The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Luke Kornet Game and Tatum’s Road Back With David Jacoby. Plus, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by David Jacoby to react to the Celtics taking Game 5 against the Knicks and Jayson Tatum’s injury (3:42). Then, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert joins to discuss where the league is, Caitlin Clark, and much more (01:09:16). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: David Jacoby and Cathy Engelbert Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo Try Loom today, visit loom.com to get started 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

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please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and help lines available in this and then episode for additional details. Must be 21 plus and President Select States, game prom called Win 800 Gamble or visit rg-help.com. Coming up, the Celtics are still alive and we're gonna talk some WNBA. Yeah, how about that podcast? Game prom call 1-800-GAMBORG or visit rg-help.com. Get instant cash advances. Build your credit history. Stop wishing money management was simple because with Coho it already is. Sign up today with code SimmonsCoho K-O-H-O for two months free of the everything plan. Once again, that's SimmonsCoho. Get one of Canada's best interest rates, 2% cash back on groceries, transit and dining,

no foreign transaction fees and more. Download the app today. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network where I have a new rewatchables coming next Monday because it's still big ass 70s month. We did Death Wish this week. Next week we're doing Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Steven Spielberg, 1977. Huge movie, awesome movie. It's gonna be me and Sean and Chris Ryan.

We also did a little thing for Ringer Movies about the Superman trailer. If you subscribe to the Ringer Movies YouTube channel, you can subscribe to the Bill Simmons YouTube channel as well where I'm gonna be going live tomorrow night, Thursday with Rob Mahoney after OKC Denver game six, four podcasts this week. It's that time of year. A lot of basketball going on. We didn't even get to talk with Dave Jacoby, who's coming up in a second about

where's Minnesota because that series was over the moment Steph Curry got hurt. Jimmy Butler at this point in his career was not able to win Golden State a game. No shots fired at Jimmy Butler. I just think he's at a slightly different stage of his career. And Minnesota is really, really good. So we'll talk about that. We'll talk about Minnesota versus whoever wins tomorrow night with Rob Mahoney tomorrow night. We'll see if the Joker has one more great performance in him.

Stay tuned. So that's tomorrow night, today's podcast talking to Dave Jacobi about Celtics, Knicks game five, the Tatum injury, the fallout, um, some, some thoughts after having a day to sit with it and the next to spot there in and a whole bunch of topics that came out of tonight, the Luke Kornick game and then, uh, WNBA commissioner, Kathy Engelbert, came on to talk about the upcoming season, where the league is at, big picture,

and I just wanted to pick her brain because the league is at a fascinating moment right now as it heads into almost its third decade. So that was a really fun conversation. We taped that on Monday. And before we get to the podcast, just wanted to remind everybody on Fandl, I'm doing Taylor fade every week. And we're going to be doing it for Thursday nights. Okay. See Denver game.

And that is going to be a prop with Yoke-age points, rebounds. I'm going over. I would advise you to tell me, but you can go check it out. They had a profit boost to it though. So go check out the Fandual sports book app um, before the game on Thursday. Anyway, big podcast coming first, our friends from ProJet. All right. Recording this part of the podcast a little before 7 PT. Once upon a time, you knew him as the czar of reality TV and he ran all the audio and video for Grantland a job that many people have tried to take credit for but

I can promise you he did it now he is the host of the mismatch along with Chris Vernon among many other things my guy Dave Jacoby is here die easy Nick's fan I did book this before we knew the results of game five, just for the record. You're an asshole. It's, it's, I, this really could have gone two ways. I'm not really happy the way it went, to be honest with you.

You know, I'm really not happy with the way it went. What did you think was gonna happen? Yeah, I mean, I guarantee you didn't think we would be calling this on the podcast title for this episode, Luke cornet game X Nick by the way Westchester Nick legend, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yes There's I remember hearing from Nick fans be like, there's this guy in Westchester. He's like seven feet tall He hits threes and he's got ball skills

Was the three-point shooting even shoot threes now. Yeah. But no, I do think the Knicks will eventually win the series, but I had a feeling they would lose this one. And now it just, I don't feel good about anything right now, because now it's just like you have to win game seven. My game is group chat game six. You're right.

My next group chat has gone from we need to trade for Giannis right around game three to who do you think would be a better matchup in the finals, the thunder or the wolves to must win game six in the garden. There was no, no, like four hours there of, are you guys worried about the Pacers at all? And then people reassuring each other, no, no, we're not worried about them at all. No, none of that.

Okay, because the Pacers are really good. Oh, the Pacers, yes, the Pacers are really good. And also the, you know, I revisited the Pacers Knicks series from last season and I had to like sort of freshen up on it because I remember game seven was such a big deal and everyone was hurt and OG tried to play. It's just like Brunson's hurt and no one was there. But like game one and game two, kind of like this series that came down to the end and remember Carl L got kicked

out of a game. I forgot about that and he's like small market teams deserve fouls too. There's some chippiness. There was some real like stuff there. It was a good series. Worse if it's Pacers, Knicks this year, it'll be even worse. And let's be honest, it's probably going to be Pacers. I'll just tell you my mindset. First of all, I was hearing, my dad was there. And it was a late arriving crowd cause it was a seven o'clock start plus a shitload of traffic.

And there were some Knicks fans because I think some Celtic fans after the Tatum injury were like putting the tickets on. So you could hear the Knicks things. They show Chalamet at one point, courtside. And it turned into a not in our house. We can't let this happen. Every time you heard the Knicks three or some sort of good Knicks play in the

first, uh, you know, 40 minutes of the game, first foot, like real time 40 minutes, and you could hear the loud Knicks fans and it was like, this is really awful if the Knicks like win this. Their fans are celebrating. It cuts to the end, the wide shot. Only the Knicks fans are left. Chalamet is pointing at people. I was like, I just, we gotta win this.

It turned into Hoosiers and the Celtics rose to the challenge to Kobe. They did. It was a good Celtics game. I mean, we'll talk about the basketball stuff in a second, but I do want to say, I heard that Chalamet listens to the podcast and I'm very excited about that.

I'm excited that he's supporting the Knicks. listens to the podcast and I'm very excited about that. I'm excited that he's supporting the Knicks. Bringing the Kardashian element wasn't my favorite thing to happen in game four. Right. Like I'm just gonna say like I love that you're here, Timothy Chalamet. I love you support the Knicks. When he went to road games and sat next to Stiller behind the Pistons bench in Detroit, I was like, all right, I love this, you know, and the game day thing. Yeah, real fan acting like a real fan. Yes, I was like, I love this. But it was when when you bring a girlfriend, that's fine.

But your girlfriend's sister and then it becomes about them and their outfits. And you know, it's going to sort of like make the press. I didn't love the Kardashian element that we saw. You remember once upon a time, our guy Ben Affleck, 03 range, Red Sox had and won a World Series in over eight decades, and he brought JLo, Yankee fan, grew up in the Bronx, literally called Jenny from the Bronx,

and brought her into the good Red Sox seats for Red Sox Yankees, and it was like, that was when the arm turned on Affleck for a little bit. Yes, same thing with Sheldon. It's your buddy that has a girlfriend who golfs. You know what I mean? It's like, I'm so excited that your girlfriend golfs.

I'm excited that she's gonna be joining us, but it's gonna change the vibe. That's sort of how I felt about the Kardashians being at the next game. We're not gonna have our buddy to have nine beers and he's throwing up behind the 10th hole and asking the caddy master for... Afterwards, we're going straight home.

Yeah. Yeah. It's just like, all right. Yeah. I didn't love the Kardashian. I'll be put like, I will say this is, um, the Celtics made appropriate adjustments and played good basketball tonight. And I love the way that they attacked the paint and just sort of like put

the pressure on the Knicks. They did. Well, I kept, you know, from, from the moment Tatum's tragic injury happened when we found out the results. And then I got some people in my life who are like, is there a Ewing theory possibilities here? And just for the record, first of all, I love Jason Tatum. Second of all, I'm not eligible

because they won the title with him last year. The whole point of the Ewing theory is the team never won the title, best player gets hurt, and then the team rises to the occasion without him in some way. With that said, it did open the door for some stuff that has been pretty frustrating about this Celtics team where they all had to band together. They had to get a little more creative offensively. There was a lot more cutting. There was a lot more ball movement and some of the stuff that would handicap this team

in the past, where it was either Tatum or Brown with the ball, just dribbling, especially when they had a lead and the lead would start to further away, and then it just turned into one-on-one basketball. That never happened in this game, because the guards were more involved. Cornett was cutting, the passing was really good.

That was by far the best game they played in the playoffs I think I think so too and it did help that Derek White hit like seven threes to start the game But the next said Josh Hart made more threes in a half hour than he made all playoffs at all I will say that There is something to be said for you drive the car, I'll drive the car. You drive the car, I'll drive the car. But when you have, when you take the Tatum element out of the subject's offense, it becomes a little bit more like I'm driving the car and I'll dictate how things are going to go

and I'm going to spread the ball around. It's not my turn, your turn. It's my turn. And then we're going to spread to role players. That's what the Knicks offense is with Brunson sort of at the helm and I think that is what led to them playing this this sort of more democratic offense and you know it also didn't hurt that Derek White hit all this up. Yeah well they had to get more creative because Tatum becomes the security blanket that you can always rely on because he's, you know, can create a shot whenever he wants. But now, Hey, drew holiday should probably post up a little bit more.

Let's try a couple of those. Let's set picks for Derek white and hat. So there was some stuff that was happening that was some really good basketball. I also think this version of the Knicks, I think they have some good one-on-one defenders, but as a team defense, and this has been a problem for them all year They're using gets it. They were attacking towns. They got towns in the foul trouble Then I know that's not true. That's not true. That's not true. Well, they did get things They did not get towns in the foul trouble. They did

Self Talking about what are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? Carl, did you see what Carl did to foul on him? Well, they did a good job of having players with the basketball near towns as he had spasms and ran into people. The first foul, he was setting a screen. And again, none of these fouls affect the play. Like, none of them do. He's setting a screen, and then it's an illegal screen.

It wasn't even around the ball. It wasn't even the point point of attack and the second one person is just coming across the lane And he hits him like he's like a shot at a tight end checking a linebacker on the way It's like what are you doing? It's like again? Carl KP is not a threat like why are you doing this in the middle of the lane? I don't understand these fouls then the third foul he gets his shot blocked and Then he by Derek way try yet by Jack what did he grab? Derek way and throws him out of the way because he's embarrassed. You got his shot blocked

So when you say the Celtics put him in foul trouble, I say that is complete bullshit and not true Carly T. Towns can't help himself, dude. He's got a real mental problem. He's got a mental block with this. And he goes through stretches where it seems like he's figured it out, but he hasn't. And I'm gonna very quickly give you a quick analogy I gave on the mismatch, which was like,

it's like a finance guy going to the strip club and going to the champagne room and getting roofied and spending $20,000 on his credit card and then waking up the next day and realizing it and then around four o'clock that day going back to the same strip club the next night. Like when are you gonna learn, dude? Like when are you gonna learn?

If he went back to the strip joint every night. Five nights in a row is what Carlson Townes did tonight. All of his fouls. His body was developing a resistance to roofies. It was actually like, he was not working as well against him because he kept going back. Carly D. Towns was getting fouls where he was challenging people

that were driving to the basket trying to score at the rim. I would be like, that's fine. Yeah, at least he's awesome. But if you look at his fouls tonight, like the other one, he was under the hoop on a rebound. None of these are like on the ball plays at the rim. Or none of them are even questionable. Well I had some Knicks fans in my life who were,

I won't name them, who were very upset about Tony brothers in the third quarter just putting fouls on Brunson. I thought four of the five fouls were like no brainer, you had to call them calls. The one where he fouled Derek White's elbow with his face. That's, I always have a problem with that call because I'm not sure where your face is supposed to go if somebody's diving into you. But ironically the person who benefits the most from that call and the flip side of it is Jalen Brunson because he gets a lot of fouls that way where he

just lurches into guys and you know your body can only do so many things when you're over six feet tall and standing up. The elbow's coming at your face, it's probably going to hit your face. You can't like do the matrix. Well, also Brunson, and again, like I'm a Nick fan, but I'm objective about basketball, he put his chin like on his shoulder. Right. Like you're putting your chin right there.

You kind of know what's going to happen. But that was the only one that I thought was the shaky call. So there's some big picture Celtic stuff, and then we could talk about the Knicks piece. Actually, let's talk about the Knicks pieces first, just to mix it up. So the Knicks hasn't been the most fun 21st century, right? And finally, I think all of these different things have broken this year for them, including, um, unfortunately for the Celtics and for the NBA.

But this Tatum injury is obviously a huge competitive advantage for the Knicks. The Cs have parted. They were plus 700 before the series. They stole a couple fourth quarters. I thought they played really well in the second half of game four, deserved to win. They get this break with the Tatum injury. Now they're heading into the finals of the game four deserve to win. They get this break with the Tatum injury. Now they're heading into the finals of the East if they win this.

They don't have to play Cleveland. They get to play Indiana and get revenge on them. So everything's aligning. And then they blow this game. And now we're going to MSG on Friday. And there's a lot of DNA now swimming in the pool. There hasn't been a lot of happy memories the last 25 years and I just wonder. You can't say DNA swimming in the pool would have me not go to bad, bad places.

I'm sorry. My bad. I know that was once a frequent porn search of yours. But yeah. So the Celtics achieved their goal. They protected home court. Chalamet wasn't pointing at Knicks fans after the game. And now there's pressure on the Knicks who still have a better team. But at least now there's some pressure pushed the other way with that game seven

in Boston and Looming. Right? Oh, I mean, I think the Knicks will win the series, but if, if I, do you think I'm going to sit here and not be doubtful and terrified of Game six with OG playing the way he did tonight and like, yeah, what's going on with him? He's been up and down. There was the stretch when Brunson was hurt, where bridges and OG were phenomenal. And it just felt like it's like low key felt like Brunson being out for that long was actually great for the Knicks because it gave Bridges and OG this time

to score 20 points, 25 points, 30 points, and be a focus of the offense that would help them when they re-acclimated to the Brunson environment. But right now, it just doesn't feel like it. It doesn't. Well, plus he was awesome in game one. I thought he was the best player on the court. Oh yeah.

And then since then we haven't seen it the same way. There was a couple things, I thought that Celtics were doing a couple things a little bit differently defensively. One is they just didn't, they were fine with Josh Hart taking threes. Till he made about five. He made them.

Then, then they shifted their defense. But initially it was like, we're good with that. We're good with that. They really seems like they studied the tape of Bridges. What did Bridges end up with today? He was nine points today is four for 14. He's got that weird, it's like the guy you play pick up with all the time where they have this one shot and then eventually you figure it out and you're like,

fuck, why didn't I figure that out six months ago? He does this jump shot, it's like a hop step, 45 degree angle delivery shot and White couldn't time it and then finally this game, they started like timing the jumper a little bit better. What he does is whether he's moving to his right or left, or he's squared up to the hoop, he squares his shoulders to the hoop and he puts his hands up like he's throwing

a soccer throw in pass. So the ball, and then he flicks his wrist to get it there. That's why he doesn't shoot threes that well. But he always bends back. He would rather take a 10 foot shot than an eight foot shot from the same place where his feet are at. He's always going backwards. I think it was screwing up wide, he couldn't gauge it. If you're over 43, he shoots like a double dribble character.

Like the ball goes up and his arms go up and then he releases the ball with his wrists only. And once you figure that out, I don't think anyone can figure it out, I mean, I'm just with you. I thought that he played so well in the fourth quarter of game four that they were just, they were more wary of it. It didn't seem like they were surprised by his offense in this game.

And then, you know, the other one was, um, they were just really aggressive with Brunson and, um, you know, they just, they fell asleep in game four. Like the reason he got going in the third quarter of game four is cause their defense suck. They fell asleep. They weren't lost them reason he got going in the third quarter of game four is because their defense sucked. They fell asleep. They weren't, they lost them a couple times. They just didn't do a good job. They did a good job today.

And it helped that he got 6,000 in 10 minutes. He didn't get going in game four. Like he was absolutely on fire and took over the game. I thought that game four was one of my favorite basketball games I've ever seen. With Tatum and Brunson in the third quarter, just exchanging those punches was just, it was one of my favorite basketball games I've ever seen with Tatum and Brunson in the third quarter, just exchanging those punches was just, it was one of my favorite basketball games I've ever seen.

You know what I mean? Like I liked basketball before I liked the Knicks. Like that was such a great game and it's too bad that Tatum was gone from it. But here's a question I have for you. There was a point in game two, I think it was the start of the second half, when they just posted up towns on the left block

and he got in like that Carmelo spot, 10, 12 feet from the basket and they were just they were obviously doing it like they would throw it in throw it out they were just they were obviously doing it and there's there's no Celtic defender that can cover him with his back to the basket 13 feet from the basket and they just never go back to it. I don't know why. Isn't that the story of Townsend's career though? It always seems like like the Celtics guarded him at Drew Holiday a bunch of times today and teams teams just feel like they can get away with it because

Towns is more comfortable 25 feet from the basket. But yeah you're right he torched Torford a couple times in game too. Torford, Towns, Brown, Tatum, it didn't there's no one on the roster. Maybe look for that. Maybe this new look for that Right. Well, you know, it's interesting about him. He's a streaky low post score Usually people are streaky three point, but he gets in like these grooves on the low post when you watch it You're like how does he not average 40 a game and then he just won't shoot another eight footer for a month But it felt like a running back that was getting five yards of carry. I think it was game two.

I think I'm pretty sure it was the third quarter game two where this went to it like three plays in a row. And I said to myself, why don't you just do this until they stop it? Just do this until they stop it. And they never go back to it. And like the, why don't we see Brunson Towns pick and rolls? Yeah, I'm looking at his shot chart.

I mean, he didn't take that many shots, but yeah, he only took two threes. He took a shot at the key. Because he can't stop fucking fouling, Bill. I can't look at his foul chart. I'm telling you, all of his five fouls had nothing to do with affecting the play defensively. Nothing to do with it. Missoula did two things tonight that the Celtic fans have been calling for for a while.

One is he finally punted on Porzingis. Listen, Porzingis. Listen, Porzingis, huge part of last year's team. When he's healthy, he's a 20 point scorer. Um, he's unicorn-y. I, we concede all of that. He's corny. Well, he's unicorn-y too.

And in this series and in this whole playoffs and really since March, he's been, he's been zombie Porzingis. There's he's been porzombie. There's no other way to put it., he's been, he's been zombie. Poor Zingas there's he's been poor zombie. There's no other way to put it. And he's such a liability. They were playing these two big lineups that they're just getting annihilated on in the previous games. And then finally today they punted on it. They started the second half with Cornett, which is what they should have done.

And the irony of the Cornett piece, he's been a really good bench guy all year. He's been good in the home games. The crowd really likes them. I'm just telling you, um, and they've played games, you know, they've been really careful because they kind of knew they were going to be the two seed for four months. And they've been, they would have games where they didn't play Tatum. They would have games where they didn't play Brown and they had all these guys. These guys are all used to playing without one of the two stars.

And Cornet was always like a big part of some of those games. So I can't say I was like shocked that he played that way. Seven blocks is shocking, but I was waiting for him to play more for a couple of games now. What I love about Cornet is he's a very self-aware basketball player. He never tries to do anything outside of his skill set.

You'll never see him fucking dribble the ball. You know what I mean? You'll never see him pull up for three, even though he came up as like a 40% three-point shooter. Like, he's just never doing anything that's outside of his role and his skill set. He just doesn't do it. He's not going to make negative plays.

I'm not gonna look it up, but I bet he has like four turnovers on the year. You know what I mean? Like he just does what he's supposed to do. He knows his role. Well, in this game, he helped with the rebounding, which was the other big thing that changed. They just took the rebounding more seriously.

Robinson was really good again. I have a theory. Robinson, he's had stretches during his career where you're like, why isn't this guy the next Bill Russell? Why aren't we talking about him like we talk about Russell Chamberlain and Kareem? You'll catch him for four minutes and like, is this the best player of the NBA? Well, I watch a lot of Mitch Robinson. I'm not a huge fan.

He can't catch, number one, he cannot catch the ball. Number two, I will send you a link. There's a video of him playing like pickup against like regular humans. He looks like Kevin Durant, but taller and stronger. Yeah, and I have a theory about Robinson One of my favorite movies is the prestige, right? You know the big act at the end where they're like how like how do you how do you do? This They're like, well, i've got like a drunken twin brother. There is another Mitch Robinson they prestige onto the free throw line tonight.

There's two Mitch Robinson's? Who else? He went six for six, dude. He couldn't even hit the net. He couldn't even hit the net. And they were all free throws that he was making the same way where they would hit the front of the rim, bounce over and go in like he was at a carnival.

He prestige, they prestige Mitch Robinson tonight there are two twin can't rule it out I mean I've never seen but I've never seen I've only seen one Mitch Robinson at a time I'm still trying to figure out how shallow may got courtside I have I have more stuff to talk about this game but we got to take a quick break hey as you know I like to create things we about with this game, but we gotta take a quick break. Hey, as you know, I like to create things. We worked with Fandl on a new betting concept. We call it Tail or Fade. We've done it for a couple weeks in a row.

We hit last week. I make a player prop pick. You either get to decide to back it, which is a Tail, or go against it, which is a Fade. But either way, you get a 50% boost either on the over or the under. So if you check out Fandel sports book on Thursday for the OKC Denver game, what we did was, uh, we did yolk edge points, rebounds, I think over 40 and a half.

So if it's a combined thing gets to 41, um, you win the bet and you win your little 50% profit boost on that bet. I'm going over on my guy, Jokic. If you want to tail me, join me. If you want to go against me, fade me, whatever you want to do. Uh, I love when the customers ride with me. They won last week, by the way, can't wait to make fun of those who fade me. And so for, uh, for Thursday, Jok, 40 and a half over, go check it out. And by the way, go to fandel.com slash BS and you can download America's

number one sports book and you can bet on lots of stuff, not just Taylor fading me, but you must be 21 plus in president select states or 18 plus in president DC opt in required bonus issued as non-moderable profit boost tokens restrictions apply, including any token expiration and max wager amounts, C terms at sportsbook.fandal.com. GammonProm call 1-800-GAMBOR or visit rg-help.com. This episode is brought to you by Loom by Atlassian. Some things are just unnecessary.

We see players, I don't want to name them, but players who can't help getting a dumb flagrant, dumb foul, dumb technical at the worst possible times. And you bang your head, your hand against your head and you go, why do they do that? Why is that so unnecessary? Why don't they get it at this point? Well, it's just as unnecessary as tedious business meetings. Good thing you can use Loom instead use Loom to simultaneously record both your

screen and yourself to share a quick update, to provide feedback, to train a colleague, everything in between. Plus add Loom AI to your meetings for instant written notes and recordings. Try Loom right now at loom.com. That is L O O M dot com. So obviously a pretty traumatic 48 hours for Celtic fans. Yesterday was just awful. Cause there was no news at all, and even me,

I couldn't, you know, I knew it wasn't great, but nobody, I mean they just shut down. They didn't say anything. And the reason they did it was cause they went and they immediately put him in the surgery. They just didn't want to say anything until they found out it was successful surgery. But the longer it went on,

you know, by one o'clock in the afternoon, my time, I'm on threads like, maybe it's not an Achilles. Maybe it's like he tore his plantar fascitis muscle, whatever the fuck that thing is. Like, who knows? Maybe it wasn't, or maybe it's worse. Maybe he tore his Achilles and like ankle ligaments and it was like this catastrophic. And your mind just starts racing. Then all of a sudden you find out what it is and

start thinking big picture. I was Googling all the, you know, all the different comebacks. Kobe was eight months, came back, then got hurt three weeks later, which is why I only played six games that year. Durant was longer, but everybody felt like Durant could have come back for the playoffs, it just didn't. But you start, your mind's just going everywhere. And there's that Jalen Brown piece

of maybe with all the money that this team is doing, maybe they blow it up next year, maybe this is the summer to trade Jaylen Brown. What's he worth? You start going down rat road. What would people get for him? Is it worth it to trade him or could he carry the torch for a year until Tatum comes back in February? It's really split what he's worth with the Celtic fans that watch him every day.

Cause the more you see somebody, they become like your spouse where you start thinking of all this stuff. Like, ah, that drives me crazy when they do that. You stop seeing him. You can't relate to that at all. I get it. Um, but he was really good tonight. And to me, that's the reason not to trade him. Because I still feel like he's one of the 20 best guys in the league. What he did tonight is the case for like, don't blow it up. Maybe Tatum can be back in February.

Maybe you only have to shave around the salary sides. Maybe you're a five, six, seven seed. Maybe Tatum rounds in the shape until April. Maybe Jalen Brown can hold this fort with the infrastructure, Missoula, and the fact that the East is gonna suck. To me, this game is gonna make me think of that this summer, what do you think? Okay.

I made a lot on you there, sorry about that. No, no, no, no. I did the four minute first take intro. No, first of all, the people that are listening to the Bill Simmons podcast wanna hear that. And I'm honored to be here to respond to it. And I will say that I also am prepared to ask you these questions. Yeah.

I never really considered the Jalen Brown trade. I think you're too much in the weeds. I think the questions that need to be asked are is Horford gone? Is Porzingis gone? Is White gone? Is Drew Holliday gone? Like those four players are not going to be- White's the only one who doesn't go. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait for what he's making money wise, you have to keep him. Holiday's a little different.

Is contract taken into account when you take, you need to make that list, is contract taken into account? Yeah, his, he's under 30 million still. So here's my take on the future of the Celtics, is I think that Porzingis is gone, holiday's gone. Yeah, but Porzingis, they still have to get a contract back. It's not like they could just be like, here, take his contract.

Ew. Well, but you still have to get some sort of money back. You're not just wiping the slate. You're getting, you're taking back like Rui Hachamora or whoever it is. The PR people for the Celtics need to put out some sort of like, poor Zingas has this thing that's going to heal in two months and his trade value is going to go up. But I will say this, I think it's a Peyton Pritchard play. I really think it's like, Pritchard is going to bridge this gap of scoring and playmaking and things that we lose with Tatum. He's that good.

Like, I think next year becomes like a brown Pritchard. Yeah, it's gonna be tough. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 17 points at 30 minutes. Yeah, he's good. But they could patch it together with the infrastructure because this team plays really

well together and they have a certain style slash system. You know, but I want to ask you the people want to hear what do the Celtics look like next season? I think either poor for depending on if he wants to chase the title or just stay in Boston. Um, one of the most beloved Celtics teammates slash veterans they've ever had in the history of the franchise. I'd be surprised if he was like, all right, I'll see you guys later.

I'm going to play for Orlando. I guess he's going to be 40 next year. I don't, you know, you don't want to start just chasing stuff. He already won the title last year. It's not like he needs a ring. But I think it's probably Porzingis or Drew. That would be, that those would be, it would be one of those two.

And Drew probably has a little more value based on what's happened to Porzingis at this point. Now his contract's not great. He's got three years left after this, but the type of guy, the winning guy. Well, you try to do it. So you're trying to get somebody with less money that you're shaving, you know, if they shaved $7 million off in a trade, it turns out it's like $70 million with all this repeater tax, all this.

So that's, I think what they would be trying to do. There's like bigger trades. If you want it to go nuts, where it'd be like Jaylen Brown and Drew Holiday to Houston and you get a bunch of stuff back, but you're taking $20 million less in salary and you're basically rebuilding while also staying. I know, but that's why that stuff's not going to happen. I'm just saying like the big monster, if you're playing this as a video game and it wasn't human beings and real people, you'd be like, oh, I'll just do this and I'll just build the round table. But they're not doing that.

Especially the new owner. He's not going to want to come in and and be like, I've blown stuff up to save money. True holiday, 80 cents on the dollar. Poor Zingus, 25 cents on the dollar. Or it might even be as simple as Sam Houser gets traded this summer because a lot of teams could use a really good three point shooting. He's not making it, shooters are not making a ton of money. And then you figure out in February where you are

and whether you want to shave salary or not. Cause Porzingis have been expiring at that point. But I can't. I think the Celtics. I just can't believe we're having this conversation. It was inconceivable a week ago. It sucks. I mean, but they're gonna win a lot of games in the Eastern Conference with no Tatum. Jalen had 26 points, 12 assists and eight rebounds. And my fear for the game today was

he can't dribble. And I just, I just thought the Knicks would be like smothering him and be like, this guy can't dribble. Let's go get him. But he was pretty comfortable running the offense. And I thought, I just thought he did a good job. I thought he was patient. He only took 17 shots. My fear was he was going to take like 30, but he didn't. And they were pretty democratic, as you said, with the ball. So, you know, the question is, was this a moral victory or something more? Did they figure out something in this game that they can take? So they figured out the Coronet piece.

Well, they figured out ball movement, the Coronet piece, and just continue to hope Townes isn't a complete idiot. They figured out that Porzingis sucks and Townes can't stop fouling people. That's what they figured out. But you and I figured out Porzingis couldn't play in this series two games ago. Two games ago? I mean, has he had a good playoff game? What's... No, he hasn't. The only time he's been good, there's been some decent defensive stuff

where he's just had his arms up. What do you mean the seven foot three guy put his arms in the air and that was good? Yes. But that... Did I expect him to turn into taco fall? I didn't, I didn't realize that was going to be his new role in this team. Dude, winter. Oh my God. This Jalen Brown piece though. There's no way, right? Cause I want Tatum and Brown to retire together. I don't want them to trade Jaylen Brown.

No. And yet around the league, people are like, watch, Jaylen's going to be the one who goes. They're going to blow it up. No. I just, I don't see it. No, that's not people around the league. That's people like us that talking to microphones. It's just like fun to say, but why would they trade Jaylen Brown?

Jaylen Brown is going to be the engine that brings the train to the next station, to the next station, to the next station next year. And there's 82 stops. You know what I mean? Like he is the engine of brings the train to the next station to the next station to the next station next year and there's 82 stops you know what I mean like he is the engine of the train he's going to drive it and sometimes it's gonna be ugly and sometimes gonna look great but like if you trade Jaylen Brown who do you get back that's gonna be like your go-to guy it's gonna be better than him that's gonna just like I don't know and he's on the same timeline as Tatum. I mean, you won a championship. Fuck 11 months ago, they won the

championship. There's a parade, you know, 50 weeks ago. Can I, can I talk about Tatum's first eight seasons with you for a split second? Cause I continue to think he's incredibly underrated and it sadly took a major, major injury for people to go oh man that guy was really good this is too bad yeah I don't think anyone took

more shit unnecessarily all he did was get better every year and really give a shit as long as you allow me to retort with how corny he is when you're done go okay there's been nine guys since the Berger season, who in their first eight seasons played over 20,000 minutes and scored 13,000 points or more, and had 3000 rebounds or more and 2000 assists or more. MJ, LeBron, Bird, Barkley, KD, Harden, Pierce, Tatum, and Mark Aguirre, weirdly. There's been 14 guys ever in their first eight seasons who played a hundred plus playoff games and scored at least 15 points a game in those games.

Bird, Tatum, Duncan, Kobe, Worthy, Kawhi, Jalen, Magic, Parker, Mikhail, Pippen, Manu, and Byron Scott. And there's been a hundred guys, there's been four guys who have played a hundred playoff games in their first eight years and had 28 and four as their stats, 20 points, game eight, rebounds, four assists, LeBron, Wilt, Bird, Elgin, and Tatum. What was so interesting about his career from a historical standpoint was how much postseason mileage and success that he had. He has 72 playoff wins.

He's just turned 27. It's so like Jordan didn't have nearly that many playoff wins by the time he was 27, like even, you know, LeBron didn't have a hundred wins by the time he was 27. So he was amassing this career that one of the best things about it was the durability and the fact that year after year he was playing into May and June potentially, and he was on a really good team in a good spot. And he was, I think one of the three most durable guys of this century, him and Giannis and LeBron where it almost seemed like an accident if they

even like sprained their ankle. Him and LeBron, him and LeBron taking Giannis out of that. Well, but Giannis had to, he had one where he like fell and like broke bone in his back and you know, but for the most part, Playoff availability. Yeah. I know but for the most part. Playoff availability yeah I know what you mean. Yeah yeah and in a minute that's all gone but I just I just thought that first eight years he had was really crazy I never thought about it until that injury. I will also say to be nice about Tatum different running

mates throughout the runs. Right. There's like the Isaiah Thomas season you know there's a scary Terry season it's just like a lot of different elements that he's always been the constant variable in the equation where everything else sort of changed. And he still had this consistent output. Another thing I'll say, but nice about Tatum, not a lot of duds, you know, a lot of these star players. There's a couple of duds out there. You're like, oh yeah, like remember game two of the second round series Where he was like, went four for 25? He doesn't have those games. He has ups and downs, but he doesn't have like,

dud, dud games. And he'll always bring defense and rebounding, and he'll help the game in other ways, even if his shot isn't going. And the thing as a non, former Celtics fan, I will say, I loved Larry Bird growing up. And here's a question I have for you is, why can't I like connect to him as a person? Like, why do I think he's corny?

Why do I think that he's inauthentic? Like, I was reminded by co-host of the mismatch, Verneau, when they won last year, there was that like clip together of him sort of like cosplaying all these other Kobe moments and like Kevin Garnett moments. Like, like why don't I connect to him as a person? I know nothing about his personality other than the sides from the fact that he has a son named Deuce. Like why do I think that he's corny and inauthentic? I'm asking you that question, not because I'm trying to

accuse him of something or insult him. I just want you to put me on the couch and tell me why I feel that way. Well, so I would argue the Celtic fans feel the opposite. Like he's a beloved Celtic and I think The reason he's beloved is because all he does is like work his ass off try to get better be a good example Doesn't doesn't ever say anything controversial doesn't ever get in any kind of trouble Obviously and all he is is just additive in all these different ways And I think when you watch it day in and day out,

that's what you notice when you're a fan of the team. I think if you're not a fan of the team and you're judging people by are they interesting, are they up and down, can I have conversations about them, there's just not a lot of Tatum conversations, but like he's not as nearly as good as Tim Duncan, who's one of the, I have him as the seventh best player ever, but Tim Duncan used to take a lot of the same shit.

He wasn't as interesting as Kobe, remember? He wasn't as fun to watch as Steve Nash. He wasn't, he didn't care as much as KG. He wasn't as vocal. There were always, every time he got compared to anybody, even now, all these X-Player podcasts, they always shit on Duncan or they, you know, go out of their way to talk about, oh no, Kobe was better.

Kobe was way better. You know, but I just think some guys do that. You don't think? No, I think it's, I think it's, it kind of goes into like the ex player pods where it's like he's really good at basketball. Maybe he's not the best in the press conference. Maybe he's not going to make you laugh. You know what I mean?

Like maybe he's not Peyton Manning is going to host SNL, but like we, that's not the best in the press conference. Maybe he's not gonna make you laugh. You know what I mean? Like maybe he's not Peyton Manning's gonna host SNL, but like we that's not why we love him We love him because he's a basketball player. So why do we knock him for not being a great personality? Did you think LeBron was like the most personable guy on the planet the first eight nine years of his career? This was even a knock on him during that time. We're people like I mean I could our podcast knock on him during that time where people were like, I don't know. I mean, I could do a 17 hour podcast about LeBron's personality. I don't even know where to start and end with that. Nobody could get a handle on him for the first, almost, and really until like the second or third Miami years.

I don't know who LeBron James is, dude. I don't even want to start down that path. I don't want to start down that path. We always had like KG, Anthony Edwards. Those are the kind of players that people seem to gravitate to. They're like Anthony Edwards is a best example. Allen Iverson. Yeah, like all of that.

Because they all seem authentic. And they're fucking awesome. And you want to hang out with them and they make you laugh. And they're just, you're like, they're cool. They like, they sit at the lunch table that you are not allowed to sit at. That's where I like my professional athletes. I want my professional athletes to be at the table in the cafeteria that I'm scared to look at

and I'm never allowed to sit at. You know what I mean? And I feel like Tatum's not there. And I'm not knocking him for it, I'm just talking about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, it's not the first time I've heard that. I think my argument for Tatum is he doesn't try to be anything he's not.

You know, he's not trying, he doesn't want to host SNL and he doesn't want to be in an Adam Sandler movie. He doesn't want to do any of that stuff. He just wants to be 25 and 10 and six. Yeah. So that's what I'm going to do. Yeah. Number two.

One of the things, some of the, some of the like little stealth combos I've had are just people worried about removing basketball from his life. How's he going to handle the next four or five months? He's never had a major injury. He's been hooping basically since he was growing up in St. Louis. Everything is about like trying to get better, trying to get better, trying to catch people,

trying to hit different levels and trying to be one of the 10 best players in the league, trying to be one of the best five, trying to win a title. Can I be the best player in the league? And not only is that chase over, but your body's been like really injured for the first time. How are you going to handle that?

You know, and I think the good thing for him is Kobe was his idol, which you mentioned before, but Kobe had the exact same injury and really documented. What it was like to have that injury and how he fought back from it and how he, you know, the work starts now, how great do you want to be? And I don't know. He, he weirdly laid the Bible for how to attack something like this for somebody like Tatum.

There's two pieces of information that we got today that I found really telling and I found kind of like, brought me into the Tatum psyche and circle, which I loved. One was Marcus Spears, not my favorite Marcus Spears, Swagoo. I love the other Marcus Spears, but I love the football Marcus Spears so, so, so very much. You're talking about Marcus Spears in the basketball one. Yes, yeah the basketball one. He said that he spoke with Tatum's father who's a coaching in Malaysia or whatever and he

and he was allowed to talk about his conversation with his father about his conversation with Jason and his father said to Jason Tatum he said your idol is Kobe Bryant. Hmm. Your idol is Kobe Bryant. That's the path you wanted to go down and this is part of the path. And that's not a direct quote. But I found that to be like, as a father, and you know, I thought that was like a really cool thing to say. And I'm really glad that Spears got that information to share with us.

Another thing, I don't know if you heard this part of the broadcast, is Reggie said he texted with Tatum. And he sort of like read the texts on the broadcast. And I was sitting there, I felt it was like, I felt it like a violation of trust, but obviously Reggie texted him, and Tatum sort of sent this message to Celtic fans, and it was while they were like up by 20

at the end of the third quarter. And he was like, and I can't paraphrase, I just watched it, you know, 40 minutes ago, but he's like, Jason Tatum said, he can't wait to get back into the Celtic green and He's gonna show the fans how much that means to him and as someone who sat on a pretty popular podcast Ten minutes ago was like I don't understand this guy I don't get his personality to try to critique him in that way those two pieces of information getting into my brain Was so fucking cool.

You know what I mean? Like the idea that like his dad gave him this guidance when he said probably the worst day of his life and that he texted Reggie knowing it's going to get read on the broadcast in front of millions of people that this message to Celtics fans about his appreciation of his, his position in the sport. I thought that was a really cool thing to hear today when there's been so much information about how long the injury is going to take and what's it going to be like when he comes back and what does this have to do with the roster? Like hearing that

from him, I found touching. Well, he's one of those guys within the organization, absolutely beloved. Just, you know, you have a lot of different people over the years who could be the face of a franchise and he's really embraced it. He's embraced the relationships with the guys who used to be on the team, the former stars and just kind of gets it, gets, you know, he came in when he was. 19 and just kind of gets that this is a slightly different franchise than the usual franchise that has a lot of history and, you know, a lot of baggage, good and bad. Um, but it's, it's the bummer for this is it took him getting injured. I think for people to appreciate, you know, people, especially in this day

and age, you're picking apart, you're picking apart this guy doesn't do this. This guy, you know, you know what it is? He was the fourth best guy in the league and he was still getting better. And he was playing probably the best all around game of his career in the game that he got hurt. And there was still room for him to get better and better. And now who knows if he hit that limit or not. Durant came back and I felt like he was just about

where he left in that 21 playoffs against Milwaukee, right? It felt like scoring wise, it felt like he came back. So that would be the hope, and it seems like they caught it pretty early. But man, I was thinking, it has to be one of the worst NBA injuries from hitting a guy at a certain point of his career and also what it meant to like a team,

like Bill Walton hurting his foot, that probably changed the course of a couple titles. Spent a couple of these. Derrick Rose. Derrick Rose is one where it felt like that was the team that was positioned to battle LeBron for the 2010s and then he's just gone. So we've had these Sampson in 86 when he fell and hurt his back. He was never really the same after that.

There's been a few of these, but it's hard to remember like a first team OMBA guy just getting wiped out for not just the playoffs. really the same after that. There's been a few of these, but it's hard to remember like a first team all NBA guy just getting wiped out for not just the playoffs. Brendan Roy? Brendan Roy, he wasn't as good as Tatum though. You know, like Tatum's been first team all NBA four years in a row. And one of the things that was so amazing about him

is it felt like he was indestructible. You just felt like just pencil him in for 39 minutes a game and he'll get 13 rebounds in every game. So it's a tough one. This episode is brought to you by Verbo Private Vacation Rentals. With Verbo, you can save over $240 on select homes when you stay for a week or more. Say you want to go catch a few baseball games in Boston, take some time off work,

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Here's what your listeners want to know. Yeah. How's it been for you the last 48 hours? Like, what are you going through? I don't know. Like we've talked about what Jason Tatum's going through, but like, do a list of this podcast. They care about Bill Simmons.

You know, it's the podcast. Like what have you been doing the last 48 hours? Oh, yesterday was brutal. Um, what happened? Take me through it. I was just farting around all day. I did a power walk. I was on Twitter.

I was just basically refreshing Twitter, waiting for the word and checking my texts. Um, now when you get older as a sports fan, it starts reminding you of things It was just basically refreshing Twitter, waiting for the word and checking my texts. Now, when you get older as a sports fan, it starts reminding you of things that happened. So the obvious one was the Brady ACL. That's the only other time I remember. And then when Cam Neely got hurt in the Pittsburgh series, and then when I was in college, that was another one.

But at that point, we didn't know he was gonna change his career. What is the most intrusive thought that you had? Well, I think the Brady one was the worst one. Cause that was one you just start thinking in terms of, all right, this is how long it's actually going to be versus when you're younger and it's like, Oh, it could be back in February. He'll be fine.

But you're like, no, this is actually probably two years and the whole team might be different and maybe they missed their window. And then you start thinking about windows. Was there ever a part of you that was like, maybe next year it doesn't help us to win basketball games? Oh, I definitely had that thought.

I don't know how you don't, especially with the financial stuff and the money. But they're so good. I know. They just beat the Knicks. Then you start thinking the window of like, from 22, 23, 24, 25. They make the finals in 22 and Curry just goes to another level and they're

not ready yet, they lose. 23, they get to the game seven against Miami. I'll still, I'll always wonder what would happen if Tatum doesn't sprain his ankle in the first 40 seconds of the game. Cause I still feel like I just thought he was going to be awesome that game. 24 they win this year. Cleveland gets bounced. They have a chance.

Like, you know, but here's the other thing. The Knicks were about to go up three, one in that series with Tatum. Anyway, they were winning anyway. Like as a Knicks fan, I kind of wish, I mean, I wish you never got hurt, but I feel like the Knicks win this series with Tatum not getting hurt That's a whole hypothetical We don't have to go down But one thing that I heard on this podcast from you might have won that they might have won the key game in the series

Before during the right before he got hurt. It was already over there down Turned he was getting that oh gee was getting that Nine yes, like that and with Brunson like please that's a that's a win it's a one that's a win. I agree. But, um, I was listening to this stupid podcast driving back from upstate. Like it was a pandemic. Might've been like, it's not the bubble. Maybe it was the bubble of the year after the bubble.

And you were talking about the Celtics and just how like fickle the windows are. You know what I mean? You were just talking about like, it was, I think it was, I think it was the, I can't remember if it was the bubble year or the year after the bubble, but you were talking during the playoffs around this time of year, just about like, hey man, with these windows, like, you think you got a chance next year, but like, you really don't.

Like, sometimes it's a six month window, sometimes it's a two year window. And I think that this injury and this moment is just a good example of that. The Celtics are favorites to win the East, if not the championship. Number two seed, but we all like secretly know that they're the best team in the Eastern Conference.

And we're talking about repeat championships. And then this happens and we're talking about should they win games next year or tank for a pick? Like that's just how fragile these things are. Yeah. I remember writing about it. Okay. See, make the finals in 12.

They do the hard end trade. Westbrook gets injured in 13 in 14 San Antonio beats. And then all of a sudden they get to the clay Thompson game. Clay gets catches fire. They lose that in seven and they had this stretch of like that team is gonna be in the finals the whole decade And they won one finals game the entire like the over-under was probably ten finals games They won one released at least there was a clay Thompson game as a Knicks fan I'm gonna look back and be like and then Luke

For gay people start second half seven shots and we couldn't stop him. He got an alley-oop. And then the series slipped. Yeah. And then I feel like it was Luke Cornett. But that's the thing. You talk about windows.

I would say this is the window for the Knicks is almost more dramatic. The Celtics get nudged out of this potentially. Cleveland's out. You have Indiana now and I think you have home court, right? Yeah. What do you think, dude? And then you just think like, all right, okay. See, not afraid of them.

Young team Brunson versus SGA head to head. We could take that or whether it's Minnesota, but yeah, I mean, the Knicks have never had a window that looked as good as this. Even in 99, they had no chance in that Spurs series. They had no chance in that Heat series. They won it. The one what-if, I mean the obvious what-if for the Rockets in 94, but the bigger what-if for me is that 93 Bulls series, they were every bit as good as the 93 Bulls

They were right there and that was an either or series and you could drive yourself crazy with that This is an amazing chance for them in the first round in 93 they beat the Pacers 94 conference finals, they beat the Pacers 95 second round. I know you know all this but I just want to set this up as a potential Knicks-Bazers series. Second round, the Pacers win in a game seven. That's three, four, five. They go head to head.

Ninety-eight, second round, the Pacers beat them again. Ninety-nine, the Knicks win in the conference finals. Like that, and then it's not just like last year. And then in 2000, the Pacers beat them. Like Pacers Knicks is not like, I think this is like, people hype up like Celtics Knicks is a rivalry, but they don't really meet in the postseason. Like I think if the Knicks have a rival, it is the Pacers. Yeah.

Which is so weird, but I mean, there was one of the first for 30s was made about the Knicks Pacers mid-90s rivalry It's a real thing that exists. But by the way, it was a really good documentary Who directed that my guy right? My guy Dan Clores. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah and Hicks vs. Knicks did they interview Jalen? They must have yeah, Jalen's in that. Yeah, he must be. TNT's Jalen Rose? TNT's Jalen Rose killing itNT's Jaylen Rose, killing it. Racing Dwight Howard to the monitor? Dwight, Dwight's in slippers. What are you even doing?

What are you even doing? What are you doing, Dwight? What are you doing, Dwight? What are you doing there, Dwight? How about that question? And I think that, again, like I revisited last year's Pacers-Nix series, and if there is a Pacers-Nix finals, it's Eastern Conference Finals, which I believe there will be.

It was a lot closer than I remember and OG getting hurt was huge, Brunson getting hurt, like it wasn't just... I just feel like it's a good matchup and I've listened to your stupid pod and I know you're all Pacers all the time and like all the basketball people are so excited about the Pacers but I think the Knicks should be and will win that series if it comes down to it. Fandul updated their Knicks Celtics odds. Oh God. And the Knicks are now minus 270.

They were at the minus 620 heading into today's game. The Celtics were minus 900 before the series started. And they lost game 1 and 2. The volatility of this for the playoffs, I mean for the conference, Knicks are plus 125 and Indiana is also plus 125. I just think that, I would hate that this goes down as like the series where Tatum got hurt, because I really liked it as the series where the Knicks

shit the bed in game one at home and shit the bed in game two at home, and then DNA'd in the pool in game four. That was my favorite part of the series. The DNA in the pool game? The Tatum in the pool game. Well, what's crazy about game four, the Tatum injury puts a little bit of a black cloud over what would have been one of the great Knicks wins ever

and still is. Oh, one of the great games, dude. One of the great games. But now, now you have this Friday night game six ticket in New York City, which I think will be the hardest Knicks ticket to get. I don't even know when, I don't know if the demand for the 99 finals was even up there

because it just feels like there's more Knicks fans now. There's two new generations of Knicks fans since 99. Everyone's gonna wanna be at this game and it's gonna be an incredible game. I've got a couple things on that. One is I wanted to go to game four because we were doing the mismatch after the game. I was like, it'd be good for the show. Whatever. I was like, you know, I've got some expendable money.

I'll just do it. It was like nine hundred dollars to sit like in the last row. I just couldn't bring myself. It's nine hundred. Like, I just can't. Like, I've got children. Like, I just can't do it. And another story I want to tell about game two is they have the watch party outside of the garden, right?

They kind of like, there's a plaza there, just like most places do, like Beer Garden in Milwaukee or whatever. And I was doing the Spotify New Fronts, shop to the sale of Spotify people. And I did that event, and it was right next to that watch party. And it was like the second quarter,

I went to a bar by the garden, and I had a couple beers, watched the game, and they started to come back. And I was like, you quarter. I went to a bar by the garden and I had a couple beers and watched the game And they started to come back and I was like, you know what I'm gonna do. I'm see if they win And I'm gonna go to the watch party because you've seen the stuff on social from that area. Yeah, and I went there and I was super excited about the energy from the Knicks fans and everything But it was really a commentary on the content creation generation, because everyone was there with their phones out to create content for social. Guilty as charged.

It was me too. I did the exact same thing. But it's not this... I remember me and Kevin Wilds went to Seventh Avenue outside the Riviera after the Red Sox beat the Yankees. And Seventh Avenue was shut down. It was all Red Sox fans. And we were all there together just high-fiving each other, being a big family. And it was before video was on the internet. So we weren't like capturing things on our phones. And again, I sound like an old guy or whatever.

But like when I went to this one, I was doing the same thing. It was just kind of like, who's got the best shot for my Instagram story so you're looking at your cruising the crowd being like who's the most excited who's got the best chance who can I film for this this moment so I think that when you view it and you're not there it's a very different experience than living it you know know what I mean? It'd be like if you were telling me that story right now and I was like, yeah, hold on, it's going to be, yeah! It's exactly what I was like. It was kind of like, I get it. I'm guilty, I did it too.

I'm not being critical. It was just like a, it's just a different time. It's like when you go to a concert and people are just like filming the concert, like there's professional cameras. Like if you want to watch this later, you can do that. How about you just chill and watch it now? I'm always, I always find that amazing.

You know, I go to a few basketball games and people will tape like the national anthem. They'll record like the cheerleaders. They're like, yeah cheerleaders. And it's like, This is all being recorded by professionals. I was actually getting met the game for Quippers nuggets, which Yokech played one of the best games

I've seen in person in a long time. And there were a couple influencers sitting in front of us just oblivious to it and try just hoping that the game would be close so they could tape the thing and then do this. Yeah. Um, and I'm just, I just wanted to like, just hit them over the head with a Coke can. It's just like, how can you not focus on this guy is one of the best basketball players of the last 30 years. And he's like painting a masterpiece right now.

And you guys are fucking on Tik TOK. Yeah. Get off our lawn. Jacoby. We sound like old guys and I get it, but it's like, I paid a thousand dollars to watch them do their thing, but you really paid a thousand dollars to like film yourself watching them do their thing for the people that are following you or whatever.

And who's watching this video in 40 years like your kids are like, oh Yeah, I'm still deleting dad's iCloud He's that's a clipper game. She's taking photos of the cheerleaders We're putting on Instagram stories. It literally disappears in 24 hours. Yeah Speaking of yolkage, I was so bummed. I just, I just love that guy. I was so bummed out last night. The first three plus quarters. That was unbelievable watching him do that to OKC where he's deciding every

moment of every situation and just single-handedly dragging the nuggets to the finish line. And then it just came down to Lou Dort made a couple shots. Jalen Williams made a three that I never thought was going in. And the nuggets missed basically every open shot they took. And all of a sudden nuggets were going home and they look like they're screwed. So I don't wanna make this too reductive, right?

But doesn't it just come down to a coach decides who we're gonna leave open and whether or not that person makes the shot. You know what I mean? It's like very reductive. It's like, we're gonna leave Lou Dort whether or not that person makes the shot. You know what I mean? It's like very reductive. It's like, we're gonna leave LeDouard open. It's like, oh, Porter Jr. He's got a hurt shoulder, he hasn't hit.

We're gonna leave him open. Porter Jr. and Westbrook, like, it barely hit the rim in the fourth quarter. But with Russ, they're like, yo, did you see that Ramona story about Russ with the unnamed teammate? Let's leave him open. Porter's got one arm.

Russ is pissed about the story. We'll leave him open. If that Peyton Watson comes in, leave him open. Porter's got one arm. Russ is pissed about the story. We'll leave him open. If that Peyton, Peyton Watson comes in, leave him open Strother open. You're just pointing at guys that just, they're going to be open. And then the Jalen Williams one, it hit the front rim in the back room and went in. Like he looked a little surprised after it went into. If you had freeze frame that and it was the biggest shot of the game. Front rim.

I would have said 10% odds. I didn't think, you could have talked me into an air ball or a hits the side of the backboard before it hits the rim. I just thought no chance. But he's pretty good at that game. I still don't trust him. I think it's also worth mentioning the SGA 3 when they're up by three and they go under the screen and he's just like, you motherfucker, I'm the MVP.

You're going to let me shoot this? And that one didn't touch the rim at all. That was pure and that was a dagger. That was a night-night shot. And one thing I want to say about Jokic, which I was so surprised, when he had that offensive rebound when he tipped it to himself to put it back in he's like you motherfuckers can't even hit a shot I'm gonna go down there and do everything and I'm just gonna do everything I'm gonna make dinner like when our wives clean the dishes. Yeah

Make the clean the dishes He's just like, you know what? You're not an asset. The rest of you four are not an asset to me, but don't worry, I got this and he almost did. Yeah, the coach afterwards was talking about how, you know, I had to play a little Russian roulette there basically with the okay.

So I just had to keep them out there and keep our fingers crossed. It's like, yeah, cause what else were you gonna do? The moment he comes out, you're gonna be minus 10. The second he steps out of the game. It's weird. I felt that. First of all, I thought that was the best playoff game. I think of the whole playoffs just from a quality of play standpoint. I thought Nick Celtic's game four was. That was a more exciting game. This was like exceptionally well played. Like the execution, defense, the execution was just went to a whole other level.

I'm sorry, but when Westbrook has two air balls and Michael Porter, Jr. has two air balls, it's hard for me to talk about the execution. All the stuff Yoke Edge had to just see and deal with. It was like a quarterback just being blitzed every play, just trying to figure out what to do. So weirdly, like, like I voted for him for MVP. I feel better that I voted for him after watching that game, but SGA was equally awesome down the stretch and showed all the reasons why if you voted for him, you'd feel good about that, right?

He's got a good team, but when they really needed him, he made just about every play it felt like to help them. So it was weird to watch a game where both guys won. They had that moment where they kind of traded baskets for a second. replay it felt like to help them. So it was weird to watch a game where both guys won. They had that moment where they kind of traded baskets for a second. And I was like, this is what a great MVP race that was. Cause both of these guys are incredible and Yokeage is, there's just nobody like this, they, you know, I keep talking about in the pods, they were just, we're not going to see anything like this again for a while.

Well, one of the things I loved about that Yoke's performance was the 48 hours between game four and game five was Turnover-to-assist ratio and the worst he's ever shot from the field It was this kind of like have the thunder solve the Yoke Hitch problem and you've watched enough Yoke Hitch like, okay guys Solved even people been trying to solve the Yogesh problem for three years now. Like, you cannot solve the Yogesh problem. It's like Matt Damon in Good Hunting and the chalkboard.

It's like, you cannot do it. It's impossible. Well, you know, he approaches basketball. It's like when you watch golf and they talk about Scottie Scheffler, finished 24th last week, fixed something in his swing and he said he was leaning back a little bit on his drives and then it'll just rip a drive straight down the fairway and like, Oh yeah, I fixed a

swing. Jokic is like doing that during a series where it's like Nicola Jokic, uh, didn't have a great game for, he noticed some things in the tape, he fixed his whatever. And then it's just like, he's completely solved. Okay. See who's doing the same thing. But now instead of, instead of speeding them up, making him do things he doesn't want to do, he's just, he's just on it.

Like he's got them on a fucking yo-yo. I thought, I just thought he was so awesome in that game. It's a much more fun series if Denver wins that game and we get to really see okay, see with their backs to the wall. Under pressure, yeah. Yeah, it's like, okay guys, go to Denver. Let's see if you can win this one.

Cleveland was in this similar situation yesterday and they just cratered from it. They couldn't handle it. It was a full-fledged cratering. I think there's a good parallel there between Jokic and Mitchell where it's like I'm standing on my head here guys I'm giving you 40 plus, you know, I mean like I got like Mitchell's hurt He and like he didn't play great but remember in there in the was the fourth quarter hit like three straight threes He's just like guys like I just need some help like Max True It's like do something like Michael Porter jr. Do just I'm not asking you to be superstars. All these guys are good in the regular season.

Do something, guys. You know what I mean? And remember, I'm sure you remember the Celtic Series last year was a similar thing with Mitchell. It was just like, again, there's guys out, Garland was out. But like, it's just hard. These guys need more help. They need more help.

It happened to him in Utah, too. I'm wondering, maybe it's him. Maybe it's not the sporting cast. No, no, I love Mitchell. Maybe he him. Maybe it's not the sporting cast. No, I love Mitchell. Maybe he's just eating too much of the food in the fridge and everybody else is just hungry and forgets how to eat. I don't think that's how it works. But one of the things I love about Jokic is,

my kids don't care about basketball at all. And they come into the room when I'm watching. And I'm like, do you see that slow kind of fat guy? Like, that's the best basketball player on the planet. They're like, that guy! I'm like, that guy! And it's not even close. He's definitely the best guy. Like that's the best basketball player in the planet. Like that guy. I'm like, he's definitely the best guy. It's like the best. And we don't even argue about the city board.

It's just like that guy right there. I'm like, yeah, yeah. I'm like, watch, just watch it. Like do some slow weird stuff. Like the scratches on his arms. I love it. I love it. Um, all right.

Jacob's Friday night. We'll see with the next perfect situation for them. I'm sure they're going to learn some things from this tape. I'm sure Luke Carnett's not going to do that again. I'm sure they're going to attack Jalen Brown a little differently, but still some pressure. I, uh, I'm terrified. They've been down 14 plus in every single game of the series, including today.

That's, that's, that's a fact that I can't dispute, but I feel really good about the Knicks chances on Friday night. Timothy Chalamet and his girlfriend will not let us lose. When is the mismatch taping? Mismatch tapes Thursday after that Thunder Nuggets game and Verneau has done a really good job of just really entrenching him in this, like the Thunder are too young

and they need to go through their playoff scars. They can't, there's no way they can beat the Nuggets. They've been there before, championship pedigree. And like, he's really, really rooted deep, deep down in this take, in a way that I'm scared to do as someone who does this for a living. And I'm really proud of him,

but it's gonna be a fun pod afterwards because he's either gonna be really, really right or really, really wrong. Well, there you go. He was really wrong about Memphis. He thought Memphis had a window. They never even bought the window. No, you and him have something in common.

Is when you guys are wrong about a take, you go straight into excuse mode. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. You learn from the master. Yeah, you do this too. It's all, oh, it's because John Moran got hurt. I mean, I didn't know John Moran was going to go down. I didn't know Steph Curry was going to get hurt. It's always like, I'm right, but these extraneous circumstances created

an environment in which I was wrong. It's not my fault. It's the world's fault. It's smart. It's a great way to play it. It's a good move. Dave Jacoby, we gotta do another rewatchables at some point too, people are still bringing up Project X. It's one of the highlights of their lives. Yeah, all right, good to see you my friend.

Good to see you too. All right, we're recording this on a Monday, but it's gonna run Wednesday. Kathy Engelbert is here, WNBA Commissioner. Pretty exciting season coming ahead, including a new San Francisco expansion team. As you know, my life with the WNBA has been complicated because I was not a fan for a long time.

And then as the years passed, really started to get into it the last couple years. And I don't think I'm alone in that, right? How many new fans or converted fans have drifted in the last couple of years that you've seen? Yeah, definitely tens of millions. Um, so, uh, we were, you know, back when I joined, um, we were at the, you know, kind of on the outskirts of professional sports back in 2020.

And then the pandemic, we held a season, a bubble down at IMG Academy and then just raised some capital in early 2022, which gave confidence, I think, to our owners to start investing and build on the momentum. And then we got this amazing rookie class led by Caitlin Clark last year. Yeah. So, yeah. So, yes. And the quality of the game, game bill has really advanced enormously since I

certainly played the game when there was no women's professional sports basketball league. So, uh, I, I do take it with great responsibility that we are the longest tenured women's professional sports league in the U S by double any other, but you know, we've arrived for sure. Yeah. It feels like when the whole Steph Curry era of how basketball, basketball got a little smaller, the shooting expanded out. There was more slash and kick stuff.

And I think that's helped the league more than anything for WNBA. Like when you go back and you look at the games from 20, 25 years ago, and they were resembling, you know, everybody had like big players, and you're trying to post up and establish. And now when you watch it, the pace of it's better, the skills, I went to a finals game and I was blown away by the quality of it.

And also there's a bunch of good players. You're in a really nice little talent boom here. And then you had this rookie class. Yeah, the finals, you know, comparing Asia Wilson and Nafisa Collier. a really nice little talent boom here. Right. And then you had this rookie class. Yeah. You know, Asia Wilson and Nafisa Collier and just, you know, to add into the rookie. And we have another great rookie class off of our draft this year with Paige Becker's and Kiki Iriafen and I mean, personalities like huge personalities too. So I think that has arrived, but literally there's so much that we're hitting this confluence

in women's sports and the WNBA. We were kind of ahead of the curve in raising that capital back in 22. Now there's so much capital coming in and partners and corporate partners. And it's led to kind of major investments on the player development side. So when you have built that confidence in a business model that's going to work and is sustainable, which is what I've been brought in to do, it's you see the benefits of that, the returns of that. And then you see, you know, some an athlete, a generational athlete like Caitlin, I analogize it to the Tiger Woods effect in golf and just her followership and, and then the rivalry she came in with against Angel Reese and LSU Iowa.

And now Paige Becker is coming in from UConn off her championship. But we had great players for many, many decades, for a couple decades. But now, I think with social media, with NIL, with them having brands when they come in and followership, and just the quality of the game. I can't say enough about that too. Yeah, it's the old school motto that I'm sure we both grew up with where you'd watch the players in college for a couple years, they would come to the NBA,

you'd feel like you knew them. You know, like Ewing was at Georgetown for four years. It was like, I knew that guy by the time he got to the Knicks. And the NBA, I think the one thing, not that the NBA's doing badly, but the one thing that they lost a little bit as the one and done era started was just not having, these guys would come in and they would go to bad teams

and for every Anthony Edwards, there would be other guys that might show up on a team, not make the playoffs for five years, you just didn't have the same connection. You have this advantage now, I mean, you're using college basketball as this amazing feeder system. Like when Juju got hurt during the tournament,

I was like, ah. I was so excited to see what team she, if she was gonna come out for the draft, what team she might go for. But you just feel like a different connection. So Paige Becker, I feel like she's been in college forever. Whereas Cooper Flagg was at Duke for six months. You know?

Yeah, no, it's a very good point. And the other thing is the brands are seeing the value of these athletes staying in college, because again, under our current CPA, you have to be 22 by the end of the calendar year in which you get drafted if you're in the US University of System. Right, so Juju couldn't even come out.

Yeah. She couldn't come out. She's only a sophomore, right. So we wish her well. She's going to be an amazing player in the WNBA someday, but obviously had that injury during the NCAA tournament. But yeah, so I do think that brands get to know them, fans get to know them, they come out and they thrive in the W.

I mean, as hard as, and as competitive as the W is, they not only have a local and kind of regional brand like they have in college, but then they have a national and actually now a global brand. So I think it's kind of cool to watch that. Well, and then the number two pick in the draft, the YouTube clips were nuts. And it seemed like one of those things,

like obviously Becker's gonna go first. She's famous, like you can build a franchise around her and she's excellent and she's won everywhere she's been. Then you have this French kid that when you watch, I did a token YouTube deep dive on her. I was like, I'm not quite sure I've seen this before, women's basketball, so how do you like market somebody like that? Yeah, so Dominique Malunga is her name.

She was drafted number two to the Seattle Storm. And our GMs are really smart. They're looking at the global talent pool. I think four of our top 12 picks this year were players born outside the United States. So including one that was in the university system from Australia, but it's incredible what Dominique is. I mean, again, I met her at the draft, but we brought her over from France, but you know, what she's doing effortlessly around her athleticism dunking.

So we'll see. She'll help lift Seattle and we're gonna have a lot of priority in the league this year, Bill. I mean, it's not just going to be two teams like it's been in the past or three. I think six, seven teams are really going to compete hard for the championship this year. Yeah. With her, like the dunking, everybody gets excited if a woman's bird dung is going back to like, you know, the eighties.

The way she moves is just different. And to me, when I was watching, I was like, I don't know if I've seen a player navigate the court like this at this size. So that'll be fun. You know, you mentioned how the league's in this awesome place right now place right now, right? You have the San Francisco team is going to be launching. I think you have Portland and Toronto coming down the road. Next year, Portland and Toronto. So that's going to be 15.

15. Yeah. So we're looking at, I've kind of talked about getting to 16 by no later than the end of 28. Uh, and- So let's talk about that though, because the history of when professional sports leagues grow and things start to get a little good and then they start expansion for a couple of expanding. Cause you get the expansion fees, there's interest, there's money in there. What's the, what's the right number of teams?

Cause for me, I, I, I don't think it should be more than 16. I'm really hoping that you don't, all of a sudden you're at 24 and you end up in a situation where the teams, everybody just has one good player and that's it. How do you know what the right number is? It's excellent timing to be talking about it because we do have so much interest from some great cities.

And I knew when I joined the league, when technology is driving so much of your economy and you don't have a team in the Bay Area, San Francisco, that we needed to fix first. And then Toronto and Portland and Toronto is such a great sports market. And after that Raptors win, when I was actually being courted to come into the WNBA, the Raptors won the NBA championship that year. And so I knew Toronto would be a great place, Portland, great place for women's sports. So I think you're right, Bill. You don't want to degrade the quality of the game by bringing in too many teams too fast. That's why people thought like my first thing I should have done is when I came in with

expansion. And I said, no, we've got a lot of transformation of the business model, the economic model. We got to build confidence in this league, bring investment into this league and capital, get our owners all on the same page. And so that's what we've done. And now it's time to expand, which you're going to see the Valkyries this year out in San Francisco. Yeah, they like sold out right away, right? They have more season ticket holders than any team in the history of the WNBA. And what's really interesting, Bill, and this tells you about the W, less than 5% of those season

ticket holders are Golden State Warrior season ticket holders, but they're owned by the same ownership group. They're going to play in Chase Center. That's an amazing stat because we know that we have such a great fan base and it just brings in a whole new fan base, a whole new media market for us. Same with Toronto having the country of Canada. So more to come. But you're right. We're currently evaluating and really putting together

an analysis of what the right numbers of teams are and when. But we do have a huge amount of demand, low supply, high demand from some great cities that you would say would be a no-brainer for WMPAT. Low supply, high demand is a good thing. But yeah, you go back 60, 70 years with sports. This is how you get in trouble when you're like, hey, we're doing good. Let's grab some teams. So you had a year and a half ago, Portland and Golden State were the expansion teams. And I think it was like, what was it? 50 million was the fee.

Yeah, they varied. So Golden State was different than Toronto, which was different from Portland, which will be very different from team 16. So. But Portland was 50 and now the price is like 125 to get in. So it's already gone up two and a half times in a year and a half. Yeah. It's, it's incredible what has happened, but if you just look at the revenue

teams are building, there's going to be some valuations coming out from both Sportico and Forbes in the next few months, I think that are going to show an enormous increase in the valuation of the teams because revenue is up, whether it's from gate, whether it's some corporate is not whether it's from gate, whether some corporate partnerships, whether it's from merch. Um, you know, there's a lot of things that lead into a multiple on revenue and a confidence in the risk underlying that multiple. Yep.

That always helps. Um, I feel like, so you have 40 game season. 44 this year. So most of it. We bumped it up. 44. We bumped it up. 44. We bumped it up. That's the max under the CBA.

We can play 44. So last year it was hard to play that because it was an Olympic year and we had to break for the Olympics in the middle of our season. But this year, no international competition. We can comfortably play 44 without a footprint. Okay. So that's 22 home games and then the playoffs. You're looking at. Playoffs this year. We have a little evolution as well. Okay. So that's 22 home games and then the playoffs.

You're looking at. Playoffs this year, we have a little evolution as well. The first round. So we're a three, five, seven now first ever. You went seven. I missed that. Yeah. Finals. That's exciting. Seven games. And Bill, you came to that Minnesota New York game. Can you imagine that went full five games to overtime? Can you imagine if that had been a seven game? And that was one of my goals is to get our finals to seven

game series because sports leagues play seven game series like you're seeing in the NBA right now. So in game sevens are one of the most exciting things I think in sports. So we'll have seven games and even our first round now will be one, one, one instead of two, one. So everybody will get a home game that makes the playoffs. So yeah, we're evolving that with the footprint we have. All right. So before you took the job, you're looking back at the 2010s, which the WNBA was in such bad shape that Diana Taurasi, who's the best part of the history of the league, just decided to skip a

season because it wasn't worth enough money for her and she was making more money overseas. And it seemed bleak. It seemed like a business that wasn't going to make it and that the NBA was basically subsidizing almost like a charity case. So what flips over the last eight years, other than Caitlin Clark, what are the big reasons? Cause even before Caitlin came into the league, this was, this was happening. So style of play, what else do you think it was?

Yeah, one of the things I looked at when I came in, I said, like, we need a strategy. We, we, we set, I do everything in threes though. So I said, we got to be player first, stakeholder success, including owners and players, et cetera, and fan engagement. We had to make it easier to be a fan. So we set off on this path, but that sat on the foundation called The Game, which I thought

had never been better, both at college and into the WNBA. The brand, which was really strong. The organization, Team and League, which were a total mess and we needed to transform and hire human capital. And then the ecosystem, I think media companies, corporate partners were less than 1% of all corporate partnership dollars in sports back in 2019 were going to women's sports and less than 5% of all media coverage going to sports was going to women's sports.

So what changed is this confluence that I was talking about, of capital coming into the league, confidence building, valuations going up, higher demand, new facilities, better amenities. We did kind of what we called a historic CBA back in 2020. Now we're in another one and we'll do something transformational this year. But it's a confluence of all that and this popularity of the game.

I mean, basketball is the number one team sport in the United States and it's number two globally, so next to soccer. So it's really an amazing time to be in women's sports and then in women's basketball. But let's not... This has been really hard. I mean, I spent 33 years before I came here in business. This has been the hardest five years because we had to... Every rock we picked up, we had to transform something under

it. Last year, my mantra was the bold will win, everything must change. And that was even before I knew Caitlin was even coming into the league. And then this year, it's sustaining gains. So I always have a mantra every year. But we stick with this strategy, player first, stakeholder success, fan engagement. We've hired engineers, social media, we had none of that. I had 12 people in the league when I joined and that we had no growth engine and now we have 25 people

driving growth at the league level. We had one marketing person when I joined, now we have close to 30 marketing people. I hired a CMO, was a long-term Nike professional. So I mean, it's just been a great lesson in you need financial capital, higher human capital, but you need the people to grow their business. So we were ready. I didn't know this was coming as quickly as it did. I thought we'd need three or four more years. And what happened last year with sellout arenas and record breaking viewership. And look at our preseason this year, Bill, we just had like sold out college arenas. That was the other thing I wanted to, how do you get the NCAA viewer into the W

Viewership. Yeah, and one of the ways to go back to those college arenas like we did With you know going to Iowa and Notre Dame LSU and then Sabrina and the Liberty will be playing in the work and so Leading into the tip of the season. So Yeah, it's it's you know, just every idea we can be bold. We're a smaller league, smaller brand, but we can be bold and really bring, bring what our fans want. And we've been listening a lot. I would throw in two other things.

One is the woman's final four that Friday night on ESPN, especially that semifinals doubleheader, it felt like all this and it was doing well, but it felt like something shifted with that, was doing well, but it felt like something shifted with that, where that really became like a casual sports fan event, not just the real basketball fans, but everybody. And all of a sudden, those games seemed to really matter, and then that becomes the feeder system.

The other thing, you had a couple of owners that actually gave a shit, and looked at their franchises and their place in the league as I, and tried to innovate. Like it seemed like the size with the, uh, with the Liberty, like what Mark Davis did with Las Vegas with, uh, what did he do giveaway tickets for like three years to try to build, build support. You weren't given away, but they were cheap in the upper bone. Yeah.

But he was really trying to get people in the building to give a crap about it. And that seems like, you know, those are, those are, I think, two of the sterling leaders of the league now, but it seems like, cause the owners really cared. So it's almost like a neighborhood where once people start fixing up their house, then everybody feels like they have to fix up their house. And I think also it was like the confidence, like when I came into the league, the owners of which the size were just joining the league,

Mark wasn't in the league yet, MGM owned the ACES. The owners were all in on something called a go big. So literally it was go big or go home. When I was interviewing for the role, go big or go home. So all the owners saw something in the future. It was just, let's chart a path. Let's hire a commissioner. Let's hire great human capital to execute it. So I think that's when the size joined. Mark joined a few years later. And then they had, you know, Mark had a, you know,

before he got there, a couple of great drafts with an Asia Wilson and a Jackie Young and, you know, a few others, you know, Chelsea Gray came from LA for the agency. And so I think that helps. And it helps when you have those star players. New York attracted Grandma Stewart. And they had drafted Sabrina Inesco, who had gotten hurt her rookie season in our bubble. And to your point about the NCAA also in the Final Four

that Friday night, I mean, those are the big games of consequence. How great is March Bandits on both the men's and women's mean, those are the big games of consequence. Like how great is March Bandits on both the men's and women's side? Those are the huge games of consequence. And we have that shorter season. So I would argue a lot of our games are games of consequence even in the regular season.

But then when we get into the playoffs, you're gonna see a lot of competitors, competition, a lot of parity this year leading into our playoffs in September and October when we crown the champion. So you have the, the players union, there's going to be a CBA that you're going to have to negotiate with them. You have all this interest from all these people who either buying franchises already did and the prices have gone way up, but yet the business

model hasn't been proven to be successful yet. So you're still investing in it. It's still growing. The attendance has gone way, way up the last couple of years. You're in this new meteorites deal where I think you at least tripled where you were making before. But you're only still doing 44 games a year

plus the playoffs. Also you have, what's the thing you had where people bought in, they bought percentages of the teams, so you have like this syndicate that owns a piece of the league. What is that? Yeah, just in the league, not teams. This was the thing I referred to in February of 22, because we had no capital to go hire people to affect a digital

transformation, a higher social media, people growth. So what percentage was that? So, um, well, first of all, all, half of our existing teams invested in it. So it was 16% altogether, but about 6% of that were existing investors like the size and the Seattle group and Indiana, you know, Washington, Ted Leonsis. So, it was about 10% outside investors like Nike and Michael Dell and Condoleezza Rice and Swin Cash and Palkasol and Baron Davis. So we opened it up to a broader group of diverse investors, Melody Hobbs and Gale King.

We're really proud of what we did back then. And it served us well. We would not be where we are today, not even close without that capital and having deployed it against so many different things, including marketing, including we launched our first ever in-season competition. We have our Commissioner's Cup well before the NBA did it as a nice little trial run for the NBA's Emirates Cup now.

And again, we're just able to produce all of our pre-season games. We weren't able to do that before. We just had this record-breaking game between the Indiana Fever and the Brazilian National Team, a preseason game that averaged 1.3 million viewers on ESPN. And then our draft was the second most viewed ever, the most viewed compared to MLB and NHL in their history. So we're just, we're seeing the returns of that investment in a big way and the values of our teams going up. So that was that capital raise. When you saw the people that came and invested, I think

gave confidence to all of our owners to invest in their teams, which is driving their team values up. So I think it's a bit of a confidence builder. And capital and valuation is all about confidence in the business and what you're building here. And to your question about the point about the media deal, we're not even done yet. So that was our Tronch 1 media deal, which actually was much more than triple. Five to six times. Five to six times. Okay. Yeah. So it's that was a 200 million AAV. And we were? Five to six times. Okay. Yeah.

So it's a, that was a 200 million AAV and we were going in with about 40, but well, by the time we're done with Trunche 2, cause we still have plenty of inventory left to sell. Hopefully we're aiming to be about 260 AAV over many years. And that's the other thing when you, when you get a big piece of your revenue locked in at a huge number. I mean, this is actually pretty historic, or is historic, our largest media deal in the history of women's sports.

And as we know, and you know better than anybody, Bill, the landscape's changing so quickly. Streamers are interested in us, they're interested in more year-round content, partnering with the NBA we can provide. We're the only two leagues that run counter that can provide over 320 days of only two leagues that run counter that can provide over 320 days of live programming to a streamer. And so it was much more attractive to a Disney

and Amazon and NBC view with Peacock for the W to be to be part of this historic deal. So we're excited about that starts next year, next season. This year we're still under our old deals. So you took that investment. It's almost like a startup business, thought they were a startup doing like a round, getting people to invest. No different than if you had like a AI company or something. People buy in, use that money,

throw it back in the league in all these different ways and it actually paid off. The part that, so it's funny, like this has come full circle almost where a lot of the good stuff that was happening for WNBA the first 20 years solely happened because of the relationship with the NBA and basically Stern pushing it and being like, you have to show the NBA, it has to be on TV, like basically forcing the networks to take it as to show the NBA, it has to be on TV. Like basically forcing the networks to take it as part of the NBA package.

Now in this last deal, I was watching from afar going, would WNBA have been better off not being attached to the NBA at all? Would they have been better off being on their own, like doing their own thing just entirely? It's a little bit of an unknown thing. We already had our own deals. We already had Amazon. We've had Amazon. This will be our fourth year with Amazon. We have Scripps,

Ion. We have CBS. Those are three deals the MBA doesn't have. So everyone just assumes it's just the MBA deal. It's not. But again, the beauty of going to market at least for that first tranche of deals with the MBA is that 320 plus days of live program. We're the only two leagues that can do that here in the US. And it paid huge dividends. Because otherwise we're a four and a half month season bill. And that's not as interesting to a streamer who's on a subscription plan with their subscribers

every month, right? But you need to provide year round content. That's why that was advantage. I mean, obviously the NBA has been a huge supporter for a long time under David who launched the league. Now Adam, obviously. And I sit on the NBA senior leadership team, which is helpful, you know, because we can, you know, play off one another. And they've seen huge now demand for the WNBA game and are always really helpful. We share some back office shared

services. But again, we kind of, because of that capital race, been able to hire a lot of people on our own and have our own sellers on that side of things. But yeah, I mean, it's a huge advantage. There's a reason why we're the longest tenured women's professional sports league ready to enter season 29. And it's because we've had a big brother all along.

Well, so how do you make sure you're not perceived as being too big yet? Because the next step for this is like charter plans for every team. Um, salary cap goes way up and things start happening financially that maybe don't capture where the league is economically. So you're the one in charge of balancing that, especially when you have a bunch of agents coming in, you have players who expect to be paid a certain way. I've seen some of the quotes already from people who play for the league, who,

rightly want as much money as they could possibly make. And we want them to make as much money as they can make. But being in mind the economic model we've been building, and I would say, five, six years ago, we were like an infant. You talked about it being viewed as a startup. We were like an infant in our economic model, not in the game. Yeah, our economic model. And now we like graduated to like a young adult. We kind of skipped our teen years and our tween years. And we graduated to a young adult. But we still have a lot of growth ahead of us. And it's not just the media deal driving growth. And that's

going to drive significant increases in player pay. And last year we already did the charter program fully for all teams for the whole season of playoffs. We had been chipping away each year. We did it initially for the finals and we did it for all playoffs, commissioners cup. And I felt because I knew kind of where we were trending on the media deal that we would pay it forward

and give the players charter last year from the first. So everybody got charter last year because two years ago that was a big catch. Everyone, we did it in between collective bargaining. So we did it because I felt very confident in the fact that we could get to 2026 and the new media rights deals. And I knew where we were trending

that we would essentially pay it forward and do it sooner than an expected bargaining cycle. So that's done. Our corporate partners has stepped up in a huge way. We just signed Ally Financial. They're gonna do a Rivals Week. They're gonna innovate inside the partnership. We have Google and Nike and Deloitte and AT&T and CarMax

and so many others and American Express. So I mean, we're in such good shape, but we still have a lot of low hanging fruit growth global. I mean, Bill, if you ask me what's next, Kathy, after expansion and all this and CPA, it's global. I mean, there's, I mean, when I was at the State Department a couple of years ago, they said like, one of the number one requests they get from embassies is for women basketball players and the WNBA to come to those embassies and show young girls that they could be professional athletes and leaders in their communities. So there's so much.

Could you see a world where there's almost like what they're talking about the NBA, where there's a European version of the league and there's some sort of. You WNBA season happens that season happens and then there's like a world finals. Is that like in play down the road? Obviously kind of tested Canada as our first outside the US. We love to play preseason games around the world. That's part of our plan.

And whether that's in Europe, Asia, Africa, longer term, those cities on the list, there's a lot of cities that would like us to come and have an exhibition or a regular season game. This year, we're playing our first ever regular season game outside the US in Vancouver. I know that might not sound like a big deal, but there's a regular season game that the Atlanta Dream will actually host the Seattle Storm

up in Vancouver. And we've seen huge success selling out in Edmonton and Toronto on preseason games. So the sky's the limit globally. We just want to make sure we have the right global footprint first. Nike just took Sabrina Inescu over to Asia. She went to China and Hong Kong, and I think the Philippines. And so that kind of...

You remember, Bill, what happened with the NBA when they brought Kobe there and Stephon Marbury and built huge businesses and huge followership in Asia. And so I think we'll look at that playbook a little bit and make sure we're bringing our game to markets. I mean, we showed our games in India a couple of years ago and 24 million unique viewers watched our games in India and we didn't have one player from India in the WNBA. So, um, lots of upside, uh, globally for us. So you have to figure out the CBA, what's the timeline for the next deal? The timeline is by the end of the year. Um, so I feel really good.

We've already been having meetings. I feel really good that we'll get something transformational done together. And, you know, the players will posture in the media, but as I said, on draft night, we're not going to negotiate in the media. We're going to negotiate across the table and we're going to return as much as we possibly can with keeping in mind the financial viability of the league for many decades to come. And I think the players will want that too.

All right. So here's my big nitpick. I hate that these games go against NFL on Sundays, like huge. And I know we've, I know we've discussed it. You know, I threw out that stat about the, about the Golden State Valkyries only having less than 5% of the fans that were our season ticket owners that were Golden State warrior fans. The actual site, you know, look, the footprint is challenging.

It's a Rubik's cubes, arena availability, broadcast windows. You got to do, make sure you fans, the actual site, you know, look, the, the footprint is challenging. It's a Rubik's cubes, arena availability, broadcast windows. You gotta do made October. Um, and I realized that goes into both the college football season. So we don't generally don't play on Saturdays and it goes into the NFL season for sure.

Although we ironically kept a weird pickup and viewership on Sundays when we slept. So that was the counter. You guys actually did really well going against football. It was like this almost like an alternative football audience that just crushed. If the one o'clock game, a lot of times we play at three o'clock Eastern, the one o'clock games close to over by then or the score or whatever people will turn on ABC or ESPN. Um, we do really well on ABC cause we have a more lifestyle viewer.

And I think our crossover, we get a lot of fan data. That was the one thing, Bill, when I came in, we had no... I go, who's our fan? And everybody looked at me like, what? So now, again, we have data analysts and data scientists and fan acquisition and insight people who will take our fan data and give me insights off of that. And one of the insights was, I think that we only have 20% crossover with NFL fans. So only 20% of NFL fans are also WNBA fans. Now we would like more of them. So we'll have our Taylor Swift someday, right? Because we skew a little more women than the men's needs do.

And so, you know, I think we're working on ways to bring in more fans, whether it's from other men's professional sports or women's or whatever. But that was an aha when I saw we're only 20%. Yeah, it's like 60 some percent NBA fans are also WNBA fans. So, you know, so it's a much bigger percentage. So not to compete against the NBA or college basketball is more important to me than to... I don't even view it as competing as the NFL because we have a whole different fan base. Uh, but we get a little lift on those Sundays when we play games. I know a lot of people don't think so, but we do.

Yeah. Well, it's the other challenge seems to be you, you're basically like the matriarch of this family and you want all the kids to get shine in all these different ways, but then you've also stumbled into this phenomenon in Caitlin. That's like a once a decade thing. Like the last time it really happened in sports was probably Steph Curry in 2014, right? When the, when the Warriors thing really started taking off and you could just

feel the energy shift. I remember going to a Warriors game the year that the year before the 73 win season and just get in there early. Because I want to see media people and there were people were in the arena just to in case he was still going to be there for warmups. I was like, ah, this is this is like different. This has not happened for a while. You have this now with Caitlin. So how how do you balance pushing her versus like making sure like Asia Wilshens, her shoe just sold out in five minutes.

So it's not like some of the other players aren't doing well, but how do you balance making sure you're not just too focused on her and, but you also don't want to not focus on her. Not enough. You know what I mean? No, it is a balance, but she's a generational talent. No league's ever about one player, but in this case, Caitlin brought tens of millions of new viewers into the W and there's no denying that impact.

Not just in the WNBA, but the world of sports. Adam and I took all the time about that. She's the most popular athlete in America. She went to an LPGA tournament for a pro-AM on a Wednesday and it's like, the wrong of the people were out there to watch her. I was at the Masters last year when she was in the Final Four, and, you know, I counted like 19 Caitlin Clark shirts

of people walking around the Masters, so. It's crazy. Like, I said on a pod, I think she's the most popular under 30 team sport athlete we have. Now that Mahomes is 30, I think anyone under 30, I think she has anyone in any sport at this point, just from a recognizability. This turned 23, so she is hugely popular.

But again, you do want to balance it because obviously it's all that happened with Juju Watkins, you know, you want to balance making sure that you're also promoting your other stars like Inesia Wilson, like Brianna Stewart, Nafisa Collier killed it last year. I mean, she was the runner-up MVP and the defensive player of the year. I loved her. I thought she was awesome.

Yeah, great person. She could have gotten a couple calls in the finals. I thought she could have gotten some superstar calls. So I was upset about that. Yeah, she's a mom and a role model for so many. So yeah, so I think again, that's why this year's Sustained and Gained. Sustained and Gained, the momentum we had last year and gain even new, new viewers.

Because if you look at, I mean, we're up triple digits in every category and every demographic and young people, old people, young girls, employees, we're having watch parties and watching our games. So it was incredible. So how's the gambling? If the gambling comes, that's when you really know when the, when they, cause I know like Fandel was saying they actually had like real interest, especially as it went to the playoffs. So that's like a whole other,

a whole other, like that's where you know you're doing okay. There already is a lot of sports betting on the DA. And you know, one of the things last year on our tip off night happened to be a Tuesday night last year, not a Friday night because of the Olympic break and we had to push everything in. But we competed on ESPN2 against the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs and outrated it. And Sandul said that Handel and the W was the highest in the month of May last year of any sport. So it was incredible.

So yeah, that's another, like, if you think about innovation about watching bet and bet and watch, and why do people watch sports? They watch for rivalries. They watch for compelling content. And yeah, some of the sports betters watch cause they bet the game. Yeah. Caitlin five plus threes with Indiana to win part of it. Yeah. That's, that's just where we are with some sports viewership at this point. Did you? But I know like I became an NFL fan

because I have five brothers and I started playing fantasy football. Right. Right? And so I knew I had Tim Brown, I'll never forget it. And you know, I had, this was way back. And so that caused me then to watch games. So same thing here.

I think more people are coming to watch the game from that fan segment, we call it. So you're kind of stuck with your schedule now, going May, October. There's no way to go to 50 games. It's just too hard with the basketball playoffs. The problem is every other year we have an international competition. So next year it'll be the FIFA World Cup. Then two years after that, we have LA 28, which we love.

I mean, the Olympics are, I mean, the fact that the women won eight consecutive gold medals, the US women's national basketball team and they're going for their ninth all-time record in LA it is amazing so we have to support those international competitions yeah yeah I can definitely see us going to 50 I don't know what it's collectively bargained so right now the max is 44 um and you know the question is do we want to go into November and and crossover with

the NBA and college basketball? And then, because there's not much to be, people don't understand. There's not much you can do on the front end because we love the college draft. We love the rookies. A lot of rookies. Well, you're also, you have the college season ends like April 4th. Yeah, we can't start it much earlier. I mean, again, in a year like last year, like Caitlyn goes to the final game,

gets drafted the following Monday night, as in training camp the following Sunday. She was luggage for the first month of the season. Like that was pretty hard. She's been playing since she was four years old or whatever. And they did great. So, so again, this year we had a little more time. We had like two and a half weeks between the draft and opening of training camp. But yeah, it's a challenge on the front end.

You can't move it too much forward if you want the rookies to come in, which we do because it's a great feeder system for us, as you said. And then so we'll look at the backend and how far can we go and how many NFL and college football Saturdays can we go into.

And we'll evaluate all that under, under the CBI. You know, what's interesting that WNBA is actually good for fantasy. You just made me think of that when you were talking before about the football fantasy, because NBA fantasy stinks now because the season's too long and all the injuries and guys go and it's just like, there's no rhyme or reason to it. And I was like an original, I was playing fantasy basketball in the eighties. WNBA is actually cause the shorter season, um, works better. And that now you got my brains turning.

I'm gonna have to do. ESPN does have a product. They have a fantasy league women's, uh, for the WNBA women's basketball. It's called. Yeah. So, um, they do have one just, I think the last two years or so. Yeah. All right.

All right. Sounds like everything's going good. Yeah, Bill, five years for you, four years, five years. What is it? Uh, it'll be six years in July. So the first year was all blur cause it was COVID. Yeah. Um, we forget COVID was like, right.

Yeah. Right. Um, you know, not that long ago, but it seems like forever ago. So, uh, yeah, I feel like, so the first year really during COVID, that's when I handed Asia Wilson her first MVP and now three time MVP with her own shoe. Oh, the other thing, Bill, that's been amazing to watch from where I sit is when I joined the league, not one player had a significant endorsement with a big brand, except for maybe their sneaker brand, but they weren't big. And now there's almost a commercial break in any major sport where you're not seeing the WNBA player in a commercial spot.

It's pretty cool to watch whether it's CarMax, whether it's AT&T, Delta now on the seat back on a Delta plane. They filmed a commercial with three of our players, Stui and Nekogumike. And it's just incredible what brands have done to step up to support these players too individually. Like we have league deals with them, but we also have, they also have personal endorsements now and so that's been a great part about the growth of the league. And I always said if 80% of every household consumer purchasing decision in the US has made her influenced by a woman, why wouldn't you endorse a WNBA player?

Well, they missed the boat with Tarasic because she's the best. I do. I agree. I can't believe they, she's the absolute best. Yeah. She's the goat. She got voted the goat in our 25th year. But also cool. Like she's, she's a great hang. She's just cool. Like I don't, I never understood that one. I know. And now I thank God if I was the commissioner 20 years ago. Oh.

Would it have be different? Yeah. She should have been more famous. I need a team this year. Last year I had the links because I bet on them halfway through the season. Almost, almost pulled it off, but this year, cause you know, Boston doesn't have a team yet. Um, so I just look at, look at, look at Phoenix, look at Seattle, look at,

obviously Indy has really. Yeah, I think I might bet, I might bandwagon it and just bet on the fever to win the title, just jump right on there. But yeah, no, that's. Yeah, our free agency this year, Bill, it's another thing that changed in the CBA, our free agency was a lot better this year than I thought, but next year, fasten your seatbelt, 80% of the veterans in this week will be free agents. Wow.

And we'll run two expansion drafts. So one expansion draft, but for two teams. Oh, that's right. It's going to be, it's going to be crazy. It's going to be crazy. The 20th and that'll be our 30th season bill. So really looking forward to that. Well, congrats.

You guys are in great shape. Um, thanks for coming on. I'm glad you're doing well. Uh, congrats. You guys are in great shape. Thanks for coming on. I'm glad you're doing well. Don't, don't expand too fast. Settle the NBA. Keep the league going. All right. Good to see you. Thanks for coming on. All right. Thanks Bill. Anytime. Any game. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo. Thanks to Kathy Engelbert for joining us. Thanks to my old friend Dave Jacoby. Love that guy. Great to have him aboard. And I'm going to be back in 24 hours after OKC and Denver. Game six. You can watch it live on YouTube on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel.

I'll see you in 24 hours. I'm gonna see them run away so I never wanna say I don't have feelings with him Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-887-897777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here, visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York.