The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Unfathomable LIV-PGA Merger, Miami’s Special Sauce, and Butler’s Unusual Superstardom With Joe House, Nathan Hubbard, and Raja Bell

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Joe House and Nathan Hubbard to discuss the abrupt PGA Tour–LIV Golf merger. Was this the endgame for LIV all along? What about the players who never left? Could this happen again with other sports like tennis? And more (1:49). Then, Bill talks with Raja Bell about the Heat's improbable playoff run, Denver's need to "fight back" vs. Miami's aggressive play, Jimmy Butler's unique career arc, Game 3 thoughts, and more (44:44). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Joe House, Nathan Hubbard, and Raja Bell Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, golf. Golf? Yeah, golf. Oh, and basketball. What's next? This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me. I can't go a day without sports.

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to learn more about the resources and helplines available. And listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I do not have a new rewatchables up. Usually we do them on Monday nights. Our schedule is all out of whack this week. On this podcast, we had one Sunday night, me and Rosillo.

We have this one today. And then Wednesday night, right after game three, which has suddenly turned into a fascinating game, I'm going to have a podcast reacting to the game. I have a second guest as well that I'm excited about. So the schedule this week is Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Rewatchables will be later in the week. Coming up on this podcast, the Fairway Rolling guys, Nathan Hubbard, Joe House. We're going to react to Live and PGA, the most unexpected merger, I think, in recent sports history. I'm just picking my jaw off the ground. We're going to talk to those guys about that. And then our guy Raja Bell, who is on Real Ones on the Ringer NBA show with Logan Murdoch, a great podcast. They had Howard Beck on this week. It was fantastic. Haven't had Raj on in a while, which is my fault because he's

always available to come on. I just always forget to ask him out, but we're going to talk about the finals and what it's like to be in a team that gels and a whole bunch of other things, how he defends Jim Butler. I'll try to get him into trouble a couple of times. That is the podcast. Can't wait. It's all next. First, our friends from ProJet. All right, we're taping this late afternoon Pacific time. We have had seven to eight hours to digest one of the most shocking sports announcements I can remember. People on Twitter were comparing this to Hulk Hogan joining the NWO. And I thought that was fair, but that was also professional wrestling. It was scripted.

They set up the angle to some degree. There was no setup for any angle here. The Live Tour, which has just taken a beating the last couple of years, which has turned into this moral quandary of should you go? Should you take the money? Are we allowed to watch it? Are TV networks, can they broadcast it? What's going on exactly?

What about people's legacies? We felt it. We were at the Masters in April and there was a little bit of a chill with the live guys that you could definitely feel in the galleries. And it was either you're on this side or that side. And now the sides have merged.

Nathan Hubbard, our guy in the ground for the Fairway Rowland podcast. Did any of this, did you see any of this coming? Like any of it? I think House and I would tell you this was just a matter of time. The shock is in A, how quickly it happened. And B, nobody fucking knew. Tiger Woods did not know. Rory McIlroy did not know.

And the 20 to 30 most important guys who were waving the flag for the PGA Tour on moral grounds, on legacy and history grounds are also the 20 to 30 guys who don't have a contractual commitment, did not take a 200, 300 million dollar check and are sitting there tonight after a very raucous players meeting from everything we've heard in the last two hours wondering, did I get sold out. Well, you know who feels that way? Joe House. Joe House wanted to start a live tour podcast and was pitching it. And you could have cashed that money house and then also just still had a PGA podcast, as it turned out.

What did you do wrong? Join forces with you? I don't know. I'm not sure it's the right answer to that. I will say this. I, like Nathan, am completely stunned by the timing, by the sheer speed with which this came together. But I will remind you guys, we were in the company of an industry heavy hitter. One of the

best things about the Masters, it really is golf Super Bowl. The entire industry comes out. The parties are great. We were at one of these great parties hosted by a great host, an industry insider who on this topic shared with us a potential pathway for a kind of combination for a role with the Saudis integrating in some manner with the tour. And it made sense. What he outlined for us was something along the lines of the Saudis propping up this soft portion of the PGA Tour schedule and a soft portion of its tournaments where the sponsors

have been feeling like second-class citizens. And that's the fall series. But for sure, I, nobody had in their head that this was going to come together this year, that there was going to be something, you know, mere months from the masters. We're only like halfway through the majors. The U S open is, is, is next week. So I don't think, you know, the stunning aspect of it is this, you know, the speed with which this came together. Right, Nate? Yeah, I think this is a reflection

of what trench warfare this ended up being for both parties involved. The Saudis got into this to gain influence and Western assimilation. The stories around Liv and the highlighting weekly on the Golf Channel and all golf media pointing out the moral complications

of the Liv League were not good for the Saudis. The discovery process in court of emails going up to the highest levels of government, not good for the Saudis. But it now appears that a lot of this litigation was draining the funds of the PGA Tour as well. You're going to hear a lot of questions, Bill, about who won this. You're going to be able to make a case that the Saudis have some measure of influence. You're going to be able to make a case that the live guys get the big check and now can continue to participate in the history of the tour potentially. There's a pretty good case that the PGA Tour, from a business perspective, won. You're not going to have a live tour in 2025. I'm telling you that now. The product, which we have made fun of and joked about because it sucked, is going to

disappear. But the end objectives of the parties involved in that tour seem to have won out today. So this was basically a very fancy roundabout way for the Saudis to fund part of the PGA Tour. That's where we've landed, House. And in many respects, it is the answer that I think they ultimately desired from the get-go. And they did bring to bear the leverage that they had. They did make the tour uncomfortable. The tour changed its calendar in less than a year. The tour changed the way it compensated its players in less than a year. And the tour went around and really checked in with its most important partners,

its TV partners, and were like, we're good, right? We're going to put all the best guys on TV most of the time to really bolster the TV product. And the Saudis all along, I mean, this is the thing on Fairway Rolling that we've been hammering when it comes to the Live Tour. It's a bad TV show. It wasn't a good TV show. It wasn't a show that anybody wanted to watch. Um, and it, and it goes to, you know, the, at the guts of it, how is professional golf popular

enough to make a difference? And ultimately Nathan and I would say, probably not. There is really room for, for, you know, multiple, um, competing tours where all the best guys aren't going to be together. Most often in that proof of concept, you know, we, we have validation that, that people want to see the best golfers play often when we, when we watch the masters and we watch the PGA championship where live guys

played quite well. And the interest in both of those championships was, was, was quite prominent, right? Nate. Yeah. I think the thing on this one for me is the PGA

has basically three of the four board seats. They can outvote the Saudis. They have control. To me, this feels a little bit like... We talked about this on Fairway Row in a bit, but this feels like the Facebook acquisition of Instagram to me, Bill, where at the time, people were like, holy shit, they spent a billion dollars on Instagram? And now you look back and you go, oh my gosh, that move saved the company. And so for a little while here, there's going to be some murky waters because of the hurt feelings

about the business decision to put these two things together. But golf is not big enough for there to be two separate leagues. And so when Monaghan had a kill shot on the league, he took it. The question now is, what does he do about the 20 to 30 great players

who have delivered a really good TV show this spring in these elevated events, one of which we saw last week, where all the best guys have been playing with each other more frequently on the same courses and the ratings are going up. Those guys are not under contract. Those guys didn't take the check. Those guys waved the flag for the PGA Tour. How are they going to take care

of them? You know, this story combines a bunch of different things that have happened with other leagues. Like for instance, the ABA, when that launched in the late 60s, their goal was always to get a merger with the NBA, right? And then eventually the players intervened and that led to a lot of players association stuff and the ABA was like, fuck it. And they started competing, but ultimately they wanted to get in the NBA.

The same thing, not much different with the way the AFL and the NFL was in the 1960s. We'll start this league. We either compete with them or we'll merge. When XFL started with Vince McMahon, that was supposed to be an alternative league in the spring. It actually would have worked if the players weren't so bad, which is like, to your points, there wasn't enough talent to sustain the two different leagues, which is kind of where we landed here. I wonder from a Saudi standpoint, was this the end game all along, right? To spend this kind of money and either it's going to work,

you're going to get as many players as you want. What do you care how much money you're spending? Or was this a way to kind of bully themselves into the PGA? And if that was the case and it worked, is this our last stop? Could they do this with another league? It's like in succession when Jerry says to Roman, when Roman's like, we're going to try to stop the deal. And she's like, you're going to lose. The money washes away.

I forget her exact quote, but the money washes away everything. The money's always going to win. And I wonder, like, is this the last time we're going to say that about professional sports and one of these leagues or foundations? What do you think, Cass? in American sports history that a sovereign nation's investment fund is partnered with the leadership of that league and that that sovereign nation. We've had, you know, foreign owners own teams, Prokhorov with the Nets, and then, you know, Josiah, who's American, but, you know, obviously has... And Premier League, we've had a ton.

Yeah, but I'm talking about in the United States. This is a first of its kind in the United States. And one of the things that Nathan and I have pointed out with the Saudis is it was shrewd of them. So in their heart of hearts, I'm not sure that they really care that much about golf or professional golf, but I think that it was shrewd of them to go to an entity where the people, the TV actors, the most important players, they're independent contractors,

right? There aren't contracts that they had to mess with. They could pick them off and create leverage. And if the ultimate goal is, as Nathan and I kind of laid out, for the Saudis to buy some Western acceptance, Western assimilation. Ultimately, I don't think they really care that much about professional golf. Just being in the mix. Yes. So Nathan, why couldn't they do this with tennis? Couldn't they do this tomorrow and do the exact same thing? I think they can. And that's where I would say the guy who drove this on the Saudi side

actually is a big golf fan. And if you think about the objectives here of being accepted into Western culture coupled with the real objective is to diversify their business outside of oil holdings, they know that golf is a sport played by a large majority

of the high-profile business CEOs in the Western world. It's just a big opportunity for them to create a perception of acceptance. But I'll tell you what, they had absolutely no time. If golf was the vehicle, they could have given a shit about Lyft. We have not heard word one from Greg Norman, who was the fiery CEO who led this whole thing, who's put his own reputation and literal unit out on the line for this league. He's not mentioned in the press release. He apparently received a phone call right before these guys went on CNBC today.

Jay Monahan himself has been super evasive all day about whether there will be any concept of a live schedule in 2024 or beyond. This was purely a vehicle to gain acceptance. Everybody else in the entire narrative was used, except those 20 to 30 great players who stayed, including Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, who were the leaders of this charge, watch their Twitter feeds. We've heard nothing from those guys. The next thing that matters is what Tiger and Rory say. House, is this the biggest golf story of our lifetime? It's one of the biggest sports stories of our lifetime, right? We haven't really lived through a merger like this. I mean, the mergers in the NFL and the NBA happened when we were children. And they were slow to happen and you kind of knew where it was headed the whole time. Yeah, this has no precedent in today's dollar terms and the kind of media leverage that's out

there right now. I mean, to Nathan's point about the guys we haven't heard from yet. I just, there better be a plan for those guys. Those guys, you know, all along have had leverage. Yeah. And, you know, it's a business 101 proposition to get the buy-in from your most important constituency if you're going to try and pull something like this off. One of the aspects of this deal that was announced is the creation of

a for-profit entity that will house all of the media rights and everything. That entity, there's nothing impeding that entity from writing contracts that look like NBA contracts. If you want to sign Jordan Spieth to a 10-year contract for $400 million, you can do it. This new entity can do it. If you want to do the same thing with Rory and JT, there's nothing stopping them. And I sure hope that's a cornerstone of this business model if they have any hopes whatsoever of successfully presenting competitive professional golf on television and getting buy-in from the most important constituency. Yeah. That's a lot of words to say. They got to pay Scotty. They got to pay Jordan. They got to pay Justin Thomas. They got to pay Rom. How they do it is going to be semantics and

financial wizardry. Those guys have to absolutely get paid more than they do right now. It's coming. Did you just take a shot at house for being loquacious? Never. Never. Never. I just haven't had enough to drink. I mean, that's the problem. We had to work all day today, for Christ's sake.

I know. We're going to take a quick break. I have a lot more questions. It's almost time to crown an NBA champion and FanDuel wants you to be part of the excitement. Right now, new customers can get a no-swept first bet up to $2,500. That is $2,500 back in bonus bets if your first bet doesn't win. And you can time it with the boost I'm going to do for Game 4 of the NBA Finals.

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Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. House, you mentioned this production company that they've basically formed that I'm just going to call Joe House Productions for now, since maybe, I don't know, maybe you could be the media partner for it. What is, at this point, they basically bought all this out. They bought out the competition. They merged. Why would they have to pay Jordan Spieth that kind of money? Why would they have to pay Colin Morikawa a seven-year, $50 million? Like, where else are those guys going?

Because there's no competition anymore. It's like, if I'm at an auction for my school and I'm the only one bidding for whatever, then I'm just going to bid whatever it takes to win. And that's it. If I don't have competition, the competition's gone. So why are the players going to even benefit from this? So it's an awesome point.

And many of the criticisms that are coming out today across the landscape fall into two categories. One of them is the potential for suppression of wages, suppression of earnings. And the other thing, which is very funny, is that the, you know, big way that the fight between Liv and the tour, you know know took place was in the context of litigation having to do with antitrust um they just eliminated all competition there is you know if america's antitrust laws have any teeth in them whatsoever i mean the justice department um i would imagine has to get very busy right now because the existence of live ironically, um,

undercut their, their arguments that there was a antitrust, uh, violation in the, in the works with, with the PGA tour. Now this combination, you know,

there, there's really no other competition for professional golfers in the entire world. I guess my answer would be, you know, why pay Spieth? Why pay Morikawa? It's, those guys lead to the competition that makes the tour of viable TV products, like the entertainment product. That's what the prize money is for, though.

I mean, to me, we're going back to square one where we were six years ago. We are, except now there's a blueprint for how you become an activist shareholder in golf. And you see guys who will buy up, you know, the corporate raiders who buy up little bits of a company and create chaos until they get into the boardroom. That's exactly what happened here. And these 20 to 30 guys are the only ones who don't have a contractual obligation. And I can tell you, there were multiple competing ideas for a competing golf league before the Saudis stepped in and did this. There are other investors, private equity people who are not affiliated with the sovereign state of Saudi Arabia, who are going to look at this and go, man, I could do this in tennis. Maybe I can still do

this in golf if Spieth and Tiger and Rory and Thomas and Rom are pissed off. I can come in right now and it looks like I can get an equity position in the PGA Tour if I play my cards right here. Well, all right. So let's talk this out. Golf and tennis. What truly makes this sport special in golf, you have the four majors and you have the master's course. And in tennis, you have the four majors and then you have the US Open and Wimbledon and the French Open, which are like these iconic venues that you couldn't really compete against even if you tried. So you could have the tour, you could get players, but you wouldn't have the magic of the masters or even like right now, the French Open.

Other than that, I don't know why it wouldn't work if you got enough guys. Like if Tiger and Rory said, fuck this. Oh, Jeff Bezos just called. Amazon wants to fund their own golf thing and they could care less about money as long as people buy Amazon Prime stuff. That to me doesn't seem unrealistic.

We've watched people squander money left and right, like billions and billions. Other than that, I don't see how a rival tour would work. It would have to be basically the Saudi blueprint. But with some super rich guy or like what Nathan said, some giant equity fund? What are the other options, Nate? It's the startup play of a company that's just trying to get acquired by a larger entity.

And unfortunately, the tour has shown that this is a possible way in to House's point without, I mean, they better have a plan for John Rahm. That's it. I mean, hey, it's great.

We're going to get a Ryder Cup. They better have a plan for Mark Hubbard. What's he. I mean, hey, it's great. We're going to get a Ryder Cup. They better have a plan for Mark Hubbard. What's he going to do? We haven't heard from him yet. We have. But yeah, I mean, Mark Hubbard right now sits at 69. Nice. On the FedEx Cup rankings.

The top 70 guys were destined to keep their card next year and keep their job, get into all the big events. Well, now what happens when Brooks Koepka comes back to this tour, if he can? When Bryson comes back, when DJ comes back, does 69 still get you in? Or are the rules going to change? So for a bunch of guys like that who are not the bread and butter of the tour,

but the sort of mid-tier, there's a whole lot of ambiguity. This might mean a lot more money, a lot more opportunity. Might also mean that what it takes to be successful, you just got backed way the heck up. House, did this whole thing teach us that the PGA Tour was actually making way more money than they were letting on? I don't know the answer to that. I i mean they had a reserve that they created for the purposes of you know unanticipated changes in the business climate and then we had unanticipated changes in the business climate a double whammy in the form of the pandemic in the first place which

yeah greatly curtailed uh competitive golf and so there had to be some kind of subsidy from the tour that occurred. And then right on the heels of that, this disruptor that really changed the entire compensation structure for the tour. So the tour's coffers, I think, took kind of a double whammy hit. And one of the things that, that I think was an accelerant to all of this was the tour doing some, you know, um, quiet feelers to its sponsors saying, Hey, you know how we're offering $20 million in a dozen events that we hadn't

previously offered before. Um, we might need your help like with, with eight to 10 million for per, per event, we might need an extra, you know, 12 times 10, $120 million. You know, do you think that we can work out a deal around? Like, I think they put out some of those feelers and maybe didn't get the best reaction.

Because the sponsors are like, what extra am I getting for the extra money? And so it was sensible for the tour. So you're saying don't do that. We shouldn't try that with our brands at the extra money. And so it was sensible for the tour. So you're saying don't do that. We shouldn't try that with our brands at The Ringer. Well, I'd like to talk to somebody, anybody willing to cut a deal. As we know, I'm very available at all times to be bought at really any price.

But other folks, right, that might not be the way to go about it. Nate, what's your take on that? Do you think the PGA Tour was hoarding a little more money than maybe they were letting on? Or is House's answer correct? I don't think so because the urgency of this and the way that it was delivered

without any of the other stakeholders knowing suggests that money was the problem and that the death by a thousand cuts of these legal battles was hurting the tour and that Monaghan didn't have a clear line of sight to how to pay a $20 million purse for the tournament at Jack's Place that he just finished last week.

So I think he got to a place where his options were narrowing and he felt like, you know, in technology companies, it's a soft landing. It's why I'm a little suspicious of all this PR. It feels like the tour and Monaghan in particular are taking face punches to give a graceful exit to live and really give the Saudis what they ultimately wanted, because he believes that from a business perspective, this was the only option for him to take.

It's a natural compromise that happens through the course of business. It just doesn't generally involve selling out the families of the 9-11 victims. And that's the other shoe that's left to drop. They're furious. They're being loud. It's probably based on how fast this came together. It's probably not something that Monaghan and the rest of the tour were prepared for. So if they ultimately lose this PR battle, question is, does this damage golf overall? And it gets branded with all the negativity that the tour has thrown in the halls of government and in the press over the last year at what was the moral complications of the live league. Well, so that makes me think the antitrust thing is huge. And the whole, wait a second,

not only are we not going to win any sort of anything anytime soon, but this is going to drain the fucking shit out of us. And we don't really have another play. Because here's, I mean, here's the next point. We haven't even talked about this yet.

We're 24 minutes into this part of the podcast. Why this week? Of all the fucking weeks. Like, the US Open next week. It's going to be awesome. It's going to be in Los Angeles. You're coming off a really fun PGA.

Like, this is kind of the sweet spot of the golf season. Got the British coming later. Like why now? Which makes me wonder, they must've felt like we got to solve this now. Like for nobody knowing for the timing, I don't know, House,

what are the reasons like it would be today? Well, it was reported that they've been in these discussions for two months. And, you know, how does that not come out? That's just amazing. Well, it was reported that they've been in these discussions for two months. Wow. How does that not come out? That's just amazing. Three guys in a room. It will all come out over these next few weeks and months, and it's going to be, five, or seven. I think they started to get worried about the possibility of a leak

and losing the opportunity to control the narrative in this manner. It is, it's a half-baked day. It's a half-baked presentation. It's a half-baked press release. It's a half-baked bit of communication to the most important stakeholders, the players. And I think they clearly measured the threat of this leak against walking out in this half-baked manner and just decided, fuck it, we got to go. I think they thought they were vulnerable. You've got U.S. senators right

now saying, these guys were in my office last month telling me that the Saudi nationals controlling a golf league on American soil was a threat. And by the way, they're taking up the same issue with TikTok right now. Do you want a foreign national controlling something, a media property that a bunch of people are invested in? All the same concept. Now, I think Monaghan's calculus was, if I let this get out, it's got more of a chance of blowing up the deal because some stakeholders are going to scream, I think this is the right thing for us. I'm going to take the kill shot and deal with the screams later. And that's the only explanation for why he would do

this. And again, he put his lieutenants out on the line of fire for a year to take bullets. And this morning, they woke up and found out about it the same way that the three of us did. Is there any possibility of all the people who are supposed to play the U.S. Open next week showing up on a Wednesday and just not playing? No. Or protesting or doing anything?

That's out, right? No chance? No chance. No, in part because the PGA Tour doesn't own the U.S. Open. But I think the reaction, the reports coming out of this players meeting that happened this afternoon, and by the way,

the only player in the top 20 who's up there just about is Rory McIlroy in Canada for the tournament this week. So when we say they were in the room, people who were on the call on the Zooms heard a presentation from the commissioner and we're hearing that it was a highly,

highly, highly contentious meeting. So this is not over by any stretch right now. And there are divisions within the players themselves because the top 20, 30 guys are one set, as we talked about, that mid-tier of golfers have a different set of needs. James Hahn, golfer who's won a couple times on tour, funny-ass Twitter account,

has taken massive shots at the tour for how they were handling just the interaction with Liv to begin with. So when you rally the troops to a cause and then split them up and betray them, generally they tend to eat the guy in charge. Well, and then we're opening the door for the rival league formed by Tiger and Rory and Mark Hubbard, the big three.

That happens. Well, this is the aspect of this that fascinates me. If they don't have a plan for paying in the first place the top 30 guys and compensating the guys who said no to the live temptation in the first place and the top 30 guys and compensating the guys who said no to the live temptation in the first place and figuring out a way to make them whole. So those are all contracts that to me should look like NBA contracts, some number of years with some, you know, with, with multiples of, of, of millions of dollars. And then I, if, if this was, you know was my architecture, I would have a plan for players 31 through 150 and have contracts lined up to give those guys.

You need to take care of the folks that are on TV. The people that are on TV need to be happy for that TV product to work. You need to minimize the dissenting views. Now, I mean, James Hanna is not in the top 150, I don't think. No. Right. And he's a punchline. But 31 to 150 are still meaningful contributors to this television program.

If you want a compelling television program, you have to have underdog stories. We loved Michael Block at the PGA Championship. We love Sam Bennett, the amateur at the Masters. Those were outstanding performances. They made those television programs compelling. That's how you continue to have compelling underdog stories is to pay everybody. That's the point of a cornerstone sponsor. The most compelling story, though, that comes out of this is Phil Mickelson and Wither Phil, who goes down now as one of

surely the most controversial, but now sort of inarguably the most transformational athlete in American sports. He's done as much to change it as probably any guy since integration happened in major league sports.

You got to tap the brakes because LeBron is sitting right here. LeBron has done a lot. But in a way to absolutely transform the league, Michael Jordan, talk to me. Yes, for sure.

More than Phil. Oh, way, way more. Way more. The player empowerment that lebron ushered in when he showed everybody the leverage that the players have i think is is unrivaled but this is a conversation for another podcast on another another day i just don't think that i would put phil mickelson ahead of lebron james no but i understand ushering something the nathan point of like i do too he's completely changed how the sport was basically conducted, operated,

how they're going to spend money from now on just by whatever this weird venture was. I've never seen anything like this. I mean, we've seen in the 50s and 60s, especially like when, in the NBA, when they formed the players union in the 63, 64 range. And at that point, the players were playing like five games in six days and traveling everywhere by coach and train. And they were able to change the quality of life for the players.

I don't remember the actual structure of a sport changing this fast. And a guy who lit himself on fire publicly and in his private life in doing so. And looked like a Bond villain as it was happening. Deliberately. Wait, going back

to Tiger and Rory and the guys who got money and the guys that didn't. So like what was the highest number somebody in the Live Tour got? Well, we heard there was a three quarter of a million dollar offer out to tiger billion but what like what did brooks get what did like uh dj get those guys got in the two to three hundred million dollar range i think phil got the most because he had um you know had a role of trying to go out and sell guys on it. I think he was out there.

He was part of the... He was the architect. Yes, exactly. He was the architect of the concept, and then he was an ambassador for it. So I think he's at the top with Brooks and Kepka. On Twitter this week, he told us he is worth $800 million. Jesus. So if you do the math on what that must mean, I don't think his coffee for wellness is a

$200 million brand. Well, I guess my question is, so let's say Kepka, what it was reported, he got $150 million. Do you get that money all at once? Or is it like you're in live and you get it year by year? And it's like how somebody would buy a company where it's like, we'll give you 150, but each year you're getting paid. So it's like 25 million a year for six years, something like that. Because if they staggered it, then maybe those guys only got the first one-fifth or the one-sixth of the money. If they got paid all at once, I don't know how they reconcile that

with the guys that didn't go. Like that is like, you know, whether it's Tiger or whether it's Rory or name anybody else in the top 15 to just make that much less than these people you're competing against and now you're all thrown back into the same pile. Like that's crazy.

I don't, there's never been a sports story like that. Right. House. I can't think of one. And to your, to your question, I think each guy has his own deal. I think some guys did get the money up front, you know, a handful of the most important guys. I think other guys might've gotten it the way that, that you described BS. Um, and it's a, it's a case by case basis basis. For every year you stay, you get more. And there's also some question about whether or not some of it was treated as an advance. Like if you win, you don't get extra money for the winnings. It counts against the advance that you got.

But I think, again, that was on a player-by-player basis. And there's not ever really been enormous transparency. I think it's one of the reasons why the live guys were cool with the idea of settling the lawsuit so that none of this competition structure stuff came out. Nate, let's say the guys that didn't go, they say, hey, we should get a cut of all the money those other guys got. What would happen? Because at some point, like Phil and DJ and those guys, yeah, cool, that's not happening.

You'll get zero dollars from us. Yeah, well, there's a couple of ways that they're thinking about this. The first is there's a conversation about there being a tax on guys who want to come back to the PGA Tour. Last we talked at the Masters, we were hearing a lot of grumblings that Brooks was not particularly happy about being over on Liv. He was back. He wanted to come play for the legacy against the best guys against the history. It felt like there was some blocking to that. And of course, the reason that it was so hard

to re-onboard him onto the tour is he took $150 or however many $100 million. The other guys didn't. How do you create equality there? That's been a lot of the conversation today. So the first would be, those guys have to pay if they want to come back, which feels like a lot for them to swallow. And so that's why I think at the end of the day, you're going to see something more along the lines

of what House was describing, which is a whole bunch of financial engineering designed to pay the 30 guys that matter and who, again, still have a tiny little bit of leverage in this situation because they're the only ones who aren't under contract. Brooks Koepka is under contract that, by the way, Jay Monahan now controls as head of this whole entity. And with the voting rights over the Saudis, he can tell Patrick Reed what to do in so many ways. Whereas like Spieth can do whatever the heck he wants. He's still an independent contractor. Rory can do whatever the heck he wants.

So they're going to have to find a way to either tax the rich who want to come back in. I just think at that point, those guys are like, I'm good. I'll stay where I am. I left for the money. I'm going to stay for the money. Probably more likely, they're going to have to take some of what got invested by the Saudi investment fund today and reappropriate that in whatever creative way to the guys who matter. House, what do you think of the Denver-Miami series before we go? I am... My opinion hasn't changed that Denver is

more talented. I'm worried about Mike Malone's ability to persuade Michael Porter Jr. to play defense. I wasn't worried about that coming into the series. I'm worried about it now. I'm worried about the fact that the only city Taylor Swift isn't playing is Miami and

everybody else is lost. Oh, you saw that whole thing. Every city she's played, they lost in the playoffs, except she's not going to Miami. It's this thing going around the internet. Does Taylor control the NBA playoffs, Nathan? Probably. She probably made this merger happen today. We're going to we're gonna find out House are you betting on in game three Denver Denver money line and over on Jokic props all right we're gonna talk about NBA with Raja in a second

so you guys are gonna be together US open next week do we have a long shot bet yet house before we go I'm not there yet I don't know who my long shot is I will will say this, and it's very, very curious timing. I think that Sergio Garcia is going to make a point of playing well at LACC. He really busted his ass to perform very, very well at the qualifier. He was either the medalist or second or third, whatever.

I think he wants to show up and show out, especially now that the Ryder Cup, there's a possibility that the Ryder Cup will feature the live guys where previously it was thought they might not participate. Sergio, I think, would like to still play for the European team. He's the best

Ryder Cup player in history. I wouldn't be surprised to see Sergio Garcia. He's the best Ryder Cup player in history. I wouldn't be surprised to see Sergio Garcia. He might catch some top 20 money for me at the US Open. Is that far enough of a long shot? What do you think, Nate? I think that Max Holmuk has the course record at LACC

with a 61. I think that Patrick Cantlay has the record that he broke with a 62. I love Scotty Scheffler. He's having an epic all-time as good or better than Tiger Woods' ball-striking fiesta right now. But he can't putt, and I have played those greens. I don't know how anybody reads them, much less a guy who's having trouble putting.

So I go backwards and think Max Holm has been quiet over the last couple of months. He didn't play well at the Masters. He did not play well at the PGA. LA matters to him. I think you're going to get the best odds possible on Max Homa. You like how Nathan snuck in that, I have played that course.

It was a course drop. We've heard of name drops. I didn't know we could do course drops. Listen, it's just because you won't take me out on yours. I haven't played all year. This is my complaint. I'm playing tennis and not golf. I don't know what happened to me.

This is my complaint. Okay, so it's too early for the long shot talk, but you'll be doing that on Fairway Rolling this weekend. On FanDuel TV, it'll be up on Tuesday morning, first thing of course. Well, let me ask you this as we're a week away. doing that on fairway rolling and no fan dual tv it'll be up on oh yeah morning force the first thing of course well let me ask you this as we're a week away what's the most fun u.s open

winner story i mean take tiger off the table well he's off the table he's not playing golf until the end of next year i mean the end of this year yeah but i'm saying tiger's always the answer to what's the most fun story. So remove Tiger. I would say Rory McIlroy. I know this is going to shock you. You're a loser. You can't believe it.

You're so pathetic. Considering what that dude put on the line and the way that he had his balls exposed over the past year and, and all of the physical toll, the mental toll. He was the commissioner of the goddamn PGA tour for the past year and, and all of the physical toll, the mental toll. He was the commissioner of the goddamn PGA tour for the past year, carried all that water. It would be nice for the,

for, for the golf gods at this moment, at this juncture, if they had a sense of humor to let Rory go out and take down the U S open the week of the announcement of this crazy merger. And then James Harden will win the NBA title. And what else could happen? Matt Ryan could win the Super Bowl. Nate, who do you have for best story? Phil Mickelson, who comes in, wins the U.S. Open. That's the

Hulk Hogan NWO, wins the WCW title. Completes the Grand Slam. Gives everybody a middle finger. Walks off into the sunset. You never hear from him again. That's a pretty good story. Jesus. What about an under 27? This guy is now officially on the map. It's probably Hovland, right?

I think it's Hovland. He's just playing so great. And our guest on Fairway Rolling today, Smiley Kaufman, made a great case for how Victor's kind of fixed his one vulnerability, which was chipping, and it was a really great explanation as to how it is that he's become

much better around the green. Hovland's such a badass ball striker, and he's got that Norwegian coolness. He's just walking around, you know, swinging it like he's got the biggest one. I like the Hobbit pick. Okay. All right. So we're tracking all this on Fairway Rolling. You guys are here next week. You're going to pop on the podcast, probably Thursday night. We're

going to watch if there's a game six of the finals, we're going to recap a US Open next week. So listen to Fairway Rolling as well. House, Nathan, great to see you as always. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember.

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All right. It's been far too long and it's my fault. He's busy for us. Roger Bell. He's on Real Ones. He's dealing with Logan. Logan's got a huge ego. He's got a lot of ego maintenance with that

guy. But you have been on for a while. I had to talk to you because for a variety of reasons. First of all, good to see you. The concept of a team coming together like Miami has over these last eight weeks, you've had experience on this, right? You've seen, you had the 0-1 Sixers, which you basically just showed up as that was kind of evolving at another level in the playoffs. But especially like some of those Suns teams that you were on with Nash, where each year was a little different. There was some sort of obstacle and people had to band together and really only had seven guys that you all trusted, but you all played well together. And the sum of the parts, the whole was better than the sum of the parts.

What are the mechanics when this happens? Like something has happened with this Miami team. They lose Hero. Robinson, they basically take out of the attic. He's covered in cobwebs and bugs and they just pull him out. He's making threes again. Caleb Barton turns into Kawhi Leonard for a week. Gabe Vincent looks like a $20 million free agent.

Everybody plays well together. They're just all on the same page. How does this happen? I mean, it's a great question. I mean, first of all, I think you have to have a guy, right? We had Steve. Allen was that 2001 guy. Jimmy Butler would be the guy for the heat.

You need a guy, right? But typically what happens in a situation like that is you feel like you're so low, like the odds are so stacked against you for whatever reason that it just kind of neutralizes the pressure. Like it becomes less, you know, less about winning and more about just proving people wrong, right? Like everyone, no one's given us a chance to do this, right? So for instance, the year I was, you know, I think it was my first year in Phoenix and they had played really well in the playoffs the year before. And we get to camp and Amari goes down and it was my first

experience with it, but everyone wrote us off. Like without Amari Stoudemire, there's no chance. And we just, you know, for me, it was perfect because coming into that had the pressure been associated with, with, with living up to what they had done before, who knows how it would have worked, but I didn't have it. It was like, we weren't supposed to win anything anyway, so let's just go out there and rock. And then it helps when you have a bunch of guys, and I think similarly with the two teams that I was on, we had a bunch of guys that felt a little disrespected for whatever reason, right?

Whether it was right that we got drafted where we did or we didn't, ultimately our careers panned out the way people projected them or not. The point was we felt disrespected. And so, you know, you combine no pressure, you know, feeling disrespected just to begin with, and then people not giving you a shot to do that kind of close ranks or rally the troops, you know, really start to dig into roles in a way that you might not ordinarily because, you know, the stakes are different and, you know, you just kind of lock in a little bit more and you just kind of, you just close ranks and trust in a way that some teams are able to capture that without the circumstances, but some teams, you know, those circumstances really help them do it. Yeah, as you're talking about that, it makes me think like it's not heat culture, it's chip on your shoulder culture.

You look at that Suns team you were on, every single guy in that team had been counted out or disrespected or given up on or traded. Or in Nash's case, Dallas was like, eh, 60 million, too rich for our blood. Go. Absolutely. Like Steve, Steve was like that. Sean Marion played with a huge chip on his shoulder all the time. You talk to tricks right now. He's still got a chip on his shoulder. We, we had a bunch of guys like that, that 01 Sixers team, a bunch of guys that blue collar, probably weren't celebrated for the NBA players that they ultimately were, but had this level of grit and determination to prove people wrong. And the Heat

culture is they go out and they find that. They identify that better, I think, than any other team in the league. Everybody can see a guy and say, Duncan Robinson can really shoot, or this guy can really do that. But what's hard to identify is who's got that it, that grit, that Udonis Haslam in them, where they'll make a career out of just saying, fuck you, you didn't believe in me. Well, I wonder, Riley was kind of like that as a player, right? Way back when 50 years ago, but that was the kind of, he was on this team with Jerry West and I think Elgin briefly, but then Will Chamberlain. And he was always like the grunt work guy for years. And maybe the grunt work guys, like, I'm sure you see that with certain people. We've

talked about that. You've been on the pod before. There are certain guys that is like, Oh, that guy's a Raja guy. That guy's in the Raja wheelhouse. You can kind of spot those dudes. Well, absolutely. Look, there's a loose ball in the middle of, I don't know, February, and you're on the third night of a five-game stretch, and no one gives a damn, and it's sleepy, and you see a guy running over there, you know, dive it. I mean,

it speaks to you when you're watching a game, you can pick them out. I mean, most people don't celebrate it because, you know, we're a league of, of, of scoring and highlights.

But if you're really watching for that, you can find the guys that, that play like that. And, you know, just, they got a chip there. They're not taking shit from anybody. They're

ready to pop off. Sometimes it looks like they're hotheads, but a lot of times that's a guy wearing emotions really, really on his sleeve and really towing the line of emotions that are needed for him to either be successful or not be successful. And when guys can channel it and really dig in and not cross that line too often, you can get a really good cog in the wheel for one of these teams that are trying to win a championship. And if you get multiples and you've got some star power, well, then look out. Here's the difference, I think, with the Heat and some of these other teams. That 0-1 Sixers team, that was a good team. That was a one seed. The Suns teams you were on, you guys had good records every

year. I would say even overachieved considering some of the injuries. This Miami team, I think they finished 44-38. Their record, I was talking about it all year because I was terrified of them the whole season. I was calling them the zombies. I was like, I'm never counting them out.

They were six games over 500, but had stretches where over and over again, these games, they would dally around, they'd fuck around, then fourth quarter, they would finish the game. But to have the on-off switch to then have it in the playoffs the way they've had it

compared to what it looked like, that's the part I don't understand. And that's the part I can't really think any parallels, at least since I've been an NBA fan. There's stuff you can go back into the 70s. The sports played completely differently, but this team, they beat Milwaukee. They beat Boston. They did something in Denver on Sunday night that I haven't seen anyone do against Denver when Denver actually gave a shit about the game all season. And I don't understand the on-off switch piece of this.

Do you? I don't either. I've seen one player, one player that I've been around in my career in the NBA that could flip a switch. That was LeBron. I didn't, I never subscribed to it. I always thought, you know, you were playing with fire for the most part. But LeBron, I actually watched him flip a switch

when I was there with the Cavs for my limited time in their front office. So I've seen a player do it. I've never seen a team do it like this. I've never, I mean, I knew what they were made of. I know foundationally what they're about. I know they're going to defend you. I know they'll scrap and fight

and won't necessarily just hand you games in a way that some other teams will. You'll have to beat them. But they were beatable when they weren't able to score the ball like this and they weren't able to shoot it. I just haven't seen a team turn into one of the best offensive teams in the league for two months, having been one of the worst offensive teams in the league over the course of a season. The only thing I could really think of is occasionally you'll get in the NCAA

tournament a team that just caught fire and won their conference championship. I've never seen it in the NBA. It happens in baseball. The 2013 Red Sox were like this where they just got hot and it was great.

It was like, cool. We're going to win the World Series. I love this. But in basketball, over the course of four rounds, one of the reasons I love basketball so much is usually the right team wins. You can shock someone in one series, but for the most part, like the quote unquote hot streak, you don't really see it. But in this case, I'm not even sure it's a hot streak because they play well. Like Porter had a quote today. He was talking, you know, they're doing like two days of these interviews and most of them are not that interesting. But Porter had some quote about trying to figure out what to do on defense against Miami.

And it's like, if you say switch, Miami knows you're switching and the guy will do something completely different and he gets an open three. If you don't switch, then you're fucked the other way. And it's almost like they're so attuned to each other that they're reading just the verbal cues of the defense and then adjusting at that level. When I heard that, I was like, holy shit,

Miami's probably gonna win the title. If they're at that level where When I heard that, I was like, holy shit, Miami's probably going to win the title. If they're at that level where they're doing Jedi hoops IQ shit, reacting off verbal cues, I don't know if I've heard of that before. I'm trying to think of maybe Sacramento. When I

was a young player in Sacramento, I had Vladi and C-Web and Peja and Bibby and Doug Christie. That team, Bobby Jackson, they played a little bit like that, where that ball would be in somebody's hands like C-Web or Vlade, and they were running these split actions. It was my first real introduction into it. I remember it because coming out of college and the CBA, we never saw that. We were running traditional stuff. And now these guys had the ball and everybody was splitting. And I remember trying to figure that out. And I mean, it's a pain in the ass when it's run well, right? Because you have to just be

on. And Miami is really good at it, probably even better at it than those teams were. It is an in-sync type of in-tune with each other ability to kind of play off of one another. But I think Denver did a decent job in game one. Now, Miami still got open shots. They're going to get them. That's why they do that.

But if you're getting it right more often than you're getting it wrong, and then the key with Miami, I think, is to be able to be in a spot to contest. You just can't give them the wide open ones all game long. You can make a mistake for a split second, but you're still in a good spot to contest. And sometimes if guys knock down contested shots all night, you're going to lose regardless. Do you know what I mean? If you're going to make 60% with me having a hand in your face and almost breaking your ankle when you land, God bless you. But I think Denver has to be way more connected. Even if you're going to give that shot up and you're going to make a mistake for a second, don't completely blow the coverage to where now he's just shooting basically by himself

in a gym. That's how the Celtics lost. And it got to the point after seven now he's just, you know, shooting basically by himself in a gym, you know? That's how the Celtics lost. And it got to the point after seven games of watching it, you knew in the instant as it was happening, it's like, oh no, smarts drifting that. Oh my God, they're going to get another one. And they just did it over and over again. I'm glad you brought up C-Web and the Kings team because the stuff Bam's doing at the top of the key where the handoff passes and, you know, the delayed and waiting to read and just sticking his ass out and bumping the,

the bump in the defenders, all the stuff he's doing. I don't really remember seeing that at the top of the key before C-Web was doing it. We saw centers doing it like in the low post, but we, I don't remember. And I'm sure there were other people, but I don't remember a big guy 25 feet from the basket kind of orchestrating the offense that way. And Jokic and Bam can do it in this series. Yeah, it's a pretty cool thing. And I got to play with

the guy. I hadn't seen anyone either. But I got to play with a guy that was really, really good at it too, Boris Diaw. So that year... Oh, he's... Yeah. Phenomenal. Just an orchestrator. A PG in the front court once you've gotten it there and you can get him the ball and he just makes the right read

all the time. Plus he can score the ball. And so I have an appreciation for watching that. I'm interested... I haven't heard it said anywhere else, but I don't know why someone doesn't throw the fucking zone back at the heat. I don't know why they don't try that.

I'm not telling you it's going to work, Bill, but if the splits and all of the action that they run is so good and it's so hard for you to guard it, why not not let it happen? It's not going to hurt you if you're sitting back and basically playing in these zone areas, like you can concoct some sort of,

I don't know, you can go three, two or one. You call it, just put your guys in the areas that you think they can play most advantageously in these zones. And then don't worry about the splits like that. Like,

well, you tell us how hard is it to just learn how to play a zone on the fly in a week? Um, I mean, that's, it's not easy if you haven't. I mean, if Denver hadn't employed it all year, I'm not going to say it's easy. But I would say this. I would say there might be a couple of minutes in a game where you could take a look at it without wholesale zoning it and really committing to it.

I would just be interested to see, does it alleviate some of the inconsistencies in, in your, you know, ability to guard and make the right, all right, well, shit, I'm not doing that again. And as soon as you go to guard it again, he knows that you screwed it up that way and you're probably going to err on the other side. And so, boom, he does the opposite. And now you've given up a layup. So it can be really frustrating. What happens if you just sit back and let him just catch him every time? They're running into somebody else in the zone.

Try it for two, three minutes. I don't know. The thing I learned from this whole playoffs and all this stuff Spolstra and Miami is doing, and I watched them just confuse the fucking shit out of the Celtics with it. They would be doing something a certain way. And then all of a sudden they would switch it. And then they would switch it back.

And then they would switch something with a wrinkle. And we just never, it was honestly like football. It was like watching somebody going against my homes going, all right, I'm going to fake a blitz this time. No, this time I'm actually blitzing. No, this time I'm dropping seven guys back. And you know, the best defenses in football are always the ones that are moving and are amorphous and are trying different things. And they're doing this in basketball and it's working. It makes me wonder,

why wouldn't every smart team that... Why wouldn't the Celtics have this? Why wouldn't they have zone looks and the ability to put Tatum in the middle, just roaming around in some extended two... They have the guards that can guard people 30 feet from the basket. They have big guys that can protect the rim and jump out on the corners. Why wouldn't other teams do this? I wonder like if that's going to be the legacy of these playoffs is other teams emulating this. Could be for, for whenever, when I was in the league, like forever, uh, it was, it was a... I don't know. It was just... It was frowned upon to play

zone, right? It was almost like a cop-out. Guys, it was like, Tab, we're not playing no damn zone. We're playing man. But if you remember back to the Toronto series against Golden State, both of those teams were very willing to hop into something different. They were zoning. They were going box in one.

They were just willing to throw a bunch of stuff at it. And Eric Spoh is just great at that. Spoh is like, okay, you call the timeout. We were in man. Well, now I am in zone. Just because I know you were calling a play for... Spoh is just going to keep you on your toes the whole game. And I've always said this as just as an individual defender when I'm guarding, you know, some of the best players on the planet.

If you give them the same look over and over and over again, you have no chance. They are going over the course of time. Good O is going to be good defense all the time. Like it's going to it's going to bear itself out. The offense is going to win because they're just shot makers. These guys are incredible at being able to create space and make a shot. So if you're going to give him predictability,

he's going to find a way to, now whether he makes it or not, maybe he's off that night. The law averages usually work themselves out. Those great players make more than they miss. But it's the same with the team game, right? Like, I don't want to give Bam, right? Bam, let's say Bam's at the top with the ball.

Bam, ideally, first game, they stayed off of Bam, played back, made Bam score the ball a little bit, right? Which he was happy to do. Which he was happy to do. It didn't win. But the next game, what they started doing, right, was Bam said, okay, well, if you're not going to be up near me close enough to guard me,

well, then you're certainly not close enough to help if I'm able to get into some little DHO and now my offensive player is on the other side of me. Jokic is back in the paint. So I become a screener now, kind of like Draymond Green a little bit, right? They're not playing him, but his man's not close enough to him to help if he sets the

screen either. So he becomes the best. He's a no man's land. He's no no man's land, right? So if you're going to give him the same look, then they figure that out. But sometimes get up and play him. Sometimes pressure him so he can't pick you apart. Sometimes sag off of him.

Sometimes we're going to... You just have to be flexible. And I do think there's something there. Like if the Heat are able to kind of, and I hate to use this term, but I use it affectionately, like junk it up in a way that can get them to a championship. Like that becomes something that a lot of people have to look in the mirror and say, hey man, do we got to get more flexible with what we do defensively? Like do we got to think outside the box a little bit more?

I think that concept of junking it up is the most underrated thing about this whole playoffs because they do it intentionally. I watched them do it to the Celtics. They make the game super chaotic and weird. You get knocked out of whatever you love to do and it turns into like this kind of bizarre pickup game where there's plays, but it's going all over the place.

There's no flow at all. He'll call timeouts, bolster at the weirdest times, right when you have a little momentum, it stops. And it's just this disjointed, weird, chaotic game. But then the Heat have the ability to just calm down when it gets to the fourth quarter. Like I was going through, you know, in the playoffs this year. So game four, Milwaukee, where they come back and win, they're down 12 with 6.09 left. And they put up a 41.4 quarter and go 13 for 18. Game five, Milwaukee, they're down 16 with 10 minutes left. They put up a 32 to 16 in the fourth quarter winning an OT. Game two, Boston, they're down 12 with 10

minutes left and nine with six and a half minutes left. 36.4th quarter, they win by six. Game six, Boston, they're down 10 with four minutes left. They make it where it ends up being the Derek White play just for Boston to survive. And then game two, Denver, 36.4th quarter. They're 11 for 15 in the quarter, and they're down eight heading into that. Those are five examples against the three best teams in the league where they just pulled back into the game. They shot the lights out,

but they also were playing the game they wanted to play, and watching what they did to Jokic, I hadn't seen that all year, and it was like they turned Jokic into a scorer. Those were hard fucking shots. He was 16 for 29. Like eight of those were him doing the whirling spinning, you know, in a traffic or him hitting a three with a hand in his face. Like it wasn't just that, um, his assists were down. I, they made it really hard for him. And I just don't know how Denver's going to adjust to that because I've never seen somebody do that before. I know they're going to have an adjustment, but what is it?

Well, I mean, if I had the answer, I mean, I'd be sitting on a bench somewhere. I don't know. I'm just, what I think Denver has to do is, I think it starts on the, it really does start on the defensive end. You just alluded to those, you know, huge output quarters that the Heat have on the defensive end. You just alluded to those huge output quarters

that the Heat have in the fourth quarter. Well, I mean, that has been the difference between the Heat regular season versus playoffs, right? They're the same defensive team. They always will grind you out and do what they do defensively. They have heated up in a way offensively that you have to have a counter for. And I would, I'm telling

you now, I would throw some sort of zone look back at them. I would do it early. I would have it maybe penciled in for after the first timeout, first media timeout. We're going to script this. We're coming out and we're going to look at it for two or three possessions. Let me see what it looks like. If it bears fruit, maybe we'll revisit it, right? But maybe, you know, almost like a minute restriction for a player. Like we're going to play in this zone for four minutes. I want to see how they adjust to that. Maybe try to alleviate some of the stress of all of those, you know, really, really

precarious like split situations for some of those defenders. But you have to get the answer right more than you get it wrong on the splits, right? You have to have more urgency defensively. Like, Bill, there's a huge difference. I say this all the time and it sounds so corny. But in an NBA game, six inches versus a foot in terms of space is a, is a seven to 8% difference in terms of, of, of,

of conversion. I mean, it's the difference between me making 42% from three and shooting 35. Like it is a huge thing. So like to the naked eye, you're looking at the game and you're like, well, Denver's right there.

Yeah, but they're not, they are right there, but they're not, they're're not. They are right there, but they're not there. They're not making that guy who's waiting for all of this split action to happen have to turn his back. And now he's only got vision on one side of the floor. They're there in a way where he can just stand there and pick out whatever he wants to pick out. And so I think they've got to step up their sense of urgency defensively. They got to mix that zone up a little bit. And what that will do, they probably won't go zone. That's just me

wishful thinking. I don't think they'll do that out of the blue, but I would. But I think if you can execute defensively just slightly better, fractionally better, it gets them out of that zone for those possessions that have stymied you and have your offense ground down to this hole. And I think that that is the difference in the game. If they can keep tempo up and keep them out of that zone for, I don't know, five to 7%, that's huge for Denver. But if you're going to just keep giving them, not giving them, but if you're allowing them to do what they want to do offensively in a way that's producing buckets, especially late in games is when that zone has really been fruitful for them. Like they're going to be sitting in it and they're milking clock. And now you're on a shot clock with five seconds. Joker

can't get it because they just have him standing at the free throw line. And now you got one playmaker, Jamal Murray. And if he's not hot, you got no other playmakers on the floor, really. That's a recipe for disaster. Yeah. I'm with you. Yeah. There's another thing that I think they need to do that is going to be in your wheelhouse, but I'm going to take a break and then I'm going to spring it on you. After decades of shaky hands caused by debilitating tremors, Sunnybrook was the only hospital in Canada who could provide Andy with something special. Three neurosurgeons, two scientists, one movement disorders coordinator, 58 answered questions, two focused ultrasound procedures,

one specially developed helmet, thousands of high-intensity focused ultrasound waves, zero incisions. And that very same day, two steady hands. From innovation to action, Sunnybrook is special. Learn more at sunnybrook.ca slash special. All right, here's the other thing I want to see Denver do. And I'm not just saying this because you're on the podcast. I watched Milwaukee not do this.

I watched the Celtics certainly not do this. And now I'm watching Denver not do this. I watched the Celtics certainly not do this. And now I'm watching Denver not do it. When is somebody going to fight back against this Miami team? Can you name a hard foul on any Miami Heat in the playoffs? Have you seen anybody get knocked down? I've seen them knock a bunch of people down. I saw, you know, I've seen Strews whack guys in the face. I've seen Lowry do a hundred

different things. They have a sense of, and Butler, obviously everybody's afraid of, but they have a sense of the physicality that they're controlling for whatever reason. It's always the other guy who's rolling around the ground, holding his head after a layup. You take those Miami Heat guys one by one. And it's like, is Duncan Robinson a tough guy? Is Kevin Love a tough guy? Cody Zeller? Like, it's not, this is not like, you know, Hulk Hogan and the NWO. And I would just, I just want to see somebody hit somebody on the heat at some point in the playoffs once. Well, listen, to answer your question, no, I haven't seen it, but it's a fantastic point.

And trust me, at the very basic youth basketball level, I talk about this with these kids all the time. The more physical team, the team that's willing to go out there and be aggressive and literally hit first is going to win most times. It's the way it's willing to go out there and be aggressive and literally hit first is going to win most times. It's the way it's going to go, right? Because now you're conditioned officials to let things go because they're used to seeing you do it. There's a whole lot that plays into that. And there was a play that was interesting. Miami understands that the best at anybody. They established that in the first quarter. They're super physical and then the calls start going their way later. That's right. I mean, the officials are human, right? They might have a quick whistle early, but over the course of four quarters, you're

conditioning them every time you do it to say, well, shit, that's just what Bill Simmons does. I guess we're going to let him do it tonight. You know, like it, it works like that. Don't give me 20 footers. But, even at my advanced age, I'm still making them. Do you remember to play Jamal Murray?

Was it game two? I'm sorry. It was game two. It might've been, it was game two. Break. Nine out of 10 times, people are just going to let him

dunk that ball. And don't hit him in the head. Hit him in the head. Almost, see, that kind of play could get really dicey if Jamal Murray

doesn't grab like really solidly onto that rim both feet are going to swing out from under him it's going to be a a really ugly fall but Max Struess

didn't give a shit he was like no and Murray was pissed and by the way Murray tore his ACL two years ago not getting hit but similar play where he's driving and whatever.

So I'm sure that flashback has said. And it would have been tragic if he was hurt. But I'm not saying that. But I guess the point would be, that's what Miami is on, right? First of all. Struess made Murray feel him. That's right. Over time, it's the same with

my young son who plays football. He's young. He's 11. I'm like, yo, Zen, he's a linebacker. I'm like, look, man, the first time somebody comes through that line of scrimmage looking to block you, don't worry about making a tackle. Don't worry about the tackle the first time. Just light

his ass up. Just light him up. So that the next time he comes through there, he's not even looking to block you. Now you can go make the tackle, right? So it's the same thing. Listen, bro, you're going to have to start looking around for me because I am not afraid to be physical in a way that is borderline. And when that's creeping into people's heads,

now officials are understanding this is the tenor of the game. Like this is, you're operating in the margins, right? You have two teams that are really good. We're playing in the NBA finals. We're trying to get any little advantage we can get. And these are all accumulating, right? Like we're just talking about these little fractional advantages. And that's one of them.

If the Heat are going to continue to beat them up and be more physical. And I think it's a great point. Like I haven't seen anybody. The only person I saw the stand up there was Grant Williams. Right. Who took shit over it. And I defended him at the time. I was like, finally, somebody stood up to Butler. So PJ Tucker, who's going to be in the league till he's 55. This is kind of the only thing he can do other than he can hit like two straight corner threes in a row, but he'll never have more than 12 points, but he'll hit a couple to make you think. But what he really does is he puts his, he puts his stink on the game.

He puts his impact on it and he's not afraid. Like, you know, he's in the game and he's going to do a couple of hard fouls and he's going to make you feel it. And I don't know if Denver has a guy like that. Well, they don't. I mean, Aaron Gordon could be a guy like that,

right? Nah, he's not totally like that. You know who the guy is. The guy's in the Raja Club. He's not in the Raja Club. Well, he's not, but there are teams built like that, right? See, what we're talking about now is is like construction of teams and the reason Denver has this this beautiful offense

to watch is because it's constructed with guys that are that are like these these kind of you know jazzy type of players right like to like if I'm like it's jazz it's smooth it's cool to watch like it's like it's it it's it's cool to watch like it's like it's like it's mellow they're finesse yeah it's perfect thank you so and and they all do it great

but that doesn't organically lend itself to being you know a physical tough you know defensive i'll hit you back type of player right bruce brown i think bruce brown might have it yeah bruce brown's a good name name Bruce Brown's a good name but but it's all might have a piece of it it's a hard it's a hard thing to just switch into you asked me about a zone like that's a hard thing to say hey man like that hasn't been our identity and I haven't really even though that might be in Bruce Brown's like bag didn't really have to do it really all year. That's him. You'd have seen him doing that

multiple times for them this year. Right. But wouldn't you say there's a quiet toughness to this Nuggets team? Because I saw it in the Laker games. That's a big physical, tough Laker team, and they took everything. They took every punch from them and dealt some back. But not

this extra level that you know, that's true Murray play. I'm so glad you brought it up. It was the perfect example. Wasn't quite a flagrant. They looked at it, but he made Murray kind of feel it a little bit. And I haven't seen anyone do that with Miami.

I don't think they're soft at all. And I agree with you. I think they're a tough team. But you and I both know there are some times where tough has... That's cool. But I'm going to have to hit you back.

And I'm going to get in trouble for it. You know? This was your recipe against Kobe because Kobe sniffed the shit out. This is what he lived on. Like, oh, that seems soft. I'm going to fucking rip their hearts out. Yeah, you're going to get, again,

I hate to do this on your pod because I do it on mine. I tell my kids all the time. I said, listen, dude, there are going to be times where in your life, somebody does some shit to you and it's going to require a response.

That response is going to get you in trouble, but you're going to have to do it anyway. Know that I'm cool with that and handle your business. And what we're talking about now is one of those, right? Like, yeah, you could be tough. You've got all the way to the finals and you're a great team, but maybe somebody needs to like, hey, bro, you come in here, Jimmy, you come in here flying to the rim or, you know, I don't know anybody, but we're just going to send a message that, yo, we're about it. Let's get it. Like if you were on the Celtics last round and Jimmy's doing all the stuff he's doing

against the Celtics, including the timeout call, staring at Al Horford, I'm guessing you probably would have been kicked out of one of the first three games. Well, Jimmy and I, Jimmy, first of all, I love Jimmy's game. like i of course you do i love jimmy's game um but definitely would have been somebody that he and i would have been wrestling like that

would have gotten that would have gotten out of control because it's just he's dragging you into a it's what he wants he wants you in this physical box with him because he feels like he can win it all the time and so if you step into his box and you're not ready to match that, I mean, that's it. He's got you. So my answer to that was like... Most people don't want to get into it with him though. It's really weird. You rarely see people stand up to him, talk shit to him. There's a little fear factor with him now that's pretty unusual. They might know something I don't know. I don't know Jimmy like that. Maybe they know something I don't.

Well, no, but to me, it seems more like a, you know, like a very, very, very junior version of the of the old MJ thing. Like, don't fucking make him mad. It does seem like there's some of that now with him where it's like, yeah, just let him do his thing. Don't fucking piss him off. I would just say this, man, from everything I've experienced. And Kobe was like this. MJ was like this. Great teams are like this.

And while the Heat, I don't know that we characterize them as a great team, like what they're doing right now is phenomenal. And they have this ability to kind of smell blood like some of those great teams. And when they smell it, you can see it on TV. When they smell it, it's like a feeding frenzy. So, I mean, you have to bow up in a way that lets them know, you can't sense fear because we don't have any. Whether we do or not, you ain't going to see it. And so it becomes really important to match their physicality, to match their pace, to match their willingness to get on the floor, all of these little areas that would suggest to one team that you're not here in the same way that they are. You got to match them in those. Oh, you're diving for this ball?

Oh, we just butted heads because I was diving for it too. Oh, you're going to foul me on the break? Well, listen, we're matching all of that. I think Denver has it in them. I really genuinely think Denver has it in them. I think they won game one and didn't play that well and thought to themselves.

And then the next two days was all Denver jerk-off session. And I think they just didn't show up with the right amount of intensity. And by the way, they were up eight heading into the fourth quarter. And then all of a sudden, Duncan Robinson starts making shots. And just the game flipped in a weird way. They fell asleep.

They did. Jimmy Butler. The most unusual superstar career if you're going to call him a superstar I think you almost have to he made two finals in four years and came within a three making a third one he certainly

carries himself like that kind of the strangest arc I think of any player at least of this century. Where do you put him when you think of the great players? Obviously, he's not on that Kobe level. I don't even know if he's on the Garnett, Barkley, just 82 games a year at a certain level. They can carry a team. They can take a mediocre team and win 45 games with them. But he's on some other level that I don't even know who else is on it.

I know you've talked about Butler on Real Ones, but just as you look at him compared to some of the other guys who have played that position in the modern era, who is he? Yeah, that's a tough one because i wouldn't i wouldn't have him in the charles barkley no kevin garnett but but but bill i mean like i mean he's he's close to being in that conversation because I don't think he's... I don't think the guys in the conversation

in the tier below that, I think he's better than them. Does that make sense? Like, so I think... Well, so like for him versus James Harden, who would you rather have for a seven-year span? Jesus Christ. It's tough.

We're talking... If you're trying to win a title, who would you rather have? Would you rather have James Harden or? Yeah, I'm going Jimmy. I think I would too. But here's the thing. Here's what's so weird about Jimmy

and I think I'm affected by this too. It's the aesthetics of it. I don't, I probably don't appreciate him as much as I should because it doesn't look pretty all the time. Does that make sense? It's like not aesthetically appealing all the time. I watch it and I'm like, oh man, that's ugly, man. You can go on the right hand and head fake and shooting these crazy...

Line drive jumper. Yeah. It's so weird looking at times, but it's so productive. And to answer your question, well, I think James has all of this, I would say probably more overall skill, but I'm taking Jimmy. I factor in defending, I factor in toughness, I factor in culture and leadership and productivity when it matters the most, and I'm taking Jimmy. Well, think about what you just said, because as we left the 2010s, culture and leadership were not words thrown around with Jimmy Butler, right? You would have said the opposite. He came on this podcast twice. I really liked him. I liked talking basketball with him. And then I thought the way

he handled the Minnesota stuff was really awful. I just didn't get it. It felt like he sabotaged his way out of there. There was a recklessness to it that I just didn't like. And I didn't think it reflected well on him. And then he goes to Philly, kind of the same thing where it just seems like every basketball stop he was at, he was kind of disgusted by the situation. But now you see him in this Miami situation the last four years. And you know this like guys get older, they get a little more mature. Maybe they learn how to bite their tongue a couple more times. But for the most part, it's, it's so unusual to watch somebody kind of quote unquote, get it this late. I think that thing that to me, what the greatness about him, isn't just his ability to come through in the fourth quarters as he's done over and over again against the other good players. There's something I always said about Carmelo. I was never a giant Carmelo fan, but at least when you had Carmelo and he was in a game with LeBron or he was in a game with Dirk, he thought he was as good as those guys, which I think is a good quality.

Sometimes that can go the wrong way if it's like Sean Marion, you don't maybe want to get into a shooting battle with Kobe in a game five. But Carmelo really thought he belonged in that stratosphere. And I think that's what I like about Butler. He believes that. He believes my peers are LeBron James and Giannis. He really believes that.

That's one thing. The other thing is he can kind of suck and still have a huge impact on a game, which I just really value with great players. If Harden sucks, he's a disaster. He's just a negative player in all these different ways. Butler can be three for 13 like he was on Sunday night. And I still feel like he's going downhill. He's creating shots for people. He's in the right spots defensively. He's still additive. You know what I mean? No, absolutely. Because he plays... He's a rounded basketball player. Just defensively, he's always going to be helpful to your team. And he plays with just an understanding

of what the game needs and when it needs it. I want to say the greats have the ability to do this, but it's not just the greats. I mean, Steve could do this. It's usually a lot of times it's point guards and facilitators have this ability to kind of understand the tenor of the game and when they need to take it over.

You saw the Isaiah Thomas's, the Magic's, the J-Kids. Jokic does this too, where they really just have a great feel for like, okay, it's me. Okay, no. The game's drifting a certain way. I have to stop this. This is the skill Tatum

is going to have in two years, but he doesn't quite have yet. Yeah, and Jimmy's got this really great ability to stop this. This is the skill Tatum is going to have in two years, but he doesn't quite have yet. Yeah. And, and Jimmy's got this really like great ability to do that. So, you know, I think to your point, like he's always going to be valuable out there. And then I think having,

having a dude that you just said, believes that he is in the class. And that goes, that goes so far for role players, right? Because I talk about this with Logan all the time. I have to be able, as a role player, to look into whoever the alpha is. I have to look into his eyes and get the sense that we're good.

I got to see that in his face. Do you know what I mean? Because that goes a long way to help me. So him having that look and that air about him, just when you talk about the Duncans and the Max Struces and all these guys that have this kind of maybe even like an alter ego that Kevin loves when they get out there. Well, a lot of that is emanating off of Jimmy in a way. That's coming off of him. We're looking at him and we feel like we're good because he's fine. So you didn't feel that way

about Darren Williams? Darren's my guy. I didn't get to play with Darren too long, man. They shipped Darren out like a half a season with Darren. It's really funny. The finals, I guess, is like this every year, but this year specifically

you have a guy who, I don't know if they did the NBA. Russell and I talked about this Sunday. If they did the NBA 75, I don't think he would have had any chance to make it Butler. If they win the title, now you think about what it did with Anthony Davis. Like when the Lakers win the title,

that put him in NBA 75 basically. And then on the flip side, Jokic, two MVPs and winning the title that put him in NBA 75 basically. Um, and then on the flip side, Jokic two MVPs and winning the title would put him in this whole different, you know, he'd be up there with Dirk and all these other dudes. So there's two guys mistakes. And then the other one is Spolstra of just, you know, if he pulls it off with this team, now you're talking, I always thought the coach Mount Rushmore was pretty set, right? We had Red Auerbach, we had Popovich, and we had Phil Jackson and Pat Riley. And that was it. And those were going to be our four. But now Spolstra is kind of sniffing around. You never cross paths with him, right?

I know Spoh just to be in Miami, but I never played for Spoh. I mean, yeah, if he's able to win this one and he's not done, I mean, you're right, he's sniffing around it. I got to play for some great coaches, but when I watch, I mean, really one of the biggest blessings of my career was I played for Larry Brown, then I had Don Nelson, Jerry Sloan, Mike D'Antoni, back to Larry Brown, back to Don Nelson, and back to Jerry Sloan.

So I was super blessed to play for some amazing coaches. And I watched Spoh's teams and I'm in awe of some of the... I talked about his in-game strategy and stuff like that, but even in years past, and I would say, but even in years past, and I would,

I would say like, you know, having guys like Duncan that aren't playing at all. And Duncan's not the first example of that. He used to do that with the LeBron teams were like James Jones and those guys, they wouldn't play for games. Mike Miller,

remember Mike Miller, like it through the finals, all of a sudden he was playing again like that. You know that there's definitely a credit to the players, but that's a credit to the coach, his staff. That's not just the players.

The trust that those guys must have in Spoh and the process and what his decision-making is about, it's got to be just incredible. I watch those teams having played for great coaches and I watch Spoh's teams and I'm like, Jesus, man, he's got to be just incredible. So I watched those teams having played for great coaches and I watched both teams and I'm like, Jesus, man, he's got to be awesome.

Yeah, it's such a good point. Love doesn't play in game one and then game two has a real impact. He had like nine and 10. Before we go, you guys talked on real runs. I loved your Kyrie LeBron conversation. The most ridiculous story. I mean, look, we have a lot of time left in the off season here.

We're almost in the off season, but we're going to have dumb stories and then they'll have their cycle. But the whole concept of, yeah, LeBron and Dallas, it's like, well, except for his $45 million salary figure that Dallas has nothing to trade for except Luka Doncic, which they're not doing. This totally could make sense. So we're going to have a lot of dumb stories. And Kyrie is just, you know, he's just going to create chaos.

He's a chaos agent. Do you have anything you're banking on from a superstar, maybe getting antsy standpoint, because this is right around the time, like a year ago, Rasil and I were talking about the Brooklyn situation, starting to, it's a little sent to it.

Wonder, I wonder if those guys, and then like three weeks later, KD asked for a trade. Do your spidey senses sense anything? Um, I mean, the one that, trade. Do your spidey senses sense anything? Like Philly? Is there a little Philly, like just a tiny bit of an Embiid whiff right now?

I don't think Embiid, no. I don't feel that with Embiid necessarily. The one that I've been on, and I haven't... Everyone's been on it, but Dame Lillard out there in Portland. I don't know what he said lately. I don't know where he's at. I'm everyone's been on it, but I, Dame Lillard out there in Portland, I don't know what he said lately. Like, I don't know where he's at. I'm not following him like that, but there comes a point with everybody where, where, you know, legacy is great. And I was a good

soldier and I made the money and I took, but eventually people want to shot at a big prize, you know? And so if, if anything, I mean, I don't, that's probably not a great one, but that would be the one that I'd kind of be. No, it's, I think that's the odds on favorite because there's also incentive with the team too, right? Because if the third pick in the draft, they've shaded sharp, Simons is young.

And then, so you have that path, but then you have this other Dame path where he's trying to win a title. There's, there's been some, some, some teams, So you have that path, but then you have this other Dame path where he's trying to win a title. There's been some teams, I'm sure, kicking the tires with him. I 100% think Brooklyn would be intrigued. Philly will try to figure out a way to be in the Dame business if they can. But for the most part, he makes a shitload of money, you know, and, and you have to, if you're going to trade for him, you, you basically got to usher in the youth movement

with Portland. You have to have the right assets to give back. Like Philly, if they had Maxine Harris and four first round picks, they would have it, but they don't have the picks. So you go through and it just gets, it's tough. And tough and same thing like talking you guys were talking about Kyrie today it's just not a big Kyrie market right you go team by team well they don't need a point guard they don't need a point guard they don't have cap space well they're a young team they're not going to want them and you just go

through it's like how many Kyrie teams are there three are there two and is it realistic that he might play for the mid-level I don't even know yeah no the answer to that is-level? I don't even know. Yeah, no. The answer to that is probably no. I don't know him that well, but I think if it got to that point with Kyrie,

he's an interesting bird. I don't know that he plays for the mid-level, but you're right. Look, I love Kyrie. I talk about this all the time, how great he is to me and my kids. And, and, you know, I had nothing but great experiences with Kyrie. I've watched him from afar, you know, do some stuff that I didn't agree with. And I've called him out for that too, but I could say this fairly, like he is a lot to deal with for any franchise and dropping him into any mix, it just creates

volatility. And so you couple that with an exorbitant price tag, you're right. The skill set is one thing, but everything else around it and the price tag, I mean, yes, it's probably not going to be a great market. And once that price starts to drop to a certain point, you'll get more people interested in the skill set. But there comes a point where I think Kyrie's the type to do this like, well, if I'm not that level player, I won't play for that.

I imagine. I'm not putting words in his mouth. I can't speak for him, but he seems like that type of cat for me. He'd rather probably say, hey, man, it's been real than play for the mid-level. Right. Or he'd go the other way and play like, I'll play for $1 to be on the Lakers.

Here's my middle finger. I just think with this new CBA, it's too risky to give Kyrie four years, $180 million because you only have two of those bullets for big contracts. If you're Dallas, and this is why everybody's like, no, no, he's going to sign with Dallas. That's how it's going to play out. It's like, I don't know, man. You have, that means you have him and Luka and those are your two big contracts

and those guys can't play defense. We watched it last year. You're going to be a bad defensive team if those are your two best players. You'll be below average. So how is that going to be? My guess is it would be one big year with a team option for year two, something like that. Maybe it's 40 million for one year and he gets to keep that cap figure and then they have some flexibility. But yeah, trade season's upon us. I'm looking at Towns in Minnesota

and that whole weird situation too because they got the Edwards contract going. He just switched agencies. They're paying Goberiton. Towns is going to be making over 50 million a year. And you just can't have three guys making 140 million a year anymore. So we'll see.

All right, Raja, give me the Sun update before we go. Oh man. Give me the QB update. Q Raja, give me the sun update before we go. Oh, man. Give me the QB update. QB bell. Give me the update. We're headed up to Ohio State tomorrow. We had a good camp. Notre Dame, I think, what was it?

Sunday. Good feedback. And so we're just, Ohio State's our second stop, man. It's really just getting started in June. So we're on a world tour. So he's heading into 10th grade and you're getting a real taste of this. Yeah, he's headed into 10th grade. The recruiting thing for him has just started to heat up.

He backed up. He was a backup as an eighth and ninth grader. So he takes the reins. And this summer, his recruitment is heated up in a way that we are going all the way across the country to see some of these teams, let them see him. And so it's been a pretty cool ride so far. So these coaches are not used to meeting a parent who used to be a professional athlete who's also six foot six, who knows all the games and has heard all the bullshit.

Yeah. Well, I mean, for the most part, they've been pretty cool about keeping his recruitment a little separate from who I am. I just think I stay off in the cut know, keeping his, his recruitment a little separate from like who I am. I just think I stay off in the cut, you know, like some of them, I get a fan every now and again, but he's at an age now, Bill, where I got to let him speak for himself. At least, you know, unless I'm addressed, I just kind of let him handle his business. And I just try to be dad, you know, like I'm Dia's dad, less than him being Roger Bell's son. I honestly, there's nothing more fun than go into your son's football game. I can attest that myself.

It is the most fun. It's the most fun parent experience you can have. It really is. Cause I love football anyway, but it's like, Oh, my kid's out there. Yeah.

Um, I can't wait. I used to love April, May, June was my favorite part of the year, but now it's September, October, November.

Anyway. All right. Keep us posted. Say hi to the fam. Good to see you. Um, I know we have a guest host in for you on Thursday to deal with Logan. And we got to talk about him.

Someone else deal with that. That massive, massive ego, Logan Murdoch. Good to see you. You too, bro. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Roger Bell. Thanks to Joe House and Nathan Hubbard.

Thanks to our guy, Kyle Creighton, who is single for one last week. I think we'll talk about this on the Wednesday night podcast. Thanks to Steve Cerruti as well. Don't forget to check out my YouTube page, youtube.com slash Bill Simmons, where you can find videos from a lot of the stuff we do on this podcast. Some fun videos. You can see our guests. You can see me in various stages of

being awake and youtube.com slash Bill Simmons. There you go. I will see you on this feed in 24 hours.