pool, what do you do? If you're Milwaukee, it's like, it's going to be a real stretch for you to go jump from the kiddie pool to that pool. What's your move?

And if you don't have a move, maybe you blow it up because you already won the title. That feels too hasty. They have Giannis. I understand the skepticism, but if you are the Bucs, your hope is that it's Jason Tatum who pulls his calf and not Giannis.

Your hope is that it's not Dane with the sore Achilles, but Drew Holiday or Al Horford. You're looking across and saying, maybe the bad luck won't be ours next time. And maybe our roster will be marginally enough better that we can get through series like this one. You're a year older, though. Dame's a year older. Lopez is a year older.

Middleton's a year older. And Giannis is... And he's superhuman. But that's... I don't really know what the fixes are for them. They don't have any picks. They're not going to have cap space. No. So now you're to have cap space. No. So now you're shopping in the J Crowder aisle again. And it's like, oh, here's Kyle Lowry wants to play for us.

Hey, good news. Tobias Harris will take the mid-level. And that's who you're getting. So I just don't see the fix for them. I think it's pretty grim. This could have been Dame's chance to carry them for a round, by the way. Yeah. But we don't have Giannis. Get on my them for a round, by the way. Yeah. Be like, we don't have Giannis. Get on my back, guys.

I'm Dame lowered. One of the best 75 players ever. And didn't do it. I mean, put up 28 on a bad, on a sore Achilles, shrugging off Andrew Nembhard at every opportunity. I'm just saying he didn't do it. He didn't do it. I'm a results guy, Rob. I'm a results guy.

He didn't do it. He had a chance. It was sitting there for him. Yeah. Speaking of chances, we have Orlando Cleveland tomorrow night. We have Dallas Clippers.

Do you want to hear about my trip to Dallas Clippers? Please. Very excited. Game five. Game five is always my favorite games of the series. I always feel like

they're super intense. I was excited for the crowd. Wednesday night, seven o'clock. People were out having little early dinners popping in. People were drinking. Real energy in the stands. And unfortunately, that energy didn't

translate to the Clippers. You guys talked about it on Ring Around B.A. Show yesterday, but you could tell with Harden right away, he didn't want to be there. Paul George, they did some stuff to mess with them, but it wasn't the greatest game for him either.

And Dallas, who now I've seen a couple times in person. That team's really locked in with each other. I really like the chemistry they have. Luka's a huge pain in the ass, right? He just, he's talking to the refs after every play. He just doesn't shut up. He has to be for the refs, the single most important player in the league. He's, if he doesn't score, he's chirping. If there's a stoppage on fouls, he's walking over and yelling at whoever, like he's just like this, but he's really intense. And I got to say it's

transferred to Kyrie. Like this version of Kyrie is the most fun Kyrie of all time. Kyrie came out in that game and he's like, I'm stopping James Harden tonight and really went at him. I don't think they like each other. And went at him, went at him and at him. He didn't really have a good offensive game, but his energy and his defense was really, really good. The interesting thing about that game, Rob, Dallas, I think,

was like three for 21 at one point from three, and they were still up 12. And I was with my friend, Rob Stone, and we're getting toward the half. And I was like, they're going to win by 30, because if any of those shots had gone, this game's already over. They just didn't hit all their wide open threes. I don't know what this means for game six, but my feeling is Dallas is better. And the only way the Clippers are going to be able to stave this off

is just another crazy Harden game with a crazy George game. I don't see another path for them, especially with the way Westbrook is playing. I don't really see anybody out. Maybe they get a crazy Norm Powell game. I don't know.

It's possible. But I think Dallas has figured them out, and I think they're better, and I think they're going to win game six. What's your take? Even the Clippers' best stretches, there's been some incandescent three-point shooting. It's a variance kind of series from their side of it.

When the Clippers hit a ton of threes, they're in it. Otherwise, they really have to scrap and claw because the Mavericks will challenge guys like Russ in particular. And obviously if Zoo's out there, if there's multiple non-shooters at the same time, there's so much room for Dallas to sag in and clog the paint. And most importantly, I just think

swarm Paul George and Harden when they get inside. That defense is starting to feel pretty ferocious in terms of you know Derek Jones on the point of attack with Paul George in particular but you got PJ Washington

swiping and you got Gafford and lively lively I mean for for a rookie having this kind of rim protection like impact on a series is an incredible feat I just think they have it together defensively and have more

they've like more levers to pull they have more options in terms of what they can do to adapt to a series than this version of the Clippers does they get some good rim runner stuff they can score points even if they're not hitting threes

which I like yeah and uh which that's new like during the regular season before the trade they lost almost every game in which they did not hit

a higher percentage of the threes than their opponents did they that's who did not hit a higher percentage of the threes than their opponents did. That's who they were for the first chunk of the season. Then Kyrie got healthy. They made those trades to improve the rotation. Other guys kind of got back

into the lineup too, in all fairness. I mean, they've had injuries all year. And then after the deadline, they found this incredible rhythm. And it was defensively, of course, that's where the greatest improvement was by the numbers.

But also their offensive stability just feels so much more reliable now. I'm not apologizing for anything I ever said about Kyrie. I really like watching Kyrie and I'm glad he's reached whatever point in life that he's in because he is so much fucking fun to watch in person play basketball. There's nobody like that, dude. When he gets the ball, he's the only guy in the league. If he gets the ball on a fast break transition, but there's two guys back. Or three.

And you can see him size it up and be like, I'm scoring anyway. He just goes in and does his weird Kyrie fucking magician shit. And he really plays. I really think he has something special with Luka. Like, I would not want to see those guys if I'm OKC. If I'm OKC, I'm rooting for the Clippers because they'll beat the Clippers.

They'll outwork them. They're just, you know, the Clippers will have these ebbs and flows. OKC is the same every game, basically. They'll have like the one game in the series where they don't miss threes, but I guarantee they're rooting for the Clippers to come back. And I don't think they're going to come back. I don't think so either. Ultimately,

the Clippers are more predictable. And that's a weird thing to say when obviously the Mavs funnel so much offense through Luka and through Kyrie kind of secondarily, but you know, zoomed out, that's predictable. Luka's going to have the ball, but you zoom all the way in, Luka has the ball. What move is he going to make? What step is he going to sell you with? What fake is he going

to throw off your entire defense? And Kyrie has the same thing. He's so shifty. He's so clever, so creative. That's how he gets through all those crowds and finishes the way that he does to the point where you're right. He didn't have an explosive game offensively, but the shots he hit were shots that no one else in the team can make. And that kind of opportunism is so important for kind of their general ecosystem, really. And there's a swagger with them. One of those guys is always out there. Yeah. So it feels like their offense never dips. I thought they're going to win last night. That was my big FanDuel boost. I've hit nine FanDuel boosts in a row. Oh, 10 included the next one

today. I really thought Dallas was going to win. I really thought they were better, and I didn't think the Paul George Harden two games in a row thing could happen. That said, you can't rule out the Clippers just because they're too unpredictable. I think Dallas is going to win. I think they're better, but could the Clippers hit 25

threes? God only knows. Once a week, James Harden lived up to his name yesterday. You could see it immediately. And the other thing that was weird, Westbrook has just lost not only his mojo, but almost it seems like his mind

in these last three games. He's hitting the point, Rob, which is the worst point you can hit as a basketball player when he has the ball and he's wide open in a home game and the crowd goes, no. You hear like the no murmurs. They don't want him to do anything. And it's like, man, he's, I actually think he's unplayable now. And if I were them, I would do more Zubats. I would try to pound that pound the Mavericks inside with Zubats, try to get the big guys in foul trouble. And I would never double Luka ever would be my other advice.

I mean, double Luka, it's like you just, you can't. Just let him get 40. It's easier said than done, I feel like. But, you know, it's a similar philosophy to what the Knicks

just had to navigate with Joel. It's like an injured player and it's a question of how much you want to force them, in Luka's case, to exert that knee where he's already feeling some stress with it. He's already pretty sensitive

with it. Having an incredible series regardless of that, but do you want to just see him push it and push it and push it just to see what happens and not let all these other guys get off? The trade-off is it's so easy to talk yourself into the idea of we're going to live and die with Derek Jones Jr. threes and Maxi Kliba threes.

That's an understandable defensive game plan, but then Maxi Kliba is our greatest living shooter now, so maybe you need to adjust it. I know. I gotta say, I think Luka seems fine. I know they're like, yeah, his knee's banged up. You talked about it on the show today. He was pushing the ball

with real pace, and they really tried to, I think, push the pace partly because of Harden and partly just to change it up, but it worked. The other one we have tomorrow is Orlando Cleveland game six. I call Cleveland three faces of Cleveland. There's three different faces. I don't know what face they're going to wear. What are the three faces? Well, there's the face where Jared Allen doesn't play and Mobley goes to center. And I'm like, my stock's just skyrocketing because this is the position Evan Mobley should play and all of a sudden

they look great. There's the no Garland, just it's Mitchell's team. Cavs where it's like, oh, this is kind of like the Utah situation for him and this looks like something.

And then there's the other version where everybody's playing and nobody seems that happy. Yeah. And I think that's what we're getting tomorrow night if Jared Allen plays. I think Orlando's going to win tomorrow night. I think Orlando's a really good home team.

And this feels like one of these two has to go seven because of the rule. We have to have a seven-game series and run one. Got to have it. This would be my pick. What about you? I would love it. And it does feel like

temperamentally the kind of series where just home teams win every time. Right. Like that's just kind of how the balance of the series has swung for the most part.

I agree with you that the the face with Evan Mobley at the five is the most handsome of the Cavaliers faces. That's that's the one I would love to see. Personally, it's the one

that I'm so invested. I'm so leveraged in Evan Mobley's stock at this point that after he had an incredible game-saving close, I couldn't even gloat about it. I just had to wait for people to come crawling back to me and gloat in response. That's where I'm at with this experiment. Me too.

Anything we can do, for me personally, to let Evan Mobley shine, I'm in favor of. And honestly, it seems like in a lot of cases, and specifically in this matchup, they are better suited playing with a little more space, with a little more maneuverability. And from the sounds of some of the interview quotes that are coming out of the Cavaliers, I think Donovan Mitchell agrees with us. So if he stays... By the way, Jared Allen will have real trade value if that's how they decide to go. Really good player. Yeah. Really good player and a good contract. Yes. And there's teams that need size. So maybe that's how this heads.

I think Mobley's a five. That's how I've justified my untenable stock position in him. It's like, when he's at the five, this is all going to pay off. Orlando has, I just, when he's at the five, this is all going to pay off. Um, Orlando has at home, they get stuff from their bench, they get scoring. They don't normally get, it's not all on Paolo's shoulders, but Paolo has been, I mean, he was so good in game five and I feel like he's one of the young guys that it's him and aunt are just kind of in maxi in game five maybe not tonight

but my hope would be not to put too many miles on Paolo in game six try to get the group effort and then he's the one

that's going to have to win game seven it's going to have to be a 40 point you know 12 rebound 9 assist type awesome game

I think for them to win in Cleveland because I don't trust any other score they have I might trust Franz on the road in Cleveland because I don't trust any other score they have. I trust Franz. On the road in a game seven? He's not shooting. He's not.

He's going to the basket. Yes, that is true. But that's kind of where I prefer him is going to the basket for the most part. I do think both of those guys have gotten better over the course of the series at toning down some of the more flustered decision making. Possessions that are going nowhere without the space. Paolo is learning how to navigate it. at toning down some of the more flustered decision-making,

like possessions that are going nowhere without the space. Paolo is learning how to navigate it. And very common learning curve for young stars in his position. Everything as far as his path through this series has felt about right. Some early struggles, trying to run through the wall. And then over the course of it, you can see the gears turning and you can see him trying to solve everything that's in front of him,

whether it's a big lineup or a small one. He's a lot of tools at his disposal. And I think what's most exciting about the Magic is he can do all this right now and he's going to be able to do more when he's playing with, I would say in particular, some guards who make his life easier.

And right now, I love Jalen Suggs. It's not really what he does out there. He does a lot of other things, especially defensively, but they need some facilitation at some point. And they may be able to get through this series without it, but that's kind of next on the agenda. Well, as Mike Lombardi would say,

sometimes you're one injury away, and Gary Harris got hurt, and that might have been one of the best things that happened in the Magic, because it opened some minutes for some other people. I was thinking, I don't know why, but I feel like Orlando's going to win this series. And it's not rational.

I think they're going to win game six, and I don't believe in that. I can see that Cleveland team either winning by 20 or losing by two at home. But I was thinking if it does end up being Orlando, Boston in round two, that's another stomach punch for the Philly fans.

Fultz versus Tatum. They're like, really? Now we gotta watch this? What if Fultz becomes one of the heroes in the last two games? On top of everything else. That'd be sensational. Look, I would love to see it. Minnesota-Denver, do you have a pick?

Denver. I would say Denver 6. I think Denver. I'm actually probably not betting the series. You're scared off. I want to watch a game. If you were going to watch a game. If you were going to create a team in a lab to beat Denver,

a realistic team, I think it would be Minnesota the way Edwards is playing. Yeah. Cause you'd think like size to throw a yoke edge size to throw a Murray. Yeah. That's the big one. Size and length. And it's just, it's, but it's,

it's comes down to the late game stuff with them. And how ready is Edwards? Do I, it's one of those things where it's like, you know what, Minnesota is going to win. I bet on Minnesota. And then you're in these last two minutes of games and there's Jokic on one end, just doing fucking Jokic stuff. And then the other end,

I have 22 year old-old Anthony Edwards. And it's like, all right, we're not playing Phoenix anymore. We're playing the defending champs. And he got a little, what was I thinking? He's great. He's not ready for this. But then there's the flip side of this where maybe he is ready for this. He's passed every test so far.

Like the Suns, every game, I thought his decision-making was pretty much on point. Yeah, so there's a chance these decision making was pretty much on point. Yeah. So there's a chance these are the two best teams. Yes. Because if Boston's not going to have Porzingis here for three, four weeks, I don't know. How would you rank Minnesota, Denver, Boston right now? No Porzingis. Are we just boxing OKC out of this conversation?

We don't have to. Based on how they played in the playoffs, I think... See, this is the thing. Denver is almost better on paper than they are as far as their actual playoff performance right now. They have not covered themselves in glory.

They had incredible clutch moments. They had incredible stretches. I still think they're the best team overall, but they haven't quite played like it. I think Minnesota has played as well as anybody in the postseason has. Or Minnesota got to play a team partly built around

Bradley Beal and Yusuf Nurkic. Also true. And no bench guys at all. It's a certain kind of advantage for sure, but to be honest, Minnesota's going to have a bench advantage against a lot of these teams, Denver included. They just have more that they can plug into the lineup and Minnesota's going to have a bench advantage against a lot of these teams, Denver included. They just have more that they can plug into the lineup and it's going to be a real test of

how much Murray can stretch and how much Jokic's stamina, which is very impressive, can stretch in some of these games. They're going to have to play huge minutes because you can just imagine Reggie Jackson being thrown into the fire and what that looks like in some of these games. The Chris Finch-, Torin Patella thing,

does that do anything for you for this series? It does a little bit. Do you know how hard that's going to be to coach with a fucking Torin Patella? Yes. I mean, look, we've seen coaches struggle to get timeouts fully mobile. And imagine if he's either like

in some kind of protected throne situation or if he's out there on crutches. I don't know what all the permutations are. You think he's going to be on the scooter? Like when they have the scooter? Yeah, yeah. You think of... Let's kick Chris Fincher rascal. What is he, in a wheelchair?

Like what? There was this rumor going around that he was actually going to be in a luxury box texting instructions that I don't believe. But it's just not ideal. It's not ideal. He's got his coaches and they're going up and down the sidelines. But it's just not ideal. It's not ideal. You watch these coaches and they're going up and down the sidelines. They're yelling at refs. It does feel like a slight disadvantage.

Well, especially the kind of team we're talking about, which is one in which Anthony Edwards has been so impressive. But we are going to wring our hands a little bit in those clutch moments as far as what kind of decisions he's going to be making on the floor and what kind of chances he's going to be taking.

And Chris Finch is kind of the counterbalance to that in some senses. He lets Ant play, but he also kind of settles him down sometimes. Well, the other thing with Ant, and this is the greatest thing about him, he really thinks he's the best player in the league, and he wants it so badly. This could be a, he wants it too badly. Oh, yeah. He wants it.

He wanted a too badly series, and then he'll learn everything for next year. Or like you watch Conley. I watched that. He was on the Barkley show yesterday. Yeah. Cause he won the year. Teammate of the year. I know I heard the start of your show.

Who did Barrier give the teammate of the year? He gave it to Waz. Yeah, he gave it to Waz. I thought that was bullshit. I didn't even get a vote. Yeah, that was ridiculous. But Conley has that thing. They ask him about Edwards,

and he's just like, yo, man, he's like a young Michael Jordan. And just like goes on this, he's like, you don't understand how good this guy is. He was doing those quotes. And as you know, I love quote, I love teammate on teammate quotes it's kind of my jam how did you feel about the ant checking cat at the podium quote by the way

the like i fucking loved it you gotta stop fucking fouling situation i loved it i love all this stuff and i just think i think the team genuinely believes this guy is as great as everyone else in the league and that's the feeling I get with Dallas too. Like they really believe in Luca. They think he's the best player in the league. Denver knows Jokic is the best player in the league. It's part of my fear with, with Boston is like nobody,

nobody in Boston's like Tatum's the best player in the league. They're like, we have the best team in the league. Like they, it's not a specific player. All right. So you have, you have Denver one, Minnesota like, we have the best team in the league. It's not a specific player. Alright, so you have Denver 1,

Minnesota 2. You have OKC above or below? No, Porzingis, Boston. I'll put them below. Out of respect for Boston's level of execution still and the fact that at some point OKC is going to run into either the size disadvantage that's going to

hurt them or the inexperience disadvantage that's going to hurt them. So I do think they're at least worth noting though. I think it's much closer than a top three and then OKC is off to the side. I think they're very much in that mix. OKC Dallas, which feels like that can happen and probably will happen, is going to be an awesome series. Like awesome. And that could be, we might have to have the party and send out the Evite for the Jalen Williams breakout party. Oh, yeah. Because if they beat them, it's going to be because of what he does on both ends and how he defends him and Lou Dort on Luka and just them tag teaming him and trying to make him

a little bit mortal. But I like that matchup for them. I actually think I would pick them in that series. I think so too. Yeah. And that's the kind of where, obviously Dallas has a lot of momentum with the way they finish the regular season.

And some of these games are very inspiring in terms of their first round series. I don't really understand the OKC skepticism in general. That's a good ass team that really just laid the smack down on the Pelicans in a lot of ways, tactically speaking. Left New Orleans without anything to do. And that's because of how versatile the Thunder can be. It's a great point because the first game, they seemed really close

even without Zion. It was a nice up-and-down battle. And by Game 3, OKC had solved them. And SGA had solved all the perimeter guys in New Orleans. Yeah, I'm with you. I'm not ready to... I want to see them do it against a team with a really good player.

The fact that they got to play New Orleans without Zion, I'd probably underestimate it because I thought New Orleans was a possible upset pick. There's something, too, though, about the... You brought up the best player

in the league kind of conversation, whether it's guys like Ant who believe that about themselves or Luka, the teammates, and he believes that about himself. It's kind of conversation, whether it's guys like Ant who believe that about themselves or Luka who, you know, the teammates and he believes that about himself. It's kind of similar to something we were talking about on group chat, which is the face of the league conversation.

Yeah. To me, if you have to ask, you're probably not it. And like Tatum is kind of in that group, like you're just not it. And I think what's impressive about guys like Luka, guys like Shea, Ant is a great example. When Ant was kind of first emerging,

you could sense a bit of tension between him and Towns as to what the identity and what the pecking order of the team was going to be. I don't really sense any of that anymore. And that's because you don't really have to ask with Ant. It's abundantly clear

that he is that guy. And Luka is that guy and Shea is that guy. And Luka is that guy. And Shea is that guy. And Tatum is a great leader and the best player on a great team. But he's not that guy. Well, they lucked out because this Porzingis injury happens during a year where the Eastern Conference

is just completely decimated. You would have thought they were the LeBron Cavs mid-2010s team with all the injury luck they got. It's sitting there for a minute. I mean, as we head into the weekend, you beat Denver. That's the official arrival.

For sure. They probably make the finals if they beat Denver. Puts them in the finals. There's face-to-the-league potential. And then we're going to Team USA in Paris in July. And there's a scenario here where he just starts checking off boxes and all of a sudden is the biggest star in the league.

And I don't think anyone else in the playoffs can say that. I mean, SGA, if he runs the slate and wins the title, it's maybe a conversation, but he doesn't have the charisma that Ant has. I mean, nobody has the charisma Ant has. It'd be more of a collective thing, like, oh my God, the Thunder are here even sooner than we thought. And of course, Shea would be a part of that.

But I think it would be, like, the credit and the praise would be a little bit more diverse. Presti would be like, they've won the title, and he has 29 firsts. He'd be like the guy in won the title and he has 29 first. He'd be like the guy in Monopoly who's just paying people to roll the dice for him. He's like, hey, if you make my pick, I'll give you a second rounder in 2029. And if you go get me a Diet Coke, he's just taunting everybody. So we both have Denver.

Yes. Minus 205 on FanDuel. I i'm gonna try to figure out some sort of a serious boost it does feel like it if i had gone to my head i would do denver okc but i want to see if dallas closes out the clippers in a certain way it might make me rethink the okc thing i want to see dallas come out and basically chop their heads off like nothing left. There's no chance you guys are coming back. We are ruining you guys. We're going to make Paul George want to get the fuck out of here and go to the Easter conference and do one of those things.

All right. Rob Mahoney, thank you for staying up late with us live on youtube.com slash Bill Simmons. You can hear this podcast on the Bill Simmons podcast. You can listen to Rob on the Ringer NBA show. And also you can read you on the ringer dot com. Any pieces coming? Yeah, I just had one this week

about kind of the state of point guards in general. That was awesome. We've got art for that, too. That was a really fun read. Incredible work by the art team. And yeah, more features to come. We're in playoff mode right now.

So there's some good stuff in the pipeline. Great. Good to see you. Thanks for staying up. Thanks, Bill. 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, I'm in Seattle with Eddie and Jeff. We were supposed to do this in 2020. COVID intervened. We did a pod on the phone. Wi-Fi was bad all the way around. I wasn't totally happy with it. It was great to talk to you guys, but we're doing this correctly. Throwing away the other podcast. We're just starting from scratch. But the same thing, 2020 that we have now, new album, some new energy. You guys go to Malibu to record this. It's like Jeff was saying, it was like the old days. You guys were trapped together and just had to come up with riffs and

music. So what happened? Well, I mean, Ed was making a record with andrew and kind of mid recording thought that we should be there and to experience what he was experiencing and i mean it kind of was out of the blue i remember i was like it was like middle of the summer i was like montana having a great time you're like well i gotta go to la for a week. But, you know, anytime you get a call to record, it's like you got to do it. And there was really no plan. There was no plan. So we didn't know what we were headed into.

Like I remember Googling Andrew Watt going like, who is this guy? And so. So it's almost like a relationship. You guys needed to just spruce it up. Just get somewhere new. Get another band. Just get a new location, new energy.

Well, you know, it was a different way of recording with this guy, Andrew Watt. And he'd always kind of, you know, come to visit the group on tour. We just knew him as this kind of young musician cat. He seemed nice enough. And then he did some records with Ozzy, and then he did this record with Morrissey, and then he was a friend of the Chili Peppers. To be honest, I think the first time I ever really recorded on my own was, I guess, Into the Wild.

So that was a soundtrack, and I just kind of played the instruments myself. And then the next was ukulele, and so those things are very non-threatening to the group. But, you know, being down there and all of a sudden writing finding myself writing songs and now i'm playing with chad smith like actual other musicians like chad smith sports fan yeah he's good guy i mean he likes detroit but outside of that he's a great guy i like detroit too yeah they're fine um underdog as long as they're an underdog but but I I felt like this

this could get a little sensitive and I don't need problems with me and the

guys that's the last thing I would ever want so I was like come check this

out because we it might be an acquired taste but see if you like it

the results that we were getting and the speed at which we were recording him in the solo stuff yeah it you like it uh the results that we were getting and and the speed at which we're recording in the the solo stuff yeah it felt like it could be a positive path that if the band was willing they might want to jump on that train you know the first right from the first day we were getting you know songs with with power and songs that sounded great at loud volume

and we were all playing together i mean we were playing together in a room just about this big with a mix board and a drum kit and you know keyboards over there i mean we were about as tight as we are now literally Literally bumping elbows with stone and the kick drum like two feet in front of me. It was fun. Well, what was 1990 when you came from San Diego to come after they were like, hey, we like this guy's demo, let's go.

And then you guys just made a bunch of songs together, but it was pretty similar, right? You were probably in some crappy house in Seattle. No, it was a basement about the same size. Not that different. Yeah, not that different, mean right where was that though um belltown second and bow how many basement of a old art gallery called gallery uh potato potato head and then there was a what was the name of the pool hall uh two eleven pool hall 21 211. It was right out of Jackie Gleason. Yeah, yeah, the Hustler.

Yeah, it was right out of that. So you guys, you barely know each other. You get thrown in together. And you have a couple demos. They have some riffs. You probably wrote some stuff with your side. And then you just kind of see if it works. Is it like the longest date ever?

What is it like? Like, what do you remember? This is, we're talking, this is 34 years ago. What do you remember from that? You know, the interesting thing is, is that there was an interview recently that I read that where you were talking about how, like Stone and I were talking to Dave Kruzan a lot

about the groove and like this part should be faster or whatever, but how we weren't, I mean, I don't think we were communicating super well. And I think, I think, and I think partly because I do remember partly like partly because we didn't know Ed, I think we were being probably extra sensitive to like just letting him do his thing and, you know, not wanting to get in the way but i mean you know the story is that he came up for a week we had this crazy week like four or five days of rehearsal went in the studio for a whole day recorded the six or seven tunes that we had played a show that's i can't believe you played a show show like five days after we were first together and then went and saw the Bulls and the Sonics at the kingdom exhibition on the seventh day with the guy from KSW.

And then he got on a plane and left and it was kind of, there was kind of no time for my midnight shift. And then you went back. So how'd you leave it? Were you like, Hey man, that was great. Kind of.

I had a tape. If I didn't have the cassette tape from the day in the studio yeah I probably wouldn't have it wouldn't have been real because you

after Andy died I mean you were probably wondering like am I even gonna be in a band again yeah man I I

I didn't know I felt like that the chance my, our chance was, was done. You know, like I, I was actively looking to go back to school. Like I went up to Bellingham and visited the art department thinking like, I think maybe that's what I'm going to end up doing. Cause I, you know, I mean, I just quit my job like a month before that. And like, he didn't have any money in the bank, like, you know, didn't have a car, didn't have insurance, didn't have a safety net really. So I was like, and it was only over the course of the summer, like promoting the mother love bone record with stone, kind of not really talking. I was, I heard he was like playing a little bit with Mike.

And then Mike's kind of started saying like, you should come over. And I said, I don't know if I want to play with Stone anymore. And Stone was probably thinking like, I don't know if I want to play with Jeff anymore. But Stone hit the ground running and, you know, wrote some songs. And then eventually I, you know we went in with matt cameron and recorded those six or seven songs and that's the tape that ed got that you know he wrote three songs to sent back how aware of you were of you were i can't speak how aware of you i know the question why so can i't I speak? Did you know Andy?

Do you aware of his music? Oh, Andy or the, yeah, the band. Yeah. You know, to be honest, I'd, I'd come across Green River, Soundgarden, Mudhoney. I had a little group in San Diego that we, we got to open for them in a tiny club called The Spirit. And I think that was just because I made the flyers and passed them out but um but mother labonin kind of it wasn't something that it didn't it wasn't on my radar for yeah whatever reason so um and i hadn't listened to it before you know i took a i was with jack irons because um i met him he was playing drums

with joe strummer um earthquake weather tour yeah and he was the only one who came to soundcheck that day i soundcheck i worked for free at these clubs this one and um and then had a real job midnight shift. So you'd work for free, but then you'd get to go to a sound check or you'd hump gear and then get to be around and see people. It wasn't a great club, but however, it was either people on their way up or people on their way... It could be some schlocky band or MTV band it it was either kind of people on their way up or people on their way i it was you know it could

be some schlocky band or mtv band or it could be an okay mtv band like the godfathers or something like that that had kind of one hit or it might be uh ray charles or chuck berry or um and so sound checks i kind of lived for the sound checks. A lot of times I'd have to leave before the real show anyways. But I was pretty excited for the Strummer sound check, but Jack was the only guy to show up. And we just had a conversation and talked about Chili Peppers and the whole thing, and then we ended up being friends.

Wasn't there a pickup basketball component to this? Yeah. Then I ended up practicing in a group that were kind of more based in Los Angeles. So I'd go up on the weekends. Jack and I would play basketball on Fridays when I'd come up. And then I'd rehearse with the group Friday, Saturday, and then drive back down to work. It's an ugly shot, but it goes in. He's athletic, competitive. What NBA player is he?

I'm not competitive. What 1990 Eddie, who's his comparison now? Maybe Pat Bev. Pat Bev? Agitator? I don't know who that is. He doesn't know. That was why I picked that.

What was your game? You bastard. Oh, man. I don't know. What's the question? His basketball game Oh, man. I don't know. What's the question? His basketball game. He's doing basketball doppelgangers. Pat Connaughton, maybe?

Oh, Shooter. Okay. He can hit, yeah, he can hit threes. Nobody's business. But Eddie was super shy when you were first hanging out with him, right? And then eventually it came out. Eventually what? I don't know.

Eventually you blossomed out. No, I got this one-handed shot because I used to practice after, I think we told this story on the last podcast. Oh, let's tell it again. So I used to carry this Walkman, right? Yeah. And then after the midnight shift, I'd to yeah this little park up from my little apartment and so i would just i'd play and i remember mother's milk being one of the main

tapes i was listening to at the time chili peppers and um and always playing so i i couldn't use my left hand because i'm holding the cassette deck right so it's just all one hand but i needed music you know yeah everything needed music surfing i wanted music everything i wanted music um but anyways the reason i told you that story because then we ended up probably three years from that time when i was doing that three years later i remember i think we were in cleveland it's kind of a it Cleveland. It was a ballroom, and we were opening for the Peppers. Yeah. And on the other end of the ballroom, there was this basketball hoop.

So we got a couple balls, and we were shooting, and the Chili Peppers were soundchecking the same songs that I had been listening to and now it was I mean what a dream to go from holding on to that thing with the headphones now it's them actually playing live

we're playing basketball and I could use both hands see this is why we're basically redoing the 2020 pod because now we have this story on video this is way better there was aing the 2020 pod because now we have this story on video. This is way better. There was a thing, one of the documentaries was about, I don't know, it was one of your early shows. I'm going to say it was maybe Vancouver

when somebody's getting pulled out from the audience and Eddie got mad and your stage presence was basically born and the other guys in band were like, oh, what's going on here? And you just kind of figured something out. Do you remember that? You know, back in the day, you know, some places weren't,

you know, you'd have security that didn't know what behavior to expect and what the protocol was for a either a punk show or our shows were pretty active yeah and crowd surfing and stage diving and all these things and and they might not have ever seen it before they might not have and their initial reaction was to beat these people up or you know that's not happening on right our club or something like that and so you'd have to there's a little bit of life guarding you know so you know i don't feel like i was super angry or aggro. It was more of protecting people. beat the shit out of kids that you know got on stage or were coming over the barricade or whatever and so we were you know with malice yeah and so to be to be in the right position to be to have a little bit of say and um you know i'm i'm pretty i'm really proud of the way that you handled that in a way that we handled it as a band like i think we sort of changed you know how how that you know how that was handled i think security is

really different now than it was then when did you feel like you had channeled your energy in the right way as the lead of the band as the performer i mean we don't have to go a couple years later when you're hanging off things. It'll happen. Are you going to be hanging off things this year? Oh, that part of it? Well, I mean, that was later. That was probably like 92 Ranch. I don't know.

I'm hanging on your every word right now. Because initially, you know, you're playing for six months. You're feeling out the songs. You're feeling out the audience. You're feeling out what it's like to be on stage. But at some point, you guys became one of the best live bands that's ever been.

When was the moment when that happened? Was it in the first couple years? Was it later after you knew the material? Was what, was there a moment where you're like, Oh, I remember it was this part of the tour when boom. I think even at our most energetic and frenetic and kind of, I don't, I wouldn't say that was our best performances as musicians or, you know, I think we were, you know, in some ways kind of so, you know, shot out of a cannon and felt like, you know, I mean, there was a bit of an Evel Knievel with all that climbing stuff,

but I think you really wanted people to remember. It's part of the era too. Some of those 90s concerts were a little crazy were you were you how many times were you actually worried for his safety and oh man long-term future i mean there's pictures there's pictures of me where he's up and i'm looking the other way. No, and I, I think, um, the thing that I was thinking about was I'm not going to watch him die. Cause that, that had,

that happened once before. And so I, there, there, there was a part of me that sort of felt like, um, I mean, I trusted him cause I saw him do some fucking insane stuff, you know, like iguanas.

And I mean, there's some, you know, Delmar Fairgrounds. And I mean, there are some records were made to be broken. No, it's like, no, like shit that's never, that never happened, that nobody's ever done. I mean, like really evil can evil stuff. But yeah, there was a part of me that was sort of like afraid, you know. We were talking about, Jeff, about as you get older, when in the old days,

he would want to talk to the athletes, but now he wants to talk to the trainers and the doctors. With musicians as you get older,'s like what kind of injuries are you nursing these days what kind of shape is your body in me yeah uh yeah i mean you did a lot of live shows a lot of running around a lot of swinging a lot of diving into crowds you know what it is it's it's the the picking and strumming and it's tendonitis. Oh, like tennis elbow

kind of stuff? It's not from tennis. Well, yeah. Is that what they Yeah. Yeah. I don't know, but it's it's more painful

than what I thought tennis elbow would sound. They have the good stuff now. They have like the Norma Tech and all these different things where you can put the the stuff on there. You were saying you did. They have the good stuff now. They have like the Norma Tech and all these different things where you can put the stuff on there. You were saying you did the, you did the Germany stuff.

Yeah, I went to the Kobe doctor. I mean, I don't have any, really any cartilage on my lateral side of my left, the jumping leg. So I think 15 years ago, the doctor was like, yeah, you need a knee replacement, but you're too young.

So you got to figure out how to, you know, so I immediately was like reaching out to anybody that I knew. I mean, Wally, who worked for the Bulls, who was one of the first guys. And then he connected me with a guy in Indiana because we were in Indianapolis when it was really bugging me. And they were all really high on me and there, and they were all really high on, you know, that technology, the Regenokine technology. So like a few months later, I was getting ready to go to Germany to do it. And they said, Hey, we're opening a clinic in Santa Monica in six months. And I was like, well, I'm just going to wait. Yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah. One of the reasons I want to talk about that was because i mean we're in this you've never showed this place

before i don't think have you this is your batting cage uh this is yeah it's this is in we're in our warehouse and then um um and and when we first got this place we our whole operation is kind of under one roof you know we practice next door and i keep the gear and then there's sell t-shirts out of that back warehouse and we have offices upstairs for things like um management yeah political activism, that kind of thing. So a couple years into the building, we got this part of it. This became the playground. Seattle, I was always trying to figure out how to get a batting cage, either in the backyard or it's just too wet. And then Jeff, it was his shot at getting a skate ramp.

So he built a skate ramp and then back in the corner and we built this it started off just real like um white concrete walls it was all scrappy and uh pallets with some helmets and a few batting gloves and a few bats and but johnny ramon had left me about three pallets of lawyer legal boxes full of signed first edition baseball books. He basically had a library. I mean, that's like, who would have ever guessed that in a million years? Well, if you knew Johnny, that was part of him. You know, baseball, Yankees. Really, it was almost like the Ramones were a side project compared to his love for baseball. Crazy 8x10 collection too, right?

The third biggest collection of signed 8x10s, and this is going back to guys in the 20s and 30s. Amazing. the 20s and 30s amazing the other two were um foreign collectors and they simply bought them johnny sent them to the guys he had his baseball encyclopedia and he had about one third so he had about over five thousand six thousand so he figured he had 330 of any everybody had ever played so he felt he was what the fuck batting 350 or so yeah which would be a hall of fame number so um i don't understand how you do that in like the early pre-internet era right no this was a post office yeah this is like you're just cold living at the post office Writing letters to people, right? Dear Moose, my name is Johnny Ramone.

I'm your biggest fan. Self-addressed staff envelope. You're more of an eBay guy. He kept the... You go on eBay, right? Don't you get some stuff on eBay now? A lot of this is gifts, you know. All right.

I think he's secretly on eBay. He's good. It's named after me. Eddie 75. He's good. It's named after me. Eddie 75. Fine stuff. But yeah, all those books. And then those three big binders, those are all Cubs. So he had mostly Yankees.

His next biggest was Cubs. That was his favorite National League team. And then after that, you had the 6,000. Because you guys so it became the johnny ramone memorial batting cage and library and and everybody works here works in the warehouse or wherever they could come in at lunch yeah take a few swings have a sandwich and uh pick out a book and i didn't know what to expect when I came. I didn't know if Dennis Rodman would just be serving lattes here, or how deep it went.

But the connection you guys have with sports, I think is... This is not a latte. What is this? It's a triple espresso. The connection you guys have with sports, though, is I would say you're like the number one sports crossover band, like all in all

these different ways, right? Even dating back to when you wanted to be Mookie Blaylock and legally couldn't pull it off. You almost named your band after a random starting point guard from the early nineties. Then it just kind of goes from there. Yeah. Drona Shea, Blaylock. Mookie's your real name.

I, yeah, I don't, I just don't know if the band, I don't know if it hits exactly the same as Mookie Blalock. I think Pearl Jam, I think it worked out. I think Pearl Jam was a better outcome.

But you have, you're here during, I wrote down a bunch of sports stuff, actually. This is why I had my iPad. Because we're taping this. It's the same day

as Oklahoma City game two, right? Which should be Seattle. You guys were here for basically the heyday of the Sonics. You did star spangled banner. What was that? Game three, 96 finals. Um, Oh, bulls. Yeah. You had, yeah. You did a poster with Sean Kemp. You, I mean, even when you put the album out this year, you did the MLB and NHL, you did the tie-ins with that. You did the Sweet Lou song.

You did the Rodman Hang, which was, you know, that could have been like a spinoff of the Last Dance thing. And then you have Present Tense and Last Dance, which I think is the most viewed sports documentary of all time. And you guys were the closer. And then you have Present Tense and Last Dance, which I think is the most viewed sports documentary of all time. And you guys were the closer. And then keep going, 2016 World Series. But it's just like sports always seems like it's around the band. And then on top of that, you guys have been together 33 years, which is, you know, like a version of the sports team in a way.

The sports team, like what the Warriors have now, the team that actually stays together. So I don't know. It's just, it's something that's there, but I never heard you really talk about it that much. Do you feel it? I've just always,

I mean, of course, you know, you grow up and you have heroes and growing up and we had WGN and the Chicago Cubs and Black and White TV. And they just became kind of part of your household because they were always on and mostly day games. You know, home games are always day games.

So you had early heroes. But then as you grow up, you know, you realize that sports, I think it's the drama, you know, it's like seeing a play, but you don't know how it's going to end right and that's where the the art and the thrill but also the focus and and I think it's the focus I think it's when you get to let's say a game seven you know um or this could be Wimbledon, this could be anything, maybe not golf. But the focus, it's seeing a human being with that intense focus and a lot of weight, but then not letting that weight affect them and just kind of go, and then that's where you figure out,

that's where the practice is or the practice you know being such a big part of or or the the mental stability because you've tried to go through so you don't there's no no don't panic i think that's the stuff that you you can use that you you get inspired by and and you can use it in the studio or in a live performance. That's what's always appealed to me. First there's the heroes. We have modern day heroes in sport,

but also they're probably our heroes because of what we've seen them do under pressure. Attention to detail and then coming through when it matters. It's a little similar to music. Well, and I think Joe Maddon was really good, or talking to him about it at length, just about having just been through it been through it i guess you know lineups compared to set lists we used to have this conversation you know and his he had

kind of color-coded on his thing like that yeah and then i had color-coded on my pieces of paper and we were just talking about the but you've kind of thought out you've kind of thought it all the way through and visualize it to a certain extent. So then when the moment comes, you don't have to like think about it. It's not a brand new equation. Yeah. You agree with that? Yeah.

And, you know, for me, it was like, I grew up in this little town and had the same friends from when I was born until I was 18. And there was a crew of about 10 or 15 of us that we grew up playing Sandlot, everything. We played hockey, football, whatever season it was, we were sort of playing it. And then through junior high and high school, we played all those sports together and played Little League and Babe Ruth. And so the one thing that I knew when I was 18 was that there was this, every once in a while, you'd tap into this thing with your group. And like there was, I knew at an early age

that the group was more powerful than the single person could ever be. Like there was something when it really happened, even if you weren't a part of like the big shot or whatever, you were still part of the unit. And I think when things rolled over into music for me, I wanted to feel that thing that I felt when I was a kid with my crew. You know, like I wanted to feel that power wanted to feel the pot, that power that was exponential.

It wasn't five times. It was like a hundred times because the five of you were doing this thing together. And I mean, to be honest, the first couple of days that we played in the basement together, I felt a hint of that. I felt like, Whoa, there's something exponential happening here um and so you know once you once you once you sort of taste that energy you want to you know it's a drug it's like you want you you know and it's not the crowd and it's not i mean the crowd amplifies it even more but it's the tornado that you when the winds are all moving the same direction the power that comes out of that is like it's just the great it's just the greatest it's like you know it's it's still what i want to do it's still you know when he calls and says

let's get together you're like okay we could let's go this could happen you know yeah something. And so, you know, it's, it's interesting hearing you talk about that because the Warriors are at this point now, right? Clay Thompson's going to be a free agent and Steph and Clay and Draymond have been playing together basically since the early 2010s. They've been the same coach. They won four titles. They didn't make the playoffs this year. Team's getting old. And you hit this point where it's like maybe Clay leaves. Maybe he just signs with Orlando. But it really seems like those guys just want to stay together. And I don't even know if it matters to them in the same way

if they win another title. It seems like the nucleus of it is more important than the titles because they already have four. But you talk about that reminding me of that. Where sometimes, like, all right, Clay goes to Orlando. Maybe he makes the finals with these dudes that he just met five minutes ago. But is that going to be as special as playing his entire career in San Francisco and Oakland? There's no way, right? You know, and you can't expect to, you know, have, you know, to go to the finals every year or something.

That's a lot. Yeah, there's 30 teams. Yeah. And they had one of the craziest runs ever, you know? Yeah. I mean,

that's a, that organization's in a tough spot, you know, like, and they re-signed Ray Hawn. Right. Well, yeah,

he's kind of the modern Dennis Rodman. Well, you guys had... By the way, I just realized I know a couple of people who actually golf. Yeah. So you want to apologize to the golf community? Yeah. I don't want to... We'll work that in. We'll edit that in. I don't want any little cleats.

We'll put a little graphic. Eddie apologizes in advance for his golf comments. You guys, I mean, how many times was the band actually close to maybe going this way because you had like in the mid 90s there was a moment maybe like 2000 there was a moment but was there ever really a moment where you felt like this is going sideways because there's a couple times you took breaks eddie's looking at me like i'm crazy well i mean i mean i think there were probably moments where all of us were ready to bail, you know, like some misunderstanding or some lack of communication or, you know, there's probably some moments,

but I don't know if, I think there's a semi-documented moment, like when we were making no code that I said I was ready to quit the band. That was probably lasted for two days, you know, when I felt that way. And then you're playing with everybody and you're- Because bands, for the most part, aren't meant to stay together. It gets pretty rare when you go after eight, nine,

10 years and then you see some of the bands that stay, it feels like they pass this invisible point where it's like, you know what, we're together and this is just how it's going to go. And I don't know whether it's like six years, eight years, ten years. I tell you, though, we're not a band together because we're like, well, okay. Well, you know what I mean. This is how it turned out, so if you're okay with it, I'll... It's not that way at all. It's, you know, between, look, I think we have to give credit to the audience for showing up and supporting us, kind of returning energy back to us.

Feeding off their energy, yeah. yeah and and being a custodian of the music and and for them and um feeling responsibility to that crowd and then that's not something that just one of us takes on that's something that we all take on and and when we discuss set lists or a tour plan or whatever it's all agreed upon and but they you know this is a this is a brotherhood i i don't know you know outside of our even our band lives it was you know we've all been through a thing or two here and there or whatever, maybe not all of us, but we've looked after each other. And that brotherhood is strong. And again, I don't know if it would exist without an audience that kind of gave us a reason to stay together that was kind of bigger than us or anything that we all, any one of us felt as an individual.

You know, it was more, it was, they kind of forged our, you know, or kept us tight in our relationships. But I really don't feel like there's ever been a you know we we were able to maintain and manicure and and protect the songs and and the music in our future of playing music yeah in those early years and and that was probably you know that wasn't easy or we it was kind of taking a dare of, will that audience we were just speaking about, will they follow us? Because we thought the light was a bit too bright

and then bright lights cast dark shadows. So we just wanted to take it down a bit. It feels like by the 97, 98 rage, you were good with what happened with the band because it was meteoric, right? I mean, I remember you had some quote like, you were just playing guitar in your bedroom. You never expected any of this, right?

And then overnight, all this shit happens. Well, that sounds pretty whiny, whiny but yeah no but it's true i mean most people don't expect you know if you if you love doing something and you're messing around with it you don't you know the great idea it's not like you're a basketball player like i'm the number two player in my class in sixth grade and yeah i'm gonna play in college and get to the nba i mean mean, two things. One, all of us had been playing music for five to ten years before the overnight thing happened.

True. The other thing on the other side of that is that because we sort of, that first record, we sort of had a plan. We wanted to play a lot of shows because we felt like we wanted to be a better band. And so we, and we did these things our own way, how we wanted the security to be at the shows and how we made our shirts and the prices we charged and kind of all these things.

And because that first record was so huge, people left, like the record company and the people left us alone. They're like, oh, they must know what they're doing. and so it sort of gave us a little bit of a carte blanche to sort of like just follow whatever tributary that you know was the most powerful for us and to say the word no yeah but again luckily that that we we were supported by an audience because otherwise, yeah, we would have had to go back to doing it the way we were being told or asked. Right. was the only hospital in Canada who could provide Andy with something special. Three neurosurgeons, two scientists, one movement disorders coordinator, 58 answered questions, two focused ultrasound procedures,

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Be careful along our tracks and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. Jeff and I were talking before you got here about how it's 30 years since 94 and just all the stuff that happened that year.

Vitology came out maybe like, I'm going to say somewhere near the end of 94. And Kurt died in April. And you guys were on Time Magazine that year. The grunge thing, people, it became, I don't know, felt like commodified by 94, 95. And in general, it was a weird time for music. And then it kind of shook itself out over the course of the rest of the 90s, right? What do you guys remember? Just that whole mid-90s run, watching the music industry.

It was almost like somebody shook a snow globe and then it had to settle again, right? Does that make sense? It's blurry. Yeah. It was blurry. I mean, blurry. Yeah. It was blurry. I mean, I was sober and it was blurry. MTV's the biggest it's ever been.

Rollingstone is the, I mean, there are all these, it's pre-internet. And there's a million good bands. It was like one of the most fertile times for great music I think we've ever had. Well, I think us pulling back at that time was like the best thing that we could have done because it you know i mean i think almost all of us spent the 80s like trying to get on that bill for the band that was coming through town and just kind of kind of hustling you know working your day job and like you know bringing a tape to the promoter and like, you know, putting up flyers and making t-shirts in your basement and whatever.

So then when all of a sudden, like everybody in the world's, you know, Neil Young's calling and Keith Richards is calling and like, you're getting, you know, it's like. You're heroes. Well, and it's, it's hard to say no, it's hard to say no it's hard to say no so that was a that was a that took us a minute to sort of figure out like no like the only way we're gonna survive this is if we say no to like you know you say no to your heroes you say like no we're not gonna go play those shows even though it's like well we didn't say no to those guys no no but eventually um well also the second record i mean i think the second record i think we got home on december 18th and then we were going to play the new year's eve in new york

with keith richards and the expensive winos and then so from the 18th to the 29th that would be your 10 days to to write the second record because then you have a show after new year's you you go into the studio or something yeah that was it 10 days you know to write you know maybe you could write half the songs but it was you know it was just you know, it was just, you know, whatever. We're not complaining now. We, that's how the old groups used to do it as well. You know, the kinks and the who and you know, that they were constantly just recorded. They would play shows while they were in the studio. So this album, so I don't mean to complain.

Don't be self-conscious about complaining you didn't sound complaining I will always be because of that time

yeah you know and those were all the questions back in the day and I'd say well you know

and this was true but it was like I don't feel like I've changed but I feel

like everybody around me has changed. And that was the strange and isolating part of it all, you know. And we weren't really built for it. I wasn't. Well, that was, I'm a little younger than you guys, but that was that generation where you weren't supposed to want to be too successful. You were supposed to do stuff

based on, you know, what was cool and what mattered to you versus like selling out. Selling out was like the biggest thing. Like even, I think we talked about in the last podcast about the movie Reality Bites where the villain in that movie is just the guy who wants to make a TV show and make some money for everybody. It's like, oh, look at this guy. He's trying to make money. What's he doing? This evil dude, Ben Affleck's character, this evil guy. And a lot of it was about hanging out and being authentic. Authenticity was so crucial to basically all the art back then. And I don't know when that shifted, but it's hard. It's a hard thing to explain now. Well, I'm a huge fan of authenticity. Well, now authenticity is used as this kind of code word. It's like when documentaries and people always say storytelling.

It was about storytelling. And it's like artists, they always talk about authenticity. Well, you know, I'm just trying to be authentic to my brand and my fans. This album that you just put out, though. That sounded kind of like an oxymoron. Trying to be authentic to my brand. Authentic to my brand. This album that you put out,

it honestly feels like a 90s Pearl Jam album. And I don't know if that was the intent. There's a different vibe to it. There's a start to finish kind of feel to it. And I thought some of the lyrics and some of the songs I thought were pretty poignant and things that I don't know if you would have necessarily said 30 years ago,

which I thought was really interesting. What was, if you're thinking like, what's the conceit when you're going into an album? What was the conceit that you wanted from this album? I don't know the term, your conceit, the conceit. Conceit, like the, if you were going to describe the album in one sentence. That I was being conceited?

No, not conceited. The theme of the album, what are you trying to say? Yeah. Every album is trying to say something. It's not just a collection of songs. But I mean, this is more question for you, but I never felt like we've ever gone into a record going like, okay, we're going to make a record about this or that or whatever.

Like you have a couple different riffs or songs that you like. Or I think what you're saying is like even having a focus or let's just maybe we should just, I'm thinking about this direction or I'm thinking about a bit more of a modern sound laced with you know some old or a lyrical focus or anything i think you're you know i that's why when you come out of the other end of it i think other groups can do that or obviously people write uh you know, concept conceded records, but they I'll never live down that one. They have a

they're able to, we've just never been able to do that. And I guess what I was going to say is that that's what makes it kind of even more kind of exciting and thrilling. And there was a mystery and a bit of magic that came out of simple musical problem-solving and working together. And then all of a sudden it becomes this cohesive work that feels like a completed thing that had some aim and direction to it but that doesn't always happen i don't think it ever happens with us i just don't well say i think

like this album was more wistful than any album i can remember from you guys. I listened to it and it sounded like an album of guys who have been doing this for a while and who are a little older now and are thinking about stuff in a different way. Was that the wrong takeaway? I guess every album hits people differently. Well, maybe if you're talking about authenticity, you're writing what you know.

Right. And then i'd be curious to see what somebody under 20 thinks about it come or what how they relate to it as in in juxtaposition to someone who has grown up with us yeah or is a similar age and maybe can relate more or have a little more insight as maybe as neutral as some of the lyrics could be on an interpretive level um i think you would understand they might they might connect quicker if you're um our age but you know it's crazy because I always go back to who by numbers which was the the who record and there was some very autobiographical songs by Pete Townsend

and you know however much I booze how many friends have I really got you know these kind of and I was 15 and I totally related to all that stuff. Right. They're really the songs directly transmitted from a guy in his mid-30s. When I got to my mid-30s, I understood them even more, but they were still anthems to me as a kid. One of the songs, Waiting for Stevie, which is really good, One of the songs, Waiting for Stevie, which is really good.

You had the lyric, you can be loved by everyone and still not feel that you were loved. So that was really interesting. I don't know if you would have dropped that one in the mid-90s. Right? I don't know if I should drop it now. It just kind of came out. I like it.

And then, I don't know. I should drop it now. It just kind of came out, you know. I like it. And then, I don't know, I just felt like start to finish, the album kind of grabbed me. Does this mean like the process now, you guys have to go to a weird location? Just lock yourself in a room? I just think any time that, you know, that the five of us can get into a room and be focused and just be all hands on deck for 10 days, there's a chance that some really good stuff's going to come out of it. And it's the best thing. Just give it to him.

Just give him 10 days a year. Well, no, but it's him and three others, but it's the, it's the real reason to keep the band together. Yeah. We get to do that. And like some, and some, and we, sometimes we get together and it doesn't, you know, it's not happening and it might be because maybe not everybody's on board or on the same page. Whatever. But that was the great thing about this record was, you know,

I think the way that Andrew had it set up, it was... There weren't TVs. There wasn't very good cell service. What were we doing for basketball? I wasn't watching it. Like, we had one... Wow, you were cold turkey. We had one day off in the middle of it. And I watched the Gonzaga game in the NCAAs.

That was the only TV I looked at. But you don't need it. You don't need the basketball. Yeah, I was busy. I want to go through all 12 albums really quick. When I say the name of the album, what's the thing you think of? 10, what do you think of? I'm stumped already.

Come on, just do it. 10. Even flow. I'll come back to that one. I got a better one, rope swing. That's good. Rope swing. That's good. Rope swing? Okay.

Versus what's the first thing you think of? Softball. Softball. I'm terrible at this. You're terrible? Should I just abandon this? Vitology? Accordion.

Accordion? Accordion. Accordion? Accordion. That we were making that record kind of along a tour in different cities. See, now Jeff's getting the game. Now he's doing like real memories. Okay. So you're doing that record as you're on tour. And you have some regrets on it?

No, just no. I mean, maybe. I mean, we recorded a couple songs in New Orleans, a couple songs in Atlanta, a couple songs in Seattle. It's a hat pass. Is that Weirdotology? Yeah. Okay.

No Code, did we do New Orleans as well? No Code. Oh, we started to, and then, yeah then, and then, yeah. Okay. Did a couple of days. No code. Uh, Polaroids. Polaroids. Okay. Yield. The cover. Yield. Man, I, maybe one of my, along with the new record, um, one of my favorite records that we made. Really? Yeah. It felt like, like, like the way Jack was playing with this and like, and it felt like

there's maybe like a, I don't know, like we came through a fire, some kind of fire a little bit, maybe. I don't know, like we came through some kind of fire a little bit, maybe. I don't know. And that felt really creative. Yeah. 1998 was my favorite Pearl Jam year for this reason. Well, first of all, I like when a band's been together for a few years. And then when you're in concert, you're going wherever.

You actually have this library of songs. That's the point. You're together eight years. You're going to have 50, 60, 70 songs you can play in a concert. But you also have fans that they're not just chanting the lyrics to that. But this music means something to them. It's been with them. It's been in their lives for a while.

And then you guys have all been playing together for a while, so you have a certain chemistry. And I just feel like that year six, year seven, year eight is just a good time for really good bands. I think if you go through like that's usually around there. Eddie's looking at me like I'm crazy. Well, I think that's when the set list problem started. What was the set list problem? It's probably where it started to you know like start to get a little

wonky with the set list well i don't know well i was just thinking like that might have been like kind of the sweet spot where like there's only 50 60 songs and the puzzle is probably like manageable you know like yeah and as it gets further down the road there's 200 songs and and then the puzzle gets it's a it's a big puzzle of like a lake of just like water of a lake it's all blue i think how many nights did we play in philadelphia to close the spectrum was that three or four four so i think we did four shows are these these chairs they're a day off yeah the special The special chairs. Uh-huh. Spectrum. And that was, it wasn't just the last concert. I think Chicago Stadium were the last concert. But this was the last event.

I mean, it was wrecking ball. This is it, yeah. After the, but I think we played 110 different songs in the four nights, something like that. Seriously? I think there was only a few repeats over the whole, like maybe three songs were repeated somehow in those four days. I mean, it was, remember those pens with the blue and green and yellow? Right.

Yeah, it was all color-coded. Well, it seems like that didn't take very long but well the you guys used the internet eventually really well with the

how to build anticipation for oh oh they played they played that song I can't believe they did that

and I don't know it's it's something that feels like it came maybe in somewhere in the 2000s and then now you have Instagram and a lot of the bands or whoever works for the band or whatever,

and they'll post whatever the set list is for that thing. It's like, oh man, they played that. And it just feels like part of, I don't know, when a band has the library plus the performances plus coming back to the city. It's like, oh, they were in Boston, they did this. When a band has the library plus the performances, plus they coming back to the city, it's like, oh, they were in Boston, they did this. It gets cool after a while.

And our fans are really forgiving. Like we will occasionally, last minute at a song we haven't played in five years and we might not play it great. And they're all in, which is, you know. I mean, I remember us seeing that Grateful, there was a, we went and saw three Grateful Dead shows in Las Vegas. Did we? Yeah. Yeah.

Three Grateful Dead shows. I thought it was just one really long one. But I remember, but I remember the second show, the crowd, it was the loudest I heard the crowd all weekend. Yeah. remember the second show the crowd it was the loudest i heard the crowd all weekend yeah and i turned to this guy who he was our truck he was our trucking guy who had driven with me down from i said what's going on what's going on he goes oh they're playing he named some song they haven't played this since 1972 and i was like whoa like it was like the loudest the crowd got was when they were playing a song they hadn't played in wow wow, 20 years. And I thought, that's something. Like, that crowd. Yeah, that'll...

That's something. That's when we decided we're going to stick around for at least 30 years. There are benefits that will be reaped. Did you follow the Taylor Swift tour at all? Was your daughter in tour? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. What did you think of the mechanics of that tour? How long it was? Some of the gimmicks she used with it? One of the interesting things was she was doing what we're

talking about. She would play each concert, she would play some song and they would know it was like, oh my God, she's going to play this or she'd do a cover. And it seemed like it built this strange momentum around what the song was going to be for each city. Well, it illustrates what happens when she's an artist who's respectful of her audience. And I know from my daughter that she's really kind of incredible at planting these little this is this like on this hidden codes and you know they can pick up and then all of a sudden they it it activates um all those people that are listening and and has them involved in it and it's it's it's i think it's done in a very creative way and um and and she changes it up and and there's talk about you know what she played that night and

what she played you know and she's the other thing that she has working so well for her is she's incredibly prolific. So she's able to just kind of... She really is. I don't fully understand it. Putting out music and putting out music. I mean, my daughter's turned me on to this one B-side that I just think is incredible. It's just an incredible song. And I think it was a B-side or something.

Yeah, she did a 31-song album, even though she was also doing the tour every night like i think she wrote and came up with a lot of songs on the tour which so yeah i say she's prolific is an understatement and i think her producer choices too i think like a couple records ago choosing to work with the aaron destner guy The National, like, and Bon Iver, like, those songs to me are the most interesting songs, because I think that palette I like. But I think she's, you know, I think she's not afraid to change

and change in a way that maybe is kind of anti-pop in some ways, you know? Right. Which is, I have huge props for that yeah there's like an ability to subtly reinvent yourself over and over again is a really hard thing to do and it's like one of the biggest the biggest uh dilemmas an artist has as they get older right she's usually pop artists don't last more than six seven eight years and she's at like 16 i read a kind of not great review in New York Times

yesterday or the day before. And I was like, well, of course, like she's, she's at this. Oh, the backlash is here? Yeah, kind of. But it's, but it's, she's in, she's in a place that maybe two or three other artists, musical people have ever been in.

Like the, I mean, it's like, it's nuts. It's like. It's like her, Michael Jackson and the Beatles. Probably, probably it's nuts. It's like her, Michael Jackson, and the Beatles. Probably, that's it. I mean, so it makes sense that there's a backlash. I mean, I don't know how you even level that off. She's a really good person, and I also hear that she handles stress really well,

so that'll come in handy. Can you get her on stage? Can you get her on this thing like, just yank her on for one of the concerts? You guys are going on tour soon. I might be able to get Jason Kelsey on stage. Go through the Kelsey, see if you can get her. What can your band learn from some of the younger artists

and how they use all the stuff we have now? Anything? I'm not going to. You're done. You're like you are. I'd rather just. So we're not going to see you doing Instagram shorts or none of that stuff?

I don't know. No? I don't think so. Yeah, I don't.. No? I don't think so. What would, yeah, I don't. I think you're good. I don't think you need it. I'd rather, yeah, there's, it wasn't like, you know, it's almost like, you know, you're, how do you say? It's just not, I feel like an animal, a human that's evolved. I didn't grow up with that kind of stuff.

I didn't grow up. And I kind of like. You just don't get it. Well, I don't think I want to. I don't think it would add more than it would take away. What if you just did an Instagram post every day where you just reviewed a bottle of wine that you like? That's Eddies Wine. And become an alcoholic. There's more

takeaways. Well, what about when you're performing and you always have a bottle of wine? Tonight I reviewed six bottles of wine for you. Well, maybe when you're performing, you're telling the audience what the wine was that night. I give this rating a 93. It was delicious. Great bouquet of the Sparolo. Think about it. Ask your daughter.

Maybe your daughter can help out. Yeah, it sounds like a slippery slope. It might be. Yeah, you might be in a good spot what have you guys learned about doing interviews over the last 30 plus years because you you went through phases where you just didn't do anything and now you kind of pick your spots so what yeah i mean the best part about doing just a handful of them after you've made a record is I said I think it I think it sort of helps you understand the record it you know you're sort of talking about the record for the first time and you're

and I think sometimes even in that process you start talking about each other in ways that maybe you hadn't. So I get excited about it because I feel like you learn something. You learn something about yourself and the band. But you guys roomed together. You didn't need to learn anything else about Eddie. Didn't you room together for like two years? Yeah. Yeah, that was, that was the kind of the book club room.

Weren't you guys a giant band? Why did, why didn't you guys have your own rooms? Well, I don't understand that part. We, we did as soon as, yeah.

As soon as we could. As soon as we could. I mean, it was like 150 shows at first. So it was a, it was a year and a half straight of touring. Just two double beds? Did one of you like the window more than the other? Or like, how'd you?

I think we got along pretty good. Yeah, I don't remember, I don't remember like running in to get the window bed or whatever. The verse is toward, he's like, I want my own room. I can't live like running in to get the window bed or whatever. He's like, I want my own room. I can't live with Jeff anymore. He's putting on basketball at two in the morning. No, we were pretty aligned.

And as Stone brought up the other day, him and Mike were pretty aligned as well. Yeah. So I think we naturally split off into the, you know, and we were probably going to have like some John Martin playing or some Portishead or something, and maybe some little drapey things over the lights and some incense. And it was kind of like, you know, and then we'd read our books and, and then you could hear those, those guys yucking it up next door, really loud and laughing. We were just, it was different.

How many people from like those first two tours are still involved with you guys in some way? Yeah. Like 30%, 40%? Oh, no, no, more. More? Yeah. I mean, Smitty.

I mean, we've grown, so we've had a few extra people in the kind of tour crew. Yeah. And the warehouse crew, but I'd say most, most everybody's been with us 20 years and then a big part from day one, still here. Yeah, probably half of the first 10 people, probably half of those people are still with us. Go on, speed round. Will you ever play the super bowl i it's not at the top of my wish list any reason yeah it's a lot of work

super bowl yeah i mean never say never eddie seems a little more excited about it oh no this is like no that you thought that was exciting yeah

I thought I thought there was a hop in your step for a second nah that's Super Bowl alright

um what are you saying on the ticket industry I feel bad for the players you know the players I mean

that's their whole that's like everything in this sport that's so incredibly popular. And then it's... And then there's a 35-minute break. The biggest game of the year.

With all the... Yeah. I think it's disrespectful to the players. That's my take on it. Where do you stand on the ticket industry these days?

It's been a rocky road the last 30 years. Where are we now? With the ticket industry? Yeah. Well, you've got a big issue with what they call the secondhand market. It's horrible, yeah. It's still bad.

That's where you're having a lot of the difficulties stem from there. And it would be great to have some legislation to protect people from having that be the situation where you have to go through, you know, between the bot you know what we go through just to vet somebody trying to get a ticket and and clean out like the bot thing yeah you know i mean i think the the day of an on sale i think there's you know tens and tens and thousands of artificial entities trying to acquire this. And somehow that's not better. It just feels like I would have thought by 2024 we would have been able to clean up some pieces of this.

It's battling out-of-control capitalism. It's just like everybody's trying to make money off of something all the time. I think we do as good of a job as anybody in terms of we have a really loyal fan club and people that run it that really care about it.

We try really hard to get tickets in the hands of our fans. Did you see the vinyl come back, coming back? Did you ever imagine a million years vinyl would return? We're hopeful. It was more popular than CDs this year. Like literally. About time.

Sold more vinyl than CDs this year. Yeah. Do you see that coming? No. Any explanation? Well, you know, I think when kids, you know,

when the youth thinks it's cool, and I'm not sure exactly how that happened, but yeah. It seems more decorative in some cases than anything. It's almost like they like having them put them on their desk or whatever, but not actually open them. Well, maybe that's good that finally something physical had gone so far the other way. The pendulum.

Yeah. It was simply Spotify. There was no lyrics. There was no lyrics. There was no artwork. There was no, you know, it was a thumbnail of what you would buy. Right. And, you know, to have it kind of swing back where, you know, something tangible and, you know, vinyl does sound better.

And it's kind of interactive, and I'm really proud that when I look around and see the people, especially younger folks appreciating vinyl, me and Jack White are thrilled. It's a little like baseball cards where a lot of people threw out their vinyl not realizing the vinyl was making a comeback. It's like, oh shit!

My mom threw those out three years ago. And a Willie Mays rookie card. You know what's amazing is I found some I got an old ghetto blaster and and then just listening to tapes on it, like tapes I had used, they were already kind of beat in. They just sound incredible.

Yeah. Once your ear gets tuned into it, it's pretty great. Once you get used to like- The warmth and whatever, compared to- Not being there. Digital, yeah. You guys happy with Spotify these days? I am.

Yeah? Okay. Just had to ask. You know, our first record didn't come out on vinyl. Like, probably the months right before that. Is that true? Yeah, 10 did not come out on vinyl in the States.

And I remember we got, we were getting copies of the record and i didn't have a cd player yet yeah and i'm i remember like listening to our first record on cassette that was what i listened to wow yeah jesus have you followed tempo the dog came out on vinyl yeah no but 10 didn't because 10 didn't because I think we were like a small band and so they didn't have to, and I think they were squeezing that out. By that time, cassette tapes and CDs felt like they'd taken over the long run. Have you followed the AI stuff at all, either of you? Like just where this is potentially going with artists?

Not really, but a little bit, I guess. We're moving toward an era where somebody can just do an ai pearl jam song and then you get i guess you would get half the royalties or 80 i don't know how the royalties work but it feels like similar to sampling and hip-hop in the late 80s and i don't know how it plays out you know you know i had a conversation with a young artist the other day and they were talking about using ai as a tool to write yeah and how you know just really excited about all this stuff and i i listened for 15 20 minutes and then i said man you know you're you're really missing out on like the best part the points of music yeah well no just the best

part of writing music like when it when you're writing music and it's coming out of like you know the you know you're basically it's osmosis like you're listening to music and you're thinking all the time about ways that you'd want to make music and it just gets scrambled up in there and then when you sit down with your guitar and you start to play it feels like magic it feels like magic went so that i think if And then when you sit down with your guitar and you start to play, it feels like magic. It feels like magic. So I think if you sit down and you're like, I'm getting on my computers and I'm going to look and see what AI is going to come up with when I want to make a cross between a PJ Harvey song and a Nick Cave song and see what that, you know, as a tool, I think you're missing out on like that magical moment when like

you play something, you go like, Whoa, that's cool. Where'd that come from? Right. Like that, the wonder of that moment. I think, I don't know. I, so that was my argument back was that I was like, man, don't, that could be maybe one little part of your thing, but don't lose the other part where you're just, you're just sitting down and... Creating something. Yeah, and opening yourself up to your environment and your... You agree with that? I mean, isn't there a power in listening to a new Springsteen song or a new Olivia Rodrigo,

and anybody's new song, and know that that came from Olivia Rodrigo and what she's been through, and Bruce and what he's been going through, or what he's learned, or he's singing about his growing up playing music with these young guys, and they were all kids, and now he's the last man standing.

Isn't there, that's part of what you appreciate. It just seems it would feel rather strange. Inauthentic. To be listening to someone going, yeah, I don't know. Did he write it? Did he not write it? Is that real? Is it, did he, it doesn't, you know,

I think it's a real slippery slope. I don't know where the positives are. I mean, I think this whole, you know, to sound like, you know, totally antiquated, somebody still uses a typewriter. In fact, I've regressed into calligraphy. I'll be fucking carving stones soon. Carving stones would be interesting.

Hey, are you done with that lyric yet? Well, I know. Eddie carved three stones today. You've got to think a lot. Even with calligraphy, you edit a little bit more before you – you're not just scribbling but so to think about um you know where it could go with you know and what are they doing they're they're kind of it's an algorithm that's supposed to know what you would say based on you know i i i what i've read is that it's moving

very very quickly and no one's like stepping in to kind of have some control over it. I think you're right. So that I would think would be the problem. And, you know, when they talk about how, you know, um, what's the word when it, when it, uh, that, that word, when they computers talk to each other, it says, uh, not concede, not symmetries, not symbolism. It's that, um, I know what you mean. I can't think of theetries, not symbolism. It's that. I know what you mean. I can't think of the word either. But yeah. Symbiosis. Like what happens if somebody,

I guess it hasn't happened yet, but at some point there's going to be an incredibly popular song that's just created out of a computer based on somebody's work. And it'll be like that Whip Em, Gang Em style type of song where it'll just be this catchy song that becomes a phenomenon and people will be like, whoa, nobody made this.

And then what do we do? And then it'll be this other thing where people don't trust something else. And it's like... Right. Then you're in a Milli Vanilli situation. It did remind... Did you ever hear the rumor back in like 1980 that Tom Schultz from Boston

fed all the greatest songs in the world into a computer and came up with the 10 boss songs on the first Boston record? Like, you know, Beethoven and the Beatles. No, he was just a good songwriter. That would be an amazing documentary if that was actually true.

He was way ahead of his time with computers. He'd be the best. Hey, if Seattle gets a basketball team back, which is going to happen as soon as they finish this media deal. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's happening. Yeah. All right.

Why can't you guys be like minority investors? Can you get in on that? It's too late. No, you can't you guys be like minority investors? Can you get in on that? It's too late. No, you can sneak in there. I mean, if Howard Schultz would have offered that to us. Oh my God. Can you imagine? 15 years ago, I would have been all in.

I'm still so mad. I'm still so mad about that. Like I'm still mad at. I know it's like half of our conversation. I'm mad at Howard Schultz and I'm a little bit mad at David Stern. You should be a lot mad at David Stern. We were talking about... I invested all my money in AI, so...

We were talking about Kevin Durant who has bounced around in different teams, right? He was in Oklahoma City, he's Seattle, they moved to Oklahoma City, Seattle. They moved to Oklahoma City, goes to Golden State, decides to leave. He goes to Brooklyn. Now he goes to Phoenix. And it's like, if the Sonics just stay, he never leaves Seattle. His career is probably even greater than it's been. I think he's easily one of the 20 best players, but now he's like the king of Seattle, right? He's like what Russell Wilson was for four years, but for 20.

And it's just like this amazing sliding doors moment. Like I actually feel bad for him because it seems like he's been searching for the right situation ever since. And he talks about Seattle a lot. He loves it. Once a year, like he's rocking the Jersey and saying something about it.

Oh, I think he, when they get the team, I bet he finishes bet he comes back i could see it happening that'd be great yeah see you're getting excited for this now yeah courtside i'm still trying courtside well i don't know where i just got i i don't know if i tell this but i just got courtside tickets to the san diego clippers next winter so so you heard about that, right? The LA Clippers, their farm team. Oh, the G League team. They're going to Oceanside. Oh, San Diego. Oh, wow.

Wow, that's cool. I like that. Good uniforms. Yeah, it has to be. The world be free. The world be free, yeah. Unfortunately, Donald Sterling. Yeah, that was where Magic played his first game. He threw the, Kareem had the skyhook and won the game and Magic ran over and hugged him.

And Kareem was like, what the hell is going on? Don't hug me. This guy hugging me, don't touch me. Wow. All right, so you're going on tour six months. Are you ready for this? Seven months? Yeah, sure. Yeah. tour six months are you ready for this seven months yeah sure yeah what what wines what are we is it a different wine each city like what's the wine plan uh it's usually like a brolo or you know nothing too fancy you don't go like i'm, I'm in Philly. I'm going to Pinot Noir it up tonight like that?

No. See, this is why we need the Instagram. Right. You want the, yeah. So Barolos. Yeah, that would be a nice cab or whatever they got. It's really just, I like the way it makes the throat feel. And it just, you know, I used to worry about my throat all the time

and it used to go out all the time, like the first couple years. Because you weren't taking care of it? No, because I was. Oh. You know, no carbonation, no carbonated drinks, no beer, no alcohol, no smoke. Didn't want to be around smoke, you know? I mean. Oh, so you had to like toughen your throat up.

Well, I just had to like get over it and have some fun, you know? I was, you know, just constantly thinking about it and and you know and we were only playing 45 to 60 minute shows you know and then i remember watching uh there's a little club called odd fellows up here and and mud honey was playing and and and there was this crowded room you know about this big but just know, 60 people in a 25 capacity room and smoking and drinking and loud and cloud and Mark Arm being in there and then, and then going out and singing his tail off and just screaming in perfect pitch. And, and, and he was having a blast and I said, you know? I'm going to try that.

And the rest was history. How many six do you smoke a day usually? Oh, no, I quit a long time ago. You quit a long time ago? All right. What are your bad vices? Anything? My bad vices.

Oh, geez. We're going to be here. Online gambling? One of my bad vices, anything? My bad vices. Oh, geez, we're going to be here. Online gambling? One of my bad vices, probably. Just for him to come up with one is going to take a while. Probably chocolate, probably. Probably sugar. Chocolate? But I don't have bad chocolate.

I don't eat, you know. But yeah, chocolate. I really don't have bad chocolate. I don't eat, you know, but yeah, chocolate. I really don't hardly drink anymore. I eat pretty good. He's ready for the tour. Mostly it's about feeling good. Mostly it's like, just like, how do I wake up tomorrow and not feel like shit? And so I sort of, whatever I have to do to do that. You don't agree with this?

No, I just, I forget it until the morning. And I remember that thing that Jeff said. What does your daughter nag you about? Nag me about? Yeah. Dad, why do you do this? Nothing? Because I don't believe that. Because I have a daughter who's like I think a year younger than you. Dad, you got to take care of yourself. Dad, you got to do this. Oh, nag me about

what? No. No. Nothing? They just let you fly. No, I'm more nagging them a bit. What are you nagging them about? If you're going to use the studio, you've got to put everything back the way it was.

I don't mind. I appreciate your wanting to sing or play guitar, but you've got to put the stuff back. Or clean up the art supplies. wanting to sing or play guitar, but you've got to put the stuff back or, you know, support or clean up the art supplies. You can't, you can't just leave. I mean, if you imagine, you know,

all these nice paintbrushes, you know, paintbrushes are expensive. Or your stones that you carve into. Painting all of them. Drag paint. Oh yeah. If they dull my.

Yeah. That's how you communicate. Yeah. Do you really use a typewriter? I've always had. Like, even now, in 2024? I can fix a typewriter. I can't fix a computer. Absolutely.

I like the... There's a West... Not even like a word processor? An actual typewriter? Typewriter. You can change a ribbon, like, that fast. ribbon like yeah yeah you do well and then you have to rewind it every probably twice a session is it an expensive typewriter no well there's like an old school like 80s typewriter my first type well not my first

typewriter but one that i really liked it came from a little goodwill kind of thing in West Seattle and that still has the masking I think I wrote probably use that for the first four records or record two three four probably five but that has a mass piece of masking tape says eight dollars so I could return a good return on the investment. I was so happy when word processors showed up because I was such a bad typer. I'm a two-finger typer. Even when I was writing my sports columns for 20 years, I was like

doing this. But I could type really fast. It was like people would watch me on an airplane or in Starbucks or something. They'd be like, how do you type so fast with two fingers? That's cool. I don't know. Like a Mickey Spillane.

Yeah, I don't know. I never learned how to, I never took a class. So I always kind of just figured out how to type. So, and then when I got the BlackBerry, I was like, that was probably the peak of my productivity because I could just do this. But iPhone, I can't type on. iPhone has just beaten me. I'm just like...

My favorite typewriter now, it has a calligraphy font. And it's called the Torpedo. It's from East Germany. 1962, I think. It's cool. And you use the Torpedo from Eastern Germany? Mostly every day. It's amazing information. I had no torpedo from Eastern Germany? Mostly every day. That's amazing information.

I had no idea. I'll send you a picture. That's cool. I'll send you the, I'll send you, I'll find one for you. We're wrapping this up because you're going to show us all your baseball stuff. Well, some of it. I'm going to ask a lot of questions. I'm going to be super curious.

Hey, sorry I failed. I thought I'd be good at that kind of password thing. Oh, we never finished. We had six albums left. Alright, come on. Go. You're going to find it. Hold on. Binaural? Stereo.

Chad Black's dog. Riot Act? Chess pieces. Stereo. Chad Black's dog. Riot Act? Chess pieces. Studio X, I don't know. Wow. Not a lot of memories of Riot Act, huh? Oh, there's a lot.

Yeah. Pearl Jam? I guess that was the 2006 album. Oh, yeah. It was basically called Pearl Jam. It had no title. I mean, well, Adam Casper, but also I remember Ray Cameron playing drums and telling us what to play. Oh, yeah, man. He was like, hey, play less.

He was like. Eighth? Or maybe younger. Yeah, he'd sat behind his dad's drum kit. And he was telling us, OK, you stop playing. I remember he was like, that's awesome. Backspacer? Oh, can I just share one?

Yeah. We had this idea. We had song title, album titles just kind of written on on Post-it notes, and we're sticking them on the back. It was a piece of foam in the back of the studio. And then one day, I think there was a... I don't know. The word avocado got put down.

So then I started thinking about this very neutral color with a blue. So we're going to do a test shot of an avocado. We kind of had an idea. Was that with Brad? Brad was going to come down with his camera, and we kind of painted a blue backdrop. And then so on the way to the studio, I went in to get a couple good avocados, right?

Yeah. You know, like this that looked kind of perfect. And what I didn't realize was super bowl sunday i think it was seattle against the steelers wow that's super bowl yeah and so i get it and i'm just gonna just quit going to the store race to the studio and there's just like it's some, the store is packed. It's just like you can't even, like I can't even believe why there's so many people in the store. And then I realized. And then I, but anyways, I made it to the avocados.

And I was kind of like, really like inspecting. No, I was like auditioning avocados. And I saw, like, three people that kind of recognized me, and they were just staring at me, just going, what the fuck is he doing? He's so meticulous about his avocados. He's a big fan of the avocados and typewriters and but that's my thought on it i remember george was george brought in the remember he put the stealer's helmet on the tv right afterwards i was about to kill him

well i actually brought that helmet in oh you, you did? Yeah. Oh, my God. I never told you. Jesus. Well, didn't he put the jersey on his dog or something? I just remember that was a painful one. There were some kind of questionable calls in that second half of that Super Bowl, too. Was that in Detroit? Oh, that was like a borderline. That Super Bowl might have been rigged.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a controversial one. Lightning Bolt? Jerry Lopez. Jerry Lopez. Jerry Lopez. What do you got, Jeff? Listening to Sirens in Ed's room.

Oh, hotel room. Yeah. Right after he finished the vocal. It was just a demo. And the 220 album is, that's got to be COVID's the thing you think of Gigaton oh

Gigaton made right over there right next door that whole record and then Dark Matter you'll just think of Malibu which is sunshine that's a good

sunshine it was just like white rooms it you know it actually like basically snowed while we were there

it was cold and rainy. Yeah. Pretty much the whole time. Southern California is, I don't know what's going on. Yeah. Supposedly, I don't know if this is true, but I saw it on the internet, so it might be true. Supposedly, LA has had more rain in 2024 than Seattle so far.

Probably. It's dry. Yeah. Dry here. No, you know, it's a a really it was a great great place to record but it wasn't i wouldn't say it was you know it's not fancy it's kind of utilitarian but with a lot of vibe you know jeff and i were talking before about there's there's some songs in that album that are gonna to kick ass in concert.

You know, sometimes you hear, and you're like, that's going to be a good one. On a scale of one to porch, as you know, my favorite concert, one to porch, there's some ones that are creeping toward porch. And I don't know, there's no way that's intentional as you're making a song, but then sometimes they just translate. There's no rhyme or reason to it. Well, I think what's cool about the record is you can listen to the rhythm section and the drums, and it was recorded quick enough to where he's kind of playing on instinct

and just kind of free flowing in that it's almost like a dog. After you've rinsed it off, just shaking. It's like just what he can do. It's like somebody at the peak of their power is playing their instrument. I mean, it's really kind of shockingly incredible. And we are living in a time of great, great drummers. There's a lot of great drummers and great young drummers,

but it's an exciting, just his performance and the way they lock it together on this record especially. I think that's a reason I'll always appreciate listening to this one. And if you listen to the, is it Got2Give? Is that the one? I like the bass line so much. I mean, they're all good, but it's incredible. You guys have had a couple drummers.

But not, we haven't had a new drummer in 26 years, 27 years. It's part of the early history. Centrifugal force of those early years. They just fly. Everyone wants to fly off. All right, we're going to look at some baseball stuff. This was fun. Thanks, Bill. Good hang.

Yeah. Finally. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Rob Mahoney. Thanks to Eddie Vedder and Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam. Don't forget about Dark Matter. Thanks so much for letting me come to Seattle and hang out with you guys. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti as well. Don't forget about Dark Matter. Thanks so much for letting me come to Seattle and hang out with you guys. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti as well. Don't forget to go to youtube.com slash Bill Simmons if you want to watch anything you heard today, including the Pearl Jam interview that we did.

You can see what their warehouse and their studio looks like. And I'm going to be back on this feed on Sunday with Rassel. See you then. I'm a person never lost Must be 21+, 18+, DC, and present in select states. Fandle, offering online sports wager in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino, LLC. Gambling problem?

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